Scott Graham
The story of an everyman who died and is condemmed to a short stay in hell. Short = not infinite. Hell is a library that contains, somewhere in its stacks, the perfect story of your life. It is housed there, along with every other book that could have possibly been printed with no regard to rhyme or reason. Any combination of the characters in the Roman alphabet, grammar and actual words not required. Your task is to find the book of your life, at which point you get sent to paradise.
You leave your time reading this book with a infinitesimal understanding of the time frames of infinity and forever, and it is frightening.
The classic tale of vampires and staunch heroes lives up to its reputation as the progenitor of modern vampire lore, with sunrise and sunset, garlic, stabbing through the heart and beheading, and permission to enter a home required, all figuring into the story prominently. The story is generally easy to follow despite its Victorian prose, save for the pieces authored by Van Helsing. Stoker made his Netherlander understanding of the English language variably stilted, so a careful and close reading was warranted in those passages. Oddly, Dracula does not appear in the action too often once he has left Castle Dracula; he is felt mostly through his effects on the other characters, most notably Renfield, Lucy, and Mina, hardly a fitting role for Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, or Gary Oldman. Except for the final chase, the story is more drawing room drama than horror story, and even that is mostly told from the point of view from the intercepting party rather than the pursuing parties. Overall I am very glad to have read it and be able to judge the adaptations against the source material and appreciate them all the more for the literary license taken by each. The tone most closely matches the Lugosi movie, but the story is very faithfully reproduced by Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation.
A book with the slow burn of a 1000 foot fuse, but an explosion does occur in the last 5 chapters. A haunting, residual magick, and family dysfunction weave together like a DNA helix to threaten the daughter and granddaughter of an autodidactic witch, and their landscaper, and friendly neighborhood wiccan. Well written with a real life flavor for the mixture of humor with the serious even in the darkest of times, all the little clues come together in a creepy satisfactory conclusion. Let the lesson be learned that one should warn their guests before they come to stay in your threatening haunted house.
Contains spoilers
17 issue comic series read in a graphic novel compendium format mixes a sci-fi world with a historic medieval earth sensibility to relate the tale of a family that has sequestered from the larger society to remain pure from the rot that infests it. The title of the series starts as a loose confederation of creatures to bring an end to society’s ills by separating the king from his thrall and restoring justice to the world and the good name of the protagonist and his family, but turns out to be a double entendre that we don’t learn until the close of the story, when all is lost and corrupted. Our hero is the villain, the villain sought an end, and all the other characters were playing the angles for a piece of their own small part of the world. A very nihilistic story told during nihilistic times. Great art and a very entertaining dark tale.
Contains some but not all of the charm of Cerulean book 1. A slow, somewhat tortuous start takes off once the protagonists finally decide to take off their gloves. The children remain the stars of the novels, and as they mature, grow out of their sullenness, and start to show some more personality, the reader can’t help but be enchanted, especially by Lucy, Sal, and newcomer, David the yeti.
The urge to call this tale Lovecraftian is strong, but I pull back from that description. I will go so far as to say that there is a Lovecraft inspiration present in the incarnation of the fantastical aspects in the narrative, but it’s missing the demented nature, i.e, the craziness of a Lovecraft story. Two friends and coworkers pursue all the fishing holes of the Catskill Mountain region, and ignore the warnings of one stream, the ill omened Dutchman’s Creek. Told in two timelines, one historic, incorporated within and bisecting the other more contemporary tale. The historical story stands separate from the contemporary tale and is effective on its own. The contemporary tale builds on the historical story that exists as a warning to the curious. The reader is given all the information they need to suss out the way the story goes, but the narrative imagery is described so well that it plays out very vividly in the reader’s movie screen of the mind. Nightmarish and shudder inducing.
Like Liu’s other short story collection, The Paper Menagerie, The Hidden Girl is a mixed bag, but most of the stories that you pull from the bag are interesting, thought provoking, and even tug at your heart a few times. They are best when the story is exploring the idea of the human/computer singularity and whether or not humanity would actually be much changed in the surrendering of the body. The other speculative stories are also quite good; the weakest tales are the more fantasy based selections in my opinion. The author seems to be better suited to calling out the pitfalls of advancement, or at least moralizing on it gently. Well worth the read, but beware of a couple clunkers.
