en-US Sun, 04 May 2025 04:18:29 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review7541557313 Sun, 04 May 2025 04:18:29 -0700 /review/show/7541557313 Joel gave 2 stars to Priestess: The Collected Blackstone Erotica (Paperback) by Justine Geoffrey
bookshelves: horror, weird-fiction, lovecraftian, erotica, martian-migraine
]]> Review7539462034 Sat, 03 May 2025 08:57:40 -0700 /review/show/7539462034 Joel gave 5 stars to The Birds and Other Stories (Kindle Edition) by Daphne du Maurier
bookshelves: short-fiction, short-story, classics, horror, murder, weird-fiction, anthology
This is my first Du Maurier, and I'm glad I started here. Even if its just because The Birds has been a favorite Hitchcock since I was a child. Not that the story bears much resemblance to the movie, which isn't surprising given that Hitchcock is well known for not caring to make a movie that closely resembles the source material but rather to just taking 'inspiration' from it.
The titular Birds definitely has some War of the Worlds in its ancestry, and just as clearly seems like it was drawn upon for Matheson's I Am Legend. As for the rest of the stories, there isn't a dud among them. Though I think the only other potentially 'weird' story is Monte Verita. Even there, I think there's a reading that doesn't involve anything beyond mundane drives, desires, and happenings. Which I think is great...while there are readings of it and The Apple Tree that involve the supernatural, they can be read as being the result of nothing more than the mundane horrors of what people due to one another. Given the rest of the stories, I'm inclined to lean into the mundane readings, which make them no less effective. The dysfunctional relationships or individuals, reliable and unreliable narrators, give a fantastic tension and close to home horror. ]]> Review7522672928 Sun, 27 Apr 2025 06:16:32 -0700 /review/show/7522672928 Joel gave 4 stars to Starwolf (Mass Market Paperback) by Edmond Hamilton
bookshelves: space-opera, science-fiction, scifi, pulp, adventure
Another rollicking, adventurous good time from the semi-pulp scifi era I hadn't previously read (or anything else by Hamilton for that matter). This omnibus was in the last of the books from my aunt, who loved this sort of thing.
It was a light, fast, fun action-y collection. Though nestled in there is some surprisingly astute self-reflection and great characterization, some nice thoughts on how you can't ever really 'go home again' for a whole host of reasons and causes.
Worth the read! ]]> Review7503914791 Sun, 20 Apr 2025 10:57:12 -0700 /review/show/7503914791 Joel gave 3 stars to The Female Hypnotist: Stories from the Victorian and Edwardian Eras (Hypnotism in Victorian and Edwardian Era Fiction) by Donald K. Hartman
bookshelves: free, literature, short-story, short-fiction, anthology, horror, sherlock-holmes, fantasy, science-fiction, victorian, edwardian
Geared more towards the academic than the casual reader, this is a fantastic collection of stories typical of the genre from authors both well known and obscure. These stories are emblematic of the themes and tropes one would expect, always about and sometimes by women. I think the real gem of the collection is the extensive bibliography, a highly detailed list of additional stories that there was certainly not room for in this particular volume. Much like those actually collected, the bibliography is a comprehensive cross section of the well known (F. Marion Crawford's 'The Witch of Prague') and the obscure. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the genre of the era.
As an aside, there's a conan doyle story that I would shocked to learn wasn't in some way an inspiration for Lovecraft's 'Thing on the Doorstep'. ]]> Review7503335742 Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:13:43 -0700 /review/show/7503335742 Joel gave 3 stars to The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III (Hardcover) by William C. Dear
bookshelves: nonfiction, true-crime, crime, rpg, mystery, dragons-roost-press
Having lived through at least some of the satanic panic, and in Michigan at that, I was pretty well prepared to discount much of what was in this book.
What I did not realize in advance was just how outlandish and silly this book about the tragic life of Dallas Egbert was going to be. William Dear seems like...quite a character. Whether its the picture of him posing with his tommy gun on the back cover or the *many* anecdotes about increasingly ludicrous events in his life and 'crime fighting' career...an un-uniformed paid law enforcement official at 16? an official leo at 17? fighting off more than two dozen cultists with his bare hands? these are just a few examples from the text. There's also all the talk of the extremely (for the time) sophisticated and outlandishly expensive equipment from the more 'mundane' things like private planes and helicopters to what would likely have still been spy and leo gear at the time.
This reads a lot less like true crime and a lot more like a mashup of a pulpy detective/p.i. and a bond-esque adventure story. And if you read it as such, instead of as a true crime book, its actually not that bad and probably falls into the realm of all those taught spy thrillers you always see for sale in bookstores that men of a certain age seem to be really into. I found myself telling my partner that, in more modern terms, this wouldn't be out of place as a solid episode of something like a Criminal Minds or CSI.
