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I liked the story here very much. I don’t think I’ve actually read the prose version (which is a little surprising to me), but it has a very nice dual structure, with the main, internal story adding to and reflecting the more opaque ‘shell’ story. When I finished; I wanted to go back to the beginning and re-check all the foreshadowing… And of course, how can you go wrong with a psycho killer and angelic conflicts? The use of mythological elements and the way in which those are meshed with the sordid, modern world is very, very ‘Sandman.’

On a deeper level, the story has some very thought provoking content regarding vengeance and forgiveness. I see it as a critique and exploration of the Christian belief that, simultaneously, an all-knowing god has created beings for his own purpose but yet holds them responsible for their own actions. It’s not quite as simple as that, though, and it’s oblique enough that you could come away from this with a good number of different opinions. That’s a good thing.

So – why only 3 stars? Well, I think I’d prefer the prose version. The artwork here just didn’t resonate with me. Nearly fully half of this book is taken up with a section that talks about the artwork, the artist, and the motivations behind why it was presented the way it was – so I can’t at all say that no thought went into it. Clearly Gaiman had input into it, as well. But I just didn’t love it – personal aesthetics.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Melissa de la Cruz's name has seemed to be popping up everywhere I look for a while now. I'd heard mixed reviews about her work; but when NetGalley gave me the opportunity to check out her latest, I took the chance to form my own opinion on this author.

The Ring and the Crown gives us an alternate-history 19th century. For the last five hundred years, the Franco-British Empire has dominated Europe, assisted by Merlin's magic. de la Cruz does a very entertaining job of swirling our modern concepts of decadent French aristocracy with stuffy British Society, adding a topping of The Mists of Avalon for a foamy confection of a tale.
Into the mix comes Ronan Astor, a young American woman whose family has a Name - but whose fortunes have dwindled. She's in search of a wealthy aristocratic husband, and hopes to make a good showing during the Season - especially at the renowned Bal du Drap d'Or. The story also introduces the pricess of the Empire, Marie, Merlin's sorceress daughter, Aelwyn, the lady Isabella, who hides behind a glass of wine.
Of course, there are these ladies' male counterparts: the crown prince Leopold, the brave and handsome guard Gil, the roguish Wolf, etc.
All of these people seem hell-bent on making life miserable for themselves by either paying too much attention to their emotions, or too much attention to what the 'rules' dictate. It's a romance - but not a cloying one. More than anything else, it's a society drama. Overall, it's done quite well. I found myself involved in the characters, and caught up in the suspense of how things would turn out for them (and the results are not all what one would expect, which I appreciated.)
However, the end felt a bit rushed - around 96% completed, there were so many 'surprise revelations' shoved in all at once that I found myself chuckling at the absurdity - and not all of them were even necessary to the story.

Overall though, I was pleasantly surprised by the book. I'd read more by the author. The writing style and themes reminded me quite a lot of Sharon Shinn, whom I like quite a lot.

5 stars for the art – 3 stars for the plot.

This graphic novel contain three previously-published comics, beginning a story about Emily the Strange – musician, inventor and all-around kick-ass chick - having to start a band in order to win a contest.
Emily's got an updated look in these new stories, but while I always liked her old look, I love the new one too. She still got the adorably gothic thing going on. And of course - her black cats. As a matter of fact, there are quite a lot of cats. More than usual. (And we'll have to wait for the continuation to find out why). And they're all adorable.
Not only that, but all her new band members are adorable. Can I use the word 'adorable' one more time? Seriously, you cannot read this and not wish that this had been your high school band.

However, the plot itself is pretty flat. Independent Emily must learn to play with others (literally) in order to secure her prize. Yay teamwork. Blah.I could've used some more subversive, spooky content. I LIKE that Emily's anti-social.

It's pretty cool that there's an actual song and video to go along with the story: http://www.emilystrange.com/band/. Again, it could be a little darker to match Emily's look. But hey, she's not the only one in the band, and teamwork usually equals artistic compromise, doesn't it?

Copy provided by NetGalley. THANKS!
And - this is the first item I read on my new Nook. THANKS to the City of Newark! ;-)

Oh man. I really wanted to like this book. Not least, I must admit, because I actually own SEVEN other books by the author which are in my TBR backlog (hey, they looked fun!).

