I like to call myself a Professional Horror Fan so when I say these stories genuinely scared me, I want people to get my full meaning. Right fro the first story I was introduced to mystery and and a level of dread and creepiness that I'm not used to encountering in American horror stories, and while some of that might be due to my unfamiliarity with Chinese culture, that's not all of it.

The editors did a wonderful job of choosing a variety of stories featuring not just ghosts, but ancestral trauma, political horrors, and teen angst. These are not montrous jump scare stories, but about mood, and darkness, and sometimes horrible people.

My favorite was the first story featuring a young girl, an odd haunting, and a red umbrella. The imagery and mood of this story stayed with me long after I finished the book.
I greatly appreciated this, as I had no idea China had such a rich history of horror stories, and I really hope the editors release a second volume.

Sinophagia is an immaculate collection of Chinese horror short stories.

There are 14 stories included in the collection (although at times it feels like there are a lot more - many of the stories are not really "short"), and the editor Xueting Christine Ni is also the translator - which was super neat. Every single story in the collection is followed by a little editor/translators note where Ni explains the cultural significance of the piece, information about the author and their hesitations about being included in the collection, etc. This was SO VALUABLE and easily my favorite part of the collection. I took away so much more from the stories with these notes and they gave me time to debrief on my thoughts on them as well before jumping into the next.

Some of my favorite stories:

The Yin Yang Pot -- about a man who goes for hot pot and shares some with his ex only to find out she is dead and he is now doomed to stay with her in the afterlife. Ghost marriage/food/community

Have You Heard of 'Ancient Glory'? -- about an apartment complex specifically used for storing the ashes of the dead

Forbidden Rooms by Zhou Haohui -- two strangers are locked up mysteriously in an apartment and don't know why or how to escape

*Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the free digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A nice anthology of the newest and up coming horror writers from China. However, I did find some these stories particularly lacking, especially towards the end of the book which made me hesitant to review this. I especially loved the stories by Zidou, Dedong and Zhou. and would love to read more from these authors though.

Thanks to Rebellion | Solaris, Xueting C. Ni, and the authors for the chance to read ‘Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror’! I liked a majority of the stories, loved a few, and had to skim one (which I never do). Somehow the one I was the least invested in seemed to be the longest. A few stand outs were 'The Death of Nala', 'The Ying Yang Pot', 'Forbidden Rooms', and 'Ti'Naang'.

Sehr gut zusammengestellte Sammlung chinesischer Horrorgeschichten. Zwar war nicht jede Geschichte für mich, aber das ist in den meisten Sammlungen der Fall. Leider waren viele nur eher okay für mich als wirklich beeindruckend, aber ich kann auf jeden Fall sehen, wie andere Leute, vor allem Horror Enthusiasten, diese Kollektion lieben könnten.

It took me a while to get into this but it’s such a magnificent collection. The stories take some thought and pondering and I think that’s a good thing. Magnificent.

I really enjoyed Sinopticon, a collection of Chinese science fiction collected by Xueting, and I have gotten more into horror over the last few years so I was thrilled to see there was a collection of Chinese horror. Like with many anthologies, there are hits and misses here, but overall I really enjoyed this! Throughout these 14 stories there is a range of horror subgenres and settings cover large chunks of the country. Rather than just focusing on cities like Beijing and Shanghai, there are stories set in Sichuan, Yunnan, and Hunan provinces and often if the story is set in a city, it's the fringe. Many of the entries are quite long, which I've come to expect from "short" Chinese fiction (when I taught short fiction, I had to put a page limit on my students because I had multiple students try to turn in short stories that were 50+ pages). Unfortunately one of the longest stories in the collection was the one I got along with the least and the one I'm most sad about disliking. Records of Xiangxi is an adventure horror in the vein of like Indiana Jones and it's set in southern Hunan province which is really close to where I used to live and it's tackling themes like the horrors of war and greed and playing with the idea of prejudice towards things that look "weird" or “deformed". There is so much about this novella that scream up my alley on paper but I could not get behind the writing style.

That being said, there were stories that I really loved here. The Waking Dream tackles the fears and pressures of the modern workforce with an interesting science fiction twist which seems to mirror a lot of the AI conversation happening in Western societies today. Have You Heard of Ancient Glory? was apparently pulled from a real story Zhou Dedong had seen reported on in 2019 and highlights the tight rope between changing burial practices due to rising land costs and ecological concerns and cultural traditions/beliefs about the afterlife. It also highlights the rising concern about home ownership and future prospects in China. The Ying Yang Pot takes on a superstition surrounding hotpot in Chongqing but make it a ghost/possession story. Forbidden Rooms is a suspenseful locked room thriller that tackles isolation, specifically due to rising economic pressures and the long hours of corporate culture.

Wow! Love this book! I’ve not heard of any of the authors before but can honestly say, there wasn’t a bad story in this. (Which, if you read short story compilations, you know how rare that is).
I’d highly recommend this to everyone. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Excellent collection that every anthology fan should read. This was a wealth of ideas from a very talented group. I will recommend for purchase and hand sell.

4.5 stars rounded up. Sinophagia is a marvelous collection of many different voices. From traditional ghost stories to rural legends & urban psychological horror, this book will feed your thirst for the unknown. I found out about this collection almost one year ago when Xueting told me she had another collection coming out and I gasped with surprise when knowing it's gonna horror. Asian horror is another level, I tell you.

What truly made this collection of stories stand out was its ability to address various current social issues, many of which, although more pertinent to China, remain relatable worldwide. This relevance made the reading experience more engaging, as the horror elements were not gratuitous, but rather facilitated conversations about topics that impact many of us.

I love reading anthologies, especially if it contains stories by authors I've never read before. If I find a story I really like, I immediately scour the Internet to find the rest of their catalog.

In this case, all of the authors were new to me, and I have some great new reading to search out. While I know not everyone in this collection has other works translated to English, there was such a a wide variety of horror that there is something for everyone.

I wasn't able to quite finish the collection before my advanced copy expired, but I really enjoyed everything I read. I will probably buy the physical book so I can read the ones I didn't get to (and reread the ones that have really stuck with me).

This is a great collection and a really wonderful job done by the editor.

So many different voices come together to make this collection entertaining and diverse. Even just the introduction is an interesting read.

Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror gathers fourteen horror stories by established and up and coming Chinese authors. Editor and translator Xueting Christine Ni also edited and translated 2021's Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction. The main goal of her work in both her writings and translations is "to help improve understanding of China’s heritage, culture and innovation, and introduce its wonders to new audiences." *

And this collection is a welcome addition to the horror canon. Stories vary in length and source of horror. Some follow plots dependent on supernatural, ghostly or evil spirits very much in the gothic tradition ; while others reveal humanity as the true monster in deed or psychological manipulation.

Xueting Ni opens the book with an introduction about the process of gathering the stories and publishing them, while also speaking of the reception of horror writing in China. Before each story there are content warnings, and after each tale there is a short section contextualizing the story, explaining key elements that might not be as well known to Western readers or discussing the authors influences or biographical details.

While all the stories offer something, two standouts for me were:
- The Ying Yang Pot by Chuan Ge A young man reconnects with a past lover over a shared dish well loved by both, but finds that you can be trapped by old habits.
-The Girl in the Rain by Hong Niangzi Is the legend of what happens to a woman who uses a particularly colored umbrella true?

Recommended to readers of short stories, horror, tales of the strange or supernatural and gothic horror.

* Xueting Ni. "About Xueting Ni." Snow Pavilion. http://snowpavilion.co.uk/about-xueti... Accessed November 1, 2024.

Sinophagia was my introduction to Chinese horror. While I enjoyed the overall experience, this collection did leave me with some mixed feelings.

There was a disconnect between my expectations and this book's approach to anthology. Sinophagia follows each story with a discussion of cultural and historical context. These breaks were often insightful and made the story even more interesting, but they also interrupted the pace for me. The ultimate effect was that this anthology felt less like entertainment and more like academic study. Again, this was not inherently good or bad, but it just wasn't what I was expecting.

I also noticed that everal stories seemed to overexplain the horror. I'm not sure if this was a stylistic choice, an artifact of language differences, or simple coincidence.

While I struggled with some aspects of this book, I am very happy that it exists. These stories are creative, beautiful, and haunting. I hope to see more Chinese horror enter the international book community.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to check this book out for free. I'm leaving this review of my own accord.

I loved this! So many original tales, horror that is so different to the run-of-the-mill stuff! I can’t say what was my favourite but I devoured this in two nights! If you love original ideas, this is for you!

I always wanted to read the science fiction anthology by the same editor and used my chance to ask for the horror version.

For me the latter stories where more impactful as the first ones. Even as I liked the concepts I found some overtold and to long for a real horror factor. As I like untypical horror I hoped to get some new interpretations. And I got them in a way but often enough there was something missing even as I loved the ideas and concepts.

But some are still in my head and I think about the characters and twists so I think it is still a good collection.

I have to say right off the bat, I loved this anthology! It's absolutely great--every story there's something which I found enjoyment in. It's an excellent collection and fit exactly the kind of thing I look for when it comes to a book of spooky tales. What made it even more interesting was the specificity of each story being from a Chinese author. As a longtime fan of the base genre itself, in my experience Asian-inspired horror is some of the best that's on offer.

It's a genre which can be difficult to be a fan of at times, as there are so many interpretations of what constitutes good horror. There are those who think it's all about gratuitous violence and gore, ghosts, goblins, monsters; the possibilities are nearly endless. Personally I think it's more about the emotions elicited from the reader or viewer than the actual content of the story. If it's been hours or days since I've read a book or watched a movie and it's still got me questioning if I should turn out all the lights or leave a nightlight on, THAT is good horror. If it can actually creep or unsettle me long after the tale is done, that's power. And for this collection? There's a lot of exactly this kind of power.

You can really tell the level of care put into choosing what went in to this anthology too. It's mentioned in the introduction (which is well worth reading and actually important I feel), but it almost didn't need to be. Each story has its own vibe, its own purpose. Another thing I enjoyed was the editorial note at the end of each tale, which quantified a bit more as to the why it was included. I think it's important to realize what all goes into creating something like this and why it's a significant book. It's not just for enjoyment, but it's also about inclusion and acknowledging more than just the usual authors we think of when it comes to the books we enjoy. There are so many writers from all over the world, so many voices lost in the deluge of things we're bombarded with day in and day out. Which was another great thing about this collection: some are authors new to the craft and others who've been writing for ages, and all from different background both socially and geographically.

I give Sinophagia 5 stars out of 5, and even having already read it with a digital copy I intend to get a physical one for my shelf too.
Thanks for NetGalley and Rebellion for the ARC.

Sinophagia is a fantastic collection of horror short stories from a number of Chinese authors. Like any anthology, some of the stories were better than others, but overall this is an absolute treasure trove of horrifying tales. In fact, I think one of them, Forbidden Room, is my all-time favourite short story.

Highly recommended to any horror reader!

Thank you so much to Solaris for the eARC of Sinophagia!

I wanted to love this so bad but ended up DNF’ing it when story after story were all misses for me. I kept forcing myself to pick it up & getting nothing out of it.

With that being said, I do encourage you to pick this up if you want a horror anthology to read, as maybe it’ll work better for you! Also, the editor clearly loves the genre & put a lot of work into putting this together, as mentioned in the beginning note of the collection! There are also editorial notes after each story that really explains inspiration/background on each story.

It’s possibly that I’ll retry this collection in the future — but for now, I’m gonna have to put it down.