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Dead Collections
A whirlwind romance between an eccentric archivist and a grieving widow explores what it means to be at home in your own body in this clever, humorous, and heartfelt novel.
When archivist Sol meets Elsie, the larger than life widow of a moderately famous television writer who's come to donate her wife's papers, there's an instant spark. But Sol has a secret: he suffers from an illness called vampirism, and hides from the sun by living in his basement office. On their way to falling in love, the two traverse grief, delve into the Internet fandom they once unknowingly shared, and navigate the realities of transphobia and the stigmas of carrying the "vampire disease."
Then, when strange things start happening at the collection, Sol must embrace even more of the unknown to save himself and his job. DEAD COLLECTIONS is a wry novel full of heart and empathy, that celebrates the journey, the difficulties and joys, in finding love and comfort within our own bodies.
When archivist Sol meets Elsie, the larger than life widow of a moderately famous television writer who's come to donate her wife's papers, there's an instant spark. But Sol has a secret: he suffers from an illness called vampirism, and hides from the sun by living in his basement office. On their way to falling in love, the two traverse grief, delve into the Internet fandom they once unknowingly shared, and navigate the realities of transphobia and the stigmas of carrying the "vampire disease."
Then, when strange things start happening at the collection, Sol must embrace even more of the unknown to save himself and his job. DEAD COLLECTIONS is a wry novel full of heart and empathy, that celebrates the journey, the difficulties and joys, in finding love and comfort within our own bodies.
256 pages, ebook
First published February 22, 2022
About the author
Isaac Fellman
5 books140 followersIsaac Fellman is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Dead Collections, The Two Doctors Gorski, and The Breath of the Sun.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 598 reviews
June 17, 2022
unfortunately, for everyone involved, i have thoughts.
what even are sentences, i don't know them
- the plot of this is way to convoluted. there is both nothing going on and and too much. there were excerpts of a tv show in this and i could not tell you a single thing about it. i have no idea what the plot of the tv show was, quite frankly i was bored out of my mind every time it was mentioned and the only thing that kept me from falling asleep reading about it, was the change in font which apparently seemed exciting for my brain. or maybe it was just glad to not read about the equally boring main plot anymore
- the use of vampirism as a metaphor for being trans made no sense considering being trans was also part of the book. vampirism also seemed to be a metaphor for HIV - maybe. as far as metaphors go, i have never seen one that was so poorly executed
- i hated that Sol's experience as a trans man was framed as THE Trans Man experience (tm). not all of us started out as butch lesbians, some of us are gay and have always been into men. i understand that this is probably the author's experience and it's fine to write about your own experience but it was written as if "this is always how it goes and there is no other way to experience being trans" and - fuck no.
i read a book about a trans woman at the same time as reading this and i could relate way more to her experience of being trans than to Sol's. while i do think that ultimately there is an overlap in experiencing being trans no matter what "type" you are, i find it kinda counterintuitive that i as a trans man would relate more to a trans woman than a fellow trans man
- i also hated the whole thing about "all butch lesbians are secretly just trans men" which a. deeply lesbophobic and b. once again just pretending that there is only the butch lesbian to trans man pipeline, which - once again - simply untrue
- tying in with that: Sol telling Elsie (who is introduced as a butch lesbian) that she is definitely secretly trans because - once again - "all butch lesbians are secretly trans" and Elsie actually ending up questioning her gender identity - out of nowhere - just seemed really cheap and honestly seemed only to be there to drive the point home once again: that all butch lesbians are trans men
- the whole relationship between Elsie and Sol felt really toxic and transphobic. most of the time it just felt like Elsie didn't actually believe that Sol was a man and kept making remarks about how he is just a butch lesbian, which again??? we just keep coming back to the "all trans men are butch lesbians and all butch lesbians are trans men" - what kind of rhetoric is that? also Elsie finding out his deadname and like even going out of her goddamn way to find out his deadname - what was the point of that? and why did i as a reader need to know Sol's deadname?
- Elsie saying that being trans is going to ruin her life - okay, thanks
- the whole thing about "if i cut my tits off would you still love me because you love women" as if what makes a woman a woman is having tits?? so, what makes a man then? no tits? i can't even begin to explain how much this sentiment bothers me
- honestly never has an own voice book felt so transphobic. i saw a review from a cis person who was like "this is written by a trans man so i assume the trans rep in this is really good" - no
TL;DR: the only thing this had going for itself is the cover. i would have expected a trans rep book by a cis author to disappoint me but an own voices book making me feel icky like this is a special kind of disappointment
what even are sentences, i don't know them
- the plot of this is way to convoluted. there is both nothing going on and and too much. there were excerpts of a tv show in this and i could not tell you a single thing about it. i have no idea what the plot of the tv show was, quite frankly i was bored out of my mind every time it was mentioned and the only thing that kept me from falling asleep reading about it, was the change in font which apparently seemed exciting for my brain. or maybe it was just glad to not read about the equally boring main plot anymore
- the use of vampirism as a metaphor for being trans made no sense considering being trans was also part of the book. vampirism also seemed to be a metaphor for HIV - maybe. as far as metaphors go, i have never seen one that was so poorly executed
- i hated that Sol's experience as a trans man was framed as THE Trans Man experience (tm). not all of us started out as butch lesbians, some of us are gay and have always been into men. i understand that this is probably the author's experience and it's fine to write about your own experience but it was written as if "this is always how it goes and there is no other way to experience being trans" and - fuck no.
i read a book about a trans woman at the same time as reading this and i could relate way more to her experience of being trans than to Sol's. while i do think that ultimately there is an overlap in experiencing being trans no matter what "type" you are, i find it kinda counterintuitive that i as a trans man would relate more to a trans woman than a fellow trans man
- i also hated the whole thing about "all butch lesbians are secretly just trans men" which a. deeply lesbophobic and b. once again just pretending that there is only the butch lesbian to trans man pipeline, which - once again - simply untrue
- tying in with that: Sol telling Elsie (who is introduced as a butch lesbian) that she is definitely secretly trans because - once again - "all butch lesbians are secretly trans" and Elsie actually ending up questioning her gender identity - out of nowhere - just seemed really cheap and honestly seemed only to be there to drive the point home once again: that all butch lesbians are trans men
- the whole relationship between Elsie and Sol felt really toxic and transphobic. most of the time it just felt like Elsie didn't actually believe that Sol was a man and kept making remarks about how he is just a butch lesbian, which again??? we just keep coming back to the "all trans men are butch lesbians and all butch lesbians are trans men" - what kind of rhetoric is that? also Elsie finding out his deadname and like even going out of her goddamn way to find out his deadname - what was the point of that? and why did i as a reader need to know Sol's deadname?
- Elsie saying that being trans is going to ruin her life - okay, thanks
- the whole thing about "if i cut my tits off would you still love me because you love women" as if what makes a woman a woman is having tits?? so, what makes a man then? no tits? i can't even begin to explain how much this sentiment bothers me
- honestly never has an own voice book felt so transphobic. i saw a review from a cis person who was like "this is written by a trans man so i assume the trans rep in this is really good" - no
TL;DR: the only thing this had going for itself is the cover. i would have expected a trans rep book by a cis author to disappoint me but an own voices book making me feel icky like this is a special kind of disappointment
July 16, 2021
I was lucky to read an early copy of this book, and wow. Isaac Fellman has somehow managed to create a new and thrilling twist on both vampires and transness. In Dead Collections, Sol is an archivist who became a vampire five years ago — and the means by which Sol became a vampire, and how he survives as one, are unlike anything I've seen before. The actual story of this book — no spoilers — involves Sol's archive receiving the papers of a recently deceased television writer, whose partner quickly forms a romantic bond with Sol. Dead Collections is a wonderful mixture of some of my favorite things: queer romance, a meditation on libraries and the things we leave behind, a beautifully thought-out world in which supernatural elements feel incredibly well integrated, and trans people who aren't defined by their transness. This book kept delighting and astonishing me with little insights and conversations that felt like I was eavesdropping on people I desperately wanted to be friends with. There is so much friendliness and wisdom in this book, and yet it also contains its fair share of darkness and a realistic sense of what it's like to live with a disability, with coworkers who are actively hostile. In Fellman's version, being a vampire involves not much in the way of glamour or sexiness — it's more like a chronic condition that needs to be managed carefully, in which one has the potential to hurt or infect others if one's not careful. Most of all, Dead Collections is an extremely gentle book, in which everybody speaks with a kind of mid-twentieth century playful earnestness, and there's lots of philosophizing about life and love and death and sexuality and stories and what we leave behind when we die. This is a book with huge ideas and low stakes, and it's utterly refreshing and thrilling as a result. Anyone who loves stories about stories, romances in which both people are discovering themselves, and protagonists who contend with the supernatural using creativity and wit and good humor should make sure to pick up Dead Collections. This book is a marvel that left me feeling as if miracles might lurk behind every doorway and inside every old box of papers.
November 29, 2022
I've read some great books already in 2022, but this delightfully weird novel is by far my favourite. The fact that it's about a trans vampire archivist was enough for me to be excited going into it, but I really wasn't prepared for how much I was going to love this book. I loved it so much I'm feeling incapable of explaining why. But I'll try anyway!
Sol Katz, said trans vampire archivist, spends a lot of time musing on all three of these facets of his identity. (Archivist is definitely an identity for him, no mere vocation or career). It's a fascinating, lovely character study. But it's not just about Sol as a (n undead) person. It's about vampirism, being trans, and the nature of archives more generally. It's about how all three are about life and death.
Sol doesn't just deal with or talk about trans, vampire, and/or archivist stuff (sometimes his problems seem like all three mixed together, poor guy). In the short span of the book, Fellman also writes thoughtfully and beautifully about grief, fanfiction and fandom, music, and life stories. The novel takes place mostly in conversations. Sometimes it's just Sol musing in his own head.
But sometimes the conversations are with his love interest! I haven't even mentioned yet that this is also a completely delightful eccentric romance. I don't want to spoil anything about who it is or what their journey is alongside Sol. But it is very cute and sexy and just as weird as the rest of the book, with a bit of a melancholic edge.
There is also a subtle mystery element. Something is happening in Sol's archives to make the materials deteriorate much faster than they should be. Some materials are transforming into a weird sap-like goo...
