+- Forums (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomForum)
+-- Forum: Doom Arts (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomForum/forumdisplay.php?fid=6)
+--- Forum: Doom Books (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomForum/forumdisplay.php?fid=13)
+--- Thread: Dying with her Cheer Pants on: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire (/showthread.php?tid=5979)
Dying with her Cheer Pants on: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire - Greg - 01-17-2021
More words from Seanan McGuire. That woman cannot stop writing. She has two series going as well as stand alone novels. The series release every year about 6 months apart. Plus, she releases more books under a pseudonym, Mira Grant.
And she writes short stories for anthologies and for her patreon page. A word machine.
The short stories about the Fighting Pumpkins are from those anthologies and the patreon page. The Fighting Pumpkins are a cheer squad from a High School in a fictional California City. And the Pumpkins job, besides cheering on the football team is to defend the town final from evil forces that target the town by sacrificing themselves. They use their cheerleading skills to do this. The cheerleaders are out of the ordinary as well. One is the daughter of a Vampire. One was a Zombie. Another can control people merely by forcefully suggesting things to them. It's a mixed bag.
I read the book because of the title. It struck me as funny and I do follow McGuire. But because McGuire writes so much and I have read so much of what she has written, there is a certain sameness to all the characters. They all talk with the same kind of voice. The predicaments they fall into seem to be sort of rote. I don't get a lot surprises from her fiction anymore. And it is mostly urban fantasy fiction. The tropes of Tolkien in our modern world.
The Pumpkin stories are no different. They were fine but nothing jumps out as an amazing short story. The one that did rise above the rest was about the manifestation of fall that joined the squad. There was a bit more poetry in that story.
No sword fights. But plenty of monsters.