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lovemankindI love short fiction. I find the older I get - not to make myself sound faux-world-weary, I’m only twenty-five - the more I appreciate it. There’s probably an uncharitable angle about my dwindling attention span, but I prefer to think that my taste is refining.
One of my favorite things about short fiction is that it forces the writer - if they’re good, that is - to streamline the introductory part of a story, which can really drag on in the hands of a long-winded or over-enthusiastic writer. It also allows writers to experiment with stylistic or narrative elements that might not work in long form. And, on a more subjective note, there’s something fundamentally satisfying about plowing through a dozen or so short stories in a row. It’s like rapidly tossing pieces of popcorn into your mouth.
This is a pretty narrow cut, genre-wise. These are all horror stories, and all can be found on the web-page of Nightmare Magazine, a monthly horror-fantasy anthology.
Many of these stories rely heavily on suspense, so I’ve chosen to avoid spoilers where I can, but if you want to go in totally blind, I’ve linked the stories individually below, with my reviews further down. I’ll also provide some content warnings down at the bottom of the page: violence targeted at children, rape or sexual violence, paranoia triggers like surveillance, and highly graphic gore beyond the “baseline” level you’ll see in other stories. That being said, these are horror stories, so please read with caution if you are sensitive to violence or other common horror elements.
The Grave, by P.D Cacek
Oh man. As much as I want to rhapsodize about this story, I think I’ll serve it best by keeping my commentary minimal. I don’t want to spoil the truly excellent atmosphere this story creates, so suffice it to say that this story features some very disturbing material. The author does a wonderful job of bringing us into our main character’s head in a very smooth, organic way, such that it takes a while for the true creeping horror of the story to settle in. And that’s saying something, given that - small spoiler here - the story opens with the main character finding an unmarked grave in the woods.
I tend to be picky about unreliable or “disturbed” narrators in horror these days; lesser authors often use it as a cheap trick to “shock” the audience because their story can’t really stand on its own without a gimmick. “Oh, this person is murdering people, something that we as the audience recognize is bad, but the character’s worldview is so broken that they think they’re doing something good! Quelle horreur!” This is a popular trick in the arsenal of mediocre creepypasta writers. That being said, when it’s done well, it is terrific for enhancing atmosphere. The Grave does it very, very well.
Cruel Sistah, by Nisi Shawl
This was the first story I ever read on Nightmare Magazine, so it has a special place in my heart for that reason alone. It’s also a damn good story, dealing with a classic premise - two sisters, one driven into a jealous rage over the other’s beauty - in a way that brings more depth and authenticity than your run-of-the-mill Grimm retelling. The presence of good, realistic character voice actually isn’t a deal-breaker in horror a lot of the time, but it’s a crucial element here, helping ground the story in a sense of reality. This story has a supernatural element, but any acts of cruelty are always solidly human. The best, most gruesome details are largely the bloodless ones: crawling ants, slithering hair, small dried animal bones rattling in a tin can.
A Head in a Box, or, Implications of Consciousness after Decapitation, by Lorie Selke
This is a great example of the stylistic experimentation that you can really only do with short fiction. I can’t imagine reading a full novel written in this style, but for a little under four thousand words, I ate it up with a spoon. A Head in a Box does feature some conventions of horror fiction, but it’s really a speculative satire about celebrity cult, misogyny, consumer culture, and the manipulation of reality to fit more comfortably into a twenty-four hour news cycle. It’s also about Gwyneth Paltrow’s decapitated head in a box, which should be more than enough reason to check this story out.
Which Super Little Dead Girl™ Are You? Take Our Quiz and Find Out!, by Nino Cipri
If you, like me, hold a tremendous amount of nostalgia for the extremely specific personality quizzes that fill any magazine targeted at tween-teen girls, this was tailor-made for you. There’s no real narrative to speak of, as you’d expect from a multiple-choice quiz, but we learn a surprising amount about all four of the Super Little Dead Girls™, from life to premature death and beyond. The use of the mostly-As/Bs/etc grading method on the quiz, meaning each multiple choice letter references the same character for each question, is a brilliant way for the author to build clearly defined backstory and even some internal narrative for each one of the Super Little Dead Girls™. The contrast of the almost-normal quiz questions with the obviously horrifying answers (they are dead children, after all) establishes a delightful mood, playful and darkly funny. And of course, it’s largely written in the peppy style of those classic magazines, which is something I didn’t know I wanted to see more of until now.
-
CONTENT WARNINGS (HOVER TO READ)
The Grave: spoilers
Cruel Sistah: spoilers
One of my favorite things about short fiction is that it forces the writer - if they’re good, that is - to streamline the introductory part of a story, which can really drag on in the hands of a long-winded or over-enthusiastic writer. It also allows writers to experiment with stylistic or narrative elements that might not work in long form. And, on a more subjective note, there’s something fundamentally satisfying about plowing through a dozen or so short stories in a row. It’s like rapidly tossing pieces of popcorn into your mouth.
This is a pretty narrow cut, genre-wise. These are all horror stories, and all can be found on the web-page of Nightmare Magazine, a monthly horror-fantasy anthology.
Many of these stories rely heavily on suspense, so I’ve chosen to avoid spoilers where I can, but if you want to go in totally blind, I’ve linked the stories individually below, with my reviews further down. I’ll also provide some content warnings down at the bottom of the page: violence targeted at children, rape or sexual violence, paranoia triggers like surveillance, and highly graphic gore beyond the “baseline” level you’ll see in other stories. That being said, these are horror stories, so please read with caution if you are sensitive to violence or other common horror elements.
The Grave, by P.D Cacek
Oh man. As much as I want to rhapsodize about this story, I think I’ll serve it best by keeping my commentary minimal. I don’t want to spoil the truly excellent atmosphere this story creates, so suffice it to say that this story features some very disturbing material. The author does a wonderful job of bringing us into our main character’s head in a very smooth, organic way, such that it takes a while for the true creeping horror of the story to settle in. And that’s saying something, given that - small spoiler here - the story opens with the main character finding an unmarked grave in the woods.
I tend to be picky about unreliable or “disturbed” narrators in horror these days; lesser authors often use it as a cheap trick to “shock” the audience because their story can’t really stand on its own without a gimmick. “Oh, this person is murdering people, something that we as the audience recognize is bad, but the character’s worldview is so broken that they think they’re doing something good! Quelle horreur!” This is a popular trick in the arsenal of mediocre creepypasta writers. That being said, when it’s done well, it is terrific for enhancing atmosphere. The Grave does it very, very well.
Cruel Sistah, by Nisi Shawl
This was the first story I ever read on Nightmare Magazine, so it has a special place in my heart for that reason alone. It’s also a damn good story, dealing with a classic premise - two sisters, one driven into a jealous rage over the other’s beauty - in a way that brings more depth and authenticity than your run-of-the-mill Grimm retelling. The presence of good, realistic character voice actually isn’t a deal-breaker in horror a lot of the time, but it’s a crucial element here, helping ground the story in a sense of reality. This story has a supernatural element, but any acts of cruelty are always solidly human. The best, most gruesome details are largely the bloodless ones: crawling ants, slithering hair, small dried animal bones rattling in a tin can.
A Head in a Box, or, Implications of Consciousness after Decapitation, by Lorie Selke
This is a great example of the stylistic experimentation that you can really only do with short fiction. I can’t imagine reading a full novel written in this style, but for a little under four thousand words, I ate it up with a spoon. A Head in a Box does feature some conventions of horror fiction, but it’s really a speculative satire about celebrity cult, misogyny, consumer culture, and the manipulation of reality to fit more comfortably into a twenty-four hour news cycle. It’s also about Gwyneth Paltrow’s decapitated head in a box, which should be more than enough reason to check this story out.
Which Super Little Dead Girl™ Are You? Take Our Quiz and Find Out!, by Nino Cipri
If you, like me, hold a tremendous amount of nostalgia for the extremely specific personality quizzes that fill any magazine targeted at tween-teen girls, this was tailor-made for you. There’s no real narrative to speak of, as you’d expect from a multiple-choice quiz, but we learn a surprising amount about all four of the Super Little Dead Girls™, from life to premature death and beyond. The use of the mostly-As/Bs/etc grading method on the quiz, meaning each multiple choice letter references the same character for each question, is a brilliant way for the author to build clearly defined backstory and even some internal narrative for each one of the Super Little Dead Girls™. The contrast of the almost-normal quiz questions with the obviously horrifying answers (they are dead children, after all) establishes a delightful mood, playful and darkly funny. And of course, it’s largely written in the peppy style of those classic magazines, which is something I didn’t know I wanted to see more of until now.
-
CONTENT WARNINGS (HOVER TO READ)
The Grave: spoilers
Cruel Sistah: spoilers
