Monstrous Affections

By: David Nickle

Narrated by: Robert Keiper

Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's Summary

A young bride and her future mother-in-law risk everything to escape it.

A repentant father summons help from a pot of tar to ensure it.

A starving woman learns from howling winds and a whispering host, just how fulfilling it can finally be.

Can it be love?

©2009 David Nickle (P)2012 Iambik Audio Inc.

Critic Reviews

"David Nickle writes 'em damned weird and damned good and damned dark. He is bourbon-rough, poetic and vivid. Don't miss this one."(Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother)

"Bleak, stark and creepy, Stoker-winner Nickle's first collection will delight the literary horror reader . . . 13 terrifying tales of rural settings, complex and reticent characters and unexpected twists that question the fundamentals of reality. All are delivered with a certain grace, creating a sparse yet poetic tour of the horrors that exist just out of sight . . . This ambitious collection firmly establishes Nickle as a writer to watch." ( Publishers Weekly)

"A perverted version of Alice Munro country . . . These stories work so well in part because of Nickle's facility with the language of the place he's created." ( Quill & Quire)

It's OK

What did you like best about Monstrous Affections? What did you like least?

There is a decent varity to the stories, and there was at least one that I really enjoyed.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Some are a little too predictable, or slow moving and there's a lot of similarity between the characters, even between stories. It's like the author only knows how to write a few kinds of characters, and every female character (except one) is a total dip.

Did Robert Keiper do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Not really- all of the female voices are the same, exactly the same, like Minnie Pearl from Hew Haw, and the all the male voices either over annunciate or have a hillbilly draw. He sounds like the guy who sings “Gramma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”. The characters may actually have come off as more interesting if the voice applied hadn't dumbed them down so much. He was at least, energetic.

Do you think Monstrous Affections needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Maybe, if he can figure out how to write another type of character.

Any additional comments?

It was Ok, but nothing that was really creepy or scary, or even interesting, like a lot of watered down episodes of the Twilight Zone.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful