The Humanity of Monsters

by Michael Matheson (Editor), Nathan Ballingrud, Laird Barron (Contributor)

We are all of us monsters. We are none of us monsters. Through the work of twenty-six writers, emerging to award-winning and masters of their craft, The Humanity of Monsters plumbs the depths of humane monsters, monstrous humans, and the interstices between. Monstrous heralds of change, the sight of whom only children can survive. Monsters born of the battlefield, in gunfire and frost and blood, clothed in too-familiar flesh. Monsters, human and otherwise, born of fear, and love, and retribution all, wrapped tight and inextricable one from the other: the Fallen outside of time, lovers and monsters in borrowed skin, and creatures from beyond the stars and humans who have travelled to them. Dreams of lost and siren-song depths - of other half-held, half-remembered lives. And the things we have survived, and the things we might yet survive, in the face of greater, eviscerating loss. In stories by turns surreal, sublime, brutal, and haunting, there are no easy answers to be found, no simple nor uncomplicated labels to be had. Only the surety that though there be monsters, you will name them false. And when you meet those who truly are, you will not know them.

“Tasting Gomoa” by Chinelo Onwualu
“Dead Sea Fruit” by Kaaron Warren
“The Bread We Eat in Dreams” by Catherynne M. Valente
“The Emperor’s Old Bones” by Gemma Files
“The Things” by Peter Watts
“muo-ka’s Child” by Indrapramit Das
“Six” by Leah Bobet
“The Nazir” by Sofia Samatar
“A Handful of Earth” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
“In Winter” by Sonya Taaffe
“Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee
“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman
“Night They Missed the Horror Show” by Joe Lansdale
“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky
“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” by Maria Dahvana Headley
“The Horse Latitudes” by Sunny Moraine
“Boyfriend and Shark” by Berit Ellingsen
“Never the Same” by Polenth Blake
“Mantis Wives” by Kij Johnson
“Proboscis” by Laird Barron
“Out They Come” by Alex Dally MacFarlane
“and Love shall have no Dominion” by Livia Llewellyn
“You Go Where It Takes You” by Nathan Ballingrud
“Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” by A.C. Wise
“Theories of Pain” by Rose Lemberg
“Terrible Lizards” by Meghan McCarron

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Aliens

336 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2015

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always hard to rate anthologies, and this one was particularly uneven for me -- not just because I'm not really a horror fan (not all the stories are horror, by any means).

The first story, "Tasting Gomoa" confused me. A barren women, sexually frustrated and now replaced by a new younger wife, seduces/molests her supplanter. It was not badly written, but there are no supernatural elements and no monster unless you view the protagonist as a rapist. Maybe there is some mythological reference I missed?

After the first story I put the book aside for a couple weeks, interest lost. But I did want to read the next story because I usually like Kaaron Warren. "Dead Sea Fruit" isn't my favorite of hers but it was very original and made me want to continue reading the collection.

Valente's "Bread We Eat in Dreams" was also of a high quality, although missing that elusive something that would make me love it, but at this point I'm feeling like the first story was an oddball and collection overall is above average.

Then came Gemma Files' "The Emperor's Old Bones" which was perfect for this theme: dark, grimy, horrifying, human. The meal being served maybe have been fantasy, but the meat was completely realistic.

Next came Peter Watts' "The Thing," which was a complete change of pace from Files' visceral story, but also excellent. He does a great job creating an alien viewpoint from which to retell the story of "The Thing" (You know, the John Carpenter film? I think it's fair to expect people to be familiar with this movie, but don't worry if you haven't, you'll catch on as the story goes along.)

Next came another well-done alien story, "Muo-Ka's Child", about an alien attempting to care for a human who crashes on her planet.

"Six" was that sort of story that feels more like the first chapter of a longer work -- which it may be. Bobet's Above looks like it may at least be set in the same ruined world. I'll keep an eye on this author, whom I otherwise know only from her contributions to the Shadow Unit series.

