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Corpus Pretereo
In Corpus Pretereo, an international group of writers use multiple genres to explore the idea of ‘Escape,’ with startling results:
A child searches for his mother in a wondrous carnival, but he may already be an attraction himself. A woman from the sea waits for either love or the return of her fins. A werecat is confronted with its (super)natural predator. From dark fantasy to sweet surrealism, biting humor to straight out horror, these 16 tales showcase the best of fantastic fiction, in every sense of the word.
Contributing Authors: Justin Porter, Vincent Scarsella, Jenny Peterson, Anna Caro, Scott West, Ed Ahern, Kelly Dwyer, Donna Cooper Ho, April L'Orange, Ray Charbonneau, Nicky Peacock, Andreea Zup, Dinos Kellis, Tom Howard, Chrystalla Thoma, Lori Lamothe
A child searches for his mother in a wondrous carnival, but he may already be an attraction himself. A woman from the sea waits for either love or the return of her fins. A werecat is confronted with its (super)natural predator. From dark fantasy to sweet surrealism, biting humor to straight out horror, these 16 tales showcase the best of fantastic fiction, in every sense of the word.
Contributing Authors: Justin Porter, Vincent Scarsella, Jenny Peterson, Anna Caro, Scott West, Ed Ahern, Kelly Dwyer, Donna Cooper Ho, April L'Orange, Ray Charbonneau, Nicky Peacock, Andreea Zup, Dinos Kellis, Tom Howard, Chrystalla Thoma, Lori Lamothe
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First published October 7, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 2, 2011
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.
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.
October 15, 2011
Would I lie to you about a book containing one of my stories?
May 17, 2013
“Corpus Pretereo” is an anthology of sixteen short stories by various different authors that span several different genres under the speculative fiction umbrella. This includes genres such as fantasy, horror and science-fiction with the overall subject of the stories being that of escape.
As is normal with anthologies such as this the stories are a bit of a mixed bag in terms of quality and entertainment. For example, some of them are enthralling complete stories that provide well thought out endings whilst others just come across like an opening chapter in a much longer story. However, overall there was more than enough enjoyable stories contained here to make me feel that the anthology is well worth the price.
As there is such a large collection of stories in the collection I will not comment on all of the stories, but will pick a sample of both the positive and negative to give as balanced a review as I can.
The Devil and Neil Armstrong: This clever and thoughtful story was probably my favourite story in the collection. It involves two concepts I find interesting, space exploration and time travel to create an interesting concept that had me contemplating the way in which the past influences the present.
The Carnival: Whilst I found this story to be very atmospheric and had me very intrigued, however it was let down by a terribly inclusive ending. This story more than any other struck me as being the opening chapter in a novella rather than it working as a satisfying standalone short story.
Crash: A superb dystopian story in which a group of children try to survive and find a place for themselves in a hostile world. Even with the stories’ short length, the author has managed create well developed and interesting characters that suck the reader in. This is supported by a strong narrative voice and interesting depth to the world. The ending was conclusive but I would still love to learn more about the characters and their world.
The Curl of the Wave: I found the writing to be perfect in evoking an entertaining and strong image of what the author was trying to portray. However, I think it was let down by a lack of characterisation that just made it hard to fully become engaged with the characters and therefore the story as a whole.
This is just a short taste of what the collection contains and there are further stories that I enjoyed and others that just didn’t appeal although as you can see from my comments above the negatives didn’t always necessarily ruin my interest in a story. However, overall I found that there were enough interesting, enjoyable and entertaining stories within the collection to make me more than happy to recommend it. So if you are a fan of speculative fiction and would like to sample the work of various authors that they may not normally read then this anthology more than fits the bill.
As is normal with anthologies such as this the stories are a bit of a mixed bag in terms of quality and entertainment. For example, some of them are enthralling complete stories that provide well thought out endings whilst others just come across like an opening chapter in a much longer story. However, overall there was more than enough enjoyable stories contained here to make me feel that the anthology is well worth the price.
As there is such a large collection of stories in the collection I will not comment on all of the stories, but will pick a sample of both the positive and negative to give as balanced a review as I can.
The Devil and Neil Armstrong: This clever and thoughtful story was probably my favourite story in the collection. It involves two concepts I find interesting, space exploration and time travel to create an interesting concept that had me contemplating the way in which the past influences the present.
The Carnival: Whilst I found this story to be very atmospheric and had me very intrigued, however it was let down by a terribly inclusive ending. This story more than any other struck me as being the opening chapter in a novella rather than it working as a satisfying standalone short story.
Crash: A superb dystopian story in which a group of children try to survive and find a place for themselves in a hostile world. Even with the stories’ short length, the author has managed create well developed and interesting characters that suck the reader in. This is supported by a strong narrative voice and interesting depth to the world. The ending was conclusive but I would still love to learn more about the characters and their world.