This one went to the top of the list because I got it from NetGalley. (Thanks to NetGalley and Angry Robot for the copy.)

Near-future Australian Park Ranger Virgin (yes, that's her name) finds a dead body at the end of her shift. Together with a Native American U.S. Marshal, her endlessly-resourceful best friend Caro, and the support of her hunky stripper friend-with-benefits Heart, she has to stay alive, stay out of jail, and solve the crime.

The story felt very much like a pilot episode of a low-budget action-oriented TV show aimed at teens. It introduces the characters, walks them through a basic plot, and leaves room for plenty more to come.

The writing is the weakest part - it's barely more than a screenplay. Actually, screenplays are usually carefully and precisely crafted. This reads almost as if, after outlining the story, the author orally narrated it into a tape recorder and then said, "It's done" - awkward grammar, not-quite-right words, over-colloquial phrasing, plot inconsistencies, and all.

I have to admit, I may be feeling more-than-usually critical of the language because I read this concurrently with a book by a Pulitzer Prize-nominated author who inarguably has a greater-than-average facility with words, and whose use of language displays a true grace. This author does not aim for that. The words are there to tell you what each character said and did next - that's all.

One extra star because I liked the sci-fi Australian setting, and the characters and concepts, although cartoonish, were pretty fun. If this were actually a tv show, I'd probably even watch it.

"Moment to moment we act freely, we make decisions and form opinions and there is very little to throttle us. We think each of us has a map marked with private routings and preferred habitual destinations, and go by a legend of our own. Yet it turns out you can overlay them and see a most amazing correspondence, what you believed were very personal contours aligning not exactly but enough that while our via points may diverge, our endings do not."

This month's post-apocalyptic book club selection.

B-Mor, formerly Baltimore, is a tightly-knit but regimented community of workers. They are the descendants of people from an ecologically devastated China, brought to a declining America to produce goods for the wealthy, who live in walled Charter communities.

One of the residents of B-Mor is Fan, a young woman, seemingly a model worker and citizen, who unexpectedly leaves the community and ventures alone into the dangerous 'open counties' after her boyfriend 'disappears.'

The novel alternates between telling Fan's story, and having an unnamed narrator, a B-Mor resident, philosophize about Fan and the meaning of her actions.

I have to admit that at time I found the philosophizing bits, which read a bit like a report set down for posterity, to be a bit tedious. However, at other moments, their insightfulness and the beauty of the writing really struck me (see the quote above). [Not for nothing is this guy a professor at Princeton and a Pulitzer Prize finalist.]

Still, I preferred the parts where Fan's story was actually getting told. In many ways it stays with the conventions of the genre: a quest for an unlikely outcome, a peripatetic journey during the course of which the protagonist encounters a concatenation of strange situations illustrating the variety of circumstances that people may create for themselves 'after the fall.' Although the tune is familiar, this is among the better renditions that I've encountered.

Fan is a strong, capable person, but she is just one (literally small) person in a large, hazardous world. I felt that the sense I got of even the most capable of us being like a leaf tossed in the wind was appropriate for the post-apocalyptic setting. Some people may not like that Fan, here, is a very opaque character. Her story is, essentially, being told to us by someone else, so we don't see her internal dialogue. But a large point of the book is about how others project their own dreams and disappointments onto Fan, how she becomes a symbol in her community. So I felt that worked as well.

The story slowly but steadily builds in tension. It has a sense of predictability/inevitability of fate to it which became near-agonizing toward the end. I had some doubts whether I'd be happy with any of the possible ways that I guessed it might conclude. But I actually loved the ending - I thought it had just the right mixture of openness and conclusion, pessimism and hope.

ATTENTION! Nebula nominators and World Fantasy Award voters! You want to read this book!
Yes, I know it says "The Frangipani Hotel: Fiction." And the cover is ever so tastefully vague and understated. A more accurate title might be: "The Frangipani Hotel: Dark, Lush and Horrific Ghostly Tales of Vietnam." If the cover artist really wanted to reflect the content of the book, there'd be a creepy zombie walking through the fog, next to that quaint boat.

But, Kupersmith is clearly a new young author to watch. She does a fantastic job of melding Vietnamese folklore with the complex, rich realities of the country. Her writing style is graceful, and captures the nuances of horror - using understatement to great effect, contrasting the beautiful with the grisly.

