Christine

Did I really not rate this when I finished it?

Well, I thought it was very effective, but it's much more in the “disturbing quasi-reality” category of horror that isn't so much my thing. You know the part of The Exorcist I found most awful? All the horrible medical tests Regan had to have! Everything else is dismissable by this hardened materialist, but that shit is genuinely terrifying. This hits some of the same nerves - is this kid possessed, or is she severely mentally ill? The ambiguity involved in the ending only reinforces this theme.

Still, this was very artfully done. If you like this kind of story, run out and get this immediately!

I really love the layering of genres in this series. Blending police procedural and post-apocalypse sci-fi breathes new life into both. It also opens lots of room for world-building, character study, and philosophizing, in ways that don't seem overbearing.

One thing that really knocks me out is how Vaughn has constructed the most sympathetic oppressive regime I can imagine. While actively reading about Enid's police work in a fragile, painstakingly-rebuilt society, I found myself nodding along with the cultural and legal restrictions. It makes sense. It helps communities survive and even thrive. In the midst of a story where Enid regrets the loss of everything from refrigeration to photography in her quest for truth and justice, it's easy to allow for strict measures that preserve some modicum of post-industrial civilization.

But of course, the driving theme of the series is the draconian controls placed around reproduction, and the perverse incentives and downstream effects that can produce, along with the intended assurance that resources will support the population.

And naturally, that curves back into the larger setting for these stories. The books ask, “What is modern civilization worth?” in the context of personal autonomy and bodily self-determination. But we're currently answering that question in the context of global climate change - the very issue that led to the dire circumstances humanity grapples with in the Bannerless saga.

This was a fun piece of fluff. The art is adorable, and it has a good helping of inside jokes and plenty of Groot. The plot is intriguing, but doesn't really advance much within this volume. Just as things get interesting, whoops, cliffhanger! I'll probably check out the next volume when I'm in the mood for something silly.

This is a great anthology for anyone interested in both some damn fine entertainment and the historical development of Lovecraftian fiction. It kicks off with the famous “The Call of Cthulhu” by the man himself, and wends its way through Lovecraft collaborators and contemporaries, all the way to modern authors like Stephen King and Brian Lumley, finishing off with a hyper-futuristic tale, “Discovery of the Ghooric Zone.”

Favorites for me were:
“Notebook Found in a Deserted House,” by Robert Bloch
“The Salem Horror,” by Henry Kuttner
“Sticks” by Karl Edward Wagner
“Jerusalem's Lot,” by Stephen King

Also of note:

“The Black Stone” shows how hard-core eldritch Robert E. Howard could be. He's known for Conan the Barbarian, but he was part of the Lovecraft Circle, and this story shows that he was inclined to handle some implications of Lovecraft's cults in a much less oblique and squeamish way. One moment is truly not for the faint of heart.

“My Boat,” by Joanna Russ. This was Lovecraftian, but not really part of the Mythos - it instead links to the dream cycle stories. This made me seek out more of Russ's work. I really enjoyed the way she melded magical realism and frank social commentary, all in a humorous-but-poignant frame tale.

“Discovery of the Ghooric Zone,” by Richard A. Lupoff. What did I just read? I don't think this was terribly good, but it had the charm of being very original. It was a nice balance to start the collection with the classic 1920s search through scholarly papers, and end here, a thousand years in the future and voyaging beyond the orbit of Pluto.

“Liked it” is the correct zone for this one - it was reasonably entertaining but not nearly as good as [b:14 15062217 14 Peter Clines https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1338999953s/15062217.jpg 20716929]. I think your affection for this story will turn on your feelings about the central Macguffin. No spoilers, but I actually found it pretty stupid. Overall, I feel this suffered from over-explaining everything. Looking back, I wish there had been a bit more mystery, beyond the repetition that Harry has only heard these things through the grapevine.The characters were OK, but could have used more detail and flair. The main character's only notable characteristic is that he's never left his poky old small town. The bad guys are the most interesting, but still come off more as serviceable imitations of villains from Stephen King and Joss Whedon than original inventions. That's not a terrible thing - King and Whedon are masters at intriguing and scary villains! This was a fun diversion - nothing earthshaking but it was a fun ride once I just went with it. The travel premise and the road trip aspect are compelling, and leave opportunities for more stories - which might actually be more fun now that the groundwork is laid and the central goal of this novel is squared away.

