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pandoozled14's review against another edition
I tried because I really liked Sinopticon (sci-fi anthology), but horror is not my genre. I DNF'd the first three stories and felt completely uninterested in continuing with the rest.
mitzee's review
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I enjoyed this collection of horror stories and the notes from the editor after each. It was enlightening to hear what she thought was good or intriguing about each plot, setting, or the characters - all that context was helpful to understand the cultural context.
The stories that stuck with me the most were:
“Have You Heard of Ancient Glory?” In which a couple moves into a newly built apartment building to find that nobody else seems to be living there despite being told all the units have been sold. Apparently the cost of buying an apartment to house the cremated remains of dead relatives made it so people would fill these buildings with remains - it’s bad luck to live with the remains of the dead in one’s own home.
“Forbidden Rooms” was very Saw. Two people wake up locked in an apartment and have to do whatever this voice on the other end of a cellphone says. The voice gives them institutions on things they can do to try to get rescued but it’s always just out of reach. The way the two people are linked is that there’s a man who leaves his father and 3yr old son in an apartment and when the old man dies abruptly, there’s no one around to take care of the child. The child cries but nobody checks on him because they feel like it’s none of their business so the kid dies too. The woman in the story shared an apartment with them - though it’s separated by a door or something similar. Both of them are being held responsible by an unknown person and being tortured into playing a “game” for their survival. The moral of people “minding their own business” could result in people not caring enough about each other.
And “Death of Nala” where a kid kills a kitten that his mom had brought home. It’s being recalled from her perspective. She keeps having nightmares about the kid putting a plastic bag over the kittens head because it keeps meowing and he wanted to dampen the sound with the bag. At least that’s what he says. She can’t forget it and she eventually goes to see a psychiatrist. She overhears the doctor and her husband talking about how “she’s still” thinking about this, like it’s been so long. Eventually her husband reminds her that it wasn’t a kitten. She remembers that they had a baby girl named Cindy and they nicknamed her Nala (after the Lion King) and her son did indeed kill the baby the first time the mom left the kids with a nanny. Fucking horrifying and gut-wrenching.
The stories that stuck with me the most were:
“Have You Heard of Ancient Glory?” In which a couple moves into a newly built apartment building to find that nobody else seems to be living there despite being told all the units have been sold. Apparently the cost of buying an apartment to house the cremated remains of dead relatives made it so people would fill these buildings with remains - it’s bad luck to live with the remains of the dead in one’s own home.
“Forbidden Rooms” was very Saw. Two people wake up locked in an apartment and have to do whatever this voice on the other end of a cellphone says. The voice gives them institutions on things they can do to try to get rescued but it’s always just out of reach. The way the two people are linked is that there’s a man who leaves his father and 3yr old son in an apartment and when the old man dies abruptly, there’s no one around to take care of the child. The child cries but nobody checks on him because they feel like it’s none of their business so the kid dies too. The woman in the story shared an apartment with them - though it’s separated by a door or something similar. Both of them are being held responsible by an unknown person and being tortured into playing a “game” for their survival. The moral of people “minding their own business” could result in people not caring enough about each other.
And “Death of Nala” where a kid kills a kitten that his mom had brought home. It’s being recalled from her perspective. She keeps having nightmares about the kid putting a plastic bag over the kittens head because it keeps meowing and he wanted to dampen the sound with the bag. At least that’s what he says. She can’t forget it and she eventually goes to see a psychiatrist. She overhears the doctor and her husband talking about how “she’s still” thinking about this, like it’s been so long. Eventually her husband reminds her that it wasn’t a kitten. She remembers that they had a baby girl named Cindy and they nicknamed her Nala (after the Lion King) and her son did indeed kill the baby the first time the mom left the kids with a nanny. Fucking horrifying and gut-wrenching.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Gore, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Body horror, Blood, and Abandonment
mweis's review against another edition
4.0
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
I really enjoyed Sinopticon, a collection of Chinese science fiction collected by Xueting, and I have gotten more into horror over the last few years so I was thrilled to see there was a collection of Chinese horror. Like with many anthologies, there are hits and misses here, but overall I really enjoyed this! Throughout these 14 stories there is a range of horror subgenres and settings cover large chunks of the country. Rather than just focusing on cities like Beijing and Shanghai, there are stories set in Sichuan, Yunnan, and Hunan provinces and often if the story is set in a city, it's the fringe. Many of the entries are quite long, which I've come to expect from "short" Chinese fiction (when I taught short fiction, I had to put a page limit on my students because I had multiple students try to turn in short stories that were 50+ pages). Unfortunately one of the longest stories in the collection was the one I got along with the least and the one I'm most sad about disliking. Records of Xiangxi is an adventure horror in the vein of like Indiana Jones and it's set in southern Hunan province which is really close to where I used to live and it's tackling themes like the horrors of war and greed and playing with the idea of prejudice towards things that look "weird" or “deformed". There is so much about this novella that scream up my alley on paper but I could not get behind the writing style.
