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Book Review: It Came From the Swamp: A Cryptid Anthology edited by Joey R. Poole

Cover for It Came From The Swamp: A Cryptid Anthology

It Came From the Swamp: A Cryptid Anthology edited by Joey R. Poole

Malarkey Books, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1088025321

Available: Paperback Bookshop.orgAmazon.com )

 

This short story anthology is themed around cryptids and folkloric creatures. Mermaids and Bigfoot make multiple appearances, but so do more locally known creatures.

 

Standout stories include: “Flood Tide”, in which a maid for an anti-abortion senator feeds him and his handsy son to a carnivorous mermaid. I felt vicarious pleasure reading this one.In “Ceasing”, a lizard man and a Boo Hag go on a Halloween date. In “Soo-Soo Go Bye-Bye”, a father rushing to Wal-Mart on icy roads for baby supplies thinks he’s spotted a Sasquatch. “Der Butzemann” takes a figure from Pennsylvania Dutch folklore and uses it to enact vengeance on those poisoning the land. There’s some excellent writing in some of the other stories but they don’t quite feel like all the pieces fit together.

 

In any book themed on cryptids, they are really the stars, and “The Monster Beneath” and “The Valley Where the Fog Has Hooves” both have incredible, lyrical, descriptive writing about the cryptids in the stories. For readers into cryptids and folkloric creatures looking for something a little darker than Harry Dresden’s “Working for Bigfoot”, this is a title you’ll want to check out.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

Book Review: The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror: Evil Lives on in the Land! edited by Stephen Jones

The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror: Evil Lives on in the Land! edited by Stephen Jones

Skyhorse, 2021

ISBN-13: 9781510749863

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com)

 

 

Folk horror is finally getting the attention it deserves. Ancient traditions and practices, crumbling buildings surrounded by nature that has reclaimed the land, rituals that call down the gods, myths and legends coming to life. All of these and more can be found in the pages of The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror edited by Stephen Jones, acclaimed author and editor of horror and dark fantasy. While a relatively new term, folk horror has existed for much longer than this subgenre’s name.

 

This anthology contains many great tales of folk horror, old and new. The following are some of my favorites. “Jenny Greenteeth” by Alison Littlewood, set in the wartime English countryside, is the story of a young girl named Alice, an evacuee sent to live with a family that has two young daughters, Olivia and Betty. Olivia torments Alice with tales of Jenny Greenteeth until the stories seem to come true. In M. R. James’ “Wailing Well,” two members of a troop of scouts do not take the warning of a local shepherd seriously about avoiding the field containing the titular well, let alone using the water from it. Michael Marshall’s “The Offering,” set in Copenhagen, concerns a family on vacation staying in an Airbnb. When wife Lauren throws about a bowl of mysterious gray porridge in the refrigerator, Bill soon finds a sacrifice is made to the proper guardian of the house. Could it be the Nisse? “Gavin’s Field” by Steve Rasnic Tem tells of the titular character inheriting his father’s estate, but he discovers he should have done his homework on the property, and the town. “The Fourth Call” by the amazing Ramsey Campbell is my favorite story in the anthology. Mike returns to Leanbridge alone during Christmastime. He is drawn to the neighboring property, formerly owned by the Bundle family. When Mike tries to bring up the strange holiday tradition practiced in the village, longtime family friends, the Darlingtons, insist no such thing happened.

 

Other authors in this anthology include Algernon Blackwood, Christopher Fowler, Maura McHugh, Arthur Machen, Karl Edward Wagner, Simon Strantzas, Mike Chinn, David A. Sutton, H.P. Lovecraft, Kim Newman, Jan Edwards, Storm Constantine, Dennis Etchison, and Reggie Oliver. Included at the beginning of each entry is a write up of the author’s brief biography and works, as well as beautifully eerie black and white photography by Michael Marshall Smith.

