Peter Straub | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews

The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine: Too much for my delicate senses

The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine by Peter Straub Ballard, a wealthy businessman, and Sandrine, his much younger lover, are cruising down the Amazon River in a mysterious yacht. The crew is never seen, blank-eyed natives watch the boat from the river’s shores, and there seems to be a dangerous predator in the river. The […]

Magazine Monday: Nightmare, Inaugural Issue

The magazine isn’t horrible; it’s in the horror genre. Perhaps reading about a great magazine — and then reading the magazine itself — will make your Monday more bearable! John Joseph Adams, editor of the well-regarded science fiction and fantasy e-journal, Lightspeed, as well as numerous excellent anthologies, has launched a new horror e-zine, Nightmare. […]

Magazine Monday: Nightmare, Issue 2

It’s not the magazine that’s horrible; it’s that the magazine contains horror fiction. A perfect mood setter for Halloween! Because Wednesday is Halloween, here’s another serving of the new magazine Nightmare, edited by John Joseph Adams. The second issue of this new online magazine makes me think we’ve got something special going here: the fiction […]

Magazine Monday: Nightmare, September 2013

Nightmare has made it for a year now: the September issue is the twelfth. Based on the quality of the magazine to date, I hope it manages to at least cube that number. “Halfway Home” by Linda Nagata is the first original story in this issue. It’s a stunner set in the real world; no supernatural beings […]

Black Thorn, White Rose: So many wonderful stories

Black Thorn, White Rose edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling Black Thorn, White Rose is the second in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling‘s series of adult fairy-tale anthologies. I’d have to say that this is my favorite of the bunch; most of the volumes are good, but this one has so many wonderful stories that […]

The 2012 Novelette Nominees for the Shirley Jackson Award

This week Terry looks at the four novelettes nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award, which will be presented at Readercon. This year Readercon will take place July 12 through 15, in Burlington, Massachusetts. “Omphalos” by Livia Llewellyn, is the first nomination for this writer whose first book, The Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & […]

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Four

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Four edited by Ellen Datlow Anything Ellen Datlow edits automatically finds a place on my list of books to read. For many years, this included the excellent anthology series The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, which Datlow coedited with Terri Windling. When that series disappeared, much to the dismay […]

The Monstrous: You can’t go wrong with Datlow

The Monstrous edited by Ellen Datlow Whenever I see Ellen Datlow’s name as editor on the cover of an anthology, I know I’m in good hands. Datlow has a made a thirty-plus year career of choosing good stories and developing collections that take different aims at the theme. The theme of The Monstrous is monsters, […]

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Part Three

Read Part 1 and Part 2. Lunch on Friday included a presentation by the scholar guest of honor, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. His talk was entitled “Undead,” and was a meditation on the meaning of that word — or, in other words, on zombies. Undead does not, Cohen noted, mean that the undead thing is alive; it is […]

SFF Author: Peter Straub