"The Nazir" was interesting but not quite to my taste. That's just me, though, I tend to feel that a short story is too little space to do one of those childhood-through-a-lifespan stories. I would have liked this better longer. As far as I know the Nazir is not a real mythical creature. Tell me if I'm mistaken.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia tells what Dracula's wives think of his departure. Liked this one too, although I'm not sure it will stay in my memory.

"In Winter" is a very short retelling -- not even a retelling, a referencing -- of the Snow Queen story with Russian soldiers set in the Winter War. It did little for me.

"Ghostweight" by Yoon Ha Lee was the first story I had read previously. The prose is very poetic but the action a bit hard to follow. Think Patricia McKilip with very alien advanced spacecraft (but actually not like that time McKillip tried to write science fiction).

"How to Talk to Girls at Parties" was Gaiman at his lighter and funnier. I enjoyed this quite a bit, but whatever may have been monstrous was completely off the page so in that sense it missed the mark of the anthology.

Then I hit Lansdale and was so revolted I put the book down and didn't return to it for some days. I never finished this story -- I did take another glance and it was simply too disgusting and nasty for me. Which I guess means that if that's your thing, this is a great story!

"If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love," but sadly you're not, there are no actual dinosaurs in this two-page story, nor is it amusing as one might expect from the title.

As you may be gathering, the book went down hill for me after the halfway point. None of the rest really grabbed me. Probably my favorite it the second half was Polenth Blake's "Never the Same" which was at least different. I'd say I would look for more of Blake's writing, except the author bio mentioned cockroaches.

Summation: although there were more stories here that I didn't like than ones I did, some of the good ones were very good indeed, so I'd still recommend grabbing this, especially if you can get it from a library, and cherry-picking.

[Helix · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 stars.

First of all, a breakdown of how the stories inside this anthology fared:

The Good: The Bread We Eat In Dreams, Six, The Nazir, Ghostweight, How To Talk To Girls At Parties, Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream, The Horse Latitudes, Never The Same, You Go Where It Takes You, Dream of the Fisherman's Wife

The OK: Dead Sea Fruit, Muo-Ka's Child, A Handful of Earth, If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love, Boyfriend And Shark, Terrible Lizards

The Meh: Tasting Gomoa, In Winter, Mantis Wives, Out They Come, Theories of Pain, And Love Shall Have No Dominion

Scarred me for the entirety of my existence: The Emperor's Old Bones, The Things, Night They Missed The Horror Show, Proboscis

I think the really excellent stories belong to the fourth category. I really enjoyed Emperor's Old Bones and the twist made me scream internally (lmao) and that ending is perfect, I also always enjoyed the entire "criminal protag" trope so maybe I'm a bit biased. The Things is, hands down, the story that best represent the theme of the anthology and it's some top-notch mindfuckery. Night They Missed The Horror Show is just plain fucked-up and a little bizarre, while Proboscis is straight-up r/shortscarystories body horror (thankfully off-screen or I'll never sleep ever again). I think my fave is tied between Emperor and Proboscis.

Let's be honest, though: this anthology draw me in because there's a Neil Gaiman story in it. I was a bit disappointed because it was a story I've already read a million times before (although I still love it). Overall, it's pretty good, but it just doesn't quite live up to its grand overarching theme. I had to commend it on the diversity of the contributors, though, which...actually made me pretty afraid at first because I fucking hate forced diversity (and the fetish that the far, "progressive" Left seemed to have with it), but the entire thing actually came out pretty decent and enjoyable, the stories were fairly engaging (and disturbing, let's be honest), and the characters were well-written, including the LGBT characters. Kudos to that.

But I think the arrangement is kind of...funky. I've read quite a fair number of anthologies before, they were usually organised based on how good the story is and how famous the author is, at least from what I've observed. The last spot is usually reserved for what is considered to be the crown jewel of the anthology. However, The Humanity of Monsters doesn't really work like that, and it actually made me confused as to how the stories were actually organised. There were really good stories in the middle and there were meh stories in the back. I think it could fare better with a proper organisation.

