Fiction Fans

Shards of Shattered Darkness by Mark N. Drake

• Episode 180

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Your hosts discuss "Shards of Shattered Darkness," a collection of stories by Mark N. Drake. They debate where exactly they think the collection falls on the horror genre spectrum, talk about how the collection works (or doesn't) as a thematic whole, and highlight some of their favorite pieces like "The Grey Berserker" and "Vane Harbor."


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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words, too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah. And I was prepared to do this and then it totally got to my time to introduce the book and I just didn't.

Lilly:

tricked you.

Sara:

You did. And today we will be discussing Shards of Shattered Darkness by Mark Drake.

Lilly:

But first, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:

I have two things. One is very silly in that Danny Finn reminded me of the video of a Welsh rugby coach giving a pep talk to his French team. And it is such a delightful video. I love it so much. Go watch it. If you speak French at all, even if you don't speak French, there's a video on YouTube that has subtitles. You'll be fine.

Lilly:

Is it just Welsh rugby coach gives pep talk to French team? Will that get me the right video?

Sara:

Yes, it will. There's like a Guardian Sport channel on YouTube that has a video of it. Anyway, so that's the silly one. And the actual answer is that I got rid of a very nice travel tote bag on my local Buy Nothing group. And I'm very, I'm very pleased because it's a really nice bag. It was taking up space. I'm not using it. And so it was nice to give it to a good home. Actually, the guy is picking it up at some point during this

Lilly:

Ooh, perfect. It'll be nice and chaotic.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

you use the Facebook group or the app?

Sara:

So I used my local Facebook

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Because I am still on Facebook because we need someone to manage our Facebook account.

Lilly:

Fair enough. My good thing is, also pretty silly, but I am a sucker for, at the, like, local grocer that I go to, they'll have the table of, this whole bag of bell peppers is only one dollar, and I fall for it every time.

Sara:

They get me that way too.

Lilly:

So, not as recently as I would like, I bought a bag of limes for a dollar, because, a whole bag of limes for a dollar, that's great. But. That was a little while ago, and I didn't use them, and they looked rough. Like, these were zombie limes. They were not fruit anymore.

Sara:

I mean, as long as they weren't, like, moldy.

Lilly:

weren't, they were just like, leathery. Brown and leathery.

Sara:

that's fine.

Lilly:

No, yeah, so I cut one open anyway, because I was like, but what if? Just in case, what if? And indeed, I would say only, like, half of them that had looked like that were actually unusable.

Sara:

Well, I'm glad that you were able to use them.

Lilly:

too!

Sara:

I like to juice and freeze fruit, like the citrus that I don't think I'll use in time, because that way I get all of the juice, and then I can just take stuff out of the freezer.

Lilly:

was my intention, but takes time.

Sara:

Yes, it does. I have a machine that makes things much faster, because I have lemons and have to do this very constantly.

Lilly:

nice, yeah. Well, what are you drinking tonight?

Sara:

I am drinking white wine, which is not really thematic at all. It doesn't really go with the vibe of this book But I had a bottle leftover open from family dinner last night, so that's what I'm drinking.

Lilly:

Well, I'm drinking black tea, because there is a fuckton of, well, tea consumed in this book. And I assume it was just basic bitch black tea, because was my guess. I did, this is actually vanilla chai, though, because that's what I

Sara:

So probably not actually the tea that they were drinking in the story.

Lilly:

but it's nice. I will say, oat milk goes better in coffee than it does in tea, and that is all we have in the house. But That's fine.

Sara:

I'm sorry. You could do like me and just not drink milk in your

Lilly:

Well, that'd be

Sara:

That solves that problem.

Lilly:

not actually, because the problem is having an enjoyable cup of tea. Have you read anything good lately?

Sara:

I have not been doing much reading besides podcast

Lilly:

Yeah, me neither. Alright, let's get, let's get you started.