Feldman's take on vampirism is truly unique. In this world, it's more like a chronic illness with severely limiting symptoms. No added sexiness or glamour or superpowers. (Not that Sol isn't sexy; he is, if you think neurotic nerds are, like me ha). But his being a vampire plays wonderfully with the idea, as the title days, that archives are "dead collections," materials someone considered throwing in the trash but instead are kept sort of alive while still being dead. You know, like a vampire.
Highly recommended especially for my fellow queer and trans archives and libraries people! Also, if you've read and loved Hazel Jane Plante's Little Blue Encyclopedia like I did, Dead Collections is a wonderful companion. It also talks a lot about an invented TV show that feels *so real* and about grief and being trans.
Shout-out to Dani Martinek who does an incredible job performing the audiobook. I'm off to go see what other books they've narrated!
Sol Katz, said trans vampire archivist, spends a lot of time musing on all three of these facets of his identity. (Archivist is definitely an identity for him, no mere vocation or career). It's a fascinating, lovely character study. But it's not just about Sol as a (n undead) person. It's about vampirism, being trans, and the nature of archives more generally. It's about how all three are about life and death.
Sol doesn't just deal with or talk about trans, vampire, and/or archivist stuff (sometimes his problems seem like all three mixed together, poor guy). In the short span of the book, Fellman also writes thoughtfully and beautifully about grief, fanfiction and fandom, music, and life stories. The novel takes place mostly in conversations. Sometimes it's just Sol musing in his own head.
But sometimes the conversations are with his love interest! I haven't even mentioned yet that this is also a completely delightful eccentric romance. I don't want to spoil anything about who it is or what their journey is alongside Sol. But it is very cute and sexy and just as weird as the rest of the book, with a bit of a melancholic edge.
There is also a subtle mystery element. Something is happening in Sol's archives to make the materials deteriorate much faster than they should be. Some materials are transforming into a weird sap-like goo...
Feldman's take on vampirism is truly unique. In this world, it's more like a chronic illness with severely limiting symptoms. No added sexiness or glamour or superpowers. (Not that Sol isn't sexy; he is, if you think neurotic nerds are, like me ha). But his being a vampire plays wonderfully with the idea, as the title days, that archives are "dead collections," materials someone considered throwing in the trash but instead are kept sort of alive while still being dead. You know, like a vampire.
Highly recommended especially for my fellow queer and trans archives and libraries people! Also, if you've read and loved Hazel Jane Plante's Little Blue Encyclopedia like I did, Dead Collections is a wonderful companion. It also talks a lot about an invented TV show that feels *so real* and about grief and being trans.
Shout-out to Dani Martinek who does an incredible job performing the audiobook. I'm off to go see what other books they've narrated!
March 11, 2022
gave up on this around the time it started leaning heavily into the using emails/forum posts/texts to convey Plot schtick which in fairness is mostly just because that is a narrative device that drives me up the wall. but it really was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. (more specifically i got to the comment about tracy as a stone butch who liked to fuck out of a sense of obligation and decided to put the bastard thing down for the sake of my blood pressure.) taking an educated guess that nothing happens in the last 50 pages that would make me feel differently about this, so. i’ve had a string of good enjoyable books so i guess i deserved this. love an opportunity to write a long, spiteful, hatery review at least.
i have so, so little interest in narratives that are this navelgazey, this preoccupied with their own interiority. characters just, repeatedly asserting identity markers for the sake of asserting them, and fellman never seems to try and exteriorize this, or else really … think it through. a circle jerk of you are valid culture. a novelisation of the tweet that went “to all my vampire friends who don’t feel vampiric enough: you are vlad.” there are many points in this that i could point to and be like, yeah, this is relatable to me and my experiences of Gender! unfortunately, that does not a good or compelling narrative make. relatability is not that interesting and neither am i.
i think what’s most frustrating about this, really, is how much it had the potential to be good. the pieces are all there! transness and jewishness and vampirism are so enmeshed and so exciting to play around with, and adding archival work into the mix gives you the tools to start unpicking some really compelling stuff. becoming a vampire mid-transition and being stuck in the awkward throes of early transition forever(ish) could have been SO good. and fellman’s prose, when it isn’t heavily freighted with its own paranoid self-consciousness, is good. he is a good writer, but he needs to trust that narrative can speak for itself rather than hammering the point home when the point really wasn’t all that good to begin with. but instead vampirism becomes a metaphor for transness, and a bad metaphor at that, except that transness is also in play on its own, and it’s in play kind of badly, and the jewishness – which, not to be like As A Trans Jew, but, as a trans jew, i would argue is far more primary to a vampirism narrative than transness – just ends up kind of subsumed. it didn’t feel integrated in the way that it could have been at all; it felt like isaac fellman is a jewish trans man, and wanted to write about a jewish trans man who is a vampire, but never really tried to think about how those identities would interlock on a metanarrative level. or, tried to with transness ig, but … jewishness? felt obsolete. or felt like picking at a scab of insecurity. none of these characters felt particularly well-developed past the surface-level idpol-type moves that fellman needed them to make. sol and elsie were just … flat. and when the prose was good it was good but when it was bad it was cringe as hell (sylvia plath ‘slaps’??? how old are you!).
i also think that fellman navigates transmasculinity and transphobia in ways that are clumsy. besides the constant navelgazing (i have very little interest in dysphoria as a series of internalisations … like ok we know lol), the way these attempts to write about the messy, often overlapping, often antagonistic relationship between butches and trans men were negotiated here to me felt very … like the integration of trans women into these histories has never really crossed fellman’s mind. similarly, fellman’s preoccupation with picking at smallness, at (lack of) physicality comes through in odd ways, eg. “And I’d never cared for guys. I’ve been with so few people anyway, and guys were always being thrown onto me, pushed against me, when I was young—a needle to be halted with nothing more than surface tension. I didn’t like them and I didn’t trust their bodies, which overwhelmed mine, threw my smallness and breadth of hip into a silhouette relief. Their bodies could do whatever they wanted to my body, anything it struck them to do.” – who are these anxieties about bodies being acted out against? whose body is being essentialized here? i really do think you can write about being with cis men as something that induces insecurity, dysphoria, w/e, without this projection of a threat of sexual violence onto a body that is not itself a transmasc body. this is maybe uncharitable but it just felt a little too much like a book written by someone who believes that ‘transandrophobia’ or ‘transmisandry’ or whatever the kids are saying these days is real.
he also seems to have a lot of hangups around butches that bleed into the narrative. tracy, florence. i'm not against the sol-florence setup at all -- it's pointless to pretend like butches aren't vulnerable to the seductive language of gender essentialism -- but something about these butch characters (one of whom, let's remember, is dead for the whole thing) being repeatedly written as regressive, as vestiges of an older time whose genders are something of a free-for-all … Hm. sol as functionally taking tracy's place; taking up tracy's gender. elsie's relationship with tracy having held them back from navigating their gender fluidity, tracy had to die before elsie could think about Gender on their own terms -- relationships with butches, and butches as a whole, as a limiting and restrictive framework of gender both for themselves and for the people around them. even in death, elsie wearing tracy's clothes and finding that it only sets their gender in motion partway, needing to leave that behind to get all the way there. it just grated on me a lot. and, obviously, the line about tracy and stoneness that just made me give up wholesale. i don't care about Representation, but i think fellman does, and there seemed to be a lot of … hangups �� going into how he was writing about butchness To Be Perfectly Honest.
a really good jumping off point for negotiating the stuff that fellman just … fails to negotiate completely … could have been the early reference to ‘baldwin of jerusalem’ (which baldwin sir! there were five baldwins!) having been a vampire. sorry to go full medievalist on this review but for argument’s sake let’s say that it was either about baldwin i of jerusalem or baldwin iv; the former, ambiguously gay, crusader of the first crusade ie. by far the most successful and also the most renowned for its antisemitic + islamophobic bloodshed, best known for having consolidated and secured the crusader state and significantly expanded outremer, the latter having had leprosy and having reigned at a time when jerusalem was on the brink of falling to saladin and outremer as a whole was on the decline … either one of these are really good starting points for negotiating the cultural tensions at play with vampirism and christianity and jewishness. baldwin i’s military successes as some kind of triumph of christianity in the near east, baldwin iv’s leprosy as judgement from god in the eyes of christendom, the western christian fear of eastern ‘taint’ on outremer (both from proximity to islamic rulers and the byzantine presence in the region). i’m not at all saying fellman needed to make a Crusades Narrative out of this, but, if he’d done a more thorough job in negotiating how vampirism is culturally tethered to jewishness – or, more precisely, vampirism in folklore is a manifestation of christian anxieties around the Other, most often the jew – then this could have been really fucking good, and i personally would have eaten it up. but he never does, so it felt very … out of place. or underdeveloped.
also if you’d asked me before i read this book then i would have said that fandom has legitimate cultural weight that could well be played with in the literary sphere but having now read this i am confident that i never want to see the word ‘ao3’ in print. let’s all keep that to our tumblr dot com accounts, ty. sincerely though – to echo vee’s review – it’s clear fellman was trying to do something with the way fandom can operate as a proxy for negotiating identity, especially for trans people; fictionalisation as a space where those desires can be acted out indirectly. i just, lol. wish he’d actually. well. done something.
