Anthologies can be tricky, but Seize the Night was consistent in having solid, interesting stories throughout. The editor gets credit for that, and I think it also points to an interesting phenomenon of the intertoobz – it can be hard to make a living as a writer on it, mostly because of the sheer mass of interesting writing out there, but the Web in particular facilitates the ease of development of communities for genres that feel sort of splintered but encompass real passionate fan bases. The potential to produce schlock is out here – rigid adherence to generic conventions after all – but a well-edited anthology offers new looks at those conventions and offers interesting, novel directions.
For me the problem with blogging about anthologies is that in the interest of keeping post-lengths manageable I don’t have space to write about multiple stories. I could write about multiple stories in here, especially the ones by John Lindvquist and Rio Youers, but perhaps the most messed-up was a Lolita-meets-The Hunger story by Robert Shearman about a teacher and his very Mannesque-justification of his own pedophilia, only to find out that the tween he is attracted to has other plans in mind. Shearman eerily duplicates Humbert Humbert’s odd faux innocent tone. A revenge fantasy for victims of sexual predators isn’t an idea I’ve ever had for a story, but damn it felt okay when my guess about his fate was proven correct.
I added several names to my to-read list from this anthology – here’s hoping they approach the quality of what I read in Seize the Night.