COMMENTARY: The Best of Gamut (2024)
The following are thoughts and reactions I had while reading The Best of Gamut (2024) edited by Richard Thomas. They do not reflect my overall post-reading opinion of the work.
⚠️ SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD ⚠️
- Not sure horror or dark fantasy is for me. I’m not connecting with any of the stories so far (I’m six in). I vaguely recall being impressed by the creativity of the Clive Barker collection that Dogwood recommended a decade ago… but not sure I felt anything aside from admiration and awe. I think some of the grotesqueness made me squirm or tingle… but hmm. Maybe this isn’t my genre.
- The first was creepy and then it ended in a mass murder and… I dunno. Was that it? Another was a confession from a supernatural serial killer. It was OK.
- Slipping Petals From Their Skins had body horror and was sufficiently creepy. Reminded me of Helpmeet. And while I liked Helpmeet… I didn’t LOVE it. It was good body horror. I was constantly creeped out. But I guess… that’s the point of this genre? Is that it? Is that the goal of this genre and I’m just not into it?
- Cassandra Khaw’s story is the only one I like so far. And I promise you o didn’t look at the name or was even aware it was her before I read it.
- The twist in Garnier was cool. Bought a house just to inspect it.
- Kept hoping for a twist reveal in Love Story, An Exorcism… but it was a straight up grew up and revisited traumatic youth story. An Ending (Ascent) attempts a EGP at the end but didn’t stick for me. Also, I felt like a lot of the prose was unnecessarily poetic. This seems to be a thing where using common words in uncharacteristic ways is cool. I dunno.
- The Bubblegum Man stuck the landing for me. Good simple story. Good set up, intro of fantastic element, CMX, and DNM. Or maybe it’s the first one that felt like it wasn’t trying to be scary, or dark, or horrific, or miss the landing, or overwrote the prose. I dunno. Maybe I’m a vanilla boring straight man.
- The Mark… reminds me of Starving Daughters, Hungry Mothers but it’s not as complex and interesting. A supernatural MECH on the woman kills the date. I dunno. Figure Eight attempted a twist ending, and yes, I didn’t see it coming, I seriously thought Number Five would end it all. But I dunno, I wanted more? I don’t know what it is about this whole anthology. I wanted more but I can’t articulate exactly what it is I’m not getting from it.
- ok I have no idea what I just read, but Cradle Lake is the first story here to punch me in the face in a way that I didn’t expect. This one connected. Abandoned kids start creepy ritual and keep doing it despite obstacles. This one really worked for me.
- Is it because I expect powerful EGPs for short stories in general and this just isn’t what horror and dark fantasy delivers on? Is this why it’s not working for me? All my favorite short stories have a powerful emotional ending — a sense of regret, a bit of loss, a vague reaching for hope, an epiphany that brings guilt, ruin, devastation, narrow escape, recognition of hidden costs — and I’m not getting this kind of EGP in this genre. And maybe that’s expectations. Maybe nihilistic bad things and then worse things is what this genre is supposed to deliver. Well, that’s not entirely true, there are stories in this collection that attempt that EGP too but just aren’t told tightly enough to deliver it. I dunno.
- That last one… The God of Low Things. I didn’t realize how much violence towards animals bothered me until I read that. Sorry, this is just not for me at all.