 

The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror is a must-read for fans of folk horror, or new readers dipping their toes into the bog of the subgenre. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Book Review: Slasher Girls & Monster Boys edited by April Genevieve Tucholke


Slasher Girls & Monster Boys edited by April Genevieve Tucholke

Speak, 2015

ISBN-13: 978-014751408

Available:

 

 

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys  is an anthology of stories by YA authors, including Kendare Blake, Jonathan Maberry, Carrie Ryan, Leigh Bardugo, and Marie Lu. Each story is based on a horror movie, television show, or fiction, or some combination. Strangely, the inspirations for the stories are only indicated at the end of each story, upside down in tiny print at the bottom of the page. Observant fans with a wide knowledge of the genre will probably be able to hazard some good guesses, but it really doesn’t matter– the theme is incidental, and the stories stand on their own.

Some stories stand out more than others. Nova Ren Suma’s “The Birds of Azalea Street” is a creepy tale about three girls who uncover a neighborhood pedophile. April Genevieve Tucholke’s “The Flicker, The Fingers, The Beat, The Sigh” riffs on I Know What You Did Last Summer, with an outcast girl from school as the victim. The awfulness of the teenagers, and the regret and memories of the narrator, as well as the eventual consequences, are what make this a horrific and tragic story. In “Fat Girl With a Knife” Jonathan Maberry gives us a great character with a taste for revenge who discovers a talent for zombie-killing. I would love to see him do more with this character, as it felt like this ended too quickly.  Megan Shepherd spins a story about a girl who outwits death in “Hide and Seek.”  In “Sleepless”, Jay Kristoff pulls the rug right out from under your feet, just when you think you’ve figured out what’s going on. This is one of the best stories in the book.  In Marie Lu’s powerful “The Girl Without A Face” a boy at the height of privilege is forced to face the consequences of raping a girl who died by suicide by her ghost. What part of this story is most horrifying is up to the perception of the reader. “Stitches”,  by A.G. Howard, while it required a significant suspension of disbelief as regards medical procedures, is an imaginative twist on Frankenstein, and a great character study of a girl whose abusive father makes a deal with a “collector” to have her amputate his body parts and replace them with others in order to pay the bills. Finally “On the I-5” gives us the story of a hitchiker ghost out for revenge.

Some stories didn’t hit quite the right note with me. Carrie Ryan’s “In The Forest, Dark and Deep”, is a surreal, disturbing, and bloody take on Alice in Wonderland. It’s one of the truly horrific tales in the set, but I’m not sure most teens will have the patience for the style. “Emmeline”, by Cat Winters, mixes up several movies and books to create a supernatural tale set in the era of World War I, setting up an uneasy Angela Carter-esque romance that can only end badly. While I enjoyed the story I don’t know that it has a contemporary enough tone to appeal to modern teen readers. “Verse Chorus Verse” gets into the price a parent is willing to pay for their child’s fame, and the build-up is freaky, but as it’s mostly told from the parent’s point of view, it didn’t seem to really belong in a YA anthology.  In”The Dark, Scary Parts and All” a bullied, grief-stricken girl is offered the power to do her worst, if she’s willing to take it. The relationships and decisions in this story just felt off.  “M” is a strange little story that seems to belong more in an Agatha Christie novel than in an anthology of horror stories. I wanted to like it more, as there was a very Edward Gorey-esque influence, and the choice of a blind main character was interesting, but it wasn’t enough. “A Girl Who Dreamed of Snow” seemed more like fantasy than horror, with a shaman girl  sacrificing the men who kidnap her to appease spirits who will end a plague and save humanity from extinction.

A strong majority of the authors in this anthology are women, which seems to be the case overall in YA horror right now, as are the majority of the protagonists. In the cases where the story is told from a boy’s point of view, he is not usually presented in a terribly sympathetic manner, and generally it’s difficult to believe he isn’t getting his just desserts. Very few stories stood out to me as presenting a woman with agency: “Fat Girl With a Knife” has a main character who’s already out for revenge against the school bullies when a zombie outbreak starts, “A Girl Who Dreamed of Snow” has a girl with a plan in place that she carries through, and the girl in “Hide and Seek” is smart, strategic, and tricky. I loved seeing these characters take charge.

While I found this anthology to be a mixed bag, it covers a lot of ground, and I think most readers, especially girls, will find something to enjoy. Recommended.

 

Contains: gore, violence, murder, torture, references to pedophilia, references to rape, references to suicide, body horror

 

Editor’s note: Slasher Girls and Monster Boys was a 2019 Summer Scares YA pick.