William Hall
Like the first volume of Lovecraftian short horror stories this second entry in the “Black Wings of Cthulhu” was a mixture, some stories closer to Lovecraft's style and others not so much. All stories covered a take on a dive into madness for the main protagonists. There was one story IMHO, ‘The Wilcox Remainder' by Brian Evenson, that I would have added something extra to the ending to make it even more creepy. The story that stayed with me the most was ‘The Skinless Face' by Donald Tyson. Though set in modern times, this short story contained true elements from Lovecraft's nightmare world of “The Great Old Ones.” ‘The Other Man' by Nicholas Royle is one of those really strange stories that leaves it up to the reader's imagination to decide just how to interpret it. It would make for a great conversation piece among other readers. So now it's on to volume three of the “Black Wings of Cthulhu” series of anthologies.
This is a continuance of the story that began with Hyperion. That storyline was made up of separate experience narratives told by the small group of pilgrims allowed by the Hegemony Web of planets to venture to the mysterious time tombs on the planet Hyperion, prior to Hyperion being annexed into the Web. These narratives interlock to provide the reader the background for the main storyline dealing with the mysterious Hyperion and the time tombs. The valley of the time tombs is unique in all the known explored galaxy where time flows backward within an entropy field and where a mysterious and monstrous metal entity, known as the Shrike, exists. The four armed Shrike, with its body made up of razor sharp blades, is known to slice and dice those who enter its realm and skewer the living bodies of its victims on a boundless, interdimensional thorn tree, that leaves the victims in an unending eternity of living pain. While the pilgrims take their long and treacherous journey across Hyperion to the time tombs a space war between the Hegemony Web and the mysterious Ouster Swarms is about to take place and is centered on the control of Hyperion. Hyperion ends suddenly just as the pilgrims reach the time tombs with many questions left unanswered, and so The Fall of Hyperion continues where Hyperion left off.
It is hard to give a brief overview of The Fall of Hyperion, it is so densely packed with several ongoing narratives, characters and locations. These narratives cover politics, religion, spirituality, personal relationships, interstellar warfare and weaponry, planetary genocide, interplanetary ecology, anthropology, philosophy, time displacement, Artificial Intelligence, cyborgs, interplanetary travel portals and spaceships, interplanetary communication technology...and of course the homage to the life of Keats and his poetry. Still interwoven within the grand and complicated tapestry of the story is the ongoing narrative of the trials and tribulations of the original group of pilgrims and their individual quests to the time tombs of Hyperion, guarded by the dangerous Shrike. If the reader is able to stick it through to the end of this often confusing but action packed tale, almost all will be revealed in the end, sort of. This is a book that probably requires more that one reading to try and grasp all its intricacies, but with so many books of interest awaiting....?
This is another book covering the quantum alternate/parallel universes topic that has been a hot theme of late (having also recently completed reading Dark Matter by Blake Crouch). While the action is non-stop I found the characters and set pieces somewhat irritating at times. This story swirled around a near perfect father, with the silly name of Jeffy, and his near perfect pre-teen daughter Amity. After the quirky “homeless” Ed leaves a mysterious package with Jeffy, telling him to never open it but keep it hidden and safe for a year, things soon spiral out of control. Jeffy and Amity will soon find themselves pursued by Deep State thugs, looking for Ed and the device contained in the mysterious package. Forced to use the device, Jeffy and Amity soon learn that other versions of their reality exist, most of them far more bizarre and dangerous than their home reality. While confronting one dangerous situation after another, Amity still looks to replace the mother that abandoned her and her father, Michelle, with another, better version. They must find help along the way in order to stay alive and reach a safe haven in a new reality.
For those who love horror this volume contains many horrific short stories inspired by Lovecraft. Some are closer to Lovecraft's style of writing but most may just pay a slight homage to Lovecraft and others not at all. Most, if not all, were entertaining in a, oh so gruesome, sort of way. I like short story anthologies, since I can be reading another full novel and then switch up and read a couple of short stories in a different genre at bedtime. I plan on moving on to the next volume of Black Wings of Cthulhu to see what dark corridors the next batch of writers may take me down.
This book was an exciting page turner from beginning to end. The writing style and story subject matter reminded me of some of the best writings of Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz. There is much speculative scientific talk nowadays about quantum physics and the possible existence of alternate realities or parallel universes. Well, Science Fiction has been talking about these mirror realities/universes long before quantum theory came on to the scene, but this story takes a refreshing and scary new take on the subject. What starts out as a kidnapping of the main character, leads to the character's tortured and horrific search through countless versions of his reality in an attempt to find his way back to his wife and son in the one true reality (Do you remember the TV series Sliders?). And, the thrills continue non-stop with a wild chase as the story rushes towards its conclusion.
This fourth and last book in “Cities in Flight” was my least favorite. The huge amount of scientific jargon was way over my head and the character interaction felt maudlin and jerky to me. The “end of the universe” theme was just over-the-top and felt abruptly added and not believable in the context of the other three books, even though it is Sci-Fi.
