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Mooncalves: Strange Stories
Mooncalves showcases 23 strange stories of magic, mystery, unease, and terror. Veteran writers of the weird and horrific feature alongside newly burgeoning names within the field, and authors from the literary world's cutting edge turn their talents toward darker, uncertain corners.
306 pages, Hardcover
Published April 1, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 15, 2023
Normally I don't rate and review magazines and anthologies in which I have a story, due to bias/conflict of interest. However, this is really an excellent anthology, and it's not getting a ton of buzz or anything, so I'm making an exception.
I truly enjoyed every other story in the collection-- there were no losers, nothing I felt was weak in comparison to the surrounding material, nothing that gave me that feeling of "I'm not sure if this isn't very good, or if I just don't understand what the author is going for", nothing that I could recognize as a well-crafted piece of fiction but still struggled to get through or disliked. Moreover, the stories are very harmonious. While each is quite distinct in style, there are overarching similarities of tone and theme, and certain motifs that seem to echo from story to story, that pull them together as a coherent whole.
I enjoyed all the stories, but I still had some standout favorites. I'll quickly go over them here:
Jaime Corbacho's "Honeymoon" is gorgeously written, with prose that’s emotive & full of sensory detail without coming across as purple or baroque. The writing isn’t challenging to read, it doesn’t call a ton of attention to itself, but it’s *really well done*. Corbacho writes about wild/feral animals in a way that conveys personality and evokes real awe-- she seems to have a clear-eyed love and respect for the natural world, in all its bloodiness and entanglement with human civilization. The real disturbing element here is that civilized world, the worlds of wealth and privilege within it, how the protagonist's family quietly, politely contorts itself to indulge & accommodate its abusive matriarch.
Sofia Samatar's "Contact Light" is on one hand, a pretty straightforward story about what if there was a prison colony on the moon. But it is also a quasi-surreal stream of consciousness character study written in simple, but dense, poetic, and often challenging language. One becomes disoriented along with the protagonist. The lunar setting is used extremely well as both a metaphor for the bleak conditions & ejection/quarantine from society experienced by prisoners in real life, & as a literal speculative fiction conceit. This might be the saddest and most emotionally moving story in the anthology, at least in my opinion.
Elwin Cotman's "The Debauch" is off the rails in all the best ways. This guy is having a total blast writing-- he swings for the fences with maximalist, excitable, intentionally purple prose that hearkens back equally to the Decadents and, like, Poppy Z. Brite. As you might expect, "The Debauch" tells the tale of a bisexual orgy that goes very wrong. Somehow, Cotman makes a gem-encrusted zombie unhinging its jaw to swallow a man’s head whole and the dirty kitchen of a pair of college girls equally hyperreal, grotesque, and emotionally weighted. The story becomes so fantastical, seemingly out of nowhere, in its climax that I can imagine some readers complaining of "randomness" or of not being sure what exactly is supposed to have happened. Personally, I didn't give a fuck! This rocks!! Heavy metal!!!!!! \m/
Sasha Geffen's "Pastiche" is one of those stories that’s simultaneously very dark and very warm/sweet; it’s a tough dual mode to pull off without watering down the darkness or making the sweetness seem sour and insincere, but Geffen sticks the landing. Some great matter-of-fact body horror here, too. & one of my favorite devices— a central premise that’s both an obvious metaphor (for at least one thing; likely for several, pulling at least triple-duty with its three-bodied protagonist) *and* a literal fact of life within the story that’s explored in its practical, everyday ramifications (from the comical to the horrific).
Meghan Lamb's "Mirror Translation" feels like a close cousin to “The Debauch” in some ways-- both are stories of strangers in strange lands, both have bisexual protagonists whose desire for a member of the same sex drives the plot, both deal prominently with feelings of alienation and ennui--, but where the latter is histrionic & flamboyant, the former is cool and restrained, evoking an atmosphere of loneliness, desperation, & ever-present menace long before anything crazy or weird happens. "Mirror Translation" also follows a more conventional/parseable narrative arc than "The Debauch", which may be a point in its favor or not depending on where you stand. Arguably, it’s “just” a vampire story— in the classic "vampire seduces vulnerable victim" mode of Carmilla-- but aspects of the execution are certainly unique! I like vampire stories, anyway.
Adam Golaski’s “Distant Signals” is…okay, bear with me…it’s a creepypasta, right? Like I’ve read several stories about "lost" or mysterious media on r/ nosleep with effectively the same premise/plot. The thing is, this time it’s extremely well-written & well-paced! Even once you know where this one’s going— & for me, that was pretty early— it’s tense, eerie, unsettling, and totally magnetic. Golaski knows exactly when to go into detail and when to hold back for the maximum shudder effect. This, more than maybe anything else in the collection, made me think “I have GOT to read more work by this guy”. Y’all! What if creepypastas were good!!! Calling Channel Zero fans!
