Flaming Teeth

Garry Kilworth, "Flaming Teeth" in Screams From the Dark, ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022).

I always appreciate subtly strange stories; it is why I like Aickman and Murakami so much. In "Flaming Teeth," Kilworth gives us a few small signals that the world in which the story is set is not quite the one you and I are familiar with, but it is close enough that you might not notice at first glance. 

The manner in which giants are acknowledged to exist by the world at large is one of the details that makes this world different. The light touch with which this departure is handled works well. This sets up an additional element that makes the story strange; readers come to expect that when characters encounter a monster, part of their shock and horror is them coming to grips with the fact that the thing can exist at all. But a setup that avows the presence of giants subverts that expectation. 

Another strange touch to this particular story is just how nonchalant the shipwrecked characters take to their ordeal of being marooned. A traditional story will acknowledge, if not focus on, the stress of being trapped on an island needing rescue. This story puts that aside, and the characters, by and large, see their predicament as an adventure and nothing to be too worried about.  

Comments

Post a Comment

What did you think about this story?

Popular posts from this blog

Children of the Night

Image
Stephen Graham Jones, "Children of the Night" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). This is a story involving the literal collision of subculturesă…ˇbigfoot hunters, truckers, and monsters.  Tol's theories and speculations about monsters are wonderfully absurd, but the truth is stranger and even more ridiculous. When monster kinds cooperate with one another, we don't have a chance against them.
Read more

You Have What I Need

Image
  Ian Rogers, "You Have What I Need" in Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). The hospital is a strange place. Apart from a war zone, you are unlikely to be physically closer to horror than when sitting in the ER waiting room of a hospital. There is nasty shit going on all around you—from blood, viscera, and death to injustice, psychological trauma, and financial ruin. It is a place where strange things happen, a place where both lives are saved and tragedies occur.  But people (and monsters, disease, and contagion) show up at the hospital thinking they are going there because it has what they need . It can feel like the last hope; the hospital can fix it. Most of the time, what you think will happen differs from what really happens. It is a place that often frustrates expectations and sometimes delivers pleasant surprises.  “You Have What I Need” takes up this weirdness of the hospital from the perspective of those who work there, those who v
Read more

The Smell of Waiting

Image
Kaaron Warren, "The Smell of Waiting" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). This story has a different take on returning the dead to life. Life isn't something to be restored, but rather, death is a thing or a presence that can be taken away. Of course, once you've taken it away, you've got to store it somewhere! What did you think about the role that Andrea played in the process as opposed to the role that the dog played in the process?
Read more