My only complaint is that this collection of short stories is all too brief. I'll definitely be on the lookout for more from this author.

Contents:
Boat Story
Reception
Skin and Bones
Little Brother
The Red Veil
Guests
Turning Back
One-Finger
Descending Dragon

Copy received from NetGalley and Random House, which does not affect my review in any way. Thanks!

I previously read the first book of ‘The Mongoliad’ and thought it had a lot of promise, but suffered a bit from committee-itis. (too many authors, not enough focus).
So, I skipped forward to this one, which is #5 in the series, and written by a single author. It is, indeed, much more focused. The story is solely about the character Ocyrhoe, and although I clearly missed some events since the first book, I thought it worked fine as a self-contained, stand-alone work.
Ocyrhoe ends up at Montségur, during the famous siege of the heretical Cathars at the end of the Albigensian crusade. It’s a fascinating moment in history, but although events are complicated both by Ocyrhoe’s being the custodian of a cup that may or may not be the holy Grail, and her new-found emotions for her old friend Ferenc, whom she’s coincidentally been reunited with, well, being besieged can get a little tedious.
I also felt that the book is stylistically consistent with the first novel in this series – which is undoubtedly appropriate, but it just didn’t fully resonate with me. It’s not bad, and it’s definitely recommended for fans of the series – I just didn’t love it as much as I wanted to.

Copy received through GoodReads’ First Reads program. Many thanks to GoodReads and 47North.

I'd seen this book floating around Goodreads for a while, and my curiosity was whetted. Punk rock dystopic crime thriller? Sounds cool! So, when the opportunity came up to read it... I took it.

What's good here is the plot. It's an action-packed, violent book with nicely interlocking events involving several different low-lives and druglords all chasing after a mysterious vial, with the ultimate goal of escaping the island. It's quick-moving, good fun, and that brings it up to three stars.

However - I have to admit that this felt like the work of a new author. I felt like it was... missing some bits. The characterization was sketchy-to-nonexistent. No one had any internal dialogue going on. This made a lot of the action opaque. Although there are a lot of colorful characters, they felt a bit cartoonish.

Mileage may vary, but I also found the author's technique of presenting an event, and then doubling back to show a different character's perspective of what led up to that event, to be distracting.

It's also missing the background. Where are these people? All the names are Eastern European, but they feel culturally British or American. What is this island that they're on, and why aren't they supposed to leave? I've read intentionally vague dystopic settings where the lack of specificity worked. Here, I just felt like it made the characters' motivations unnecessarily mysterious.

Also, people didn't really behave according to their specified characteristics. Nikolai is supposed to be a junkie - but we don't see him (let alone feel him) really jonesing for drugs. He kind of just seems like a generic loser. Katja is supposed to be a musician - but aside from a few quick references to past bandmates, and the fact that she drags around a guitar (which she uses for various purposes, but never plays), she never really thinks about music. Katja also has a (permanent, its implied) tracheotomy tube - but there's no mention of her having any difficulty with speech, difficulty being understood, or physical discomfort. The various villains and other people - no idea how they became to be who they are, or why.

I know there's a sequel to this - maybe more is explained later?

One last nitpicky thing (not a criticism of the book) - the girl pictured on the cover does not have Liberty spikes. Get your punk haircuts right, art team! ;-)


Thanks to NetGalley for the copy of the book!

Wow! This really exceeded my expectations.

Previously, I've read Gregory's 'The Devil's Alphabet.' I didn't really like that book, aesthetically, and thought it had flaws - but I thought the writing was good enough that I wanted to give the author another try. I've actually got 'Pandemonium' in my TBR backlog, but 'Afterparty' came up on NetGalley, so I requested it and it went to the top of the list.

I wholeheartedly loved it. What if, instead of technology, William Gibson wrote about drugs? You might get something like 'Afterparty.' Actually, here, the drugs pretty much are technology. In the near future, rather than enhancing themselves with cybernetics, 'smart drugs' are all the rage. Designer cocktails which can drastically rearrange your neurons are simple and easy to get, due to the development of chem-jet printers, which can mix up a dose for you without too much effort. Cigarettes are more effective and strictly controlled than any number of bizarre intoxicants.

However, the founders of the start-up company Little Sprout weren't interested in a party drug. They hoped that their medical research might be able to find a cure for schizophrenia. However, the events of one terrible night led to them all being affected by an overdose of their own product.

