What an inventive approach to both short stories and horror! An anthology of Chinese horror stories with each tale followed by a postscript from the editor who provided colour commentary to provide helpful cultural context that enriched the appreciation (and sometimes the fear) for each story. I had the chance to listen to the audiobook and would drive around aimlessly to keep the stories going (a scary adventure in the dark). Xueting's keen ability to weave narratives motivated me to purchase her previous anthology of science fiction stories. Can't wait to see more of this style of compendium for the future!

I this anthology took me a little to get into, but the lore and history surrounding these Chinese stories is deep and rich. I found the stories became more approachable as it went on and I really enjoyed the stories. Great translations. The commentary was very helpful, and the use of Chinese words with a definition was a nice touch.
Nicely done.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for the ALC of this.

I really loved all of the stories in this book. Some more than others. That last one really got to me.

I loved the forward at the beginning explaining the horror genre in china and what the author was trying to do with putting this piece together. I also loved that she put a note after each story explaining it, the author of the story and why she included it.

I will definitely be getting a physical copy of this as well as finding more stories by some of the authors that were included in this

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Solaris, and Tantor audio for the ARC. The narration by both Emily Woo Zeller and David Lee Huynh were great!

This is a celebration of all things Chinese horror, which is fantastic. As this is audio, and I was listening at work without accompanying text, it was hard to note any of the story titles themselves, as they were in Chinese! But there were a few that stood out to me. The editor does a great job of adding notes and translations, however how some of them would pop up as footnotes right in the audio did add a slight layer of confusion for me, as they would repeat the Chinese phrase multiple times before commenting on it. It’s both necessary to define the terms used, but also took me out of the stories a lot.

One story that stood out was a mixture of ghost story, as well as a commentary on the pricing crisis on land that’s happening. An entire housing complex, which our main characters were not aware of when moving in, is mostly being used to house the ashes of the dead. While awake one night, a boyfriend finds a coin in the mouth of his girlfriend, a token used to help the dead. He freaks out and of course they desire to move. The twist that followed was not one I was expecting, and it was well done for something so short. The commentary on land, taking care of loved ones, and placing them to rest, reminded me of this year’s Korean film Exhuma.

Another I particularly enjoyed found a man and woman waking up inside an apartment. With no way out, they are trapped, and as their kidnapper knocked them out, they don’t even know where. Through various phone calls, the person on the other line offers them ways out through various tasks or tricks. I listened to this story right after watching Saw II and the comparisons cannot be understated. While there are no contraptions, the life and death possibility of being trapped, as well as the choices to save each other, does have a kind of Jigsaw feel with the person on the other end of the line. It also feels very reminiscent of those earlier 2000s movies where all the trapped person has is a phone.

Otherwise, with this being kind of mixed, as it includes short stories, novelettes, and novellas, I did struggle a bit with the different lengths, as sometimes I’d get used to a specific voice and then the story would promptly end. Then you’d start all over. I feel like collections of all shorts are a bit easier, but there were none that I disliked! As the editor notes several times throughout, some of these were what would be considered very Classical Chinese horror…which kind of felt like differing stories with the same ending of, “they were dead the whole time!” Not really displeasing, but I think it’s why I enjoyed the ones that differed the most.

it's obviously difficult to rate this book as a whole since it's a collection of short stories by different authors, so of course I liked some better than others. However it is interesting and edifying to see what horror fiction looks like from the perspective of a culture where horror is not as prevalent and doesn't have as coherent and cohesive an identity as it does in the West.

Thank you NetGalley and RBmedia for the ARC of this audiobook for my honest review

This was a really good collection, some of the stories I didn’t like but there were some in here that I think are the best I’ve ever read. I’m definitely buying the book just so I can read those ones again and share them with friends. I love that they’re translated works that I wouldn’t have been able to read without this collection and they were definitely great choices.

I'll be publishing my review on Goodreads and StoryGraph 18th October and on Tik tok most likely will add to a monthly wrap up post with review the beginning of November.

YES I love this so much! This is why I love this time of year. Why is China so good at horror?I did not love every story but that is the beauty of anthologies and collections.

I love the glimpse into a genre/style/whatever that you get with an anthology and this one as a glimpse into Chinese Horror was really great.

I didn’t love every story but I enjoyed my time and have some new authors I gotta look for translated books from.

Some stories will live in my head for a long time now. I think that’s cool.

Thanks to netgalley and rbmedia for an alc

Woooooww, I was intimidated by how long this is but the time flew by. I found myself listening every time I had a few minutes, wondering what was going to happen next when I had to tear myself away. There was a fun variety -- my favorite was the story that felt like a different version of Saw. The stories are accompanied by commentary, and it was interesting to hear about the uniquely Chinese aspects of the stories. I highly recommend this to people who enjoy science fiction and or horror. The narrators were terrific, providing the right tones to keep it suspenseful. Thanks so much to NetGalley for letting me listen to this audiobook.