The Night Cyclist by Stephen Graham Jones

October 17, 2018 By Leave a Comment


The Night Cyclist by Stephen Graham Jones
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (35 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

“The Night Cyclist” by Stephen Graham Jones is a horror novelette about a middle-aged chef whose nightly bicycle ride home is interrupted by an unexpected encounter.

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The main character was an incredibly brave man. I never would have had the courage to do what he did when he encountered something completely out of the ordinary on his bike ride home after dark. He was riding in such a deserted area that I would have been worried about something terrible happening under those circumstances and with no witnesses around to help. This rash decision suited his assertive and risk-taking personality perfectly, though. If anyone was going to run towards danger instead of away from it, he would have been the guy to do that.

There were a few parts of the ending that didn’t quite make sense to me. They had to do with how the protagonist reacted once the most climatic scene had wrapped up and he was left to decide what to do next. His reaction wasn’t what I would have expected from him based on how he’d behaved in the past. It would have been helpful to have a more thorough explanation of why he acted this way.

The world building felt quite realistic to me. Due to the fact that the main character didn’t have superpowers or any particular interest in things that can’t be explained by science, I appreciated how much time it took him to realize that something odd was happening. That was an understandable reaction from him. Even though I always wanted to know more than he was slowly figuring out, I liked the fact that the author stayed so true to this character’s down-to-earth approach to stuff he didn’t understand.

Anyone who has ever been alarmed by a strange sound after dark should give The Night Cyclist a try.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The High Lonesome Frontier by Rebecca Campbell

October 16, 2018 By Leave a Comment


The High Lonesome Frontier by Rebecca Campbell
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (21 pages)
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A meditation about the evolution and influence of a song written in 1902 over the next 150 plus years.

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This was the first time I’ve ever seen a song being treated like a character, much less the protagonist. I was impressed with Ms. Campbell’s creative approach this topic. Even though it wasn’t a sentient being, the song’s evolution over time were fascinating to watch. The identity of the person who originally sang it was forgotten by many fans which only made it more appealing and mysterious to future generations.

The only thing I wish had been done differently had to do with the non-chronological order of the scenes. As much as I adored seeing how the song was rediscovered by each new generation, in a few spots it was slightly confusing to jump around so much in the timeline. While I did soon figure out how to piece everything together, this is something I would have liked to see tweaked. It was the only thing holding this story back from a perfect rating from me.

One of the most magical things about music is how effortlessly it can evoke the same emotion in everyone who listens to it no matter who they are or how many years later they discover it. This was a theme that was explored in depth in this tale. Every single person who sang, heard, played, or was otherwise exposed to this song responded to it with the same mixture of feelings. I can’t say what those feelings were, exactly, without giving away spoilers, but I was amazed by how often this kept happening no matter how many generations had passed since it was originally written and recorded.

The High Lonesome Frontier was a beautiful piece of science fiction that I’d strongly recommend to anyone who has ever absent-mindedly hummed a tune that they could only half remember.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Tangled Woods by Emily Raboteau

October 16, 2018 By Leave a Comment


The Tangled Woods by Emily Raboteau
Dark Corners collection
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Genre: Contemporary, Horror
Length: Short Story (37 pgs)
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Ginger

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Poison-tongued film critic Reginald Wright is known for his creative insults and intolerance for the garbage culture, insufferable rudeness, and thoughtless racism of predictably common people. Now, against his better judgment, and with a marriage in crisis, he’s attempting a getaway in the Poconos that quickly fulfills his every low expectation. In fact, it’s becoming a nightmare. And that’s just what Reginald needs to wake up.

What dad wouldn’t be excited to be headed on a five night family vacation to Big Bear Lodge in the Poconos? Not widely know film critic Reginald Wright. In fact he seems to bring the grouchiness of a bear with his sour mood and bitter attitude. I feel sorry for Reggie’s wife, Ladette and their son, Thurgood, that they have to deal with such a sullen temperament. Reggie seems to not be aware of how his words can hurt but that will soon change.

This is a well written short tale that delivers a gloomy story of an unhappy man. I wouldn’t categorize the story as scary… more along the lines of disturbing. Starting with Reggie’s depressing and mean behavior, to his odd dream to the encounter with the man upstairs. For such a short story, the author’s words held my attention and drew me in. I felt sympathy for the characters. Sad that a father can’t see what good he has in his wife and son. A son that looks up to his father, but also seems to recognize that his father needs healing.

I enjoyed the author’s writing style and how she put so much into just a few pages. I also like the author’s use of uncommon words that gave the story a certain flare.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Old Dispensation by Lavie Tidhar

October 9, 2018 By 2 Comments


The Old Dispensation by Lavie Tidhar
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror
Length: Short Story (31 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A space opera adventure set in a universe controlled and run by Jewish religious authorities. An enforcer is sent to a distant planet where he discovers an android who changes his mind about what is right and wrong

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There’s something to be said for a plot twist involving a major character that is only vaguely hinted at. While I did end up figuring out what it was probably going to be ahead of time, this in no way made it less interesting to see if my prediction was going to turn out to be the correct one. The fact that the characters involved in it were so surprised by what happened made me grin. I wish I could say more about this, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers about something that was a highlight of the storyline for me.

I found it confusing to jump back and forth in the timeline of this story so often. As interested as I was in the plot itself, it was hard to keep track of when everything happened due to certain key scenes appearing to being shared much sooner or later than they actually happened. There were several times when I had to stop and reread a previous scene due to all of the trouble I had placing it in the timeline, and I’m still not entirely sure I have all of them sorted out correctly.

The world building was well done. I originally wondered if this was part of a series due to all of the little details the author included about things that had happened in the distant past. When I found out it wasn’t, I was even more impressed by how much work had been put into creating such a detailed world in only a few dozen pages.

I’d recommend The Old Dispensation to anyone who loves dark and futuristic science fiction.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , ,

A Human Stain by Kelly Robson

September 28, 2018 By Leave a Comment


A Human Stain by Kelly Robson
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Historical
Length: Short Story (40 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

“A Human Stain” by Kelly Robson is a disturbing horror novelette about a British expatriate at loose ends who is hired by her friend to temporarily care for his young, orphaned nephew in a remote castle-like structure in Germany.

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This was one of the creepiest things I’ve read in ages. It was creepy to think of Helen, the protagonist, living in a crumbling mansion with a child who kept doing alarming things and other staff members who refused to confirm or deny anything about why the boy behaved that way or whether his actions were a sign of something even more horrifying from his past.

What this story needed more than anything was a much more detailed description of the secrets that Herr Lambrecht and the people he employed at the mansion were keeping from Helen. This was by far the most important part of the plot, so I was surprised by how it was handled once she realized there was something very odd about her young charge. I was intrigued by what was shared, but I had enough trouble putting all of the pieces together that I didn’t feel justified in giving this book the higher score I’d originally thought it deserved.

Helen was a likeable main character whom I desperately hoped would be okay once she realized exactly how much danger she was in. I marvelled at all of the hints about her past that poked through as she adjusted to her strange new home and job. It was the sort of position that wouldn’t appeal to most tutors or nannies, so it was nice to know why she was so in need of a job that she overlooked red flags more observant and less desperate employees would have picked up on early on.

If you love the horror genre, give A Human Stain a try.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Paths to the Stars by Edward Willett

September 21, 2018 By 1 Comment


Paths to the Stars: Twenty-Two Fantastical Tales of Imagination by Edward Willett
Publisher: Shadowpaw Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Paranormal, Horror, Contemporary, Historical
Length: Full Length (327 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

From Edward Willett, Aurora Award-winning author of Marseguro, The Cityborn, and Worldshaper (DAW Books), among many others, comes twenty-two tales of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, drawn from a long career of telling fantastic tales.

A young musician dreams of playing his songs among the stars…A Broadway performer on the lam is forced to direct aliens in The Sound of Music…Strange vegetables with dangerous properties crop up in small-town Saskatchewan…A man with a dark secret gets his comeuppance on a windy night on the prairie…An elderly caretaker on the Moon preserves the memory of the millions who died on Earth’s darkest day…A woman and a bat-like alien must overcome their own prejudices to prevent an interstellar war…

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Time to go exploring…

From dusty, old-fashioned farmhouses from generations ago to gleaming space ships who will fly around in the distant future, there’s something in this collection for a wide variety of tastes.

“Strange Harvest” showed what happened to the community of Drinkwell, Saskatchewan when the farmers and gardeners there began noticing that their crops didn’t look, taste, or behave like anything they’d ever seen before. I was fascinated by the thought of something as ordinary as a potato becoming dangerous for humans to be around. It made me think about farmer’s markets in an entirely different way, although I can’t say much more else about it without giving away spoilers. While I was satisfied with how this one ended, I also would have loved to know what happened to the characters after the final scene.

