Carniepunk by Rob Thurman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
If you look at a collaboration of short stories by multiple well-known authors you should see it first as what it really is from a marketing perspective.
It is a great way to introduce readers to authors of a similar genre or authors in general. Some of which you might never have come across (like myself) in this vast landscape of scribes of various shapes, sizes and talents.
Sometimes reading a five or ten percent sample of a book just doesn’t give you enough of a taste, whereas these short stories give the reader a full mouth of words to chew on.
Sometimes the collaborations don’t work well, which is often the case when multiple authors create one story together and each writes one piece.Too many scribes dipping in the same inkwell.
This doesn’t suffer from that because each one of the authors has created a story with the same link to carnivals, but each one has done it in their own way. The result is a mesmerizing potpourri of distinctive voices.
It would have been fairer of me to review each piece/story and say a few words, instead I have decided to mention a few that stood out for me.
‘Freak House’ by Kelly Meding
Strong supernatural tale.
‘Painted Love’ by Rob Thurman
This story was wickedly creepy.
‘The Three Lives of Lydia’ by Delilah Dawson
Dark, compelling and deep.
‘The Sweeter the Juice’ by Mark Henry
I have to be honest this one sort of made my inner ick appear.( I wrote ick..that’s right just ick)
‘The Cold Girl’ by Rachel Caine
Disturbing and captivating.
All in all it was a great combination of both stories and authors.
I really enjoyed it and can honestly say that I have discovered quite a few new authors (well, new to me anyway)whose work I shall be looking up in the near future.
I received a copy of this book via Edelweiss.
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