JR Reviews

Beware!

Revisado: 05-10-23

Great stories, but… THE EDITOR’S INTRODUCTIONS SPOIL THE TWIST ENDINGS! They should not have put the editors notes BEFORE each story, but AFTER! Even if you’ve seen all the movies (doubtful, it’s a lot) the endings are not always the same. Sometimes the editor will even RUIN BOTH ENDINGS by telling them how the story ends, then tell you how the movie ends.

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Silly

Revisado: 11-17-22

I genuinely belly-laughed at a few different times throughout, and it kept my attention. Most of it is sort-of “stupid humor” though, with just a little clever wordplay sprinkled in at odd places. It’s not Oscar Wilde or Groucho Marx, though definitely more engaging than Adam Sandler. Still, if you don’t have patience for silly/stupid humor you’ll probably not enjoy this.

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Can we please stop using “Latinx?”

Revisado: 03-16-22

“Latinx” is just obnoxious and pointless. “Hispanic” is probably best. “Latino” is good as well.

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Very Good Drama

Revisado: 06-05-21

The acting was pretty good, if not a little cringe in a few places, but the writing was excellent! And the payoff at the end was well worth it!

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Inconsistent, leaning towards bad

Revisado: 06-01-21

What I love about some zombie fiction is that it sets up really good human dramas, people with complicated lives in crisis. This can lend itself to wonderful, enticing, fascinating plots. 3 or 4 of these stores fit that bill. The remaining stories are what I’d call “splatter fiction” where the most interesting thing that happens is cartoonish violence. This isn’t to say all splatter fiction is bad, but you can’t just forget about plot entirely just because you’re writing violence. 2 or 3 of these stories have literally no plot. Most of them have very simple plots, at least it’s something, but not much.

I also think most of these stories fall into something I hate, which is “OMG! A slightly grey shambling person! Zombies are real! I didn’t believe at all before, but now I 100% do!” There’s no slow realization in about half of these stories. No denial or confusion. Even Shawn of the Dead got that right (“She is... so... drunk!”)

Also, some of the voice acting is good. Some of it is awful. One story is told in the first person of someone from rural Central Pennsylvania... in a heavy Brooklyn accent. I could barely listen to that one the voice acting was so terrible.

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Disappointing

Revisado: 05-28-21

Perhaps unfairly I came into this expecting something like the Risk Podcast. Unfortunately this isn’t anywhere near as good. I felt like the stories were bland. In one story literally nothing happened at all, but none were outstanding. And again, maybe I’m just too used to listening to podcasts that are basically the passion projects of the hosts, but the hosts on this seem very scripted... like they’re putting on a show instead of just making what they love.

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Misfire

Revisado: 10-15-20

I’m really disappointed in this. I’m still trying to muddle through it, but it may be destined to be returned. The forward says it is a mix of stories that are scary, spooky and non-spooky. This mix sounded great to me. Unfortunately, 9 stories into it and I’ve only come across one that’s even a little scary. All of the stories thus far have been fairly cornball. Also, I expected a lot of Autumn ambience throughout the anthology, but there really isn’t that much, so it’s not like I feel immersed in Fall.

P.S. There’s also a story in here that’s set in outer space. I have no idea why it’s even in there.

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Brilliant Concept, But...

Revisado: 08-09-20

This was such a brilliant idea for a story, and in its day it was absolutely revolutionary, and changed science fiction forever. I hate to say it though, but there are some big problems with how it’s written. These scientists in the book have an incredible ability to hypothesize about alien biology based on limited information, and reach correct conclusions at shockingly high rates. They don’t discuss, throw out a series of ideas and then decide to pursue the strongest possibility. No. Something will happen to advance the plot and in response just one scientist will just blurt out a hypothesis fully formed with a short explanation as to why he thinks that, and there is little discussion following that. Of course, the assessment proves to be basically correct. This happens repeatedly in the book, so it’s not just one “lucky guess.”

The other problem I had was how some characters don’t seem to reach conclusions naturally. One character in particular who is a scientist had a premonition very early on in the book in a dream. As far as we know he never had one before, and doesn’t expect to have more, but he 100% believes in the accuracy of this dream. I find this really hard to believe that he would accept this without questioning himself. There is no grappling with “could it be true? Am I just crazy?” He just accepts it, and actually gets angry when other people are hesitant to believe as well, but he never explains why he believes it so deeply. Even if the author took the lazy way out and just stuck in one sentence where he says “I may be a scientist, but I’ve always believed in the paranormal.” Like I said, this isn’t a great explanation, but at least it would give me something to help me believe these are real people.

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Absolutly horrible narration.

Revisado: 09-20-19

Why these accents? Tyrion has a Kerry accent, and Daenerys sounds like a washer woman from Cork. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some absolutely beautiful Irish accents, but the narrator is not using any of THOSE Irish accents. These are cartoonish, and extremely distracting. I’m really fighting the temptation to return this. I may have to read it in book form.

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Truly Great

Revisado: 08-06-18

Excellent read. It’s a legitimate shame that Americans generally know very little about this part of our own history. A must read to truly understand American history.

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