That being said, there were stories that I really loved here. The Waking Dream tackles the fears and pressures of the modern workforce with an interesting science fiction twist which seems to mirror a lot of the AI conversation happening in Western societies today. Have You Heard of Ancient Glory? was apparently pulled from a real story Zhou Dedong had seen reported on in 2019 and highlights the tight rope between changing burial practices due to rising land costs and ecological concerns and cultural traditions/beliefs about the afterlife. It also highlights the rising concern about home ownership and future prospects in China. The Ying Yang Pot takes on a superstition surrounding hotpot in Chongqing but make it a ghost/possession story. Forbidden Rooms is a suspenseful locked room thriller that tackles isolation, specifically due to rising economic pressures and the long hours of corporate culture.
I really enjoyed Sinopticon, a collection of Chinese science fiction collected by Xueting, and I have gotten more into horror over the last few years so I was thrilled to see there was a collection of Chinese horror. Like with many anthologies, there are hits and misses here, but overall I really enjoyed this! Throughout these 14 stories there is a range of horror subgenres and settings cover large chunks of the country. Rather than just focusing on cities like Beijing and Shanghai, there are stories set in Sichuan, Yunnan, and Hunan provinces and often if the story is set in a city, it's the fringe. Many of the entries are quite long, which I've come to expect from "short" Chinese fiction (when I taught short fiction, I had to put a page limit on my students because I had multiple students try to turn in short stories that were 50+ pages). Unfortunately one of the longest stories in the collection was the one I got along with the least and the one I'm most sad about disliking. Records of Xiangxi is an adventure horror in the vein of like Indiana Jones and it's set in southern Hunan province which is really close to where I used to live and it's tackling themes like the horrors of war and greed and playing with the idea of prejudice towards things that look "weird" or “deformed". There is so much about this novella that scream up my alley on paper but I could not get behind the writing style.
That being said, there were stories that I really loved here. The Waking Dream tackles the fears and pressures of the modern workforce with an interesting science fiction twist which seems to mirror a lot of the AI conversation happening in Western societies today. Have You Heard of Ancient Glory? was apparently pulled from a real story Zhou Dedong had seen reported on in 2019 and highlights the tight rope between changing burial practices due to rising land costs and ecological concerns and cultural traditions/beliefs about the afterlife. It also highlights the rising concern about home ownership and future prospects in China. The Ying Yang Pot takes on a superstition surrounding hotpot in Chongqing but make it a ghost/possession story. Forbidden Rooms is a suspenseful locked room thriller that tackles isolation, specifically due to rising economic pressures and the long hours of corporate culture.
horrorbutch's review against another edition
5.0
Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.
Before reading this Chinese horror short story anthology, most of what I knew from Chinese horror came from horror movies, podcasts about the mythology and urban legends and finally online creepy pastas and so I was incredibly intrigued by this anthology to see what else was out there. Starting out I was immediately further intrigued and encouraged by the editor’s introduction where she talks about how it was initially hard to find Chinese horror she wanted to include in her anthology, especially while avoiding violent misogyny. This made me very excited to read the short stories as it can be incredibly tiring to read an anthology and read story after story by cishet male authors with misogynistic characters. It definitely made me hopeful that I would encounter something new and interesting and get to read stories with interesting characters. I also appreciated that trigger warnings are given in the front of the book, but that the page also includes a spoiler warning if you're the type of person who'd rather skip them. One thing I also found incredibly interesting is that after each short story we are given a short editor's note providing cultural knowledge as well as a biography of the author and sometimes thoughts by the editor, which made the stories even more interesting to me.