Nota bene: Before reading this novel, I read and loved the short story [b:The Events at Poroth Farm 7055789 The Events at Poroth Farm T.E.D. Klein https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1458812325s/7055789.jpg 7307112]. This book is an expansion of that story.Having read T.E.D. Klein's novel, I can only say he's a great short story writer. OK, kidding aside, my reaction to this was heavily colored by my previous reading of the short story. I think any reader will probably find the version they read second will suffer by comparison. Once you're familiar with certain plot points, it's hard to see them retold in a different way. I do think the short format allows more ambiguity and dangling threads, which are harder to tolerate in a novel, but are essential for building true dread.I'd say regardless of the comparison, this book does suffer from some independent flaws: - It's overly long at 500+ pages, and would have benefited from some editing. Too many side characters, too much meandering with the Brethren, Sarr's mother's plot takes significant time, but pretty much fizzles out, and a lot of the descriptions had me thinking, “OK, we GOT it - can something actually happen now?”- We get a pretty straightforward explanation of the evil forces, and ride along with the bad guy as he carries out his plans. This tends to defuse any horror for me.- The main characters are not engaging individually or as a couple. Jeremy is obnoxious, Carol is a twit, and they have zero chemistry.However, this has a lot going for it too:- The prologue is a humdinger - super creepy and draws you right in.- The initial description of the community and the farm are very effective. It's clear that nature holds sway here, so when something corrupts nature, things are going to be Very Bad.- This explicit homage does capture the distasteful horror at mysterious pagan rituals that Arthur Machen evoked in The White People, successfully transferring it to modern day America.- Bwada is just as creepy and unsettling as in the short story. You can't help but wonder if Stephen King read this before writing Pet Sematary.Overall, I'm giving this three stars, erring on the charitable side because I know I'm prejudiced. If someone asked me whether to read this or the short version, I'd probably say stick with the short story, but this was pretty good too.

I'm glad I read this - it's a notable entry in the development of Lovecraftian fiction. I had really loved [b:The Events at Poroth Farm 7055789 The Events at Poroth Farm T.E.D. Klein https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1458812325s/7055789.jpg 7307112], and I'd read “Black Man with a Horn” some time ago and remembered liking it. This is a larger helping of T.E.D. Klein, so it seemed promising.Unfortunately, the story I'd already read was the strongest entry in this collection. Aside from the issues noted below, “Black Man with a Horn” was a pleasure to revisit, with one of the best opening lines in all of weird fiction: There is something inherently comforting about the first-person past tense. It conjures up visions of some deskbound narrator puffing contemplatively up a pipe amid the safety of his study, lost in the tranquil recollection, seasoned but essentially unscathed by whatever experience he's about to relate.How can you not read on after that? And I find the story mostly delivers, with a more modern take on the standard piecemeal research leading to unutterable realizations of horror. Enough is implied, without too much being revealed. There's a lot of atmosphere, and intriguing use of modern settings to good creepy effect, which can be hard to pull off. There's also an overarching theme of aging out of relevance that ties everything together (and to HPL himself) effectively.The other stories left me a little meh. They have their moments, but mostly failed to connect. The narrator of “Children of the Kingdom” is obnoxious, and Klein's attempt to have him record his wife's first-person narrative in his diary comes of as ludicrously clunky. (Not to mention it's in service of some plotting that fails in every possible way in characterizing women.)“Petey” left me utterly cold - a bunch random names spout random dialog, taking way too long to set up a pretty underwritten reveal.“Nadelman's God” had an interesting idea, I guess, but seemed pointless when the main character is totally unsympathetic, and everything revolves around his personal perceptions. The final element that detracted from my enjoyment was a lot of unalloyed racism. Throughout much of this book, you have to get past a concerning amount of “people of color are weird and Other and scary!” It's arguable that Klein is depicting the beliefs of his characters and not endorsing them. Indeed, most of the protagonists are deliberately unlikable, and even the narrator of BMwAH is depicted as a relic. For some readers, there's probably enough distance from the characters that their offensive beliefs and behaviors just add to the characterization. But for me it was hard to put up with.

