Book review: Drabbledark – An Anthology of Dark Drabbles.

 

My previous experience with drabbles left me a little underwhelmed. The book I read certainly wasn’t a bad book, but it didn’t set my pulse racing either. Drabbledark is my second attempt and I had a little more success with this anthology.

With the stories only being 100 words in length, you’re going to get a lot of bang for your buck. This has its pros and cons. From a pros point of view, Drabbledark is a great book to dip in and out of, and for readers short on time (aren’t we all?!) that still want to dedicate some time to reading dark fiction this is a great place to start. It also offers you the chance to discover new talent. The cons, though, also come from including so many stories. I found myself engaged for the first third of the book, but my interest waned a little through the middle as the stories began to blur, making it difficult to remember many of them. I left the book well alone for a few days before picking it back up. The break served me well and I found myself enjoying most of what came towards the back-end of the book.

Highlights for me included The Choice by Bart Van Goethem, a drabble that gave me an Event Horizon vibe, Lesson Learned by Holly Scholfield in which terraforming soon becomes terrorforming for a group of students heading towards a new home on a new world and shorts by Christina Sng and Tamlyn Dreaver also worked well.

Your mileage will no doubt vary with this collection of dark drabbles, but for me, I enjoyed my time spent reading this varied collection. Drabbledark is a varied anthology containing stories of horror, science fiction and fantasy.

3.5/5 slices of the blade from the Grim Reader.

Pick up a copy from here.