The short stories themselves encompass a wide variety from horrors born from our modern times to traditional ghost stories to futuristic technological terrors and include ghosts, futuristic technology, monsters, serial killers and more and travel across the vast expanse of China to include local folklore from various corners of the country. The stories take place in small isolated mountain villages, in vast expanses of forest, but also in small inner city apartments or at university. The stories also often explore societal ails from the downsides of technology to small mountain village medicine, misogyny or the troubles of finding an affordable home near Beijing. While not all short stories where to my exact liking, there were others I really enjoyed. As each short story was written by a different author, but translated by the same translator, I found the writing style to flow well together, without the stories becoming repetitive or boring.
All in all, this is a really interesting short story collection and one I can absolutely recommend if you enjoy or are simply interested in reading more Chinese horror. As the horror is not too extreme, I think this can also be interesting for people who can’t handle more brutal horror or those who enjoy the psychological build-up of dread (but there is also more than enough blood and gorey deaths for those horror fans who do enjoy a gruesome murder :D). I really enjoyed how many different horror aspects are covered by this anthology and was never bored (because again, even if one of the short stories wasn’t to my liking, I knew there’d be another one I’d surely love!)! And there are quite a few short stories I loved in here, my favorite being: The Waking Dream by Fan Zhao, Immortal Beauty by Chu Xidao, Those Who Walk at Night, Walk With Ghosts by She Cong Ge, Have you Heard of Ancient Glory by Zhou Dedong and Ti’Naang by Su Min.
All in all, I am deeply thankful I received an ARC of this book and very happy that I got to gain this amazing view into Chinese horror and can only recommend it to anybody who enjoys horror!
The Girl in the Rain by Hong Niangzi: A short story following a triad of university students, two girls and one boy, who encounter terrifying urban legends on their way back to their dorms from university. At times the horror felt a bit contrived, particularly after the second twist in the end, but I liked the urban legends horror in the beginning a lot as well as the first twist. Definitely an interesting beginning to this anthology. tw: cheating, murder, suicide, childhood trauma, coercion
*FAV* The Waking Dream by Fan Zhou: A futuristic horror about the future of work, where thanks to new technology workers can go to the office in their dreams. This seems to be fine for most people, but for one worker who has always had problems with nightmares, it becomes an incredible burden. Very interesting and incredibly haunting this showcases the dangers of capitalism and technology encroaching on the private home and inner lives of people, I quite enjoyed it! I also wonder if the translation choices of “men” vs “females” and “the healthy” vs “disableds” was intentional, because if so. Very interesting in showing the different treatment of marginalized groups of people. tw: suicide, murder, spiders, body horror, coercion, drugs, depiction of mental illness, needles, imprisonment
*FAV* Immortal Beauty by Chu Xidao: A more traditional ghost story about love and betrayal and vengeful wives, this story follows the wife of a powerful man, who replaces her with the younger model all too soon. Gruesome violence and incredible rage flows through this story and I adored it! Angry ghosts vs misogynistic society is always a fun story! Tw: misogyny, murder, domestic violence, abuse, graphic violence, imprisonment, sexual abuse, torture
*FAV* Those Who Walk At Night, Walk With Ghosts by She Cong Ge: A rather long ghost story set in a small mountain town where a young doctor insists on leaving to bring an old man to the hospital despite the warnings of everybody else in the village. Felt more like a traditional Chinese horror story, but manages to become interesting both with the way superstitions and folk medicine meet modern medicine, all while history is much more alive than anybody thinks, very well written and builds dread incredibly well. Also historically very interesting. Tw: graphic injury, death, alcohol, needles, torture.