A satisfying end to the story begun in [b:Spill Zone 23532871 Spill Zone (Spill Zone, #1) Scott Westerfeld https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1492473454s/23532871.jpg 43134535]. Of course, satisfying explanations are the natural enemy of creepy horror, so the tone of this one isn't as enchanting as the first volume. At times I felt the mystery was overexplained - particularly the driving motivations of Vespertine and the King Wolf Thing, which are IMHO laughably pedestrian. I wish they'd managed to keep the otherworldly vibe a little more.But it's still there - just not as strong as in the first half of the story. The art continues to bring the shivers, as well as some aching beauty. And I do appreciate that we get more insight into what the hell is going on. And a true conclusion of the main story, even if everything isn't wrapped up, and some enticing threads are dangled in front of us. It strikes the right balance.

This started out as a solid four-star read for me, which dwindled as I reached part III and read through to the end. The seams really started to show, small errors recurred enough to become real annoyances, and I just got bored and impatient. If only this had been edited with more attention to detail and more dedication to trim the fat! What could have been a fun and spooky romp at 300 pages became too much of a shoddy slog at 500.

But before dwelling on deficiencies, I'll talk about what's good:
- The idea is charming - what if Bram Stoker was inspired by events in his life to write Dracula? This is a lot of fun to explore.
- The characters of Ellen and Matilda are strongly drawn and each sympathetic and compelling in her own way.
- There's some good spooky stuff, well-coupled with mystery. Going in we all know Ellen must be some kind of supernatural whatsit that could inspire a vampire story. But her origin and motivations really captured my curiosity, and watching the kids investigate and find creepy clues gave a nice atmosphere of dread.
- I liked the hints at Stoker's real development as a writer - his dissatisfaction with civil service and insistence on writing theater reviews, his roommate creepily collecting flies, his reflection on bedtime stories about mythical Irish monsters. It makes me want to read a non-fiction account!

And now, what detracted from all that:
- It's pretty clear that this was originally written as a more conventional narrative, then refitted into the “found documents” format. And probably THEN reorganized to have “Now” sections punctuating the journal entries & letters.
- The authors frequently struggle with verb tense, attempting (and failing) to make the “Now” sections present-tense. This results in cringe-inducing passages like “the roaches parted . . . as men scream all around them.”
- As reviewer Roman Clodia mentions, the found documents format adds nothing - rather than creating unique points of view, underlining different levels of knowledge, or creating any mystery or tension, it simply passes the narration ball. At least once, a character refers to himself in third person in his journal, because the authors forgot who was supposed to be writing. It's not only an embarrassing error, but it highlights how little the characters' voices are individualized.
- The world building is at first intriguing, but ultimately confused and lackluster. What are the rules of vampires in this world? I'm not sure. You become a vampire by renouncing Yahweh and being recruited to Satanic Hogwarts? Or just the renouncing is enough? Or being drained by a vampire? Or do you need to drink their blood too? Wait, there are characters who do that but aren't actual vampires. It's kind of a mess. Similarly, Dracul is as powerful as a god at times, and pretty much an average human at others. Unless he drinks, like, a LOT of blood first? Maybe? And vampires have to sleep during the day. But Ellen never did when she lived with the Stokers, and Dracul doesn't need to except when he does.
- The authors' ending note attempts to convince us that Stoker really believed all this and Mina Harker was a real person and all kinds of nonsense that's just insulting to our intelligence and actually just undermined all that went before.

So close to being a fun, good read! I'm hoping it's optioned as a film and the necessary trimming improves these issues. It seems like a prime target for a good screenwriter and director.

Still delightful, as the rest of the series is. But I miss ART!

This was fascinating - I love those rare times when a non-fiction book is a page-turner for me! I really couldn't put this down. The insight into the lowest classes of London society and their waste recycling/removal work, the descriptions of living conditions for average people, and how neighborhoods changed and were redesigned around class issues. All really interesting background that set the stage for a good understanding of the cholera outbreak and Dr. Snow's work.

And of course, the horrifying-yet-fascinating descriptions of filth, human waste, and the story of the well being contaminated were captivating. Awful, but incredibly compelling. And seeing John Snow, brilliant at medical observation and analysis, zeroing in on the problem, it really was like a good detective story.

