An Anthologised Review of Locked Outside of Mystery

---

Jared’s pre-comment: since this is our first guest post, I should step in just to explain one or two things. Following the release of the below short story anthology, which I participated in, it was rather serendipitous that a guest stepped up with the offer to review its contents. Of course, I myself could not take that duty on in full due to my aforementioned participation. Anyway, our guest will explain themselves for the most part, so I won’t stay for long (or will I?). Their style and sense of humour is going to be rather startling for those used to my own reviews. But, I think sometimes a radical change is necessary, so I have decided to eschew any editing of their text. Also, please read the related anthology. Nothing that follows will make sense without it.

Announcing the release of "Locked Outside of Mystery" an original Mystery short story anthology!

Over 40 authors joined the challenge of writing a crime or mystery story involving the theme of “locked” in under 500 words!

Go read it now, for free! https://t.co/WQm6z0OuvL pic.twitter.com/BOrosmtwtY

— Kakuzō (@AkutagawaKakuzo) January 8, 2023

---

Real quick before this review gets started in earnest, due to being a guest post this review may be different than the usual on this blog. And who is that guest? Sprocket! You may know me from being the first westerner to review Smokestack Runbaba: Inexplicable, or for being the only one to give a positive review of the Cross House Murders. Basically, I’m a big shot, a juggernaut, a titan of the western branch of the 深本格 (shinhonkaku) mystery movement.

If I can exposit a bit more, this time on the subject of my review, Locked Outside of Mystery is a compilation of about sixty mystery and crime fiction short stories, written by about forty authors, all of whom are devout subjects of the western shinhonkaku mystery movement.

While I would expect this to lead to some degree of individuality, it seems like even the rules of the competition were ripped off from another; that of the Australian Crime Writers Association’s Louie Award. Frankly, I find plagiarising an award dedicated to the dearly departed Luigi Di Dio to be fundamentally morally repugnant, but I’ll have to put those feelings aside for this fair review of these stories’ literary merits.

One last forewarning: I’ll be covering the entirety of this anthology without providing summaries. If you know you’ll be wanting context, then go read it yourself.

Cover and For(E)word

First off the cover; it is impeccable. Absurdly well-drawn, great font choice, and the second page with a list of all the authors is a great touch. Many props to Genma496 and Kakuzo Akutagawa for their work on these.

Secondly, the foreword, written by Jared “forEword” Jellson does exactly what it needs to; it’s a great introduction to a book such as this, both in theme and writing quality. It even admits their plagiarism of the ACWA, although I would have to dock a few points for attempting to excuse it, but which I could revert for the well-deserved mockery of that old bastard John Dickson Carr. I’ll do as it says and keep my idea of something “locked” in mind throughout this review.

The Locked Heart of Lockhart – Genma496

The anthology kicks off with this evocative short, backed by incredible art. While the art feels somewhat disconnected from the story, I can see enough connections that add to the experience to love it.

Some of the wording could be improved. Some ambiguous pronouns at the end of the second paragraph, some confusing phrasing halfway through the third paragraph, a hard-to-follow new idiom near the start of the fourth paragraph, etc. Despite those occasional twinges, it still manages to be a nicely redolent short, crammed full of interesting ideas that leaves me wanting more. I guess that’s the main drawback of a format like this; there’s often too many great ideas for someone to express in a 500-word story.

A bit harder to forgive is the inexplicable change from the narrator being Vicky Lockhart in the first sentence, to being someone else by the third-last paragraph. While I could be charitable and assume that this is some postmodern mastery, perhaps of there being two Vicky Lockharts, this isn’t established enough to really be an out, in my view.

The author’s commentary leaves me longing. I wish there was more of a connection between the characters’ names and the story itself than both involving locks and hearts. I’d like the rest of their names to play a role. Maybe that’s too much to ask for from a 500-word short. I guess that’s what sequels are for.

Still, he has some good ideas. Were these missteps ironed out, and the golden ideas given more room to breathe, he could create something truly stunning.

Jared’s comment: I wonder… is the illustration the Rosetta Stone to the blended narration that was so perplexing? Perhaps there’s two ‘characters’ and only one ‘body’ in this story?

The Roasting of a Jailbird – Cz Volt

Here we start getting into the submissions with a lot more grit and grime. A flurry of fucks fast enough to furnish a room with solid gold, were you to own a swear jar. And I have to respect that. But dulling that respect is a sea of grammatical failings too long to enumerate in a review.

I don’t have much else to say, and I consider that a bit of a personal failing. While I am somewhat acquainted with this kind of prose, I don’t understand the general plot enough to even summarise it, putting me even further from understanding the story’s themes. I suspect that they exist, but this story lost me before I could get to them.

Jared’s comment: Sometimes the theme is not the lesson that the author hid in the story, but the pain that society hid in the author. Doesn’t the line “You’re all down on the floor cooking in this honest to god jail cell just like I am, how the hell do all of you even have the energy to cry!” hint at a parallel between the birds and humanity? Both are animalised, trapped by contemporary capitalism and its landlords. There is something Kojèveian in the subconscious of this story, even if it is suppressed.

Together – Pope Pingas LXIX

This story’s pretty good. Great prose. Its themes just barely tingling at the edge of resonating with me. Really, I think it does all it needs to, but what it wants to is something I don’t quite jive with. That’s a pretty severe blow in a review by me, which many stories here will fall to. Luckily this one excels so much in all other areas that it escapes a harsh judgement.

Jared’s comment: If I write something meaningful for every story we will be here all day. But this is a great one, go check it out everyone.

A Bird’s Cage – Ronald Raegan

I think now’s a good time to point out that I can’t approach all of these reviews as impartially as I’d like. In fact, there’s a fair few conflicts of interest within these pages. This story’s the first; my review of this short is heavily biased by the fact that I voted for Ronald Raegan in 1980 and 1984. While I’ll try to minimise this, I know that doing so fully is impossible.

This story is the flip-side of shitposty. The peak that can be attained by climbing the mountain of irreverence. While there is still the occasional grammar issue, outside of what I assume is the purposefully mistake-addled Sekai fanfiction, this isn’t enough to detract from my immense enjoyment I experienced the entire story. If I didn’t have a chastity cage on myself, this would’ve been more than enough to make me cum.

