| Title | : | Trysts: A Triskaidecollection of Queer and Weird Stories |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 159021000X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781590210000 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 164 |
| Publication | : | First published September 1, 2001 |
| Awards | : | Gaylactic Spectrum Award Best Other Work (2002) |
Trysts: A Triskaidecollection of Queer and Weird Stories Reviews
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Due to life this book took me almost month to finish, but I finally did it!.
I don't remember how I got this book on my library, I guess some free offer because I never read anthologies, I don't feel satisfied reading short stories from a bunch of different authors. However, this one is just from one author that's also new to me so I was like why not try this one?.
Like the title says this book is about queer (though mostly m/m) short stories involving characters going through weird situations with monsters. What I liked is that some of the characters appear in more than one story so it made the whole anthology more engaging to me. Something I kind of side-eyed was the fact that the only f/f short story is also one whose had a fade to black sex scene. It's not like I don't like the fade to black but that I got the feeling the author didn't want to deal with two women making love and it's something I tend to see in queer stories and I don't know why authors shy away from writing explicit sex scenes between women. Aside from that I really enjoyed some of the stories specially the one involving the weird statues, actually I'm giving the book 4 stars instead of 3 cause of that story. -
Trysts. Rendezvous. Encounters. Coincidental crossings of paths...
Or are they coincidence? Did that man you admired from afar this morning just happen to pass you on another street later, or was he following you?
Or were you the one doing the seeking out?
These tales are, by and large, stories which sex plays a role, which does not make them romances. Only a few would qualify as romance by any definition, and those are mostly unhealthy romances, the kind where you stay for damaged, codependent reasons. Oddly, the one that worked best for me as a romance was "Paths of Corruption" in which at least the two both seem happy to be staying together at the end.
Some of the stories are set in the ordinary world, but more incorporate fantastical or supernatural elements. The most overtly fantasy are a series of linked tales set in the Fallen, which is like a darker version of the shared-world Bordertown series.
I'll finish by mentioning "Stormed and Taken in Prague," a city which I clearly need Berman to tour me around because I had none of these experiences. My reaction probably says more about me than it does about the story: "You're going to sex clubs to get laid when you could be excavating the mysterious sculpture in your wall?! What is wrong with your priorities?!"
Next up,
Red Caps: New Fairy Tales for Out of the Ordinary Readers -
Berman takes a twist on the dreaded number thirteen and dares the reader to look away in this collection of short twisted stories. The various themes involve romance, passion, science fiction, unhappy endings, short encounters, magic, death, life, and a bit of whimsy. Fans of the author will likely devour these stories that revolve around the loneliness of life and needing a human connection, sometimes at a great cost. Berman’s masterful touch of horror and dark elements blended with touches of humor and hope give an even tone to the writing without delving too far into the dark side and alienating readers. The fantasy journey is well worth taking for any lover of well-written creative fiction.
This collection stands out from others with its creative twists and imagery. From stories like “Vespers” where a fraternity is likened to a monastery and the clever twist of words and descriptions blends the two images seamlessly with an eerie and familiar ending to “Left Alone” a chilling story about a young man yearning for his dead lover who appears to him as a ghost once a year. These stories and others have an inherent cleverness to their prose and settings that trick the reader with possibilities and opportunities beyond the obvious. The writing creates stories within the stories just waiting to be discovered upon reading.
Berman shows that humor and magic can exist simultaneously with a touch of hope and whimsy in the story “His Paper Doll”. This delightful tale of a young man that creates a paper voodoo doll of magazine images only to discover the man exists combines creativity with the romance of youth to remind readers of a first crush. Conversely, “Stormed and Taken in Prague” is a darker story with a vivid energy imbued in the prose and writing. The horrified fascination with the seedier side of raves with a magical twist depicts the true fear of addiction and the various forms it can take. The reader, much like the main character, is helplessly drawn to the dark side and can’t resist submitting to its unforgiving yet fascinating ending.
Returning to the futuristic, urban fantasy world are several connected stories appearing at the end of the collection. Each of these takes place in the utterly riveting world after the Fall and depicts magic with whimsy and cruelty alongside passion. The endless creativity and uniqueness to this world creates chills of horror, fear, and delight. The most enticing character, Caleb, slips in and out of each tale just enough to tease without giving him the attention he clearly craves. The endless twists and stunning imagery such as a young man with blood like silk that creates spiders when spilled, fill these stories with almost overwhelming detail. Be sure to read these carefully as you won’t want to miss the subtly and clever complexity woven into each.
My favorite of the group is without argument “Path of Corruption” where a young college student is seduced by a hustler and falls into a dark coven. This story has also appeared in other anthologies, like many of these stories, so this was my second time reading the tale. It only improves upon time and the level of detail and horrified fascination rises upon each reading. The characters and their relationship are addictive in their complex reality and powerful attraction. Destructive or necessary, this story creates a wealth of emotion brought out in the simplest of phrases and chilling images.