The Curl of the Wave: I found the writing to be perfect in evoking an entertaining and strong image of what the author was trying to portray. However, I think it was let down by a lack of characterisation that just made it hard to fully become engaged with the characters and therefore the story as a whole.
This is just a short taste of what the collection contains and there are further stories that I enjoyed and others that just didn’t appeal although as you can see from my comments above the negatives didn’t always necessarily ruin my interest in a story. However, overall I found that there were enough interesting, enjoyable and entertaining stories within the collection to make me more than happy to recommend it. So if you are a fan of speculative fiction and would like to sample the work of various authors that they may not normally read then this anthology more than fits the bill.
December 3, 2011
In the interests of full disclosure, I wrote "Crash." But that doesn't stop me from reviewing the other stories in the collection. :-)
My relationship with short stories is interesting. Sometimes they work for me, and sometimes they just miss entirely. So my marker for whether or not an anthology is good is if I feel like there were enough good stories in it to make it worth the cover price, and that is definitely true of Corpus Pretereo.
My favorite story out of the collection has to be "Scarves." It tells a complete, heart-wrenching story, with just enough focus on the fantasy elements to bring the ethics of the selkie legends into question in a modern-day setting. This type of story is all in the ending, and this one comes through in spades. It's one of those I'll be recommending to people for a long time.
I'm a sucker for a really good concept story, and "The Devil and Neil Armstrong" is a very tasty one. It took a while for me to catch on to what was going on--I actually went back to the beginning to reread a couple of details to be sure I understood. But it's clever and thoughtful with regards to its subject matter (space exploration, always a favorite of mine) and has a delightful humorous twist at the ending.
"The Double Letter Gang" is a glorious romp that explores both the silliness and the substance of the superhero/supervillain milieu without taking itself too seriously. I love the characters in all their slightly-broken mythic glory, and I was thoroughly entertained by the ending. It may not be great art, but it's a heck of a good time.
If I had to pick a runner-up, as these things go, I have to confess I was really intrigued by "In a Mirror, Broken." The setting is well-drawn and the characters are intriguing. I felt like the language needed a little polish, but that may simply be that it's written in a style appropriate to the historical period in which it set, rather than in modern prose--I honestly haven't read enough from that period to know. It creates a fascinating premise and conflict, and I really wanted to know more about the character of James. Unfortunately, it seemed to end very quickly, and I still had questions. I don't know if I'd call it a successful short story or not, but I suspect it could turn into an impressive novel if expanded, and I don't regret putting the time and effort into reading it.
For me, the biggest area where Corpus Pretereo could use improvement is the copy editing. A certain number of typos are always going to creep into a manuscript; it's inevitable. But when I see "sisters" misspelled twice within two pages, I just kind of cringe. It's nothing that will prevent you from reading and enjoying the book . . . it just doesn't look as professional as I'd like to see from a reputable small press.
My relationship with short stories is interesting. Sometimes they work for me, and sometimes they just miss entirely. So my marker for whether or not an anthology is good is if I feel like there were enough good stories in it to make it worth the cover price, and that is definitely true of Corpus Pretereo.
My favorite story out of the collection has to be "Scarves." It tells a complete, heart-wrenching story, with just enough focus on the fantasy elements to bring the ethics of the selkie legends into question in a modern-day setting. This type of story is all in the ending, and this one comes through in spades. It's one of those I'll be recommending to people for a long time.
I'm a sucker for a really good concept story, and "The Devil and Neil Armstrong" is a very tasty one. It took a while for me to catch on to what was going on--I actually went back to the beginning to reread a couple of details to be sure I understood. But it's clever and thoughtful with regards to its subject matter (space exploration, always a favorite of mine) and has a delightful humorous twist at the ending.
"The Double Letter Gang" is a glorious romp that explores both the silliness and the substance of the superhero/supervillain milieu without taking itself too seriously. I love the characters in all their slightly-broken mythic glory, and I was thoroughly entertained by the ending. It may not be great art, but it's a heck of a good time.
If I had to pick a runner-up, as these things go, I have to confess I was really intrigued by "In a Mirror, Broken." The setting is well-drawn and the characters are intriguing. I felt like the language needed a little polish, but that may simply be that it's written in a style appropriate to the historical period in which it set, rather than in modern prose--I honestly haven't read enough from that period to know. It creates a fascinating premise and conflict, and I really wanted to know more about the character of James. Unfortunately, it seemed to end very quickly, and I still had questions. I don't know if I'd call it a successful short story or not, but I suspect it could turn into an impressive novel if expanded, and I don't regret putting the time and effort into reading it.
For me, the biggest area where Corpus Pretereo could use improvement is the copy editing. A certain number of typos are always going to creep into a manuscript; it's inevitable. But when I see "sisters" misspelled twice within two pages, I just kind of cringe. It's nothing that will prevent you from reading and enjoying the book . . . it just doesn't look as professional as I'd like to see from a reputable small press.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews