7 Sins Of The Apocalypse
Reviewed By Steve Stred & Becca Futrell (Buddy Read)
- Print Length: 245 pages
- Publisher: Fractured Mind Publishing (22 Sept. 2019)
Steve: To be blunt – I struggled reading this collection. 7 stories based on the apocalypse, each based on individual sin. The concept itself, in theory, could be fantastic, but for the majority of the stories, it felt rushed, confused and at times as though the author also had no idea what they wanted to accomplish.
After reading all of these stories (and hey! My first buddy read with Becca!!) there really is only one story that still registers with me that I found enjoyable and that in itself felt like I’d already read it a million times.
The first story – Kodiak – confused me the entire time. At first, I was expecting this to be an animal-based tale, even shown through the eyes of bears, which would have been AMAZING! I found I didn’t know if it was animals, humans, machines, or a hybrid. I found the story itself had long descriptive passages about machines whirring and buzzing, but I really had no clue what was going on.
I enjoyed the last story – Erin’s cult-based tale, but even then I felt that it lagged in some parts.
If I wasn’t buddy reading this – I would have DNF’d it far earlier. Many of the stories felt as though they’d been written at the last minute and THEN the sin part was randomly added in to make sure it fit the criteria.
Becca: I’m beyond thankful that I read SEVEN SINS with Steve, otherwise I would have given up in the beginning. In general, I’m learning that short story collections don’t always hold my attention – I tend to toss them to the side for days & sometimes even months before finally finishing them. So, shout-out to Steve & I for finishing this underwhelming collection in a week!
I really liked the concept of SEVEN SINS. I have always been a sucker for a tale on this topic; it’s such an intriguing concept that can be done in so many ways. However, like Steve said, a lot of the stories felt rushed, and that the relevant sin was just tacked on to meet the requirements.
KODIAK by Justin Robinson was a slow start to the collection, and it took me a minute to really get into this short. For a majority of it, I had zero idea what was going on. Once my brain managed to catch up and figure out what was going on, I did find it to be slightly more enjoyable. The second story, ET EX DIABOLI by Dale Drake starts off with a bang (your ghoul loves exorcisms, okay?!) & there’s even the iconic line, “What are you going to do with those, bitch? Knit me to death?”, but by the end, my attention waved elsewhere.
Of course, seeing as this is an apocalyptic collection, zombies do pop up and we get a couple of stories that feel like they’re heavily influenced by The Walking Dead. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in fact, I found myself more intrigued by these.
My favorite in the collection would have to be LISA by Sylvester Barzey. This story focuses on the sin Sloth, and it was a perfect combination of horror & science fiction. Technology plays a heavy part in LISA, which differs dramatically from the other stories, and I think that’s what made it really stand out for me.
All in all, this wasn’t a collection I’d find myself re-reading. I feel like all of these writers would stand perfectly on their own or even in other collections, but as a whole, it seems SEVEN SINS was hurriedly put together.
7 Sins Of The Apocalypse
Societies have decayed. Morality barely exists. Feast your eyes upon Seven Sins of The Apocalypse.
Seven fresh tales of the seven deadly sins set in the apocalypse! Seven amazing authors tell seven succulent stories of what the seven deadly sins look like in the apocalypse. Grab this anthology to discover seven fresh looks at your favorite sin, whether it’s Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Pride, Sloth, or Wrath.
You can buy 7 Sins Of The Apocalypse from Amazon UK & Amazon US
Steve Stred
Steve Stred writes dark, bleak horror fiction.
Steve is the author of the novels Invisible & The Stranger, the novellas The Girl Who Hid in the Trees, Wagon Buddy, Yuri and Jane: the 816 Chronicles and two collections of short stories; Frostbitten: 12 Hymns of Misery and Left Hand Path: 13 More Tales of Black Magick, and the dark poetry collection Dim the Sun.
On September 1st, 2019 his second collection of dark poetry and drabbles called The Night Crawls In arrived. This release was specifically created to help fund the 1st Annual LOHF Writers Grant.
Steve is also a voracious reader, reviewing everything he reads and submitting the majority of his reviews to be featured on Kendall Reviews.
Steve Stred is based in Edmonton, AB, Canada and lives with his wife, his son and their dog OJ.
You can follow Steve on Twitter @stevestred
You can visit Steve’s Official website here
Becca Futrell
Writer, Reader & most importantly, Mother of Cats. Thanks to her horror-obsessed father, Becca found her childhood nights dedicated to watching movies such as Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween. As she continued to get older, her love for the genre only got stronger. Now, her goal is to share this love with like-minded people & possibly convert others along the way. When she’s not reading or writing, Becca can be found playing video games or begging her cats to take a nap with her.
Blog: http://beccaleighanne.com
Twitter: @astoldbybex
Instagram: http://instagram.com/readwithbex
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