Jared’s comment: A real patriot would have written-in Reagan for ’88 as well. I guess some people just hate America.

Locked – Kyle

A neat story. There’s a few bits of sloppy wording that my keen eye can pick up, but overall I like the writing. There’s some good enby representation, you love to see it. But moving away from those concrete things onto the broader impression of the story, I don’t find myself too attached.

It takes me only a nanosecond to realise that my detachment is assuredly due to my hatred of mysteries, but from another angle, getting me to enjoy a mystery despite hating mysteries is a feat that other authors have accomplished. Is wanting such from a self-proclaimed non-writer too much to ask? Absolutely.

Jared’s comment: I think a non-writer is exactly the right person to demonstrate the essential form of a genre, warts and all. A story where our window into the interior psychology of someone is revealed to be a façade—a work of fiction. There is no better summary of the role of mystery fiction and how it inverts the character-focused confessional style of ‘serious’ modern literature.

The World Inside My Front Door – Jared E. Jellson

Another neat story, without any sloppiness that I could pick up which wasn’t justified in retrospect. I feel like it could have done with another few hundred words to establish the setting a bit better. Speaking of the setting, it really highlights how strange my Aussie friends from across the pond are. You actually called a place Barangaroo? Gotta love it.

Again, my lack of interest in mysteries has this story not moving very much, but the story’s twist raises it a few notches in my mind. Overall, it’s fairly good.

Jared’s comment: An utterly garbage work of no value whatsoever. Whoever wrote it should be ashamed of themselves.

I Hate Vaults – Hikiken

Hi Hikiken. I heard you were in need of help with opening the vault in your residence. The first thing to keep in mind is that a murder has taken place. This may shock you and drive you to call the police, but you should hold off on that; you’re the culprit. And by my estimation, there’s already somewhere between one and two victims inside that vault.

You may not know this yourself; you only remember killing the victim you’re hurrying to store in it now, but please try to apply a critical eye to your lonely life for once. How would a boring youngster such as yourself, who spends all day translating Japanese mysteries for free, manage to afford the rent of a household larger than an apartment all by yourself? Even though you live hundreds of kilometres from Paris, that amount of rent would still be unassailable.

Maybe you could hold that delusion when there was at least one other person living there; you could convince yourself that your roommate was willing to partially cover your boarding in exchange for Japanese mystery translations and hot gay sex, erasing your own memory of the others you’d murdered, but now that you’ve killed that last saving grace your internal story has become incoherent, you’ve become desperate.

You’re not comfortable just locking the body inside this time since the lie has become too obvious. No-one would believe that you could afford it, so you’re willing to throw everything you can at that vault to seal those bodies away for even one second longer. Tape, nails, whatever. But you can’t open it, why?

Now, I don’t have all the details of the case, so excuse the waffling and inconsistent story that will ensue. There’s two similar possibilities, depending on how many victims there were before this one.

The first option is that there was one victim beforehand. You remembered the vault, and rushed to place the body in immediately. After sealing it in, you got to work on cleaning up the blood, but you paid no mind to the blood that was accumulating, sealed inside the vault, which eventually hardened onto the mechanism, rendering it unable to be opened.

The second option is somewhat distinct; the one of there being two victims beforehand. For the first victim, you never actually knew about the vault. Perhaps the room was already decorated with that painting by a previous roommate, or perhaps a roommate bought it for you and hanged it up before you arrived as a housewarming gift. Either way, after the first murder, you scrambled, tearing apart the house looking for anywhere you could hide the body, ultimately finding the vault and shoving it in there.

This process took so much time that the blood had coagulated, and wouldn’t gunk up the mechanism until your next murder, whereupon you remembered the location and quickly stuffed the body away, finishing it off in the same manner as option one, leading to your current predicament.

Jared’s comment: As for the original puzzle; Hikiken, my recommendation is to acquire an even larger vault, and place the existing vault inside of it. You will be able to lock away what needs to be locked away, and the smaller vault will act as excellent bit of camouflage. And most importantly, you will now know exactly what is locked inside your vault: Another vault.

Locked in Ink and Paper – Kakuzo Akutagawa

Those that have properly read this review so far would know about my hatred of mysteries, but they may not yet realise my hatred of the meta. After a romp through the meta and even the pata during my juvenile days, I can’t help but cringe at any acknowledgement of a work’s fictionality that does not equal or surpass the greats of David Foster Wallace, Alfred Jarry, Maijou Outarou, and The Great Hippo.

Which is to say that while this prodding of the other agents in the relationship of media consumption may be good, or even great, as far as metacommentary goes, that I have been so blessed with the divine ink of the gods that I can’t enjoy this at all. Kakuzo, while you could consider this a failure on your part, I’d much rather you consider it one on mine.

Although I must commend the image provided on the last page. It really adds to the tone of the story. The prose itself is also generally good. The author’s commentary was a masterpiece.

Jared’s comment: Personally, without exaggeration, this is my favourite of the anthology. As suggested throughout, it is the act of reading that creates the appearance of an author and audience. Rather than just calling attention to its fictionality for its own sake, this story is a demonstration of the paradoxes of fictive realities: We want ‘real’ people to interface with, but it is precisely during the act of reading—the creation of the connective membrane author and audience—that characters lack their freedom or interactivity and become fake avatars for the author. The only time that characters have the potential to act differently, according to their own will, is when they are still hypothetical—when there is no answer to what they will do next. And so, these characters cry out to be left alone. They want the reader to walk away so that their existence, or rather, their non-existence, can be given freedom and a purpose.

A Mystery in 497 Words – The D3rp

This story is incredible. Its prose resonates with me like nothing else, its story is immaculate. It is exactly as long as it needs to be; I finished it feeling perfectly content with where it ends and what it includes. Yet I still hadn’t experienced the author’s commentary. Reading that, I was blown away yet again, it was perfectly fitting. Bravo D3rp.

Jared’s comment: The sense of unreality as the author depicts a world where there is a fourteenth month is so immersive and dripping with verisimilitude. Gripping.

Locks – You

Solid prose. Some of the ideas resonated with me, yet some others did the opposite. The length seems good for this idea, much longer and I would’ve gotten absolutely sick of it, but in this dose it’s nice.

