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A review by jdhacker
Test Patterns: Creature Features by Duane Pesice
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
I believe this is the last of Planet X publications books on my shelf to read, and may in fact be the last one of their physical books put out period that I hadn't read. I'm pleased to say that it can end on a high note.
The presentation, the blurb, even the title of 'Creature Features' might make one believe they're in for a collection of monster tales of various but semi-traditional kinds. There is maybe one werewolf story, a few Frankenstein's Monster/created adjacent stories, but by and large these are truly tales of 'creatures': monsters, aliens, gods that defy ready classification.
It gets off to a bit of a rocky start, the first couple of stories were a little rough. But by the time we hit Cody Goodfellow's weird western, 'The Greedy Grave' the collection fully hits it stride as weird fiction for weird times, with unnameable creatures. Other entries like Farah Rose Smith's 'In The Room of Red Night' play in genre bending spaces more akin to William Hope Hodgson's The Night Lands. Kurt Fawver's 'Extinction in Green' is a fantastic epistolary piece, and Natasha Bennett's 'Underground Rose' is a surprisingly sweet story about finding acceptance in a small town. Orrin Grey, ever the master of monsters, is of course present with a story that could easily by an X-File, 'The Pepys Lake Monster.'
Some of these really stretch beyond the genre and simply frame much more real world and psychological terrors within a 'horror story.' Erica Ruppert's 'Pretty In The Dark' doesn't ever let us know if something truly supernatural has occurred, but we can all sit with the shared horrors of loneliness, of places and memories that have the world has moved on from and abandoned, of lost youth. Robert Guffey's 'The Eye Doctor' can be read as a terrifying and action packed otherworldly adventure, but the fear of a child that thinks its been abandoned by its parents, that they cannot help it, and are in fact fallible human beings is something far more relatable and likely to hit home. James Fallweather also deals with childhood traumas and the scars war leaves on the families of those hurt or left behind in "A Little House In The Suburbs." "Aphantasia" by Robert S. Wilson again has some superlative monster fighting action, but underlying that are some really poignant ideas about love beyond and not including the physical or sexual, and the transcendence of being seen for what we are rather than what others would want us to be. And in James Russell's 'Spirit of the Place' we get some very straightforward commentary on the consequences of colonialism.
John Paul Fitch's 'Signals', S.L. Edwards 'With All Her Troubles Behind Her', John Linwood Grant's '/For Whom There is no Journey', 'Mrs. Doogan' by Lana Cooper, and Aaron J. French's 'Chosen' are all super fun, action heavy, stories ranging across subgenres.
We also have some humor mixed in, with Buzz Dixon's 'The Bride of the Astounding Gigantic Monster' and the very self aware 'Bride of Castle Frankenstein' by Jill Hand as well as the Outer Limits or Twilight zone-esque 'Normal' by John Claude Smith.
The presentation, the blurb, even the title of 'Creature Features' might make one believe they're in for a collection of monster tales of various but semi-traditional kinds. There is maybe one werewolf story, a few Frankenstein's Monster/created adjacent stories, but by and large these are truly tales of 'creatures': monsters, aliens, gods that defy ready classification.
It gets off to a bit of a rocky start, the first couple of stories were a little rough. But by the time we hit Cody Goodfellow's weird western, 'The Greedy Grave' the collection fully hits it stride as weird fiction for weird times, with unnameable creatures. Other entries like Farah Rose Smith's 'In The Room of Red Night' play in genre bending spaces more akin to William Hope Hodgson's The Night Lands. Kurt Fawver's 'Extinction in Green' is a fantastic epistolary piece, and Natasha Bennett's 'Underground Rose' is a surprisingly sweet story about finding acceptance in a small town. Orrin Grey, ever the master of monsters, is of course present with a story that could easily by an X-File, 'The Pepys Lake Monster.'
Some of these really stretch beyond the genre and simply frame much more real world and psychological terrors within a 'horror story.' Erica Ruppert's 'Pretty In The Dark' doesn't ever let us know if something truly supernatural has occurred, but we can all sit with the shared horrors of loneliness, of places and memories that have the world has moved on from and abandoned, of lost youth. Robert Guffey's 'The Eye Doctor' can be read as a terrifying and action packed otherworldly adventure, but the fear of a child that thinks its been abandoned by its parents, that they cannot help it, and are in fact fallible human beings is something far more relatable and likely to hit home. James Fallweather also deals with childhood traumas and the scars war leaves on the families of those hurt or left behind in "A Little House In The Suburbs." "Aphantasia" by Robert S. Wilson again has some superlative monster fighting action, but underlying that are some really poignant ideas about love beyond and not including the physical or sexual, and the transcendence of being seen for what we are rather than what others would want us to be. And in James Russell's 'Spirit of the Place' we get some very straightforward commentary on the consequences of colonialism.
John Paul Fitch's 'Signals', S.L. Edwards 'With All Her Troubles Behind Her', John Linwood Grant's '/For Whom There is no Journey', 'Mrs. Doogan' by Lana Cooper, and Aaron J. French's 'Chosen' are all super fun, action heavy, stories ranging across subgenres.
We also have some humor mixed in, with Buzz Dixon's 'The Bride of the Astounding Gigantic Monster' and the very self aware 'Bride of Castle Frankenstein' by Jill Hand as well as the Outer Limits or Twilight zone-esque 'Normal' by John Claude Smith.