Previous SFF Author: Anthony Horowitz
I’ve avoided some of Stephen King’s more recent works, like Cell and Under the Dome, because they didn’t look like they would be my thing. Doctor Sleep was a different matter. I didn’t think it was perfect, but it had a lot of the things I look for in a King novel.
In 1977, King published The Shining, a book about an evil hotel in Colorado,
October 6th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Stephen King | Horror | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Cold Turkey by Carole Johnstone
I’ve always been grateful that I never started smoking. I’m the kind of person who would be smoking a good three packs per day if I had, and I’d probably already be at death’s door, having been unable to quit. It would be easier to climb Mount Everest.
Carole Johnstone gives us a lesson in just how hard it is to give up the coffin nails in her novella, Cold Turkey. Raym has just done so for the umpteenth time,
October 6th, 2014. Terry Weyna´s rating: 3.5 | Carole Johnstone | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The End of the Sentence by Maria Dahvana Headley & Kat Howard
Malcolm Mays is very close to the end of his rope. After the collapse of his terrible marriage, after a horrific tragedy, he has spent close to his last dollars on a house in rural Ione, Oregon. His first sight of the house confirms that there’s plenty of work to be done, but also that there’s something good to work with. When he opens the front door to his new home for the first time, he finds a huge pile of mail written to the dead owner of the house from an inmate at the federal prison two hundred miles away in Salem.
September 29th, 2014. Terry Weyna´s rating: 4 | Kat Howard, Maria Dahvana Headley | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The New Gothic edited by Beth K. Lewis
The New Gothic, an anthology of twelve stories, is edited by Beth K. Lewis and published by Stone Skin Press. It’s a good collection, worth reading.
Gothic horror usually counts on a mounting sense of dread and/or disgust to carry the reader, rather than shock or terror. The fear comes on more slowly, with that faint tickle at the back of your neck, and at its best, a gothic tale creates a sense of otherworldliness,
September 29th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Jesse Bullington | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
South African writer Lauren Beukes had a hit with last year’s The Shining Girls, the story of a serial killer who could travel through time. Readers of both time travel novels and serial killer thrillers loved the way Beukes melded the two genres. Beukes has again given us a genre-bender with Broken Monsters. Both a horror novel and a police procedural, Broken Monsters is even better than The Shining Girls.
Broken Monsters is set in Detroit — today’s Detroit,
September 22nd, 2014. Terry Weyna and Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Lauren Beukes | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley
When I first saw the 1968 horror film “The Devil Rides Out” several years back at one of NYC’s numerous revival theatres, I thought it was one of the best Hammer films that I’d ever seen, and made a mental note to check out Dennis Wheatley‘s 1934 source novel one day. That resolve was further strengthened when I read a very laudatory article by Stephen Volk on the book in Kim Newman and Stephen Jones‘
September 15th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Dennis Wheatley | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell by Mira Grant
Mira Grant created a fascinating world in her NEWSFLESH, is a masterful piece of hard science fiction, combining medical detail with political intrigue with intricate worldbuilding. Her characters were so real that the end of the first book in the trilogy, Feed, reduced me to tears.
Since completing the trilogy, Grant continues to write about the world she created. With the novella The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell,
September 1st, 2014. Terry Weyna´s rating: 3 | Mira Grant | Horror | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson by E.F. Benson
I had read E.F. Benson’s The Horror Horn to start with (a collection of 13 of his best ghost stories), after seeing that it was considered one of the Top 100 Horror Books of all time in Newman & Jones’ excellent overview volume. Each of those 13 stories was so good that I just had to have more, and so picked up this collection — The Collected GhostStories of E.F.
August 25th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | E.F. Benson | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The August issue of Nightmare Magazine is exceptionally good, and given the generally outstanding nature of this publication, that’s saying something. All four of the stories this month are excellent by any standard.
The magazine opens with “Dear Owner of This 1972 Ford Crew Cab Pickup” by Desirina Boskovich. It’s a letter from a woman with terrible insomnia to a man who wakes her every morning at about 3:00 a.m. by revving — and revving, and revving — the engine of the titular vehicle before heading home from a night at a local tavern,
August 11th, 2014. Terry Weyna | Lucy A. Snyder | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Compleat Werewolf by Anthony Boucher
The Compleat Werewolf and Other Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction gathers together 10 short stories and novellas from the pen of Anthony Boucher, all of which originally appeared in various pulp magazines (such as Unknown Worlds, Adventure Magazine, Astounding Science Fiction, Weird Tales and Thrilling Wonder Stories) from 1941-’45. Boucher, whose real name was William Anthony Parker White, was a man of many talents, and during his career,
August 11th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Anthony Boucher | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 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…