Praise, Reviews, and Other Nice Things People Are Saying
from Anne Rice, about AnnieNeugebauer.com:
“I think we’re living in a golden age of blogging when indie critics or reviewers can reach for the stars. You no longer have to be an employee at a literary magazine to become an official literary commenter or observer. You can do it on your own. Everything depends on the quality of what you write. And I like Annie Neugebauer’s blog very much. Very high quality.”
*Honorable mention for Best Horror of the Year Volume 15 by Ellen Datlow, “The Pelt”
from MI Book Reviews, about “The Pelt”:
“The issue with this one was it was so good that I had to put it down and reset between stories. I knew it was going to be good, Stephan Graham Jones is a top horror author for me. But I just didn’t expect it to be this good.
I am going to focus on an early story. The first story that made me put the book down and just stare into the void. ‘The Pelt’ by Annie Neugebauer was probably the best horror I have read in a long time. The story builds slowly, but at a nice pace that doesn’t drag. It takes the horror similar to The Yellow Wallpaper, but ups the ante. It has the same vibes, but make it country and darker.
The ending was woah. It took me a few minutes of staring into the void to even start my rapid texting of people to demand they read it. It was so good. The way the story progressed, I had a feeling it was going to be a creature feature or something like that. Instead, I got something much more my horror speed. I got one of the most true statements I have ever read. […]
I could go on all day about this story. It was by far my favorite story in the collection. The others were great, but ‘The Pelt’ was perfection.”
*Honorable mention for Best Horror of the Year Volume 15 by Ellen Datlow, “Churn the Unturning Tide”
*Recommended reading for the 2022 Locus Awards, “Churn the Unturning Tide”
from Kirkus Reviews, about “You Ought Not Smile As You Walk These Woods”:
“Spine-chilling.”
from A.C. Wise, about “You Ought Not Smile As You Walk These Woods”:
“You Ought Not Smile As You Walk These Woods by Annie Neugebauer caused me to wonder whether a story can be simultaneously cute and horrifying. This one certainly feels like it strikes that balance with its dark sense of humor and a classic (in the violent and bloody sense) fairy tale feel. A grandson goes to visit his grandmother and isn’t wise enough to heed her advice. Being the typical arrogant, greedy, and not too bright youth of fairy tales, he steals what he shouldn’t and even though he tries to gift what he steals to his grandmother out of kindness, the results are still horrifying.
Like all good fairy tales, this one comes with a moral: Always listen to your elders, respect nature, and never think you’re cleverer than a fairy – especially one with a fondness for teeth.”
*Recommended reading for Best Horror of the Year Volume 14 by Ellen Datlow, “You Ought Not Smile As You Walk These Woods”
*Recommended reading for Best Horror of the Year Volume 14 by Ellen Datlow, “If Those Ragged Feet Won’t Run”
from Maria Haskins at Maria’s Reading, about “If Those Ragged Feet Won’t Run”:
“What makes the story stand out, is that the mother is dealing with all the issues of recent childbirth as she has to hide, run, dodge, and fight the monster: breastfeeding, a crying baby, bleeding, joint pain and vaginal pain, weak stomach muscles… I don’t think I’ve ever read a story that takes these very real postpartum details and weaves them into the tale. The result is a tense, taut, and breathtaking chase story that had me on the edge of my seat. And the added twist of the tale, when we realize we’re dealing with not one but two mothers… adds to the story’s harrowing brilliance.”
from Paula Guran at Locus Magazine, about “If Those Ragged Feet Won’t Run”:
“In Annie Neugebauer‘s “If Those Ragged Feet Won’t Run”, the quiet of the night is a fearsome thing for Bethesda and her infant daughter, who are trapped outside the safety of their village. Any noise will bring a deadly nightbird upon them, and a six-week-old baby is impossible to silence. A fight for survival between Bethesda and a nightbird – also a mother – ensues. Readers will find themselves holding their collective breath as Neugebauer artfully builds the tension and crafts a fine story.”
