Tag: Reviews

Review: ‘Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling’ edited by Jaym Gates and Monica Valentinelli

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Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling edited by Jaym Gates and Monica Valentinelli
Apex Book Company (December 2016)
$13.48 paperback; $4.99 ebook
Reviewed by Anton Cancre

Anthologies based on meta-fictive themes can be a bit of a sticky wicket. Sure, we get bored with the same old over and over again, and it is super cool when someone messes with our heads. At the same time, those “look how deft I am at subverting literature” stories are self important in the most boring way possible. Continue Reading

Review: ‘Behind Her Eyes’ by Sarah Pinborough

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Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
Flatiron Books (January 2017)
320 pages; $18.18 hardback; $12.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

There’s a quote from Benjamin Franklin at the beginning of Behind Her Eyes. It provides a clue, of sorts, as to the devilish nature of the story which follows.

Three can keep a secret if two are dead.

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Review: ‘Zoopraxis’ by Richard Christian Matheson

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Zoopraxis by Richard Christian Matheson
Gauntlet Press 
$275.00 lettered edition; $150.00 Limited Edition; $6o.oo Numered Edition
Reviewed by John Skipp

In the thirty years since Richard Christian Matheson burst upon the scene with his brilliant collection Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks, many things have changed. Up until his arrival, the short-short story was the purview of a miniscule handful of writers—Fredric Brown, Henry Slesar, and O. Henry leap most readily to mind—who’d mastered the art of telling a tight, twisted tale with a punch at the end in one thousand words or less, on a fairly regular basis.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Relics’ by Tim Lebbon

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Relics by Tim Lebbon
Titan Books (March 21, 2017)
336 pages; $9.76 paperback; $9.99 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms

The first literary hit of the new year has been born. Tim Lebbon, no stranger to penning stories which shrug off the shackles of genre, has hit 2017 hard with the first of a breathtaking trilogy. Equal parts thriller, horror, and fantasy, Relics takes readers back to his best world creating in the apocalyptic Silence, Coldbrook, and The Nature of Balance, along with the more fantastic in Fallen and Echo City. Continue Reading

Review: ‘Infernal Parade’ by Clive Barker

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Infernal Parade by Clive Barker
Subterranean Press (February  2017)
81 pages; $275.00 lettered edition; $60.00 limited edition; $3o.oo Trade Edition
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

Infernal Parade is the second volume compiling stories created by Clive Barker to accompany figures created in conjunction with Todd McFarlane. The first, Tortured Souls, benefited because it began life as a novella that was broken up to go along with the packaging of the various figures. Infernal Parade is a series of character sketches meant to lend a little backstory to the figures, making it feel incomplete when pulled together in one volume.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Lilith’s Demons’ by Julie R. Enszer

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Lilith’s Demons by Julie R. Enszer
A Midsummer Night’s Press (December 2015)
64 pages, $14.95 paperback
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

For those who don’t know, The Alphabet of Ben Sirach is a medieval rabbinic text famous, amongst other things, for its reference to Lilith. Lilith is the woman that, according to Hebraic lore, God made before he made Eve; she was Adam’s first wife, but refused to submit to him sexually, so she flew off and became mother of demons. Julie R. Enszer builds on this mythos in her book, Lilith’s Demons.Continue Reading

Review: ‘The Final Reconciliation’ by Todd Keisling

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The Final Reconciliation by Todd Keisling
Crystal Lake Publishing (February 2017)
106 pages; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

First, some background on The King in Yellow. Prior to season one of HBO’s True Detective series, many folks had never heard of Robert W. Chambers or his book of short stories by the same name. The book is named after a fictional play with the same title. The first half of the book features highly esteemed weird stories, and has been described by critics as a classic in the field of the supernatural. There are ten stories, the first four of which mention The King in Yellow, a forbidden play which induces despair or madness in those who read it.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Universal Harvester’ by John Darnielle

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Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (February 7, 2017)
224 pages; $15.00 hardcover; $11.99 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

When you work at Cemetery Dance, you tend to make certain assumptions about the books publishers send to you for review. Sometimes, those assumptions are way off. John Darnielle’s Universal Harvester proved to be one of those instances….in the best possible way.

