Ahoy there mateys! After reading this short story collection, my strongest sentiment is that I expected more. More weird, more transgression, more wild and interesting prose. The introduction to the collection does a fantastic job of selling Rennie's writing as being on the cutting edge
of weird fiction, going so far as to say that this is a novel genus of the New Weird (referencing Jeff Vandermeer's statement, "I'd call him kind of 'Next Weird'"). Unfortunately, the work simply doesn't live up to such praise to me.

Some of the problems of the stories stem from Rennie's somewhat bland, workmanlike writing style. The initial story, "Il Duca di Cesena," tells the familiar tale of an insane and corrupt royal who has commissioned an otherworldly statue, which overwhelms all with its unnatural beauty. It's neither inventive nor weird, but it's told from a first-person perspective, and it could have generated some interest if that narration was creative in some way. It was not, and the story just plods to its expected conclusion.

Likewise, a later story about a robot becoming increasingly dissatisfied with its impossible task is the most affecting story in the collection. However, it still fails to connect because of very bland prose. I couldn't help but imagine the emotional gut punch that Iain M. Banks or Anne Leckie would have wrung from the same material. As it's written, events just happen to the robot; it becomes more frustrated and ultimately meets its untimely end. Just one thing after another.

There's a story where Captain Cook is the supernatural protector of the British Isles against the hordes of monsters that seek to destroy all humans living there. Pirates versus monsters? That sounds fun. Alas, it was not. Again, just kind of ho-hum from beginning to end. Predictability isn't the worst thing in the world, but most of these stories end exactly where you'd expect them to.

Many of the other stories seem to suffer from a genuinely juvenile perspective on sex and violence. All the stories set in the BleakWarrior world feature an almost edgelord-like teasing preoccupation with elements the author seems to view as transgressive. Mostly, those transgressive elements are sex and violence-related. There's nothing inherently wrong with writing about such topics (even when they're twisted together), especially when used to examine something interesting. Here, sex and violence aren't even presented for titillation; they're present so that the reader can think, "That was cool." After all, the collection features a story titled "TerrorSluts for Eternity Versus the Ungodheads of the
Interdimensionals."

From the way Rennie was sold in the introduction, I was expecting the transgressiveness of Poppy Z Brite with the literary skill of Thomas Ligotti and the creative mindbending of Laird Barron. Hardweird is bland and often quite juvenile. If this is the next phase of the New Weird, I'll probably be taking a pass. I wouldn't recommend this collection to anyone. Arrrr!

Unfortunately this collection wasn’t for me. I love short stories but this one has a particular style and elements that are too off for me. You have to be familiar with the author’s works to appreciate these short stories. I didn’t like any of them; I found them disjoined and too weird without any substance to provide entertainment or satisfaction. It is an absolute horror fest, but for a very specific audience.
Thank you to NetGalley and Blood Bound Books for providing me with the ARC.

This was a strong collection of cosmic horror, each story worked well overall and was engaged with everything that I wanted and thought it worked. Alistair Rennie has a strong writing style and thought it worked in this genre. It left me wanting to read more and was glad everything that I was looking for in this type of book.

This books really lives up to it's name. It's weird, hard weird! But it is not that kind of weird that it goes over your head. It's actually very entertaining. Thank you to the author, the publisher and to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for my honest review.