Janalyn Guo's "Night Fragrance" has body horror, creepy flowers and fungi, ambiguous/ambivalent transformation, teen friendship, & the anxieties attendant on growing up with a mild physical disability. It’s very up my alley/in my wheelhouse, in other words. Although it uses some horror tropes, the mood is a lot more elegiac than eerie or disturbing, and I appreciated that, too. As with "Pastiche" there's real sweetness here, although Guo is more focused on the ways strange, threatening people and processes might be unexpectedly sympathetic or benevolent than Geffen, whose story hinges on the opposite phenomenon: an act of immense violence and betrayal by a person one has come to love and trust. The darkness of Geffen's story comes from the shadow cast by this betrayal, by the fact that it may be ameliorated but can never be erased or truly made right again. The darkness in Guo's comes from the sadness and uncertainty in all of life's transitional phases: each choice cuts us off from possible futures, each choice is a leap of faith into a place we cannot know until we arrive there, we will inevitably grow apart from some of our friends & become unable to understand them anymore, and there's no going back.
I truly enjoyed every other story in the collection-- there were no losers, nothing I felt was weak in comparison to the surrounding material, nothing that gave me that feeling of "I'm not sure if this isn't very good, or if I just don't understand what the author is going for", nothing that I could recognize as a well-crafted piece of fiction but still struggled to get through or disliked. Moreover, the stories are very harmonious. While each is quite distinct in style, there are overarching similarities of tone and theme, and certain motifs that seem to echo from story to story, that pull them together as a coherent whole.
I enjoyed all the stories, but I still had some standout favorites. I'll quickly go over them here:
Jaime Corbacho's "Honeymoon" is gorgeously written, with prose that’s emotive & full of sensory detail without coming across as purple or baroque. The writing isn’t challenging to read, it doesn’t call a ton of attention to itself, but it’s *really well done*. Corbacho writes about wild/feral animals in a way that conveys personality and evokes real awe-- she seems to have a clear-eyed love and respect for the natural world, in all its bloodiness and entanglement with human civilization. The real disturbing element here is that civilized world, the worlds of wealth and privilege within it, how the protagonist's family quietly, politely contorts itself to indulge & accommodate its abusive matriarch.
Sofia Samatar's "Contact Light" is on one hand, a pretty straightforward story about what if there was a prison colony on the moon. But it is also a quasi-surreal stream of consciousness character study written in simple, but dense, poetic, and often challenging language. One becomes disoriented along with the protagonist. The lunar setting is used extremely well as both a metaphor for the bleak conditions & ejection/quarantine from society experienced by prisoners in real life, & as a literal speculative fiction conceit. This might be the saddest and most emotionally moving story in the anthology, at least in my opinion.
Elwin Cotman's "The Debauch" is off the rails in all the best ways. This guy is having a total blast writing-- he swings for the fences with maximalist, excitable, intentionally purple prose that hearkens back equally to the Decadents and, like, Poppy Z. Brite. As you might expect, "The Debauch" tells the tale of a bisexual orgy that goes very wrong. Somehow, Cotman makes a gem-encrusted zombie unhinging its jaw to swallow a man’s head whole and the dirty kitchen of a pair of college girls equally hyperreal, grotesque, and emotionally weighted. The story becomes so fantastical, seemingly out of nowhere, in its climax that I can imagine some readers complaining of "randomness" or of not being sure what exactly is supposed to have happened. Personally, I didn't give a fuck! This rocks!! Heavy metal!!!!!! \m/
Sasha Geffen's "Pastiche" is one of those stories that’s simultaneously very dark and very warm/sweet; it’s a tough dual mode to pull off without watering down the darkness or making the sweetness seem sour and insincere, but Geffen sticks the landing. Some great matter-of-fact body horror here, too. & one of my favorite devices— a central premise that’s both an obvious metaphor (for at least one thing; likely for several, pulling at least triple-duty with its three-bodied protagonist) *and* a literal fact of life within the story that’s explored in its practical, everyday ramifications (from the comical to the horrific).