I felt like the book should have just stopped at the end of the cholera story, or gone in a different direction altogether and been structured around how humans live in cities, with the cholera story as one example. Instead, we have a book about the cholera outbreak, then a weird chapter tacked on the end that navel-gazes about city living, terrorism vs. disease as our big fear, and such. It just didn't fit. But it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the book overall. Definitely highly recommended!

This just sucked me in and wouldn't let go! Rachel is a complete mess, and you can't help but shake your head at her decisions throughout, but even as I recognized all her self-deception and poor choices, I was rooting for her somehow. She has enough residual intelligence and grit that she remains sympathetic and compelling.

Hawkins has woven a completely alluring mystery with the unreliable narration and the slow revelations of three different but connected women, all while managing to juggle a spliced timeline for maximum dramatic effect.

I'll say no more - just go check it out!

This was incredible! Miller somehow managed to meld an eons-long epic with an intensely personal character study, told in an improbable synthesis of Homeric and modern language. She generally uses quite simple and relatable phrasing, but also employs her own version of classical epithets (think “wine-dark sea” and “bright-eyed Athena”), and generally crafts her prose so you just feel that this is a goddess speaking, not a mere mortal.

The story is somewhat long, and sometimes languid, but it never drags. We get a sense of Circe's timeless isolation, but with a compulsion to turn the page and find out what happens next.

Fans of Greek mythology will be delighted to see so many tales woven (heh) so skillfully into this first-person account. Miller really made old stories come alive for me, as well as filling me in on details I had never encountered before. I also felt her representation of gods and their otherness was outstanding - the gods are freaking scary and capricious, and Circe's journey away from their point of view is compelling. (I guess some purists might protest at license taken with some of the ancient characters, but I highly recommend simply accepting this as one of many iterations on these myths.)

A special shout-out to the audio book, read with beautiful skill by Perdita Weeks. She absolutely makes Circe come to life, and is just mellifluous and pleasant to listen to as well!

Not for me. Stories with a vague sense of something weird or off, but not really horror or “weird fiction” as such. Add an incredibly slow pace, and I just can't make myself read any more of this. Oh well.

Not a bad read - particularly in the early chapters, there are some really spooky elements. I feel like that mood is somewhat undermined later when events feel rather contrived to allow a neat ending that answers all questions and wraps up the story in a nice little bow.

Also, I felt like the male characters were given the great bulk of the point of view, with the female characters more often functioning as objects to drive the action of the male protagonists. That started to grate as I got into the second half of the book.

Having read two of Cottam's novels, I think I'll seek out any shorter fiction he's done. I think he could maintain a creepy mood better over a short story, and perhaps that form would also be more amenable to an ambiguous conclusion?

This book introduced a few key mindset shifts that are actually changing my life.

If you heard about Marie Kondo and felt an avalanche of overwhelm at the prospect of ripping everything out of a drawer and then having to contemplate each individual item's joy-inflammation level, this might be for you.

KEY CONCEPTS:

1.) You can declutter WITHOUT pulling everything out of a drawer/closet/etc. Previously I thought decluttering was a choice between a death-march approach (Pull everything out, get it all organized, and put it all away in one go), or being interrupted/worn out mid-stream and winding up with a bigger mess than ever.

This book has practical (physics-based!) instructions on decluttering without ever pulling out the whole contents of a container. That way you always made forward progress, rather than making things worse. And you can make progress in five minutes if that's all you have.

2.) Things should be stored where you think to look for them. Shockingly simple, right? But how many times have you tried to organize by putting things in a “logical” or “proper” place instead? (Bonus: if it would never occur to you to look for an item in your house, don't keep it in your house at all!)

3.) Don't decide whether to keep things on the basis of “it's perfectly useful” or “I might use it someday.” Decide based on the capacity of your container and the relative value of the thing.

E.g., I want my whisks to live in the drawer by the stove (because that's where I look when I need a whisk). If I go to put a whisk in there and there's no room, I don't contemplate the inherent worth of each item in the drawer - I just need to decide if the whisk is worth more than, say, the two extra measuring cup sets I have in there that would make room for the whisk, and get rid of the lower-value item by donating it.