All of the stories in this anthology had attention-grabbing premises and were a pleasure to read. With that being said, there were a few of them that I thought could have used a little extra development. For example, it took me a while to understand what was happening in ““The Mother’s Keepers.” The protagonist, Praella, didn’t have a good understanding of how her society functioned at all. While I wouldn’t expect a drone like her to know everything, I was surprised by the gaps in her memory, especially once I got to know more about her insect-like race and began to make my own assumptions about how their society was structured and how they reproduced. This tale would have been one of my favorites if I’d had a better understanding of what her species was like and why she knew so little about the practical details of their lives.

Carl, the main character in “The Wind,” was haunted by his memories of his dead wife. Little did he know that a metaphorical haunting might not be the only thing he had to worry about. The plot twists in this tale were as clever as they were fun to read. While I did see them coming in advance, I was still quite curious to know if I’d made the correct assumptions about what the clues in the beginning were hinting at. It was rewarding to find out if I was right and see what happened to this character next.

Paths to the Stars: Twenty-Two Fantastical Tales of Imagination was a creative collection that I’d highly recommend to anyone who appreciates the occasionally humorous side of this genre.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Excerpts from a Film (1942-1987) by A. C. Wise

September 20, 2018 By Leave a Comment


Excerpts from a Film (1942-1987) by A.C. Wise
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Historical
Length: Short Story (37 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

“Excerpts from a Film (1942-1987)” by A.C. Wise is a disturbing horror novelette about a young woman, who like many others, goes to Hollywood to become a star and is haunted by the murders of several other aspiring actresses. And of her influence, rippling up through the years, on the man who “discovered” her and on film itself.

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Not every ghost has the same agenda, and not every ghost story unfolds the same way. One of the most interesting parts of this tale for me was figuring out what the dead wanted and how they decided they were going to try to accomplish their mission. At times I wasn’t even sure that they knew what they wanted, but that was a good thing. There was a lot of room for interpretation here, and that was a great choice for this particular storyline.

I figured out the plot twist for this story almost immediately. There were quite a few clues about what was really going on, and they popped up pretty early in the storyline. It would have been helpful to hold off on some of them for a few scenes so that I would have needed to work harder to figure out what the author was trying to hint at. I was disappointed at how easy it was to piece everything together right away.

Switching between two different narrators who were living in eras set a few decades apart was a smart decision for this tale. Both of them were well developed and revealed portions of the plot to the audience that the other narrator couldn’t possibly have known. I enjoyed reading about their interpretations of the same events, especially later on once they began to experience or remember the darker scenes.

Excerpts from a Film (1942-1987) should be read by anyone who has ever been haunted by their past or wondered what such an experience would be like.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Alphaland by Cristina Jurado

September 17, 2018 By Leave a Comment


Alphaland by Cristina Jurado
Publisher: Nevsky Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (126 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Award-winning short story writer Cristina Jurado’s first collection in English is filled with the idea of the other: different lives that take place at the corners of our eyes, just out of sight. The boundaries between the real and the unreal have never before been so porous, or so fragile. Alien sex-goddesses feed off venal politicians; people have their memories wiped and their personalities changed – for a fee; a vision of the champing jaws of hell accompanies a death in the family. These six stories are six different worlds, and introduce into the English-speaking market a fascinating new author of speculative fiction.

Not everything is as simple as it might appear to be at first glance.

The main character in “Vanth” asked his campaign manager to hire a prostitute for him. When she arrived at his hotel room, he had no idea what was about to happen to him. I found the plot hard to follow due to how often it shifted from one scene to the next and how few details there were about who the characters were. Even their names weren’t mentioned. There was also a scene about a young boy in the woods included very early on that I had trouble connecting to everything that happened after it. While I did come up with a theory about how all of those sections fit together, I would have liked to have a few more clues about what was going on and if my guess was correct.
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After a sudden accident in “Inchworm,” an astronaut woke up to discover that his body was connected to many different tubes and other devices that were keeping him alive. He needed to figure out what had happened to him while also attempting to achieve the goals he’d been sent out into space to pursue. I adored the plot twists in this tale. Not only were there several great ones, the clues for all of them were released so gradually that I was able to spend plenty of time coming up with theories about what had happened to the astronaut and how someone who had been so healthy could suddenly be barely clinging to life.

