4 of 5 stars.
This tale reflects a slow horror, using Lovecraftian elements in such a way as to make them indistinguishable from an allegorical take on extreme depression. The narrator “experiences” or senses the manifestation of these horrors in this vivid reinterpretation of the 19th Century Irish Potato Famine.
This mist was like nothing ever seen before in the whole of Ireland. No city, village, or country cottage had ever known a comparison. It clawed its way across the Emerald Isles. Thick and strangely colored . . . a sickly fog crept among the fields. This haze smothered all in its wake. Crops started dying. In the fields. The cellars. Everywhere. All rotted black in one night. And it wasn’t just my family. It was our entire county. And the next.
The narrator alone holds the opinion that horrors ride the fog, as other supernatural scapegoats–the faie–take the most blame. The lens filtering this short tale achieves more than it gives to capture the hopelessness in the wake of the historic disaster.
This tale appears in Whispers from the Abyss edited by Kat Rocha. I received this new anthology directly from 01 Publishing through bookreviewdirectory.wordpress.com.
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