When I got the book (cleverly packaged in a plastic clamshell case like an old VHS tape, for reasons that would become clear when I read it) and scanned its press sheet, a few things jumped out at me: mentions of the “haunted, open landscape of middle-America;” “ominous and disturbing footage” spliced into a video store’s rental tapes; an investigation into “the origins of these unsettling scenes.” I took these tidbits and began to splice together my own version of the book.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Greetings from Moon Hill’ by Anthony J. Rapino

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Greetings from Moon Hill by Anthony J. Rapino
Precipice Books (October 2016)
300 pages; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

I wanted to love Greetings from Moon Hill and I can’t quite put a finger on what went wrong. Conceptually, it’s a great idea. A small town “tucked into the folds of the Pennsylvania countryside.” A place of “Unseen things that are all around us. Impossible flowers, witches, interdimensional beings, murder cover-ups” and more. These are all things I love, so what went wrong?Continue Reading

Review: ‘The Devil Crept In’ by Ania Ahlborn

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The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn
Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (February 7, 2017)
374 pages; $11.04 paperback; $11.99 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

The Devil Crept In is the second people-go-into-the-woods-and-bad-things-happen book I’ve read this year (after Nick Cutter’s excellent Little Heaven), and the third in recent memory (including Paul Tremblay’s excellent Disappearance at Devil’s Rock). Ania Ahlborn’s latest novel stands shoulder-to-shoulder with those two—not just because of the premise, but because of the excellence of its execution. Continue Reading

Review: ‘Too Soon Dead’ by Michael Kurland

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Too Soon Dead by Michael Kurland
Titan Books (November 2015)
320 pages; $12.95 paperback; ebook $7.99
Reviewed by Peter Tomas

Michael Kurland’s little misadventure, Too Soon Dead, is a wild goose chase of moderately restricted proportions. Columnist Alexander Brass and his small team, when approached by a rather large man with some very interesting pictures (whom also happens into quite a bind later) run from here to there, asking questions, being profound, finding corpses and making witty remarks. They discover all kinds of interesting things about individuals involved in government during their exploratory run, and in the end, uncover a conspiracy that could have very well led to a disaster.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Of Saints and Shadows’ by Christopher Golden

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Of Saints and Shadows by Christopher Golden
JournalStone (September 2016)
340 pages; $29.95 hardcover; $19.95 paperback; $7.95 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms

JournalStone has been a treasure trove of new authors and new stories which rarely disappoints. For years now, each release has drawn strong attention from readers of horror, dark fantasy, and other speculative fiction. This time, they made a smart decision to reprint Christopher Golden’s “Shadow Saga” series.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Pinball Drugs Aliens Satan’ by Fiada Fey

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Pinball Drugs Aliens Satan by Fiada Fey
Furtive Labors (October 2015)
36 pages, $4.00 paperback
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Fiada Fey (1980-2008) was a St. Paul-based novelist, short story writer and cut-up artist. His prose, while lacking in craft, shows a lot of passion for the bizarre horror genre. Pinball Drugs Aliens Satan is his posthumous collection.

Readers will immediately feel Fey’s desire as a writer. His collection of stories speaks to an author passionate about the tales he has to tell, and readers will be able to empathize with that urge. Fey clearly had a vision for his art, and used cut-up techniques to attempt to bring that vision to life. Pinball Drugs Aliens Satan speaks of notebooks filled with stories and story ideas, and as a posthumous collection, leaves the reader wishing that Fey had had the time and skill to carry them out. Continue Reading

Review: ‘The Rib From Which I Remake the World’ by Ed Kurtz

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The Rib From Which I Remake the World by Ed Kurtz
ChiZine Publications (September 2016)
350 pages; $10.39 paperback; $7.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

The Rib From Which I Remake the World  is one of those books which doesn’t fit neatly into any category. Is it noir? Horror? Psychological Thriller? Occult? The list could go on, but truthfully, what Ed Kurtz’s latest is, is a helluva read.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Blue Demon’ by David Bernstein

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Blue Demon by David Bernstein
Sinister Grin Press (December 2016)
134 pages; $11.99 paperback; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

David Bernstein is rapidly becoming a MUST READ author for me.  His stuff tends to be raw, gripping, compelling and, above all, imaginative. Sometimes played for fun, but more often for vengeance.Continue Reading