This anthology also got off the wrong foot, in my opinion. True, the editor stated that this anthology dealt with the problems of "Othering" (I actually won't use the term Queer, because as a trans, bisexual individual myself I have problems with it), but I strongly feel as if the anthology could have started with something fantastical, and then broached the actual social themes later on. Tasting Gomoa doesn't make me feel as if I was reading an anthology about monsters, it makes me feel as if I was reading a lesbian erotica fanfiction on AO3. And it makes me think that it was probably placed there, intentionally, as a shock value for straight people. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't really humanise the bisexual protagonist and thus lead off with the tone that LGBT people are the "real" monsters. Maybe I'm just salty because I don't really like the story either (feels flat and forced and hurried to me, I'd enjoy a little more built-up between the protag and Gomoa), but I really think that the opening story (and as I said before, the placement/organisation of stories in general) could be something better.

I do love the fearlessness, the candor of the stories, though. They're not afraid to be graphically disturbing, they're not afraid to shock and awe and traumatise, to turn things round on its head, because that is the point of monsters. If a monster is a warning, then what good is a monster who can't scare you senseless? I think this anthology managed, at least, to capture and demonstrate that monsters can manifest in a lot of different ways, that they are more intrinsic to our lives than we initially thought. All stories are about wolves, after all.

In the same vein, I think what the editor said in their foreword--about this anthology being about the liminality of state--is true. This is something that this anthology has managed to achieve, for me. Where does man end and monster begins? On the reverse, where does the monster ends and man begins? This is something writers have been asking themselves for a long, long time.

Overall: This could be better, but the same could be said about many things. At the very least, this is quite entertaining, disturbing content aside, and some of the stories are very good. I wouldn't exactly recommend this, and it doesn't quite fulfill my expectations, but it's not bad, either.

[Alexander Páez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Creo que como antología no funciona. Se trata de un popurrí de relatos supuestamente de terror, con nombres interesantes como Yoon Ha Lee, Neil Gaiman, Peter Watts o Laird Barron o Gemma Files. No la recomiendo como antología, aunque si recomiendo los relatos de los autores antes mencionados (leer por separado, ya que en una antología no pegan ni con cola). Y algún otro que me ha llamado la atención.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consider this review with several grains of salt, as I'm close with the editor, the publishers, and three or four contributors. That being said, this is an excellent, at times challenging collection of short fiction. Its title is a bit misleading, I think, lending to the idea (at first glance) that these stories will be more about actual monsters in the classical sense. Or worse, the lazy, Joss Whedon sense where literally every character at one point or another expressly states that they are a monster because they're good guys but also flawed and they want to make sure you know that because relatability, and because this is what passes these days for character development in a major motion picture (see: Avengers: AoU).

The monsters in this collection aren't "Monsters" with a capital M, nor does the title expressly relate to the monsters hiding in plain sight, but to the potential for the monstrous in all people, interactions, and eventualities. It's broad, with stories spanning all manner of genre from horror to sci-fi, grounded spec, fantasy, and my favourite, the straight-up weird. However broad the overarching theme, the stories feel married to one another—while many of the stories diverge in tone and execution, not one feels out of place. And even in those entries that simply didn't "do" anything for me, the level of craft remained extremely high throughout.

As mentioned previously, some stories work (for me) better than others. The high points of this collection are "Tasting Gomoa," "Dead Sea Fruit," "The Nazir," "A Handful of Earth," "Night They Missed the Horror Show," "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love," "Boyfriend and Shark," "Mantis Wives," "Out They Come," and "You Go Where it Takes You." Definitely a propensity toward the weird in my selections. Of these, I think "Tasting Gomoa," "Dead Sea Fruit," and "Out They Come" were, unquestionably, my favourites in the collection.

