Rubick

A collection of short stories translated from Hungarian. I picked this up from the library because I'd seen references to the author writing cosmic horror, which is apparently one way to get me to read a short fiction collection I otherwise know nothing about.

Veres has a direct, unsentimental style that reminds me a bit of Lisa Tuttle, although with less interest in women. Like Tuttle, one gets the impression he doesn't like people all that much. I enjoyed the eastern European perspective, adding extra flavor to ideas I've seen American or British versions of before. Veres also is really good at spooling out the key information, so that apparently unremarkable scenarios get weirder and weirder as we learn more detail.

And indeed, there is some straight up Lovecraftiana in here as well as two different body horror twists on the idyllic rural past, all of which are squarely my kind of thing.

Favorites:
Well, both the Lovecraft ones. "Multiplied by Zero" is a travel report from a man who's gone on a guided tour of a Lovecraftian horrorscape. I enjoyed the contrast between subject matter and tone all the way along, and then it really stuck the landing.

Meanwhile, "Walks Among Us" is an inside view of a Lovecraftian cult, aka exactly my jam, seen from the perspectives of two people raised in the faith and struggling with it and one who's married in. I'm amazed by how deftly Veres weaves all the backstories together with the present day timeline. This is extremely nonlinear and yet I never had any trouble following the action. One could argue the discussion of the cult as a religious minority is not great, given that this minority really is into murder and slavery and all that, but I enjoyed the Watsonian view of the world too much to quibble about the Doylist implications.

The two farming horror ones are honestly quite similar in subject matter, if not theme, to the point of feeling a little repetitive. "Return to the Midnight Soil" has the more interesting and imaginative body horror, but I think the title story "The Black Maybe," about a family from the city doing farming tourism, wins by a hair because it's more horrific, rather than tragic like the first one, and because I cared a lot more about the daughter in it than about either of the boys in the other story.

And "The Time Remaining" is the slashy entry, a story about a man whose life keeps getting worse and the devil whose life's purpose is to convince him to lead the armiese of hell. VERY shippy.

Least favorites:
"To Bite a Dog," about a woman who discovers the psychic power of dominating other creatures by biting them and her boyfriend who can't decide how he feels about it. The most Tuttle-feeling story of the collection because of how damn bleak it is. Also I just don't like animals being upset or in pain. It's rough being a horror fan sometimes.

"Fogtown," an epistolary story composed of an unfinished manuscript about someone else's unfinished book about an incredibly popular underground band that seemingly no one ever actually heard. I love this kind of thing normally, but the nested epistolary layers (complete with editor's notes!) were hard to keep track of, and the underlying story just didn't have any meat to it. I've read this story before with less effort and at least as much reward.

Those were the first two of the collection, so I'm really glad I pushed through to the ones I enjoyed! In fact, I ended up liking the collection enough that I bought his new one rather than waiting for it to show up at the library.