3.b.) Have a donate box/bag that is itself donatable, so you don't have to empty it and go through things an additional time when it's time to hit Goodwill.

That's really it! The rest of the book is some fine details, a bit of helpful empathy for people who don't come to this “clutter free” thing naturally, and some useful repetitions of the specific steps to take in each area of your home or in specific circumstances.

I loved this book, and it's already been so helpful! The audio version is delightful - you can even use it to step you through actually working on a room/closet/drawer/box.

This can be looked at as either an impressively good creepypasta or an OK novel. I think the author has a lot of talent, but this book does show the importance of a good editor.

I highly recommend reading the prologue regardless - it's a little capsule creepy tale of its own, that I found incredibly effective.

The rest of the story has some truly scary, well-written horror as well, but it gets bogged down in repetition and some nonsensical character motivations. Also, I found it doubly wearing to read the cycle of Faye's nighttime woes and Felix's reactions, because it made the female character seem less and less capable and three-dimensional as it repeated.

I do appreciate the author's note about his decision to include indigenous American people as characters. Some might criticize it as the same old “mystical native understands magic,” but I think he succeeded in his effort to depict these characters as normal, multidimensional, modern humans who don't have mystical answers, and along with that he gives a good reminder that native peoples are many and varied - not a monolith by any stretch of the imagination.

All in all, this is well worth checking out. I just won't blame you if you wind up skimming some of the mid-to-late chapters.

A must-read for fans of The King in Yellow. “Full Bleed” and “Distressing Notifications” are by far my favorites, but most of the other stories bring something to the party as well. I'll be re-reading some of these, as well as Ken Hite's introductory analysis!

This tied up the storyline quite well, but suffered a bit in the momentum department as it tried to make sure all the bits and pieces were in order.

Overall, this series is amazing, and I'm on board for future Murderbotting. I'd say my ranking of the existing volumes from best to still-great-but-not-best is 2, 1, 3, 4.

Aw, it's over?! As I read books for the PopSugar challenge, I usually feel happy and satisfied at the end of a book because I get to tick off another prompt, but this one just made me feel sad that there wasn't more book! (Luckily Vols 2-6 are also available on ComiXology Unlimited - squee!)

So what makes this so great? Well, it takes all the best parts of Girl Scouts, weaves in equal parts weird fiction and whimsy, and effortlessly sprinkles representation throughout, with scouts of different ethnicities, body types, and gender expressions, girls and women out in the world kicking butt, and a possible same-sex couple (I ship it). Most fun though, is a genius take on profanity substitutes - instead of actual swear words, the girls swear by the names of notable women, mostly POC.

Here's the list from Vol. 1:

Oh my Bessie Coleman
Holy Mae Jemison!
Where the Phillis Wheatley were you?
What the Anahareo is that?
Good Juliette Gordon Low

This was like a dreamy, surreal poem.
I hate dreamy poems.
DNF.

I'm glad I finally read this! It took a little while to gain momentum, but Highsmith did an astounding job of keeping me suspended between sympathy and judgment. I really couldn't decide if I was rooting for Tom to succeed or enjoying every time he squirmed in fear, eager to see him caught.

The character she paints is vivid and textured. Not a mere mechanical sociopath, but someone shoved out of “good society” throughout his life, looking for a way in. And maybe excluded because others sense his repressed homosexuality (or asexuality?). This thread lent an additional dimension to the story. Does Tom want Dickie Greenleaf, or does he want to BE Dickie Greenleaf? Would the latter be in play if the former were socially acceptable? Highsmith leaves it ambiguous, while still prompting meditation on social mores surrounding sexuality in this era.

This was quite a ride! While it took a little while to hit its stride (I feel it really swept me away once the diary entries began), Elsie was an immediately sympathetic character. It took me a little puzzling and reading on to figure out what was going on, but that's a good point, I think - it's far more intriguing than being spoon-fed the plot.

There are all the elements of a great Gothic tale - a capable woman unfortunately constrained by social mores and tragic circumstances, a creepy old pile of a house, servants who may know more than they tell, and plenty of unsettling atmosphere. Ooh, that atmosphere! Purcell does a great job of evoking the house, the companions, and lots of creeping dread.

This has a lot of talented writing - not only the palpable atmosphere of horror, but clever echoes from the diary to Elsie's account, and within Elsie's own life. There are oblique-but-telling hints throughout Elsie's narrative so we discern more of her history than she herself knows for much of the story. And while the supernatural story is quite delicious, one can also reflect back and frame the whole narrative as tragic but not magical. Ye olde unreliable narrator is used to good effect.

Speaking of “ye olde,” one small complaint I have is that Anne's voice is unrealistically modern. I really liked her and she had a distinct character, but it would have been more believable had her language been less anachronistic. For instance, here's a passage from Anne's diary, contrasted with an excerpt of the real-life diary of Samuel Pepys:

So that's what we did all day while the servants worked to make the house perfect: ran about like children, placing the companions in the strangest places, trying to make each other jump.

The new Common Council of the City do speak very high; and had sent to Monk their sword-bearer, to acquaint him with their desires for a free and full Parliament, which is at present the desires, and the hopes, and expectation of all.

This is more about feel, atmosphere, and characters than pure horror. However, when the horror comes, it's definitely effective and refreshingly weird. Overall I give it 3.5 stars, rounded up.

My favorite part was the perfect evocation of lazy summer days at a beach house, coupled with the sinister background fact that they're terribly isolated and literally cut off from civilization and help much of the time. This is definitely THE horror novel to save for a beach vacation (if you think you'll be able to sleep after sitting in the sand reading it)!

The other really cool element was the Weirdness. The house being swallowed by a dune, the unexplained rituals Odessa does, and India's photos of the house are all deliciously creepy and unsettling. I have no objection to crumbling Gothic manors in England as the setting for horror stories, but one set on the Alabama shore among the summer houses of a filthy rich family is pleasantly novel. And the sun, sand, and heat do not detract one iota from the horror - they add to it.

One thing that did detract slightly for me - this is a slow build. There is a macabre event in the very beginning, but then most of the book is about the characters, the family, and how they interact. It's well past the halfway point that we get to the serious scares. But the writing about the family is good, and it was still interesting even if it wasn't directly tied to horror.

I also disliked the depiction of Odessa as the quintessential Magical Black Woman. She's an essential character in a way, but she's mostly a plot device rather than a person. Even how she's referred to underlines that she's a bit less of a person than the other (white) characters. She's consistently referred to as “the black woman,” rather than “Odessa” or simply “the woman” or “she” - there are 39 instances of the phrase in the book and it was both grating and disrespectful. Luckily Odessa has one funny, lampshading line near the end where she asks why all the family keep looking to her for answers when she doesn't know more than they do, beyond some intuitions.

On the flip side of social progress and cultural awareness - I really enjoyed the portrayal of Luker. He's clearly gay, but the text only gestures at the fact. The book depicts the necessary secrecy and invisibility of homosexuality that prevailed in the 1980s by recreating it in the prose. So we hear that Luker is happily divorced, that he vacations on Fire Island, and that he spends some time in town visiting a man who has “shared interests.” One sees McDowell (who had been in a committed relationship with a man for over a decade at the date of publication) putting some of himself in the story, with a sympathetic portrait of a gay man as a fully fleshed out, three-dimensional character. It's nice.

Overall, this is an excellent entry in Southern Gothic literature. Even with some flaws, I recommend it to anyone who wants some Southern family weirdness capped off with effective supernatural weirdness.

I looked at this GR listing and thought, “4.44 average rating, huh? I wonder if it's really that good.” IT IS.This was an obsessive read for me, in the best way. Every spare moment was devoted to reading/listening. This is right up there with [b:Circe 35959740 Circe Madeline Miller https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1508879575s/35959740.jpg 53043399] and [b:Norse Mythology 37903770 Norse Mythology Neil Gaiman https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1516128292s/37903770.jpg 51396954] for compulsively readable retellings of mythology. In fact, I think it's substantially more enchanting than Norse Mythology, because it was so surprising and inventive.Many of these fairy tales have echoes of some of Disney's Greatest Hits, but most often the touch is feather-light, and the borrowing from classic tales is used to subvert expectations. Every story has both emotionally compelling characters and a certain otherworldly, folktale vibe. And it's all packaged within the fictional Grishaverse, so Bardugo has plenty of room to play and go in novel directions.Super fun read I'll return to again soon!