Kayla reviews “The Midnight Games: Six Stories About Games You Play Once”
The Midnight Games: Six Stories About Games You Play Once
by Rhiannon Rasmussen, M.B. Hare, Casey Lucas, M. Lyn Hall, Shi Briggs, and Veles Svitlychny, edited by Rhiannon Rasmussen, and illustrated by Andrey Garin
Oh, this was fun.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one, or if I should expect much at all–a sleek little collection, it caps off at almost 50 pages, including illustrations. The illustrations are very cool, by the way, and remind me of John Pierard’s illustrations in Bruce Coville’s Book of… anthologies, so major props to Andrey Garin there.
The stories are all very short but woven through with enough detail and personality that the length doesn’t feel constricting. Instead, they feel reminiscent of well-executed creepypastas, both in length and in the overall theme of the collection. What I love, though, is that even though they’re all incarnations of a very specific theme, each story manages to be utterly unique in tone from the others. The games themselves are interesting, but nothing most of us haven’t seen some variation of before. But the games themselves aren’t the point. Each author instead uses their respective game as a mechanism for stories about guilt, anger, disillusionment, addiction, and loneliness–from the snapping of one’s last, well-worn thread to the pulsing need in so many of us to look the unknowable in the eye and, in doing so, be forced to confront truths we would never allow ourselves to believe otherwise.
I’m definitely excited to see more from every one of these authors, and I’ll be looking into what else of theirs I can read…honestly, as soon as I’m done writing this. Give this one a shot, y’all. It’s a quick read, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed at all.
(I usually try to name my favorites when reviewing anthologies, but given that there are only six, that feels kind of impossible with this one. That said, M.B. Hare’s “The Elevator Game” made me laugh out loud once I’d finished, and I would kill to read an extended version of it.)
Rating: A-
Review by Kayla Martin-Gant
Twitter: @poultryofperil
Instagram: @kmartingant
I received a PDF copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration.