Graham
I can see why this is regarded as a classic. This is the quintessential haunted house story.
The prose is beautiful without being overly flowery. The mystery is kept suitably ambiguous - there is an apt truism to the idea that your own mind is the best conjuror of horror, and by keeping everything undefined Shirley Jackson manages to make most of this occur in our own minds. This ambiguity is what I search for in horror. When an author dives to specifically into something they are portraying their own fears rather than letting you play out yours.
The Haunting of Hill House has been subject of enough analysis that I wont dive into my own, suffice to say its golden reputation is well warranted.
Just a sidenote on the edition I own - I am lucky enough to have got a Centipede Press edition and these are stunning. The artwork is brilliantly creepy, the book materials are fantastic quality. These seminal works deserve good editions like this!
Insanity as a literary device is a challenging thing to get right. This is a more literary take on it, trying to get into the mind of a very disturbed young man, who is living in a kind of juvenile fantasy that all his acquaintances have long grown out of. The prose is pretty, but the lyrical stylings and confused perspective really frustrated me as reader. I can see why people might enjoy it, but it is all just way to dense a literary styling for my own preference. It acted as a barrier to me engaging with the characters. I am just not a fan of flowery literary stylings...
Lycanthropy as an STD in an oversexed small town USA setting. As an elevator pitch it works, and it keeps on working when you actually dive into the story. With Ray Garton you can expect a certain sleazy brand of horror and he certainly delivers that here. Definitely one of the more unique takes on werewolves that I have read!
I often find collections to be a mixed bag and this is no exception. Brian Knight appears to have quite an eclectic take on horror, varying from extreme body horror and splatterpunk to much more psychological focus on grief and reality. To be honest it is the latter end of this spectrum that i found the most engaging. The story Dakota is beautiful and heart wrenching and by far the stand out of the show, and the one I keep finding coming to my mind long after reading this. Another interesting highlight was a twisted take on a Poe story (The Cask of Amontillado recast as a The Case of a Thousand Dildos...). At the weaker end there is some decidedly rapey stories in here which I found somewhat uncomfortable to read (and not in a good way).
Somewhat uneven, but at its best it is very good
A fascinating tale of creepy dolls, witchcraft and mafia. The dolls give a certain Chucky vibe, although this story considerably predates that. In many ways the age of this is surprising - first published in 1933 a lot of features of this novel feel impressively contemporary. The language suffers less from the biases of the period than some other novels I have read from a similar time period. Yes, the prose is very much of its time but it does not hurt the story telling too much at all. The vaguely scientific style fits the main protagonist (a physician) very well really, although it does give it a somewhat stilted feel. Included in the edition I read was some clever promotional material in the form of a note from the author that alluded to Dr Lovell being a real person which was a fun touch. The creepiness of dolls is something that has always stood with me, and this novel riffs on that in a very nice way.
Intriguing that this novel, very popular in its time (and largely contemporaneous with Lovecraft - Lovecraft has even written approvingly of it) is largely forgotten. Whilst it is not as innovative as Lovecraft it is certainly more accessible.
I don't think I realized I was missing a horror novel about dams and reservoirs, but apparently I was. Scott Carson takes an interesting idea - the drowned town that is replaced by a reservoir and builds an impressively crafted supernatural tale around it. In some ways the supernatural here is only used to enhance the feeling of mounting peril - they could be seen as a metaphor for mundane things and that underlying ambiguity gives the story its power.
A significant proportion of the worlds population must live downstream of dams. Whilst dam bursts are incredibly rare they are terrifying events, that really are not brought into literature that much. The Chill focusses on a fictitious reservoir within the very real Catskill water catchment system for New York. Funnily enough I had just recently watched a YouTube video on this very system so was already a little familiar with this somewhat niche and esoteric subject. Here we a c0nfronted by the events leading up to and the aftermath of a dam collapse, driven in part by the myths of an old village swamped beneath the reservoir.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one - it read a lot quicker than its apparent length. Always a good sign in my mind! An intriguing subject for terror, and one that probably more people should be aware of!
A retelling of a Lovecraftian story, I struggled somewhat with this one. This novel was written early in Michael Shea's career, but has only recently been released. The typical Lovecraftian elements are there, with a strange sense of unreality to a lot of the storytelling, but I found the pacing really dragged on this. The gritty setting of a run down hotel in San Francisco in the late 70s was captured well, but the time setting this all up dragged horribly. When adding to the general ambiguity of the tale this made this a bit of a struggle to get through. There is no doubt that Michael Shea is a good writer. The quality of the prose is evident in this very early work of his, but the story craft and structure was still a work in progress.
