Previous SFF Author: Anthony Horowitz
“T. Frohock” is Teresa Frohock, the author of the well-regarded fantasy debut Miserere: An Autumn Tale. The Broken Road is a novella that belongs to the “grimdark” genre: it is dark and gritty and there is no happily ever after. Frohock herself calls it “gothic horror,” and that description works, too. It’s good.
Travys du Valois is the younger of Queen Heloise’s twin sons.
January 5th, 2015. Terry Weyna´s rating: 3.5 | Teresa Frohock | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Under the Dome by Stephen King
Stephen King’s Under the Dome is long. I mean, long. The manuscript weighs in at 8.6 kg and Time magazine quoted King himself saying he’d be “killing a lot of trees” with his next novel. But when you read the book’s premise, and begin to understand what King had set out to do, it begins to make sense…
Under the Dome opens in Chester’s Mill, a small Maine town which is suddenly and inexplicably cut off from the rest of the world by a dome.
December 29th, 2014. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 3.5 | Stephen King | Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Jacaranda is a horror novella set in Cheris Priest’s CLOCKWORK CENTURY universe. This story, set after the end of the USA’s long civil war, is a shivery tale that focuses on supernatural evil rather than the sap-infected zombies of the series.
Priest brings three characters to the Texan island of Galveston, to investigate a long string of strange deaths at the cursed Jacaranda Hotel. Horatio Korman is a Texas Ranger, a smart, clever investigator. Father Juan Quinteros Rios is a Catholic priest with a dark past and a supernatural gift.
December 22nd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Cherie Priest | Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Dark Screams: Volume One edited by Brian Freeman and Richard T. Chizmar
Dark Screams: Volume One is the first of at least four volumes of short horror anthologies that are projected for publication through August 2015. The books are being published as ebooks only through Random House’s digital-only genre imprint, Hydra, for a bargain price of $2.99.
Volume One starts out with one of the most popular horror writers ever: Stephen King. “Weeds” was originally published in Cavalier,
December 15th, 2014. Terry Weyna´s rating: 3.5 | Kelley Armstrong, Stephen King | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Necromancer’s House by Christopher Buehlman
The Necromancer’s House, by Christopher Buehlman, is a scary, funny, fast-paced urban fantasy novel with a rich voice and likeable characters. With its multiple viewpoints and several satisfying reveals along the way, it is one of the most well-crafted and exciting books I have read in a while.
Buehlman tells the story of Andrew Blankenship, a charming, brilliant modern wizard who drives an antique Mustang, wears his long black hair in a samurai bun, and goes to AA meetings regularly.
December 15th, 2014. Kate Lechler´s rating: 4.5 | Christopher Buehlman | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
I wouldn’t normally review a magazine from last month, but the October issue of Nightmare Magazine is something special, and it’s still available. In this issue, Women Destroy Horror! Issue 25 is devoted to horror written by women, the result of a Kickstarter originally intended to help women destroy science fiction (in the June 2014 issue of Lightspeed Magazine) that met its stretch goals. (Full disclosure: I contributed to the Kickstarter.)
The guest fiction editor of this issue is Ellen Datlow, who is the foremost horror editor working today,
November 17th, 2014. Terry Weyna | Ellen Datlow, Gemma Files, Lucy A. Snyder, Tanith Lee | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Haunting of Toby Jugg by Dennis Wheatley
Although English author Dennis Wheatley wrote a total of 55 novels before his death in 1977, his reputation today, I have a feeling, rests largely on the nine novels that he wrote dealing with the supernatural and the “black arts.” And if Wheatley’s name is not a familiar one to you, it is really no great wonder, as not too many of those 55 titles – mainly in the adventure/thriller genre – are in print today, and it would surprise me if you could walk into your local Barnes &
November 3rd, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Dennis Wheatley | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons
Carrion Comfort is one of Dan Simmons’s earlier works, first published in 1989. It is about psychic vampires who feed off of other people, manipulating their thoughts and thereby controlling their actions.
The notion of a psychic vampire is what made me want to read this book — it’s an idea far too interesting to pass up. Simmons’s vampires are unique, and they do live up to the hype in some ways. Ultimately, though, they often tiptoed right up to being absurd and ridiculous.
October 20th, 2014. Sarah Chorn´s rating: 3 | Dan Simmons | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Issue 42 of Black Static is packed with stories, reviews, essays and an interview.
“Be Light. Be Pure. Be Close to Heaven” by Sara Saab is a tale of a Christian sect that takes Antonietta Meo, the Little Matron, as its guide. Meo lost her leg to disease when she was five years old, and declared it “ballast shed to lighten her ascent to Heaven.” The people in this sect, therefore, submit to voluntary amputation of some sort in order to demonstrate their devotion. Tanta is a young woman whose mother gave up a leg,
October 13th, 2014. Terry Weyna | Carole Johnstone, David D. Levine | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Carpathian Castle by Jules Verne
When 35-year-old Jules Verne managed to sell what would become his first published novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, to the already long-established literary publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel, in 1863, little could the two Frenchmen know that this was just the beginning of a decades-long association. Hetzel was already a well-known Parisian figure, having previously released works by such luminaries as Victor Hugo, Emile Zola and Honore de Balzac. Verne, the future “Father of Science Fiction,” was an unknown commodity in 1863;
October 13th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Jules Verne | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Anthony Horowitz
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
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…