Customer Reviews

Bending the Landscape: Vol 3: Horror (Bending the Landscape; Original Gay and Lesbian Writing)

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Having read the Science Fiction volume of this series, I was pleased when this book was selected by my local book group and I approaching reading it with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, like everybody else in the book group, I was pretty disappointed. The stories in this collection are not satisfying as horror (e.g. they're not scary, creepy, don't cause feeling os paranoia), nor are many of them satisfying as gay stories (e.g. almost all the relationships in the book are negative and some stories barely have gay content at all). Many of the stories provoked what we in our book discussion called an "eh?" reaction -- too slow, lacking horror element, lacking element of a "story" with start, middle & end. There were a few stand-out stories (my favorites were "Broken Canes," "Memorabilia," and "Blood Requium") but the problem is that even the good stories failed as horror. I would say the collection is "OK" but if you don't read it, it's not a big miss.

Some of the stories here are excellent, the best in my opinion being "Coyote Love". Mark McLaughlin, Barbara Hambly and Mark Tiedemann also contribute strong stories. Generally, the level is professional, although there are a few clunkers.

These stories mostly go beyond "minority literature" and should appeal to readers of speculative fiction and short stories in general.