Jeff Strand writes a very fun brand of horror. Allison is the story of a women who can control peoples muscles with her mind when she gets emotional, but has little control over it, tending to break people and kill them by accident. She has spent most of her life hiding this ability. This Tarantinoesque story follows what happens when a local mafioso becomes aware of her abilities and tries to control her. This is very much into the splatterpunk territory with a gruesome body count. The story drives along at a breakneck speed and is just downright fun. The characters are well rounded and the silly premise is used to generate a suitable level of entertainment. Is this highbrow literature? No. Is this a lot of fun? Hell yes
A Norwegian classic. I have been living in Norway for over 10 years now, but I have read an embarrassingly small amount of Norwegian literature (largely just Jo Nesbø and Asbjørnsen & Møe). The Lake of the Dead is probably the most well known Norwegian horror novel (Norway really doesn't have much in the way of a literary horror scene), but other than a very limited printing in the UK close to when it was first published has largely unavailable in English (and that early translation suffered from a degree of anglicization of names and idioms). This new English translation is a good chance to explore this Scandi classic, so my partner picked me up a copy.
First things first, this is very much a novel of its times. There is a general dismissiveness towards women through large parts of the novel, but that is a feature of many novels from this period. In many ways, this one is better than most, allowing one of the heroic characters to be a woman. The novel leans heavily on psychoanalysis, which gets a bit dry at times, but allows for an intriguing level of ambiguity. The story focusses on a myth around a cabin which is apparently haunted by the ghost of a murderer. The main protagonists are largely dismissive of this idea, but the possibility of supernatural influences is increasingly opened up as the story progresses.
The novel crosses over into the realm of crime novel in many places, but its ambiguity towards the supernatural separates it from the more standard crime fair of the time. Andre Bjerke is obviously well read and makes strong allusions to other literary works throughout the novel. An intriguing read, which if read with it historical context in mind is worth a gander
I do enjoy a good possession story. Religious horror is a fascinating niche, taking the scare stories of the faithful and exploring the horror within can create some powerful imagery.
Boys in the Valley takes an orphanage in a remote valley run by the church where the sheriff brings in someone who is apparently possessed just as snow comes in to isolate the whole place. The sense of trapped claustrophobia brings a wonderful pervading sense of dread to the story. Demonic possession, creepy kids, suspect priests - there is a lot of very fun tropes being played with here.
An excellent debut novel that has got me excited to find more of his work!
This is trying to be too clever. I get the concept of using multiple stories to strip back the truth, but this in places was just plain unreadable.
The first story is alluded to through the rest of the book as some literary masterpiece. It is instead a badly written piece of dry prose that is just plain boring. That conceit that this is a brilliant novel just does not work and undermines a lot of the story telling later.
The second of the stories is the most problematic one, written as an outline to a journal. The fact that it is just an outline means that it is incomplete and basically nonsensical in places. The stylistic choice was entirely unnecessary.
The third story is more readably but because it leans on the previous two it is ultimately undermined.
The final story is again a journal (although fortunately more complete in this case). The final reveal of the truth is moderately well done, but not enough to wash away the absolute drivel at the start of the book.
No way near as smart as it thinks it is
Straight out going to say this: This is the best werewolf book I have read. Period.
Christopher Buehlman writes with a beautiful prose which really elevates this story telling. Those Across The River is an intriguing take on werewolves, taking a southern gothic bent to it. The Deep South setting gives a wonderful damp and squalid twist to the story, the rural and slightly isolated setting with its strange traditions playing into the overall mystery of the idea. Those Across The River is a subtle take on the werewolf concept - the monsters are very much hidden throughout the first half of the book with only vague allusions. The links to civil war, slavery and oppression are intriguing and add to the general miasma of the setting. There is a beauty to the way it is written which belies the ugliness at the heart of some of the key themes here.
This is werewolf horror of the highest calibre and a must read for those who like this genre!
I genuinely admire RJ's vision. The Tide Child is such a refreshing fantasy trilogy and a good part of the reason for this is how different it feels from a lot of modern fantasy. First take the setting - Nautical Fantasy is definitely an interesting niche. There are other Nautical Fantasy series out there, but I have yet to encounter one as well realised as this. The boneships, constructed from the bones of ancient seamonsters in a land devoid of natural wood sources, are described with an eye to nautical detail giving them a brilliant sense of reality. The wildlife, formed of fantastical sea creatures, moves beyond the classic nautical tropes. Most fantasy settings cleave so close to land that they forget about the weird and wonderful creatures that can inhabit the oceans. The setting is certainly a star here!
But moving beyond that the relationships that form the core of tightknit crew are center stage. This is as much a character study for Joron Twiner as it is a world building exercise for a nautical world. The growth in this character over the series is just brilliant constructed. He goes from essentially a failure at the start of the series to this titanic heroic figure at the end. And through that the growth feels earnt. All that character development feels natural and deserved. This is no mean trick and shows the quality of RJs writing.
Modern fantasy is in safe hands with creative works like these. I cannot recommend the Tide Child enough!
Pleasantly weird. This is cosy SciFi, focusing on a monk going around serving tea to help people overcome their troubles and his encounters with a robot. In this world Robots have been emancipated from humans and gone to live in the wild, eschewing all contact with humanity. When our monk wanders off trail he has the first encounter with robots for centuries.
The worlds colliding idea is at the core of this, cultural divides and cultural understanding providing key motifs. Becky Chambers writes some of the most upbeat and uplifting Scifi out there - far more positive in outlook than anything you usually encounter in the genre. Always a pleasant read and break from the darker stories I usually frequent!
