Sequel to The Outside, this novel deals with the reality-warping fallout from Yasira’s actions at the end of the previous book. In her effort to fight off the powerful AI gods and their cybernetic angels, Yasira contaminates an entire world with the chaotic randomness of “the Outside,” changing both the landscape and inhabitants in various ways. Nevertheless the gods and angels still maintain an iron grip on the planet, reducing Yasira, Tiv, and their few friends to a tiny resistance movement. Compared to the first novel, this one has a lot less action and a lot more character study, but I think it’s actually stronger for it; the characters become much more fully-fleshed both as individuals and as a unit. I love the treatment of neurodiversity in this series, and how the various characters consciously adjust their methods of communication to whatever will work best for the listener. The conflicts are by no means resolved at the end of the book, but it’s still a very satisfying read.
Tag: genre-horror
Fire Boy, by Sami Shah
For a novel marketed as YA, this was super violent. I found it jarring to alternate between scenes of graphic sex and torture and the main character’s stammering shyness when attempting to ask out his crush. Set in Pakistan, this novel features teenager Wahid, who just wants to play D&D with his mates and get up the courage to talk to the pretty girl in his class; he doesn’t know why he can see djinn and would rather not think about that part of his life. Unfortunately, supernatural forces come after him anyway, threatening his friends, and he finds himself navigating many of Karachi’s darker and more magical elements in an attempt to save them. Many, many loose ends left dangling for the sequel.
How to Sell a Haunted House, by Grady Hendrix
This is the second Hendrix book that I read that came highly recommended, the second time I thought I’d enjoy reading it, and the second time I’ve been disappointed. It’s just not for me, sorry guys. I think that completely aside from the body horror / jump scare aspects which are already not my thing, the root of my issues with Hendrix’s books is that he seems actively contemptuous of his characters. The main characters are all flat and unlikeable, and their motivations and emotions seem sketched over them as opposed to growing naturally out of their personalities. In contrast I’d offer Stephen King, who has all the dark and creepy but seems actually to generate characters from a place of strength and humanity, thereby giving readers a reason to actually care what happens to them. It really feels like Hendrix is creating characters he doesn’t like, just so he can point at them and laugh, and the whole thing just feels a bit mean-spirited. (This is also exactly why I don’t enjoy watching Big Bang Theory.) Plot synopsis, so I can reference it later: unlikeable, shallow main character’s parents die, which means she has to cooperate with her equally unlikeable, shallow sibling to rid the house of elements from her parents’ haunted past, so they can finally sell it and reap the benefits of the inheritance, to which each feels more entitled than the other.
The Djinn Falls in Love & Other Stories, ed. Mahvesh Murad, Jared Shurin
There are some big names in here (Nnedi Okorafor, Neil Gaiman) and some that I love but may not be so famous (Amal El-Mohtar, Claire North, Saad Z. Hossain), but for me the standout stories were by authors I hadn’t previously encountered. “Reap” by Sami Shah is written from the viewpoint of a drone operator who is surveilling the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and who begins to witness some freaky supernatural goings-on. It’s brilliant, combining frightening djinn behavior with the weird disconnection of war at a distance, and the feeling of being under threat by forces you can’t comprehend. I’d give second place to “The Congregation” by Kamila Shamsie, a gorgeous and spiritual piece about longing and brotherhood. Honorable mention to “Duende 2077” by Jamal Mahjoub, in which an exorcist is called to visit a haunted spaceship. Mostly a strong collection, put together in a way that started out whimsical and got really creepy towards the end.
The Blade Between, by Sam J. Miller
This is a dark ghost story about the gentrification of a small town, the lives of those negatively affected by it, and how the spirits of the town start fighting back. Ronan Szepessy finds himself returning to Hudson despite the terrible experience of growing up gay and artistic in the small, closed-minded town; when he sees his old neighbors evicted from their homes and developers closing in like sharks, the depth of his hate allows the ghosts of the town to sink their hooks into the citizens, spreading horror and violence. It’s a tough book to read; Ronan is bitter and angry, as are all his fellow citizens both corporeal and not, and there’s not really any light moment to ease the tension. I think this book had urgent things to say about gentrification and how it can kill the spirit of a small town, but it gets drowned in all the violence and weirdness.
When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamín Labatut
“This is a work of fiction based on real events,” says the author, and as such it’s weirdly disconcerting; you know the history, but you’re fuzzy on the details, and Labatut takes full advantage of that. The book kicks off with a mostly-factual account tracing the discovery of Prussian Blue to cyanide, poison, and its horrific use in the Holocaust; the author muses on the vibrant beauty of the color, and the stain that it left on history. The following stories go on to profile men of great brilliance, Schwarzschild and Heisenberg and Schrödinger among others, whose discoveries in math and science drive them to madness as they realize the destruction their ideas could wreak upon the world (or maybe, Labatut insinuates, they have to go mad to make these leaps of intuition at all). Their madness and visions are described with such lush prose that the feel of the text touches on gothic horror; fiction is woven so seamlessly into fact that you can’t draw a clear line between real and imaginary. The book swerves to end on a biographical, reflective tone, on which the narrator refuses to cut down a diseased tree; it is dying inside, but still tall and wide and of great sentimental value, and he does not wish to see the rot within. It functions as a kind of allegory: we can see and appreciate the outer structure of things, but if we dig too deeply, we may find ourselves revolted by what lies within, and the mere pursuit of that knowledge may bring it all crashing down around us.
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, by Grady Hendrix
I think Hendrix started out with the concept of “wouldn’t it be cool if a book club of stereotypical housewives dedicated to reading horror novels actually encountered a for-reals vampire, and had to fight it using nothing but their wifely/womanly skills?” The resulting execution is at times hilarious and incisive, which lets you overlook the fact that none of the characters are likable. The women, for all their strength around one another, are terrified of crossing their men; those men are uniformly patronizing, dismissive, or controlling; the children that the women repeatedly say they would die to protect … give the audience zero reasons to care about them either. I did like the nod to the disparity of race outcomes, both in neighborhood development and as vampire pickings, but again it was brought up just for the white women to wring their hands over briefly, and for the men to ignore entirely. It’s kind of like this cider I tried yesterday that hit the palate right off the bat with lovely sweet notes, but then faded to bitter dryness on the tongue: after enjoying this book (and it was extremely enjoyable!), you’re left wondering whether these people should have been saved from vampires at all.