| Title | : | The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1787588041 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781787588042 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 224 |
| Publication | : | Published February 21, 2023 |
The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future collects Christi Nogle’s finest psychological and supernatural horror stories. Their rural and small-town characters confront difficult pasts and look toward promising but often terrifying futures. The pieces range in genre from psychological horror through science fiction and ghost stories, but they all share fundamental qualities: feminist themes, an emphasis on voice, a focus on characters’ psychologies and a sense of the gothic in contemporary life. Stories here may recall Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Shirley Jackson’s “The Renegade,” or Kelly Link’s “Stone Animals.”
The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future Reviews
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A quality collection of short stories, encompassing many subjects within multiple genres.
Cristi Nogle's writing here is clear, complex and concise. The majority of the stories are written from a first-person perspective which made for an easy reading experience.
There is something here for most readers to enjoy. From zombie apocalypse and werewolves to the simple passing of time, this book covers many a topic, often with some underlying message or social issues.
This was an enjoyable, thought-provoking read throughout, although a few of the stories were hard to decipher on the first reading.
Well worth checking out.
I received an advance review copy from Netgalley for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. -
THE BEST OF OUR PAST, THE WORST OF OUR FUTURE is a wondrous, weird, and dazzling collection of quietly unsettling stories where the sinister, uncanny, dreamy, and/or nightmarish is always near. Sharply realized, rich with imagery and layers, these are masterful dark tales from Christi Nogle. She excels at taking the seemingly ordinary and effortlessly imbuing it with ominous implications and/or eerie atmosphere. There are shades here of Jackson and Oates, but her voice is assuredly, distinctly modern, unique, and her own. This book will haunt you. BRILLIANT.
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"All of her childhood comes back to her in terrible detail, so much pain and so much boredom, and insecurity, and shame. Her travels as a young woman come back to her as a series of desperate, wasteful flailings. The past plays out in intricate details."
Chris Nogle's The Best of Past, The Worst of Our Future is a haunting collection in the truest sense of the word. While few of these stories approach the mould of the traditional ghost story, each and every one features characters, whether through reexamining old memories or processing trauma or navigating their interpersonal relationships, who are uniquely haunted.
If you're looking for standard horror fare—if you're looking for goblins, ghouls, Lovecraftian monstrosities, vampires, zombies, etc—look elsewhere. Only a handful of these stories feature the expected rogues gallery of horror, and even those that do are enigmatic. Indeed, it seems that the truest "ghosts" in this collection are the ones we all carry with us—the ghosts of memory. The characters process the horror elements the same way our own minds process trauma: ambiguously, difficultly, and through the lens of our own treacherous remembrance.
The writing in this collection is consistently beautiful. Nogle is able to effortlessly evoke unfamiliar perspectives. Each story is told in the first-person or a style of third-person that ties the reader with immense intimacy to the protagonist's perspective. No matter the angle, though, Nogle always slides the reader empathically into its protagonists' (often deeply-troubled) point-of-view. Whether she's writing about agoraphobes ("Cinnamon to Taste"), sociopaths ("I Came Back"), adults reliving terrifying childhood ordeals ("Resilience"), fathers just trying to build (ultra-creepy) toys for their kids ("Packet C"), or childish survivors of a zombie apocalypse ("The Old Switcheroo"), Nogle's prose and character work shines throughout the collection.
If there's a criticism one can levy at this collection, it's that it asks a lot of you. Some of these stories are obscure and often confusing. They demand your attention and interpretation. Like our own experience of remembering significant events of our past, closure is hard to come by—and oftentimes closure in the traditional narrative sense isn't at all the author's priority. But if you're willing to put that effort in, a reader who enjoys the challenge, the narrative difficulty on display here isn't a bug, but a feature.
If you're a fan of writers like Angela Carter, Carmen Maria Machado, Jeff Vandermeer, J. Robert Lennon, and Shirley Jackson, this is an easy collection to recommend. -
I want to say, this book was too “smart” for me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I just personally didn’t connect with the type of domestic horrors you encounter in the stories. Each story is intense yet subtle and are meant for the reader to reflect upon, no throwing gore and spooks in your face, it relies on heavy atmosphere.
