Eve Tushnet
A vampire, in the depths of the Soviet Lubyanka prison, knows he will live when Stalin’s empire is in the ash heap of history. Two nervous philosophers argue about whether the zombies gathering outside have a valid alternative deathstyle. A melodramatic nihilist decides to revolt against Nature itself–and wins, and learns what lies beyond Nature. Supernatural totalitarians try to co-opt an artist.
Melinda Selmys has a gift for the startling, illuminating idea. Against Nature, her (relatively) new horror anthology, is filled with high-concept tales–I haven’t even told you about the one with the homicidal fairy who kills through poetry, or the one where a genderqueer hero goes up against a maternal horror from the Cthulhu mythos. (I don’t know if mother-horror is a thing Lovecraft himself did, but once you’ve read an environmentalist mother-horror Cthulhu story you only wonder why you haven’t read more.) There’s a sharp, gory little tale inspired by First Nations storytelling, with a wry sting in the tail. There’s a dreamlike genre-crossing tale of the love of a ditz and a sociopath, on their first date in the land of the dead.
Concepts and images are the strongest points here, the vivid imagining of bloodshot new lenses through which to view the world; endings are sometimes the weak point. That Lubyanka tale has some great lines (a guard is a “rusted pipe through which suffering flows into the prison”) and I love the idea of the ending, but the actual final lines on the page are overwritten. “Schrodinger’s Zombie” has a fairly perfunctory ending. It’s too bad that some of the weakest endings come earliest in the collection, since later tales like “Mother R’lyeh” and “Against Nature” close with a snap.
The prose styles are varied enough, and uneven enough, that I feel like Selmys hasn’t yet settled in to her voice(s). On the other hand, there’s something here for everyone. My own preference is for the philosophical bickering of “Against Nature” (the arguments are funnier and smarter here than in the zombie tale, and the characters emerge much more clearly) and not the hyper-lush adolescent intensity of “The Faery Cry,” but both of those stories do the thing they set out to do really well. There are great images: “smoothed granite rocks slipping in melted-candle layers”; an old woman’s wrinkled hands like “a van Gogh sky.”
This is a self-published book, which has one drawback: There are a lot of copyediting errors. On the other hand, the cover art is beautiful and haunting. It’s a clever idea perfectly executed. You’ll be happy to see it on your shelf.
Full disclosure: Melinda is a friend, she sent me her book for free, and it might be dedicated to me–not sure, if it’s publish-on-demand she might be able to change the dedications with each printing–? That said, I hope I’ve given you enough to know if you want to pick this up for yourself. If you want a real chocolate-box horror collection, with a little of everything and something tasty for every tooth, Against Nature will tickle your fangs.
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