- Build a body like mine - A woman who's had weight problems finds that she's losing weight though she's still over-eating. Her female lover advises her to see a doctor. She has a tapeworm. Managed, it solves her problem, thought her partner leaves her. She offers tapeworm eggs online [No - the idea's ok but the execution's rather flat]
- The problem solver - Juliet's been raped, we're told. She wants to tell someone but the only person available is flatmate Oscar. He thinks she should report it. Against her wishes he goes out (Juliet following), finds the rapist in a pub and punches him, knocking out a tooth in front of mutual friends. She starts getting messaged [No. Execution too ordinary]
- She's always hungry - Published in "Granta". It's a mermaid piece with stronger-than-usual SF/alien/coming-of-age overtones. [Yes. The world-building's unobtrusive. Could be a first chapter. The content guide says that "it takes place in a matriarcal village, where men are heavily subject to gendered repression and systematic violence"]
- The shadow over little Chitaly - Online reviews of a half-Italian, half-Chinese takeaway [No]
- Hollow bones - 33 pages. Min wakes in an alien craft. The rest of her crew died while at a dig on a distant planet. She has a leg wound which puzzles the alien, friendly Dr Noah. She drifts in and out of consciousness, thinking her mother is still alive. To complicate matters further, her translator's on the blink. Fen is beside her. Her wound is luminous blue, When she touches it, her hand develops blisters. Fen and Min distrust Noah - is Min being used as an experiment? They get a ship to collect them. Min has her leg and hand amputated. Then she notices a blue luminesence in her mouth
- Goth GF - The narrator who works in a bar has a female Goth co-worker who criticises colleagues' make-up and taste in music. She self-harms. On Instagram she has rude selfies and a big following. The narrator (who late in the story is revealed to be male) fancies her - she's doing a Ph.D. He gets tattoos like hers. She bluntly rejects his offer of a date. He gives her his tips as long as she continues to belittle him.
- Extinction event - Earth is dying. Some plant/animals are brought back from a distant plant. They breath chlorine, eat microplastics, and exhale oxygen. The narrator looks after them and works out how they reproduce. When they're transplanted, the Earth improves, but the beings die from disease and grieve for each other. The narrator doesn't think this is moral.
- Nightstalkers - California. Keith tells his mother that he doesn't want to continue school. He wants to start a band with friend Tommy and get a girl vocalist. He and Tommy sneak into unlocked houses and take things. Tommy has a new girlfriend Rainbow who wants to try acid. Keith and her try some. He drifts off on a high. Tommy finds him in a house. They start making out. They run off back to Rainbow when the owner threatens them with a gun. Keith's happy.
- Shake well - The female narrator, 15, has bad acne and older boyfriend Kyle, a minor drug dealer. She squeezes and squirts until she buys an online remedy that seems to work fine. But her face becomes brittle, it cracks and bits come off. It can be mended. She'll made do. [Not much of an ending]
- The king - The narrator is in a phone-selling company. Shauna, a colleague, isn't impressed by him. He killed and ate his father. He eats only humans. He's working his way through Roy at the moment, who's tied up in the narrator's home. Roy is a seer. He predicts the end of the world in 63 days. The narrator prepares. There's mutually assured destruction. He sleeps for 100 years, wakes to become leader of survivors who live in a theme park. He teaches them technology and farming. He expands his power. Shauna appears with her band of followers. The narrator turns out to be a female. The narrator wants to mate with Shauna rather than humans, to create a master race. 30 years later Shauna's taken control. She cuts the narrator's head off but because she doesn't eat him, he regenerates, swimming to the continent and starting a new group, planning to conquer Shauna's tribe.
- Company man - Dora's father works for the party. She's on probation. She used to be Marti. Through the story she compares her (Dora's) reactions to those Marti would have had. She has a recurring, progressing dream involving a red tent. A man from the water board dates her. She lies that she's a widow but was lonely before that. He says his young son died and then his wife died of cancer because she didn't want treatment. They start having frequent sex. She dreams that she reaches the tent, that inside there's a cabaret. The emcee gives her a knife and there's a baby. The man says he's been searching for her - she killed his son and because of her father's connections was able to start a new life with a new identity. He strangles her. She dreams that at the cabaret she's put in a cage and sees the others have fun. [Without the dream sequences this would have been passable, readers speculating about Dora's past, and her attempt to forge a new self - another SF piece? The dreams add a layer of interpretation.]
The content guide (i.e. trigger alerts) is over 2 pages long. One entry says "The shadow over little Chitaly" contains extensive descriptions of food.
After a weak start there's impressive variety - Keith's high in "Nightstalkers" is nothing like Min's drugged confusion in "Hollow bones". There's variety also in the plot/character balance. In pieces like "Extinction event" the plot summary tells you the piece's purpose. In "Nightstalkers", though a lot happens, it's Keith's thoughts about his future life that are significant. All stories involve people who can't be trusted. Gender is pretty fluid. I'm not impressed/disturbed by the humour or horror in the way that the reviewers are. Yes, there's cannibalism but it's not gratuitous.
Other reviews
- Yagnishsing Dawoor (Clark is a bona-fide queen of body horror, sadistic in her choice of imagery. ... The title story, set within a matriarchal community with strict rules for its men – fishers vulnerable to the dark call of the sea – is a delectable, code-scrambled mermaid tale that plays with ideas about male and female power (“The machinations of men had done so little for this place, and for the world outside of here”) and adds a mischievous twist to notions of communal safety and female self-sacrifice. It comes swaddled in influences, from Andersen’s fairytale to Orkney folklore and Lovecraftian mythos ... The King satirises the “femgore” subgenre with which Clark has been identified, dramatising its excesses while relishing its cliches)
- Emily Fletcher (Clark addresses sensitive topics with a humour that doesn’t feel dismissive. Instead, her approach is both relatable and, surprisingly, comforting, striking a balance that acknowledges the seriousness of these issues without losing her unique, and comedic voice. ... ‘The Shadow over Little Chitaly’ is the story that stood out to me the most – This story was extremely laugh-out-loud worthy.)
- Ian Mond (“The Shadow Over Little Chitaly” is easily one of the funniest stories I’ve read in years ... Equally funny, but with lashings of cannibalism and gore, is “The King”, my favourite piece and one of three science fiction stories in the collection.)
- Emily Goulding (My personal favourites were ‘The King’ and ‘Shake Well’, as well as the outstanding ‘The Shadow of Little Chitaly’)
- thefictionfox
