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Series: Horror

The Glister: A literary horror novel

The Glister by John Burnside

Reading The Glister by John Burnside was like opening a perfectly crafted wooden box and finding inside a set of components, nested into cognac-colored velvet. Some components were made of finely worked gold and brass; some were polished wood; some were ethereal blown glass; some were made of jewels and bone. Usually, components like these fit together to form a whole: a telescope, a kaleidoscope or a theodolite. Try as I would, though, I could not get the components of The Glister to merge into one coherent whole.

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 dimensions of the yacht don’t make sense, the delicious food is unidentifiable, and it’s not clear how long Ballard and Sandrine have been on the boat.

Presumably, they’re taking a vacation somewhere out of the reach of Ballard’s clients and Sandrine’s husband,

Magazine Monday: Granta 117, Horror

Granta strikes me as an unusual place to find horror fiction; it normally is home to the toniest of literary fiction. But Issue 117 is entitled “Horror,” so I thought I’d see what a literary magazine’s vision of this genre is.

As it turns out, the issue is a lot more about horror in real life than it is about the type of horror that is more safely tucked away in my imagination. Tom Bamforth’s nonfiction essay about war in Sudan, “The Mission,” presents a picture one wishes were only imagined,

Black Light: A refreshing mix of horror and urban fantasy

Black Light by Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan & Stephen Romano

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan wrote the screenplays for Saw IV, Saw V, Saw VI, Saw 3D, and The Collector, which Dunstan also directed. Currently, they are filming The Collection — a sequel to The Collector — and have written Piranha 3DD, which came out this Thanksgiving from Dimension Films. Black Light is their debut novel.

December 5th, 2011. Robert Thompson´s rating: 4 | Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper: This is for a limited audience

Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch

Robert Bloch is justly famous for writing the scariest shower scene in history, even if it was Alfred Hitchcock’s movie that introduced it to a broader audience. Bloch is the author of Psycho, which introduced us to the cross-dressing, multiple personality-mass murder Norman Bates.

Over several decades Bloch wrote crime fiction, thrillers and horror. One recurring theme was that of the unsolved murders in Whitechapel, London in 1888, and the unknown killer with the nickname “Jack the Ripper.”

Subterranean Press has gathered together a collection of Bloch’s Ripper-themed work called Yours Truly,

A Book of Tongues: A strong talent is at work here

A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files

A western horror story full of gay gunslingers and the Pinkerton men they seduce – sometimes you can understand why people ask writers where they get their ideas, because Gemma Files sure has a humdinger of one with this first novel. Throw in some Mayan mythology and a lot of magic, and you’ve got a plot that comes at you so fast and furiously that you have to put the book down just to catch your breath.

A Book of Tongues is Volume One of the HEXSLINGER Series,

Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters: An elegant horror collection

Mr. Gaunt by John Langan

We are living in a Golden Age of the short story of the fantastic, as is ably demonstrated by John Langan in his first collection of short stories, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters. Langan writes the sort of psychological horror that reminds one of both Henry James and M.R. James, as Elizabeth Hand points out in her introduction to this collection. Each story is elegantly written, with craft evident in every sentence.

Magazine Monday: Black Static, Issue 24

We thought that Halloween was the perfect occasion on which to combine Magazine Monday with Horrible Monday and bring you a review of a horror magazine. Black Static is a British horror magazine notable not only for the high quality of its fiction, but also for its great commentary and extensive reviews of horror films and books. This was my first experience reading the magazine, but my plan is now to subscribe, because this is great stuff.

Simon Bestwick’s story,

Free audiobooks: Horror

FanLit thanks Seth Jones of Free Listens for this contribution!

In my previous column, I introduced you to some free audiobooks of fantasy and science fiction classics. This month’s article features horror. As with last time, a link in the book or story title will take you to a full review at my blog, Free Listens. You can download the audiobooks by either clicking on the link to the publisher’s webpage or by right-clicking and saving the mp3 file in brackets.

To get ready for Halloween,

October 29th, 2011. Guest | Free!, Horror | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Occultation and Other Stories: A horror collection

Occultation and Other Stories by Laird Barron

According to Webster’s, “occultation” means “the state of being hidden from view or lost to notice” or “the shutting off of the light of one celestial body by the intervention of another; esp: an eclipse of a star or planet by the moon.” Both definitions seem appropriate to Laird Barron’s collection, Occultation and Other Stories, the latter as metaphor, because Barron can scare you as much with what remains hidden in his stories as with what he drags from the shadows and exposes to your horrified view.

Next SFF Author: Tim Horvath

Previous SFF Author: Anthony Horowitz

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