In That Endlessness, Our End, by Gemma Files

A collection of horror stories, most of which involve some aspect of nested stories or metafiction, from framing stories, media like films or the internet, family legends, or folklore. There's also a lot of cosmic horror, F/F relationships, and fraught family relationships.

It's a very strong collection with lots of variety in terms of subject matter, but a unified voice/tone; there were only one or two stories I didn't like, and a number that were outstanding.

My favorites were "This Is How It Goes," "Venio," "Cuckoo," "Look Up," and "Thin Pale Hands."

"This Is How It Goes" is a very strong start to the collection. The premise is that people start twinning, with their doppelgängers bursting from their skin. The twins always, immediately, attempts to kill each other; usually only one survives. The narrator first sees this on the internet before it comes home to her; she finds that pre-existing anxiety eases once the apocalypse actually arrives... or was it that the twin she killed took it with her?

This is one of the most unusual causes of an apocalypse I've ever come across. I could read an entire book about this fascinating premise.

"Venio" begins with a writing exercise where everyone weirdly writes the same premise, and devolves into something incredibly chilling. It's another one of my favorite horror tropes, a group of sympathetic characters who accidentally summon something horrific.

"Thin Cold Hands" is about motherhood, and the truth behind fairytales, and changelings, in an unusual way. There's a description of finding the bones of a kind of terrifying Tinkerbell that is a beautifully precise and spooky piece of writing that I will probably remember for the rest of my life. It has one of my favorite things in horror, a somewhat sympathetic monster who seems to just want to survive.

"Cuckoo" is another changeling story, but from the perspective of a being approached by parents who want to switch out their troublesome child for an improved model. It's an excellent paired reading with "Thin Cold Hands."

"Look Up" has a more lush tone than the rest of the stories, and also has a quite different ending. It's folk horror about a creepy family and an even creepier vampire. The descriptions are horrific and gorgeous.

"The Church in the Mountains" and "Cut Frame" both involve creepy movies and nested stories. They're both excellent and quite different from each other, though both deal with some of the same territory as Experimental Film.

"Cut Frame" is about a movie, told in the form of an interview. The main characters never appear in person, per se, but are seen at a distance, in the memories of people who knew them. It's very atmospheric, with a fascinating main character, an actress with an interesting effect on those around her.

"The Church in the Mountains" is folk horror meets film horror, is even more atmospheric, and has one doozy of an explanation for what's actually going on, but felt somewhat incomplete.

"Bulb" is a somewhat traditional Lovecraft via technology story, defamiliarized by it being told in the form of an interview and web posts. The main story is very effective, with plenty of haunting details, but the final section (a follow-up web post) didn't feel necessary.

Other stories feature haunted houses, a haunted AirBnb, bad therapy, more doppelgangers, and a missing planet. If you like Gemma Files' work at all, definitely grab this. Thanks to scioscribe for giving it to me!

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