I read this book on the strong recommendations I’ve seen online, but in the end I don’t feel like I got very much out of it.
This book is a collection of short stories and novel excerpts that were chosen by his fans and collected. They are presented in chronological order so you can see his growth as a writer. That is the theory. I saw a change in tone of the stories but honestly, I really did not enjoy this book very much. There were a few stories that I latched onto (the Doctor Who one, for example, really pulled me in, even though I don’t really follow the franchise anymore). For me, this book read as very literary, and the themes were outside what I enjoy reading. There is nothing wrong with literary SF but some of the stories were impenetrable to me… what was the point? What was the story even about? The writing was generally very good, especially the descriptions of scenes and characters, and the poetry of the writing. I tried to take away as much as i could about craft, but honestly the book was mostly a slog and I found myself just skipping through stories from time to time.
There were two main themes that recurred in the book: fantastical horror, and fairy tales told from another perspective. I don’t normally read either of these themes, so this book (and presumably this writer) is definitely aimed at another audience.
If you are a fan of literary spec fic, this book is probably for you. I tend to enjoy more hard SF, space opera and escapism. If nothing else, this book cemented my personal preferences for me.