UNFORTUNATES BY LEO X ROBERTSON (BOOK REVIEW)

8/6/2021

At its best, this book has some dizzyingly inventive, fast-paced stories that rattle through their off-beat scenarios. You get the impression that the author had a lot of fun putting them together,

UNFORTUNATES BY LEO X ROBERTSON (BOOK REVIEW by BEN WALKER)

A little intrigue is a good thing when it comes to single author collections, and Leo X Robertson's Unfortunates offers this via some great story titles, whetting the reader's appetite nicely for the weirdness it presents across 8 short tales of terror and the titular story, which is a slightly longer piece.

For your money, you get stories involving artistic vulnerability, fantasies of vengeance made real, serial killers, exploitative journalism and more. Jet black humour mixes with lashings of spilled blood to create a soupy mix of horror, mostly rooted in human evil with the occasional dip into the paranormal or just plain weird.

At its best, this book has some dizzyingly inventive, fast-paced stories that rattle through their off-beat scenarios. You get the impression that the author had a lot of fun putting them together, not least of all A Sensational Star-Studded Blood Feast, which revels in its grim dissection of various Hollywood celebs whilst balancing gore with snippets of character work. The Other Half sears its imagery into your brain with some B-movie style sights that wouldn't be out of place in a William Castle feature, or a cut scene from Hollow Man. And Lackers starts off with a scene which comes across like a neon-drenched moment from Society, then quickly segues into a sometimes moving exploration of amputation and body identity, before moving into Tod Browning territory.

Pop culture references pepper many of the stories, rooting them firmly in modern times. Whilst many of the tales on offer mostly use traditional narratives, there are also video transcripts and some Burroughs-like cut-up moments to keep things interesting. That range of styles extends to the various moods the stories evoke too, from subtle and disquieting, to full-on unsettling. There are some slow builds to effective final twists, and tales which grab you by the neck after just a few sentences, forcing you to watch unspeakable acts play out.

On balance, the stories which take more chances might linger in the reader's mind longer than the others – some feel a little over-long, which isn't to say that the quality isn't there, but those pieces are definitely overshadowed by the punchier ones. It's well worth a read, but probably better appreciated if you dip in and out, rather than binge your way through the lot in one go like I did.

UNFORTUNATES BY LEO X ROBERTSON

In this collection of stories a sadistic blogger gleefully documents the murders of Hollywood celebrities. A journalist infiltrates a sex club for the physically impaired, finding he has more in common with them than he first assumed. A soon-to-be-dad gets seduced by a water spirit, which questions everything he thought he could impart as a father. And a primary school teacher meets his most difficult class yet: a horde of undead children.

In these stories, ordinary people must confront their biggest flaws and deepest fears in worlds eerily similar to our own. Because the worst horrors are the real ones we create for ourselves.