PRESS DELETE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE OFFENDED. PRESS IT NOW! NOW! I'M WARNING YOU! THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO PRESS DELETE, OR RISK BEING OFFENDED.
Okay then.
Emma said there had been no reviews of "I, Mutoid" so far, so I decided to write one, and hope it'll attract more customers than it repels. There may be spoilers herein (though not deliberate), so if you are planning on buying or reading this anyhow and don't like spoilers, then delete this review. Read the 'zine instead. Trust me, it'll be much more entertaining.
Anyhow. As you are all probably painfully aware, I have long had an unhealthy fascination with mutoids. Perhaps it's the fact that they are manufactured vampires, thus allowing me to indulge my inner goth without neglecting my outer nerd. Or perhaps it's just that they're such snappy dressers, and get to hang out with Travis and Servalan and shoot stuff. Well, whatever the case, I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of "I, Mutoid" for ages. And now here it is! Yay! And now I've read the whole thing.
I won't discuss the specifics of individual stories, because while every one of the stories is well-written and worth reading in its own right, I think they become even more interesting when considered as a whole. It's fascinating to see a wide range of writing styles all focused on this specific and presumably relatively exotic topic.
There are 85 pages of stories, by twelve different authors, ranging in length from Oliver Klosov's concise 100-word "drabbles" to 15 pages (that'd be windy ol' me), with most being around five to 12 pages long, and use a variety of voices, tenses, plots, characters... There are mutoids, ex-mutoids, mutoids-to-be. In some cases the mutoid is the narrator and/or main character, centre stage, while in others he/she/it barely (or never) appears onstage at all.
There is nothing overtly humorous (I don't think--let's just say no overt humour of the sort I am able to comprehend). A few uneasy laughs, but overall the mood is pretty darn grim. And there's swearing and violence and sex, and you're supposed to be over 21 if you're going to buy it.
Appearance-wise, it's about as minimal and utilitarian as possible. Plain font, no art, very few italics. But any lack of slick production values is more than made up for by the groovy black neoprene cover (sadly only available on the first...forty, Emma?...so get 'em while you can), which feels like a patch of the pelt of a cold-water surfer, and is, exactly as advertised, "warm and bendy". I'd definitely like to see more rubber-clad literature in future.