A few others were enjoyable, and I could see why they were in this collection as they very much fit both thematically and in terms of quality, but I was left wanting more: "The Emperor's Old Bones," "The Things," "Muo-Ka's Child," "Six," "Ghostweight," "Dream of the Fisherman's Wife." The quality of each of these stories is without question, but either their characters or their world just didn't sit as well as I would have liked (and in the case of "The Things," I just couldn't divorce myself enough from the film it uses as its basis to enjoy the story on its own merits—it was more distracting than anything).

The only stories I truly did not enjoy were "The Bread We Eat in Dreams," "Never the Same," "Proboscis," "Theories of Pain," and "Terrible Lizards." None were bad or poorly written, but in "Dreams," Never," and "Proboscis," I was not able to find a foothold in the stories being told, mostly due to issues with character and setting, and found myself as a result being kept at a distance. With the last two stories (which are also the final entries in the collection), I found their style overwhelmed whatever meaning I was meant to gleam from the stories at hand.

It's worth mentioning I don't read many multi-author anthologies. In fact, this is one of my first, save academic material read while in university. My tastes are for more single-author collections, as I find it easier to grasp the trajectory of one author's vision rather than a plethora. But these stories do work together, and while challenging, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and is certainly worth investing your time and money in. I do not recommend attempting to plow through it though, as due to the nature of the stories and the variety of voices (which are wonderfully diverse), I feel as if each story needs to "sit" in one's mind for a bit. The end result is a rewarding, unique collection that goes a great distance further than its title initially implies.

[Cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have averaged the scores i gave to the 25 stories in this collection and have deduced that this book deserves a 2.94 accordingly. shoutout to the 7 stories @ 3.5 and above. anthologies are a sin!

*wait upon closer inspection it appears that i forgot to rate "boyfriend and shark," but rest assured it was not noteworthy. prob like a 2.5. so to my giant audience waiting with bated breath, lower the average score the tiniest scosh accordingly.

anyway, here were the worthwhile ones:

"THE BREAD WE EAT IN DREAMS," catherynne m. valente, ★★★★★
"NEVER THE SAME," polenth blake, ★★★★★
"SIX," leah bobet, ★★★★
"TERRIBLE LIZARDS," meghan mccarron, ★★★★
"THE HORSE LATITUDES," sunny morraine, ★★★★
"HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES," neil gaimain, ★★★★
"and LOVE shall have no DOMINION," livia llewellyn, ★★★☆

[Magda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to warn you that this will be a rather long post. At first I simply wanted to write a summary, an overall opinion about the whole book, but all those stories and all these authors... I'll point out the stories that fell into my memory and write a sentence or two about them, the other stories you'll just have to check for yourself.

Out of all the authors listed bellow I only read books/stories written by Neil Gaiman, so they were all new to me and therefore, reading this book was a fascinating experience.

Tasting Gomoa by Chinelo Onwualu ★★★★★

A pretty strong story to start with. It doesn't have any kind of monster you might imagine, it's all about the human nature.

The Bread We Eat in Dreams by Catherynne M. Valente ★★

That was a strange story and not one I liked. It's about a demon, who was expelled from hell and is bound to live on earth in more or less human form. The Story tells you how the world around demon change how people treat it. The problem is the story is slow paced and, even though it fits the overall theme, it didn't manage to catch my interest.

The Things by Peter Watts ★★★★★

That one was great! At least after I realized it was actually re-telling of King's "The thing" only from the monsters' perspective. Well done!

Six by Leah Bobet ★★★★★

Have you heard the stories about a seventh son of a seventh son? How about any of his brothers? None right, well from this little tale you'll find out a history of the sixth son and it's not a happy one. It shows how brutally people can behave against a child who isn't the chosen one, the pupil, the golden boy. This story surprised me with its ending.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman ★★★★

This was a weird one, but I like it. It's one of those tales where you don't really know what's going on, but you still feel good reading it. Main characters goes to a party with his friend and he feels obligated to finally talk to some girls and maybe even get lucky with one of them. Only those girls are all kind of strange, they talk about weird things, like they're... not from around here...