Overall this is another highly successful collection from Berman that slides deeper into the dark reality of his imagination and creativity. The variety in the stories extends from theme to voice, style, and writing but the common thread throughout is passion. Sometimes dark, sometimes whimsical these characters will grip the reader without letting up. -
4.5 stars
Thirteen stories, all them different though some of them share characters and a common background.
Beach 2: Two couples meet for some holidays in the beach. Only one of them is not a couple but just friends, and the other one is less of a couple than what they themselves believe.
Enticing. Really. Sexual tension transpires in a really smooth way, not even a kiss or a clear word about it, just through smiles and lingering gazes…
Stormed and Taken in Prague An American goes to Prague to look for something different, and he finds all the strong emotions he was looking for, and then some more…
Wow! Dark, twisted, painful and moving. Interesting.
His Paper Doll Richie makes a voodoo doll as a token of good luck, but it will never work, will it?
This is one of the brightest tales in the lot. Do not let it fool you. It’s going to get darker. Really darker.
The resurrectionist : Young Wallace finds the perfect revenge after his uncle Heath death.
Macabre. Distressing. A very twisted way of finding justice at the end.
Path of Corruption: Life in New Orleans has more dangers lurking beneath its alluring nightlife than what student Preston may ever have expected, and following beautiful hustler Brandon may prove the right path to discover all them
This had slight Lovecraft reminiscence, with its long forgotten gods, secrets beneath the city and dangerous, forbidden rituals.
Vespers Life in a fraternity in college is not so different from the life in a monastery in the past, at least not for Saul, and the young acolytes are so tempting…
A really distressing story, left me wondering what Saul was going to do next…
Left Alone David has a rendezvous with his lover Jarred once a year, when Jarred comes back from the see to kiss his lover once more…
When love is stronger than death, letting go is impossible.
Cries Beneath the Plaster: Joseph makes his living with his macabre sculptures… Until the day he realises there is a price you have to pay if you play with blood…
Distressing.
Finn’s Night: An old gambler finds a new marker in young Huck… But he may also have found a new love.
Another beautiful story, set in the times when the Mississippi was the place for a gambler to make a living.
Resemblances: Dave’s dreams are full of a strange young man he imagined time ago… but maybe he’s not as unreal as he once thought
This is the first story of the Fallen, a place where magic and reality mix in a strange way, creating somehow a distressing atmosphere which transpires through the events, providing them with a dreamlike reality.
Tea Time with Corn Dolly: Corn Dolly is an Afflicted, one of the strange inhabitants of the Fallen who suffer from strange conditions. But does not mean she cannot fall in love…
Sad. So sad.
The Anthvoke: Marie follows her beloved Jess to the Fallen, not wanting to lose her. But the Fallen has its way of changing people, and little by little Jess becomes somebody Marie does not recognise any more…
Another beautiful and distressing love story set in the twisted reality of the Fallen.
Hair Like Fire, Blood Like Silk: In his first night at the Fallen, Zane is saved from starving when he meets Saj… But Zane can mean Saj’s perdition…
As in all the Fallen tales, the atmosphere is unique and distressing… And love stories are always twisted and painful.
The stories collected in Trysts are strange, twisted, gloomy but undeniably emotional and moving. They are beautifully written and leave you with in a bittersweet mood. All in all, this is unique collection of love/pain stories where the beautiful and the ugly are masterfully mixed, leaving behind the impression of having had one of those vivid absinthe dreams the poets talk about… Excellent book. -
Author Steve Berman offers up a collection of 13 "queer and weird" stories that definitely take the reader on a haunting ride. His worlds walk a thin line between the ordinary and the extraordinary, with lots of hot, tormented boys thrown into the mix for good measure. It was really quite an exotic treat.
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Steve Berman's cooked up an haunting collection of thirteen tales in this one. Mysterious, odd, quirky and haunting, he looks just beyond the veneer of normal into those dark places we try so hard to avoid. Hinting at erotic, these tales ooze with Gothic tone, atmosphere and the macabre.
Rather than falling back on cheap sex or even worse, gore and violence, Borman chooses to look into humanity's dark side. His stories explore those shadowy parts in all of us that lure us to make the wrong decision or stray down a path we regret. Borman challenges us to look at the choices we make in the dark and then have to face in light. -
This is an odd collection of queer stories that all touch on the uncanny, the weird, the otherworldly, even the sublime. While of these stories interconnect with characters that appear more than once, not all have some kind of connection to the others. Berman offers a tantalizing look into a reality remarkably similar to our own, but just a touch askew. In fact, the last couple of tales offer a world vision so intriguing that I would love to see some novels written exploring the same reality.
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A terrific little collection of stories by a very gifted writer! Steve Berman is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors!