Lyda Rose, rather than being a successful businesswoman, is now in a mental hospital, and accompanied by an imaginary angel. But when a young woman is admitted to the hospital with religious delusions that mirror Lyda's own, Lyda fears - with cause - that the drug she developed has made it out onto the street. And she's got to do something about it.

The story that ensues is a fast-moving, easy-to-read thriller - but it also has a lot to say about atheism, religion, the nature of humanity and the meaning of sanity. It's also got a plethora of hilariously quirky characters, and sharp-witted, hip commentary on today's society.

Recommended for subscribers to 'Wired,' and fans of both Neal Stephenson's REAMde and Gibson's 'Pattern Recognition.'

*** Emptiness Spoke Eloquent [1993]
Here's the drawback of a chronological organizational scheme: it doesn't always start with the strongest work. Kiernan admits in the notes that she feels it was overambitious. I'm also not personally partial to this sort of 'what happened after?' tale. This follows Dracula's Mina through the years.

**** Two Worlds; and In Between [1994]
Two words: Gothic Zombies.
And in between: I loved the contrast here between the specificity of the details of what was happening inside the apartment, and the vagueness of the larger horrors happening outside the house. Without any direct evidence, I felt like this story was also about how junkies will drag you down with them. Like a tale from a nastier, darker, unromantic Poppy Z. Brite.

**** To This Water (Johnstown, Pennsylvania 1889) [1994]
Inspired by a real disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood), a tale of an immigrant girl, gang-raped, who, in the form of a vengeful rusalka, takes down both those who assaulted her and the witness who did nothing to stop it. Powerful.

***** Tears Seven Times Salt [1994]
A truly disturbing contemporary take on 'The Little Mermaid,' and a compelling depiction of what it feels like to be convinced that you do not belong in your own body. The story authentically captures the feel of NYC's underbelly, and grasps the slippery line between fantasy, self-expression and mental decline.

**** Breakfast in the House of the Rising Sun (Murder Ballad No. 1) [1995]
Showdown at the old saloon - set in a modern New Orleans gay brothel. It's got the crude grittiness found in shows like 'Deadwood' - and a sense of epic tragedy. Very 'Stagger Lee.'

**** Estate [1996]
This story gets an extra star just for featuring Bannerman's Castle. Of course, it's given a totally fictional history, and is referred to as 'Silas' Castle,' but Pollepel island and the Hudson is still wonderfully recognizable. Themes here include the obsession of 'collecting' and the concept of being trapped by and among riches...

**** Rats Live on No Evil Star [1997]
An academic treats kindly the mentally ill man who lives down the hall from her, in her apartment building. But are the things he perceives actually real? The story creates the unusual perspective that the author may identify equally with both the rational academic and the obsessive visionary.

*** Salmagundi (New York City, 1981) [1998]
A journalist conducts a strange interview with a performance artist who appears to be the (daughter? former enigmatic captive?) of the industrialist referred to in 'Estate'- Silas Desvernine.

*** Postcards from the King of Tides [1997]
Some goth kids on a road trip break down, and discover a bizarre trailer-trash sideshow which may feature Lovecraftian monsters on display.

*** Giants in the Earth [1995]
An homage to Michael Moorcock's 'Dancers at the End of Time.' It's done well - I got that it was in Moorcock's style right away - but I'd probably have appreciated it more if I'd read any of the books in that series more recently. This is a direct prequel to 'An Alien Heat.'

*** Zelda Fitzgerald in Ballet Attire [1995-1999]
A poem.

*** Spindleshanks (New Orleans, 1956) [2000]
Reese, suffering from writer's block, has rented a house in New Orleans as a retreat. However, her girlfriend is more interested and jazz and nightlife. At a house party, idle playing with a Ouija board gets the guests more than they expected. Nice set-up, but a bit of an unfinished feel.

**** The Road of Pins [2001]
Almost the same format as 'Spindleshanks.' The narrator suffers from writer's block; the girlfriend socializes at art galleries. At an opening, she's introduced to the disturbing work of the artist Albert Perrault and an art critic who's a fan. Real life seems to echo the dark fairy-tale topics of his paintings, and a lost film that may also be by the artist, or connected to his work in some way.
I find the inconclusiveness frustrating, but adding a star for the author's remarkable ability to conjure up works of art that, although unseen and indeed, uncreated, stay with the reader...