*Recommended reading for Best Horror of the Year Volume 13 by Ellen Datlow, “Churn the Unturning Tide”
*Ladies of Horror Fiction Award Honorable Mention in Short Fiction, “What Throat”
*Recommended reading for Best Horror of the Year Volume 12 by Ellen Datlow, “Red, Red, Red”
from Alex Hofelich, about “The Problem with Being a Monster”:
“This anthology is filled with monster stories and explores what makes a monster. ‘The Problem with Being a Monster’ by Annie Neugebauer inhabits the theme of the anthology very tightly by disarming you by being touching and warm with a stinger.”
*Chosen for Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 5, “Redless”
from Spencer Koelle, about “Redless”:
“Redless was a thing of fleeting beauty and sheer subtle wrongness. Its prose is good and the character is strong, but it sells me on the uniqueness of the premise alone.”
from Priscilla Bettis, about “Redless”:
“’Redless’ by Annie Neugebauer is only 800 words and centers around the color red. You kind of see how this dread-filled story is going to go, and by the end it’s tied up in a neat, little, scary bow.”
from Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews, about “The Wooden Box”:
“This poem speaks to me of loss and memory, comfort and pain. […] Clean and real. And for me it comes to represent a sort of legacy, something more than memory, that the narrator carries with them. Something that pushes back against the loss and the grief that came with it. Because for a poem very intimate with loss, with the death of someone close, the focus is not on sadness. Not exactly, at least, not to me. The rummaging around in the body might speak to a certain numbness instead, because it’s not described as painful. Rather, it seems to be a sort of comfort. A sort of agonizing joy. One that speaks to the ways that people can die but also live on in those they leave behind. That box in an inheritance, one that the narrator can take with them and find and open up whenever they need to. So that they don’t have to hurt as much. And the hope maybe is that over time they won’t need to as much, that the _need_ for that comforting haunting, that lingering presence, might fade as they heal. But for now I don’t see it as a failure or a failing that they reach for that box. That they open themselves and it in order to feel that hug, in order to see that smile. Even if it might keep some of the pain alive longer, it’s worth it to them, and there’s something beautiful about that, about the desire to be haunted, not out of some sort of self-harm, but because it allows the narrator to ease into the full weight of the loss, having this box to open when they need. A lovely read!”
from A.E. Siraki, about “The Little Drawer Full of Chaos”:
“’The Little Drawer Full of Chaos’ by Annie Neugebauer is also another notable entry. I admit my bias as a librarian upfront for this story. Seeing protagonists who work in libraries is always a delight for me, as it was here. […] It builds toward an explosive climax.”
from Emily Harrison at Storgy Magazine, about “I Am”:
“And to the final piece, more novelette than short story. ‘I Am’ by Annie Neugebauer is another stand out of The Shadow Booth. A tale that takes the pieces of the puzzle and scatters them far and wide. […] To quantify the tale is perhaps too easy, or too difficult. It’s one to be devoured. The prose keeps you guessing, the sense of unease from the narrator a constant. It serves the tale well, closing out The Shadow Booth on a high.”
*Bram Stoker Award® Finalist for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction, “Glove Box”
from Steve P Brady, about “Glove Box”:
“I also came across THE DARK CITY, a mystery magazine, and Annie Neugebauer’s short story, GLOVEBOX. I love short fiction. I teach short fiction. And deep down I really wish I could write it too. This is exactly what a 2,000 word scare should read like. Worth ten minutes of your time.”
*Chosen for Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 4, “Cilantro”
from Joshua B. at NetGalley, about “Cilantro”:
“’Cilantro’ by Annie Neugebauer is one that I hypnotised into reading. The conversation started off like normal couple squabbling, but the further into the Kafka-esque story, Annie’s way with words just pulled me in and I wondered how it would end.”
from Gracie Kat at Sci-Fi & Scary, about “Dealing in Shadows”:
“There was one in particular, Dealing in Shadows by Annie Neugebauer, that hit me very hard and everything about it was just so well done. […] (thank you for tearing my heart out of my chest and stomping on it, by the way)”
from Tracy Robinson, about “Dealing in Shadows”:
“This short story by Annie Neugebauer boasts a slow, dread kind of horror while tackling the question ‘how far would you go for someone you love?’ It’s a beautiful tale. Scary and heartbreaking.”
from Frank Michaels Errington at Horrible Book Reviews, about “Dealing in Shadows”:
“Quite an imaginative tale of bereavement and the shadow people. Another high note in a strong anthology.”
from Ian Mond at Locus Magazine, about “Dealing in Shadows”:
“That experience of grief is powerfully rendered in “Dealing in Shadows” by Annie Neugebauer, where a daughter is willing to sacrifice her memories, and her identity to spend a few final moments with her recently deceased Dad. Like Bracken MacLeod’s piece, it’s a story that drew me close to tears.”