Night They Missed the Horror Show by Joe Lansdale ★★★

How I hated all of the characters here. They were horrible racist idiots! From the first few sentences I wished all the worst for them. The problem with this story is... there are always people worse than even these idiots.

Boyfriend and Shark by Berit Ellingsen ★★★★

This was a short and peculiar tale about a man whose boyfriend is replaced by a shark and that man has to learn to let him go.

Never the Same by Polenth Blake ★★★★★

This story is lovely written and the idea is interesting. I liked where the author went with this. The main character is different than others, it seems he doesn't have feelings, instead he learned how to react like a "normal" person would, what he should do. He's an outsider, marked by society. Even if he's behavior is perfect, everyone's still watching him closely. On the other hand, there's his brother - a "normal" person, who does or wants to do evil things. How will people react?

Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife by A.C. Wise ★★★

Here we have a story about a choice. A fisherman and his wife start having some strange and very vivid dreams. It seems they need to make a choice - go on with their lives just as they are now, or decide to choose a very different world.



Most of these stories are rather slow paced, philosophical. They stir up something inside you, make you think about humanity, the world and your own behavior and existence. I might've not loved all of the stories but in compilation it is a good set, not really in my domain, though that's why only 3 stars, but some of you might like it more.


I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

check my reviews at https://maginibooks.wordpress.com

[Theediscerning · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know that time when people churned out stuff that was not general fiction for general consumption, and was not good enough to count as real sci-fi or real fantasy, yet certainly tried to fit into some genre or another? That was when a new genre was created to encompass it – speculative fiction. Unfortunately, this book is a real throwback to those days, of obtuse near-genre pieces, that have a little bit of the aforementioned, plus horror, in their DNA. But I'm left speculating on something – how it could be that so much that is worth noting at all comes in twos – there are a brace of looks back at old texts from fresh angles (John Carpenter's The Thing, and Dracula), a pair of more or less love letters, a couplet of parables – one with a message about letting love go, and one where a woman uses foxes for unspecified revenge. There are two other ones I would care to read again, as well – one set in a world where a large clan post-apocalypse are beholden to old superstitions and old ways of life in some unnamed city tower block that proves to have some gumption about it, and another weird world which smacks of our real life one, until a guy shows a girl what's in his car boot. And you can guess how many big names come up to save the day from all the arty farty dreck that surrounds them elsewhere – Neil Gaiman and Joe R Lansdale both provide their own brands of fun. Elsewhere it's so blatant people are trying to write like the former it's painful, and many have failed to make anything sustained or even at all interesting in the first place. Quite poor then, but with a few gleams of brightness in the stygian black.

[Kajsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting short story collection that describes the connection between humanity on monstruosity in a very good way. Some of the short stories are not for me but there are a few golden ones. My absolute favorite is the short story by Nathan Ballingrud. His prose and the plot blew me away.

I appreciate reading short story collections like this because you always discover a new author that you want to read more from.

I recieved a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Reggie_Love · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry, not sorry. If your first story has an explicit child molestation scene in it that is written like a sex scene, I'm not reading any further. The goal may have been to make child brides seem "normal" or something along those lines, but take a note from SVU and get the readers to care about the monsters in order to given them humanity. There are other ways to explain to us what a character was doing. I can handle humanizing the main character in the first story, I can't get past romanticized rape scenes.

[Venus Maneater · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread 2025. Most of the stories I read, I skipped maybe one or two. 'id you were a dinosaur, my love's feels like an odd one out.

Muo-ka's child, the bread we eat in dreams and the Mantis wives will stay with me for a long time.



