A review by gengelcox
Where Oaken Hearts do Gather by Sarah Pinsker

challenging dark medium-paced

4.0

Another story with a fairly experimental structure, in this case the wiki/reddit-way of commenting on a text where others can add comments and upvote or downvote previous comments. For the most part, this works for the story, reminiscent of the kind of sleuthing in longer works like A.S. Byatt’s Possession or even Richard Powers’ The Gold Bug Variations. I kept expecting that one of the commenters—BarrowBoy—to be revealed as something else, but was disappointing. The ending is heavily implied—if you follow the idea of the story, you are led to a recognition that the documentarian is being led astray by the village historian there at the end. Fun, if made somewhat more difficult than need be by the experimental format.