The Yin Yang Pot by Chuan Ge: A young man looking for a place to eat meets and old flame and decides to share the same Yuanyang pot with her as they did before they lost touch, only this time she is weirdly insistent he not eat from the white side of the dish. But can he handle the heat to keep his promise? An interesting ghost story with a fascinating twist at the end. Tw: car accident, suicide mention, imprisonment
The Shaxiao by Goodnight Xiaoqing: A warrior dreaming of fighting monsters and rescuing maidens finds his dreams shattered when he finally encounters his first real monster and finds himself defenseless. Interesting and I enjoyed how common fantasy tropes were turned on their heads here. Tw: death, animal death, domestic abuse, imprisonment, torture, implied sexual assault
*FAV* Have you Heard of Ancient Glory by Zhou Dedong: A young couple finally finds an apartment they can afford, but something incredibly weird is going on as they notice that none of their neighbors ever turn on the lights. Very scary and with an interesting twist on the haunted house trope. I really enjoyed it! Tw: death, suicide, mental illness, ptsd, trauma, alcohol, imprisonment
Records of Xiangxi by Nanpai Sanshu: The longest short story in the collection by far (it alone takes up 50 pages of the collection) tells of a grandchild piecing together a story from folklore that their grandfather used to tell them before he died, engaging in research and travels, connecting a few pieces of folklore from a specific region to gain a full picture of the folklore from there. The longest part of the short story is taken up by a retelling of a group of military men being tasked to carry a child sacrifice up the mountain to protect the town. It is an interesting story, but really very long. If you are interested in folklore and military horror this might interest you more than it did me. I found the horror very well done though and found myself filled with dread at times, but was not particularly interested in the characters, which is a personal issue of mine and will certainly not apply to every reader. Tw: child death, death, gore, body horror, corpses, alcohol, graphic violence, insects, racial/religious slurs, torture
*FAV* The Ghost Wedding by Yimei Tangguo: A horrifying story about a small town kidnapping a woman to find a suitable bride for one of their town’s young men. Very violent and gruesome and with a focus on the all too human monsters among us this story is sickening and great. I loved it, but you need to have a strong stomach for it! tw: abduction, human trafficking, rape, suicide, very violent domestic abuse, animal abuse, child abuse, childhood trauma, threats of graphic violent punishment, unsanitary, dehumanization, self-harm, strangulation, torture
Night Climb by Chi Hui: During a hike up the mountain at night to arrive on top in time to see the sunrise a climber encounters a group of very strange beings also travelling towards the top of the mountain, very short, but interesting and I enjoyed reading about a fat character in here as well!
Forbidden Rooms by Zhou Haohui: A saw-like trap is set for a neighbor who heard a little child cry in her apartment and did nothing until it was too late. She wakes up in a locked room with the child’s father, who had abandoned the boy with his father and receives phone calls that might lead her to freedom. Very intense and quite interesting. tw: child death, child neglect, murder, violence, starvation, voyeurs, strangulation, suicide, torture
*FAV* Ti’Naang by Su Min: A young woman returns to her hometown to introduce her fiancé to her family, but soon the town’s secret and the father’s temper start to cause issues. Really interesting story, heartbreaking as well and I loved the dread it built a lot. Tw: domestic abuse, child abuse, childhood trauma, gaslighting, racial/religious slurs
Huangcun by Cai Jun: An author is approached by a person from a small town that featured in his latest book during a book signing. The only problem is that he made the town up. Intrigued by this coincidence, he accompanies the reader to her hometown and discovers that something incredibly strange is going on in Huangcun. Really great story with many references to western horror stories as well, which I found interesting. Tw: suicide, childhood trauma, domestic abuse, graphic violence, racial/religious slurs, self-harm
The Death of Nala by Gu Shi: A mother who is terribly afraid of her son, a young boy who seems to take pleasure in cruelty, reaches her breaking point when she adopts a little kitten only to find it dead in her son’s hands. Interesting look at mental health issues, but I do wish the child had been given a bit more depth instead of simply being a “natural born killer”. tw: animal death, child death, murder, cruelty, graphic violence, imprisonment, mental illness, strangulation, ptsd
Before reading this Chinese horror short story anthology, most of what I knew from Chinese horror came from horror movies, podcasts about the mythology and urban legends and finally online creepy pastas and so I was incredibly intrigued by this anthology to see what else was out there. Starting out I was immediately further intrigued and encouraged by the editor’s introduction where she talks about how it was initially hard to find Chinese horror she wanted to include in her anthology, especially while avoiding violent misogyny. This made me very excited to read the short stories as it can be incredibly tiring to read an anthology and read story after story by cishet male authors with misogynistic characters. It definitely made me hopeful that I would encounter something new and interesting and get to read stories with interesting characters. I also appreciated that trigger warnings are given in the front of the book, but that the page also includes a spoiler warning if you're the type of person who'd rather skip them. One thing I also found incredibly interesting is that after each short story we are given a short editor's note providing cultural knowledge as well as a biography of the author and sometimes thoughts by the editor, which made the stories even more interesting to me.