A somewhat disjointed tale. Time travel in books is tricky to deal with, but actually the time travel aspect in this story was told well. As a geologist I appreciate some of the details taken into account (eg continental drift, change in climate etc). But this time travel adventure was enclosed around a locked room murder mystery, which felt like a completely different book. The contrast was somewhat jarring and the different pace and stakes in the two adventures were often at odds with each other. The end result was that I tended to find myself reading towards one of the two plotlines whilst the other felt largely like it was getting in the way.
The murder mystery was fascinating though - it was very clever in its resolution. I wish more time could have been devoted to the adventures in the Jurassic however - everything there just felt rushed, which ultimately removed a lot of the drama and tension from the setting
Time travel is an interesting subgenre, and there are aspects that have been done extremely well here, but ultimately it all felt somewhat disjointed.
Some of the grimmest grimdark I have read! The main protagonist is a reborn fragment of a previous super powerful despot, who ruled the world using demons and fear. He wakes up with only a fragment of his memory. Encounters with other fragments of himself lead to him gradually reassembling his obsidian heart and regaining memories.
This story is bleak, violent and definitely at the darker end of the spectrum. The characters are extremely flawed, all of them operating in various shades of grey. The main protagonist obviously has a horrific past. The theme of predestination is played on a lot, but obviously from a darker angle (ie if you were previously a violent despot are you destined to become one again?)
I am a massive grimdark fan and this really ticks all the boxes for me. I am really looking forward to continuing the series and seeing where it ends up!
The dank sense of decay in this empire continues to permeate the story as we continue into the second novel. The Bone Shard Daughter was one of my favourite debuts and this sophomore effort develops the story in satisfying ways. When an empire is built on a certain power trying to retain control whilst removing the oppression that that power was based on is certainly a challenge and the politicking is very satisfying in this entry in the story. All our main characters are flawed, hiding things from each other in dumb ways, but this acts as a humanizing element and works well in the story.
I am anxiously awaiting the final installment - this remains one of my favourite ongoing series!
I think I am going to continue to have problems with the prose in translations from Chinese. I have read a few now and I find all of them to be somewhat stilted and lacking the flow that I am used to. The concepts and ideas here are certainly vast, if tied up in an overly nationalistic propaganda. Tying together ideas of first contact with complex mathematical problems (the titular three body problem as an example) presented through a strange video game medium this is certainly unlike any other hard sci-fi I have read. I just wish I could have been engaged a bit better - I just found it all quite distant and hard to relate to.
I can see where the praise for this has come from and can respect the vastness of its scope. I will continue to read the series to try and get the fullest of pictures, but it is tonally a bit flat for me so far.
Unfortunately this did not work for me. The Rise and Fall has been marketed as a standalone series from Michael Sullivan but I get the impression that this really should have been read after reading his other works - I get the impression the characters and events are eluded to throughout his other series. My main issue was I just did not gel with the main characters here. They felt either a bit too aloof or a bit too helpless and irrational.
I will try re-entering this world through one of the other series as I do here good things about it, I am just hopeful that this was the wrong place to start
Crime with a brutally dark twist. Like the best of this genre this is deeply psychological in nature - essentially following the search for closure regarding her stepfather who went to jail for murdering a series of girls who looked like her, this delves into some really bleak parts of the psyche. This hits hard!
Grady Hendrix is very good at taking mundane everyday things and giving them a comical horror twist. My Best Friend's Exorcism takes a high school friendship where one of them undergoes a massive personality change, turning into a full on mean girl and trashing her relationships, after a skinny dipping incident goes wrong and she gets lost in some woods near a creepy house. The implication is that there is a possession, but there is actually still a fair amount of ambiguity in the way the story is told.
Hendrix has a lot of fun playing with the typical horror and high school friendship tropes. The result is an entertaining romp through a darkly comic high school horror. Very entertaining!
A clever take on racial tensions in a fantasy setting. Racism is often a challenging topic to take on, and this one takes it a step further by making the colour of a persons blood literally the defining characteristic of their social standing. With 3 castes of people living in the empire the tensions between the haves and the have nots are cleverly manipulated by those at the top. The reveals and twists cleverly act to undermine the social order and the basis for the regime, but also the motivations of some of the rebel characters as well, creating a wonderfully murky moral picture despite the obvious bias of the society.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. The very real oppression, the politicking and the hidden agendas all work together to produce a fascinating cocktail. Very much looking forward to see where this series goes
This book was possibly too ambitious. It tries to check off a lot of boxes, with historical urban fantasy setting, magical wizarding type school, world trotting adventures and more. As a result it is one tome of a book, but I think its ambition is ultimately its biggest problem. It is very obvious that J.M. Miro has a wild imagination that drives this work. The problem is that wild imagination ends up jumping around so much that it is very hard to get a grip of the overarching narrative that is trying to be presented. Some plot lines end up disappearing down odd dead ends without proper resolution, and the main plot gets lost in some of the sub plots from time to time. It is certainly an interesting and entertaining read, although some of its meandering tendencies slow it down in unfortunate ways. Ultimately it is book of great ambition, that shows a lot of potential. I would be intrigued to see where a more restrained and focused work from this author would take me.