The Book of Queer Saints: Volume II by Mae Murray

The Book of Queer Saints: Volume II Reviews

• 
  Bon

  Happy release week!
  
  My profuse thanks to Mae Murray, owner of Medusa Haus and editor of this collection, for a copy of volume two to review. I was proud to promote the first book and the crowdfunding for this second volume. The queer saints are back, gnarly and bloodstained as ever. Volume two will be released on Halloween, as proper, so get your copies now.
  
  Where to start? The Book of Queer Saints: Volume II is another deliciously dark rabbit hole to dive into, an anthology of furtive glances into the psyche of some wonderfully skilled horror writers. The stories vary widely, from the supernatural to the not, from all corners of the queer umbrella and back, from the sinister and creepy to outright gory, so it feels safe to say anyone into the extreme end of horror will find something to love here. As usual, the contributor list was well curated by editor Mae Murray, and I'll do my best to briefly channel the demonic powers of my favorites in a sentence or two (not necessarily in book order).
  
  "Hamper" by Megan Kiekel Anderson is a magnificent, bloody rumination on gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia that I found incredibly relatable, set in a dystopian future that I found unsettingly plausible.
  
  Taliesin Neith's "The Face of the Waters" is excellent, a quietly tragic and vengeful look at just how dangerous worker class discontent can be.
  
  "First Feast on Film" by Shauntae Ball was a satisfying meal of a story that took on toxic family vlogging culture, gruesomely examining how we physically reshape ourselves and deny our nature at times, all for the nebulous cause of acceptance.
  
  Davis Walden presented in "Pieces of You and Me" a memorable story that resembled a love child between Hannibal and Hellraiser, but if both were dialed up to eleven. Chef's kiss.
  
  "Ambrosia" by Ria Hill was an interesting tale of body horror and one night stands gone wrong, akin to a modern Jennifer's Body.
  
  In "The Pendulum Swings and the Mariposa Soars", Xochilt Avila's scientist villain is not afraid to get his hands - reputation - well, everything - down and dirty and gooey for love.
  
  Amanda M. Blake wraps up the collection with another memorable tale. "Caregiver" is a satisfyingly eerie finale, a slow-burn tale that is startlingly chilling in its mundanity and its frank narrative style. That one will hit close to home for many in this book's audience, I suspect, this reviewer included.
  
  This collection serves as a punch in the face to those who would assume queers are monsters because they're queer; and likewise, those who assign a halo prematurely to people they don't know. Instead, the protagonists of these stories are shaped by the dark powers of mistreatment and toxic parenting, the sinister intentions of capitalism, and a world that wants them dead. These writers have crafted beautifully ugly stories born from these same things. And that? It earns full marks from me.
• 
  Briar Page

  IT'S BACK, AND IT'S BIGGER, AND IT HAS A NEW COVER ARTIST!
  Fun anthology with an unsurprisingly diverse array of approaches to the idea of horror fiction featuring queer villains, monsters, or antiheroes. There are some stories that don't quite work for me/aren't to my personal taste, but I'm confident those will also have their fans; there's some extremely pulpy genre writing in here, but nothing's *bad*. My personal standout favorites were "The Face of the Waters" (Taliesin Neith), a believable and poignant medieval ghost/revenge story with an unusually visceral revenant, "An Enemy Waves Hello" (Rory G.) which is also poignant and visceral but otherwise extremely different in tone, and "Caregiver" (Amanda M. Blake), one of only two or three non-supernatural stories in the volume and easily one of the most emotionally difficult and genuinely horrifying.
• 
  Andreas

  (3.6/5 based on my average rating per story)
  
  I enjoyed the stories in this more than those in the first volume! I won’t focus on the things I disliked, but the ones that I loved were:
  
  An Enemy Waves Hello by Rory G. - first of all holy shit, this was written by a Czech writer and had pieces of Czech language & culture sprinkled in which was so nice!! I’ve literally never seen that in an english book before. The story is about two kind of like… WWE fighters, but they also use magic and the fights aren’t scripted but the narrative surrounding them is? And they’re enemies but also more alike than they realise, and one of the two main characters is a trans man. I adored this and am dying for more, as the story was only really a snippet of something bigger. And I can’t find anything about this writer online 😭 Rory G who are you?????
  
