The Beauty

What is beautiful? Repulsive? Are you attracted to it? Are you beautiful, or unloved?
Aliya Whiteley’s THE BEAUTY offers a compact dose of weird fiction, body horror specifically, in which humanity is evolving into mushrooms. Expect a mashup of William Golding 1954 Lord of the Flies and P. D. James’ 1992 novel The Children of Men: a cluster of men survive in a dystopian future where all the women are dead (no hope for reproduction). The Beauty is saturated with philosophy on “what is beautiful?” and “what is humanity?”.Bob Milne’s Beauty in Ruins Book Reviews led me to this wonderful story. This edition has two parts, the first half is the titular story, and the other half is a bonus shorty story called “Peace, Pipe.”Some may think 100 pages is too short, but for a weird fiction shorter is often better. Each sentence of “The Beauty” is packed with meaning. Don’t expect any fluffy filler. This style is not suited for mega-tome page epic-fiction! Instead, it begs to be read aloud, like a poem… as the protagonist would tell a story. The best way to communicate the style is with Excerpts (see below). No worries, I left out any mushroom/human romance.Don’t let the intellectual narrative fool you, there is plenty of action. Each section ramps up the tension dramatically as Nate and the other men are confronted with fungal manifestations of women, and they struggle with repulsion and attraction. With the future of humanity on the line, and the desire to reproduce, there is much at stake. Jealously and murder ensue. Incidentally, my son and I are playing Dark Souls 1 (remastered) and Dark Souls 3, and the vision of the Parent/Child Mushrooms from Darktoot Garden and Ash Lake were evoked. Imagine if you were encouraged to start a family with those!In summary, The Beauty offered everything I expected and desired: a mysterious adventure, evocative prose, and unique storytelling. It is deep, but thrilling.PEACE, PIPE, is a bonus story that is 50% of this book. An alien diplomat chronicles its exploits (having accidentally started a war on Demeter) while quarantined and communicating to a pipe (which speaks as water flows through it, and evokes the sounds of a flushing toilet). Again, the themes of storytelling and communication are foundations, as well as an invitation to the reader to change perspectives on different cultures. No body horror in this one.Excerpts from “The Beauty”:”There are signs, I don’t care what William says. There are signs of change, of regeneration, and I saw the first mushrooms in the graveyard on the morning after I ripped up the photograph of my mother’s face and threw the pieces over the cliff, into the fat swallowing folds of the sea…”My name is Nathan, just twenty-three and given to the curation of stories.I listen, retain, then polish and release them over the fire at night, when the others hush and lean forward in their desire to hear of the past. They crave romance, particularly when autumn sets in and cold nights await them, and so I speak of Alice, and Bethany, and Sarah, and Val, and other dead women who all once had lustrous hair and never a bad word on their plump limps…Language is changing, like the earth, like the sea. We live in a lonely, fateful flux, outnumbered and outgrown.””When [William] told me of his journey, that was how he finished it–he fitted there. I find this to the strangest of expressions–how does one fit in with other people, all edges erased, making a seamless life from the sharp corners of discontent? I don’t find anything that fits in such a way. Certainly not in nature. Nothing real is meant to tessellate like a triangle, top-bottom bottom-top. The sheep will never munch the grass in straight lines.””[Doctor Ben] told me diseases were like people. They fight and fight and throw themselves around to escape the walls of tighter and tighter boxes.””They were found in the graveyard, springing from the decaying bodies of the women deep in the ground, and they were found in the woods, spreading themselves like a rug over the wet earth. The Beauty were small at first but they grew and took the best qualities of the dead. They sucked up through the soil all the softness, serenity, hope, and happiness of womankind. They made themselves into a new form, a new north, shaped from the clay of the world and designed only to bring pleasure to man.But the Beauty knew form the many experiences of the women that had gone before, that men did not always love what was good for them. Men could attack, hurt, main and murder the things that came too fast, too suddenly, like love….”

It’s a short story x 2
The story of The Beauty is an interesting one and I was all in. When I found it to END half way through the book I was so dissapointed. The second half is a short story about a man, a pipe that talks to him, and alien life. I couldn’t bring myself to read it all the way through and skipped to the end which wasn’t very fulfilling.All in all, I feel the story of the Beauty was cut way too short and the short story after was a dissapointment for me. One would think a short story would take up a small chapter at the end of the book but it takes up half of it.Should you purchase this book? Had I known what I know now, I wouldn’t. Would I have read it if it were offered to me through a friend or found at a thrift store? Probably. The Beauty is a cool story after all, but left me wanting more.

interesting concept not executed that well
the idea was cool and it seemed like the story was ramping up into one big crazy ending (something about the weird ahh babies) but then it seems like the author got bored of the story and just published what she had so far. cool concept that ultimately goes nowhere but if u want to be a little weirded out it’s an okay read

Weird in a good way
I enjoy weird fiction and mushrooms in horror so this fit well, also throwing in some gender shenanigans just more icing on the cake. couldnt help but be endeared to the mushroom ladies and want to know more about them but i know the value of a contained story such as this. while not realistic per say, the dialog is always thoughtful, and the violence a second thought sometimes blink and youll miss it. i dont think the average joe could “Get” this story and thats okay! easily recommending it to my fellow weirdos

Initially, without realising what the previous reviewers had titled their submissions I wanted to call mine the same. Would seem to confirm this book is very much a thought provoking piece of disturbingly brilliant writing. A 94-page gem of a story that will haunt you with its imagery and leave you sadly resigned to the nature of man (and woman).The structure and rhythm of the language was a reading pleasure in its own right let alone the multilevelled layers of meaning and intent. On the surface, the vision of the world that is portrayed with men lost without women, waiting to end the last generation of humanity and keeping their memories alive through stories is unsettling but the coming of the strange and mysterious Beauty promises a relief. However, the upheaval, the shift in roles, the oppression, dependency, horror and bloodshed of the new world reflect so many of the horrors found in our own reality. The subtle yet insightful considerations of women’s power when removed from society and the dominance of a stronger gender over a weaker one is frighteningly (and sadly too often) reflective of the world today. I found it enthralling, not least because I found the imagery so disturbing and the language so rhythmic, well structured and not a single superfluous word or phrase in the whole of it. Tight, compact and brilliant.

Arrived fast. The book was recommended by my daughter, weird story, but i did enjoy it. Good read.