The SNAFU series is an "anthology of military horror". Short story collections about soldiers encountering supernatural things and having to shoot their way out. Call of Duty meets X-files. No one expects Shakespeare but the quality of writing easily cleared the bar of "professional" and they were very enjoyable.
More than a few of these short stories were adapted for TV in "Love, Death, and Robots". Now this anthology has an open annual call for submissions and because of the TV prestige I expected them to get swamped with submissions and therefore have a higher number of quality stories for Cohesion to choose from. But the opposite has happened. For like the last 3 books the quality fell off a cliff. I occasionally do beta reading on the writers subreddit and the stories feel the same as a 17 year old's first try. They're clumsy. They're cringe. The worlds they create are as flimsy as an Asylum movie's. They've definitely not seen an editor as they're all stacked full of repeated phrases.
We're talking 'And the soldier jumped from the window and did a backflip because he was tough. And the monster said "You will not defeat me." And the solider said "I will be the one defeating you today, monster" and he pulled out his magic sword and swung it at the monster's heart.'
Did something happen behind the scenes? I can only think either it's a stunning work of charity giving first-timers their break, or there was some sort of internal ruction, everyone left, and the only person to sort through all the submissions is the guy who has the legal rights to the anthology.
by Temp89