When heroic people do stupid things, and red herrings predominate the plot. I like the bones of the story, but the whole goreydamned thing reads like an old 30s serial with dire cliffhangers at the end of every third chapter. It got old fast. The 518 page story should have been 300. In any case, it did bring the story of Darrow of Lykos to a putative end in the trilogy until book 4, Red Rising: The Search for More Money was published. I'll stop at the end of the trilogy, thank you very much.
Lush sci-fi fantasy of a dystopian world with multiple societies, almost all running out of light, both natural and artificial. The cast of characters become embroiled in the efforts to fix or take advantage of the dimming or darkening of the towns and communities within multiple associated but strategically antagonistic schemes and plots. Multiple story lines slowly converge as secrets are revealed and characters are unmasked to the reader, in a seemingly never ending series of Holy S#%& moments. As part 1 of a series, obviously not all is revealed, but the reader is left slavering for part 2, and not grabbing pitchforks and torches to mob the publisher.
This fever dream of a grimmer tale than the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm was a delight from start to finish. I took my time(?) in the reading because there was a plethora to glean from the Middle English used throughout much of the story (see meanie, lief, pizzle, sieur, etc). Luckily I had undertaken the reading as an ebook; I had lookup capabilities at hand rather than having to constantly swivel-chair between book and dictionary. As for the story itself, this sword-and-sorcery-lite novel of a revenant boy vs evil sorceror and the battle for the future of a small village is filled with the threats that are born from the worst desires of people with power, desirous of more power at any cost, with a dark magic twist. It’s either a fast read if you glide over the Latin and French phrases, and Middle English words, or a slower one if, like me, you take interest in new words and ancient etymology. The author threw a lot into the narrative, from theology to mythology, damsals in distress, hapless villagers, a plucky protagonist and darkly evil villains, and sundry monsters in a medieval setting. I was reminded of The Legendary Black Beast of Arrrrgh in a few spots (IYKYK), but that did not detract from the pleasure in the reading. Highly recommended.
A fitting ending to the Green Creek saga - TJ Klune can weave a tale of witches and werewolves like no one else. The Bennett Family and friends and their enemies square off one more time to claim the soul of one that each calls their own. Steady pacing brings the parties together until the story reaches a head, and matters are concluded. Tears will be shed.
Heartsong, volume 3 of the Green Creek Novels tells the story of a prominently featured character and fleshes him out for the reader and gets them more invested in him. It's a good story though not as emotional as the first two volumes. It mainly introduces the main villain, their odd motivation (very derivative of Stephen King's Storm of the Century, "Give me what I want and I'll go away."), and sets up the story for volume 4.
A spicy gay romance with werewolves, but it is beautifully written, compelling reading. The characters are extremely well developed and the reader immediately becomes invested in them, their stories, and their well-being. The romantic couple are a bit unorthodox, werewolf status aside, but give the author a chance to let things unfurl before you start clutching pearls. At turns happy, ecstatic, sad, and devastating, Mr. Klune will wring a few tears from all but the most stoic of souls (and if you are one of those people, all I can say is, “who hurt you?”). Very recommended for an open minded reader.
Book 2 of TJ Klune’s Green Creek Series (beginning with the fantastic Wolfsong), follows and furthers the magical fantasy romance of werewolves and witches in Green Creek OR, a town and surrounds that may have some magic of its own. Ravensong contains the complete tale of a threat to the Bennett family/pack, but it also unveils more of the antagonists and their motivations without bringing them to a conclusion (there ARE 2 more volumes in the series as of the time of this opinion). Extremely likeable and sympathetic protagonists and formidable villains drive the action to a satisfying minor conclusion, but threats still exist and the clouds are gathering in the distance. Again, like Wolfsong, this novel is not for those of a closed minded sensibility; gay love is represented both emotionally and physically in a tasteful and descriptive manner.