I could see this being a fantastic read for book clubs to discuss and draw from their own experiences on. -
A wonderful collection of short stories which are creepy enough to make your skin crawl. All the stories have a different kind scary vibe. I have never read something like this. Christi Nogle, is indeed, an amazing horror writer. But, her stories are not for beginners, as, they are little bit difficult to understand. The plots totally have a spooky tone which makes it even more unputdownable.
Definitely, 4 stars for the book. Thanks to Netgalley and Flame Tree Press for providing me with an opportunity to be a part of the blog tour.
Read more on
https://bibliophileverse.blogspot.com... -
Though the stories in Nogle’s debut collection range from the psychological to science fiction to supernatural horror, they all share a sense of dread and tension. Her protagonists are profoundly uneasy in the worlds they inhabit and with themselves.
As I read, I was left with a sense that the human world is a thin, surface layer stretched over a darker, deeper reality. There’s something uncanny lurking in the margins of the world or hiding beneath the surface of conversations and observations. At any time, Nogle’s characters might lose their tenuous grip on reality and slip into this strange place, and this generates a constant sense of dread even when they’re engaged in mundane activities.
As in Beulah, a sense that time, memory, and identity are unstable lies at the heart of this collection, especially in stories such as “A Children’s Treasury of Windows and Doors” and “The Porches of Our Ears.” The “past” constantly intrudes on and interrupts the “present” to the point where you start to question linear time. Because time and memory are unreliable, these characters must perpetually question who they are, an exhausting and existentially terrifying task. The real possibility of memory loss through injury and illness and the devastating impact I’ve seen it have on people whom I care about made these stories very real and frightening to me.
Excellent and precise use of detail make Nogle’s fictional worlds convincing and real despite the abstract feelings of dread and the uncanny which haunt her protagonists. Descriptions of food in particular cut like a knife through characters’ inner turmoil, momentarily grounding them in a specific sensory experience. These grounding details convey a clear sense of the characters’ whole history and how they view their world.
Nogle has a talent for ending her stories at an exact moment of reality-shifting insight. She resists the urge to pull everything together in a tidy denouement, which makes her stories complete and satisfying without resolving the tension and anxiety the reader feels. It’s thrilling to read a story like “Packet C” and realize you’re actually holding your breath in anticipation, waiting for that final explanation which, gloriously, never comes.
I highly recommend Nogle’s first collection of deeply disquieting horror fiction! -
Thank you very much to Flametree publishing and Netgalley for this advance review copy of the ingeniously sinister short story collection, The Best of Our Past, The Worst of Our Future, where Nogle's deliciously bizarre imagination took me on weird journey after journey.
This horror collection as a whole is marked by one thing: an uncanny ODDITY. Each story is an episode of discomfort where I guarantee you'll be unable to predict that happens. The very first story, "Unschooled", made me do the literary version of a double take, and start reading again from the start. I don't want to ruin the experience for you, but what starts as a fairly comprehensible episode of a young girl running away very suddenly, with a swift sleight of hand, becomes something very different... Something much more emotive and, well, LUPINE. This is typical of many of the stories, which take familiar situations into the utterly strange. The titular "The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future", for example, begins with the visit of a chubby, unremarkable cousin and soon evolves into something so dark and transgressive that I found myself gloriously shocked. Other stories have none of those familiar hand holds and just dump us immediately into the deep end: "The Gestures Remain", with that giant glass house in the desert and "A Children's Treasury of Windows and Doors", with the insular, forbidding family with their sinister picture books.
I could go through every story and say what makes it special - and there's something truly special about each - but that would ruin the glorious surprise! Suffice to say that, overall, each story is utterly different and utterly absorbing in turn. She shows a mastery of voice and in every story we are led through the coils of some truly weird brain. Every narrative feels terrifyingly authentic and you're pulled into each story's logic, unable to guess what happens next or look away. Nogle's writing style is compelling, as she never patronises the reader. At each point, she makes us work for our footing, to unravel the wonderful weirdness before us.
