Jack Duggan > Recent Status Updates

Disappointed to realise this collection only includes the first four stories in what’s usually a collection of 8 or so, because the three I’ve read so far have been very fun and very accessible considering when this was published

Very cool. Reads like something much more modern than things I’ve read inspired by it.

Flows really nicely, almost reads like modern writing which is nice. Could easily have had the print condensed to make it 40 pages in a larger collection, but the larger font gives the text room to breathe and styling it as a novella focusses it nicely.

Has an annoying amount of that Machen quality I didn’t like, I understand why this is just collecting but I do think some rewriting wouldn’t have gone amiss

Really accessible writing, much easier than I was expecting. It’s parcelling out all it’s information really nicely bit-by-bit

It has a really interesting way on going on long tangents without really feeling like it, it flows exactly like listening to someone recounting their day

Finally commuting to DNFing this. The title story had some really cool ideas, but most stories play out the exact same way and it’s all so dry

Skipped two thirds of The Three Imposters, and even with that out of the way I’m still struggling to keep going. May end up on my DNF - just very dry and of its time.

Really gorgeous use of colour, and the consistent use of period settings is interesting, although I preferred the more modern setting of A Guest In The House

Continually reminded the reason I’ll never be great at these is because substitutions are bullshit and I don’t have time to try every combination of all of the 8000 alternatives for a word in the thesaurus

Lovely easy reads. Not too creepy, not too deep, and the art is beautiful almost to the point of distraction

Now well into the kind of bullshit that makes me hate doing the daily and this isn’t really helping, just confirming it is actually all bullshit

Pretty cool so far. It definitely has an element of being aimed at a readership that was very religious, so the idea of things being ‘pagan’ and unchristian seems a little quaint, but I like how all the threads cross over and connect and the initial premise is quite a neat pseudoscientific idea. I’m also convinced that epistolary was the Victorian equivalent of Found Footage horror to try and add ‘veritas’

One story in and I know this was a good choice. Graphic novels are a great format for short stories, and it’s fun knowing I could turn the page and be presented either with something subtle and symbolic, or something incredibly visually unsettling :)

136 pages in before it finally name-checks Misery, but by now it’s already stopped really being misery and started feeling more like a Chris Morris plot