 Online, TL;DR stands for “too long; didn't read,” the kind of snark employed by messageboard trolls as they unleash vitriol from the safety of their keyboards. Here, it stands for Too Late; Didn't Run, in this second volume of Nope from TL;DR Press. So going into this I was already thinking of all those GIFs where an unwitting Dark Souls player dashes head first into darkness only to be met with a grinning skeleton lurching at them, before hotfooting it back the way they came. After checking out its 24 short stories & poems I can't say that I'd suggest running eagerly towards this anthology. I was initially worried that this was going to be a gimmicky anthology filled with the kind of web-related content that you really have to be in the right kind of mood for. But the earnest foreword from the publishing team and the fact that proceeds are going to a good cause – the Ella Baker Center – helped cement this in my mind as a more serious piece of work. As far as variety goes, there are brujas and bastards, terraformers and travelling sales folk, zombies, zealots and more, crossing all manner of time periods and settings. Some pieces take an experimental approach which doesn't always hit the mark, but it's nice to see something different being tried. Standouts include Richard Archer's poem, Cursed, which manages to chill the blood and warm the heart in just over a page. Martin Brennan's Swamp Lullaby offers some Cajun slasher-style carnage in a similar vein to the Hatchet movies. The Body Farm by Armana Forbes offers a grim and grimily entertaining glance at the work of two guys who have to deal with more than just corpses. And Jennifer Crow's wax eye, slightly damaged is a creepily effective one-page poem about enduring evil. More than a few of the other stories on offer are a bit clunky in their execution, though they deliver on either interesting premises or effective endings. The main issue is pacing, with lots of stories taking a while to get anywhere, lumping in more detail than necessary. Others show a lot of promise but don't quite deliver on the setup. Overall, the ratio of decent stories to not-so-decent tips more towards the average, and ironically enough I found myself flicking through some of the longer pieces to see what came next. Seeing as this is for a good cause, it's probably worth grabbing a copy, but you might find yourself turning your back on many of the stories.  A spine-tingling anthology, with 24 short stories and poems to keep you up at night. Stories of ghosts, undead beasts, monsters that lurk in the shadows and more. All proceeds go to the Ella Baker Foundation; www.ellabakercenter.org. Stories from authors: Martin Brennan, Beulah Vega, Daniel Alvarez, Christopher Hubbard, Joshua Stoll, Rachel Hailey, Bryan Arneson, Rob McIvor, Robin Zlotnick, Richard Archer, Connor Thompson, Armarna Forbes, Henry Neilsen, A.Z. Louise, Myna Chang, C.P .Hunter, Daniel Loring Keating, Rachel Larensen, Dominick Cancilla, Annie Percik, Jennifer Crow, Sarah Linders, Lyle Enright, J. Askew.   Comments are closed.
|
Archives
May 2023
|
RSS Feed
|
|