Overall, if you'd like a collection of stories to take you to places you'd never expect, this is the collection for you! -
Disclosure: I was given an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is what follows.
The depth in these stories is incredible. These are slow burn narratives that all cultivate creeping unease around the edges, until suddenly you realize you're surrounded, and the story comes to its satisfying finish. These are hungry, ambitious stories; unafraid to tackle themes in daring, unexpected ways. The prose is carefully considered, and each image is the provenance of an artist working with craft and skill.
I could compare Nogle's work here to many that have come before her, yet in no way are any of these stories derivative. In the best way, they add to the tradition of writers such as Robert Aickman, Lynda E. Rucker, and Shirley Jackson...just to name a few. Stories such as "Unschooled," the opener in this collection, take a supernatural element and marry it flawlessly with a literary construct. Genre becomes a microscope into the psyche of character.
Where Aickman's characters were largely stick figures, bland nobodies who drift in and out of the pages, Nogle's sear onto the page as if branded there. They grip you by your lapels and stare deeply into your eyes. Nowhere is this more apparent that in "In the Country," which is the second story in the collection. With exquisite care, the environment/setting itself becomes a character in this story, and yet Nogle goes one step further with this—even introducing the concept of pareidolia, that quirk of psychology which causes us to take extra notice of the swirling chaos which surrounds us. The consequences for this are devastating, and poetic in their unfolding.
I think my favorite story in the collection (though this changes from day to day, the more I think about and consider each one of these) is the title story, third in the collection. This insidious tale of control and coercion had my insides crawling with both repulsion and with pity. I can't say too much about this one without giving it away, though I don't think that even a spoiler could spoil the experience of reading this story for the first time.
Other standouts for me in the collection are "Mirrorhouse," "Swarm of Pan," "Cinnamon to Taste," and "Resilience," though I am convinced that when I return to this collection, I will find even more favorites in the rest. I imagine it like revisiting a great album, warming slowly to each track. I will say that the lengthy, multi-part "A Children's Treasury of Windows & Doors" was difficult for me to get through at first, and jarred my attention in the ordering of these stories. The slow burn is even slower here, and a healthy amount of patience is required until the eeriness descends. Though I ended up enjoying it, I felt like the placement of it in the collection felt a bit off.
I am eagerly awaiting the next two volumes of Christi's work, also to be released from Flame Tree in the coming months. I feel as though I have much to learn from this writer, and the way she approaches and tangles with both subject and theme. Each of the stories here all beautifully encapsulate that vertiginous, weightless moment when a dream shifts, tilting inexorably into nightmare—and what more could any fan of strange literature ask for? -
*I received a free DRC of this book, with thanks to the author, Flame Tree Press and Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
There are seventeen stories in this collection, and each contain a kind of insidious, subtle horror – dreamlike in its distorted intensity.
Yes, there are zombies and werewolves and other horror tropes within these pages, but they are presented in ways I haven’t come across before. There is no shock horror here, no gore or overt psychological terror. Instead this is a horror of the real world, the familiar, made somehow imperceptibly wrong, word by word, line by line, so that it creeps up on you and takes you by surprise.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that some of these images – the least gory, apparently innocuous images of mirrored houses, tiny grandmas and sleeping pups – are definitely going to stay with me for a while and I expect to see some of them recurring in future dreams… and nightmares!
The writing feels literary in tone and style and the ideas are complex and nuanced, needing time to digest and ponder what the writer is presenting, what exactly you are reading. Nothing is fully explained or neatly tied with a bow. These are almost vignettes – glimpses into a twisted version of our own reality – enough to unsettle without fully understanding.
