Book Review: Exploring Dark Short Fiction #3: A Primer to Nisi Shawl

Exploring Dark Short Fiction #3: A Primer to Nisi Shawl

by Eric J. Guignard(Editor)

Nisi Shawl (Contributor)

Michael A. Arnzen (Contributor)

Michelle Prebich (Illustrator)

Paperback, 188 pages Published December 2018 by Dark Moon Books

Hey, I was pretty excited to see the third of this series in my mailbox, the first two books in this series confirmed to me Eric Guignard was really on to an excellent format to highlight authors. I can think of probably thirty authors I would love to see in this series. The cool thing about this one was before I saw this listed in the last edition I had not heard of Nisi Shawl. So I read Everfair and while I respected it and could tell there were some good things going on in the post-colonial Africa steampunk alternate history novel but it just didn't hook me.

So unlike the first two editions, this was absolutely a primer to her work. I enjoyed reading about her history, the interview, and her essay. As always Arnzen's academic breakdown of the stories provided a lot of excellent insight. My favorite of the stories was the post-apocalypse story Otherwise. Set after a massive EMP event this story is probably the most straight forward narrative. That is not to say that there is not depth. Beyond the grim set-up, this story looks at class and consumerism.

"The Beads of Ku" opens the book with a very folklore inspired tale that sets the tone nicely. Most of the stories balance the feeling of folklore with surrealism that fits nicely in the realm of the Afrocentric genre. "Just Between Us" is a short but effective dark fantasy that has an interesting set-up about an apartment building with dead women everywhere.

I admit the surreal tale "At the Huts of Ajala" kinda lost me. I am sure that was user error. I liked how the story was framed I just didn't connect to it. The book closed out with three stories about a character named Brit. She has powers that look similar to "The Shine" from Stephen King's fiction but Brit's experience is so much more rooted in her cultural identity.

While I don't think I connected to this author I really respect what she is doing. Nisi Shawl is a talented brillant writer, I don't think her style will connect with everyone but this is a great way to check out her work. This series does it again and puts together a beautiful looking book. Serious readers of horror and dark fiction should not miss a volume of this series. It doesn't matter if Steve R. Tem or Nisi Shawl scratch your itch perfectly these volumes present so much to learn from they really need to be consumed.

This is #3 in the series I can't wait until I have a shelf in my library devoted to them.