Sara:

Okay, Shards of Shattered Darkness it's a collection of stories of varying lengths. And it was interesting, it's, I probably am not the intended audience for this because it is more on the spooky side of things,

Lilly:

And I think spooky really is the right word for this book. The foreword describes it as horror, and I don't know if it, like, hit that note for me personally.

Sara:

yeah, I mean, I would say that some of the stories were horror, but some of the stories in the collection were not quite that level.

Lilly:

were more like eerie ghost stories. Now, not all of them were ghost stories, but like that kind of vibe, you know?

Sara:

Yeah. Yeah. I think Spooky is really what I would consider this collection as a

Lilly:

Yeah, they weren't distressing to me, for the most part.

Sara:

Yeah. I mean,

Lilly:

liked.

Sara:

I have a much lower tolerance than that, so. Like, I, I wouldn't say I found them distressing they didn't, like, give me nightmares or anything. I don't, books don't usually do that, to be honest but they were definitely more within my tolerance level than I expected just from the foreword.

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

But, that being said, I still probably was not the intended audience it was not entirely my cup of tea just because it's not really a genre that I tend to go for. But it was interesting to read. There were some stories that I quite liked. Four no, five of the stories in this collection were related to a series of novels That Drake writes about a kind of, like, Lovecraftian island in England. And I would be interested in reading the first of that series at some point. I don't know when it's going to happen, but

Lilly:

is saying England gonna get us in trouble?

Sara:

You mean you think it's in Scotland or Ireland? The

Lilly:

as off the coast of I don't know. All I know is that the difference is important. I don't know what the difference is.

Sara:

difference is important. The UK, the United Kingdom is the, like, It's like the group of stuff, England is the one country

Lilly:

yeah, I think you're right, and we do at some point see Oxford students going there for vacation.

Sara:

Yeah. And they talk about there's one story where there's an outsider from Ireland.

Lilly:

Yeah, but also that's kind of like everyone not from the island is an outsider.

Sara:

that's true too.

Lilly:

I think, okay. I don't know if we're going to get in trouble, but I addressed it, so. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Sara:

So if we do get in trouble, please direct all of your angry comments at

Lilly:

It's a fictional island, though, so. Ha ha ha ha

Sara:

Yes, it is. And the fifth book in the series, the Dark Isle series, apparently just came out. So, that's neat. There are a lot of them.

Lilly:

definitely liked the Dark Isle stories in this collection better than I liked the Lovecraft stories we read a couple months ago.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

By a

Sara:

Agreed. Agreed.

Lilly:

And it, it did feel like that kind of creepy, powers outside of your control vibe that Lovecraft was going for in a much more enjoyable package. So, I would read more Dark Isle before I read more Lovecraft, I think.

Sara:

Yes. I mean, when Mark Drake reached out to us to ask if we'd be interested in reviewing Dark Isle, This copy, which he did he did describe what he writes as Lovecraftian horror. So I, I do think that, you know, there's a big inspiration there for those

Lilly:

Oh yeah, I mean, I think he, in his, in the afterwards as well. I just feel like Lovecraft doesn't deserve a whole genre named after him. But that's an argument for another day.

Sara:

I mean, whether he deserves it or not, the genre is named after him.

Lilly:

it is. So as spooky and eerie as these stories are, I did have a couple of laugh out loud moments. Because these are all so entrenched in the character's perspective, even the third person stories. You still had like a very strong voice for all of the different characters that are experiencing these things. And people are kind of funny sometimes. Like, it felt very, like, genuine and in character for the people we were hearing from, but just, I haven't heard the phrase, like a boss, in so long. That having it on the page just felt like a little tongue in cheek, sort of, I don't know, it was delightful.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

And I think that also contributed to these stories not being distressing in a, like, in the way that horror can be, you know? Just because there were so many of those little really human moments that just made me giggle. They were charming.

Sara:

It also, I don't know how to say this. And I, I mean this in a, not in a negative way, in a, in a neutral way the stories also felt not like they took place in the modern day

Lilly:

of them don't.