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Just ... Dark fantasy, Gothic, romantic fiction at its best. Frightening and enticing in the same breath, in every sentence.
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Trysts is a beautiful book full of queer and weird stories that inspired me and made me fall more in love with the genre. This book contains a variety of stories that will never bore you and will provide you with a new perspective on weird fiction. I enjoyed every story and loved a lot of them, especially the connected stories at the end. Every time I read one of Steve´s stories, I am inspired and long for more of these strange tales. I can't recommend this book enough; it's so good!
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There are twenty stories in TRYSTS, and several of them show the rough edges of a writer who is just starting out. These stories date from the late 90s through the collection's publication in 2001. Four of the twenty stories take place in Berman's dark-fantasy world of The Fallen Area, a section (or perhaps all) of Philadelphia that has been cut off from the rest of the civilized world because something has happened to change it -- magic works, people develop Talents or Afflictions, normal people struggle to survive a world they no longer hold primacy in. All four stories feature individuals new to the Fallen Area who find themselves in over their heads; some adapt better than others.
Not all of Berman's stories are Dark Fantasy / Horror. "His Paper Doll" is nearly whimsical and "Beach 2" isn't really supernatural at all. Some of the stories are homages to other authors. "The Resurrectionist" owes a lot to Poe (and perhaps Hawthorne), while "Path of Corruption" is positively Lovecraftian. A few of the stories didn't work for me (notably "Left Alone," which feels incomplete, and "Stormed and Taken in Prague," which seems too focused on the sex the main character has to really get across the kind of hole the character is potentially falling into) but even those stories don't lack for potentially interesting premises. I would recommend this collection for the Fallen Area stories in particular, and for a look at early Berman.
Reviews of the individual stories can be found here and here. -
SlashReaders: Back to Berman, I have read quiet a lot of his works and as always I find that there are things I love and things that do not appeal to me so much. *chuckles* As it is with many things, I suppose. For me the high light of this anthology were the 'Fallen' stories. I have a weakness for interlocking short stories and so it was a real pleasure for me, upon arriving at the end of this book.
Beyond that I think that "His Paper Doll", was my second of the stories at the beginning of this book. There was something dark but still playful about this story that really appeals to me.
Beyond that, the stories were good but with a wild and varied landscape. If you like reading somewhat darker fiction and you like reading short stories. I think this is an anthology worth taking a look at. :) But so far there has only been one work with Berman's name attached to it that I haven't been able to get through. :) -
I was going to give this collection two stars until I read the last four connected stories about the Fall. I would definitely be interested in reading more about Caleb and the other Infected/Talented living Inside. The rest of the stories consist mainly of riffs on the Pygmalion myth featuring varying degrees of pederasty (not really my cup of tea) with some of them being reminiscent of the works of Poppy Z Brite (gross) and others those of Clive Barker (yay). Overall, an uneven collection headed by an epigraph from one of the worst horror novels I've ever read.
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Great Collection
I enjoyed this collection of stories by Steve Bergman greatly. A nice assortment of eerie and mysterious storytelling with a dash of tension and a sprinkle of eroticism. -
A bit of a patchy start but by the end I was totally sucked in to the gritty fantasy world that is the setting for many of the stories. left me wanting more!
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Writing is strong, I just didn't really connect with any of the stories.
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http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.a... -
There are certainly many things in the world I would enjoy but do not even know to ask for, for my imagination hasn't yet stretched that far. This book contains one: New Orleans rent boys performing Bacchanalian rituals to Lovecraftian Elder Gods. Now I want all of it, so much more of it than this book provided, the idea is set in me now and I can't stop thinking of it. Nothing recommends a book better than a reader who can't stop thinking about it, extrapolating from it.
In general I'm not a horror fan, I don't dislike it, I just am very picky about it. I prefer my horror subtle. I want to make me shiver and ask questions and imagine things I've never thought of. This book really provided for me. There was only one story that stretched to too gross/too creepy for me and it involved spidery things and frankly I should have known better as soon as they appeared but the rest of the book was sublime, ranging from just a hint of "oh this is weird" to "whoa WTF is going on here!?"
Several of the stories shared characters and a strange post-apocalyptic universe where vast swathes of cities are quarantined because magic has surfaced and too much darkness and unknown resides there now. Of course outcasts flock to these dead zones producing several stories that are lovely fairy tales in their own right.
Themes of isolation, loneliness and seeking community fill this book, with as many happy endings as there are terrifying horrors. Berman's writing is both spare and lyrical where it needs to be, leading to the sense that each of these is a timeless fairytale being played out against an unexpected backdrop. The dead zone in cities act as the fairyland under the hill, the magic users like fairies themselves. Each other story has a hero to root for and a chance to wistfully hope for a happy ending. Very much enjoyed everything about this book. Went and bought two more by Berman right away, can't wait to get to them.
