Tag: Reviews

Review: ‘Dream Woods’ by Patrick Lacey

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Cemetery Dance Reviews

dreamDream Woods by Patrick Lacey
Sinister Grin Press (October 2016)
318 pages; $16.99 paperback; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

I love amusement parks, especially the old ones from my youth. The local ones were the best, where sometimes it seemed the rides were likely to fall apart while you were still riding them. The ones within an hour’s drive from where I grew up—Lakewood Park, West Point Park, and Willow Grove Park, all in Southeast Pennsylvania. In its dying days, the later was known as Six Gun Territory. I remember they used to have a small wooden coaster, The Scenic; exciting not because of it’s speed or height, but because of the way it always seemed like it could leave the track at any moment.Continue Reading

Review: ‘The Angel of the Abyss’ by Hank Schwaeble

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abysscoverThe Angel of the Abyss by Hank Schwaeble
Cohesion Press (October 31, 2016)
306 pages; $4.99 e-book
Reviewed by David Simms

Jake Hatcher is one badass character. He’s been to hell and back, fought for his country only to be put in prison, watched people he cares for die at the hands (or other deadly appendages) or demons and other creatures. In Damnable and Diabolical, Hatcher fought off hell and survived—barely—but has returned with a vengeance in The Angel of the Abyss. If readers aren’t familiar with the Stoker-winning first book, it’s okay. Catching up can be done afterwards. Each works somewhat as a standalone but are best served to be read in order.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”: The Authorized Graphic Adaptation by Miles Hyman

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lotterygnShirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”: The Authorized Graphic Adaptation by Miles Hyman
Hill and Wang (October 25, 2016)
160 pages; $30.00 hardcover; $16.00 paperback
Reviewed by Danica Davidson

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is one of the most famous—and infamous—short stories of all time. People reading it for the first time aren’t prepared for the twist ending, and when it was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, it offended some people so much that they wanted their subscriptions canceled. Those not so easily offended, though, were riveted to the story, and those who couldn’t keep it out of their minds realized they’d been swept up by its power. Seventy years later, the story continues to haunt, and now it’s been adapted into graphic novel format, done by Jackson’s own grandson, Miles Hyman.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life’ by Ruth Franklin

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Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
Liveright (September 2016)
624 pages; $25.14 paperback; $16.05 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

Admittedly, I don’t read a lot of biographies. Not my thing. Nothing against them, I just prefer to spend my time reading fiction. That being said, when I saw there was going to be a Shirley Jackson biography, I decided to get out of my comfort zone just a bit.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Last Train from Perdition’ by Robert McCammon

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Last Train from Perdition by Robert McCammon
Subterranean Press (October 2016)
181 pages; $35 hardcover
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

Sometimes, horror is the perfect genre for exploring universal themes such as loss, isolation, or grief.

Sometimes, horror is the perfect genre for exploring how humans react to adversity, loneliness, temptation or, naturally, fear.

And sometimes, horror is the perfect genre to take a group of people, strand them on a train in the dark frontier, and unleash a siege of bloodthirsty creatures upon them.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Children of Lovecraft’ edited by Ellen Datlow

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Children of Lovecraft edited by Ellen Datlow
Dark Horse Books (September 2016)
384 pages; $12.81 paperback; $10.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for over thirty years.  She has won numerous awards for her work and is certainly one of the best in the business. As a result, she attracts some of the best writers when she puts together a new project, and Children of Lovecraft is a fine example of this effect.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Mysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith’

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mysterionMysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith edited by Donald S. Crankshaw and Kristin Janz
Enigmatic Mirror Press (July 2016)
300 pages; $16.99 paperback; $9.99 e-book
Reviewed by Kevin Lucia

Writers grappling with faith through the trappings of speculative fiction isn’t new. George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, J. R. R. Tolkien, Madeleine L’Engle, Russell Kirk, William Peter Blatty and others did it long before now. There are many industry greats—such as Dean Koontz, Anne Rice and Stephen King, only to name a few—who have also written powerful works which address both the inspirational and also terrifying aspects of the Christian faith.

It’s a tricky balance, however, honestly grappling with these questions without proselytizing in the fashion of a preachy “Sunday School Lesson Wrapped Up in a Story.” All too often, “Christian” fiction errs too much on the side of “doctrinal correctness,”  “proper theology” and an almost Puritanical “cleanliness,” completely missing out on the transformational power fiction has to impact humanity by sharing deep tales of the human experience and what it means to believe, hope, grieve, sacrifice, and trust in a higher power. Continue Reading

Review: ‘Stranded’ by Bracken MacLeod

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strandedStranded by Bracken MacLeod
Tor Books (October 4, 2016)
304 pages; $24.99 hardcover; $11.99 e-book
Reviewed by David Simms

Stranded is the kind of book which generates plenty of hype and high expectations—like many others every year. This one delivers on all that’s promised, and more, in a genre-hopping blockbuster which draws immediate comparisons to The Terror, The Thing, and even The Twilight Zone. Strong comparisons, yet in this case, apt words. A tour-de-force of claustrophobic thrills which places the book in the same field as Simmons, Koontz, and Golden.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Savages’ by Greg F. Gifune

