Allyson Bird
Dec. 5th, 2009 05:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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darkling_talesAfter hearing the buzz surrounding the novice British horror author Allyson Bird, I recently ordered a copy of her collection Bull Running For Girls. This book won the British Fantasy Society's award for Best Collection this year, fending off some stiff competition from established authors writing at the peak of their powers. So, does Bull Running... live up to the hype?
On balance, I don't think it does really. The book is based on a concept that, in the macho world of horror fiction, seems almost radical - all the stories are about women, usually of an independent, strong-minded variety. That's all the stories have in common in terms of content, however: the 22 stories are set in a dizzying range of locations, from rural China to the Amazon rainforest, though the author returns several time to modern-day Britain too. The collection is never 'samey', which is a great strength, and it gets off to a fine start with some good, original stories. I especially liked 'Bull Running', set during the fiesta of St-Fermin, with a young heroine intent on running with the boys. The combination of a concise, punchy writing style and giddy, exotic imagery with lashings of blood, magic and religion is quite addictive, and I found myself eagerly turning the pages. Unfortunately, by the time I got about half-way through the book I began to notice the excitement fading, then turning to active distaste as the overall dip in quality became more obvious.
Some of the stories are really quite bad - tales like 'The Critic' are marred by fatal attempts at jocularity, and there is an overwhelming flavour of Angela Carter at her worst in several tales that tend more towards science fiction and fantasy than horror. She shares Carter's insistency on imbuing gender-neutral events with (for want of a better word) an overly 'womanny' flavour - lots of fertility and motherhood, and crude depictions of sex. Even the book's Introduction emphasizes Bird's qualities as a wife and mother (funny how no-one ever writes about what a great Daddy or boyfriend Stephen King or Clive Barker are...) Despite being a woman myself, I can never really connect with that kind of atmosphere - though perhaps I just need to get more in touch with my feminine side...;) Men in these stories are generally a bit hopeless, or out and out evil, though there is a notable exception to that in the touching story of filial affection (and murder) 'The Hall of the Mountain King'. Sometimes I got the feeling of an agenda being pushed, although I broadly approve of Bird's attempts to showcase the 'female condition' in all its variegated glory. Things do pick up with 'The Silk Road', a tale of magic that draws on oriental history from a woman's perspective, with a startling twist at the end. 'Pompeii', another modern-day story that also harks back to another time in history, is a sad but gripping tale about a school-teacher who is the reincarnation of a female gladiator!
For a debut collection, 22 stories is a lot, and I think that's a big part of the problem. Because, while there are many good or very good stories here (especially in the first half of the book) there are some pretty dreadful ones too. I think at least a quarter of the stories could have been removed, and there would still have been plenty to satisfy the reader! If a work is going to win an award, it should be consistent in quality, in my view. I also believe Bird would have benefited from a much more rigorous editor. I think she is trying for an easy, conversational tone that mimics real speech, but sometimes this results in the sort of writing style I've seen too many times in online snippets of self-published novels. In a word, it's amateurish. Her off-the-wall approach to punctuation can be offputting, and her positioning (and shortage) of commas in particular frequently made me grit my teeth, neurotic as that may sound!
Of course, her publisher, Screaming Dreams, is a small business, and Bird is a fledgling writer (as Gary McMahon acknowledges in the Introduction), and there are definitely signs of great potential here. And it's hardly fair to give Bird a hard time for winning that award - it wasn't her decision, after all. I do however think that Bull Running For Girls would've been more of a contender for some kind of 'new writers' award (if the British Fantasy Society have one!) She would certainly deserve that hands-down. But Would I recommend buying this book? Well, priced at around £10, with decent typography and jacket art and plenty of material, it's a (relatively) cheap and cheerful affair, which I think would be a fitting addition to the bookshelves of any serious fan of modern horror fiction. In any case, it's always good to support budding talent, and Bird is definitely a refreshing new presence in a genre where world-weary, cynical, male-oriented "voices" abound. I might well buy her second collection, if she writes one, as she's definitely one to watch!
On balance, I don't think it does really. The book is based on a concept that, in the macho world of horror fiction, seems almost radical - all the stories are about women, usually of an independent, strong-minded variety. That's all the stories have in common in terms of content, however: the 22 stories are set in a dizzying range of locations, from rural China to the Amazon rainforest, though the author returns several time to modern-day Britain too. The collection is never 'samey', which is a great strength, and it gets off to a fine start with some good, original stories. I especially liked 'Bull Running', set during the fiesta of St-Fermin, with a young heroine intent on running with the boys. The combination of a concise, punchy writing style and giddy, exotic imagery with lashings of blood, magic and religion is quite addictive, and I found myself eagerly turning the pages. Unfortunately, by the time I got about half-way through the book I began to notice the excitement fading, then turning to active distaste as the overall dip in quality became more obvious.
Some of the stories are really quite bad - tales like 'The Critic' are marred by fatal attempts at jocularity, and there is an overwhelming flavour of Angela Carter at her worst in several tales that tend more towards science fiction and fantasy than horror. She shares Carter's insistency on imbuing gender-neutral events with (for want of a better word) an overly 'womanny' flavour - lots of fertility and motherhood, and crude depictions of sex. Even the book's Introduction emphasizes Bird's qualities as a wife and mother (funny how no-one ever writes about what a great Daddy or boyfriend Stephen King or Clive Barker are...) Despite being a woman myself, I can never really connect with that kind of atmosphere - though perhaps I just need to get more in touch with my feminine side...;) Men in these stories are generally a bit hopeless, or out and out evil, though there is a notable exception to that in the touching story of filial affection (and murder) 'The Hall of the Mountain King'. Sometimes I got the feeling of an agenda being pushed, although I broadly approve of Bird's attempts to showcase the 'female condition' in all its variegated glory. Things do pick up with 'The Silk Road', a tale of magic that draws on oriental history from a woman's perspective, with a startling twist at the end. 'Pompeii', another modern-day story that also harks back to another time in history, is a sad but gripping tale about a school-teacher who is the reincarnation of a female gladiator!
For a debut collection, 22 stories is a lot, and I think that's a big part of the problem. Because, while there are many good or very good stories here (especially in the first half of the book) there are some pretty dreadful ones too. I think at least a quarter of the stories could have been removed, and there would still have been plenty to satisfy the reader! If a work is going to win an award, it should be consistent in quality, in my view. I also believe Bird would have benefited from a much more rigorous editor. I think she is trying for an easy, conversational tone that mimics real speech, but sometimes this results in the sort of writing style I've seen too many times in online snippets of self-published novels. In a word, it's amateurish. Her off-the-wall approach to punctuation can be offputting, and her positioning (and shortage) of commas in particular frequently made me grit my teeth, neurotic as that may sound!
Of course, her publisher, Screaming Dreams, is a small business, and Bird is a fledgling writer (as Gary McMahon acknowledges in the Introduction), and there are definitely signs of great potential here. And it's hardly fair to give Bird a hard time for winning that award - it wasn't her decision, after all. I do however think that Bull Running For Girls would've been more of a contender for some kind of 'new writers' award (if the British Fantasy Society have one!) She would certainly deserve that hands-down. But Would I recommend buying this book? Well, priced at around £10, with decent typography and jacket art and plenty of material, it's a (relatively) cheap and cheerful affair, which I think would be a fitting addition to the bookshelves of any serious fan of modern horror fiction. In any case, it's always good to support budding talent, and Bird is definitely a refreshing new presence in a genre where world-weary, cynical, male-oriented "voices" abound. I might well buy her second collection, if she writes one, as she's definitely one to watch!