The short stories themselves encompass a wide variety from horrors born from our modern times to traditional ghost stories to futuristic technological terrors and include ghosts, futuristic technology, monsters, serial killers and more and travel across the vast expanse of China to include local folklore from various corners of the country. The stories take place in small isolated mountain villages, in vast expanses of forest, but also in small inner city apartments or at university. The stories also often explore societal ails from the downsides of technology to small mountain village medicine, misogyny or the troubles of finding an affordable home near Beijing. While not all short stories where to my exact liking, there were others I really enjoyed. As each short story was written by a different author, but translated by the same translator, I found the writing style to flow well together, without the stories becoming repetitive or boring.
All in all, this is a really interesting short story collection and one I can absolutely recommend if you enjoy or are simply interested in reading more Chinese horror. As the horror is not too extreme, I think this can also be interesting for people who can’t handle more brutal horror or those who enjoy the psychological build-up of dread (but there is also more than enough blood and gorey deaths for those horror fans who do enjoy a gruesome murder :D). I really enjoyed how many different horror aspects are covered by this anthology and was never bored (because again, even if one of the short stories wasn’t to my liking, I knew there’d be another one I’d surely love!)! And there are quite a few short stories I loved in here, my favorite being: The Waking Dream by Fan Zhao, Immortal Beauty by Chu Xidao, Those Who Walk at Night, Walk With Ghosts by She Cong Ge, Have you Heard of Ancient Glory by Zhou Dedong and Ti’Naang by Su Min.
All in all, I am deeply thankful I received an ARC of this book and very happy that I got to gain this amazing view into Chinese horror and can only recommend it to anybody who enjoys horror!
The Girl in the Rain by Hong Niangzi: A short story following a triad of university students, two girls and one boy, who encounter terrifying urban legends on their way back to their dorms from university. At times the horror felt a bit contrived, particularly after the second twist in the end, but I liked the urban legends horror in the beginning a lot as well as the first twist. Definitely an interesting beginning to this anthology. tw: cheating, murder, suicide, childhood trauma, coercion
*FAV* The Waking Dream by Fan Zhou: A futuristic horror about the future of work, where thanks to new technology workers can go to the office in their dreams. This seems to be fine for most people, but for one worker who has always had problems with nightmares, it becomes an incredible burden. Very interesting and incredibly haunting this showcases the dangers of capitalism and technology encroaching on the private home and inner lives of people, I quite enjoyed it! I also wonder if the translation choices of “men” vs “females” and “the healthy” vs “disableds” was intentional, because if so. Very interesting in showing the different treatment of marginalized groups of people. tw: suicide, murder, spiders, body horror, coercion, drugs, depiction of mental illness, needles, imprisonment
*FAV* Immortal Beauty by Chu Xidao: A more traditional ghost story about love and betrayal and vengeful wives, this story follows the wife of a powerful man, who replaces her with the younger model all too soon. Gruesome violence and incredible rage flows through this story and I adored it! Angry ghosts vs misogynistic society is always a fun story! Tw: misogyny, murder, domestic violence, abuse, graphic violence, imprisonment, sexual abuse, torture
*FAV* Those Who Walk At Night, Walk With Ghosts by She Cong Ge: A rather long ghost story set in a small mountain town where a young doctor insists on leaving to bring an old man to the hospital despite the warnings of everybody else in the village. Felt more like a traditional Chinese horror story, but manages to become interesting both with the way superstitions and folk medicine meet modern medicine, all while history is much more alive than anybody thinks, very well written and builds dread incredibly well. Also historically very interesting. Tw: graphic injury, death, alcohol, needles, torture.