***** Onion [2001]
What if sometimes, people glimpse another world...? It may be terrifying, alien... but that one glimpse changes you, in some deeply addictive way. This story takes the myths of Fairyland, and emphasizes all their darkness. It's also a clear metaphor for drug addiction, but it's done with such a deft and delicate touch that it works perfectly. It also captures my East Village, to the life.

*** In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers [2001]
Much more in the paranormal-action vein than most of these tales. A mysterious albino hitchhiker, Dancy Flammarion, who claims to speak to an angel, is picked up by a sinister trio (who may be vampires) and taken to an old house tenanted by what may be a coven of cannibal witches. It feels like the opening of a novel - and, indeed, is a prequel to Kiernan's novel 'Threshold' (and, I suppose, 'Low Red Moon,' which I haven't yet read.)

*** Night Story 1973 (with Poppy Z. Brite) [2001]
A prequel to Poppy Z. Brite's 'Lost Souls,' introducing the reader to the character of Ghost, as a child.

*** From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6 [2002]
An entry into the Lovecraft mythos. A researcher discovers an overlooked fossil in a drawer - a fossil which may change our understanding of evolution completely - which happens to have come from Innsmouth. She takes a train to Massachusetts to investigate the locale, but her plans are obstructed by an assortment of weird characters.

*** Andromeda Among the Stones [2002]
Another Lovecraft-influenced tale, of a family whose stolen knowledge has left them guarding a portal into unknown realms... a task which will tear them apart (perhaps literally.)

** La Peau Verte [2003]
This one didn't really do it for me. A very fractured, non-linear narrative infused with far too much silly absinthe mythos. (It's just a liqueur, folks...) A costumed woman, hired as a party entertainer, waits in the green room, and thinks about visits to her therapist, at which she talks about her childhood, when she may or may not have murdered her sister, and may or may not have seen fairies.

**** Riding the White Bull [2003]
Sc-fi noir. (And very good). Dietrich is the (of course) alcoholic investigator. The things he's seen have brought him to the edge. His ex-girlfriend has opted to become a cyborg. And what he's assigned to is some kind of top-secret alien plague (with definite hints of Lovecraftian horrors) that may destroy humanity... Nice and angsty.

*** Waycross [2003]
Another Dancy Flammarion story. Here, the albino monster hunter seems to have been led into trouble by her angel. Although she slew an ancient, inhuman sorceress upon arriving at a dilapidated trailer, that witch wasn't what she came for. And now, the being that she had intended to kill has captured her.
The ending here seemed a little too easy.

**** The Dead and the Moonstruck [2004]
Although quite literally ghoulish, this is a surprisingly sweet story. Ghouls kidnap human children, leaving changelings in their place, and teach them magic, alongside their own children. However, if a human child fails a test, the child is eaten. The Ghoul children face no such danger. Starling Jane's best friend is a ghoul, but she's terrified to face her next test...

***** The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles [2004]
For over seventy-five years, the young girl called Pearl by her father, has been locked in an attic by supernatural beings, hostage to her father's forbidden alchemy. Time only runs for her when she has a visitor, an exceedingly rare occurrence. As the tale progresses, we see that her cruel fate reflects that which her father did to untold others. Lovely and truly eerie.

**** The Dry Salvages [2004]
The Worm in My Mind’s Eye [2004]
A re-read. I think I appreciated this more, the second time around. A small ground of scientists is sent to join a research team already at a remote moon. When they arrive, they discover that something has gone horribly wrong: the humans are missing or insane, and the humanoid robots are the only ones keeping the mission afloat. Told by a surviving member of the mission, looking back on the events from a distance of many years, the story explores some interesting and complex aspects of what it means to be human, with synthetic, 'normal' and genetically-modified characters, and no easy answers provided. It also serves up some good old-fashioned Lovecraftian horror.
'The Worm in my Mind's Eye' is a coda to the story, exploring an incident which is mentioned in passing in the main story.

**** Houses Under the Sea [2004]
A journalist, after the fact, tries to make sense of how his girlfriend, a cult leader, pulled a Jim Jones and led her followers to a watery death - without giving him a clue as to her plans. But as he tries to piece hints together, he has to admit that the evidence is all in favor of something truly weird and strange...