*Bram Stoker Award® Finalist for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction, “So Sings the Siren”
*Chosen for Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3, “So Sings the Siren”
*Recommended reading for Best Horror of the Year Volume 10 by Ellen Datlow, “So Sings the Siren”
from Scott A. Bradley, about “So Sings the Siren”:
“There are no throwaway stories in this volume, but there are those that I personally feel stand out. The very first story, ‘So Sings The Siren’ by Annie Neugebauer, sets the stage that this collection is not going to be an unimaginative bloodbath but that the carnage would be hard-earned. The story is truly horrible-beautiful.”
from V. Medina at How Sweet the Words, about “So Sings the Siren”:
“This story is pretty much why I love short fiction. It’s stunning and pretty and wonderful and chilling. It sinks into your bones and echoes in your mind. It’s creepy and gorgeous and one of those stories that may be short but is powerful in its brevity.”
from Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews, about “So Sings the Siren”:
“This is a rather creepy and very short story about pain and about art and about performance. […] It’s how the story is able to establish and sell the darkness that is at first concealed […] I like how the story sets this all up and I like the implications of it, the way it seems to me to seek to shine a light on how we treat art […] It’s weird and messed up and uncomfortable but I think it’s a rather great read!”
from Octavia Cade, about “So Sings the Siren”:
“[…] and the beautifully written “So Sings the Siren” by Annie Neugebauer, which is going down as one of my favourite horror stories of all time.”
from Joanna Weston at SFF Reviews, about “So Sings the Siren”:
“This story sneaks up on you, which is impressive for a 1000 word piece of flash fiction. […] There is a beauty that can be born from suffering sometimes, if one is willing to work for it and lucky enough to find it. I believe that this is a story about how best to honor that choice, and whether it is better to turn away from the horror of the source in order to focus on the outcome, or whether we need to acknowledge both. It’s not an easy read, but it is powerful.”
from Alex Clark-McGlenn at For Those Who Wait and Listen, about “So Sings the Siren”:
“A gruesome and moving look at the price of art. […] It’s disturbing, but very provocative. Wonderful horror story.”
from Amelia Gorman, about “So Sings the Siren”:
“So Sings the Siren shows how you can do a lot with a very little, with word count, plot and POV. It’s only a few pages and unlike some of the more explicit oferings, a lot of the horror comes from what you and the main character aren’t allowed to see.”
from Ashley B. Davis, about “That Which Never Comes”:
“’That Which Never Comes’ by Annie Neugebauer appears in the first volume of Tales from the Shadow Booth, edited by Dan Coxon. This story is all about painful anticipation, but, there was something at the end, that really, truly terrified me and it had nothing to do with that which never comes. This story is such a full representation of a difficult, often deliberately misunderstood genre.”
from Blair Rose at Learn This Phrase, about “That Which Never Comes”:
“Unusually powerful and – I want to say elegiac; there is something so melancholy and, yes, haunting about this. It follows Daniel from his teens to the age of 93 as he is intermittently menaced by an inexplicable, unseen presence. I suppose it’s a story with a moral, when you think about it, but not even a bit as sanctimonious as that sounds. Instead, it’s moving and elegant.”
from Des Lewis at Dreamcatcher Real-Time Reviews, about “Hide”:
“This is what I call the perfect horror ‘short short’. To describe its plot would spoil it. It is powerful and surprising…”
*recommended reading for Best Horror of the Year Volume 7 by Ellen Datlow, “Hide”
from Gareth Jones at Dread Central, about “Hide”:
“Annie Neugebauer’s ‘Hide’ is possibly the shortest entry that I’ve ever come across in the pages of Black Static, but it’s an enjoyable little slice of grim micro-fiction – twisting the jargon of the ‘pickup artist’ into something much more horrendous than it already is.”