ALSO! HOW! do you write a book that tries to do something with jewishness (that is generous of me) AND has a whole thing about Clay People and not make a golem out of it ANYWAY----
ANYWAY i read this bc my friend hated it and i thought the ways in which she hated it were interesting so i decided to read it and see if i hated it too. mission accomplished i fuckin guess.
i have so, so little interest in narratives that are this navelgazey, this preoccupied with their own interiority. characters just, repeatedly asserting identity markers for the sake of asserting them, and fellman never seems to try and exteriorize this, or else really … think it through. a circle jerk of you are valid culture. a novelisation of the tweet that went “to all my vampire friends who don’t feel vampiric enough: you are vlad.” there are many points in this that i could point to and be like, yeah, this is relatable to me and my experiences of Gender! unfortunately, that does not a good or compelling narrative make. relatability is not that interesting and neither am i.
i think what’s most frustrating about this, really, is how much it had the potential to be good. the pieces are all there! transness and jewishness and vampirism are so enmeshed and so exciting to play around with, and adding archival work into the mix gives you the tools to start unpicking some really compelling stuff. becoming a vampire mid-transition and being stuck in the awkward throes of early transition forever(ish) could have been SO good. and fellman’s prose, when it isn’t heavily freighted with its own paranoid self-consciousness, is good. he is a good writer, but he needs to trust that narrative can speak for itself rather than hammering the point home when the point really wasn’t all that good to begin with. but instead vampirism becomes a metaphor for transness, and a bad metaphor at that, except that transness is also in play on its own, and it’s in play kind of badly, and the jewishness – which, not to be like As A Trans Jew, but, as a trans jew, i would argue is far more primary to a vampirism narrative than transness – just ends up kind of subsumed. it didn’t feel integrated in the way that it could have been at all; it felt like isaac fellman is a jewish trans man, and wanted to write about a jewish trans man who is a vampire, but never really tried to think about how those identities would interlock on a metanarrative level. or, tried to with transness ig, but … jewishness? felt obsolete. or felt like picking at a scab of insecurity. none of these characters felt particularly well-developed past the surface-level idpol-type moves that fellman needed them to make. sol and elsie were just … flat. and when the prose was good it was good but when it was bad it was cringe as hell (sylvia plath ‘slaps’??? how old are you!).
i also think that fellman navigates transmasculinity and transphobia in ways that are clumsy. besides the constant navelgazing (i have very little interest in dysphoria as a series of internalisations … like ok we know lol), the way these attempts to write about the messy, often overlapping, often antagonistic relationship between butches and trans men were negotiated here to me felt very … like the integration of trans women into these histories has never really crossed fellman’s mind. similarly, fellman’s preoccupation with picking at smallness, at (lack of) physicality comes through in odd ways, eg. “And I’d never cared for guys. I’ve been with so few people anyway, and guys were always being thrown onto me, pushed against me, when I was young—a needle to be halted with nothing more than surface tension. I didn’t like them and I didn’t trust their bodies, which overwhelmed mine, threw my smallness and breadth of hip into a silhouette relief. Their bodies could do whatever they wanted to my body, anything it struck them to do.” – who are these anxieties about bodies being acted out against? whose body is being essentialized here? i really do think you can write about being with cis men as something that induces insecurity, dysphoria, w/e, without this projection of a threat of sexual violence onto a body that is not itself a transmasc body. this is maybe uncharitable but it just felt a little too much like a book written by someone who believes that ‘transandrophobia’ or ‘transmisandry’ or whatever the kids are saying these days is real.
he also seems to have a lot of hangups around butches that bleed into the narrative. tracy, florence. i'm not against the sol-florence setup at all -- it's pointless to pretend like butches aren't vulnerable to the seductive language of gender essentialism -- but something about these butch characters (one of whom, let's remember, is dead for the whole thing) being repeatedly written as regressive, as vestiges of an older time whose genders are something of a free-for-all … Hm. sol as functionally taking tracy's place; taking up tracy's gender. elsie's relationship with tracy having held them back from navigating their gender fluidity, tracy had to die before elsie could think about Gender on their own terms -- relationships with butches, and butches as a whole, as a limiting and restrictive framework of gender both for themselves and for the people around them. even in death, elsie wearing tracy's clothes and finding that it only sets their gender in motion partway, needing to leave that behind to get all the way there. it just grated on me a lot. and, obviously, the line about tracy and stoneness that just made me give up wholesale. i don't care about Representation, but i think fellman does, and there seemed to be a lot of … hangups �� going into how he was writing about butchness To Be Perfectly Honest.
a really good jumping off point for negotiating the stuff that fellman just … fails to negotiate completely … could have been the early reference to ‘baldwin of jerusalem’ (which baldwin sir! there were five baldwins!) having been a vampire. sorry to go full medievalist on this review but for argument’s sake let’s say that it was either about baldwin i of jerusalem or baldwin iv; the former, ambiguously gay, crusader of the first crusade ie. by far the most successful and also the most renowned for its antisemitic + islamophobic bloodshed, best known for having consolidated and secured the crusader state and significantly expanded outremer, the latter having had leprosy and having reigned at a time when jerusalem was on the brink of falling to saladin and outremer as a whole was on the decline … either one of these are really good starting points for negotiating the cultural tensions at play with vampirism and christianity and jewishness. baldwin i’s military successes as some kind of triumph of christianity in the near east, baldwin iv’s leprosy as judgement from god in the eyes of christendom, the western christian fear of eastern ‘taint’ on outremer (both from proximity to islamic rulers and the byzantine presence in the region). i’m not at all saying fellman needed to make a Crusades Narrative out of this, but, if he’d done a more thorough job in negotiating how vampirism is culturally tethered to jewishness – or, more precisely, vampirism in folklore is a manifestation of christian anxieties around the Other, most often the jew – then this could have been really fucking good, and i personally would have eaten it up. but he never does, so it felt very … out of place. or underdeveloped.
also if you’d asked me before i read this book then i would have said that fandom has legitimate cultural weight that could well be played with in the literary sphere but having now read this i am confident that i never want to see the word ‘ao3’ in print. let’s all keep that to our tumblr dot com accounts, ty. sincerely though – to echo vee’s review – it’s clear fellman was trying to do something with the way fandom can operate as a proxy for negotiating identity, especially for trans people; fictionalisation as a space where those desires can be acted out indirectly. i just, lol. wish he’d actually. well. done something.
ALSO! HOW! do you write a book that tries to do something with jewishness (that is generous of me) AND has a whole thing about Clay People and not make a golem out of it ANYWAY----
ANYWAY i read this bc my friend hated it and i thought the ways in which she hated it were interesting so i decided to read it and see if i hated it too. mission accomplished i fuckin guess.
November 26, 2022
Welcome to the book I will be shouting about all year!! I read this book in two days and I loved it! The main character, Sol Katz, is trans, and Jewish, and works in archives. He also happens to be a vampire. In this book, vampirism is like a chronic illness, and indeed, Sol didn't become a vampire via a bite but via a medial intervention when he was dying of tetanus. Throughout the story he has to regularly visit a blood clinic to get transfusions, and it is as underfunded and grim as any part of the US healthcare system. Sol is also a fan; he was an active member of the fandom for a 90s sci-fi TV show called Feet of Clay, a kind of X-Files/Star Trek/Twilight Zone mix. When the lesbian showrunner of Feet of Clay passes away her widow donates all of her papers to the historical society where Sol works. He is very excited get to read drafts of an unfinished novel included among them. He also has an immediate spark of attraction with the widow and they develop a deeply trans and queer relationship that is so satisfying. It hits so hard. And also... the papers might be haunted? I don't want to say anything else about the plot because this is quite a short book actually, with TV scripts, email threads, and text messages mixed in with the prose making it read even faster. I can't recommend it more highly. Everyone go read it!
June 6, 2022
while discussing this with a friend, they mentioned that they're less interested in conversations about internal dysphoria or happiness, and more interested in how they interact with the world and the world interacts in turn. it's maybe unfair to pick at a book for being too internal when i think that was very clearly a deliberate choice. it seems to me that this book is intentionally multiple journeys of realizing x identity categories do not preclude you from life and/or can be changed to make life more bearable. that's not an uncompelling idea, but it is one that becomes very difficult to dramatize, especially largely through conversations where characters affirm and reaffirm each other (even as they can't, quite, affirm themselves -- a tension i felt like there was much more room to explore in the narrative).
there's an abundance of times when sol, the protagonist, will assert "i'm a vampire," "i'm an archivist," "i'm trans," "i'm jewish," "i wrote fanfiction," "i used to be a concert pianist." these frequent invocations are often the basis for humour, but they're also the skeleton for most of dead collections' serious observations and emotional conversations. it became deeply frustrating, everything sieved (shallowly) through these identity categories, and, perhaps, a conflation between identity categories and personality traits. of course one feeds into the other, but being told over and over again that sol was x or y only took the character so far. and it did very little for some of the other characters, whose internal dialogues we aren't privy to. (elsie being a BNF and on the board of AO3 continuously felt jarring and didn't actually tell me very much about her at all, especially since any tangible details of her creative life were absent.*)
ironically?? the novel-within-a-novel and treatments for the fictional feet of clay TV series, the materials sol is archiving throughout dead collections, were more compelling to me than the actual narrative, despite sol and elsie both repeatedly insisting these bits of writing were objectively bad. but they're spaces where [it feels like] fellman allows himself to go bigger and have more fun with genre-material. and, crucially, spaces where we see or hear about characters in dramatically interesting action. i didn't always get that from the narrative proper. while the details of vampirism are very well thought-through and the minutia of it compelling, there was a spark in these materials that wasn't as present in the larger story.
*i'm certain fellman is doing something with the fact that the main characters were in fandom, and this reaching for and beginning to imagine the self you'd like to be through fiction. (something related to sol reaching towards tracy/feet of clay through elsie; elsie reaching for transness through sol, probably.) i'm not sure it entirely lands or is given enough oxygen or what have you.
there's an abundance of times when sol, the protagonist, will assert "i'm a vampire," "i'm an archivist," "i'm trans," "i'm jewish," "i wrote fanfiction," "i used to be a concert pianist." these frequent invocations are often the basis for humour, but they're also the skeleton for most of dead collections' serious observations and emotional conversations. it became deeply frustrating, everything sieved (shallowly) through these identity categories, and, perhaps, a conflation between identity categories and personality traits. of course one feeds into the other, but being told over and over again that sol was x or y only took the character so far. and it did very little for some of the other characters, whose internal dialogues we aren't privy to. (elsie being a BNF and on the board of AO3 continuously felt jarring and didn't actually tell me very much about her at all, especially since any tangible details of her creative life were absent.*)
ironically?? the novel-within-a-novel and treatments for the fictional feet of clay TV series, the materials sol is archiving throughout dead collections, were more compelling to me than the actual narrative, despite sol and elsie both repeatedly insisting these bits of writing were objectively bad. but they're spaces where [it feels like] fellman allows himself to go bigger and have more fun with genre-material. and, crucially, spaces where we see or hear about characters in dramatically interesting action. i didn't always get that from the narrative proper. while the details of vampirism are very well thought-through and the minutia of it compelling, there was a spark in these materials that wasn't as present in the larger story.
*i'm certain fellman is doing something with the fact that the main characters were in fandom, and this reaching for and beginning to imagine the self you'd like to be through fiction. (something related to sol reaching towards tracy/feet of clay through elsie; elsie reaching for transness through sol, probably.) i'm not sure it entirely lands or is given enough oxygen or what have you.
