The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very nice genre-bender, parts SF, Fantasy, and Horror, all surrounding the multiple instances of Molly every time she bleeds. Each time rising from the ground or floor to become a complete copy of herself.

This isn't a humorous novella, however. Indeed, the creep-factor is turned up rather high. Every time a duplicate comes up, she's forced to murder herself.

It works well on several levels. The literal is bad enough, managing to reach over to normalcy while being very horrific, but when it becomes a metaphor, a branching out into anything we must murder within ourselves, it also works wonderfully. It might be a desire or a drive, an orientation or even just a natural preference or religious observation...

And yet it still works. :)

And it works very well as a straight horror, too. Being all-out creepy and disturbing is the name of the game. A subtext isn't necessary to enjoy this. Just figuring out who is narrating should keep anyone endlessly fascinating.

Self-examination is a real horrorshow. :)


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