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A review by minieggs
Vicious Traditions : Tales of Terror and the Grotesque by Azzurra Nox
1.0
I accessed a free copy of this through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I was interested to try a horror anthology but this perhaps wasn’t the best example to start with.
I had intended to individually rate and review each story however once I was about 4 or 5 stories deep, I realised they would all say the same thing.
The author has some interesting ideas, intriguing concepts, but what’s really missing is the development. Each story feels like it could really be fleshed out into something a lot bigger - and indeed a lot of them feel like they NEED that. Perhaps I’m not familiar enough with short stories and anthologies, maybe these are actually concise and effective in their entirety but I personally was left with a lot of questions after reading some, especially those which are really short like ‘Driver, Surprise Me’.
Another criticism would be that it’s in desperate need of a good editor. The texts were riddled with grammatical errors and unnecessary syntax. A competent line editor would be able to tidy the stories up well and hopefully they’d be a lot more effective for it.
My one last gripe, I have to say, is I don’t think it’s smart to open an anthology with effectively a fanfiction. I have nothing against fanfiction; I used to write it myself about 10 years ago. But the first story in this anthology is so very clearly taken from the ‘80s film The Lost Boys, updated and modified. Unless it’s explicitly stated somewhere within the anthology that the stories would feature heavy inspiration from existing fiction, I don’t believe a story like that belongs in this kind of format. This is probably just a very personal opinion.
I would be interested to read more from this author in the future once they’ve honed their craft more. I do feel they have some unique and interesting ideas that just require more work to become something special.
I had intended to individually rate and review each story however once I was about 4 or 5 stories deep, I realised they would all say the same thing.
The author has some interesting ideas, intriguing concepts, but what’s really missing is the development. Each story feels like it could really be fleshed out into something a lot bigger - and indeed a lot of them feel like they NEED that. Perhaps I’m not familiar enough with short stories and anthologies, maybe these are actually concise and effective in their entirety but I personally was left with a lot of questions after reading some, especially those which are really short like ‘Driver, Surprise Me’.
Another criticism would be that it’s in desperate need of a good editor. The texts were riddled with grammatical errors and unnecessary syntax. A competent line editor would be able to tidy the stories up well and hopefully they’d be a lot more effective for it.
My one last gripe, I have to say, is I don’t think it’s smart to open an anthology with effectively a fanfiction. I have nothing against fanfiction; I used to write it myself about 10 years ago. But the first story in this anthology is so very clearly taken from the ‘80s film The Lost Boys, updated and modified. Unless it’s explicitly stated somewhere within the anthology that the stories would feature heavy inspiration from existing fiction, I don’t believe a story like that belongs in this kind of format. This is probably just a very personal opinion.
I would be interested to read more from this author in the future once they’ve honed their craft more. I do feel they have some unique and interesting ideas that just require more work to become something special.