September 22, 2021
I loved the premise of this book - in Dead Collections, a transmasc vampire who works in an archive meets a person named Elsie looking to donate the papers of her late wife Tracy: a pioneering lesbian television writer. Said archivist, Sol, was a big fan of the television show that Tracy wrote, and the two (somewhat living) survivors bond over what Tracy meant to them individually and how they both are archivists in a sense. Unfortunately, the execution fell flat for me. It seemed to me that Fellman attempted to fit too much into the book - the romance felt forced, the plot felt loose and wild, and I didn't think that enough ends got tied up. The style of writing confused me as well: parts of the book were written as a screenplay, but not enough parts that it felt like an integral part of the plot.
Spoilers from this point onward!
I appreciated some of the more fantastical themes that involved vampires being kept alive by blood banks, the use of vampirism as a cure for other more immediately deadly diseases, and vampires having an effect on archival material. I also liked the idea of using a book to explore gender exploration, but I felt that using Elsie as a character to do that felt sudden and unnatural. I suppose I was expecting more vampire story and less love story and therefore was disappointed.
Spoilers from this point onward!
I appreciated some of the more fantastical themes that involved vampires being kept alive by blood banks, the use of vampirism as a cure for other more immediately deadly diseases, and vampires having an effect on archival material. I also liked the idea of using a book to explore gender exploration, but I felt that using Elsie as a character to do that felt sudden and unnatural. I suppose I was expecting more vampire story and less love story and therefore was disappointed.
Read
March 20, 2023This was an incredibly fascinating, prickly, messy read.
I'm not even quite sure how I feel about this now and I may come back to this review to tweak my thoughts.
I think ultimately, though it certainly had some faults and I certainly have some criticisms, I enjoyed this book. I don't know if I would recommend it widely, as it's incredibly specific, but for anyone who is looking to pick it up, I would highly recommend reading it on audiobook, as I didn't find myself bored for a SECOND despite many of my friends telling me that they found this book to drag. Dani Martineck was a brilliant choice for a narrator, fleshing out the characters and providing an extra layer of tone to the already quirky voice.
If I were to recommend this to someone, I would heavily express that this is an autobiographical vampire story that explores gender, sexuality, identity, fandom, societal ableism, and archiving ourselves in a way that is raw and tangled and disorderly.
Our main character Sol is given the arduous task of archiving the work of a writer whose work he used to follow, to sort through the traces she left on the world (pun intended) and detangle her life from her work, to pull apart the rhetoric she's imbued into her characters and storylines to figure out where the fiction ends and where she begins. To figure out what is inspired by other media or what is purposeful or unintentional residue from her own experiences and beliefs. Dead Collections asks us, the audience, to do the same, in turn, with Isaac Fellman and the way he has poured himself into this story, archived his experiences and beliefs into his own fiction. There's an incredible parallel between reader and character, having to pull apart metaphor from reality, trying to make sense of all the sticky meanings and the blurred line between art and artist.
Unfortunately, I think this work is not done justice by the publisher, who markets this as more of a fiction tale. And in doing so, I think that strips away much of the nuance to this story, which makes sense why so many reviewers find themselves feeling confused by its rhetoric. The conversational web Isaac Fellman has woven in this book is beautiful, but thick, and at times some spare bits of debris become ensnared in it, warping the defining commentary out of shape. And without imparting the reader with the knowledge that their job as the witness of this story is to define those boundaries and pull out the messy bits, I could see how that narrative debris could warp the story too far for an audience to appreciate its shape in the first place.
Honestly, as I type out this review, I think I'm becoming more appreciative of the book. There's truly nothing else out there quite like it, and though some of the messy bits are a little too messy, (I do have some critiques still about some of the messaging on ableism and transphobia and how it stretched a LITTLE too far. I also have some hot takes about the main couple and how I don't think they are entirely healthy.) I think it's a fascinating and creative piece of documentation of self.
CW: sexual content, transphobia, deadnaming (in-text), dysphoria, ableism, car accident, medical content, blood & gore, physical assault, abusive relationship, suicidal thoughts, infidelity (past), sexual assault (mention)
I'm not even quite sure how I feel about this now and I may come back to this review to tweak my thoughts.
I think ultimately, though it certainly had some faults and I certainly have some criticisms, I enjoyed this book. I don't know if I would recommend it widely, as it's incredibly specific, but for anyone who is looking to pick it up, I would highly recommend reading it on audiobook, as I didn't find myself bored for a SECOND despite many of my friends telling me that they found this book to drag. Dani Martineck was a brilliant choice for a narrator, fleshing out the characters and providing an extra layer of tone to the already quirky voice.
If I were to recommend this to someone, I would heavily express that this is an autobiographical vampire story that explores gender, sexuality, identity, fandom, societal ableism, and archiving ourselves in a way that is raw and tangled and disorderly.
Our main character Sol is given the arduous task of archiving the work of a writer whose work he used to follow, to sort through the traces she left on the world (pun intended) and detangle her life from her work, to pull apart the rhetoric she's imbued into her characters and storylines to figure out where the fiction ends and where she begins. To figure out what is inspired by other media or what is purposeful or unintentional residue from her own experiences and beliefs. Dead Collections asks us, the audience, to do the same, in turn, with Isaac Fellman and the way he has poured himself into this story, archived his experiences and beliefs into his own fiction. There's an incredible parallel between reader and character, having to pull apart metaphor from reality, trying to make sense of all the sticky meanings and the blurred line between art and artist.
Unfortunately, I think this work is not done justice by the publisher, who markets this as more of a fiction tale. And in doing so, I think that strips away much of the nuance to this story, which makes sense why so many reviewers find themselves feeling confused by its rhetoric. The conversational web Isaac Fellman has woven in this book is beautiful, but thick, and at times some spare bits of debris become ensnared in it, warping the defining commentary out of shape. And without imparting the reader with the knowledge that their job as the witness of this story is to define those boundaries and pull out the messy bits, I could see how that narrative debris could warp the story too far for an audience to appreciate its shape in the first place.
Honestly, as I type out this review, I think I'm becoming more appreciative of the book. There's truly nothing else out there quite like it, and though some of the messy bits are a little too messy, (I do have some critiques still about some of the messaging on ableism and transphobia and how it stretched a LITTLE too far. I also have some hot takes about the main couple and how I don't think they are entirely healthy.) I think it's a fascinating and creative piece of documentation of self.
CW: sexual content, transphobia, deadnaming (in-text), dysphoria, ableism, car accident, medical content, blood & gore, physical assault, abusive relationship, suicidal thoughts, infidelity (past), sexual assault (mention)
February 23, 2024
on paper i should have really loved this: it's a book about a trans vampire archivist, however i actually literally viscerally disliked reading it. absolutely nothing is well-developed, the characters read like 20-year-old fanfic characters when they're supposed to be 40+ year old adults, and the thing that actually could've made this book interesting (the archival hauntings and decay) is way too easily solved and totally under-explored. i left this book feeling like i probably fundamentally disagree with this author's perspective on transness, vampires, and the archive. also why on god's green earth did one of the characters have to work for ao3 when literally nothing comes of it and it's meaningless. also the perspective on femmes in this sucks. i wanna write this book but actually make it be good.
March 27, 2023
4.5. A book as quiet and strange and moody as its main character. Reading it felt like having my chest slowly and methodically opened with a knife.
March 18, 2022
It’s uncanny when you find yourself in a book, but the exploration of finding a gender fluid lover, and working through gender and identity in a sexual/loving way, it’s something I’ve longed for and never been given. Vamps are important to me, maybe they’re important to you for different reasons. But Isaac Fellman has a tact for understanding the assignment. Maybe I just relate because I’m similar to him, and I often think of what my life would be like if I didn’t find slash fanfic so early on in life. Resistant to intimacy, Sol, the main character vampire-archivist, finds a way to be in love. It’s just excellent, idk. This is not a really good review, but this book is an excellent example of how i would continue to read trans-fantasy-fiction, especially if it was serialized ;). Give this man more book deals, haha!!!
June 27, 2022
Such a delicious t4t treat, a love letter to AO3 and archiving history, and knowing when to let it go. I loved this so much.
December 27, 2021
I received an ARC from Edelweiss
TW: TERF ideology, mentioned cheating, beating, suicide baiting, suicidal ideation, indirect deadnaming, off page car accident
4.3
Sol is an archivist, and a transman, and a vampire. He's also just gotten a collection he fought for, of the life of the creator of the scifi show that changed his adolescence- which unexpectedly also brings a beautiful woman, married to the now dead creator, into his office. A careful, whirlwind romance with someone just breaking free of a long, oppressive relationship and learning to explore themself and the nuances of the world, could easily take Sol's whole focus. Except it can't. Because there's something going wrong with the archives, specifically the collection that started this whole thing. And Sol can't help but think he might know the cause.
This is such a queer book in literally every way, and reading it felt like a celebration even when the tone and the actions were less than celebratory. These characters feel real, and more than that they feel like people I could talk to right now, people in the spaces I am in or how grew up in the spaces that predated them. I love the amount of genuine humanity shown, the fandom backbone of growing up not quite knowing where you fit, the sprawling map of community.
These characters are superb. And, weirdly, really funny. There is so much heart in this book, the emotion is real, the fear and the self doubt and all that heaviness that weighs you down until your feet stick to the floor- and yet it still manages to have some of the funniest lines I've read in a while. They're so well rounded!
And as funny as this book can be, what it is most of all is just lovely. It's so poetic. It's never floral or overwrought, it's just this delicate, perfectly chosen thing. Every line in this book makes me feel something.
The only things I didn't love in this book was that, slim as it was, it felt a bit encumbered. It's a slow book, and at times overly so. There's also a lot of explanation of Tracy and the show, and while it sometimes serves the plot and the emotion, is goes on more often than not.
This is a great book! It's so well written, and so queer, and so realistic- I want so many people to just sit down and experience this.
TW: TERF ideology, mentioned cheating, beating, suicide baiting, suicidal ideation, indirect deadnaming, off page car accident
4.3
Sol is an archivist, and a transman, and a vampire. He's also just gotten a collection he fought for, of the life of the creator of the scifi show that changed his adolescence- which unexpectedly also brings a beautiful woman, married to the now dead creator, into his office. A careful, whirlwind romance with someone just breaking free of a long, oppressive relationship and learning to explore themself and the nuances of the world, could easily take Sol's whole focus. Except it can't. Because there's something going wrong with the archives, specifically the collection that started this whole thing. And Sol can't help but think he might know the cause.
This is such a queer book in literally every way, and reading it felt like a celebration even when the tone and the actions were less than celebratory. These characters feel real, and more than that they feel like people I could talk to right now, people in the spaces I am in or how grew up in the spaces that predated them. I love the amount of genuine humanity shown, the fandom backbone of growing up not quite knowing where you fit, the sprawling map of community.
