Well-written, but just not my cup of tea. I probably should have trusted my reaction to the creepy illustration. ( )

A vaguely Lovecraftian short story detailing a street performer in a post-apocalyptic future where the humans have been decimated by a horror from beyond the stars. Mamatas did a nice job evoking the scene and creating atmosphere, but there wasn't quite enough story to this story to really suit me. ( )

I had to listen to it a large number of times for a few reasons. First, just to figure out what was going on at first. Second, I was predisposed to tiredness because didn’t get a lot of sleep for a couple of weeks and voices in headphones zonk me out, which I did a couple of times just before the last five minutes or so. And then after getting through it a couple of times for those reasons, I re-queued it just because I liked it. In real life, I generally stop to watch street performers, unless they are preachers or jugglers. Imagining the scene is a lot of what I liked about the story.

Full review: http://reading.kingrat.biz/story-reviews/farewell-performance-nick-mamatas ( )