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A review by ghostboyreads
Soft Ceremonies by Charlene Elsby, Jon Steffens, Joe Koch
4.0
"Benjamin keeps on pounding his head, flinging blood in the cool compartment, pulping his scalp into a mild concussive state where he locates the bright stars that obliterate the terrifying oblong heads, the weird nativity scenes, thankfully, yes, too bright and flashing, but gone, finally, yes."
As experimental and as stylized as is possible of a horror novel, Soft Ceremonies is a collection of four extremely short yet, extremely weird horror stories. This is, artistic horror, unique, strange and super intense, these stories are designed to get under your skin and really, really bother you. Despite how short each of these stories are, every single one of them is so damn impactful, insanely so, to a point they all feel like rabid, snarling dogs with sharp fangs and poisoned drool. This is highly fascinating stuff, it only feels right to call this aesthetic horror, but, that's not a condemnation of the work - it's just, there's no other words with which to describe it. There are some truly nasty stories in this collection, they're all very vague and odd, feeling much more like drug induced vignettes than stories.
No matter how fanciful these tales become, somehow, they manage to feel rooted in reality. Filth Loot's horror always purposefully shoots off into the weird side of things, Soft Ceremonies being no exception to this. This collection contains nothing of the typical, nothing conventional, what it does contain is highly innovative, speculative stories from some of the best voices in modern horror. A fair bit of range is covered here, despite it being only 86 pages, we experience grief horror, religious horror, some really traumatic body horror, horror that's subtle and muted and even horror that's disgustingly beautiful. A visceral and vivid void of a book, Soft Ceremonies plunges the depths of the weird and wonderful, and truly tests our limits for the unfamiliar, the radical.
As experimental and as stylized as is possible of a horror novel, Soft Ceremonies is a collection of four extremely short yet, extremely weird horror stories. This is, artistic horror, unique, strange and super intense, these stories are designed to get under your skin and really, really bother you. Despite how short each of these stories are, every single one of them is so damn impactful, insanely so, to a point they all feel like rabid, snarling dogs with sharp fangs and poisoned drool. This is highly fascinating stuff, it only feels right to call this aesthetic horror, but, that's not a condemnation of the work - it's just, there's no other words with which to describe it. There are some truly nasty stories in this collection, they're all very vague and odd, feeling much more like drug induced vignettes than stories.
No matter how fanciful these tales become, somehow, they manage to feel rooted in reality. Filth Loot's horror always purposefully shoots off into the weird side of things, Soft Ceremonies being no exception to this. This collection contains nothing of the typical, nothing conventional, what it does contain is highly innovative, speculative stories from some of the best voices in modern horror. A fair bit of range is covered here, despite it being only 86 pages, we experience grief horror, religious horror, some really traumatic body horror, horror that's subtle and muted and even horror that's disgustingly beautiful. A visceral and vivid void of a book, Soft Ceremonies plunges the depths of the weird and wonderful, and truly tests our limits for the unfamiliar, the radical.
"When I arrived he showed me the cracks in the foundation and how the water gets in. He said that I'm the same - that it doesn't matter what caused them, that's how they are, and their weakness no matter the source is where evil goes, to fill the gaps, to make someone feel full and whole and in control when it fact it's better for some houses to crumble, some structures to fall apart, some people to dissemble and die."
There aren't many authors out there who could pull off what it is that Soft Ceremonies aims to achieve, but these four, they manage it, deftly, wonderfully. This is experimental horror fiction at its very finest, it's the future of horror in a neat and compact little offering. Eerily haunting and absolutely devastating, Soft Ceremonies is exactly the kind of novel that will make you want to puke and then pluck out your eyeballs. It's surreal, disturbing and horrible to experience but, it's so bloody great. Soft Ceremonies, is, despite it's slim length, a very powerful book. As with any collection, there's always going to be a story or two that stand above the rest. While every story in this book was amazing, it's Charlene Elsby's entry that takes the top spot.
"Tears run until there's nothing left. They always come back, but the time spent after they're gone - either numbness or some kind of brief acceptance or simply unable to cry any more - is the best it ever gets."