3.52 average rounds up to 4 stars...

You can always count on Ellen Datlow to put together a good anthology! As with any collection, I personally like some stories more than others, but this is definitely recommended: not just for Lovecraft fans, but for any reader of horror and dark fantasy.

***** Only the End of the World Again by Neil Gaiman
A bad-ass werewolf visits Innsmouth, and gets mixed up in more than he bargained for. Reminded me a bit of 'The Wicker Man,' with extra paranormal elements. Humorous without being 'light,' Gaiman's sincere love for Lovecraft shines through here.

**** Bulldozer by Laird Barron
A bad-ass Pinkerton agent travels West, in search of a circus strongman who's on the lam, suspected of multiple murders - and, more importantly, of stealing an ancient book on demonology from none other than P.T. Barnum. The premise isn't something that sounds like it'd be up my alley, but Barron really pulls it off. His Old West has a very 'Deadwood' feel to it that I enjoyed.

*** Red Goat Black Goat by Nadia Bulkin
Some kids get a nice magical nanny like Mary Poppins. And some kids get a magical nanny who's actually half nanny-goat and all terrifying. The Javanese setting here is a nice touch; though I don't know if the story is based on actual Indonesian myth as well as the Cthulhu mythos.

**** The Same Deep Waters as You by Brian Hodge
The popular TV host of 'The Animal Whisperer' is recruited by the US military and bundled off to a Guantanamo-style island, where 'enemy combatants'deemed a threat to National Security have been held secretly - for the past century. These 'mutants' were captured in a raid on Innsmouth. The TV personality's assignment? To learn to communicate with these fish-men. I had some doubts about the modern setting, but it's done well. This story does a remarkably good job of capturing Lovecraft's exact feeling toward his fish-men - a hard-to-pin-down mix of repulsion, horror, respect and sympathy.

** A Quarter to Three by Kim Newman
This one fell flat, for me. The story aims at humor, depicting a distraught pregnant teen who comes into a desolate all-night diner to meet her lover. The diner is in Innsmouth, so you can guess the reveal...

** The Dappled Thing by William Browning Spencer
A too-self-conscious steampunk story of British colonialism. An adventurer is sent to retrieve a wealthy aristocrat's wayward granddaughter from the savage jungles. The Brits' tentacled mechanical traveling machine tangles with a mysterious aquatic monster, and a narrow escape is made - or is it?

*** Inelastic Collisions by Elizabeth Bear
A couple of fallen angels (who seem a lot more like monsters) bewail their incarnate state, and seek their prey in urban pool halls... until they encounter a pool shark who may be more than he seems.

** Remnants by Fred Chappell
Lovecraft is 'cleaned up' for the 'middle-grades' in this post-apocalyptic sci-fi novella. Too long, too trite, the portrayal of the psychic autistic child was just annoying. It didn't have the 'feel' of Lovecraft's mythos at all.

*** Love is Forbidden, We Croak & Howl by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Unusual - both for this anthology and for Kiernan. It's humorous! Forbidden attraction between an Innsmouth fish-woman and an inhuman ghoul...

**** The Sect of the Idiot by Thomas Ligotti
The first few times I read short stories from Ligotti, I was actually under the impression that he was a contemporary of Lovecraft. He has that old-fashioned, circumnambulating and understated approach to horror (paired with a good vocabulary.) I enjoy it. Of all the stories in this volume, this one definitely comes the closest to resembling an actual Lovecraft story. A solitary man in a strange town... a bizarre dream, a seemingly random encounter, and of course, chthonic, alien forces.

*** Jar of Salts by Gemma Files
A poem.

** Black is the Pit From Pole to Pole by Howard Waldrop and Steven Utley
Frankenstein's monster, on his flight to the Arctic, discovers that the hollow Earth theory is factual, and goes on a strange rampage through subterranean realms. Overly ambitious, throws together too many disparate elements, and goes on too long for what it is.

*** Waiting at the Crossroads Motel by Steve Rasnic Tem
An abusive, nearly subhuman man, who's never known his father, is drawn by strange urges to bring his family to a remote and dilapidated motel. And then, other guests start filtering in... guests that all bear an odd, familial resemblance to one another.