2020: And the inhumanity of those we're supposed to trust

[VANGLUSS · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an okay read. It is okay read to the point where I would pick at least two or three of the super solid shorts within this collection to share with somebody else, hoping like hell they would read them and enjoy them as much as I did. On the other hand, most of the stories did absolutely nothing for me or are forgettable to the point I felt like my time got wasted. This is my general experience with anthologies of any kind, hence my bias for long form storytelling over other forms. But with this, I seriously felt like I was spinning a giant literary roulette wheel packed with segments that siphoned my time/effort away instead of giving me something to appreciate.

The first problem that adds to my initial experience above: The Broadness of the Theme/Content

I went into reading this collection blind as I could be. This is so come in with a mind full of minimal preconceptions to color my reading. Beyond knowing a few of the heavy hitters included here like The Gaiman, Peter Watts, or Catherynne M. Valente, I didn't know what to expect content-wise. This didn't matter to me much either. I like to see if lesser known authors can fly on my radar because everybody benefits from that. But the more pressing concern about this selection of authors is that they seemed to write all over the place about the quality of being "monstrous" as was described in the introduction. Throughout my reading of this collection, I realized I was being consistently surprised and confused in ways I didn't want to. I felt like there was no cohesion or "higher linking" between the stories despite their goal of being about inhumanity/monstrous. Alone, like I said, a decent amount of the shorts were quite tolerable. But together, the stories were disjointed and jarring like mixing cough drops in your hard candy dish for some godawful reason.

The second problem that adds to my initial experience above: The Overwhelming "Artiness" of the Stories of this Collection

Art is good writing. Good writing is art. And by this axiom, we should all live by. But when trying to go too abstract with your writing to make it more artistic, I think that hurts the quality of both the art and the writing. Every so often I came upon stories that made me incredibly confused not because of their bad writing (the writing of all the stories were serviceable btw), but because of their highly experimental writing style. I'll list a few examples later for easier reading. I don't think society or individuals should make a hobby of trying to breakdown and comprehend art to its basic components like its biochemistry or something. But if there's one thing any writer/artist "should" try to do, is that they should at least make their creation have at least the vague shape of what they're trying to communicate. A lot of the stories in this collection did some bad communication. Then again (!!!), as a slight disclaimer, I'm generally biased against more experimental/artistically inclined writing styles.

Now time for the general listings.

DID NOT ENJOY:
"Night They Missed the Horror Show" by Joe Lansdale (Hitting your audience with a barrage of racial slurs and nightmarish violence usually don't work unless you're Tarantino. Usually.)
"Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream" by Maria Dahvana Headley.
"And Love Shall Have No Dominion" by Livia Llewllyn (I skipped this one tbh)
"Theories of Pain" by Rose Lemberg (This one felt like it was trying too hard to be emotional, but came off as awkward and confusing)

IT WAS OKAY:
"Tasting Gomoa" by Chinelo Onwualu (While good, I was confused how this related to the overarching monstrous theme)
"Dead Sea Fruit" by Kaaron Warren
"Muo-ka's Child" by Indrapramit Das (Wanted to like this after reading the Devourers, came out disappointed and confused)
"Six" by Leah Bobet
"In Winter" by Sofia Samatar
"The Nazir" by Sofia Samatar
"Boyfriend And Shark" by Berit Ellingsen
"Out They Come" by Alex Dally MacFarlane
"Terrible Lizards" by Meghan McCarron

IT WAS NICE:
"If You Were a Dinosaur, my Love" by Rachel Swirsky (Oddly touching and unexpected.)
"The Horse Latitudes" by Sunny Moraine
"Never the Same" by Polenth Blake
"Mantis Wives" by Kiji Johnson (One of the artier shorts I liked for how bizarre and ero-guro it was)
"Proboscis" by Laird Barron (Solid prose and characters and story, but the ending left me saying, "Wait, what next?" in a bad way.)
"You Go Where It Takes You" by Nathan Ballingrud (Nice, uneasy atmosphere throughout.)

