Still Life with Pig Fetuses is a clever collection of short stories from a group on a Discord
server covering a number of different genres based on writing prompts.
The prompts themselves range from length,
to a series of words that must form the first word of a sentence, to a lucky
dip of piecing random fragments together, to having a plot highjacked by
another author. The skill with which these prompts were used (especially the
first word prompt) is staggering and showcases the talent out there.
The contents of the stories are very
diverse, and sometimes what you would guess from the title is completely
different from what you get. The stories cover clinical trials, a detective
foiling a crime, the sweetness of revenge, an out of body experience, what
makes for a bad YouTube video, a summoning interfering with a poker game, a
portal used to gather national intelligence situated in a penis (insert shocked
face here), and the story the collection is named after: trying something new
with pig fetuses.
The stories are short enough to breeze
through quickly, but contain nuggets of treasure that make you stop and reread
a sentence or two or even laugh out loud. Even though the stories are so varied
in content and length, the writing styles allow them to form a cohesive
collection and the stories “fit together”. I admit that I even learnt a few new
words like callipygian and glozed! Since this is volume one, I would be keen to
see what future volumes bring.
The one thing that I wished could be added
to the book was a table of contents, as it would have been easier to navigate
if I was looking for a particular story.
I do still recommend this collection for an
intriguing look into the processes of writing and to highlight how creative
some authors are with the time or style restraints they have.
Thanks to Reedsy Discovery for the opportunity to review the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment