If you love pulp stories like me, you'll find some gems in this large, expansive collection. It strongly reminded me of a lot of old-school sci-fi and horror. Most stories have twists at the end, a traditional pulp device which fits in well with the anthology theme of escape. One common weakness is that quite a few stories felt like opening chapters to longer works, but the best of the bunch are truly excellent, and well worth the price of the anthology.
The Carnival: This was a retelling of the Little Matchstick Girl story. Evocative, atmospheric but trailed away with an inconclusive ending. C
The Simulation Addict: This story was ambitious and gritty, but had a predictable ending and a style that suffered from several defects such as said-bookism. D
The Listener: A sweet tiny little story, though a bit on the juvenile side for this more adult-oriented collection. C
The Lake on the Mountain: Unfortunately incomprehensible. F
Sepulcro de Demonios: An enjoyable Mexican wrestling story that would have been best in illustrated form, as a comic book vignette. B
Here Kitty: Disappointing, and featured a twist ending that fell like a lead balloon. D
The Curl of the Wave: Rich imagery and language, but extremely incomplete and undercharacterized. C
The Key Garden: Another sweet but less mature story. C
Crash: Fantastic. A shocking dystopia story that reminded me heavily of Theodore Sturgeon's work. Miles above the quality of the majority of the stories in storytelling, voice, and moral depth. A
The Devil and Neil Armstrong: A classic sort of time travel paradox story that failed to grab my emotions, even though it was intellectually interesting. B
Fiji Stew: A well-told horror story that reminds me a bit of William Hope Hodgson's sea stories. Although it relies on a certain racist trope, the story isn't offensive beyond that, and the voice was wonderful and creepy and the length no longer than it should have been. A
In a Mirror, Broken: Another opening-chapter story which dissolved into incomprehensibility and suffered from terrible said-bookism. "Not in any family documents," Sophia continued. "She's fiction," James replied. "Then who's sending letters to her?" Sophia challenged. "I don't know." "Well, don't you think we should open the letters and find out?" she suggested." ARRGH. D
Junkyard Cemetery: A damn cracking good horror story about hell. The kind of story that's been told a million times in its bare bones, but the details make all the difference, and the details here were quite satisfyingly gruesome. A
The Double Letter Gang: An amusing superhero story, but like the Mexican wrestling story, it felt colorless without images. C
Dreamdance: I wanted to like this story, but it fell apart on the characterization level, and suffered from an inconclusive ending. D
Scarves: This was another one of my favorites. The style was spare and effective. Neither character was particularly sympathetic, but they weren't meant to be. It really exposed the moral disturbance at the heart of the selkie legend, and stood sufficient in itself as a story. A
In the future, I hope this publishing house is a bit tighter on the style issues and consistency of these anthologies. But kudos to them for making this collection available and introducing me to the writing of so many new authors, several of whom have written absolutely outstanding pieces.