IT WAS INCREDIBLE:
"The Bread We Eat in Dreams" by Catherynne M. Valente
"The Things" by Peter Watts
"The Emperor's Old Bones" by Gemma Files (One of my absolute favorites from this collection.)
"A Handful of Earth" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
"Ghostweight" by Yoon Ha Lee (The setting/background density made this a harder read, but I'd like to see how it works in a full length novel - if it already isn't, that is)
"How to Talk to Girls at Parties" by Neil Gaiman
"Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" by A.C. Wise (Absolutely packed with beautiful imagery and emotional depth)

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an anthology with a theme of humanizing the monstrous, the horrible, the great deep dark evil. On that grounds I’d have to rate it a success. Though most of the writing is of good quality by writers at the top of their game I can’t say I’d really recommend this work, which is an odd thing considering I give it a passing mark-3 stars is a good rating, after all. The problem is that a lot of these stories are just simply put to viscous-you can’t drink them, you can’t swim through them, and they obscure the vision the writer was trying to give you. In short, this is nearly a collection of anti-stories, so surreal are many within here. Now, if that’s your thing, yeah, you might enjoy this work, but for me this was a gruesome affair that took forever to finish. Added to the lack of clarity in writing as an asset is the dismal tone: in general be prepared to feel a bit depressed after reading these stories. Lastly it should be noted that a lot of these stories over do the whole profanity, shock value bit. A sprinkling can be good, adding a natural real tone and texture to a tale, but pages of artsy profanity may well loose your reader and snap suspension of disbelief like kindling. Now, as you’ve probably figured by now, this anthology like all others has good stories and bad stories ( or perhaps displeasing stories is the better word here), so even in a collection of this nature there were a few fine tales. Obviously Neal Gaiman’s “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” was brilliant. There is a nice other worldly naive charm of the party, the party goers, and the protagonist and then the appropriate question of just who was the villian here as attested by the state of the ‘girl’ at the end before the boys flee the party-at least that’s what I took from this work. “The Emperors Old Bones” was also memorable as it depicts a taboo in a magical understandable and believable manner. “The Bread We Eat in Dreams” was the keystone piece tale that I really thought the whole book would be like, depicting a mythic creature and giving it a humanistic spin. Sadly, while other tales do try this approach the narratives are oft so frayed it’s nigh impossible to enjoy them. Once more, I am not saying don’t read this. I am saying it ultimately often didn’t appeal to me and so I can’t recommend it, though there were a few great stories shining in the horrific, inhuman slush.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a bad book by any means, it just....requires a certain liberty of the imagination to piece the theme presented in the introduction with the actual text content. A lot of these stories are historical fiction, magical realism, or literary fantasy - which means there isn't a lot of supernatural monstrosity explored in these stories. (It's a bit of a cop out.) Best billed as an anthology on human's monstrosity.

[Tomasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really solid selection of dark stories, mostly slewed towards the literary end of the spectrum, which definitely didn't hurt (I don't mind pulp, at all, but I do feel that the pulpier stories wouldn't fit into this anthology very comfortably). Monstrousness gets explored pretty thoroughly, from many angles. Recommended.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of short stories from some of the best horror and science fiction writers working today, all searching for the humanity within some monsters or the monstrosities within humans. Like any anthology, not every one was successful. A couple (Gaiman, Lansdale) I had read before. But overall a good collection.

[Stephani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like any anthology, there are some winners and some real stinkers. I ended up skipping a few because they just were not my style and I few I wish I hadn't read (TW: child abandonment for no good reason other than selfishness<\spoiler>).

[Estevam (Impish Reviews) · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some cool ass stories here but the quality of the collection seems to fluctuate a lot, this is a recommend but dont be afraid to just pass a story if it doesn't pick your fancy because the great here is indeed great and the bad is awful.

