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The Killing God by Stephen R. Donaldson
I was not, to put it mildly, a fan of Seventh Decimate, the opening book of Stephen R. Donaldson’s GREAT GODS WAR trilogy. Book two, The War Within (2022), was an improvement, but marginally. The good news is that book three, The Killing God, is a big jump up, though the obvious bad news is one has to get through the first two to arrive here,
November 10th, 2022. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Stephen R. Donaldson | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova
2021’s The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina was practically a perfect book for me. It’s filled with fantastical magic that baffled me and thrilled me, and it brought to mind the early books of Isabel Allende. The Montoya family were complicated and realistic, in a real-world setting that simmers with magic and strangeness. While much of the story takes place in an undesignated “present” that seems very much like now (without pandemics), the history of Orquídea Divina’s life takes us to Ecuador in the late 1950s and early sixties.
November 2nd, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Zoraida Cordova | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Echo of a Curse by R.R. Ryan
In several of my earlier musings here on FanLit, I made reference to the list that editor/author Karl Edward Wagner released in the pages of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine back in the summer of ’83; the so-called Wagner 39 List. This overview of KEW’s favorite horror novels, and those that he felt were most in need of being brought to the public’s attention, was divided into three categories: The 13 Best Supernatural Horror Novels, The 13 Best Science-Fiction Horror Novels, and The 13 Best Non-Supernatural Horror Novels.
November 1st, 2022. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | R.R. Ryan | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The October Faction: Volume 2 by Steve Niles (writer) and Damien Worm (artist)
The October Faction volume two picks up right where volume one ended, and though there is a third volume in the initial run, there is good closure at the end of volume two compared to volume one, which left us wondering what happened to Merl Cope, who was killed by Frederick Allan, was buried in their expansive back yard, and rose from the dead to join his sister and mother in their plotting against the Allan family.
The Allan family includes in addition to Frederick,
October 29th, 2022. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Nectar of Nightmares by Craig Laurance Gidney
It’s horror season for me, the time of year where I usually settle in with a cozy haunted house story, but sometimes branch out into the region of the genuinely horrifying or the truly weird. Craig Laurance Gidney’s short story collection The Nectar of Nightmares, published in 2022, fits that bill. As with most collections, I loved several, and a few were misses for me. This is even more likely to happen with a horror collection than,
October 21st, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Craig Laurance Gidney | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
Detective duo, Strike and Robin, are back for the sixth instalment of the CORMORAN STRIKE series, and they’ve got their work cut out for them. They’re presented with a case unlike any they’ve come across before and what ensues is a twisting mystery that might just be the best book of the series so far.
When Edie Ledwell enters the office of the detective agency, Robin Ellacott doesn’t know what to make of her. She’s disheveled, panicked and, when she asks the agency to investigate the online abuse she’s been receiving,
October 20th, 2022. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4.5 | J.K. Rowling | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
What Lives in the Woods by Lindsay Currie
Ginny — or Gin — Anderson is looking forward to the summer writing workshop she’s going to attend with her best friend Erica, in their hometown of Chicago, until Dad upends the family’s plans because of a job. He’d going to restore a century-old house-turned-hotel, The Woodmoor Manor, in Michigan. The family will live there while he works.
This sounds terrible to Gin and her older brother Leo. While Leo is soon appeased by the news that Saugatuck, the nearby small town,
October 18th, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Lindsay Currie | Children, Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The October Faction (Volume one) by by Steve Niles (writer) and Damien Worm (art)
The October Faction is a family affair. Meet the Allans: goth girl and daughter Vivian who has just graduated from high school; Geoff, the son who is college-age but not in college; Frederick, the professor-husband and father and former monster hunter; and Deloris, the absentee and seemingly unfaithful wife and mother who used to assist her husband. Frederick ends his lecture on monsters and meets with an old friend, Lucas, with whom he used to fight monsters,
October 15th, 2022. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Abe Sapien (volume 4): The Shape of Things to Come by Mike Mignola (writer), Scott Allie (writer), Sebastian Fiumara (art), and Max Fiumara (art), Dave Stewart (colors), and Clem Robins (letters)
This volume consists of two stories: “The Shape of Things to Come” and “To the Last Man.” In the first story, we find ourselves in Arizona, outside of a militia-run Phoenix. Abe meets another group of people and is surprised to find himself welcomed and fed by them. They discuss old stories and myths and contemplate what role Abe may play in the continuing apocalyptic events.
October 1st, 2022. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Dark Sanctuary by H.B. Gregory
A very happy day it was for me – but a very unfortunate day for my bank account – when I first discovered the website for Ramble House books. Specializing in impossibly obscure sci-fi, horror, mystery and “weird menace” titles from the first half of the 20th century, the publisher has an overwhelming catalog of reasonably priced volumes that will surely make any fan of those genres salivate; books, for the most part, that are available nowhere else. I have already written here of Greye La Spina’s wonderful horror novel Invaders From the Dark (1925),
September 15th, 2022. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | H.B. Gregory | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…