Reviews

“Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology” edited by Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.

September 19th, 2023

There’s a belief across numerous cultures that whistling at nighttime can attract evil spirits and misfortune. Hence the title of this anthology, which warns against such activity, because as Stephen Graham Jones notes in his foreword, “you don’t invite bad stuff, right?” You have control over your own fate, Jones indicates. You can choose to keep the “bad stuff” at bay. 

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How a Resurrection Really Feels: "The Gospel of The Hold Steady"

September 18th, 2023

It seems that to be a fan of The Hold Steady, or at least a guest writer in the quite culty and obsessively—both traits required to be a fan of the band in the first place—enjoyable coffee table book/oral history, The Gospel of The Hold Steady, you have to one, know how you discovered The Hold Steady in the first place and two, know where you saw them first. I can relate to that. There are bonus points if it was somewhere in Brooklyn near the early part of the century. I can’t relate to that.

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"Bridge" by Lauren Beukes

September 12th, 2023

Bridget Kittinger has spent her life trying to reconcile the memories of her childhood with the reality of the world. But when her mother, a troubled neuroscientist, dies, Bridget is left to pick up the shattered remnants of her life. Except, instead of finding closure, Bridget is confronted with even more questions when she finds the “dreamworm” in her mother’s freezer.

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Chuck Palahniuk's "Not Forever, But For Now": It's Both

September 4th, 2023

Before you read Not Forever, But For Now, know that you’re doing it wrong. Because for years now, so many readers have read Palahniuk’s books all wrong. Let me explain: Chuck Palahniuk has said, more than once, that he takes a certain pleasure in being wrong. At a party, he’ll talk about how Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Curve.

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"Two Minutes With The Devil" by Matt Micheli: A Rumination

August 24th, 2023

Look, reading Two Minutes With The Devil by Matt Micheli is probably going to be upsetting for most of us, however, it’s also fun, nostalgic, and for lovers of urban myths and legends—and is there anyone who isn’t, don’t answer that because I don’t want to know—it has your name written all over it.

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"Riding the Nightmare" by Lisa Tuttle

August 22nd, 2023

In his introduction to what can best be described as a “greatest hits” collection of Lisa Tuttle’s decades-worth of fictional output, Neil Gaiman notes that the twelve tales occupying Riding the Nightmare are nearly all, in some way or another, concerned with sex and death. These are, in Y.B. Yeats’s view, the only two subjects with which an author can and should concern themselves.

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"The Beast You Are" by Paul Tremblay

August 2nd, 2023

Paul Tremblay is a beast of a writer. From his novels, including A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World — recently made into a film by M. Night Shyamalan — to his shorter works, one is hard-pressed to find a dud in his rich bibliography.

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"Story of a Poem" by Matthew Zapruder: A Rumination

July 24th, 2023

I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that Story of a Poem by Matthew Zapruder found me when I needed it to find me. It feels more correct to say that things find us as they do–in this case I was out running and listening to the Otherppl podcast with Brad Listi and he was interviewing Zapruder about the book–and we make those things into what we need them to be. 

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"I Meant It Once" by Kate Doyle

July 18th, 2023

I Meant It Once by Kate Doyle is a quiet, but revelatory debut collection. Each story is as sharp with wit and piercing with insight as the next. She charts the ambiguousness of various women’s twenties as they each try to hold on to what made them happy, desired, or wanted. The path forward for all of them is clouded with unknowing and the uncomfortable feelings that come with adulthood and maturity. Friendships change. Romances are not quite as hot as they once were. Life does not have the same luster as it once did in their youth.

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"Camp Damascus" by Chuck Tingle

July 17th, 2023

Most people know Chuck Tingle as a purveyor of irreverent, surreal, and often satirical erotica, with titles like Angry Man Pounded By The Fear Of His Latent Gayness Over A Dinosaur Transitioning Into A Unicorn, President Domald Loch Ness Tromp Pounds America's Butt, and Pharma Bro Pounded In The Butt By T-Rex Comedian Bill Murky And A Clan Of Triceratops Rappers Trying To Get Their Album Back, among numerous others.

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