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Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire

cover art for Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Tales of the Fighting Pumpkins

( Amazon.com  |  Subterranean Press  limited edition hardcover  | Subterranean Press ebook edition )

Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire

Subterranean Press, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1596069978

Available: Direct from Subterranean Press (limited edition hardcover, ebook edition), and Kindle edition

 

Into every high school class a cheerleading squad must come to fight against the forces of darkness: aliens, mud monsters, and eldritch creatures.  Squads that don’t survive until graduation are forgotten, and a mysterious force chooses a new cheer captain to recruit a new squad. This tight-knit group of cheerleaders, who may or may not be supernatural themselves, are the Fighting Pumpkins of Johnson’s Crossing, California. These are their stories.

The stories have been published over time, in different places: I first encountered them in the story “Away Game”, a clever, if predictable, story that appears in A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods, edited by Jennifer Brozek, and have been seeking out their stories since then. I’m so glad they have now been collected together. Originally a limited edition published by Subterranean Press, the collection is now available as an ebook.

Because there have been many cheerleading squads over a long period of time, the stories can be set in a variety of time periods, with different characters. While the majority of the Fighting Pumpkins stories are linked stories about the same varsity squad, with half-vampire cheer captain Jude, squad historian Colleen, Laurie, who has a command voice, supernaturally strong Marti, and undead Heather, a few take place in other time periods and with other squads, such as the titular “Dying With Her Cheer Pants On”, in which the team dies calling Bloody Mary from a mirror during an alien invasion to exterminate the aliens, and “Switchblade Smile”, which features Jude’s mother Andrea, a vampire, as a cheerleader in the 1930s.

Character development is strong, and there is a lot of humor (how can there not be with a team called the Fighting Pumpkins?). McGuire draws from a kitchen-sink universe where any creature of the imagination can be real,  and remixes tropes to create her stories, but the sisterhood of the girls on the cheer squad is what makes the stories of the Fighting Pumpkins really enjoyable. Although a story might center on a specific character, these stories aren’t about a single individual or chosen one bound to save the world on her own. The girls are a team, and they stick together even when things are scary, or dangerous, or one of them turns out to be a monster. Two related stories that involve cheerleader Heather Monroe stood out as favorites, “Gimme a Z”, in which she rises from the grave and defends her sister Pumpkins from an undead mob, and “Turn the World Around”,  an often poetic story in which she helps a girl who mysteriously shows up in a Fighting Pumpkins uniform make a life-and-death decision that will affect the entire community. “School Colors” covers a cheerleading competition between the Fighting Pumpkins and an alien cheerleading squad that could decide the fate of the planet.

The stories of the Fighting Pumpkins are a little scary, but mostly a lot of fun. Those looking for a break from heavy or intense reading will find a lot to like, as will Buffy lovers.  YA readers may enjoy this collection as well.

 

Contains : strong language, violence, some gore. The story “Fiber” received some criticism from First Nations people regarding McGuire’s interpretation of the wendigo.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on February 21, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Wicked Women: An Anthology by the New England Horror Writers edited by Trisha J. Wooldridge & Scott E. Goudsward

Wicked Women: An Anthology of the New England Horror Writers by [Trisha J. Wooldridge, Jane Yolen, Hillary Monahan, Lynne Hansen, Scott T. Goudsward]

( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

Wicked Women: An Anthology by the New England Horror Writers, edited by Trisha J. Wooldridge and Scott E. Goudsward.

NEHW Press, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-0998185446

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

February is Women in Horror Month, a time to celebrate both those who have altered the dark landscape and pioneered the path forward into nightmares anew, and who are blazing fresh trails into the abyss. Note: this should not just be relegated to one month– it’s tough to highlight all the new stars in the genre while looking back to those who paved the way.

Writing groups these days are a mixed bag, with many floundering with jealousy and stale efforts,  without the passion that should drive each member forward into the realms of publication and stellar storytelling. The New England Horror Writers are the only group I have witnessed firsthand to be that dark fire that consistently raises the bar for both newbies and veteran authors. Of course, it’s New England, so they have a leg up on the shadowy inspiration.

Wicked Women is a brilliant showcase of the group, many of whom should be and likely will be better known in the days to come. There is not a weak entry in this collection, which make highlighting a select few excruciatingly difficult. Between the covers, there is something for everyone, from the classic to the experimental, the subtle to brutal.

Favorite tales vary by the day and mood so I will focus on what resonated on the second read-through.

“Milk Time” by Elaine Pascale recalls classic Shirley Jackson in a story about a school that handles its students in a manner thatwill leave the reader with chills.

“Bad Trip Highway” by Renee DeCamillis harkens back to the best of wicked, sharp, classic horror of the eighties in the vein of Elizabeth Massie, a story about a woman and a strange hitchhiker that veers off the path of the well-trodden into something special.

“Souls Of The Wicked Like Crumbs In Her Hand” by Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert focuses on a woman who discovers there is another in a cafe that only she can see. What ensues twists into something evil and Twilight-Zone-ish, like the best of Yvonne Navarro.

“Arbor Day” by Kristi Peterson-Schoonover begins with the line “On Linden Island, kids are never told someone has died.” There’s a good reason for this, and the family tree that the community focuses upon holds secrets that outsiders should never discover. This story reminded me of the best of Tamara Thorne.  Again, choosing a favorite from this collection depends on the reader, and was a tough task when just about any could rise to the top. I expect several of the lesser-known authors to become much better-known in the days to come. Highly recommended, especially for fans of short stories.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 

 

Posted on February 17, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng

cover art for A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng

( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com )

A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng

Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-947879-17-1

Available: Paperback, Kindle

 

Christina Sng’s A Collection of Dreamscapes is a deceptive title for dark and subversive poems about myths and fairytales. Sng takes Emily Dickinson’s advice to “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” and not only slants it, but twists it into a more horrible truth than she found in the original stories. The poems are divided into five sections, with titles for the first three that are, again, deceptive. We begin with “The Love Song of Allegra”, about the exploits of a viciously murderous warrior, and recognize childhood favorites in “Fairy Tales”, involving female victims who choose revenge. Next, “All the Monsters in the World” are overcome by strong women who refuse to give up. The horror increases and becomes more explicitly described in the section called “The Capacity of Violence” and concludes with glimpses of hope in “Myths and Dreamscapes.”

 

The opening poems in this collection create a mythological backdrop for the horror heroines of the fairytales. However, these tales combined with predictable new narratives make the second section feel longer than it needs to be. The third and fourth sections include the most important poems of the book in terms of revealing the world’s horrors. Although the reality of pervasive evil, the idea that no place is completely safe, and the thought that we can never really know a person’s deepest darkness until it is too late are truths spun into many a story and poem, Sng brings them to greater heights through artistry. The speakers in these poems deny the existence of monsters while actually being or becoming monsters. It seems the dividing line is in the doing: sewing body parts together; performing a lobotomy; strangling the man who left you, an infant, to die in the forest. After all of the violence, the final poems suggest that there could be a fresh start, a new way, an end to the horror, but that reaching that point will also involve violence and possible death. The question remains whether the future is just as much a cruel myth or terrifying fairytale as what we have already experienced. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on February 8, 2021 by , Reply
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