This isn’t horror for those looking to be thrilled with shocks and scares, viscera and violence. This is the subtly surreal and vaguely disturbing, aimed at those who appreciate a refined, dignified step through the darker mirror.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
https://bookshineandreadbows.wordpres... -
A captivating collection of psychological and supernatural horror stories that delves into the dark and haunting lives of rural and small-town characters. The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future is filled with strange and eerie imagination, offering a perfect blend of horror and mystery. While some stories may require a second read to fully grasp, I found myself drawn to the unsettling and disturbing nature of the tales. This book exceeded my expectations and left me wanting more.
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This book of horror short stories by Christi Nogle was not what I expected, by which I mean: not standard horror fare. It was unusual, leaning towards experimental. At times easy reading and enjoyable, at times abstract and hard going, it gave me ample food for thought.
As a whole, the stories had common imagery and ideas, even if I couldn’t always formulate them into a coherent theme. Houses as sanctuary or prisons; the influence of memory and the past on our present; and glass and mirrors. By the fourth story in, I could discern Nogle’s strong voice. The prose was blurry and imprecise, creating vague uncertainty about what was going on. The reader has to be comfortable with not knowing what is actually happening. Indeed, the characters also seem lost much of the time. A story’s plot often unfolds like the layers of an onion and sometimes we will never find the central core of reality.
An excellent example of Nogle’s style is her story, “Mirrorhouse.” It is hypnotic and obscure, and almost stream-of-consciousness in structure, embodying the idea of the house as a magical place and the imagery of glass and mirrors. It is like an abstract painting in words. I appreciated the beautiful and bizarre imagery even as I didn’t truly understand the narrative. Some stories had a more traditional narrative (“Move In Weekend,” and “I Came Back,”, for example) and I appreciated these more. The collection ends on a strong note with “The Old Switcheroo,” which presented a cool original idea for a zombie story.
Nogle has a strong voice and writes beautifully, though the collection as a whole was uneven for me. That’s not unusual in a short story compilation. I note that this book represents her collected works from 2017 through 2022, with a few of the stories original to this book. I read this over a couple of days, and I wonder if I would have appreciated some of the stories more if I’d read them spread out over time.
Overall this is an interesting collection of innovative horror short stories by a writer with a unique voice, that will particularly appeal to those interested in visionary and experimental writing. I look forward to what she writes next.
Thanks to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for a digital copy in exchange for my unbiased review. -
A collection of the macabre and intense. I tend more toward psychological horror, and I found the stories told from the perspective of (probable) murderers the most interesting. Nogle's collection ranges into body horror and the macabre as well, showcasing the versatility of the author.
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[Blurb goes here]
Beautifully written, great characters, poor story telling.
At times, when I come across a book I don't like, I avoid writing a review on it, but in this particular case, I had to.
Most stories in here, are seemingly pointless. Nothing of value happens. But...the author pours her soul in each character, and you'll feel for them. This are well rounded people imprinted on the pages of the book. You'll root for some, you'll dislike others. You'll feel the need to protect a few of them. It amazes me to find such wonderful characters in such poorly developed stories.
It comes to mind one tale in particular, one of a person suddenly getting super powers, only to meet an ill fated end...so investing on this character was all for nothing.
This happens more often than not: the author holds your hand and takes you on a journey, just to let go as soon as things start to get interesting.
Just, please: don't take my earlier words to heart. I'm just a person who reviews books, and as such, I will love some of them, and dislike others.
A lot of passion went into the writing of this anthology, and for that reason alone, I think you should give it a try.
Thank you for the advanced copy! -
I was asked to provide an honest review of this book in exchange for a copy of the eARC on NetGalley
This is an absolute stunner of a short story collection. Christi has compiled in this single book some of the best weird fiction I've ever read - her writing is top calibre. I was completely ensnared in the web of off-kilter horror in every one of these stories, unable to put the book down. The stories got better with each and every (digital) turn of the page, and by the end I just wanted more. I cannot wait to read more of Christi's work. I highly recommend this collection to anyone looking for some of the best modern horror and weird fiction.
Here are a few of my favorite stories, in order of appearance (really hard to only choose a few):
- "The Pelt": absolutely surreal, I was not surprised at all to see this was original published in Vastarien
- "A Children's Treasury of Windows and Doors": I think I know what was going on here? But even if I didn't I loved it.
