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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: October 2019

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Thoughtful Thursday: Favorite fictional haunted places

Today is the USA’s creepiest holiday, Halloween.

Oh, sure, there are cute costumes, pumpkin-spice everything, candy, harvest carnivals and bobbing for apples, but there also ghosties, ghoulies and scary noises. And, haunted places.

Houses, or interiors generally, can be haunted by entities, or they can absorb death, despair and evil themselves, radiating those back at hapless humans who enter the space.

One of my favorite haunted buildings in fiction is Hill House, in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. This mansion has both an evil ghost and evil oozing from its wainscoting and walls.


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October 31st, 2019. | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 16 comments |

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SHORTS: Larson, Carroll, St. George, Yang

SHORTS: The annual Halloween edition. Our horror-themed column this week, reviewing some recent online short fiction works, features demon babies, slasher film heroines, ghosts and more.

“Growing and Growing” by Rich Larson (2019, free at Nightmare Magazine)

Ignacio and Hector are on their way home after a night of drinking when they find a baby crying in the middle of the road. Ignacio decides to bring it home for the night so he can take it to the hospital in the morning. But on the way home,


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October 31st, 2019. and | | , , | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey

If ghosts exist, we don’t know why, but ghost stories exist because the living make them up; and the living make them up because we need them. Colin Dickey’s book Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places (2016) explores the US’s social conflicts and hidden histories as they play out in places that are publicly advertised as “haunted.” In the first chapter, Dickey says, “If you want to understand a place, ignore the boastful monuments and landmarks,


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October 31st, 2019. and ´s rating: | , | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |

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The Monster and the Girl: A flabbergasting mix of film genres

Happy Halloween!

The Monster and the Girl directed by Stuart Heisler

I suppose that I owe director John Landis a huge debt of thanks, as he was the one who first introduced me to the movie in question, The Monster and the Girl … a film that I may very well have never heard of, without his knowledgeable guidance. As the TCM guest programmer one evening recently, Landis — himself the director of one of the truly great modern-day horror films, An American Werewolf in London — told host Ben Mankiewicz that he had selected the 1941 film because he found it to be totally unique,


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October 31st, 2019. | , | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

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WWWednesday: October 30, 2019

Awards:

The 2019 Nommo Awards were announced. These awards are given to African speculative fiction writers. Thanks to File 770.

Books and Writing:

Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) weighed in on the recent issue of Fireside cancelling book scheduled to be published, with very little notice and no compensation. The Contracts Committee reviewed the contract in question. They note that this was a non-advance contract and there was no compensation if the publisher could not fulfill their obligations. This puts all the risk on the writer – in this case,


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October 30th, 2019. | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |

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The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton: A masterful collection of chillers

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton

Perhaps because she is one of the most esteemed writers of the 20th century, Edith Wharton may not be immediately associated with the genre of horror. Today, she is probably best remembered for her novels The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1920), which latter book copped her the Pulitzer Prize, as well as for her classic novella from 1911, Ethan Frome, a staple reading assignment for all English majors.


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October 30th, 2019. ´s rating: | | , | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

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Monster of Venice: Alla Salute!

Monster of Venice directed by Dino Tavella

Pop quiz: Can you name a film in which a serial killer stalks the byways and canals of Venice? If your answer is Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 film Don’t Look Now, a glass of Chianti for you! If you came up with the more obscure film Who Saw Her Die?, a giallo picture directed by Aldo Lado in 1972, well, you’ve just earned yourself two glasses of Marchesi Antinori! And if your response was the extremely obscure Monster of Venice,


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October 30th, 2019. | , | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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In the Woods: Chilling mystery with evocative writing

In the Woods by Tana French

When Rob Ryan was twelve, he and his two best friends went off to play in the woods and disappeared. Rob’s friends were never seen again. Only Rob came home, and without any memory of what had happened to the three of them while he was missing. Twenty years later, Rob is a detective with the Dublin Murder Squad. When he is called upon to investigate the killing of a twelve-year-old girl in the same forest, Rob is confronted again with his old trauma.

In the Woods (2007) is the first in Tana French’s DUBLIN MURDER SQUAD series.


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October 29th, 2019. ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

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Tomb of Torture: Anna-phylactic shock

Tomb of Torture directed by Antonio Boccaci

1963 was a very good year for the Italian horror film. In February, cinematographer-turned-director Mario Bava started the giallo ball rolling with the release of his seminal The Girl Who Knew Too Much, and he would follow up that August with back-to-back releases of two of his most beloved films, Black Sabbath and The Whip and the Body. Riccardo Freda’s The Ghost, starring Barbara Steele, came out in late March,


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October 29th, 2019. | , | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Wanderers: A suspenseful and emotional end-of-the-world story

Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

A nightmarish disease has attacked a small but growing group of people in rural America. They are walking, zombie-like, across the country together. Nobody knows where they’re going or why. They can’t be communicated with and they can’t be stopped. Some of their family and friends follow behind, trying to keep them safe.

The CDC is investigating, trying to track down the origins of this strange outbreak. Homeland Security is worried that it’s a biological weapon. POTUS can’t decide whether or not she should send in the military.


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October 28th, 2019. ´s rating: | | , | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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