A rift develops between Duke Leto and Lady Jessica when she is ordered by the Bene Gesserit to secretly limit Noble House genetic selections for a possible arranged marriage for the young Paul and Leto discovers Jessica's manipulations. The rift widens when the Bene Gesserit forces Jessica back to their home world against the express demands of Leto that Jessica should not go. Meanwhile a vendetta against Emperor Shaddam IV by a radical family member from the leadership of CHOAM wipes out many heads of the Noble Houses when a terror plot against the Emperor is carried out. Leto considers requesting the Emperor grant him other worlds to be placed under Atreides control in lieu of the power vacuum created by the terrorist event while at the same time the terrorist leader contacts Leto and asks him to join with him in overthrowing the Emperor.
Like a B horror movie that blows its special effects budget on the opening action scene and then proceeds to go downhill with a mediocre plot and bad acting, that is my opinion of this story. I thought I was in for a possible Lovecraftian tale when a high security industrial base in the Nevada desert blows open an entrance to something that's been buried beneath tons of earth for millennia and releases what has been trapped there. But then the story devolves into a cross country trip between an estranged brother and sister as they travel between San Francisco and their father's home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. These are two very unlikable characters whose whole existence seems to revolve around getting into fights with each other and various dangerous strangers. After the two cause mayhem and death in a biker bar and flee the scene, the sister manages to get possessed by whatever evil came out of the Nevada desert pit. The rest of the story mainly becomes a chase as bikers pursue the pair looking for revenge and a lady exorcist of sorts (who releases the possessed victims by murdering them and then taking on the released evil) also chases after them in order to relieve the sister of her evil burden. Many bloody encounters occur along the way as all unlikable parties are beaten, sliced, diced, punctured and shot, but yet manage to continue on, with the sister's venom-like intruder occasionally making an appearance.
I couldn't finish this series that includes a seven-book boxed set digital version. I was hoping for a highly action-oriented book series about an alien invasion of Earth. And, while there is action in the series, it is so strung out that I lost interest. The overall story reads more like a soap opera centering around mainly one wealthy family's experiences connected to the alien invasion. The reader is made to wade through the constant mental chattering and self-questioning going on in each of the characters heads. The insufferable teenage daughter is pregnant, but slides in and out of bed with the baby's unlikable teenage father, who came along for the ride, and one of a group of men who later have inserted themselves into the family's lives. The rich father is divorced from his first comedian entertainer wife and remarried to a much younger trophy wife. However, he still sleeps with his very unfunny first wife when he visits her and thinks she was his original sole-mate. The father's worthless younger teenage son is constantly lusting after his young stepmother. Of course the young trophy wife also gets it on with one of the above mentioned group of men after her husband is taken by the aliens. Oh, and as a side thought the invading aliens are doing violent and mysterious things. If all the nonsense could have been taken out of the series, the entire story, whatever it eventually turns out to be, could probably be fit into two volumes at most.
This is another edge-of-your-seat mind-bender of a story by Blake Crouch, as good as his Dark Matter novel. His book poses the questions “What if something like the “Mandela Effect” were real, called False Memory Syndrome, and what if through technology the manipulation of peoples' memories could actually change reality?” He takes those questions and with some scientific speculation leads the reader through a nightmarish type of “Groundhog Day” scenario that ultimately may lead to the end of civilization. Romance and heartache involving the two main characters is woven into the story, but this is far from a romantic comedy. I couldn't stop turning the pages and highly recommend this book for those who enjoy speculative Sci-Fi thrillers.
The author has quite an imagination but I kept thinking that his writing style reminded me of reading a comic book without the art. The romantic interaction between several of the characters was very soap opera-ish. The fourth book could have been left out of the series since trying to tie it into the first three books was a muddled mess.
The old New England village of Cornwall Coombe appears to outsiders like Ned, his wife Beth and their daughter Kate as a throwback to simpler times. The first time the family sees the village across a quaint covered bridge the sun is shining upon it out of dark rain clouds with a rainbow as a backdrop. Beth says it reminds her of a Currier & Ives print. When the family is allowed to purchase and upgrade a 300 year old house in the village, Ned, the narrator of the tale, and his family think they have truly found the country life many city folk can only dream about. But with the work on the house complete in the Fall of the year and corn fields soon to be harvested, Ned, who is now a full time artistic painter, slowly finds his dream turning into a nightmare as he investigates the dark underpinnings of the village. While the people of the village appear to accept and befriend Ned and his family, as the Fall progresses through it's marked main events of Agnes Fair, The Days of the Season, Tithing Day, The Corn Play and heading toward final Harvest Home, Ned is subtly being corrupted and his family drawn away into the true matriarchal pagan ritualism of the village. Real horror awaits Ned during Cornwall Coombe's Harvest Home.
While this could be considered Horror literature, to me Bradbury uses the horror device, through the demonic personages of a carnival from hell, to unfold a coming-0f-age story. Bradbury points out that the decisions a young person makes in that time of transition to adulthood can help or haunt them the rest of their lives. And, the decisions made are also very dependent upon the adult role models around them who are also carrying baggage from their own pasts. It is also possible that responsible adults may help slay their own demons by successfully guiding the young through their problems during their time of transition to adulthood.