Venomoid, J.A. Kossler
Received to review via Netgalley

There are some unique ideas in this book; the way vampires and zombies are recognisable, but somewhat different, always makes for some added interest. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get into the world and plot around that. Instead of occurring within the world, the world seemed to be created for the plot — which of course, it is, but you don’t want the reader to realise that. You want there to be an awareness of the world around the events of the novel, and that was lacking here.

As other reviewers have said, the quality of the writing is fairly mediocre; it’s certainly functional, but it’s not deathless prose at all. It’s a very teenage style, and all in all the book comes across as being for the YA audience. That tone in the narration is a little awkward, as the main character isn’t a teenager in one sense — physically, he is, but if I remember rightly, he’s older than that in experiential terms, because he ages slowly as a vampire. The adolescent outlook doesn’t just come with a teenage body, but with teenage levels of experience.

The insta-love thing other reviewers have mentioned is also pretty problematic, not to mention the fact that one of the romantic leads is somehow a “good” zombie, and yet needs to tear apart and eat living humans. Maybe there’s some way to make that less horrifying, more equivocal, but as it is, I couldn’t get past that fact to see him as a unproblematic “good” guy. (And I don’t think the intention was to make him a problematic lead.)

Anyway, all in all, I can’t say I really enjoyed this, which is a shame because the tweaked supernatural characteristics could’ve been interesting.

Rating: 1/5

Black Swan, White Raven, ed. Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling
Received to review via Netgalley

As with all anthologies, Black Swan, White Raven is a mixed bunch, with some stories and I enjoyed and others I was more ambivalent about. That’s probably going to be the same for just about anyone, but Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling are legendary SF/F editors for a reason, and that’s apparent here.

Reading other reviews for these stories makes me laugh: complaining about the darker aspects of the stories, the fact that sometimes only a few vestiges of the original story (or rather, the story we usually know) are used, etc. Clearly these people have never looked at the ‘original’ stories — ‘negative and creepy’ is one person’s assessment, so goodness knows what they’d think of earlier versions of Sleeping Beauty and so on.

It’s an interesting selection of writers, too, some of whom are well known names now (I don’t know about when this was first published). I can’t pick out a favourite, but overall I enjoyed the collection, and while for some stories the theme seemed a bit stretched, it’s still worth reading — I actually read the whole collection in two sittings.

Someone does point out that the voice of women is fairly absent here. There’s one or two strong stories, particularly a retelling of Snow White, but there are also stories where women remain the objects of the quest rather than people. Somewhat to be expected, given the fairytale theme; still somewhat disappointing.

Rating: 4/5

Cosmocopia, Paul Di Filippo
Received to review via Netgalley

I have no earthly idea of what to compare this novel to, apart from China Miéville’s New Crobuzon books. There’s something akin in the worldbuilding, in the weirdnesses. But where other people are comparing this to an acid trip and whatever, well, I’ve never taken drugs in my life and even feverish dreams aren’t this bizarre but at the same time carefully drawn.

I wasn’t particularly engaged by the first third of the story, but I loved the second part. The world created was so different from almost anything I know of, and yet still Di Filippo managed to create characters and stakes that you could care about.

The last part was… almost an anticlimax. It was still weird, but I didn’t care so much for it, and despite covering more time/space, it paled compared to the second part. I don’t know how I wanted the story to end, but perhaps I wanted it to surprise me again — and this didn’t, somehow. It seemed almost half-hearted, really, like the important part of the story was the central part and the rest, eh.

Despite all that, it’s not difficult to read at all, and is straight-forward to follow. It’s the ideas that are bizarre, not the execution. Still, if you prefer a good solid novel that goes from A to B — more Neil Gaiman than China Miéville — then it probably won’t be for you. On the other hand, I’d have said that before reading this, and it got under my skin.

Rating: 4/5

Book of Skulls, Robert Silverberg

I liked the idea behind this, and I even liked the way Silverberg set up the four characters, stereotypes that over the course of the novel are pried open and exposed for the often hypocritical things they are. The writing, too, is pretty good, lyrical and intense. The psychological building up and tearing down of the characters works really well, and it’s not easy to predict who will commit the murder, who will be the sacrifice, etc. The only real problem for me was that I kept having to check the chapter headings to see who exactly was talking: despite the four very different character backgrounds, they didn’t sound different at all.

But. The stereotypes manage to be so offensive — like, the portrayal of the gay male character/s is kind of horrifying, the whole portrayal of what gay people are like as a community. I know this isn’t exactly a new book, and doubtless Silverberg knew he was using stereotypes and that real gay people come from all over the spectrum, but it’s still pretty ghastly to read.

I can see why people enjoy it, I think, but euch, not for me.

Rating: 2/5