These characters are superb. And, weirdly, really funny. There is so much heart in this book, the emotion is real, the fear and the self doubt and all that heaviness that weighs you down until your feet stick to the floor- and yet it still manages to have some of the funniest lines I've read in a while. They're so well rounded!
And as funny as this book can be, what it is most of all is just lovely. It's so poetic. It's never floral or overwrought, it's just this delicate, perfectly chosen thing. Every line in this book makes me feel something.
The only things I didn't love in this book was that, slim as it was, it felt a bit encumbered. It's a slow book, and at times overly so. There's also a lot of explanation of Tracy and the show, and while it sometimes serves the plot and the emotion, is goes on more often than not.
This is a great book! It's so well written, and so queer, and so realistic- I want so many people to just sit down and experience this.
March 8, 2022
5 stars, maybe 10 stars? A lot of stars. - I won a kindle edition of this book from a goodreads giveaway, so thank you to goodreads. I opened it last week, just to see what the vibe was, if it was something I really wanted to read.
Yes. Yes, it was.
I wish I was well versed in classical music and could tell which Beethoven piece this novel is structured like, if it’s one of the ones mentioned by the narrator, or if it’s another one we’re supposed to know by cultural osmosis and probably do, if we heard it. But reading this book . . . it starts off with a quickly building crescendo, or at least that’s how I remember it. The first 30% just had me clutching at my hair with these observation and descriptions, eventually, I put it down to catch my breath and reflect.
The middle section I read in fits and starts over a few days, and then I read the last 30% in basically one go again. Maybe the book is not based on any specific piece, rather it just has that thematic feeling that a symphony does, where the 88 keys of the piano and all the strings of the orchestra seem somehow infinite, yet keep playing over the same patterns, building on phrases and ideas that came before.
I wondered as I finished the book, if all the characters we meet and/or speak to are meant to be alternate versions of the main character, proof that in different worlds, he could have taken any of their paths. We see the echoes of something of Sol in everyone he meets.
We first meet Sol years after he has been purposely infected with vampirism to stop him dying from tetanus. But this all came shortly after he transitioned, and so he is frozen in many ways. His transition can’t progress beyond where he was when he became a vampire, and he can’t live a typical life in any other way, having to avoid the sun and therefore the vast majority of human activity. (And yes, he gets the irony of his chosen name.)
We don’t see how Sol deals with all of that in real time; we are with him five years later when he recalls the events that led to his situation, and starts to realize he’s going to have to believe that this is actually his life and won’t get better. He will have to deal with who he is now and HOW he is now.
But it’s being told from the very beginning by a Sol of the future, who knows what happened and gives us a few subtle assurances along the way that all will be well, or as well as it can be, when we leave the characters. But apart from those tiny narrative touches, I didn’t really know where we were going, just let myself be swept along the peaks and valleys of this crisis in Sol’s undead life.
This is one of the better uses of mixed media I’ve ever read, which of course fits the story of an archivist, looking back through someone else’s life in the fragments they left behind, but it’s the unexpectedly discovered correspondence he has with his love interest, who is going through their own gender issues in the present that forms the beginning of a powerful middle chapter. The debate that the characters have over slash fic is one of I’ve heard many times before, but never quite so eloquently and emotionally before. What is the value of solace and how much should we desire it?
And while the books starts out with a bang, has a crescendo in the middle, and spends the last part diligently working towards it’s conclusion, the very end echoed in my mind, like the last plaintive strains of a symphony, the notes hanging in the air, reverberating and resonating, even after the music has stopped.
This is one of the best books I’ve read in recent memory, and I hope it finds the readers who might most need it and appreciate it.
Yes. Yes, it was.
I wish I was well versed in classical music and could tell which Beethoven piece this novel is structured like, if it’s one of the ones mentioned by the narrator, or if it’s another one we’re supposed to know by cultural osmosis and probably do, if we heard it. But reading this book . . . it starts off with a quickly building crescendo, or at least that’s how I remember it. The first 30% just had me clutching at my hair with these observation and descriptions, eventually, I put it down to catch my breath and reflect.
The middle section I read in fits and starts over a few days, and then I read the last 30% in basically one go again. Maybe the book is not based on any specific piece, rather it just has that thematic feeling that a symphony does, where the 88 keys of the piano and all the strings of the orchestra seem somehow infinite, yet keep playing over the same patterns, building on phrases and ideas that came before.
I wondered as I finished the book, if all the characters we meet and/or speak to are meant to be alternate versions of the main character, proof that in different worlds, he could have taken any of their paths. We see the echoes of something of Sol in everyone he meets.
We first meet Sol years after he has been purposely infected with vampirism to stop him dying from tetanus. But this all came shortly after he transitioned, and so he is frozen in many ways. His transition can’t progress beyond where he was when he became a vampire, and he can’t live a typical life in any other way, having to avoid the sun and therefore the vast majority of human activity. (And yes, he gets the irony of his chosen name.)
We don’t see how Sol deals with all of that in real time; we are with him five years later when he recalls the events that led to his situation, and starts to realize he’s going to have to believe that this is actually his life and won’t get better. He will have to deal with who he is now and HOW he is now.
But it’s being told from the very beginning by a Sol of the future, who knows what happened and gives us a few subtle assurances along the way that all will be well, or as well as it can be, when we leave the characters. But apart from those tiny narrative touches, I didn’t really know where we were going, just let myself be swept along the peaks and valleys of this crisis in Sol’s undead life.
This is one of the better uses of mixed media I’ve ever read, which of course fits the story of an archivist, looking back through someone else’s life in the fragments they left behind, but it’s the unexpectedly discovered correspondence he has with his love interest, who is going through their own gender issues in the present that forms the beginning of a powerful middle chapter. The debate that the characters have over slash fic is one of I’ve heard many times before, but never quite so eloquently and emotionally before. What is the value of solace and how much should we desire it?
And while the books starts out with a bang, has a crescendo in the middle, and spends the last part diligently working towards it’s conclusion, the very end echoed in my mind, like the last plaintive strains of a symphony, the notes hanging in the air, reverberating and resonating, even after the music has stopped.
This is one of the best books I’ve read in recent memory, and I hope it finds the readers who might most need it and appreciate it.
Read
July 12, 2022a fast read for sure, but all over the place. i'm undecided on how the vampirism metaphor lands; if it's standing in for transness the book is already directly about that, it's not interested in being horror either. it could be a metaphor for living with HIV (though again probably not because HIV is also in the story). most often it feels like a way of contextualizing gender and trans consciousness through the fantastical but the book also directly uses 90s SFF fandom to do this. it does work as the thing that sol uses to keep himself in stasis, but it feels like it's trying to do all that other stuff too at points.
i am gonna say this though. this book is not okay about butch lesbianism. it's not for me to say that the author has hangups about it. i am just a cis lesbian and maybe navigating similar takes online has me feeling less charitable about the point of view here. but the fact is the book is very short yet has two separate butch lesbian characters who are either an outright terf and antagonist to the mc, or a gender essentialist, stifling presence in the life of his love interest, even from beyond the grave. both prominently featured. and in a book so extremely preoccupied with being affirming/validating/relatable (arguably the entire basis of sol and elsie's relationship) it sticks out as hostile. the characters are constantly remarking on how butches feel or fuck regressively or positioned against/in denial of trans masculinity with no apparent thought for gay trans men or trans women in its point of view. that's kind of all i have the language for rn but yeah, jarring.
elsie never fully happens as a character, so much of their personality is about having been a BNF and a part of AO3 (i don't even want to get into THAT), and it's almost self aware but not. they're also a mouthpiece for an extended bit of slash discourse that really didn't need to make it into the final draft...this one was thorny for me.
i am gonna say this though. this book is not okay about butch lesbianism. it's not for me to say that the author has hangups about it. i am just a cis lesbian and maybe navigating similar takes online has me feeling less charitable about the point of view here. but the fact is the book is very short yet has two separate butch lesbian characters who are either an outright terf and antagonist to the mc, or a gender essentialist, stifling presence in the life of his love interest, even from beyond the grave. both prominently featured. and in a book so extremely preoccupied with being affirming/validating/relatable (arguably the entire basis of sol and elsie's relationship) it sticks out as hostile. the characters are constantly remarking on how butches feel or fuck regressively or positioned against/in denial of trans masculinity with no apparent thought for gay trans men or trans women in its point of view. that's kind of all i have the language for rn but yeah, jarring.
elsie never fully happens as a character, so much of their personality is about having been a BNF and a part of AO3 (i don't even want to get into THAT), and it's almost self aware but not. they're also a mouthpiece for an extended bit of slash discourse that really didn't need to make it into the final draft...this one was thorny for me.
July 2, 2022
Ah yes the universal transmasc experience of being a butch before (the all butches will come out as trans agenda is strong in this book) . With little regards for gay trans men and butch lesbians who are cis. It could have done with more actual transmasc lesbians but hey what do I know, this book barely brushes on that
Thankfully this was short because I quickly lost interest in this book as nothing interesting happens. Unlike other negative reviews I did enjoy having certain chapters as texts or scripts, it broke the monotony of having to read the most obnoxious trans guy in the world's thoughts [yes leaving a packer on your desk isn't a good idea and will probably get you fired]
Thankfully this was short because I quickly lost interest in this book as nothing interesting happens. Unlike other negative reviews I did enjoy having certain chapters as texts or scripts, it broke the monotony of having to read the most obnoxious trans guy in the world's thoughts [yes leaving a packer on your desk isn't a good idea and will probably get you fired]
March 28, 2024
I don’t know if I want to actually write a full review of this or not so I’ll just say this for now: Writing where adults are called almost exclusively “boys” or “girls” is not something I’m interested in
May 12, 2022
I loved
The Breath of the Sun
and its prose so much the author landed on my auto-buy list. How could I not try Dead Collections as soon as I could get my hands on it? Especially with this gorgeous cover, especially when the premise is “trans archivist vampire”? Luckily, it was very much not another highly anticipated disappointment, but delivered exactly what I wanted – quiet, messily queer literary fantasy with excellent prose.
Sol is an archivist suffering from vampirism – which is much like a chronic illness in this setting, requiring regular blood transfusions. When Elsie comes to donate the papers her wife, a well known tv writer for a show that Sol used to be a fan of, left after her death, the two instantly connect.