- "Cinnamon to Taste": just perfection, what a weird story
- "Porches of our Ears": the concept in this one blew my mind
- "Resilience": probably my favorite of the whole collection, this was perfect
Everyone, go read this book NOW! -
Very, very good. Though this is billed as horror, it's closer to a chilling, surreal take on domestic life, the relationships between men and women, family... A few stories are explicitly fantastical, but all of them offer new, disturbing takes on horror tropes, like werewolves, zombies or serial killers. The general effect is dark, nightmarish, but also layered and truly riveting. It's horror at its best: exploring the dark side of the mundane, representing daily life in a way that is very slightly off, that often makes you question who is the monster and who is the victim, and the limit between nightmares and reality. Truly outstanding, and worth a read regardless of whether you only read literary fiction or are a horror fan.
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Christi Nogle’s first collection demonstrates why she is helping to define modern horror. A veteran of such prestigious publications as Vastarien: A Literary Journal and Pseudopod, Nogle excels in dread and slow build while having so much to say about the world we live in and the human condition. The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future collects some of her finest stories.
You can read
Zachary Rosenberg's full review at Horror DNA by
clicking here. -
I am a huge fan of a good horror read, but am a parent of young children, so definitely struggle to find time for myself. I normally end up reading in the wee hours of the morning, but with this book I have some brilliant short stories that I can read in wee sections, when I have a small moment for myself. If has been so enjoyable and I absolutely loved the stories included in the book.
The variety is lovely and really reads well. They all flow well and really tell good stories, with a decent amount of detail in each.
I really like the overall layout of the book, the characters in each story and honestly loved this book. I fully recommend it, especially if you are looking for your next horror read. -
Okay, so that was a disappointment. Yes, there are a couple of okay-ish stories in there - as much as I managed to force myself to read through. Stopped reading at roughly 60%, because I couldn't see how other stories will be any better and it was putting me in a foul mood wasting time on this book rather than reading something else.
It sounds a bit harsh, but I can't understand the hype of other reviewers. Most of these stories are so vague, you have to read them a couple or more times and even then not entirely sure what is it about. While I do enjoy mysticism, dark, unnerving stories, unexplained events etc... but these just felt more pretentious than anything else.
Also, I wouldn't call them horror stories.
Thank you, NetGalley for the advanced reader copy and the opportunity to read this but it certainly is not for me and I would not recommend it to others. -
THE BEST OF OUR PAST THE WORST OF OUR FUTURE
This book caught my attention as ‘A collection of short horror stories’ and I love a horror story.
However this collection seemed
“wishy washy” to me. Not my idea of horror. To me horror is something that leaves you scared. None of the stories in this collection did this for me.
Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t bad just not how I was expecting them to be.
Thank you #NetGalley and the publishers #FlameTree for the E-arc of this collection of short stories. -
I had an absolute blast with this collection. Christi Nogle is a master of mixing weird with Shirley Jackson style observations and commentary. The stories in here bounce from gothic tales, monsters, suburban horrors, and magic. They leave you disturbed and questioning reality. Nogle does such an amazing job sneaking you into the weird and leaving you there wondering how you got there. Definitely worth check out!
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I'd receive an ARC from NetGalley.
Nogle never fails to present readers with great scenic and atmospheric settings with vivid imagery, reflective interiority, and a slow building dread that is further amplified by the complexity of characters and the deep intimacy she develops between readers and the characters of her stories.
The Best of Our Past, The Worst of Our Future, draws on narratives of trauma, interweaving the past and present to create a warped and frightening reality. There is significance with the most mundane of included details. The prose is lush and melodic, like an elegant nursery rhyme but with all the sophistication. The writing has a unique voice and style, and strives to paint a complete portrait of characters, where readers cannot believe these people to be anything other than real. There are moments of quiet desolation and one theme that really stood out to me among the stories is consumption.