from A.P. Sessler, about “The Devil Take the Hindmost”:
Inside you’ll find several takes on the Witching Hour theme, but I would say my favorite four [includes] Annie Neugebauer’s The Devil Take the Hindmost, a wonderfully convincing period piece that fans of The VVitch will certainly fall in love with.
from Mary Ann Back, about “The Call of the House of Usher”:
I just finished “The Call of the House of Usher” by Annie Neugebauer – the most elegantly crafted story I’ve ever read. Kudos on a spot on Victorian voice that would have brought a smile to Poe’s face.
from Frank Michaels Errington at Horrible Book Reviews, about “Honey”:
“Probably the most unusual story in the anthology, yet truly enjoyable.”
from Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews, about “Maxwell’s Demon”:
“Finally, a poem that takes on thermodynamics in a way that I can fully embrace! It’s a poem about entropy, perhaps, and loss, about a person finding themself cut off from the person they were just with, the person they care about. Finding suddenly that, because they didn’t pay enough attention, because they didn’t argue as they were sorted into categories, they have lost something very important. And that’s the other part of this poem that I like, that it works on the micro and macro scale, for small things but also as a call not to be sorted, not to be categorized easily by anyone just wanting to run a thought experiment because no, fuck that, that’s how Bad Things start. As in the poem, things don’t seem so bad because why not go where someone says, only things don’t really stop there, and in some drive to fight against entropy you let tiny demons in where they shouldn’t be. It’s a rather subtle point here, but present I think, present in the way that realization slowly settles, the dawning understanding that the demon shouldn’t be in charge. And the realization that it might be too late. The poem is short and relies a bit on knowing what the original reference is to (thanks, Wikipedia!). But it works, and the more I think about it the richer it gets, because there’s a lot to think of in these deceptively simple lines, the sorting and the loss and the regret and the everything working together and it’s just a lot of fun and almost heartbreaking and you should read it.”
from Stephen Williams at SwillBlog, about “Naked”:
“The five poems this month explore some haunting territory. ‘Naked’ strips down an unfortunate person and also uses the stripped down approach in words to get right to the heart while still saying a lot in only a few lines.”
from Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews, about “Naked”:
“Nice. Creepy. This is a rather short and deceptively complex poem about nakedness. Or, more, about stripping someone naked. Not just without clothes but deeper than that. And the poem is complex to me because it links nakedness with gaze. The voice of the poem, after all, is just a gaze, is someone viewing the “you” of the piece so that the reader is the one being stripped, examined, peeled. And there’s such a calm confidence to the voice, the way that it gaslights the subject, the reader, telling us all that we know what it wants, that we know it is only being reasonable. The way that the world examines people, and especially certain people. Their bodies but also their hurts, demanding the right to have access to them, to be able to see them and play with them. It’s an unsettling effect that the poem manages expertly, deepening the impact which each layer taken away, with each defense shattered. And there is an insatiability to the voice, the creeping suspicion that it will never be satisfied no matter how much it shaves away, like we’re all trees being shorn down to toothpicks, found wanting, and then discarded. And I like it. The language is simple, the voice direct and familiar, the poem a nice cold blade that dissects the reader. A great read!”
from Charlotte Ashley at Apex Magazine, about “Zanders the Magnificent”:
“’Zanders the Magnificent’ by Annie Neugebauer (Fireside #21) is a darkly funny bit of work about a mother raising twin boys as if they were one person in order to, eventually, perform as stage magicians à la Christopher Priest’s The Prestige. Of course, being told you have to be dead half your life can be damaging to any small child, and Robby and Bobby don’t come out quite right in the end.”
from Lori Lee at Examiner.com, about “The Silence”:
“‘The Silence’ by Annie Neugebauer, inspired by a painting called ‘Sunset’ by Sharon Dawson, whispered to me, its meaning lingering days later. If you go with only enough time to see this painting, try to visualize how it inspired the poem, and consider taking away a little inspiration to hide beneath your pillow.”
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