What follows is a quiet, very very queer romance with a melancholy litfic tone, though not without humour (that joke about Elsie being willing to “fuck a vampire, but not a trumpeter” was top notch). The take on vampires is perhaps the most low-key and downplayed I’ve ever seen – the common traits are there, from a need for blood to being susceptible to sunlight, but nobody really treats it as a big deal, least of all the narrative. I can see this disappointing those who come to SFF for a certain sense of wonder, but I rather liked it. As I did intertwining the talk of the fictional tv show with ones that really do exist, it made the setting feel much more real and lived in than if every media mentioned was fictional.
I hope that getting noticed by the big publishers (this and The Two Doctors Górski novella coming later this year) means Fellman’s work will finally get the attention and talk it deserves. I’m certainly looking forward to more.
Enjoyment: 5/5
Execution: 5/5
Recommended to: prose enthusiasts, vampire fans, those looking for something beautiful and slice of life adjacent and extremely queer, those who like a survivor (rather than action-seeking) kind of protagonist
Not recommended to: anyone expecting a flashier, more wondrous take on vampires, those who don’t like what I call a melancholy litfic tone
Content warnings: casual transphobia and ableism
More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.
Sol is an archivist suffering from vampirism – which is much like a chronic illness in this setting, requiring regular blood transfusions. When Elsie comes to donate the papers her wife, a well known tv writer for a show that Sol used to be a fan of, left after her death, the two instantly connect.
What follows is a quiet, very very queer romance with a melancholy litfic tone, though not without humour (that joke about Elsie being willing to “fuck a vampire, but not a trumpeter” was top notch). The take on vampires is perhaps the most low-key and downplayed I’ve ever seen – the common traits are there, from a need for blood to being susceptible to sunlight, but nobody really treats it as a big deal, least of all the narrative. I can see this disappointing those who come to SFF for a certain sense of wonder, but I rather liked it. As I did intertwining the talk of the fictional tv show with ones that really do exist, it made the setting feel much more real and lived in than if every media mentioned was fictional.
The queer kids a few years ago liked to talk about trash, like Oscar the Grouch might talk about trash—I’m trash, I’m a heap, a pile, in a Dumpster, cartoon banana peels, a soft carpet of dead salad. […] But archives really are trash. Everything in the archives is something that somebody thought about throwing away and didn’t. To play in the garbage chute, to find out about all these old traumas and dramas—that’s where the glee comes in, glee like having someone scoop up the papers behind you and let them flutter down on your hand.Thematically, it was also very up my alley. There’s a lot of discussion of gender in all its messy complexity, with Elsie slowly realising she might not be as cis as she thought. Some very timely discussion of fandom and fanfic (although though bulletin boards and AOL newsgroups – god that made me feel young), touching upon ableism through Sol’s chronic illness about which so many characters talk with great concern then absolutely refuse to do anything to help him not die from sun exposure and call him selfish for just trying to survive, the way other people’s discomfort with him being disabled and/or trans is prioritised over his life…but the overarching theme for me was navigating the messy reality of being queer. Given that the author is also a transmasc archivist himself I can’t help but wonder (even though it’s, ultimately, none of my business) how much of himself did he put into it – for one, the knowledge of archive work definitely shines through, and I love when authors put something they’re clearly passionate about in their writing.
I hope that getting noticed by the big publishers (this and The Two Doctors Górski novella coming later this year) means Fellman’s work will finally get the attention and talk it deserves. I’m certainly looking forward to more.
Enjoyment: 5/5
Execution: 5/5
Recommended to: prose enthusiasts, vampire fans, those looking for something beautiful and slice of life adjacent and extremely queer, those who like a survivor (rather than action-seeking) kind of protagonist
Not recommended to: anyone expecting a flashier, more wondrous take on vampires, those who don’t like what I call a melancholy litfic tone
Content warnings: casual transphobia and ableism
More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.
May 26, 2023
I hate to give a queer book one star, especially since it‘s written by a queer author. But this just so wasn‘t for me. It felt so lesbophobic at times? Like maybe don‘t constantly use a literal slur to describe your every lesbian character. Also the overall mood of basically saying every lesbian is in the end only someone who is trans/doesn‘t want to be a woman is… an ick. And the only lesbian character who was a lesbian all throughout was a transphobic asshole? Not a good look, bro.
The story was also lowkey non-existent. I thought this would be a mild horror-read, but this was 90% only about the main characters falling in love after 5 minutes and then continuously banging at every instance. An actual issue besides that only started to slightly play out during like the last 20% of it.
Also the characters were supposed to be forty? They did not feel like that at all. They felt like a bunch of inconsistent, inexperienced post-teenagers and it was annoying.
I also didn‘t like the writing but that‘s my personal issue. To summarize, there‘s barely anything good I can say about this book. Which is sad because I was really looking forward to reading it.
The story was also lowkey non-existent. I thought this would be a mild horror-read, but this was 90% only about the main characters falling in love after 5 minutes and then continuously banging at every instance. An actual issue besides that only started to slightly play out during like the last 20% of it.
Also the characters were supposed to be forty? They did not feel like that at all. They felt like a bunch of inconsistent, inexperienced post-teenagers and it was annoying.
I also didn‘t like the writing but that‘s my personal issue. To summarize, there‘s barely anything good I can say about this book. Which is sad because I was really looking forward to reading it.
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1645808644i/7494844._UX200_CR0,6,200,200_.jpg)
September 17, 2023
How much I love this weird little book.
It's so...beautiful. I had a hard time getting into it, particularly because of the instalust/instalove, but it was still so beautiful. So weirdly told, such a delightful way to encompass archives and archivists and transgenderism and vampirism. So, so good.
Also: fuck Florence.
It's so...beautiful. I had a hard time getting into it, particularly because of the instalust/instalove, but it was still so beautiful. So weirdly told, such a delightful way to encompass archives and archivists and transgenderism and vampirism. So, so good.
Also: fuck Florence.
![Profile Image for Madigan Likes to Read [is watching hockey].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1669773554i/66230405._UY200_CR50,0,200,200_.jpg)
April 7, 2022
It's difficult to know how to articulate my thoughts on this one. Sometimes this book was hopeful and affirming, and sometimes it was ugly in its honesty. Normally, I devour an audiobook over 2 days. This one though took me much longer, as I had to pause frequently to process the story as Sol tells it to us. This book made me look inward and interrogate my own feelings about experiences I've had in life. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about gender - what it is, how it's preformed, and the role it plays in my life. And even though I am neither a vampire nor a trans man, there was a lot here for me to digest as I continue to contemplate gender.
I was on a hype train with this one, reading it around the same time as a few other friends. And while we all read the same book, it spoke to each of us in different ways. What leapt out at me as relatable and/or affirming was different than what leapt out at others. And what I connected to so deeply was not always what others connected to. I think that speaks to the importance of the book and the weight that it carries, that it can be so meaningful in so many different ways to so many people.
I was on a hype train with this one, reading it around the same time as a few other friends. And while we all read the same book, it spoke to each of us in different ways. What leapt out at me as relatable and/or affirming was different than what leapt out at others. And what I connected to so deeply was not always what others connected to. I think that speaks to the importance of the book and the weight that it carries, that it can be so meaningful in so many different ways to so many people.
August 4, 2022
"And who wouldn’t want to bang a sentient sunflower? That dry, ridgy stem, those big dead-looking leaves, that drooping head."
This was so very good. It was unique and moving. A provocative vampire novel that is like no other. Definitely worth a read and a reread.
This was so very good. It was unique and moving. A provocative vampire novel that is like no other. Definitely worth a read and a reread.
May 2, 2022
I don’t even know what I just read.
February 15, 2022
content warnings:
Isaac Fellman’s February 22nd release Dead Collections is, at its core, a novel about being a trans man. There are archives, vampires, and movie theaters, but there’s also complicated romance, questions about queer futurity, and misplaced packers.
The descriptions of this book allude to something mysterious happening at the archives where the trans main character, Sol, works (and lives [well, resides]). And while that mysterious something is present in the book, the novel is not a long-lost-tome style academic mystery. This story is present, but the novel itself isn’t about that at all.
Similarly, Elsie, the love interest, is the widow of a writer known for writing a sci-fi television show. When we meet Elsie, she’s donating her late wife’s collection of unpublished writings and correspondences. Sol and Elsie have a fast-paced, steamy romance, but again, this isn’t a dark broody vampire meets a lonely widow romance. That story is also present, but again, not what the novel is about.
The archival mystery and the steamy romance are the more explicit plots that weave through the story, but Dead Collections is ultimately an exploration of trans identity. It maps out the intersectional struggles brought on by being a trans man as well as a vampire, and how they complicate such things as holding down a job, pursuing relationships, and simply maintaining the meat we are all obligated to lug around. The book focuses on the small, practical concerns that Sol faces, and the emphasis on the practical feels real in the same way that many marginalized people are never not aware of their bodies, and how much space those bodies take up. (As something of an aside, Sol refers to his vampirism as an illness, and the comparison here is very apt considering the awareness he has of his condition and the ways in which it drastically impacts him trying to achieve even the most mundane of tasks.) Sol, it seems, is exhausted by simply trying to maintain his life.
In addition to being discriminated against for a myriad of reasons, Sol either has previously found solutions for, or is actively trying to find solutions for medical care, shelter, income, and transportation, with a few of these being problems that arise within the book itself. And, on top of all of this, Sol is then made aware of strange incidents happening to the collections at the archive, and the last third of the book is him trying to solve that problem.
There are things I loved about this book that outweigh most of the criticisms that I have, but for the sake of transparency I do want to touch on those criticisms:
1. I want to note that I really wish this book was longer and spent more time with the mystery aspect, perhaps building it up slower. It’s present earlier in the book, but it doesn’t escalate smoothly. The book feels as if it was cut down to a word count, and so much of the novel was so lovingly rendered that the few clunky bits stand out. (That being said, I’m also a complete slut for the gothic novel, so maybe this is me trying to force it into an unrelated narrative framework)
2.
One thing that this book demonstrates is that we, trans people, also need to understand that gender is not simply the sum of our various parts, no matter where we are in our transition – which is so often a fallacy shared by cisgender people. Sol’s journey throughout this book bolsters this point and the way he views himself and that character’s gender develops with Sol’s growing self-assurance and confidence.