Jared’s comment: I thought this pseudonym was just a joke for the cover. Got me good.

Like a Real Mystery – Maro

Great story. I like the idea, writing, execution, and comedy. Another one that used the time allotted perfectly.

Jared’s comment: There is an interesting irony in this story. In the language of mystery fiction, a locked room is the impossibility that invites the probing eye of the detective. And the detective is the god-like force that restores normalcy and mundane existence to the world. By choosing to go to work instead of creating a locked room, the narrator chooses to hide their abnormality from the forces of normalcy but does so in the most mundane possible place. The whimsy of the contemporary zeitgeist comes through as something interesting here.

Getting A Head of It – Anima

For this one, I’m afraid I’ll have to declare another conflict of interest, even though, if anything, it’ll bias my review in the negative direction. As some readers may know, Anima was my grandmother. As even fewer readers may know due to the recency of this news, that bitch left me NOTHING in her will. Oh, were my reviews of your books not good enough to put me on your nice list? You ungrateful hag.

This starts off with a mediocre image drawn by my cousin. I don’t know why she let that in here, it’s really unnecessary.

While I did get a mild chuckle out of the ridiculous names, and I can’t come up with any objective criticisms of the prose (at least in the main story, but I’ll save that for later), I still think this sucks overall. It’s not a coherent mystery, and it’s an extremely lame analysis on mysteries. The core idea’s the first thing any loser would think of upon gaining awareness of the genre. And, maybe I shouldn’t be focusing too much on this, but what’s with the title? I can’t find any references to heads in this story. Was it just for that lame forced pun?

Anyway, I should probably comment on the real stinker of this story; the author’s comment. Yeah, I get what you were going for Anima, trying to start every word with the letter “a”, but if you’re not giving yourself outs like pronouns, “the”s, or “of”s, then your writing becomes too constrained to make anything longer than a sentence remotely coherent. How well does this gimmick even work if the book’s title, and the section this is included in, involve rampant use of words beginning with other letters?

To actually comment on the text of the commentary, or at least what I can grasp from it, she seems to be saying that there’s an answer to this in her mind, and that she wants the reader to attempt one. Bullshit. You know, this really lines up with her, always wasting people’s time. First with my reviews, and now trying to waste our lovely readers’ time looking for a solution.

I urge you in the strongest terms to not waste your time trying to solve this; just move on to the other dozens of far better, perfectly solvable mysteries contained in this anthology.

Jared’s comment: More importantly, did the fine old woman also vote for the great Ronald Reagan? As a hoarder of wealth, her patriotism is unquestioned, but I must know whether she goes as far as to bleed red, white, and blue.

Australia is Made Out of Locked Rooms – Ryuunosuke Okakura

Oh, so now they’re not just stealing from ACWA, they have the gall to insult them at the same time? Disgraceful. Even worse, their criticisms defy all logic. An entry fee is perfectly fair; curation takes the time out of busy people’s lives that needs to be compensated, plus there needs to be a steady flow of money for the winner’s cash prize. You Americans already get enough free money from Joe Biden’s stimulus packages, you don’t need to take it from Australians, even if they aren’t quite good, honest, or hard-working either.

And that’s where this story starts to play to me. The rampant hatred of Australia. Australia is the source of all that is evil in the world, in that it takes New Zealand’s perfect systems, makes them worse, then steals the spotlight, making those reforms look less fabulous than they actually are. And while I wouldn’t really consider sinking Australia to be a solution – I’d much prefer simply murdering its population and handing the land over to New Zealand – I appreciate the sentiment.

But admittedly, if I try to put both my respect for ACWA as an institution, and my hatred of Australia aside, as hard as that is to do, I find the story not having too much substance to it. The prose is coherent and did get a chuckle or two out of me, but swap this out for any other country and I’d be quite underwhelmed, and I’m sure that others who don’t hate Australia would be underwhelmed with it as-is, so I can’t earnestly praise it very much.

Jared’s comment: RYUUNOSUKE IS A THIEF AND CHARLATAN! GET YOUR OWN STORY IDEAS!

Pushing the Envelope – Hokkyokusei Ran

Great story. Nice idea, entertaining writing. While this could theoretically be expanded on into a broader thing, it also works perfectly as a standalone short story.

Jared’s comment: One of my other favourites. One of the few entries that demonstrates the potential of literal plotting even in such a short form. Romance and mystery are better bed-fellows than many believe, and this also shows that potential.

Count to Three – Jared E. Jellson

A decent idea, but I don’t think it really had the space to breathe. The prose was fine, but did have one or two very minor grammatical slip-ups. I think this needs to be at least 6x longer to work well at all.

Jared’s comment: You know what else needs to be 6x longer to work? Yeah, that’s right.

Bars – 4digitmen

The writing’s okay, but not very inspiring. I can’t even give too many points for excellent craftsmanship; while the earlier poetry is structured in a vaguely poem-like manner, I can’t deduce any consistent rhythm, and while there are occasional rhymes, there’s no consistent rhyming pattern. Freeform stuff like this has been more popular in recent decades, but I can’t really give it credit unless it really jives with me, which this doesn’t.

The general idea of the case doesn’t feel too engaging to me, either. I feel like it’s a combination of the idea not being right for me, and the pacing being a bit awkward. Maybe 100 words could be cut off, or maybe it should’ve been given another 2000 words.

Jared’s comment: Poetry is to be said, not read. I’m waiting for the audiobook version to drop.

Nothing But a Head – Nezu

I didn’t end up enjoying this one. There were some major tense issues, but those could be overlooked to some extent. Another story that feels like it needs more room. The rest of it feels fairly straightforward, and hence, boring to me. Except for the part about the corpse talking, but even that didn’t entertain me as much as it did in Like a Real Mystery. Maybe the writing was just better in Maro’s one, in a way too subtle to articulate but real enough to feel.

Jared’s comment: I hope you are not expecting me to review all of these? Move along.

None of You Can Write! – Lemmy

Very strong concept, written with some on-point humour, but with some striking grammatical errors. Given the concept, one could again suggest that this was on purpose, but it doesn’t have a proper rhythm to it that indicates intentionality to me. While it was fairly hit and miss, I think the hits were strong enough to outweigh the weak misses.

Jared’s comment: Lemmy, stop bullying me! I tried my best!

