I picked this up because it was free on Amazon and I'm a sucker for short horror stories. They are extremely hard to pull off properly, though, and anthologies are almost always a mixed bag at best. That was true of this one. They all kind of came across as "B" movie-type stories, which isn't bad, but meant that I was rarely actually scared or even that involved.

 

Blackmail: This was just okay. I thought the idea was interesting, but in practice I didn't really care much by the end. The characters were not terribly developed I didn't feel and I wasn't terribly surprised by the ending. Also, "Lucifera" is a ridiculous name for a bad guy character you aren't supposed to realize is bad.

 

Something Wrong: This was creepy, though a little more clarification on what the child actually was would have been appreciated.

 

The Reaver: Some kind of horrifying concotion of fantasy/horror. Not badly written, though violent and not my favorite.

 

LUX: A very twisted "Frankenstein"-esque story, this was probably my favorite of the bunch.

 

Figs: This was just strange. I kind of saw what was coming much earlier than the main character.

 

Deals and Demons: This was all a bit much for me.

 

Periphery People: This was quite possibly tied for second favorite. It was creepy and satisfying.

 

Spider Bag: This was creepy, but also kind of disgusting and a bit ridiculous, honestly. I was not a fan.

 

Taken together, they were a decent read, but nothing I was terribly excited about. Definitely not the worst horror anthology I have ever read, but hardly the best either. 

 

 

I did not expect to like this anywhere near this much.

 

I was expecting kind of fluffy, stupid treatment of the whole idea. Ooh, a Sleeping Beauty story that takes place in the future! There was no way this was going to be good.

 

This was great.

 

I liked the fact that there were some legitimate points brought up regarding the entirety of the cyrogenics idea. It was a creepy idea, with horrible implications, and the implications were actually discussed and handled, at least to some extent. There was romance, but it was not at all the normal sort of YA romance and it was handled well--there were some creepy elements, and that was recognized and discussed and made clear that there was something a little bit odd about all of it.

 

I felt for Rose, who was in a pretty horrific position for multiple reasons. I have seen complaints about her not asking questions as quickly as she should have, but honestly, she was very well conditioned not to ask questions that might have awkward answers--I feel it would have been more out-of-characters for her to ask those questions. The entire situation was extremely messed up and she reacted in what felt like a very real way.

 

I liked the side characters, and I did not see the revelation at the end coming. I'm interested enough to pick up the next book, though honestly I felt like this stood alone well enough that it doesn't really need to be part of a series. 

This was loads of fun.

 

One of my favorite things about retellings is watching precisely how they are going to twist things around. I have heard complaints that retellings are somehow less creative because they require some kind of outline of a basic story to be followed to be a proper retelling. I have always felt the opposite. Because the writer is restrained by the outline of the story, creativity is harder and therefore more interesting. I know some of what I am going to see--how am I going to get there? What is going to be the same and what is going to be different? What kind of spin is this going to have on things? I am wildly addicted to the entire concept and have been for years.

 

This was a fabulous twist on a story. Both major contributors to the Oz canon were recognized throughout: the 1939 film and the books. It was nice to see the nods to the extended literary canon, much of which tends to be ignored in any kind of Oz story.

 

I missed the twist at the end where it was revealed

I feel stupid missing it, because it is kind of part of the canon, though a part I often forget about entirely and probably hadn't thought about in decades. It was also totally awesome in its own right.

 

I liked the characters in general. Nobody that you recognize from the original stories is at all what you expect, and the differences are generally quite grotesque.  The author played up the horror of Oz, which always felt more obvious in the books, and then turned it up to eleven and turned everything around on its head. Dorothy herself is a monster, though how she got that way is a bit questionable (not because it is not explained, precisely, but because several options are presented), and her loyal companions have had the strongest parts of their personalities twisted in a way you can almost see coming.

 

I felt the new characters were interesting in their own right. I like Amy quite a bit, as she  had some serious guts and managed to be sometimes rude and sometimes pushy and sometimes kind of dumb, but never malicious, which seems to be an alarmingly difficult line to walk in YA sometimes. She doesn't come from a good life and somehow gets thrown into an even worse situation, but she deals with it as best she can and somehow manages to make an impact, even though she doesn't precisely come out on top.

 

The side characters were intriguing and I'm not sure of the motives of quite a few of them. We have several factions set up here by the end and I'm not positive who is allied with whom or why.  I was not expecting how several of the characters turned out

and watching everything play out was a lot of fun.

 

This was absolutely not a stand-alone book in a lot of ways and the sudden revelation at the end is clearly going to be key to the rest of the series. I've already got the next book reserved at the library and I can't wait to see what happens next in the Oz that went so wrong. 

 

Spoilers follow, though in practice most people probably have a basic idea of the plot, and I'm not spoiling specifics, really. So if you are aware of what this book is about, you are probably fine to read this.

 

This was not nearly as frightening as I had hoped.

 

The implications were certainly upsetting, but I didn't find the ending to be terribly satisfying and I was hoping for some more clarification on what precisely was happening to the women (robots? brainwashing?) And how is it happening so against their will? And why precisely? Do the men all know going in that this is a thing that they want to do? Is that why they are moving here? Or are they being brainwashed as well? Or just convinced that this is what they want or deserve?

 

I wanted more of an ending than I got. I'm glad I read it (finally!) and I might try the movie and see how it compares. I understand the ending is a little more final?

HORROR REVIEW