an excellent collection of disparate voices screaming out through the agony and the ecstasy of creation. While a couple of stories left me with notes that simply read “I don’t get it” that is the beauty of a collection that explores the nature of art, and everyone will have a different interpretation and a different favourite.
Stories of the Eye Edited by Sam Richard and Joe Koch
Available from Amazon
And Weirdpunk Books
Between the desire to create and the thing created, the model is a key, a stepping stone, a participant othered through the process of creation. These thirteen visions of modern horror dissect the relationship between artist and model, exposing the spaces the eye is tricked into missing where we witness the beautiful and monstrous intricacies of making and being made.
Featuring stories by Andrew Wilmot, M. Lopes da Silva, Gwendolyn Kiste, Hailey Piper, Roland Blackburn, Ira Rat, Donyae Coles, Matt Neil Hill, Brendan Vidito, LC von Hessen, Gary J. Shipley, and editors Joe Koch and Sam Richard.
Having recently finished Grief Rituals from Sam Richard I was intrigued to see what sort of collection he would curate with Joe Koch in Stories of the Eye. I was right to be intrigued as what they have given us is a varied mix of stories that explore the relationship between art, the artist and the consumer. Creation is pain and the people in these pages suffer for their art while others push themselves beyond their limits to experience that art.
We get people dying for their art, artist’s models used in rituals that transcend our worldly plane, a young artist who literally puts herself into her work and models used as living, breathing canvasses. Art is a drug, and these stories are the fix. The tales explore the existential nature of creation and what it means to consume art, and to be art; and they do so in suitably gruesome and icky ways.
However, just like any art, whether that is a book, a film, a painting, poetry or sculpture, the stories are subjective offerings that may or may not inspire the artist within you. And this is often an issue with anthologies that offer contributions from a number of writers. While a collection from a single author lets you really get to know that writer and their voice, it is not so easy with multiple contributors as the style and voice changes dramatically from story to story. This can be both a blessing and a curse; you may not ‘get’ all the stories, but you certainly won’t be bored either.
And this was the case with Stories of the Eye.
On the whole, I enjoyed the read and there is much here to tantalise, delight and disgust horror fans. However, I did find a couple of the stories, subjectively, didn’t work and their meaning was lost on me. This is more likely going to be a ‘me’ problem but just bear that in mind when going in – it’s just the usual caveat for an anthology.
Having said that, nothing will put me off seeking out further writing from any of the authors who contributed to this collection. There is clearly a lot of talent on display here and it would be foolish not to explore their other works.
None of the entries are very long, however, so even if you find yourself less taken by a particular tale, there will be another one along soon enough, and you will find yourself whisked away in a new direction, strikingly different from the path you have just been treading.
So, is Stories of the Eye any good? Yes, it is, it’s an excellent collection of disparate voices screaming out through the agony and the ecstasy of creation. While a couple of stories left me with notes that simply read “I don’t get it” that is the beauty of a collection that explores the nature of art, and everyone will have a different interpretation and a different favourite. There are some great writers in this collection and like a buffet at my gran’s house in the 1980s, there is something for everyone.
Stories of the Eye Edited by Sam Richard and Joe Koch
Between the desire to create and the thing created, the model is a key, a stepping stone, a participant othered through the process of creation. These thirteen visions of modern horror dissect the relationship between artist and model, exposing the spaces the eye is tricked into missing where we witness the beautiful and monstrous intricacies of making and being made.
Featuring stories by Andrew Wilmot, M. Lopes da Silva, Gwendolyn Kiste, Hailey Piper, Roland Blackburn, Ira Rat, Donyae Coles, Matt Neil Hill, Brendan Vidito, LC von Hessen, Gary J. Shipley, and editors Joe Koch and Sam Richard.
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