The Yin Yang Pot by Chuan Ge: A young man looking for a place to eat meets and old flame and decides to share the same Yuanyang pot with her as they did before they lost touch, only this time she is weirdly insistent he not eat from the white side of the dish. But can he handle the heat to keep his promise? An interesting ghost story with a fascinating twist at the end. Tw: car accident, suicide mention, imprisonment
The Shaxiao by Goodnight Xiaoqing: A warrior dreaming of fighting monsters and rescuing maidens finds his dreams shattered when he finally encounters his first real monster and finds himself defenseless. Interesting and I enjoyed how common fantasy tropes were turned on their heads here. Tw: death, animal death, domestic abuse, imprisonment, torture, implied sexual assault
*FAV* Have you Heard of Ancient Glory by Zhou Dedong: A young couple finally finds an apartment they can afford, but something incredibly weird is going on as they notice that none of their neighbors ever turn on the lights. Very scary and with an interesting twist on the haunted house trope. I really enjoyed it! Tw: death, suicide, mental illness, ptsd, trauma, alcohol, imprisonment
Records of Xiangxi by Nanpai Sanshu: The longest short story in the collection by far (it alone takes up 50 pages of the collection) tells of a grandchild piecing together a story from folklore that their grandfather used to tell them before he died, engaging in research and travels, connecting a few pieces of folklore from a specific region to gain a full picture of the folklore from there. The longest part of the short story is taken up by a retelling of a group of military men being tasked to carry a child sacrifice up the mountain to protect the town. It is an interesting story, but really very long. If you are interested in folklore and military horror this might interest you more than it did me. I found the horror very well done though and found myself filled with dread at times, but was not particularly interested in the characters, which is a personal issue of mine and will certainly not apply to every reader. Tw: child death, death, gore, body horror, corpses, alcohol, graphic violence, insects, racial/religious slurs, torture
*FAV* The Ghost Wedding by Yimei Tangguo: A horrifying story about a small town kidnapping a woman to find a suitable bride for one of their town’s young men. Very violent and gruesome and with a focus on the all too human monsters among us this story is sickening and great. I loved it, but you need to have a strong stomach for it! tw: abduction, human trafficking, rape, suicide, very violent domestic abuse, animal abuse, child abuse, childhood trauma, threats of graphic violent punishment, unsanitary, dehumanization, self-harm, strangulation, torture
Night Climb by Chi Hui: During a hike up the mountain at night to arrive on top in time to see the sunrise a climber encounters a group of very strange beings also travelling towards the top of the mountain, very short, but interesting and I enjoyed reading about a fat character in here as well!