Nogle is a storyteller who takes on many identities, voices, stories, and weaves tales by a low-burning campfire. -
I wasn't really able to connect with the earlier stories in the collection, but then "Cinnamon to Taste" and the following stories I really enjoyed.
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A collection of strange, dark stories. Some are not what I would personally classify as horror but they are all leaning to darkness. I appreciated the variety and imagination in the stories but for some reason didn't really connect with most of them. Maybe it was the feeling I often had that I couldn't quite understand enough to feel the full impact. A sense of mystery is good in a story, but for me it was too deep in many of the tales. This is certainly a book to consider if you want something a little outside of the box, however.
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Hmm this was weird, and not necessarily in a good way.. I struggled with these stories, they felt a bit wishy washy and weren't what I was expecting.
Some stories resonated better than others, but that's okay I obviously wasn't the audience this book needed.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. -
The Best of our Past, the Worst of our Future is a creepy, quiet collection of short stories from Christi Nogle that genuinely define the words ‘quiet horror’ for me. In fact on starting this arc I had honestly forgotten what I was going in for. I knew it was short stories and I remembered being excited about the premise so I picked it up wanting something I could read a story here and there. Jokes on me. I read the whole thing in two days.
Each story starts somewhat mundane, taking the first as an example - a mother look for a place to have her children. From there it slowly unveils it’s ‘horror’ aspect, and for the most part in ways I didn’t expect. Mushroom horror has been very big lately, and while there is one in the book it’s done differently and far more creepy than I’d seen yet. It’s a surprising and impressive collection of ideas. Additionally each story features a House in some way, and I cannot stress how none of these were your typical ‘haunted house’ they each took a different role and aspect.
There are a few that didn’t come across for me, as is the norm with collections like this. Some of the stories lean a bit far into experimental horror such as the one of the young girl and the yellow book of stories. But a few of the more experimental ones did work, like the story with the café! Experimental horror almost never works for me so the grade and variation in stories impressed me here as well.
Overall this was a great collection and one I’d recommend for lovers of the genre. Quiet, unsettling horror that I wouldn’t recommend before bed, but I definitely recommend if you want that slow unsettled, goosebumps on your skin feeling. -
As a longtime fan of Christi Nogle's, it was my pleasure to reread some of my favorite short stories of hers, as well as some new ones I hadn't seen yet. All of the stories in here are winners, but I think that "Resilience" will stick with me the most.
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Not the best, not the worst. Much like most of Flame Tree Press selections lately.
Mostly this collection didn’t work for me, except for the few final tales. And I’m not blaming the book in this instance. It’s likely more due to the basic author/reader chemistry failure.
Specifically, I actually think there is talent here, can see it in the individual sentences. But the sum total of them doesn’t quite come together right. It’s one of those forest and trees things.
The trees are solid, but the forest laves a lot to be desired.
The vague moodiness of it all, the overall style of narrative that frequently leaned dense and/or dreamy, the nightmarish magic realism (is that a genre?) of it all largely didn’t appeal to me. User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley. -
Christi Nogle's debut collection, THE BEST OF OUR PAST, THE WORST OF OUR FUTURE, is stunning. Thanks to Nogle's masterful voice and style, each of these often unsettling, surreal stories is anchored by achingly believable characters you can't help but deeply care for; characters who, much like the beautiful prose that conjures them, will ultimately capture both your heart and your imagination.
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This collection of stories which border between the line of horror and the fantastic is an interesting collection.
This collection is interesting though at times I was left a bit confused as this is not a book to be taken likely and one that the reader needs to concentrate. Once this is realised, the reader will be in for a intellectual horror read that will feed the mind and the soul.
If I had to compare Nogle’s collection, I guess instead of King, I would say more Barker, Poe or Lovecraft where if the reader concentrates on what he is reading and gets lost in the prose, they will be rewarded with some truly spine tingling and chilling moments. Her writing style is very unique, and this gives it that extra narrative presence that should please the more high brow amongst the readers who is looking for more of a literary edge to feed their minds as well as their souls. Highly Recommended.
