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SkywardStrange

Skye - she/they 🩷💜💙 Horror aficionado 💀 Disabled babe 🤘 Cringe but free 🤡 Current vibe🎶: Dance the Pain Away by Haute & Freddy

6498 points

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Botanical Horror
Gothic Literature
British and Irish Crime Classics
Forgive Us Our Trespasses: Religious Horror
My Taste
The Last Days of Jack Sparks
When the Wolf Comes Home
Nightwatch on the Hinterlands (The Weep, #1)
Little Heaven
Atomic Coffin
Reading...
This Movie Doesn't End the Way We Want
29%
The Burn Line
12%
Cruelty Free
35%
The Sea Hides Its Dead
14%
Piñata
10%
Japanese Gothic
22%
The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle
8%
Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession and the Birth of the Lie Detector
6%
A House with Good Bones
47%

4.12 average  ·  101 reviews

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  • Oct 17, 2026
    Atomic Coffin
    Atomic CoffinBenedict Anning
    SkywardStrange's Book Journey
    5.0
    Enjoyment: 4.5Quality: 5.0Characters: 5.0Plot: 4.5Audiobook: 5.0
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    I think I have at least two new fears now.

    Atomic Coffin gets inside you. There's so much tension and anxiety throughout, driven by both the plot and the writing style. If you're already claustrophobic, this is a big ol pile of trigger warnings for you because it perfectly induced the feeling of being trapped in a cramped space and not being able to breathe properly.

    I found Heidi to be intensely compelling - she's very honest and raw about her experiences and anxieties and how fucked up the situation is making her in a way that made it impossible for me not to empathize with her. I also really liked how straightforward Anning is about Heidi's past attempts at suicide and her relationship with wanting to live. I feel like a lot of horror that deals with such things either glosses over it or obscures it behind metaphor, so it was refreshing to just say it out loud and be honest about its role in Heidi's story.

    Stylistically, this was intense in a way that I really dug. There are beautiful turns of phrase and relentless, winding paragraphs and some really nice use of mirrored syntax and its just mwah perfect. I liked how sensory and visceral the descriptions were throughout - it made the story feel very present to me.

    Do be mindful of hella trigger warnings for suicidal ideation, claustrophobia, panic attacks, and self harm. (Side note: thank you Benedict Anning for including absolutely 0 instances of sexual harassment or assault, you put one lady on a submarine with 100 men and you could have done super gross shit but did not.)

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    SkywardStrange commented...

    I'm so rabidly anti-AI that somebody tried to get me fired for it 🫠 (I'm fine, it didn't work).

    I think a lot of my frustration stems from people viewing art as merely a product. To them, why wouldn't you want your product faster and with less effort? They're missing the point - art is a process and humans make art to connect with ourselves and with each other. Is writing my novel hard? Yes, it's a difficult and time consuming process. Would I want to skip to the end of that process? Fuck no, because that's the POINT. I'm growing as a writer, I'm making something with these two little hands that has my fingerprints in its very essence. I've written scenes that I love and scenes that I didn't like originally but slowly got to make better. And as a bonus, I didn't have to fuck over other artists or the planet or the folks living around those godawful data centers to make it!

    Keep making your art, people. It matters, your process and effort and creativity matter. Don't let the machines take that from you.

  • Anti-AI and analog hobbies

    Just coming on after a frustrating conversation with coworkers about them using AI as they are a graphic designer which makes NO SENSE TO ME.

    So, I just wanted to rant and say what happened to the human experience? What happened to creativity and making things with your hands and being PROUD of it? Can we really be proud of something a computer made? Even if it looks awful you did that!! That's so much better than writing a prompt.

    I truly believe people are still searching for connections with humans. And as a librarian I love when people come up to the desk for personal recommendations rather than use AI. I assume we all would trust a librarian/bookseller for recs rather than AI. AND it's a conversation starter! You can't get that with a computer.

    That brings me to my question for everyone! What is an anti-AI or analog hobby you do and love? Show me! Bonus points if it's bad! but you made it with your hands and that's the important part! be proud!

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    SkywardStrange commented...

    I never made it through a dictionary, but I did read multiple editions of the Guinness Book of World Records cover to cover growing up. They were weirdly fascinating, OK? As an adult the weirdest thing is probably the enclosed user manual that came with my vintage Furby when I bought him (his name is Volpe and he's a 1999 special edition Valentine's Day Furby). Fun fact: the original 90s Furbies came with names - there's a certain pattern of belly rubs and head scratches that makes them tell you what their name is and the manual has a space for you to write down what they say.

  • What are some of the weirder things you've read cover to cover?

    Have you ever read a dictionary cover to cover? Or an encyclopedia? A thesaurus? A car manual? A very niche magazine about tractor engines?

    My mum tried to get me to read the dictionary cover to cover when I was a child, but I only got to the end of c before getting too bored. I did read an encyclopedia of the human body, though.

    On flights I read the evacuation and emergency pamphlets cover to cover every time 🫡

    Before using a new piece of equipment/machinery I'll literally read the manual cover to cover like a book before touching anything 😂

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