Who Wants to be a Locked Room Millionaire? – The Locked Room Trillionaire

I’d like to declare something like a conflict of interest here. Even if that’s not the best term for it. The whole idea behind this story is eerily similar to one I had myself sixteen years ago when reading JDC. As a reviewer, and not a creative writer, I jotted this down in my personal notepad, but I never told it to anyone or turned it into an actual story. On top of that, although this part is definitely driven by me simply not having many ideas in this domain, when the foreword asked me to think of something “locked”, this sort of Locked Room Trillionaire is what I thought of.

Beyond that, it has some elements that remind me of a sci-fi setting I started cooking up as a child, but that’s just based on a fairly generic line or two, so it could just be a coincidence. Now that I say that, some other elements remind me of my childhood, but I’m a bit too creeped out to mention them right now. Those complex feelings of unease, nostalgia, and dread will doubtlessly taint this review.

Wait a second, now that I properly analyse this again, I think this goddamn asshole of an author insulted this blog. It says, and I quote “While I could find a few blogs detailing their journeys, these were mainly written by unpopular psychos whose ramblings weren’t of much use.” There’s no way that’s a coincidence right? Unpopular psychos? From writing blogs? As a long time fan of this blog, that snide jab leaves me outraged. What an absolute cunt-sucking chode.

Yeah, whatever is going on here, I won’t bother picking it out. Oh yeah, and that justification you made in the commentary about how with that many people alive these sorts of shortcuts would inevitably happen? Fucking lazy writing. Try coming up with something solid enough to be solved through rigorous deduction instead of coincidence.

Jared’s comment: Well, ackshully, a massive infusion of cash with a stated total such as in this case would not lead to hyperinflation according to textbook models of inflation. Hyperinflation is defined by a precipitous rise in the inflation rate. However, a static increase in the expected money supply primarily leads to a one-time increase in the baseline price level rather than a sustained change in the inflation rate. It is most comparable to the effects on the price level that take place during a currency redenomination, such as the shift from the Pound to the individual currencies of the British Commonwealth. During these periods…

John’s Poem – JohnMK

The poetry here is done well, but I’m not a fan of poetry. While one may expect this to gain an advantage due to not really being a mystery, I’m not a fan of historical persecution narratives, or whatever this should be called. Since I’m not engrossed at all it’s hard to tell, but I think this uses up the allotted space well. Overall, while I can recognise and commend the skill in writing this, I didn’t particularly enjoy it.

Jared’s comment: At the very least, one cannot help but applaud the originality of the title.

Our Pointlessly Broken Locked World – Nitoku Tensai

Pretty good. The writing’s sufficiently competent, but not particularly resonant. However, the general idea of the story is nice.

Jared’s comment: This delivers on the atmosphere of a romantic mystery that I wrote of earlier. But more than just that, it embodies the privileged and debanalified deaths that define the murder mystery. The way that reading mystery novels leads directly to the thought that someone needs to be given a death that will afford them individuality… It is a message with great potential. Unfortunately, the whole story is just like that one chapter in Jiken-Jaken! Get some originality, people!

Scrotum Inspector – Castel and Friends

There’s some decently noteworthy writing errors, which affected my ability to read it a little. But once I did, I found the writing entertaining, and enjoyed the story’s take on this premise, even if the premise isn’t exactly something rare to the anthology. I guess it is as the foreword said; even if you come up with a superficially similar idea, the specific nuance of you executing it creates something unique, and in some cases better.

But maybe saying it has the same idea is incorrect; the author’s commentary indicates a different reason for a character to voice this idea, making the truly fundamental idea different, more unique, and more funny.

Jared’s comment: Yeah, that’s right, paraphrase the forEword, you degenerate.

The Fourth Man – Watershipdown

Funny, well written, two strong ideas that somewhat resonate with me are presented adequately.

Jared’s comment: It is hard to comment on these short reviews, y’know? It feels awkward when my comments goes longer than— oh god, it is happening again!

You actually hate locked rooms, don’t you? – Jared E. Jellson

While the title had me coming in expecting something I’d like, the ripoff of one of Zaregoto’s snooze-fests of a prologue immediately drove me to expect the opposite. So how’d it actually turn out? It was written competently, using up the space well; despite being based on a far longer monologue the author managed to shorten it while keeping that smaller space feeling natural. While there were slight bits of comedy I enjoyed, the analytical portion did not resonate with me at all.

Jared’s comment: Sounds like you actually hate locked rooms, don’t you?

Who Wants to be a Locked Room Millionaire? 下 – The Locked Room Trillionaire

This is getting eerie. When I was a youngin’, I’m pretty sure the month was October, some police came to my house and lied to me. They said they weren’t going to do anything, they just wanted to know I was there and okay, but as soon as they found me they dragged me out to the police car and started yelling at me. I get where they were coming from now, so I don’t think that recollection worsens my impression of this story, but it’s just… weird.

Anyway, I’m glad there isn’t any bullshit in this one. Just good writing. The author’s commentary doesn’t ruin it this time either, in fact, I appreciate the joke in it. Still, this generally didn’t resonate with me, so I ultimately don’t have a great impression of it.

Jared’s comment: Hold on… Forget about inflation. What happened to exchange rates? While one-time changes in the money supply correspond to fairly manageable effects on the price level, the lopsided impact on the international value of the US dollar is sure to have less predictable effects in such a globalised economy. Given how much currency is held overseas as a hedge against localised instability, can we even begin to calculate…

Locked Sacrifice, then Room Freedom – 4digitmen

While I can’t point out anything substantively wrong with it, I fundamentally hate this writing style. I’d prefer the author take the skill he demonstrated here and apply it to the sort of bearable writing style he demonstrated in Bars.

Trying to distinguish the plot events detailed from the cursed writing style detailing them, I think the general plot is pretty good. Making this overall a tough story to evaluate.

Jared’s comment: Kinoko Nasu’s prose stands before me. The air is so still, I think time might be frozen. However! A sudden movement! A gust—no, a tornado—is unleashed before me, but it is countered by an even mightier thunderstorm. The clash ripples through my bones. The taste of blood fills my mouth…

Bocchi the Lock! – Bonchichis

While there are some minor grammatical mistakes, the only parts that are truly incomprehensible are the random forms and animals brought up without explanation. And maybe the lack of understanding just soured me on it, but I didn’t find the story interesting either.

