Note: this review first appeared on Strogy.com The Case of the Giant Carnivorous Worm (CGCW hereafter) is that rare breed of thing in the horror genre: an action comedy that is actually funny. While this is indeed more common in horror movies, it is less frequently seen in the written word. Thomas E. Staples in […]
Note: this review first appeared on Storgy.com The Earth is healed and humans have been extinct for 500 years. Those two things are connected. In the dying days of human civilisation a scientist created a better species, the Erta. Human-like but with none of their physical and emotional flaws. They are walking problem solvers with […]
Let’s start with the excellent blurb: A supernatural force—set in motion a century ago—threatens to devastate New York City in this “terrific horror/suspense/disaster novel” that “grips from the first page” (Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author). Far upstate, in New York’s ancient forests, a drowned village lays beneath the dark, still waters of the Chilewaukee […]
Note: this review first appeared on Storgy.com The Fungus is a romp of a horror story, mixing black-humour with a classic Promethean horror motif of science run amok. Part of Valancourt Book’s revamp of 1970s and 80s creature horror, The Fungus delivers on the nostalgia and a wickedly grotesque monster, well, mutated fungi really, but they aren’t without […]
More Gothic and Victorian literary intertextuality that you can shake a wooden stake at. Slicker than a tanto blade after seppuku with only faintly marred with staccato transitions into action scenes. So sharp it might cut itself with its own cleverness. If literary influences bit each other to create a super-vampire this book would be the get of: Dracula, Frankenstein, Lovecraft, Loan Wolf and […]
I haven’t enjoyed a book quite as much as this in a long time. A post-apocalyptic dystopian ripping yarn, which is both funny and moving in equal measure. A reflection on what might happen if the more intolerant, nationalistic elements of the Bretix movement become amplified. Nothing particularly new in the post-apocalyptic vision, however, the […]
