Reviews

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

February 22nd, 2021

There are evil things that plague our world, spreading hate and invoking fear. A malignity that knows no bounds. It all began with a malevolent sorcerer’s spell that gripped a nation, driving people to corruption and wickedness. D.W. Griffith used this magic to lend power to a group rising in prominence called the Ku-Klux Klan. With their plot coming to fruition, one person stands in their way. Maryse Boudreaux is a champion for good-hearted people that have been wronged for too long.

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Bookshots: "A House at the Bottom of a Lake" by Josh Malerman

January 19th, 2021

Bookshots: Pumping new life into the corpse of the book review Title: A House at the Bottom of a Lake Who wrote it? Malerman expertly conjures a fairy tale nostalgia of first love, and we follow along, all too willingly, ignoring the warning signs even as the fear takes hold. Fellow Josh, surname Malerman, author of the smash horror novel, Bird Box.

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"little threats" by Emily Schultz

December 2nd, 2020

Photo: © Sara Maria Salamone, courtesy of publisher I'm here to talk about the utterly gripping and quite entertaining psychological thriller little threats by Emily Schultz. It’s by far my favorite read of the pandemic, a time period where I’ve found it hard to read much at all. 

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"Along the Path of Torment" by Chandler Morrison

October 29th, 2020

Nobody will blame you if you read the first chapter of Along the Path of Torment and quit. The subject matter is abhorrent. In fact, the entire novel is this way. Full of unrelenting acts of depravity. Enough to make you physically feel ill.

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"Writing in the Dark" by Tim Waggoner

October 19th, 2020

Photo via author's website Reading Writing in the Dark by Tim Waggoner is like sitting through your favorite lecture in college, listening to your favorite professor talk about your favorite subject. When I finished the book, I felt like I did at the end of one of those lectures—I wanted to hang back and keep talking with fellow students and the professor about what we had learned.

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"The Magic of Terry Pratchett" by Marc Burrows

October 16th, 2020

Picking up a Terry Pratchett novel is like self-administering a dose of anti-venom. His fantasy worlds contain the same toxins that inflame our reality: corruption, hypocrisy, greed. Yet within his narratives, as he rails against the too-familiar torments of racism, police brutality, environmental destruction, religious persecution, misogyny et al, he manages to lace the poison with enough humor, defiance, and faith in basic human decency for his stories to serve as a powerful antidote.

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"It Came from the Multiplex: 80s Midnight Chillers" Edited by Joshua Viola

September 16th, 2020

It’s almost Halloween, and that means it’s time to glut yourself on as many horror narratives as you can get your hands on. Anthologies are, of course, a great way to stuff one’s gullet, since they provide a cornucopia of horror. If you’re looking for something schlocky and escapist, It Came from the Multiplex: 80s Midnight Chillers is the perfect serving of candy, soda, and popcorn. Edited by Joshua Viola, the collection’s official blurb perfectly sums up what the book has to offer:

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"The Circus of Stolen Dreams" by Lorelei Savaryn

September 1st, 2020

A circus that allows you to escape your troubles... So many people read for escapism, but Andrea isn’t running away from the usual middle school woes. Instead of having to worry about acne, mean girls, or crushes, she's dealing with her brother's disappearance and the effects it has on her family. It’s been 3 years and life hasn’t been the same. And to make things worse, her parents decide to get rid of all her brother's stuff. 

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"The Only Good Indians" by Stephen Graham Jones

August 31st, 2020

I’ll start this review by telling you straightaway that the less you know about Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians, the better. Most, if not all of us in the horror community (and even beyond that too) know who Jones is, and know what to expect from him at this point, and I would highly recommend reading this novel on name recognition alone.

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Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora

August 18th, 2020

Not so long ago, diversity in the realm of speculative fiction was a major problem. And while it’s still an issue—and an especially glaring one here in America amid the long overdue racial justice movement—publications such as Apex Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, and The Dark make it their point to include marginalized voices of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror in their pages.

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