“Alice” showed what happened to a woman named Alice after she woke up from a medical procedure designed to erase all of her memories of her past. She was determined to find out what she’d decided to forget but had no idea where to begin. I was fascinated by the thought of someone trying to remember a life they’d purposefully chosen to leave behind in such a dramatic fashion, but I did wonder why the clinic would allow a patient to wake up with such an unquenchable desire for this information. It seemed counter-productive, and it was never clear to me why this side effect would be allowed to persist by medical professionals that had the amazing ability to delete specific memories from someone’s mind without harming other ones.

Death was an unavoidable topic in “Second Death of the Father.” The protagonist stood vigil at her father’s deathbed and then had to deal with her conflicting feelings about the turbulent relationship she’d had with him when he was alive. I appreciated all of the details the narrator shared about her father’s absence from her life. Her anger and disappointment at being created by someone who was so uninterested in parenting his own child or getting to know who she was as an adult felt incredibly realistic. It also gave her some pretty understandable reasons for reacting to the later plot developments the way she did.

It took me a little while to get into “The Shepherd” because of how vague the narrator was about what was happening in their lives and what sort of creatures they were hunting. As soon as I figured out these details, though, I couldn’t wait to find out if their hunt would be successful. The world building was handled nicely, especially when it came to gradually revealing more and more information about how this society worked and why the audience wasn’t told certain things about it right away.

The protagonist in “Alphaland” was someone whose dreams were capable of coming back as hallucinations during the day when they were awake. As intrigued as I was by the premise, so little time was spent describing how such an ability could negatively affect someone’s life that I had trouble connecting with the main character. It would have been nice to see more examples of what happened to them when a nightmare they’d experienced one night returned again the next day when they least expected it.

Alphaland was a well-written and thought-provoking collection of short stories that I’d recommend to anyone who enjoys modern science fiction.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

August Book of the Month Poll ~ Wedding at the Rocking S Ranch by Kathryn Albright

August 31, 2018 By Leave a Comment


Wedding at the Rocking S Ranch by Kathryn Albright
Oak Grove Series
Publisher: Harlequin Mills & Boon
Genre: Historical
Length: Full length (288 pages)
Heat Level: Sweet
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Mistflower
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Can a widow in the Wild West…

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When Cassandra Stewart fulfills her husband’s dying wish by visiting the ranch he loved, she plans to sell it. But then she meets his best friend. As aloof, ruggedly handsome Wolf shows Cassandra the value of life in the prairies, tenderness begins to grow from their shared pain into something more… Maybe there’s a future for her at the Rocking S Ranch after all…

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE!

Filed Under: Erotic Romance, Horror, Mainstream Fiction, Mystery/Suspense, Non-Fiction, Other, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: ,

Cotton Tale by E.C. Fisher

August 31, 2018 By Leave a Comment


Cotton Tale by E.C. Fisher
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Horror, Contempoaray
Length: Short story (60 pages)
Rating: 3.5 stars
Reviewed by Lavender

A private jet violently crash-lands on a deserted island. Captain Newton and his stewardess Rebecca are reluctantly forced to band together with the Vanderbach family as a means of survival.

They soon discover the island holds a dark secret the mainland has kept hidden since the 70s. Something monstrous was genetically engineered nearly forty years ago that even nature couldn’t destroy. Now it stalks the group as they venture further into the jungle in search of rescue and escape.
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Can the group of misfit survivors manage to work together to find a way off the island? As the tension, suspense, and horror rise, they realize time is not on their side … the ravenous creations are drawing closer, and their appetite is insatiable.

For a zippy little, fast-moving tale that will keep one hoping against hope, Cotton Tale does not disappoint. It is labeled as a horror story, and rightfully so. There is enough violence and blood to justify the genre’s label. However, with the gory parts and being interwoven with creepy aspects, this story often feels like a thriller as readers go along with the characters, hoping they find a way out of their terrible situation.

A plane crashes on an island, bringing out the best and worst in the characters as we see them under pressure and how they try to remain calm. Some of the characters readers can like right away, and some of them readers may not like so much. It’s an interesting group. The story starts right in the middle of the action.

The mood grows in intensity as they deal with the aftermath of the crash. Trouble isn’t over; it just started. There’s an eerie atmosphere on the too quiet island. It’s dark, and they’re in great peril.

Short chapters keep it snappy. When the group finds the building and see its condition, it’s obvious that something had escaped it. Scary thought. They find a secret passageway. The suspense escalates and creates goosebumps. There’s something out there, but what could it be?

For those who like well-paced scary stories that one can enjoy in a reading or two, this is a good one to check out. The ending is somewhat unexpected.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,
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