A short list of things that I love about this book:
• The love interest is big (Fellman doesn’t use the word fat, but Elsie would probably be considered if not fat, then at least overweight);
• Elsie and Sol are both around 40 years old (this is including Sol’s years as a vampire);
• Sol is Jewish (we don’t get nearly enough Jewish vampires, but I can understand why);
• The details given about archival work (gush);
• Exploring trans identity and fandom;
• The specificity of the sex acts (I love how casually the book talks about sex, as well as the conversations involved and how those conversations can take place between people who have gender dysphoria);
• The communication! (The clear setting of boundaries, the respect of those boundaries, the articulation of explicit wants and needs – it was all very refreshing and a great example of how these conversations can happen in real life);
• That cover? *chef’s kiss*
The book is written in a quick, concise style but the internal moments we share with Sol are a bit more languid with denser prose.
I would recommend this book for anybody who has an interest in fandom. Feet of Clay, the fictional television show featured in the book, plays a pretty big part. A lot of YA books have come out in recent years about being in fandom, but there haven’t been nearly as many adult books about fandom that have been traditionally published, especially ones that take place after characters have left fandom spaces.
I would recommend this book to almost every trans man or trans masc person I know, as well as their partners. While the feelings generally associated with being trans or trans masc specifically are far from universal, having so many of those feelings explicitly voiced within a book, with a trans main character who falls in love, is refreshing. There can be so much alienation involved with being trans, and reading a book where the character is always aware of his body feels very very real. Many of the feelings shared in this book are hard to articulate, especially to loved ones who truly want the best for us. But being able to hand somebody the book, and just say “This, this is what it feels like,” is truly a gift.
I think that’s what makes this book so special: in addition to Sol being an archivist, his vampire body also exists as an archive, freezing his transition in a specific moment of time. The thing about archives though, is that the collection is only one part of the story, and Fellman has given us a character who’s struggling to change his context, to reorient himself, to redefine what life could ultimately mean.
Isaac Fellman’s February 22nd release Dead Collections is, at its core, a novel about being a trans man. There are archives, vampires, and movie theaters, but there’s also complicated romance, questions about queer futurity, and misplaced packers.
The descriptions of this book allude to something mysterious happening at the archives where the trans main character, Sol, works (and lives [well, resides]). And while that mysterious something is present in the book, the novel is not a long-lost-tome style academic mystery. This story is present, but the novel itself isn’t about that at all.
Similarly, Elsie, the love interest, is the widow of a writer known for writing a sci-fi television show. When we meet Elsie, she’s donating her late wife’s collection of unpublished writings and correspondences. Sol and Elsie have a fast-paced, steamy romance, but again, this isn’t a dark broody vampire meets a lonely widow romance. That story is also present, but again, not what the novel is about.
The archival mystery and the steamy romance are the more explicit plots that weave through the story, but Dead Collections is ultimately an exploration of trans identity. It maps out the intersectional struggles brought on by being a trans man as well as a vampire, and how they complicate such things as holding down a job, pursuing relationships, and simply maintaining the meat we are all obligated to lug around. The book focuses on the small, practical concerns that Sol faces, and the emphasis on the practical feels real in the same way that many marginalized people are never not aware of their bodies, and how much space those bodies take up. (As something of an aside, Sol refers to his vampirism as an illness, and the comparison here is very apt considering the awareness he has of his condition and the ways in which it drastically impacts him trying to achieve even the most mundane of tasks.) Sol, it seems, is exhausted by simply trying to maintain his life.
In addition to being discriminated against for a myriad of reasons, Sol either has previously found solutions for, or is actively trying to find solutions for medical care, shelter, income, and transportation, with a few of these being problems that arise within the book itself. And, on top of all of this, Sol is then made aware of strange incidents happening to the collections at the archive, and the last third of the book is him trying to solve that problem.
There are things I loved about this book that outweigh most of the criticisms that I have, but for the sake of transparency I do want to touch on those criticisms:
1. I want to note that I really wish this book was longer and spent more time with the mystery aspect, perhaps building it up slower. It’s present earlier in the book, but it doesn’t escalate smoothly. The book feels as if it was cut down to a word count, and so much of the novel was so lovingly rendered that the few clunky bits stand out. (That being said, I’m also a complete slut for the gothic novel, so maybe this is me trying to force it into an unrelated narrative framework)
2.
One thing that this book demonstrates is that we, trans people, also need to understand that gender is not simply the sum of our various parts, no matter where we are in our transition – which is so often a fallacy shared by cisgender people. Sol’s journey throughout this book bolsters this point and the way he views himself and that character’s gender develops with Sol’s growing self-assurance and confidence.
A short list of things that I love about this book:
• The love interest is big (Fellman doesn’t use the word fat, but Elsie would probably be considered if not fat, then at least overweight);
• Elsie and Sol are both around 40 years old (this is including Sol’s years as a vampire);
• Sol is Jewish (we don’t get nearly enough Jewish vampires, but I can understand why);
• The details given about archival work (gush);
• Exploring trans identity and fandom;
• The specificity of the sex acts (I love how casually the book talks about sex, as well as the conversations involved and how those conversations can take place between people who have gender dysphoria);
• The communication! (The clear setting of boundaries, the respect of those boundaries, the articulation of explicit wants and needs – it was all very refreshing and a great example of how these conversations can happen in real life);
• That cover? *chef’s kiss*
The book is written in a quick, concise style but the internal moments we share with Sol are a bit more languid with denser prose.
I would recommend this book for anybody who has an interest in fandom. Feet of Clay, the fictional television show featured in the book, plays a pretty big part. A lot of YA books have come out in recent years about being in fandom, but there haven’t been nearly as many adult books about fandom that have been traditionally published, especially ones that take place after characters have left fandom spaces.
I would recommend this book to almost every trans man or trans masc person I know, as well as their partners. While the feelings generally associated with being trans or trans masc specifically are far from universal, having so many of those feelings explicitly voiced within a book, with a trans main character who falls in love, is refreshing. There can be so much alienation involved with being trans, and reading a book where the character is always aware of his body feels very very real. Many of the feelings shared in this book are hard to articulate, especially to loved ones who truly want the best for us. But being able to hand somebody the book, and just say “This, this is what it feels like,” is truly a gift.
I think that’s what makes this book so special: in addition to Sol being an archivist, his vampire body also exists as an archive, freezing his transition in a specific moment of time. The thing about archives though, is that the collection is only one part of the story, and Fellman has given us a character who’s struggling to change his context, to reorient himself, to redefine what life could ultimately mean.
May 17, 2022
Actual rating is a 3.5
The writing and themes of Dead Collections were really moving. I absolutely loved how matter of factly queer this story was. There are characters whose queer identity is simply an element about them and then another character who explores their queerness in a way that was great to see on the page.
C/W:
The writing and themes of Dead Collections were really moving. I absolutely loved how matter of factly queer this story was. There are characters whose queer identity is simply an element about them and then another character who explores their queerness in a way that was great to see on the page.
"We love a body slipping through time, and we cherish it as time strips parts of it away, and we feel good until it slips away from us entirely. You can give up some things that give you pleasure, if it means the ones you love can have joy."I do wish the pacing had been a bit more consistent in Dead Collections. For such a short book, I was surprised to find that parts really dragged. The story seemed more character-driven to me than the synopsis led me to expect.
C/W:
March 19, 2024
coworker recommended this to me which means i have to go in tomorrow and pretend that i loved it (i did not)
August 17, 2022
I want to try to put more details into my reviews so I remember books better. So I guess let's start with this.
Sol is an archivist, a trans man, and a vampire who gets a hold of the collection of the author/producer of his favorite TV show when he was in high school. He meets the author's wife, Elsie, who he immediately is attracted to, and they start to date. Sol is squatting in his office because it's underground and extremely safe for a vampire, but a coworker of his who hates him finds out. Elsie and Sol have a very whirlwind romance which includes Elsie discovering/accepting/something'ing they may be genderqueer. It is discovered that vampires sort of attract hauntings and so Sol's presence is causing decay/damage to the archives, and his coworker "outs" him and gets him fired. He then works with her to help finish the collection, which stops the haunting, and he then travels around between archives to help them fix their hauntings, living with and still dating Elsie.
The only thing I liked in this book was the portrayal of vampires. The idea that "vampirism is a blood illness that we can give to people to 'save' their lives, but most vampires only live a few years afterwards because the sun is so dangerous and hard to avoid" is amazing. You could do a lot with that, and as a fantasy nerd I'd love to use it somehow.
But I hated basically everything else. I didn't like a single one of the main characters- I didn't hate Sol but he didn't do much for me, Elsie got on my nerves very quickly and stayed there, I have no idea what Florence's actual issue was because I can't tell why she hated Sol, and most other people got maybe two scenes. Sol's set-up was interesting so I did like him at the start, but that just kind of faded. I wish I had understood why exactly Florence hated Sol, because it feels like it should have mattered. It's implied it's because he's trans, but then by the end it makes it sound like it's more about him being a vampire. It doesn't really matter in the end, and I guess you don't need to know why, but it made her feel like a very flat character. Not related to that, but Elsie saying "I'll never move out [of my house]" which we've previously established as being half glass and extremely dangerous for Sol was.... funny? I'm glad you're willing to make sacrifices for your love.
It was weird and off-putting that every butch lesbian was secretly just a trans man in denial or who hadn't realized it yet. Including defining Elsie's dead wife as probably a trans man who just never knew and that was why she was so depressed/her spirit haunted her collection? For a book that seemed like it wanted to be really inclusive, that's a hell of a way to validate your queer audience.
I hated the language. So many of the clever little literary devices were just _bad_. I rolled my eyes at so many, and there were so many moments of "ugh, the next few lines are gonna be about this metaphor, aren't they." And they always were. You can have a metaphor that doesn't need to be drawn out over endless run-on sentences.
Everyone sounded like the same character. Obviously they were all different characters, there's a decent spread of representation here. But they all talked in the same ridiculous language. There's a part where Elsie and Sol discuss how when they spoke on the fandom boards they were just pretentious high schools and they don't seem to think that was a good thing, but they still talk like that. They still constantly sound like pretentious high schoolers who need to make the other members of a conversation know just how well they can express themselves. But _every_ character sounds that way. Even the older vampire? No one sounds like a real person, they all very much sound like they're book characters here to just express a view for the audience to meditate on.
I never like sex scenes, so of course I hated those. The whole "I know I just had a car crash that was bad enough the hospital is going to hold me for a few days, but now that you're here I need you to get me off" was absolutely ridiculous. Do you love each other or are you just real deep in lust?