Sara:

and most of them don't, or a good portion of them don't, I mean, I think that they were contemporary, some of them were contemporary to the date that they were written, but I feel like that kind of took the edge off some of the horror for me a little bit as

Lilly:

It gives you some separation from it. Yeah, absolutely. I think these aren't like super gritty horror, right? It feels like I'm gonna call them a light hearted romp for the horror fan who needs a break but still likes that vibe.

Sara:

I'm sure we can, we can go with that. I get where you're coming

Lilly:

Well, because you are not a big horror fan, but these were still, like, a little more than you would like. So I wouldn't say someone who doesn't like horror would enjoy these as, like, dipping their toe into the genre.

Sara:

mean, I think it's a fine place to, to try. If you are not sure that you're a horror fan, I just, when you call a horror novel or even something like this a light hearted romp, there's just a, like, cognitive disconnect in my, in my head. This might be a me problem.

Lilly:

It's the,

Sara:

Like, I get, I get what you're going

Lilly:

yeah.

Sara:

But still, when I hear that, I'm like, hmm.

Lilly:

Honestly, I fuckin needed this collection today. I was like, let's read about ocean cults and flowers that give you nightmares. I'm into it.

Sara:

Yes. I did go back and forth wishing that the collection was more cohesive as a whole. Because the, even though the stories are kind of grouped by theme or, or, Like, there is, there is some intrinsic theme. Like, there's logic to Drake's grouping. But there are a lot of different sections, and I found myself sometimes wishing that There was more cohesion, but I don't know if that's just because the last collection of stories we read was all set in the same place and had the same setting. And so I, like, I don't know if that's just me comparing this collection to that collection.

Lilly:

Yeah, I think I see what you mean. Because the last section was so thematically tied together. It made the other ones feel more disparate because of that.

Sara:

Yeah, I think, I think that's quite true. And I, I just, I like that cohesion.

Lilly:

That was definitely, I think, most of my favorite stories came from that section.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

The Dark Isle stuff I really enjoyed. I liked other ones too, and I think we're going to use our spoiler section to kind of delve into the stories in more specifics. But a lot of them are so short, you can't talk about them at all without spoiling them. And so many of these stories have An almost Twilight Zone esque twist to them, that I don't think I could explain why I liked one without giving away the twist, which would also kind of defeat the point of the story.

Sara:

So I've never actually seen Twilight Zone. I mean, I've heard references to it, obviously. Like, I'm a person in society. But when you say a Twilight Zone esque twist, I don't actually, because I don't know what the twists in Twilight Zone were, I don't actually know how you intend that.

Lilly:

Okay. I'm gonna describe one episode to you and that is gonna be the extent of my explanation, because I'm not actually that knowledgeable about Twilight Zone. I'm just familiar with the genre, and I've seen, you know, some of the classics.

Sara:

right.

Lilly:

Also, I'm probably going to get this wrong. Come at me in the comments. But it'll get the point across to you. There is an episode where we see a young woman and she's like surrounded by medical personnel and everyone is talking about how it's such a tragedy like this poor girl or young woman, girl, Like, can we fix her? There is, there are medical interventions. Like, she's so ugly and, like, the whole episode goes on about how this normal looking girl is just, like, the most unfortunate piece of shit. And then at the very end it zooms out and everyone has pig faces. That's why they think she's ugly.

Sara:

Okay, okay, I get it.

Lilly:

And there are a couple of stories here where the twist was like, man was the villain all along. Humans are the greatest monster, kind of thing. Which was especially fun after reading Chris Farnell's Fermi's Wake, because that's a refrain that we see in that a lot, more in a meta conversation way. But it had me really primed to be like, Yes. Give me that twist.

Sara:

Yes,

Lilly:

I think I tended to prefer the longer stories to the shorter ones overall.

Sara:

I agree. I don't think Drabbles are very hit and miss for me. Like, something that's that short I think you have to make it really, really good for me to enjoy it. So I do think that most of these stories, like the long form fiction, worked better.

