horror
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So, I’ve been a huge fan of Chuck Wendig’s for many years, and I may now be at a point where just his voice on the page means I’m just primed to enjoy what he writes. And so it was here, where I really enjoyed and stuck with this story, even though nothing and no…
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This book is a fairly easy read, and Lily can be a sympathetic character at times, but ultimately this is an overstretched short story with a rushed and disappointing ending. What promised to be something in the vein of The Ninth Gate manages, instead, to be a self-indulgent Fifty Shades of Eat, Pray, Love.Lily Albrecht,…
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This debut novel by Rosie Andrews is a slow burn for much of its first half—building atmosphere, hinting at shadows, but keeping its cards quite close to its chest—before diving (pardon the pun) into a more authentically horrific vision as it gains considerable, and welcome, momentum in the second half. In 17th century Norfolk, Thomas…
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This is a very engaging expansion of the world of Dr Moreau, though it does suffer somewhat from the perennial problem for stories that rely heavily on huge time jumps: is it a novel, or a gathering of short stories? Barnes does a lot of work to scaffold the connectedness of these stories, but it’s…
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The follow-up to the excellent, frenetic Beneath the Rising, sees our odd couple (increasingly at-odds couple) Nick and Johnny thrown back together and back into the fray against Them, the vast cosmic horrors seeking to gain entry to our world. In the previous book, the truths behind their tense dynamic — she, the child savant,…
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The prolific Mr. Campbell shows no signs of slowing down and produces another compelling and chilling read, close on the heels of last year’s, The Wise Friend. This time he goes back to his own past, setting a tale of opportunistic spiritualism and post-war grief in his home city of Liverpool in the 1950s. This…
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Anthony slept lightly Christmas Eve, fully expecting the confrontation to come. When it did, it was the dead of night; he didn’t have a clock in his room, but the worlds inside and out were hushed and still. The figure perched at the end of the bed had done nothing to disturb the stillness, but…
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Happy Thanksgiving, those who observe it. I’m Irish, so I don’t, but I like the sentiment, obviously. In the spirit of the giving part, here’s a story, though it may not follow the spirit as kindly as my sharing it is intended. And if you take the time to read it, then Thanks. Thankless To…
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When I got wind of Shaun Hamill’s, ‘A Cosmology of Monsters’, I said it looked, “so far up my street, I might already be living there.” Well, I’ve walked through his haunted house and out again and—while I genuinely loved the experience—I’m glad I don’t really live there, because it’s really fucking scary. This is…
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I attended a lot of panels on horror at Worldcon in Dublin last year. Some were focused on themes, like body horror, but most were focused on publishing. “Don’t call it horror,” was the basic gist of most of those talks. Horror “in-the-mix” was key to not putting the punters off. Say Grimdark. Call it…
Damien Kelly 