Jared’s comment: I LOVE BOCCHI THE LOCK!

Tomato Tomato Read the Sequel to Find the Potato – Tarlo_V

There were quite a few grammatical mistakes, and this didn’t feel like a complete story. It didn’t feel rushed like some of the other ones did, it felt like it cut off partway through with nary an attempted resolution. It’s hard for me to judge its ideas, since they seem to not really be fleshed out so far. I don’t really like what they seem to be, and their lack of development should be treated as another knock against them.

Jared’s comment: I would define surrealism as the use of irreality to heighten the unconscious. Mystery fiction is brazenly fictional, sure, but it is definitely not surreal. It invites us to consider the lack of symbolic logic present in modern reality, rather than presenting a non-reality. This story mixes the two, and I am not sure whether the result is a step forward or a step backwards.

Everything but a Head – Nezu

While this story contains a slurry of grammar mistakes, it’s still comprehensible, they merely took me out of the experience for a second or two. And what a goddamn experience it was, I love this story. Good concepts, and good twists on them, held perfectly within such a short space.

Jared’s comment: I have to wonder what separates this story from the other stories that structure themselves around a disconnect from reality? The ultimate return to reality, while theoretically interesting, is mostly aesthetic. That is the point where it starts to run out of steam for me.

The Locked Room That is My Heart – Moosey

Neat story. Composed competently, and slightly resonant. Contrary to the author’s commentary, I think this worked perfectly within the word limit.

Jared’s comment: Exactly the kind of story that shows the best qualities of what possible in this word limit. I agree with that much. But insomuch as it just tells you what it is meant to be about, that feels like a waste. The metaphorical reading is stated in plain language at the very start, like it is an essay. Far be it from me to offer advice on how to make fiction actually work, since I have no talent for writing it. But I cannot help but feel like this deserved to be a story that showed us the narrator’s loneliness rather than just telling us of it.

The Smoker’s Lament – Kiosk

Fairly competent writing; while there are some minor mistakes, it also takes some strides towards a unique voice. I’m not very fond of the idea, probably because I just don’t get the point. I just don’t understand the story.

Jared’s comment: Skill issue, I understood it perfectly. It was about, uh… Well, what is important is that the voice shows promise.

Alone with Myself, a Heart, and a Locked Room – Zakdj

A decent amount of grammar mistakes that made things slightly harder to comprehend. But the story was good, and while I didn’t appreciate all of the writing choices, I liked others, and found that all of them built character.

Jared’s comment: Do not imagine for a second I failed to spot the distinctive sentence-length lines of a VN reader. Regardless, I enjoyed it for what it was. I wonder if the familial connection could have been turned into a stronger theme in the first half?

Who Wants to be a Locked Room Millionaire? 2.999…/3 – The Locked Room Trillionaire

Again I feel like I have to recuse myself. I have a child, her Twitter handle is @Cassi3, she works on a farm, and she’s definitely the type to call one of her cows something like ‘Mussi’.

I’m not exactly the most private person in the world, especially when it comes to the shinhonkaku community, so I’d expect some stories to mention recognisable details about me, like my interview with Nisio Isin about the details of Sekai 5 and why he’s struggling to finish it, but this sort of stuff just gets scary. Why does this “Locked Room Trillionaire” douchebag know about my daughter?

All that makes it hard to get in a proper mindset to review this. Would this story actually leave anyone else on the edge of their seat, drenched with sweat, worrying about what fate would befall the main character and her cow? The author themselves seemed disappointed with it, like they needed to defend it. I don’t really know why, but am I only blinded because of my special knowledge; my conflict of interest?

I don’t know what to say, so I’ll just say I don’t know.

Jared’s comment: THE CATTLE MARKET! OF COURSE! WE DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE EXCHANGE RATES IF WE JUST DENOMINATE ALL GOODS IN TERMS OF COWS. COWS ARE A MUCH MORE RELIABLE STORE OF VALUE! I SHALL IMMEDIATELY CONTACT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE FED WITH THIS NECESSARY PROPO—

Locked in a Locked Room Inside a Locked Room – Nitoku Tensai

I really like this story. Good idea, good prose, good execution, good resonance. While this could easily be expanded on, it also feels complete as is.

Jared’s comment: Agreed. A great entry that achieves the feat of making you forget that it was constrained by such a tight word limit. It feels luxuriously paced even with such a complete concept.

Fears – Singenue

While I generally like the idea, I felt like the execution fell off partway through, and not just because of the grammar mistakes. The Father’s fear felt like a good choice, but the Mother’s and Daughter’s both felt like weaker choices.

I don’t think this sort of story is impossible to accomplish well in 500 words, but it needs some better fear choices. The Daughter’s one in particular feels a bit rushed, or maybe that’s just the run-on sentences for it which didn’t seem to be executed too well.

I see a lot of potential here if a few more iterations of refinement can be gone through.

Jared’s comment: Box? Trap a family? Locked room? CAT BOX? UMINEKO REFERENCE?!?!?!?!

The Eerie and Artless Locked Room – Biora

As one of the world’s biggest classic Nisio fans, I was excited by this title’s promise to create a new work in that authentic style. And while I don’t think it managed to pay tribute to that, it gave me something else wonderful.

While Ayana’s rants quickly got boring and incoherent, and his approach to conversation was disturbingly confrontational, the responses everyone else gave made it clear that I was not alone in those observations. The inclusion of other characters stopped it from ever getting too bad, and the conclusion was an absolute riot.

Jared’s comment: Did he say “pub?” Most Bri*ish submission. So upsetting

Experimental – PO

I really like this formatting, but sadly, the word limit meant that there couldn’t be much to the story with this sort of gimmick, so I can’t be too excited about this. The author commentary is right, at least it’s unique; that memorability keeps it from suffering too much.

Jared’s comment: Kakuzou had to spend so long formatting this story that the rest of the anthology has inconsistent paragraph spacing. So sad. Regardless, I think experimenting with the form rather than content is a good approach to such a constrained writing task.