Lilly:

Yeah, I mean, when we say long form, we mean short story as opposed to like

Sara:

Yes. Yes. Longer than a hundred words.

Lilly:

I think the flash fiction pieces leaned a little too hard on that twist aspect,

Sara:

I would agree with that.

Lilly:

whereas the the longer stories We actually got character development that was really enjoyable. Like, all of the different people that we meet in this collection feel like really genuinely human entities, even though they're only on the page for a short amount of time. I really loved that about them.

Sara:

it's really hard to make a twist like that hit when you have that little room in your story. There's one story, not in this collection, it's, it's by a completely unrelated author called Five Views of the Planet Tartarus. And it's only 549 words, but I think that does that really well. But that's also five times as long as some of the stories. like, flash fiction pieces in this particular collection.

Lilly:

And so even though we get some really incredible character work in the slightly longer pieces, we miss out on that in the flash fiction pieces. And so that was too bad. Another thing that I really, really engaged with in the longer pieces was So they, they also have these twists at the end, but they're foreshadowed, like we get little hints earlier in the story and it really, like, it makes sense with what's happening in the narrative. So it was really fun playing along with the story and trying to guess, like, especially after I'd caught on after the first section or so, I was like, alright, what's this one gonna be? And trying to, like, Felt like reading Sherlock Holmes stories, like trying to figure out what the twist would be at the end.

Sara:

It, it felt like this was a collection that rewarded that kind of behavior

Lilly:

That sounds so condescending.

Sara:

No, I, I don't mean it in a condescending

Lilly:

I mean like at me though, not at the writer. Your kind of behavior.

Sara:

I don't mean it in a condescending way, like, I, I'm being genuine here. But, but I feel like it's really nice when a piece knows that that's the behavior that its readers are going to be engaging with, and so they, like, it makes it more enjoyable.

Lilly:

and easy to surprise a reader, right? Just have something bonkers happen. But that's not a good twist. A good twist is the one that you can actually, like, try to figure out. And even if you're wrong just having that, like, logical throughline makes it really fun.

Sara:

Yes,

Lilly:

that was something that was really great in, again, the slightly longer pieces, because there wasn't quite enough of an on ramp for the shorter ones.

Sara:

yeah,

Lilly:

So, That was definitely, I would say, another thing that really worked for me for the longer pieces in this.

Sara:

yeah, I agree. And that did, I think that was one of the contributing factors that makes me interested in reading one of the actual, like, novels for Dark Isle is to see how that can be Thank you. even improved upon in a full novel versus a short story.

Lilly:

absolutely. I agree completely. I do love how varied the lengths were though, because when you're reading a book, especially like a physical novel and I'm gonna keep talking about mysteries, because I feel like that's actually a very good analog to the experience for these stories, reading these stories. And your hero comes up with a solution, but you know you're halfway through the book because you can see how many pages are left. And you're like, well, I know that's not the right one, because I got half a fucking book left to read.

Sara:

Yeah, the varied lengths did make it hard to guess where you were in the plot progression.

Lilly:

It makes it so much more not impulsive, that's not the right word, but it kept me off balance as a reader in a way that really, Improved the, that, like, mystery, untangling aspect. Cause if you don't know if you're halfway through or almost to the end, like, anything could hap genuinely anything could happen. Which gave it, like, a really nice off kilter effect to me while I was reading it. That It put me off kilter, which was a really nice effect, I think would be the human way to construct that sentence. So having the short, like, flash fiction pieces, I think, improved the collection as a whole. They just definitely were not my favorite pieces in the collection.

Sara:

Yeah, I'm not sure if I would go so far as that. Like, I didn't necessarily have that same experience of really enjoying not knowing where I was in the length of The story, but I think that's just because the genres were not for me as a whole. So I was not engaging with the content in the same way that you

Lilly:

Yeah, that's fair.

Sara:

In summary, I think that was a me problem. And so your experience is probably more universal for people who are reading this collection.

Lilly:

Yeah, if you're the right audience, that's gonna be a benefit for you.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

is kind of a universal statement for most books.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

Well, we kind of already talked about who this book is for. Although you might disagree with me a little bit.

Sara:

I, I don't disagree with you, I, necessarily, I just disagree with you calling it a light romp. Even though I know, I know entirely what you're going for, and you're not wrong, but I also disagree.

Lilly:

Yeah. The only other phrasing I can think of is like in the, if you look at like an ocean of horror, this is in the shallow end. But I don't want to call them shallow, so that doesn't work.

Sara:

But I like that description better.

Lilly:

has other meanings.

Sara:

you can, you can, this is, this is a dip your toes in horror kind of book, you're not jumping in.

Lilly:

Yeah. Dip your toes in horror. I like that. This was a wading pool, not a deep dive. I

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

deep dive, eh. Anyway, some, some kind of analogy is where we're at.

Sara:

You're not gonna drown in this pool.

Lilly:

And sometimes we're all just treading water. And so this is the kind of collection you need. Perfect amount of escapism for me. Because like you said, it didn't feel like immediately stressful because there was a kind of, like, nice degree of separation between my reality and these stories, the settings and everything. Which was great.

Sara:

It was not reminding me of present day problems. I did appreciate that.

Lilly:

shall we talk about some of our favorite stories with a little bit more detail?

Sara:

Yes. Let's.

Lilly:

This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by Fiction Fans.

Sara:

That's us. We really appreciate our patrons, because otherwise we fund this podcast entirely ourselves.

Lilly:

Patrons can find weekly bonus content, including monthly exclusive episodes, and have free access to our biannual zine, Solstitia.

Sara:

You can find all of that and more at patreon. com slash fictionfanspod. Thank you for all of your support.

Lilly:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers.

Sara:

Okay, so, favorite stories.

Lilly:

I mean, this collection started strong. The Grey Berserker was incredible. Two reasons. One, Vikings? Dope. Love that. And In a little bit of a more serious vein, in the afterward, Drake goes into how he actually, like, did research. And I think that really pays off. It's a short story. We're not, like, learning about the social structure of Vikings. But it didn't feel like a cheap caricature at any point.

Sara:

Yes, they were not just Disney vikings who were only vikings because they have horns on their

Lilly:

Yeah, no, zero horned helmets. Fantastic. And then also, I think that was one of the stories that did freak me out the most. There were, I'm gonna say, two, like, body horror stories. This one and Keeper.

Sara:

I feel like there's a little bit of body horror in the last story too.

Lilly:

Eh, a little bit. It was not as impactful to me personally, but that might just be me.

Sara:

it's, it's not as, it doesn't get as much screen time, but it ends with one of the guy's faces splitting open in unusual directions.

Lilly:

I guess. I, I can't describe why that felt more like monster horror and less like body horror. Cause I have no justification. But,

Sara:

I, I feel like it probably is because of the amount of time that we see it on the

Lilly:

It's also not, like, a main character. I feel like it's

Sara:

is, he is a main

Lilly:

Okay, but he's not, like, the There's only four characters. He's not the main guy. He's the antagonist, if anything.

Sara:

I

Lilly:

He's trying to cock block the main character.

Sara:

he doesn't like the main character. I don't know if I would call him, I don't know if I would call it cock blocking. Or, or trying to cock block. I think

Lilly:

cock blocking,

Sara:

I think he manages to cock block the main character, but I don't think that's his intention. Anyway, this is completely digressing from talking about the first story.

Lilly:

okay. But, at the end, we see one of the characters, like, transformed into this monster, and then Basically perish due to it. And the description of, like, their skull being twisted around inside the head skin was gnarly.

Sara:

It was very freaky.

Lilly:

and that, like, freaked me out in a way that a lot of them didn't. There are also a lot of ghost stories in this collection, and ghost stories just don't, they're not a hot button for me, personally. So. Those are always going to be like, ME! Instead of, what the fuck.