Contains spoilers
The action doesn’t kick in until you’re two-thirds through the novel; until that point it reads like the longest college class in slasher film mythology. The main character is a troubled single-track minded idiot who it turns out just happens to be right, kinda? It’s a mish-mash of a story, with multiple villains and motives and a contrived ending. It might make a decent horror film though. Defintely better suited for the visual arts where the deus ex machina can get a better treatment.
Contains spoilers
An occasional tear evoking tale of a connection between teenaged romantic partners is told with a great ear for the thoughts of and dialogue between maturing young adults in the often messy senior year of high school as they look forward to transitioning to college and a putative adulthood. If you could still speak with a loved one after they’ve died, what would you say? Author Dustin Thao provides an answer to that question with a believable suggestion that for the living, even a actual death would be treated as a nebulous thing. The conversations would be often mundane and taken for granted, not fraught with deep meaning. Mr. Thao nimbly sidesteps afterlife concepts and questions. For him, and the reader, the conversations and their effects are the thing. Would the ability to speak with your lost loved one soothe or prolong your grief? How would it affect the dearly departed? Those questions are answered in You Have Reached Sam.
Cozy fantasy about coming to terms with grief in your own way, in your own time, with the help of a fertile imagination and a real world that doesn't impinge too harshly on the delusions and hallucinations. The soft reveal at the end is heartbreaking, so expect some tears to be shed. Immerse yourself in the story and world Dustin Thao has conjured to allow the story to unfold as gently as it does and you will be rewarded all along and especially at the end.
What To Expect When You're Dead reads like a laundry list of the death practices and beliefs in the afterlife activities of the dearly or not so dearly departed. The author chose to examine concepts of the funerary practices of several civilizations and the beliefs of the afterlife and organize the book in that manner. It resulted in a disjointed book, jumping across a half dozen or so civilizations, topic by topic. It was as dry as dust.
It resulted in death knowledge overload. It's meticulously documented, so one gets the idea that it was at least partially intended as a reference; I think it would have been better presented civilization by civilization, complete in all the beliefs and practices of the civilzation before moving on to the next civilization.
Contains spoilers
Vague spoilers included: Stephen Graham Jones creates an absorbing new vampire mythology but in the last play misses the basket/TD/goal/run. The final scene was "meh" with vague motivation and reasoning, and includes a discrepancy with something established earlier in the book. Would the ultimate act accomplish the intended result? Prior incidents in the book suggest perhaps not. The author's afterward suggests 'why' this happened, but the rewritten frame story feels like a rush to publication. 95% great and 5% flat. Unfortunately, the 5% was the ending.
An excellent account of two men who loved each other like the closest of brothers, but earlier emotional damage made them too quick to take offense, and who can hurt you worse than the one you love the most? Told through the process of the writing and the recording of their songs, the author uses the music and lyrics to make observations about their lives, loves, and animosities.
Contains spoilers
Not to suggest I didn’t enjoy the story and writing, buuuuuut…. between the first career setback for Darrow and the climactic celebration, I kept screaming at the characters, “Are you all idiots? Do you learn nothing?”. Especially during the denouement. A distrustful father and untrusting partner allow the deceitful and dangerous villain to prepare a large gathering unfettered. The bad guys at the end commit the classic error even a middle school student would advise them against: don’t leave the hero alive. Kill him when you have the opportunity. I’m still going to read book three of the trilogy. I do care about four remaining characters and I would like to see some hot vengeance served up. Going to retire now to an unrelated novel, where the author doesn’t take their characters for idiots.
Lincoln in the Bardo was an interesting exploration of Lincoln’s evolution to an abolitionist during the eatly days of his presidency through his interaction with the residents of the bardo or purgatory or whatever you might want to call it, during one very eventful night for the residents of that portion of the afterlife. The narrative contains mostly short snippets from the three main characters, with some color added in by the other denizens of the afterlife waystation. The tale is a bit scatalogical (in the general sense, not in the excretory sense) and may offend readers with a delicate sensibilty. It was a quick, fun read, very good, but didn’t live up to all the hype for this reader. Still, I am happy that I read it and portions of its theology will remain with me for some time.