[Ben Brackett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well it did have some good selections, I found most of the stories to be mediocre to skipable.

[Maija · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the lower end of 3, maybe 2.5. Didn't have that many stories I loved. Will review later.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for me.
It has plenty of big names, plenty of big ideas, but, at the same time, leaves plenty of questions (mostly "Why is this story in this anthology?", "How does that fit the theme?", and the like). As I've said about other anthologies, no collection of short fiction is going to be perfect. There are some good stories in this collection, but too many weak and/or questionable choices to save it.

[Hope Sloper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a book.

Rocked my socks!

I can honestly say there isn’t a story in here that isn’t epic. Relentlessly, each of them takes you on a short journey with someone (or something); all of them hold onto you, making it almost an arduous task to stop reading. I read it, walked away, and then went back and read it again. My favorites (Dead Sea Fruit, The Emperor’s Old Bones, Six, Ghostweight, How To Talk To Girls At Parties, Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream, Never The Same, Mantis Wives, You Go Where It Takes You, and Theories of Pain) I read a third time. The thing is, it wasn’t just because each of these short stories are fantastic stories, but because my eyes were so glued to them the first time I read them when done, I literally asked myself, “What the hell just happened?” I’m not exaggerating.

I mean, even the Introduction to the book is great. Side note: heed its warning.

It’s a must-read. And for me, a must own. I will own this book; it will sit on my shelf, all pretty like, as soon as they print a hardcover. I may go out and buy a paperback just so I can send it to every person I know. I must infect the world with these outstanding pieces of literature.

Thanks to anthologies like this, I’ve come to love them. I have so many authors I need to read now. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

[Lutfiya F · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes a book and a state of mind meet in perfect symmetry and both are elevated to a state of magic, unfortunately that was not the case here. Before I started reading I was intrigued by the concept of exploring and understanding monsters. There are a handful of stories that I really enjoyed but overall I did not identify and feel this book. The stories are jarring but they did nothing for me. The terror and horror did not stir my empathy or make me wonder or think.

[Intoxicatedcake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not read every story. I skimmed a couple others. But the effect of the book was full force; seeing the alternative viewpoints, those that might be considered inhuman (or at least unorthodox). It's a delight to be challenged this way, with the different arguments and expoundations on certain themes or premisies. That I could not get into every story does not bother me, the combination I did get through were sufficient to be challenged, and for that it is a worthwhile read.

[Bill Borre]

"The Nazir" by Sofia Samatar - Cynthia wants to see the Nazir, a moon monster only children can see that feasts on adults. Cynthia is an adult but so is Mrs. Ashgrove and the latter claims to have seen the Nazir. Years later Cynthia gets a letter that reveals the fate of Mrs. Ashgrove in Cairo was to be wheeled around with withered legs in the street by a little girl. Cynthia realizes the Nazir had attempted to bear Mrs. Ashgrove away but had dropped her.

[brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a decent collection of short stories, but it didn't really grab me. There weren't any stories that really stuck out to me or authors that I immediately needed to read more of. It's a good collection but it just wasn't quite enough.

[Tracy Porrevecchio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really hit or miss. This started off with a strong short story and had a few other bright stars but I found myself really slogging through and pushing myself to finish it. If you are going to read this, don't pick it up expecting to read it cover to cover. Read this story by story and enjoy other pursuits in between.

[Josef Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very good ChiZine anthology

For a full review, please go to http://www.examiner.com/review/the-hu... or http://areviewerdarkly.blogspot.com/2... and follow me on Twitter @josenher

[Basht · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, there are some good stories here, lots of well written tales. But there is so much sexual violence and molestation that it's difficult to read.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent anthology--something for everyone! Body horror, philosophical mind-benders, space catastrophes, and some garden-variety racism round out the monstrous situations in this collection.

[Briana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A varied and interesting collection. In Winter by Sonya Taaffe and Never the Same by Polenth Blake were my personal favorites.