Sara:

Yeah, I, I really liked the first story too. I It was really interesting to me to learn that it is connected to the Dark Isle stories. Like, I liked that clearly there's this huge depth of history and background to This fake island and so that was a neat little tidbit to learn from the author's note at the end, too.

Lilly:

it was kind of wild to me that it was in the first section and not with the other Dark Isle stories.

Sara:

I agree.

Lilly:

But also, I liked starting with it, so that's fine. I'm just still baffled.

Sara:

I think it also makes sense because wasn't the first section like the historical section?

Lilly:

Yeah, and like, so it felt right for the timeline of the novel, or the collection. Except then, it ends with stuff in the 1920s. So like, we go We go from historical through to science fiction, future y stuff, and then back to the 1920s.

Sara:

right, because the last section is not based on like a time period, it's based on this series of, yeah,

Lilly:

Yeah, but that still makes it incongruous as part of the collection as a whole.

Sara:

Yeah, I mean, again, I think this harkens back to some of my issues with just the disparity in the stories and the collection and the lack of cohesiveness.

Lilly:

I think he should have done two collections and given us more sci fi and kept it somewhere else.

Sara:

Possibly,

Lilly:

given, like, had more of the more, like, historical, fantasy, contemporary creepy cult stuff in this one. But, just write twice as much is not a

Sara:

that's easy peasy. I don't know what you're talking about. I think one of my favorite stories was vain Harbor, which is basically about, there's a company that's illegally dumping toxic waste into the ocean and a scientist and her intern are down at this Harbor to look at. Stuff. And the seaweed turns evil and eats everyone, basically. That's a really terrible summary of the story. But I liked it because no one got out alive, even though I really wanted them to. And there's a moment at the end where, like, you think that at least the scientist is going to make it. And then They don't.

Lilly:

Yeah, and that was also the one that felt the most. Immediately applicable with, you know, corporations abusing natural resources, et cetera, et cetera.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

It did feel more connected. I felt more connected to that one. Although, I am not a scientist. And I think that did also make it hit a little harder.

Sara:

Yeah. I, it felt more relevant to the world, which I know we've spent a lot of time talking about how we liked that these stories didn't always feel like immediate

Lilly:

I am not a

Sara:

world problems.

Lilly:

likely to not be murdered by a viking monster.

Sara:

Well, you never know. But I do think that conversely, like, the immediacy of the story and the relevance actually really does help make it more impactful.

Lilly:

And I like getting freaked out. I am a horror reader. So, it is, like, it is nice when that happens. It's just also nice when it was like, It was a sprinkle of that in here, instead of me sitting down from the first page to the last page going, UGH!

Sara:

I mean, I was very glad that it was not an entire downpour of that. Not a horror reader.

Lilly:

I think the one that got me the most, though, was Tribute, which was part of the Dark Isle collection. But that one, there's a lot of stuff with a con artist taking advantage of a brother of the main character who ends up being the main, the girl who ends up being the main character. And how, like, she works at an asylum that's, you know, in the 1920s and all the bad shit that is involved with that. But at the end, there's this, there's this mo there's this line earlier on, where Marsha? Was that her name?

Sara:

That's a good question.

Lilly:

a patient who is in the Asylum, because everyone thinks she killed her child, but she says she did not, but she won't tell anyone what actually happened. And she eventually opens up to our main character,

Sara:

Martha.

Lilly:

Okay, thank you. And tells our main character, like, oh I can get revenge on that awful con artist for you. The spirits of the island is not how she says it, but there are forces here. that, you know, will take care of us but they do demand tribute. Some people give tribute willingly, others don't. And that was just kind of like a, ooh, creepy line at the time. Until you get to the end and discover that the revenge that she got on this con artist was her become, like, implied. That she was forcibly impregnated by whatever ocean cult gods are, influence over this island, and then they ripped the child away from her, and now she is just like a broken husk of a person. And, that's fucking horrifying.