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savagesSavages by Greg F. Gifune
Sinister Grin Press (September 2016)
168 pages; $17.00 paperback; $4.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

Reminiscent of the pulp fiction stories of the ’30s through the ’50s, or perhaps the B-Movies popular at drive-ins in the ’70s and ’80s, Greg F. Gifune’s new novel, Savages, is every bit as good as the best of those sub-genres. Prior to the start of the book, the author quotes the 1920 film “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”: 

A man cannot destroy the savage in him by denying its impulses. The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it…

The story which follows is about a group of friends and acquaintances, shipwrecked, adrift for days, and washed ashore on a seemingly uninhabited island…and that’s the good news.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Hunter of the Dead’ by Stephen Kozeniewski

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hunterofthedeadHunter of the Dead by Stephen Kozeniewski
Sinister Grin Press (August 2016)
402 pages; $17.59 paperback; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

Hunter of the Dead is a sprawling, epic tale of vampire houses, the Inquisitors who seek to destroy them, and the one both vampires and Inquisitors fear the most, simply known as The Hunter.

Kozeniewski wastes no time setting the bloody tone for the tale which follows. I have never read anything like this. At times mesmerizing and breathtaking, Hunter of the Dead is every bit as entertaining as The Strain, but dissimilar in many ways. Multiple story-lines are woven together in a complex tapestry of blood and violence. No sparkly vampires here, these undead are definitely hardcore.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Stay Crazy’ by Erica L. Satifka

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stay-crazyStay Crazy by Erica L. Satifka
Apex Book Company (August 2016)
254 pages; $14.67 paperback; ebook $6.99
Reviewed by Anton Cancre

If you knew that your brain made up its own narrative sometimes, how would you know what to believe? Beset by manipulative self-help gurus, religious cults, corporate brainwashing and other-dimensional beings that might want to destroy our entire universe, you have to decide what you will believe. That’s where we find Em in the course of Stay Crazy.

Warning: This is mostly a character piece. It moves incredibly slow at first while Satifka builds up the character and life of Emmaline Kahlberg. People that want to jump into a book running breakneck right from the start will not be happy. That’s sad, though, because the time spent establishing the day-to-day reality of Em pays off once everything falls off the rails and the crazy promised in the title hits home. The ride from there isn’t what I would call fun, but it’s a hell of a powerful one.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Bad Apples 3: Seven Slices of Halloween Horror’

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badapplesBad Apples 3: Seven Slices of Halloween Horror by Various
Corpus Press (August 2016)
242 pages; $14.99 paperback; $4.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

Halloween is fast approaching. Don’t believe me? Just stop by your local big box store or visit any super drug store. Candy and costumes and decorations are popping up everywhere. Good news is, it’s also time for Halloween anthologies and scary stories to appear on bookshelves and in your news feeds. One such collection is from Evans and Adam Light, co-creators of the Bad Apples anthology series.

Bad Apples 3: Seven Slices of Halloween Horror is a delicious concoction of tales which are much more fun than bobbing for apples. Plus, you’re much less likely to suffer accidental drowning reading this book, unless you like to read in the tub. Then you’re on your own.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Tales from Valleyview Cemetery’ by John Brhel and Joseph Sullivan

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valleyviewcemeteryTales from Vallyeview Cemetery by John Brhel and Joseph Sullivan
Cemetery Gates Media (November 2015)
158 pages; $10.00 paperback; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Meredith Durfy

“Angel Music”— The first story in the anthology is about a woman who walks into a graveyard after hearing music coming from there, and then bad things happen to her. I found it painful to read at times. I felt it was poorly written and not scary. I didn’t identify with the main character, I didn’t feel I knew her. All I know about the main character is that her name is Brenda and she is not from Lestershire (the town) originally. It seemed as though the author was more interested in describing everything in detail than setting up the main character. The monster was a problem as well, as creepy children are just cliché at this point. Continue Reading

Review: ‘Wind Chill’ by Patrick Rutigliano

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Wind Chill CoverWind Chill  by Patrick Rutigliano
Crystal Lake Publishing (January 2016)
206 pages; $5.42 paperback; $1.99 e-book
Reviewed by John Brhel

Bundle up and find a warm hiding spot before you crack open Patrick Rutigliano’s latest, Wind Chill. In terms of both atmosphere and sheer scares, this novella from Crystal Lake Publishing delivers chills of Arctic-level proportions. Rutigliano has penned an ice-cold monster story that explores family dynamics, in this case that of a mentally damaged father and his confused and bitter daughter.Continue Reading

Review: ‘The Night Parade’ by Ronald Malfi

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nightparadeThe Night Parade by Ronald Malfi
Kensington (July 2016)
384 pages; $9.37 paperback; $7.99 e-book
Reviewed by Kevin Lucia

For the most part, I’m not an avid reader of post-apocalyptic fiction. I loved The Stand (of course), Brian Keene’s The Rising, and I enjoyed One by Conrad Williams. That’s about it. But, as with everything else he writes, Ronald Malfi is able to mine the core of the human experience, elevating what could be just another exercise in a well-worn horror trope to a powerfully affecting story. As always, his prose is tight, powerful, and he has the same capacity as Stephen King to breathe life into three-dimensional, fully-realized characters.Continue Reading