Meghan Lamb's "Mirror Translation" feels like a close cousin to “The Debauch” in some ways-- both are stories of strangers in strange lands, both have bisexual protagonists whose desire for a member of the same sex drives the plot, both deal prominently with feelings of alienation and ennui--, but where the latter is histrionic & flamboyant, the former is cool and restrained, evoking an atmosphere of loneliness, desperation, & ever-present menace long before anything crazy or weird happens. "Mirror Translation" also follows a more conventional/parseable narrative arc than "The Debauch", which may be a point in its favor or not depending on where you stand. Arguably, it’s “just” a vampire story— in the classic "vampire seduces vulnerable victim" mode of Carmilla-- but aspects of the execution are certainly unique! I like vampire stories, anyway.
Adam Golaski’s “Distant Signals” is…okay, bear with me…it’s a creepypasta, right? Like I’ve read several stories about "lost" or mysterious media on r/ nosleep with effectively the same premise/plot. The thing is, this time it’s extremely well-written & well-paced! Even once you know where this one’s going— & for me, that was pretty early— it’s tense, eerie, unsettling, and totally magnetic. Golaski knows exactly when to go into detail and when to hold back for the maximum shudder effect. This, more than maybe anything else in the collection, made me think “I have GOT to read more work by this guy”. Y’all! What if creepypastas were good!!! Calling Channel Zero fans!
Janalyn Guo's "Night Fragrance" has body horror, creepy flowers and fungi, ambiguous/ambivalent transformation, teen friendship, & the anxieties attendant on growing up with a mild physical disability. It’s very up my alley/in my wheelhouse, in other words. Although it uses some horror tropes, the mood is a lot more elegiac than eerie or disturbing, and I appreciated that, too. As with "Pastiche" there's real sweetness here, although Guo is more focused on the ways strange, threatening people and processes might be unexpectedly sympathetic or benevolent than Geffen, whose story hinges on the opposite phenomenon: an act of immense violence and betrayal by a person one has come to love and trust. The darkness of Geffen's story comes from the shadow cast by this betrayal, by the fact that it may be ameliorated but can never be erased or truly made right again. The darkness in Guo's comes from the sadness and uncertainty in all of life's transitional phases: each choice cuts us off from possible futures, each choice is a leap of faith into a place we cannot know until we arrive there, we will inevitably grow apart from some of our friends & become unable to understand them anymore, and there's no going back.
February 17, 2023
A good collection of weird fiction. As with any short story anthology, some hit better than others. My favorites included "Night, When Windows Turn to Mirror" and "Butterfly Kisses".
January 18, 2024
Ok, full disclosure that John is a friend, but this is legitimately one of the best short story collections I’ve read in years, including some very excellent magical realism, body horror and queer lit pieces
April 23, 2023
An all-banger anthology in a gorgeous hardcover volume. Really something special.
March 10, 2023
This is an outstanding anthology, edited by John WM Thompson - whose name I will keep an eye out for on future projects. Leaning toward the Aickman realm of "strange," the stories herein are resplendent with that wonderful characteristic I've come to love in weird fiction: uncertainty. I had no idea what was coming from story to story, which was thrilling, and I was introduced to so many great authors I hadn't read before, including Janalyn Guo, Jeff Wood, Christi Nogle, J.A.W. McCarthy, and Nathan Breakenridge. I loved their stories here, as well as those by some of my favorite contemporary writers such as Brian Evenson, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Adam Golaski. Adam's story in particular was so shocking, so powerful, that I put the book down and uttered a sotto voce "god damn" after reading it. MOONCALVES does what great anthologies should: showcase a range of top-notch work by established authors while showcasing and introducing the excellent work of new and emerging authors. Highly recommended!!
December 29, 2024
A collection like this can feel like the fruit of a dying art, but I suspect it’s because I’m simply not reading enough material that really challenges me and commits to a high level of craft like these stories do. I hope there’s more out there. Either way, if the numinous or near-numinous story is dying out or flourishing, I think it’s essential that you check out this anthology. Several of the stories left me feeling profoundly changed — just to name a few: The Tomato, Distant Signals, Night When Windows Turn to Mirror, DestinationLand, Contact Light.
Fiercely smart art to cling to in an ever coarsening, dumbening world.
Fiercely smart art to cling to in an ever coarsening, dumbening world.
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February 8, 2026More notes: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
August 30, 2024
I've just read the first story ("December Story" by Briar Ripley Page) and it's so good that I'm taking a break for a side quest to read the author's other works. It's the first fiction I've read since discovering J. M. Walsh's Broodcomb Press that approaches that imprint's level of weirdness and rich, stylish prose.
March 9, 2023
“Surreal and superb, Mooncalves is a narratively abnormal exhibition, with stories that both alter and accentuate fiction traditions. John WM Thompson has procured a haunting and often horrific anthology of literary asymmetry which will unease the unconscious.” — Clint Smith, author of The Skeleton Melodies
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews