Jeff > Recent Status Updates

I guess there wouldn't be much tension without the storm hitting this way, but it's unconvincing that this kind of group would be this naive about flooding when descending an unmapped cave system. Milo gets a little melodramatic when it would serve the narrative better to surprise the reader or at least behave authentically. Suspension of disbelief in jeopardy despite the solid prose.

A very strange way to resolve the big mental lapse that Milo suddenly suffers on his descent--building tension by putting the reader into the action and then, at the cliffhanger (okay, that pun was intended), cutting away from the scene to the aftermath, where no one is immediately confronting the issue at hand.

Milo's descent (no pun intended) into panic is a little abrupt, and after the whole pep talk about not effing up, he effs up as badly possible, directly contradicting each of his guide's instructions and also wielding a pocket knife while climbing?

The typos certainly ramp up here in the middle. No errors for 80 pages and then his editor took a nap, I guess. Used "engorging" instead of "gorging," and I don't think even a Brit would use "must" as officiously as this one. Some details get smudged: just because you stop descending a rope while someone next to you takes a call in a pit surrounded by waterfalls, that doesn't mean you're experiencing "silence."

The explanation of why some cave paintings of animals have extra legs is pure magic, quotes and references are tantalizing, and descriptions are near perfect. Zajonc is clearly capable of transporting imagery, but there seem to be a couple of sentences missing from grand features and important physical processes, like entering the cave and tying off the climbing ropes. If this were Crichton, it would be 600 pages.

While on the surface, weathering turns mountains--vertical features--into plains--horizontal. It's exactly the opposite underground. Gravity and friction dictate morphology. Horizontal passages are narrow and squeezed, where acidic water collect between sedimentary layers, slowly eating away a lazy, narrow path downslope. But vertical shafts are swallowing and massive.

For literary and historical references alone, this is candy to explorer-adventure fans. Readers of Michelle Paver, Tim Weed and Jeff Long will be delighted.

No one I've ever read is quite up to the task of reproducing Crichton at his best, but Zajonc might be the best attempt I've seen. He's a true fan, at the very least. As long as he pairs his high-minded adventure with poignant themes and a satisfying resolution, this is a guaranteed home run.

The opening is similar enough to Sphere that it probably ought to bother me, but it's so well written:

"The heavy aircraft slowly passed, a massive generator dangling from its undercarriage in a cargo net like a raindrop hanging from spider silk. Cresting a hill, the Rover made a steep final descent down a steep bluff, turning onto a freshly bulldozed triple switchback above a pastoral tree-lined valley."

The pacing and tone are a little inconsistent: I love both the dreamy librarian (pun intended) plot and I love the budget-Buffy plot, but between the visits to the old lady next door and the martial arts kicks with guns blazing, there ought to be some transition. Still great.

Ineffectual Van Helsing Meets Defective Dracula!

"The entire situation was ridiculous. A vampire? A vampire painter, no less. Running around after dark in the guise of a disembodied spirit, interceding in some age-old struggle between good and evil."

Ridiculous, yes, but so much fun.

"Special bullets that explode in the body and release phosphorous"? Nice. Ford always has more fun surprises in store.

Well, that was a sharp turn.

"A Fruiting Body": 3/5 - more meditation on mind-control and possession, this time in a semi-experimental form. High-minded and interesting but bewildering.

"Meet-Cute #2: The Scariest Thing": 2/5 - all of that was not worth the genuinely insightful commentary on Uslysses. But it was close.

"Into the Life of Things": 1/5 - almost every single story is revenge with a semi-supernatural twist. In this one, a guy starving himself for a girlfriend at a yoga retreat finds out she was intimate with the yogi and (surprise) beats him to death brutally--then his newly acquired yogic powers allow him to leap between bodies like Charles Lee Ray in Curse of Chucky. Man, I wish I were watching that instead.

I bet Cassidy is a big fan of Scott Smith. No evolution to the characters, no creative lore, original storytelling or revelations that reframe the situation, just a slow, brutal parade of violent imagery. At least Smith only thought he was being clever, not also cute and funny. Jonestown references here are way too on-the-nose, like asking your readers--hey, didja see what I did there? Good, right?

"Come": 1/5 - Yeah, I guess I should have assumed the absolute worst with that title, but I didn't. There were a series of movies about viral videos killing teens in 2014. This is far from an original premise. This time, it's a porn video--big twist. Also, the protagonist might be asexual. So much perspective.

"Jubilee Juncture": 1/5 - Never missing a chance to reduce to the lowest common denominator, Cassidy brings his readers to a Place in this story where we at first think we're getting living doll lore, but it turns out to be the tale of a Christian evangelist pedophile ventriloquist who murders children and pulls on their insides to use them like puppets. Prurient insulting garbage.

"Run for Your Life": 2/5 - this is probably the best a story could be for an author writing a historical horror fiction short based on the Beatles about a time traveler resenting criticism of their work (with a clearly meta perspective of an author and their readers). That being said, Murakami has written a LOT of Beatles stories. And none of them are not better than this.

"Laughlines": 2/5 - I kept waiting for her to get the "undeliverable" error message and that's exactly what this story is, undeliverable. A dumbed-over epistolary perversion of Shirley Jackson's Dracula. 2 stars because like all the others, there are flashes of undeniable talent and effective passages. But overall. What an insult.

A big horror fan will recognize that this is Cassidy's Dracula, but to put in that kind of analytical effort for this payoff is not going to be an easy sell for most readers. You'd have to never have read a medieval legend story written by a competent author (or seen one produced for the screen) to find this even vaguely genuine or convincing.

Someone depicted getting a pie in the face on a medieval tapestry is a good analogy for Cassidy's thematic content.

"The Lunar Eclipse": 2/5 - vague, nebulous, blood for it's own sake. An outline of a mediocre story.

"The Art of What You Want": 1/5 - not even the phrase used in the story, this sloppy mess is like some of Cassidy's other stories that don't seem to make sense until the twist, which renders everything before moot. But this particular story is full of the obnoxious dialogue and messy transitions that require so much effort from the reader to get to the twist, which is insultingly stupid and arbitrarily shocking.

Cassidy really has a fantasy about getting drunk with his doctor during an appointment.

"Nice": 3/5 - I shouldn't downgrade a rating from 5 to 3 when I liked it so much in context of the holiday anthology, but this Christmas story is just another childish, gory vignette. If I had read it immediately after the novella, I might have enjoyed it more the second time, but so far, nothing here is as good as the nuance in When the Wolf Comes Home.