Lovestruck? – Bonchichis

Did not enjoy this one at all. It was littered with grammar mistakes, the idea did not resonate with me at all, it felt awfully rushed, and there wasn’t even any rape. What kind of Maijou fan anthology could have a short story setup this perfect without actually going for the rape?

Jared’s comment: Here is a question, why did the narrator hang themselves instead of using the readily available knife to commit suicide? Certainly, hanging is the cleaner method if you really planned out a suicide. I am sure the author did not spend more than a second consciously thinking through this of course. The thought process was probably reliant on the fact that stabbing yourself is not a consistent way to die compared to hanging. However, that is exactly why it demonstrates such an interesting trait of art: The author can have the narrator die from the knife with absolute certainty, because they are the author. And knives are used for suicide in plenty of stories. Instead, for reasons the author cannot even explain, in this story with such a direct allegory to sexual impotence, the man fails to properly injure the woman with the impotent end of the knife—a phallic object. And then, ashamed, the man kills himself with a completely separate method, with the phallus disappearing entirely. It is a suggestive metaphor that arises naturally out of the subject matter.

Tomato Tomato the Detective is a Potato – Tarlo_V

Well here it is, the sequel to the story I found the most woefully rushed. Is it a satisfying continuation? I wouldn’t quite say that, but it is a slight improvement.

There’s still a fair share of grammatical mistakes. While the story did feel somewhat more complete, it still feels really rushed. The ideas don’t feel too developed either; rather, it feels like the author chucked in another half a dozen ideas, instead of resolving the ones from the first part. Overall, half a step forward, two-fifths of a step back.

Kiyoshi Kasai’s comment: “If in the middle of the story, under the principles of modern literature, we allowed the character of the detective the freedom to shift to the role of the criminal, and the criminal to the role of the victim, the structure of detective fiction would collapse at its foundations. The rigidity of the role of the victim is even more dire: They cannot arbitrarily cease to be a dead person. If we allowed for such a condition, it would cease to be detective fiction that is being written. This is not because of some strictly rationalistic or realistic worldview that cannot accept the concept of the dead coming back to life. Rather, it is because shifting these roles undermines the meaning attached to the act of murder.”

Jared’s comments: Exactly right Mister Antichrist. The thing to watch out for is not unrealistic stories. In fact, those are entirely fine. We must instead be careful that we are deliberate with any violation of the sovereignty of each of the standard roles in a murder mystery. Those roles are the first building block in giving the mystery meaning. They are what gives the crime its privileged status. If we violate those without building something else to replace it, we’ll be doing what Kasai calls “deconstruction without construction.” Conceptually, this has some of the highest potential out of anything in the anthology by diving straight into something so fundamental. In execution, it is deconstruction without construction. It denies its characters symbolic meaning in a format too short to give them their own independent meaning. I think it is a failure, unfortunately.

Jack of Jackshit – Haya

Fairly competent writing, but it doesn’t resonate with me at all.

Jared’s comment: I don’t hate a story that just relies on a voice and prosaic style like this when it is so short. But there were so many words to spare, and the idea feels like it needed more time in the oven.

Who Wants to be a Locked Room Millionaire? Z – The Locked Room Trillionaire

God fucking dammit, I was getting back into the groove of this writer, I really was, and now there’s this bullshit with strings of numbers and wanton ACWA hate. Frankly, I don’t even want to know what references to my life will inevitably be held in those codes. I don’t get it, and it wants me to put in too much effort to get it. Or maybe not, the author’s commentary tells me not to overthink it, so I won’t.

Jared’s comment: Hating the ACWA is justified; AUSTRALIA IS MADE OF LOCKED ROOMS.

Labyrinth – S. T. Rider

I didn’t really understand or enjoy this. I can’t really blame that lack of understanding on the flood of grammatical errors, as much as it’s tempting to. I just don’t get the point.

Jared’s comment: I cannot say this was to my liking either, but it is another example of the diversity of stories that are on display in this anthology. It seems to be an attempt to depict a post-breakup depressive spell through prose and imagery. I think rather than being hard to understand, it comes off as a little vague because the subject matter is so well trodden. Well, breakups suck. Hope the author gets over it.

The Other Side – Mike Malaza

I didn’t enjoy this one, it didn’t really communicate anything interesting to me, or drive any real intrigue. It just seemed to be a few snapshots of a dude’s life in prison. The writing was mostly fine, I think there was maybe one issue with the grammar, but nothing important.

Jared’s comment: I think prison fiction that tries to be emotionally resonant and to depict the interior psychology of convicts is ultimately pretty overplayed. Instead, prison is interesting as a sociological microcosm that intersects with the politics of criminal justice. Perhaps that would have been a more interesting mindset to approach this kind of story with? As it is, it is earnest but uninteresting.

Picture Hanging – Ssam

I didn’t like all the choices in this story, but I really liked some of them including the inclusion of diagrams. And while I recognised the solution, I appreciated it.

Jared’s comment: I LOVE NIGHTHAWKS. Based taste Sam. This is one of my favourites in the anthology, perhaps for surprising reasons. Yes, I’m a sucker for floor plans, physical tricks, and the like. Yes, I loved the references to more than one masterpiece of the genre. But what I actually loved most was the willingness to use the power of the “third person Watson” style of narration without wasting word count on trying to subvert it. The narrator is not objective and does not know the thoughts of the detective, but is still not physically embodied or present. I think the voice it allowed this story to get away with was one of most balanced in the anthology.

Locked? – Yuqumi

Competent writing, there’s maybe one mistake I’d fix, but in general it just doesn’t resonate with me. Maybe it could have if it used up more of the 500 word limit? I’m not sure.

Jared’s comment: This is probably my favourite work of non-prose in the whole anthology, but I will let it speak for itself. While not the core message, I have always liked the “never give up on thinking” message when it turns up in meta-mysteries, and this has a broader version of that motif.

An Unfortunate Chef – Just_IVAN

There was a fair amount more grammar mistakes than I’d like to see. But overall this just didn’t resonate very well with me.

Jared’s comment: Despite all of the entries that depict grotesque gore or are tinged with an atmosphere of horror, this is the only story that gave me the impression of authentic violence. Most other stories fulfill the traditional mystery structure of explaining the death of the victim as being the will of some particular entity with concrete goals—that is, given meaning. Or at most, they will leave the death unexplained. Having the death explained as collateral damage by a random act of violent robbery is the precise opposite. I like it; it is an interesting substitution. Kind of hardboiled.

