A review by octavia_cade
Commodore by Philip Fracassi

dark fast-paced

3.0

I read a short fiction collection by Fracassi a couple of days ago and thought it was excellent, so I went straight on to this. I didn't realise, going in, that Commodore was set in the same creepy small town of Sabbath that one of the stories in the collection was also set in, but given I enjoyed that story, that was a nice surprise. On balance, though, I didn't enjoy the novella as much as the collection. I just don't find stories about cars that fascinating, even if they are creepy, and although I realise that the car here wasn't really a car - it just drew in victims by pretending to be a car, much as an anglerfish uses light to lure in its prey - I still couldn't get into it much. The characterisation that stood out so much in the collection is a little more absent here, as well, in favour of a series of weird and lethal settings that were somewhat disconnected from each other. So as a whole, although I liked it well enough (and would certainly read more Sabbath stories), I didn't love it.