#storyeachnight Beast Within 2: Predators and Prey
#storyeachnight is a Twitter movement to encourage reading more short stories, one night and one story at a time.
#storyeachnight tonight with Solitary Instinct by Wendy N. Wagner from Beast Within 2: Preditor and Prey. This is a not-at-all veiled story of empowerment through predation, which while not at all bad was little more. The problem with tales like this is often they’re too simplistic, too obvious. The mc’s initial weakness is too much so you know that suddenly having power will corrupt the MC to a similar degree. People don’t change so easily even when suddenly empowered, lending the story an air of inauthenticity, as well as making the take away message that people cannot be trusted with power, so it’s better to keep them repressed. Not saying that’s the author’s message just the corrupted message of such tales after you read too many of them.
The Strange Tale of the Viennese Mathmetician by Joshua Reynolds from Beast Within 2. A WW-ish steampunk tale with exiled royalty-turned-spies, Dracul raiders and zeppelin bombers its vivid & a little dizzying. It’s very exciting, but a little too intense for a short story, rather like if one took the 2nd half of Inglorious Basterds and cut in the vampire bits of From Dusk til Dawn at the theater scene. With werewolves. Regardless it’s an awful lot of fun.
The Adventure of the Missing trophy by Mark W Coulter from Beast Within 2. A Sherlock Holmes & Werecritters tale it’s woefully straight forward for a Holmes story. Not to mention supernatural. It’s not at all bad, just….expected. The problem with theme anthos is that you can’t have a story published in a werewolf book and then have the big reveal be that a character is a werewolf. Readers are going into stories with expectations and that kind of reveal doesn’t work. Especially in a theme story. We are no longer in a world where people just don’t think about the paranormal. Story tension solely being “It’s a Supernatural thingie!” is not going to work in a culture where we’ve grown up with Count Chocula and Frankenberry and Demi Moore loving a ghost. When writers depend on the same old tension readers look for new things to do with their favorite themes. Thus ParaRomance & UF.
Blood Will Tell by JG Faherty The short form cheats this rich historical tale. It would make an excellent, classic horror-style novel or novella if expanded.
Vanessa McAvoy’s Statement by Kelly Sails, a tale of a kindergarten class of shapeshifters gone sugar-mad. It’s over the top, silly and invokes memories of Kindergarten Cop. “It’s not a tumor!” (Apparently it’s a were-ferret)
Tonight’s #storyeachnight was Ties of Silver by James L. Sutter from Beast Within 2. Overall, I liked it. Love the paranormal noir angle, the voice, the plot, everything. Would have loved a whole book. Except that the only female in the story is only described by her breasts. The complete flatness of her seriously annoyed me.
The Long Road to Sanctum by Richard Farnsworth (Beast Within 2). It’s not really a long story, which is a shame because the post-apoc western feel reminds me of @k_h_koehler ‘s Black Jack Derringer. It’s an enjoyable read, but I was so into the weird western thing I was disappointed that there was little meat to the story.
Masako’s Tale by @bymichaelwest from Beast Within 2. It’s a good tale with a rare Japanese flavor. Definitely an unexpected and welcome change from more standard werecritter fare. It’s really a fairy tale more than a shifter story. Though it is that too.
Help Wanted by Lydia Ondrusek from Beast Within 2. It’s a real lovely story, not at all the kind you’d expect to find in a horror-themed book. It’s set during the post-oil spill clean up in the gulf and handles the topic real well. A pleasure to read, actually.
Desperate Housewolves by Erik Scott de Bie. Despite pretty much knowing what was going to happen this was a fun little tale (totally made better by a male lead who volunteers at an animal rescue!)
Life Decisions by Dylan Birtolo. It’s a 20s shifter mob tale, but lacking a lot of things, like details. I didn’t realize it was a 20s story because there’s little flavor to it. Likewise there’s little emotional involvement with the story. It’s one of those “things happen in an order” stories. But without any vibrancy or emotional connection.
Tonight #storyeachnight is Papa Pirana by Angel Leigh McCoy. I was prepared not to like this one because of a cliche-feeling opening. Yeah, it could have used a little more tightening (again I saw where the story was going) but it had everything the previous story lacked–excellent multicultural flavor, lush description, and an oddball kind of shape shifter that I never expected to read about. Kudos.
Deserter by Gabrielle Harbowy & Marie Bilodeaux. Military SF shifters for the win! This nice little blend of a tale is surprisingly yummy and manages to toss a nod to classic-style shifter tales into the mix.
Corvidae by Kerrie L. Hughes. It feels like the start of a Coraline-like adventure. I would have read a lot more of this one.
In One Stride Comes the Dark by Kenneth Mark Hoover–What a perfect, poignant end to this anthology. A wild west tale with all the archetypes, but none of the trite cliché, your Wise Native, White Hat and Outlaw all make an appearance. Totally satisfying.