Sara:

Yeah, it, it's horrifying. Either she didn't want to be pregnant and she was forcibly impregnated, or she wanted to keep the child herself and it was taken away from her. It's horrifying on all levels.

Lilly:

Yes. None of it, it's just, yeah, it's all the, all the stuff. I also really liked the con artist character, Persephone Crostini? That's not her name, but it was close is her fake name anyway. Like, we get a lot of from her perspective at the beginning, which I really enjoyed, because she's not a nice person. She's a con artist doing a romance scam, but also she was pretty cool.

Sara:

I mean, I kind of hated her, but that was the point. I was not supposed to like her. She was not supposed to be a sympathetic character. So Yeah,

Lilly:

Mm hmm.

Sara:

I hated her. But that doesn't mean that she deserved to be forcibly impregnated and go through whatever she went through.

Lilly:

I mean, most people don't.

Sara:

It's true.

Lilly:

So this was a short one that I really enjoyed, not exactly because it freaked me out, like, I didn't, you know, but a natural phenomenon. It was very short, it's about some scientists who have intercepted a signal from like intelligence in space. It's amazing. It's coming from this planet. That's so cool. And it just says food. And then at the very end, it turns out the planet's actually a giant monster and it eats earth. And I was just so silly and charming and it made me giggle. And it was probably not so But I think it was, like, silly and self aware. I think I was supposed to be a little cute.

Sara:

Yeah, I mean, I definitely thought that it was supposed to be cute. Like, I don't think that's one of the ones that was supposed to horrify readers, per se.

Lilly:

But I mean, the concept of a giant space monster eating Earth, like, totally fits in the collection. But it was like a palate cleanser. It was just, like, delightful.

Sara:

Yeah, like, I don't mean to imply that it was wrong for the collection or anything. It definitely fit, but,

Lilly:

In a different way.

Sara:

in a different way, yeah. Like, I don't think it was supposed to be hard hitting horror. Similarly, a story that I found pretty cute was Bleaklow, which is, we have these two men who were in an airplane crash and they're trying to find their way home well, not home, but find their way to people who can help and they eventually run into a woman who is able to, like, take them back to not civilization, but like back to a point where they can get to someplace. And then it turns out they were the ghosts all along.

Lilly:

because they thought she was a ghost because she was like kind of weird and being strange. And talking about landmarks that they hadn't seen. And then yeah, that was They were the

Sara:

Yeah, it was, it was just, it was a sweet story and even though I did find some of the, like, lines of the reveal to be a little over the top I just, I liked the vibe of it.

Lilly:

I really liked the woman's character. You learn so much about her and who she is. Even though she's only there for, like, a second.

Sara:

yeah, you, you learn a lot about her in a really short time,

Lilly:

But in a way that felt really natural.

Sara:

yeah, like, not in a way that's info dumpy. It, it flows seamlessly in the story.

Lilly:

I think I liked the stories about trash characters more than you did a little

Sara:

Well, you, you do tend to enjoy trash characters more than I do, so that's not a surprise.

Lilly:

I also really liked the plot, which is about another romance con artist. Hmm. Well, I'll

Sara:

I'm

Lilly:

later, yeah. But it was really fun getting to see the perspectives of these characters doing really shitty things. But being, like, feeling perfectly self justified. It was really fun getting the perspective of these characters, who were really awful and doing really awful things, but felt fully self justified.

Sara:

Yeah, the main character of the plot, I mean, to be fair, when we first meet her, she is definitely like, well, I don't want to say the victim, but also kind of the victim, like her, she's in an abusive relationship. And yeah, she stole stuff from her partner, but also that's no reason why he should come at her with a knife.

Lilly:

And although mitigating circumstance, we do find out that she only got in a relationship with him to steal from him. Which I do think makes it worse.

Sara:

yeah, I mean, like, she is a terrible person. He's also a terrible,person. The fact that she's a terrible person doesn't necessarily mean that what he does is justified.