Anyway, I liked the way vampires work in this world. That's it.
Sol is an archivist, a trans man, and a vampire who gets a hold of the collection of the author/producer of his favorite TV show when he was in high school. He meets the author's wife, Elsie, who he immediately is attracted to, and they start to date. Sol is squatting in his office because it's underground and extremely safe for a vampire, but a coworker of his who hates him finds out. Elsie and Sol have a very whirlwind romance which includes Elsie discovering/accepting/something'ing they may be genderqueer. It is discovered that vampires sort of attract hauntings and so Sol's presence is causing decay/damage to the archives, and his coworker "outs" him and gets him fired. He then works with her to help finish the collection, which stops the haunting, and he then travels around between archives to help them fix their hauntings, living with and still dating Elsie.
The only thing I liked in this book was the portrayal of vampires. The idea that "vampirism is a blood illness that we can give to people to 'save' their lives, but most vampires only live a few years afterwards because the sun is so dangerous and hard to avoid" is amazing. You could do a lot with that, and as a fantasy nerd I'd love to use it somehow.
But I hated basically everything else. I didn't like a single one of the main characters- I didn't hate Sol but he didn't do much for me, Elsie got on my nerves very quickly and stayed there, I have no idea what Florence's actual issue was because I can't tell why she hated Sol, and most other people got maybe two scenes. Sol's set-up was interesting so I did like him at the start, but that just kind of faded. I wish I had understood why exactly Florence hated Sol, because it feels like it should have mattered. It's implied it's because he's trans, but then by the end it makes it sound like it's more about him being a vampire. It doesn't really matter in the end, and I guess you don't need to know why, but it made her feel like a very flat character. Not related to that, but Elsie saying "I'll never move out [of my house]" which we've previously established as being half glass and extremely dangerous for Sol was.... funny? I'm glad you're willing to make sacrifices for your love.
It was weird and off-putting that every butch lesbian was secretly just a trans man in denial or who hadn't realized it yet. Including defining Elsie's dead wife as probably a trans man who just never knew and that was why she was so depressed/her spirit haunted her collection? For a book that seemed like it wanted to be really inclusive, that's a hell of a way to validate your queer audience.
I hated the language. So many of the clever little literary devices were just _bad_. I rolled my eyes at so many, and there were so many moments of "ugh, the next few lines are gonna be about this metaphor, aren't they." And they always were. You can have a metaphor that doesn't need to be drawn out over endless run-on sentences.
Everyone sounded like the same character. Obviously they were all different characters, there's a decent spread of representation here. But they all talked in the same ridiculous language. There's a part where Elsie and Sol discuss how when they spoke on the fandom boards they were just pretentious high schools and they don't seem to think that was a good thing, but they still talk like that. They still constantly sound like pretentious high schoolers who need to make the other members of a conversation know just how well they can express themselves. But _every_ character sounds that way. Even the older vampire? No one sounds like a real person, they all very much sound like they're book characters here to just express a view for the audience to meditate on.
I never like sex scenes, so of course I hated those. The whole "I know I just had a car crash that was bad enough the hospital is going to hold me for a few days, but now that you're here I need you to get me off" was absolutely ridiculous. Do you love each other or are you just real deep in lust?
Anyway, I liked the way vampires work in this world. That's it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2022
This one I found frustrating. While I liked the archivist work and the way vampirism was woven into society, it felt like I was reading an abridged version of a longer book. I would've liked to spend more time with Black Kite, the unfinished novel; with Else/Elsie; and on Sol's travels. (I'm very glad actually that I read the physical book; I have the %-completion turned off on my Kindle, so I would've thought "Ah! Road trip time!" and then been annoyed that the book ended instead.) There are a number of threads that seem like they're going somewhere and then they do not, or they're subsumed into other threads.
Most annoying to me: the excerpts of Tracy's novel had a particular quality to the prose that I found compelling. It was jarring to have the narrator criticize them immediately. I went back and reread one excerpt several times, trying to see if I could agree with the paragraph of critique, and I couldn't. Perhaps it is simply a matter of personal taste; Black Kite seems like the type of heavily-symbolic slow-paced sci-fi that I particularly like. The experience was still strange, especially after learning that the excerpts are from the author's unpublished stuff that he "made worse" for this project.
Surprisingly little blood for a vampire novel, I thought; even the scene where literally Sol was drinking someone's blood did not have any kind of spill or leak to it. Blood went from one body to another without any ephemera or mess to show its passage. The vampirism felt very sanitized; really a contrast with the vampire lit I'm used to, which is largely about excess and uncanny danger.
I've come back to update this review after skimming a bunch of others, and I have to say that I don't think the vampirism is a metaphor for anything (except maybe for having written a book you hated). The vampirism gets drawn into a lot of other things that it could be metaphors FOR, because the reader expects vampirism-as-metaphor for queerness/transness/HIV/kink/etc. But in this book it's simply a piece of the background. To be clear, this isn't a criticism; actually, I think the discomfort one feels from trying to pin down the role of vampirism in this novel is one of its stronger features. Eventually you have to go "Oh, it's just some guy with a condition. No big deal." Preferring vampire stories in which it IS a big deal to be a vampire is a matter of my personal taste.
Overall: I would've been happy with a book twice as long, with a clearer focus and more excerpts from that novel. I underlined (derogatory) a handful of sentences and underlined (laudatory) considerably more.
(Were people already having the "writing slash is misogynistic actually" conversation in 1995? If they were, I was fully out of that loop until a decade and a half later.)
Most annoying to me: the excerpts of Tracy's novel had a particular quality to the prose that I found compelling. It was jarring to have the narrator criticize them immediately. I went back and reread one excerpt several times, trying to see if I could agree with the paragraph of critique, and I couldn't. Perhaps it is simply a matter of personal taste; Black Kite seems like the type of heavily-symbolic slow-paced sci-fi that I particularly like. The experience was still strange, especially after learning that the excerpts are from the author's unpublished stuff that he "made worse" for this project.
Surprisingly little blood for a vampire novel, I thought; even the scene where literally Sol was drinking someone's blood did not have any kind of spill or leak to it. Blood went from one body to another without any ephemera or mess to show its passage. The vampirism felt very sanitized; really a contrast with the vampire lit I'm used to, which is largely about excess and uncanny danger.
I've come back to update this review after skimming a bunch of others, and I have to say that I don't think the vampirism is a metaphor for anything (except maybe for having written a book you hated). The vampirism gets drawn into a lot of other things that it could be metaphors FOR, because the reader expects vampirism-as-metaphor for queerness/transness/HIV/kink/etc. But in this book it's simply a piece of the background. To be clear, this isn't a criticism; actually, I think the discomfort one feels from trying to pin down the role of vampirism in this novel is one of its stronger features. Eventually you have to go "Oh, it's just some guy with a condition. No big deal." Preferring vampire stories in which it IS a big deal to be a vampire is a matter of my personal taste.
Overall: I would've been happy with a book twice as long, with a clearer focus and more excerpts from that novel. I underlined (derogatory) a handful of sentences and underlined (laudatory) considerably more.
(Were people already having the "writing slash is misogynistic actually" conversation in 1995? If they were, I was fully out of that loop until a decade and a half later.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2022
I have mixed feelings on this one. There were moments that took my breath away; there is such a gentle, tender but unflinching portrayal of a trans masc vampire and nonbinary love interest and some of the moments these two considered their gender and identity just took my breath away in how deeply I felt: same. This novel feels like a deeply personal experience, like looking into someone’s mind, it feels like you are glimpsing the author’s trans experience, from the way they explore butchness, to the way lesbian and trans masc identities can be so entwined, to the workplace discrimination. It feels very intimate.
I thought it raised some very interesting ideas around vampirism, death and archiving. But this is unfortunately where it began to let me down because it was all just rather…shall we say it, boring? Trying to be philosophical but just losing the engagement along the way?
So I have mixed thoughts and ultimately I am settling somewhere on a mixed rating. Because whilst there are some moments of real, deep familiarity and connection, there is also a lot to swim through to reach those moments.
Content warnings: transphobia, blood, needles and other medical content, dysphoria, disability discrimination in the workplace, graphic sex, deadnaming, outing (in the workplace), vampirism as chronic illness, car accident, suicidal ideation
I thought it raised some very interesting ideas around vampirism, death and archiving. But this is unfortunately where it began to let me down because it was all just rather…shall we say it, boring? Trying to be philosophical but just losing the engagement along the way?
So I have mixed thoughts and ultimately I am settling somewhere on a mixed rating. Because whilst there are some moments of real, deep familiarity and connection, there is also a lot to swim through to reach those moments.
Content warnings: transphobia, blood, needles and other medical content, dysphoria, disability discrimination in the workplace, graphic sex, deadnaming, outing (in the workplace), vampirism as chronic illness, car accident, suicidal ideation
November 2, 2022
Dead Collections is a story about vampirism and transness following the love story between Sol, a vampire who is an archivist, and Elsie, a widow. It’s also a character story of Sol as he navigates vampirism, being trans, and archivism.
This is a strong 3 for me. I enjoyed reading it and it was a quick one to get through. However, there was a lot and nothing going on at the same time; it’s one of these books that you pick up and just go with the flow, rather than expecting strong plot lines. Some of the many subjects that the story brings up - besides the main themes mentioned before + the love story - are Internet fanfiction, ghosts, grief, discrimination, chronic diseases, etc.
What I’d say confuses me the most, and I think it’s mentioned in a few reviews, is how vampirism is used as an allegory of being trans, yet both collide in the same story. And you see the one character who’s ‘achieved’ both, and another one getting acquainted with both and starting their own journey (sort of). It felt strange, but it was nice that the story emphasized the possible fluidity of gender as opposed to the permanence of being a vampire.
This is a strong 3 for me. I enjoyed reading it and it was a quick one to get through. However, there was a lot and nothing going on at the same time; it’s one of these books that you pick up and just go with the flow, rather than expecting strong plot lines. Some of the many subjects that the story brings up - besides the main themes mentioned before + the love story - are Internet fanfiction, ghosts, grief, discrimination, chronic diseases, etc.
What I’d say confuses me the most, and I think it’s mentioned in a few reviews, is how vampirism is used as an allegory of being trans, yet both collide in the same story. And you see the one character who’s ‘achieved’ both, and another one getting acquainted with both and starting their own journey (sort of). It felt strange, but it was nice that the story emphasized the possible fluidity of gender as opposed to the permanence of being a vampire.
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