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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Equal to QF1, February 11, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Queer Fear: Gay Horror Fiction, Vol. 2 (Paperback)
Though thoroughly disappointed by the first Queer Fear anthology, I picked up QF2 full of hope that the ratio of good stories to mediocre/bad stories would surpass that of QF1. Unfortunately, QF2 does not improve upon the first collection. Most of the stories are flat, with thesaurus-styled words that fail not only to produce horror, but also fail to provide any sense of time, place, atmosphere or emotional punch. There are, thankfully, two exceptions offered up here. Poppy Brite's piece, "Bayou de la Mere", though hardly horror in even the loosest definition of the word (it's inclusion, no doubt, designed to increase sales) does evoke a sensual yet real atmosphere and presents some interesting characters. The other is David Coffey's "On Being A Fetish" which is hands-down the best piece in the anthology and a smashingly good short story in its own right. Coffey give us a new spin on Ouija boards and tells his story in a simple but descriptive manner that manages to give us atmosphere, strong characters, and some dark laughs along the way. Coffey is certainly a writer whose work I will search out in the future. Other than those two pieces, though, QF2 falls into mediocrity. If this is the best gay horror out there, I would be shocked and disappointed.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Does Not Live up to the Original, September 11, 2007
This review is from: Queer Fear: Gay Horror Fiction, Vol. 2 (Paperback)
For many years the genre of horror fiction has been almost exclusively written by heterosexuals for heterosexuals. These stories, typically involve a female victim and a male antagonist. However in this new millennium, when the line that separates gay from straight has become more and more ambiguous, art had begun to imitate life as we are now presented with an anthology of horror stories in which the protagonists as well as the victims are very clearly homosexual.
I first read Queer Fear (2000) in early 2001 after coming across it in a Bookstore I frequented. I read it from cover to cover a number of times, until I had portions of it committed to memory. So, I was extremely excited when I discovered that a second anthology had been compiled into Queer Fear II.
Queer Fear II gets off to a great start with its first story, Bugcrush. It concerns a subject that anyone, gay or straight, can easily identify with, one's first crush. I instantly sympathized with Ben the high school student as he agonized over his own desire for Grant, the object of his crush. When Grant invites Ben over to his house one day, it seems that Ben's dream is about to come true only to have that dream descend into a nightmare of date rape and murder in a most gruesome manner.
David Coffey's On Being a Fetish, gives us a glimpse of the afterlife for Chuck, who died 20 years prior and wanders his hometown as a lonely spirit. A young man described as an Eminem wannabe draws Chuck's attention and interest after an erotic episode with a ouija board. The two begin an unlikely relationship using the ouija board in a most unusual way. The relationship goes to new levels as Chuck basically becomes a voyeur to a willing Eminem's nightly "bedtime" ritual. Other than invoking a sense of fear, the purpose of this story seems to be to disgust the reader with it's description of necrophilia; however, it also serves as a reminder that the need for love follows us even past the grave itself, and that (at least for Chuck)that search is no more easier in death than it is in life.
Other stories such as Gay Town by Robert Boyckuk, make little if any sense at all. Rather than a horror story, the author seems to be making a statement against remaining in the closet rather than living one's life openly. In the end the central mystery goes unexplained, and the reader is left without any sense of closure. Although a good story in and of itself Poppy Z. Brite's Bayou de la Mere, in no way can be considered horror by any definition of the word. Perhaps it's inclusion in Queer Fear II was meant to increase sales by drawing in the authors fans. Bayou de la Mere would likely be more comfortable in a book of gay erotica.
I really wanted to like this book, I really did. However, like many things in life, it simply does not stand up to the original. While it has a few exceptional stories, the mediocre/bad ones are more numerous. In the end, it simply is not worth the time, effort, or expense to weed through the drivel in order to get to the stories worthy of one's attention and interest.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lifting the lid once more on the queer psyche, June 15, 2004
This review is from: Queer Fear: Gay Horror Fiction, Vol. 2 (Paperback)
This collection builds on the success of its predecessor. It's a tall order to put together an anthology like this, and Michael Rowe does an excellent job of assembly. What is Queer Horror anyway? How do we define it? Is it just ghost, vampire and monster stories that contain gay and lesbian characters? If this is the case, then we must be extremely broad in our inclusion. Perhaps Queer Horror is more about a perspective, a thrill or sense of loathing that stands outside the norm? In Rowe's case, I feel that the latter definition is more appropriate. Over and over again, the stories in Queer Fear 2 take us away from the norm, inviting us to be a character on the outside looking in, a perspective that is only too familiar for glbt readers. And in this outsider perspective we find true horror, that which degrades us, dehumanizes us, which sets us up for failure. Repeatedly we see ordinary glbt characters put into extraordinary circumstances, with horrifying results. In C. Mark Umland's "Dead in the Water," we witness the horror of a gay man caught in a failing heterosexual marriage, desperately trying to come to terms with... himself. In Scott Treleaven's "Bugcrush," (which heads the collection and was one of my favorites) we find the teenage roots of many well-known queer addictions - drugs, sex, indulgence. The creeping sense of familiarity we gain at Ben's crush on Grant morphs from teenage nostalgia to adult sexual excess, all within the confines of a backyard shed. Here suddenly is the obsession that started it all, plotted before us in all it's skin-crawling detail. More than just another horror anthology, glbt readers of all genres will find some fresh perspectives and some well-constructed stories in this volume.
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