*** I’ve Come to Talk with you Again by Karl Edward Wagner
A group of writers meet for their regular reunion, a pub night. One of them, the most successful, seems vigorous and preternaturally young. The others: old before their time, creaky and querulous. Some have died since their last meeting. Is there something more sinister than coincidence here?

**** The Bleeding Shadow by Joe R. Lansdale
Excellent noir horror with a 1930s (?) jazz setting. A private investigator is begged by a beautiful woman to see what's happened to her brother - a talented jazz musician but a freeloader - who's unexpectedly gone missing. The only thing she knows is that he's mailed her a deeply eerie recording. She recognizes her brother's voice, but the music is like nothing on earth. The narrator tracks him down - but there's a good reason that he'd left town.

*** That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable by Nick Mamatas
Some teenagers hanging out get gotten by the unspeakable.

*** Haruspicy by Gemma Files
a poem

**** Children of the Fang by John Langan
Ooh, nice one. A very well-realized horror story of two siblings who gradually uncover the secrets that their grandfather has held since his work, many years ago, as a contractor in the Middle East. Rich characterization, and a good job of creating a legally-blind protagonist.


Copy provided by NetGalley and Tachyon Publications. Thanks! My opinions, as always, are solely my own.

Another Dancy Flammarion story. Here, the albino monster hunter seems to have been led into trouble by her angel. Although she slew an ancient, inhuman sorceress upon arriving at a dilapidated trailer, that witch wasn't what she came for. And now, the being that she had intended to kill has captured her.
The ending here seemed a little too easy.

A bad-ass werewolf visits Innsmouth, and gets mixed up in more than he bargained for. Reminded me a bit of 'The Wicker Man,' with extra paranormal elements. Humorous without being 'light,' Gaiman's sincere love for Lovecraft shines through here.

[Review of the prose story only.]

It's always an unexpected pleasure to discover a new author this good.

Davidson starts this tale with a shocking scene, and keeps the energy going all the way through to the end. As I said in my review of the author's short story, 'Nighttime in Caeli-Amur,' Davidson excels at creating characters who roundly deserve to be condemned for their actions - but still capture the reader's empathy, if not sympathy.

Their home, Caeli-Amur, feels like a real place. It's vivid, teeming with dreams, ambition, love and tragedy - and the bitter, grotesque things that all of those can twist lives into.

This is a story of a city on the brink...of a fall, or of revolution. Corrupt officials war with seditionist saboteurs. Here we meet Kata, former street orphan, trained philosopher-assassin (ninja) - a woman who's learned to always have an eye for the main chance. But will her self-interest be her downfall? We also have Maximilian, an idealist and revolutionary whose dreams of studying the dangerous arts of thaumaturgy may not be compatible with the violent revolution some of his compatriots aim for. Then there's Boris, former tramworker, on his way up the bureaucratic ladder to success... but will he be willing to trample over the bodies of his old friends on his way up?

And more... much, much more. This is a complex work exploring multiple layers of power and motivations. I'd say: China Mieville meets Tanith Lee - injected with a full syringe of originality. Recommended for fans of steampunk who are tired of the cliches. Davidson's an author I'll be following from here on out.

Advance review copy provided by NetGalley. Thanks to Netgalley and Tor Books. As always, my opinion is my own.

A Lovecraft-influenced tale, of a family whose stolen knowledge has left them guarding a portal into unknown realms... a task which will tear them apart (perhaps literally.)

I'm in the middle of reading 'Unwrapped Sky,' Davidson's novel set in his fictional city of Caeli-Amur. I noticed that Tor Books is providing free access to this short story, as a 'teaser,' so thought I'd check it out (since I'm loving the novel.)
Here (even more than in the book), Caeli-Amur puts me in mind of Tanith Lee's Paradis - a complex, teeming metropolis full of beauty and evil, poverty and wealth, human foibles and inexplicable hauntings.
In this story, the city is merely the lush and atmospheric backdrop to a very human story. The narrator is a mid-level bureaucrat caught in a mid-life crisis, suffering discontent with his comfortable life and family, feeling the urge to throw away everything that he's achieved on his proper track, and regretting the loss of the carefree life he had as a theater student in his university days.
A finely-crafted character study. Davidson seems to excel at creating characters where the reader has to closely consider whether they are deserving of condemnation, empathy - or both.