The World is Made out of Worldstuff – Anima

Ah, another story by that bitch of a granny. Lets see how it is this time.

And it’s another hackjob. Yet more nonsense followed by a supernatural solution. I will say that it was written better this time. It still has a commentary imploring you to solve it, which I’d again urge you to not follow.

Why repeat myself? I don’t have the energy to.

Jared’s comment: Clowns and mimes are great. The universe as depicted in this story has a severe skill issue.

Sentenced for Life – Mike Malaza

Another story. Competently written, but whose themes I don’t really get, and whose story I don’t resonate with.

Jared’s comment: Although it is linguistically a simple inversion, I have not often seen a locked room birth. Although birth is not quite the point of mass death=mass life, there is certainly a relatively interesting idea to be found in here using that relationship.

The Failure Club in “Locked Room Meditations” – Genma496

Oh hell yeah, some more ballin’ art. The story itself was okay, written competently, and got a few chuckles out of me, but generally not something I resonate with too much. But it does drive me to point out that I, for one, think that classroom desks are real tables.

Jared’s comment: Hey, yo, wazzup it’s Kyoudou Kakuma, man, he’s chillin’ out in the classroom. Hey, wazzup Kakuma? Yo, waitwait what’s that in the back? Yo, is that a locked room comin’? Hey, wait a minute. Oh shit! Kakuma! Kakuma, move! Kakuma, the locked room’s coming! OH MY GOD HE HAS EARPHONES IN, HE CAN’T HEAR US! OH MY GOD, KAKUMA MOVE! YOU’RE GONNA DIE! OH MY GOD!

The Form of the Forbidden – Waty

Not very resonant to me, only had a few grammar mistakes. Some of the ideas were slightly anti-resonant with me, so that’ll ultimately push this down a little.

Jared’s comment: I think stories like this are pretty interesting, but more in the sense of a case study, rather than pulling me into the work itself. As I brought up in an earlier comment, the roles, structure, and symbols of the murder mystery are usually the starting point of the meaning that can be found in any particular example of the genre. This story does not fall into a trap as severe as trying to subvert those roles, it just tries to use the framing of a murder mystery as aesthetic dressing around an introspective, realistic story (IE confessional modern literature). I think the fact that it is so hard for a story to find itself using this format is revealing.

Me? You? Me. You. Us. – Kuru

I think this story started off fairly strong, but got weak towards the end. I don’t think it overstayed its welcome by revealing the mystery, I think the reveal was just underwhelming. This isn’t me trying to invoke the trope of critiquing horror films, advising the monster to never be revealed, no, I think one could reveal something interesting here, that just wasn’t done this time. And it’s not just the actual substance of the reveal, the buildup in the paragraph to it also felt weak.

Plus, there were more grammar issues than I’d like. For a minute I thought they were intentional, but then I saw other issues, and saw that the possibly-intentional one wasn’t actually done consistently. Oh well, it’s not like doing that on purpose would’ve been too great in the first place.

Jared’s comment: This is going to surprise everyone, and probably the author himself, but this story is sitting just on the edge of my top five among the entries in this anthology. The beginning is surprisingly gripping on its own terms, invoking the anonymised death of a thousand copies of the same individual. Clearly, it was not intentional, but such unprivileged deaths that deny its victims even the dignity of individuality sit at the heart of mass death and the nature of the 20th century. However, in a brilliant subversion, it turns out that the entire story was a scene from Toy Story instead of a mystery at all.

The Stillness of a Songbird – Cz Volt

The writing here was competent, but I don’t really understand or resonate with the themes.

Jared’s comment: Unfortunately, not connecting with this story is the sign of a life half lived. If you have never woken up next to your murdered mistress, I can only say that you need more of a sense of adventure.

Disassociation Disaster – Ijou

I didn’t really understand or resonate with this. The writing had its fair share of grammatical errors.

Jared’s comment: I wish this story was more thorough in depicting a sense of disconnection, and relatedly gave the final reveal more weight. As it stands, it fails to depict anything too unique, which is a shame.

Sploosh Sploosh Sploosh (That’s the Sound of His Blood) – Akemi-chan

I really like this story, it’s a good idea executed well with a strong voice.

Jared’s comment: In such short fiction, the voice is often the core of the whole work. There is not really the space the develop a proper setting, characters, themes, or plot beyond the most vague and symbolic kinds. This story does not have much in the way of grander ambitions or the promise of something profound lurking deep under the surface. But, its decisive voice guides it towards being instantly memorable and compelling. Definitely enjoyed this one.

Great Detective Sophus Episteme – ShadowElf37

While this started out great, I think it got clogged up with too many concepts in the last paragraph. Two or three of those could be cut out, to focus more on the rest, and we’d be left with a tighter story. Hell, I’d even appreciate replacing those words with some fun banter earlier in the story; anything to ease the flurry of conceptual jumps at the end.

Jared’s comment: Firstly, as a matter of form, this kind of brazen metafiction runs against a particular sensation when it becomes dominated by non-signposted, continuous dialogue like this: It erases any sense of its fictional characters’ independence and becomes a work dominated by the presence of the author. It leaves little potential for expressing anything through its form as narrative, and just becomes an essay for the author’s opinions. Stories like this are not invalid per se, but their range is fairly limited. As for those opinions themselves, well, I think all forms of Cartesian solipsism are pretty basic arguments for reasons that were discussed in relation to Subahibi. But a full discussion of why this story fails to say anything terribly new would be better reserved for a full post on mystery fiction phenomenology. At least the reasons I do not like this story are deliberate choices, that is an upside.

The World is Made out of Clowns – Animus

To alleviate any confusion readers may have, I don’t have any conflict of interest to declare on this one. While my grandmother wrote some stories here under the name ‘Anima’, this is someone completely different, and I’m not gonna go to bat for any superficial similarities on that old whore’s behalf; I can evaluate this story completely impartially.

Being able to ponder this critically, requiring me to include the context of Anima’s last submission and all of the Locked Room Trillionaire’s previous submissions but without getting biased by my conflicts of interest, has me finding this pretty good. The author’s comment is a bit off, particularly since it says the investigator of clown murders is Anima, when in Anima’s last submission it was actually Octazilla, but typing that out I can’t help but feel like that’s nitpicking, couldn’t there just be some other great detective called Anima who actually does that?

