mikerickson reviewed Small Horrors by Darcy Coates
Review of 'Small Horrors' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
There's that saying, "Quantity has a quality all its own." I don't think it was originally made in reference to this book, but it feels fitting here anyway.
I think horror as a genre lends itself to shorter stories and maybe this is confirmation bias but I tend to see more short story collections for this genre than others. But fifty stories? I was skeptical until a brief skim through the pages confirmed that no, they really were all crammed in there.
Some (okay, most) of them were fairly formulaic, but that's hardly a fair criticism when they're all written by the same author. If anything, I got so used to expecting the same order of events - person is minding their own business doing something normal, notices something strange, oops! they're dead! - that whenever there was a deviation I paid closer attention. And none of them were outright …
There's that saying, "Quantity has a quality all its own." I don't think it was originally made in reference to this book, but it feels fitting here anyway.
I think horror as a genre lends itself to shorter stories and maybe this is confirmation bias but I tend to see more short story collections for this genre than others. But fifty stories? I was skeptical until a brief skim through the pages confirmed that no, they really were all crammed in there.
Some (okay, most) of them were fairly formulaic, but that's hardly a fair criticism when they're all written by the same author. If anything, I got so used to expecting the same order of events - person is minding their own business doing something normal, notices something strange, oops! they're dead! - that whenever there was a deviation I paid closer attention. And none of them were outright bad, but there was a comfort in knowing that if I wasn't vibing with a given story it would be over in literally two or three pages.
As a whole it felt more like a collection of writing exercises than a coherent polished product, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. In retrospect, I would have gotten more enjoyment out of it had I read maybe one story a day and give it time to settle in my mind; trying to rapid-fire my way through these stories felt like leaving a car radio on scan mode. I could totally see this collection being repackaged as like a "spook-a-day" microfiction calendar or something.
