Not a Speck of Light cover art

Not a Speck of Light

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About this listen

Named One of the Best Horror Books of the Year by the New York Times, Esquire, NPR, and Paste!

It's about to get very dark.

Bram Stoker Award-winning author Laird Barron returns to the dark and dreadful with his fifth horror collection, which weaves sixteen weird tales into a mosaic of the bloody and the macabre.

Bring a flashlight and a book of matches.

Where we're going, there's not a speck of light.

©2024 Laird Barron (P)2024 Tantor Media Anthologies & Short Stories Horror Short Stories Scary
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It's nice to see Barron expanding the range of his characters, and Jennifer Pickens does a great job with her share of the narration. (Still, I miss Ray Porter's virtuosity and sense of rhythm.)

However, I feel like the sincerity and intensity and visceral imagery and creeping cosmic dread I loved from Barron's other work is a little lost here. So many of the stories are a little too tongue-in-cheek to let a mood develop -- I'm reminded of overly quippy MCU movies, so terrified of being taken seriously that they knock down any profound moment as soon as they've set it up.

It's a shame when there's some fun formal play going on here, and when I previously would've described Barron as unapologetically dark and engrossed in the gravity that makes his best horror or noir writing sing.

"So That Just Happened"

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Here some observation about this antology:

1) I get Mr. Barron would like to mimic Cormac McCarthy's style while writing his stories, but he has to let go of his delusions: he'll never be him.
Also inserting mysterious and inscrutable elements in a story for the sake of it is not only pointless, but even detrimental to the story.

2) Please, stop trying to create your brand of OC (DO NOT STEAL!) Multiverse, Mr. Barron, you're not Marvel/DC (and, frankly speaking, those type of thing have really overstayed their welcome).
There is no need to continuously drop hint and references to other stories and characters.

3) Bring Ray Porter back as a narrator!

4) We got it, Mr. Barron, you are a real example of male feminist: men are useless while women can do everything better.
Now, do you have something to hide like your colleague Neil Gaiman? We'll be hearing about some kind of scandal involving you, in the near future?

Very disappointing and a waste of money

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