The writing is generally good, exploring the established concepts of its source shorts in ways that were only slightly brushed upon in previous submissions, while adding new ones, and a bit of wit. I didn’t notice any glaring grammar errors either. Add in a few funny moments, and you get something that I can say resonates with me.

Jared’s comment: The author of this work is clearly a Juuzou Ehimegawa fanboy. The title is a reference to the seventh novel of the Great Detective Runbaba 12 series. And this late reveal that Anima’s works have in fact been taking place in the same universe as the works of the Locked Room Trillionaire are in clear imitation of the shocking revelation that Ehimegawa had himself secretly been behind the mystery cult classic Techno Tantei Fridayyy, which was originally published under the previously entirely masked pseudonym of Takashi Furusato. Wait, I seem to recall the first work in the Runbaba 12 series coming up earlier in this post. Curious…

Hidden Gem – Mike Malaza

There’s some frustrating grammar issues, but the story itself is kinda charming. I quite liked the solution. I do wish the earlier part of it resonated with me more, though.

Jared’s comment: But there was a gem hidden amongst the crowd of books, and it was called Vampire Wars.

Cabin Fever – Ramaseta

Okay story. No noticeable grammar flubs. The general idea does feel quite unoriginal, and I didn’t find a whole lot interesting in this specific instance of it, but there were parts that made me smile.

Jared’s comment: This was a delightful story that touched on all of the most important aspects of life: Waking up early even when you do not have a real job, cookies, Christmas, and the evils of France. I felt fulfilled and enthralled by all of these themes in equal portion.

Inside – Halcyon Laurent

Another story that makes me wonder if I’m just stupid. Not because of the significant grammar slip-ups, I’m pretty confident that those are accidental, but I don’t quite get the story, is there anything more to it? Or was the answer of “The narrator kills people and forgets, for some reason” meant to be sufficient for us? Whether it was intentional or not, this feels like it’s missing something to make it click, so I can’t look too favourably upon it.

Jared’s comment: I think the message of this story is perfectly clear once you notice that the code for the keypad was 91919 and that the door which elaborately opens on its own is a mitate for the tomb of the Christ.

Push it. Push it. Push it. – Ranp

While the ending made me laugh, I was also pretty enthralled with where it’d go, so it felt like a bit of a cop-out. I don’t know how harsh I should be on this story because of that. I hope that I can see this written to a proper conclusion some day.

Jared’s comment: In the spirit of this story, I am writing this comment while relieving myself. Aaah, that is the good stuff. This is a story that relies on its style, to decent success. But, it does ultimately feel half-baked. In an interesting way, though. I would want to read a more planned out continuation.

Who Wants to be a Locked Room Millionaire? Vendetta – The Locked Room Trillionaire

How shocked am I allowed to get at something like this? Could it really just be a coincidence? Is anything ever a coincidence?

To elucidate the reader, I ask this because I know a Great Detective called O’Ryan My Ryan, and I was on the same flight to Melbourne as him. He was just as weird, but didn’t have anything to dig into as obsessively, so he spent a lot more time at his seat. More than that, my childhood suburban house has a back yard with a gate, and a large, rusty grate, about 2 meters by 2 meters. How many people could all of these things be true for? What is the Locked Room Trillionaire trying to say by writing them for me?

I don’t really want this series to keep going. No, I REALLY don’t want this series to keep going. Approaching it from that angle, this should be among my lowest-rated stories on this list. There aren’t any other series that get to these depths of me not wanting another instalment written; most of the time I’d be happy enough just ignoring them. The ACWA-hating ones get close, but I can believe that those writers will drop that one day. But the Locked Room Trillionaire isn’t stopping.

Jared’s comment: If you pay close attention, you will notice that the prior story’s locked room recurs in this story. The chances of this entire anthology being the sick dream of some deranged Juuzou Ehimegawa fanboy are increasing by the moment. Resultantly, should I really care about any of these stories? Unfortunately, I did not manage to write this comment from within the bathroom on a commercial airliner.

Shoey – Anima Unleashed

I want to completely recuse myself from reviewing this one due to a conflict of interest. As some insiders in the shinhonkaku community may know, Anima Unleashed is my ex-husband. And truthfully, I still have feelings for him, and this story hasn’t dampened that. The beauty of the prose, the genius of the solution, the heart-stopping climax. I can’t review this fairly. I know that below this I will place this as my favourite story from the anthology, but you have to ignore that; my opinion is too tainted.

Jared’s comment:

(A)fterword

I have low expectations for afterwords, I really do. At that point of the book there’s not much left to do bar advertising, self-fellatio, and asserting the author’s own interpretation of the story.

I am again irked by their disrespect of the ACWA, why is that such a common theme in this? They really got me dropping it for so long, I figured it’d be gone by now.

Pushing past that badgering just as the afterword itself does, you get another charmingly funny commentary on the process of assembling this anthology, chock-full of inspiration. Just try to grow up with that ACWA shit, guys.

Illustrator’s Afterword

I did not expect to be blessed with even more fantastic art. Jingou Jingorou and Funny Cat seem to always make me chuckle in adoration. I hope Genma496 can find a more appropriate and less self-sacrificial way to complete any future illustrations for any future installations.

Conclusion

Overall I’m a bit sad that I didn’t get more out of this than I did, I hoped this would fuel further creative ambitions, but only the cover really managed to do that. While I did enjoy many of these stories, most left me apathetic at best. Maybe as someone that hates crimes and mysteries, it was a mistake for me to read an anthology of them in the first place.

In lieu of numbered ratings, I’ve ranked the exact position of every story in this anthology.

Without further adieu, I present to you, the definitive 2022 Zaregoto Server Mystery and Crime Fiction Anthology, Locked Outside of Mystery, Power Rankings List

Thanks for reading this far, and for the Zareheads who I can assume are the only ones still reading, I’d like to clarify that just because I’m coming to Zarefest 2023 cosplaying as Hitoshiki does NOT mean I want to have hot gay sex with every Ii cosplayer. ESPECIALLY if you’re not in the Sumiyuri Academy uniform. Thank you.