Forbidden Rooms by Zhou Haohui: A saw-like trap is set for a neighbor who heard a little child cry in her apartment and did nothing until it was too late. She wakes up in a locked room with the child’s father, who had abandoned the boy with his father and receives phone calls that might lead her to freedom. Very intense and quite interesting. tw: child death, child neglect, murder, violence, starvation, voyeurs, strangulation, suicide, torture
*FAV* Ti’Naang by Su Min: A young woman returns to her hometown to introduce her fiancé to her family, but soon the town’s secret and the father’s temper start to cause issues. Really interesting story, heartbreaking as well and I loved the dread it built a lot. Tw: domestic abuse, child abuse, childhood trauma, gaslighting, racial/religious slurs
Huangcun by Cai Jun: An author is approached by a person from a small town that featured in his latest book during a book signing. The only problem is that he made the town up. Intrigued by this coincidence, he accompanies the reader to her hometown and discovers that something incredibly strange is going on in Huangcun. Really great story with many references to western horror stories as well, which I found interesting. Tw: suicide, childhood trauma, domestic abuse, graphic violence, racial/religious slurs, self-harm
The Death of Nala by Gu Shi: A mother who is terribly afraid of her son, a young boy who seems to take pleasure in cruelty, reaches her breaking point when she adopts a little kitten only to find it dead in her son’s hands. Interesting look at mental health issues, but I do wish the child had been given a bit more depth instead of simply being a “natural born killer”. tw: animal death, child death, murder, cruelty, graphic violence, imprisonment, mental illness, strangulation, ptsd
bgc97's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, and Gaslighting
hzcyr's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
z3r081's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
quirky's review against another edition
5.0
Major kudos to Xueting Christine Ni, the editor and translator of Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror for a stellar job of compiling an amazing anthology of Chinese horror and tales of the supernatural. This collection is a labor of love, and Ni starts the book with an introduction of how she started the monumental task of reaching out to Chinese authors because she wanted to bring these tales of horror to light, as the genre is often neglected even in Chinese culture. Unfortunately, she also notes that many of the submission she received were heavily misogynistic, so I actually appreciate the feminist works in this book even more. She not only wanted to showcase acclaimed Chinese authors but also support new and budding authors too.
Translation is an underrated art, and Ni does a beautiful job of maintaining a composed and descriptive writing style throughout the anthology and showcasing the original author’s work. I usually have a little trouble with anthology works because of the drastic change in tone, style, and writing talent between different authors and stories, but here is a great example of how having the same translator can really make the work cohesive.
Each story really resonated with me in an impactful and different way, and I had to pause in between some of them to recollect my thoughts - much in the same way as after watching an episode of Black Mirror. This compilation is very well curated and each story includes a wonderfully written editor’s note on the story’s background. My personal favorites were The Yin Yang Pot, as I’m partial to any story about love and food, Ti’Naang, and Forbidden Rooms.
These stories are much more complex than the scary stories most of us grew up with. Some tales illustrate the changes between ancient and modern China and provide background and commentary on mental health issues, geographical conflicts, feminism, parental-child conflicts, and the societal effects of long working hours and sweeping political decisions like the one-child policy. On the horror side, there are tales of psychological thrillers, survival horror, ghostly beings, supernatural beasts, and elements of the Chinese Gothic genre.
I’m not someone who usually seeks out scary stories (or actively avoids them), but this book caught my attention because of the introduction to a different culture’s interpretation of the horror genre. I think Ni did a fine job of celebrating Chinese horror stories and makes me look forward to the future of horror, feminist works, AANHPI stories, and translated literature.
Thank you to NetGalley and Solaris for providing an ARC for review.
Translation is an underrated art, and Ni does a beautiful job of maintaining a composed and descriptive writing style throughout the anthology and showcasing the original author’s work. I usually have a little trouble with anthology works because of the drastic change in tone, style, and writing talent between different authors and stories, but here is a great example of how having the same translator can really make the work cohesive.
Each story really resonated with me in an impactful and different way, and I had to pause in between some of them to recollect my thoughts - much in the same way as after watching an episode of Black Mirror. This compilation is very well curated and each story includes a wonderfully written editor’s note on the story’s background. My personal favorites were The Yin Yang Pot, as I’m partial to any story about love and food, Ti’Naang, and Forbidden Rooms.
These stories are much more complex than the scary stories most of us grew up with. Some tales illustrate the changes between ancient and modern China and provide background and commentary on mental health issues, geographical conflicts, feminism, parental-child conflicts, and the societal effects of long working hours and sweeping political decisions like the one-child policy. On the horror side, there are tales of psychological thrillers, survival horror, ghostly beings, supernatural beasts, and elements of the Chinese Gothic genre.
I’m not someone who usually seeks out scary stories (or actively avoids them), but this book caught my attention because of the introduction to a different culture’s interpretation of the horror genre. I think Ni did a fine job of celebrating Chinese horror stories and makes me look forward to the future of horror, feminist works, AANHPI stories, and translated literature.
Thank you to NetGalley and Solaris for providing an ARC for review.