If you don't read it that way, its going to be rough. Its hard to take Dear seriously (let alone as seriously as he tries to take himself). Sure, the dialogue is pretty terrible, especially considering these are supposed to be quotes from real people and real events...I can't think of a single character that talks the way real people do. However, the pacing and tension is solid. And the clear mythologizing and lore building about himself could be easily excused in fiction. I actually think he could have had a solid career writing these sorts of stories. ]]> Review7488283693 Mon, 14 Apr 2025 11:02:59 -0700 /review/show/7488283693 Joel gave 3 stars to Down These Strange Streets (Hardcover) by George R.R. Martin
bookshelves: fantasy, urban-fantasy, magic, vampire, werewolf, ghost-stories, witch, anthology, short-fiction, short-story, detective
This is, as the name implies, a strange collection. Its a mish-mash of an urban fantasy collection with the detective/mystery collection I think Martin might have really been shooting for. He even tries to address this to some degree in his introduction, which also includes a much appreciated reference to the fact that the often more-romantasy-than-fantasy current urban fantasy is basically a distinct genre from what we called urban fantasy in the 80s and 90s (I think there's some veiled references to Bull and Windling). I think he may have wanted a more detective noir collection that dabbled in some true or not supernatural events, and I don't think it succeeds at that. There's too much wild variation from noir, to current urban fantasy, to romantasy. Just all over the place. Which is not to say there are some good stories here, just that I don't think its successful as a themed anthology (that cover is also not great). A *lot* of these authors also seemed to have worked with or received accolades from Martin in the past, and I wonder how much of the contributors list ended up being chosen not because the stories fit the theme well but because he just likes these *people* and their work more broadly (like, there's I think three WildCards contributors here??).
I haven't read, nor intended to ever read, any Charlaine Harris and the true blood world story 'Death by Dahlia' definitely didn't change those plans.
Joe Lansdale's 'The Bleeding Shadow' was phenomenal, and quite frankly worth a library check out or a super cheat used copy price all on its own as a weird fiction noir.
As seems usual at this point, Simon R. Green's 'The Hungry Heart' was far more enjoyable than any of his novel length Nightside books. I've yet to try reading anything non-nightside from him, so I'm not sure if its just his writing, or the nature of his nightside setting that seems to make them successful as short stories but fall really flat as novels for me. Probably a combination.
'Styx and Stones' by Steven Saylor was a lot more interesting and fun than I expected, kind of a scooby doo mystery but less silly. Also one of at least three stories set in the ancient world, with a few more historical mysteries chucked in, further kind of muddying up what the overriding theme is supposed to be. Regardless, I'll probably look at some other Saylor stories.
S.M. Stirling's 'Pain and Suffering' was certainly better than probably the last 6 or so ploddingly long Emberverse books I read. Though its set in one of his other series, I recognize some strong similarities in how he writes about his antagonists. If they aren't 900 pages long and I find them cheap it might be enough to make me try one of his books from this world.
'Its Still the same Old Story' is a Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Norville, short story and plugs comfortably into the urban fantasy maybe theme. Better than I would have expected.
I'd never heard of Conn Iggulden before 'The Lady Is a Screamer'...its not much of a detective story/mystery, nor historical, nor really any version of urban fantasy so I'm not 100% sure what its doing here, but it was an interesting change of pace as a ghost hunter story with somewhat of a moral.
'Hellbender' wants to be noir, but overdoes it in parts and fails to achieve it in others. Also sexy salamanders.
I know Glen Cook is supposed to have some great series, and apparently Garrett P.I. is a long running one. But man was 'Shadow Thieves' a rough read. Maybe its because the series is so long and there's too much back story for these seemingly main characters for someone to jump in with a short story this late in the game. But I didn't care about the people, there were lots of references to characters or things that seemed to assume prior knowledge. The dialogue, what wasn't just omitted or hand waived because some characters could read minds, was almost as disjointed as the action scenes.
Snodgrass' 'No Mystery, No Miracle' holds up well enough without knowing anything about her edge of reason series, though again, doesn't feel detective/mystery (though I think the series does focus on a detective). Like others have in the past, I think its trying to shoehorn some of Lovecraft's 'Old Ones' material into a good vs. evil/cosmic battle sort of framework.
Daniel Abraham, writing under his romantasy non de plume M.L.N. Hanover, contributes a piece so interesting I was shocked that was supposed to be part of his romantasy series. One of the better characterization of cops as well.
The last big chunk of the book is equally hit and miss, but Lord John was an interesting historical piece set in Jamaica, an In Red, With Pearls was a Patricia Briggs/Mercy Thompson urban fantasy that was readable.
All in all, I think this is a good example of what angers Martin fans when he does yet another project of dubious quality instead of finishing his own work. Maybe pick it up at the library if there are some stories by folks you already like, or just read a couple of the ones that catch your eye and skip the others. ]]> Review7482902306 Sat, 12 Apr 2025 10:30:12 -0700 /review/show/7482902306 Joel gave 1 star to Dawn of the Dreadfuls (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, #0.5) by Steve Hockensmith
]]> Review2088569042 Sat, 12 Apr 2025 10:30:03 -0700 /review/show/2088569042 Joel gave 1 star to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, #1) by Seth Grahame-Smith
]]> Review7482901069 Sat, 12 Apr 2025 10:29:37 -0700 /review/show/7482901069 Joel gave 5 stars to The Long Walk (Mass Market Paperback) by Richard Bachman
]]> Review7482875441 Sat, 12 Apr 2025 10:16:33 -0700 /review/show/7482875441 Joel gave 5 stars to Grey Seas Are Dreaming Of My Death: A William Hope Hodgson RPG (Paperback) by Derek Sotak
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