  Transmasc of the Read Death by LC von Hessen - a gay t4t spin on the masque of the read death. Fucked up and decadent, two trans men, exactly the type of thing I wanted from this book - loved it.
  
  The Face of the Waters by Talesin Neith - a medieval ghost revenge story in a fantastically dark setting. Unlike anything I’ve read before.
  
  Some other imo highlights were about the fucked-up-ness of family vloggers, a child caring for their dying father who rejected them, a cop investigating a lesbian monster killer (?), and more.
  
  
• 
  Eric Raglin

  Queer villainy reigns supreme! Lots of great stories here, but my favorites were "Fafo" by Paula D. Ashe (extremely cathartic), "Hemorrhage" by Cyrus Amelia Fisher (addiction horror always gets me), "I Love You, Lola!" by Stacy Wayne (fan culture is nuts, y'all), "Transmasc of the Red Death" by LC von Hessen (Poe would blush!), and "Caregiver" by Amanda M. Blake (gut punch after gut punch).
• 
  Gyalten Lekden

  Absolutely stellar collection. It has a few recognized authors, but most are unknown/relatively unknown contributors, and I wasn’t bored once. This anthology is longer than the first volume in the series, with nineteen stories instead of thirteen, but still felt a great length. It has a good variety of horror sub-genres, never feeling monotonous or like the stories bleed into each other, but is definitely bloodier than the first volume, with more body horror. It also feels a little meaner than the first volume, or angrier, or maybe both. Each story feels like a razor cut, pointed and deliberate. It complements the first volume well; Mae Murray has done a great curatorial job putting these volumes together. I can’t recommend them more highly for anyone who is a fan of the great breadth of short-form horror fiction, especially queer horror. They’re a lot of fun and I am incredibly glad I stumbled upon them!
• 
  Eva

  As soon as I heard about the Book of Queer Saints volume 1 that editor Mae Murray put together, I knew I would be so anxious to read it when it came out. And I loved it. It’s one of my all-time favourite anthologies. So when it was announced that there would be a Book of Queer Saints Volume 2 and that one of my favourite authors ever, Paula D Ashe, was going to be featured? I flipped out with excitement.
  
  I also urge folks not to skip over the Foreword by Hailey Piper, who wss in the first volume. Hailey is making horror queer as all heck, one day at a time, and has given so much affirmation to other horror queers including myself. Hailey talks of “a demand
  that others write the suitable queer, the unassailable queer, the queer who assimilates to the point of existing beyond reproach.” She ends by saying that these queer stories are so very alive, and it’s brilliant. Next, Mae Murray writes the introduction and discusses the impact of the Queer Saints volumes on writers and giving a place to those of us who feel that we don’t have one. The artwork, also, is stunning and deserves to be praised.
  
  Paula D. Ashe’s story “Fafo” starts things off. The tension is palpable right away. It’s beautifully written but also not for the faint of heart. One of the lines that stood out right away was “I got out… but, you carry it with you, y’know?” That resonated for me hugely. The horrors are palpable, and I don’t want to spoil the scenario, because I want readers to discover for themselves what’s going on. What I will say is that it starts thing off with a bang and fans of Ashe will love the story.
  
  “Vining” by Emmett Nahil is vivid and visceral and has a ‘Hellraiser’ vibe while later on in the book, “Pro-Choice” by Alison Rumfitt emerges full of metaphors of what a character is undergoing having killed her entire family. The story is so much more than pregnancy horror or body horror.
  
  Other stories I enjoyed were ’Transmasc of the Red Death’ by LC Von Hessen, a very clever changing of ‘Masque of the Red Death’ from Edgar Allan Poe as well as ‘Within His Cabinet’ by Cristian Presgraves and ‘First Feast on Film’ by Shauntae Ball in addition to ‘Ambrosia’ by Ria Hill.
• 
  Alannah Cossey

  I'm honoured to have been sent and ARC of this book and this is my unbiased review. Every single story within this anthology has stuck with me. This book is like having a lingering taste after the weirdest and best meal you've ever had. I can't stop thinking about these stories. I need to have seconds. When I think about one it spirals into the next and I can't stop. Each one has moments that took my breath away and I had to stop to find it again before continuing. So many complex, flawed and beautiful characters with queerness flowing all the way through.
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  Leo Otherland

  Wonderful read. So worth it.
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  David Rash

  Stop what you’re doing and read this anthology. Now. Now!!