Book Review: "Monster Lairs" ed. by Anna Madden

There is something about being in the body of the beast, the house of the monster, the lair of what lurks beyond that has always fascinated us as human beings consumed by stories. From the Dunwich Horror by HP Lovecraft to the tale of Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm - it is where we live. I love the way this intertwines with the folk, the meeting of worlds where humans cross that threshold and whether it is a positive or negative experience depends entirely on the genre you're reading. Of course, you can probably guess what kind of experiences are involved here. Where monsters sleep, giants live and demons wander the earth - this anthology is just as brilliant as the other two I have read by Dark Matter. I would highly recommend this one. Trust me, it's wonderful...

These stories I discuss are not in the order they appear in the anthology but in the order in which I enjoyed them...

The story I want to talk about first is a folkish one called To Gut a Fish You Must First Gather Its Bones. This story is about an elderly woman who lives on an island on which people fight a mythical giant fish with sharp teeth and monstrous appearance. They go out on to the sea with bigger and bigger boats, the only thing that returns is their bones. Over the course of years, she has witnessed her family go off and die, wanting to be the first to gut the fish and bring peace to the island, but every time they have fallen to its giant teeth. These huge wooden boats are no good and the elderly woman knows that. Eventually, she goes to the council to tell them that they must use smaller boats so that the fish will not see them but of course, they laugh her out of the meeting and so she does it herself. She gathers the bones of the dead and makes herself armour and a boat made from skulls and limbs, a sword made from a spleen and much more. Going out on to the ocean without the knowledge of anyone in the area, she is off to fight. I mean, if it is the only thing the fish cannot digest and break, what is the worst that could happen? This story reads more like a fairy tale and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you read this anthology I cannot doubt that it will be one of your favourites too.

In Sister to the Sea, we have two sisters who promise each other that they will never be apart. This sets us up quite nicely to find out what happens when one of them dies by drowning. I'm not going to lie, I love the stories that have that sort of twisted children's fairy tale atmosphere and, just like To Gut a Fish, this story is written in that way that keeps our heads in the creeping dread slowly approaching. The living sister goes to seek out the characters of afterlife in order to ask for her sister, or at least ask to know where she is and how she's doing. Of course though, that's not exactly what happens and the creatures she finds are not all that positive about the arrival of a sister. Oh and there's so much more in this story which almost ends in a suicide. Honestly, there was something short but powerful about this story. If you love it when things get conceptually dark then you'll adore this one.

Patch Job is one of those stories that you know that I would adore. A family with a mother who is kind of overbearing but is amazing at fixing just about anything to make it brand new is horrified when our narrator, her son, suffers a horrible car accident and is mangled but alive. The accident was caused by his cousin and so, you can imagine that this mother isn't feeling all that great. And now, you can probably guess where this is going. I love it when you have that knot in your stomach about knowing what will happen but not wanting it to - because you know things are about to get dark as hell. Of course, she takes her mangled child into her work room and starts to work on the spine, trying to make him up to be brand new. But whilst this is going on, the cousin comes over and all of a sudden, is never seen again. Then the cousin's mother is never seen again and the sister of the household keeps screaming that her mother is a monster. Once he can walk again though, the son must learn the way of the mother's trade so that they can be together forever. Honestly, I didn't see the ending coming and you probably won't either because implication is stronger than the scares within. I won't say much more.

From a giant spider with the hands of dead children stitching gowns to the flesh of traumatised women to a man in a wagon who once ate children. From a man who is made to be with the flowers and stories inspired by the great Jewish folklore culture...this book is probably my favourite of all three anthologies. It was bloody brilliant.