Lilly:

yeah, no, they both suck for

Sara:

yeah, they, they both suck. But she, she was. So awful about the person who saves her that I just, I couldn't enjoy it. I mean, she was supposed to be awful. Like, that was intentional. We were not supposed to like her.

Lilly:

I felt so bad for Thaddeus. Oh my goodness.

Sara:

Yeah, I did too. He did not, he did not deserve

Lilly:

No! But she kind of deserves what she gets at the end.

Sara:

She does, but I,

Lilly:

that twist.

Sara:

I think that the reason why I didn't like the story as much was that I liked him too much.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

He does not deserve to die.

Lilly:

one was distressing because it sucks reading about bad things that happen to good people.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

I thought that maybe, at the end, the the plot of land that is creating magic beans to give him whatever he needs. Which, fun concept. She buries him in it after she accidentally murders him and I thought it was gonna bring him back to life

Sara:

I thought that

Lilly:

and then that would have been like, and then even Thaddeus doesn't have any consequences, yay!

Sara:

Yeah, like, if, if her death had brought him back, I would have been 100 percent on

Lilly:

Yeah, But instead it turns out That the plot wasn't giving Thaddeus what he needed, it gave him what he deserved. And he deserved nice things, because he was a good person. And our main character deserved a horrible slug death.

Sara:

Yes. Also, someone who deserved what he got was the abusive husband in

Lilly:

Oh, hell yeah! See, that one, there's no like, aw, bummer, in it. I mean,

Sara:

Yeah, that one, the abusive,

Lilly:

is like, aw, bummer, but

Sara:

the abusive relationship is definitely not great, but I could celebrate the end of the book because it's only the abusive husband who, like, gets killed.

Lilly:

And the wife gets like an incredible, like, one liner at the

Sara:

She gets, she gets to gloat, and I was so, like, here for it.

Lilly:

And the setup that he has been paralyzed and is going to be slowly consumed by baby spiders over the course of six months, pretty horrifying. That one was a dark one, but it didn't feel bad because I was like, hell yeah, get him.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

even though probably one of the darker things that happens, I wasn't, like, viscerally upset by it.

Sara:

I mean, this was also a Dark Isle story, and in one of the other Dark Isle stories, we hear about a different creature who basically does the same thing. So it just like I was kind of mentally prepped for it, I think, because even though in the other story, like, we don't see any of that. We just hear about it and it is a different creature. It meant that I was not necessarily surprised so much when it happened

Lilly:

Yeah, you were kind of prepped for it.

Sara:

Yeah, prepped. And also, I mean, he deserved it. He was a

Lilly:

it. Yeah. A horror collection that left me feeling good at the end.

Sara:

Not

Lilly:

No, I just, I, the collection as a whole,

Sara:

Oh, the collection as a whole.

Lilly:

I mean, the last story does have, like, I would say a more open ended ending.

Sara:

It is open ended. I definitely did not get the impression that they survived at the end of that open ending.

Lilly:

me neither. So, like, a not, not literally, I got to the last story, the ending of the last story was happy. I just meant like, the experience of reading it as a whole went through, you know, more and less intense periods of horror, but overall was like, fun for me.

Sara:

I'm not sure I would go that far, but again, I'm not a horror reader, and so this is very much a me thing and not a reflection of the quality of the collection.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Because I'm not the intended reader, so like, take my, take my statements with a grain of salt.

Lilly:

Absolutely. And that's your prerogative.

Sara:

Not every book has to be for every person, and that's okay.

Lilly:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara:

Come disagree with us! We're on Blue Sky and Instagram, at FictionFansPod. And you can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com or leave a comment on our YouTube channel.

Lilly:

Tell me that I described that Twilight Zone episode badly.

Sara:

There was something that I did that we thought would be controversial

Lilly:

Oh, where, where the Dark Isle actually is, physically.

Sara:

Yes. Yes.

Lilly:

Yeah. If you enjoyed the episode otherwise, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Sara:

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclu We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!