horror Archives - Page 2 of 7

Yzabel / December 17, 2017

Review: The Change 1 – London: Orbital

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THE WORLD CHANGED?

One minute everything was fine and the next… they arrived. Those that saw them died instantly. The unlucky ones survived. Now unimaginable things straight out of nightmares roam the streets of our towns and cities. Nothing is impossible. Nowhere is safe. And no one can escape The Change…

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

(For some reason, when I requested it, I thought it was a graphic novel. Probably because of the cover. I really like that cover.)

This was a fast read with good and bad sides, and I’m very much undecided about it.

The quick pace gave a sense of urgency to the plot, and made the events all the more gruesome for the characters involved: some you don’t get to know that much before something happens, but at the same time, in a post-apocalyptic setting where whatever caused all the surrounding may still be around, it does make sense. Can’t have kittens and flowers and all the time in the world, it’s gritty, and it shows.

I liked this first episode’s depiction of a ravaged Greater London, and very likely world in general. There isn’t much information at this point about ‘the Change’, although it’s heavily hinted that whatever it was, those who saw it died, so now nobody really knows. There’s a lot of gory stuff going on, too, as people along the way get picked by… well, what’s following Howard, basically. The way that was depicted conveyed the feeling of horror well enough, and made those parts of the story pretty frightening?

On the downside, the quick pace I mentioned previously was also a two-edged sword. For one thing, it made things confusing. It’s difficult to have a story that unfolds quickly without revealing too many details in one go, but at the same time keeps interest fully up by still giving out enough answers; for me, at this point, I was just lacking that extra bit of information. And with Howard missing his memories, it’s one more point of view that cannot bring answers to the many questions raised throughout the novel, so in the end I had a hard time keeping my attention up.

The pace also made it hard to connect with the characters, which is something that often jars with me in post-ap stories in general, anyway: characters clicking with each other very quickly because ‘we’re all in this together’ vs. ‘the world as we knew it has ended, how can I trust just about anyone I meet?’

Conclusion: There are interesting elements in here, but the story left me more confused than curious about the final answers, and I couldn’t really care about the main characters.

Yzabel / May 18, 2017

Review: The Nightly Disease

The Nightly Disease by Max Booth III

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Sleep is just a myth created by mattress salesmen.

Isaac, a night auditor of a hotel somewhere in the surreal void of Texas, is sick and tired of his guests. When he clocks in at night, he’s hoping for a nice, quiet eight hours of Netflix-bingeing and occasional masturbation. What he doesn’t want to do is fetch anybody extra towels or dive face-first into somebody’s clogged toilet. And he sure as hell doesn’t want to get involved in some trippy owl conspiracy or dispose of any dead bodies. But hey…that’s life in the hotel business.

Welcome to The Nightly Disease. Please enjoy your stay.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

This one’s a bit of an oddball: the story of Isaac, night auditor in a hotel in Texas, spending his days sleeping and his nights in the drudgery of his job full of annoying customers, endless requests and weird happenings. And ‘weirder and weirder’ is how his nights become throughout the stories, from the moment he meets his new colleague Mandy who wants to pet an owl, and gets involved with Kia the bulimic homeless girl. Follows a gallery of shady characters, odd encounters, bodies piling up, and owls. (Yes, owls. The little creeps.)

I can’t tell whether I enjoyed this novel or not. It’s very bizarre, and Isaac’s descent into this half-believable, half-what-the-hell crazy world, was a mix of enjoyable and uncomfortable. (I it’s not the gory side that created that feeling for me, but the bulimic girl—to be fair, that’s probably because I myself have a history of eating disorders.)

On the other hand, the depiction of hotel jobs was quite funny, and the various circumstances Isaac had to fend through, from clogged toilets to murdered customers, even though somewhat unbelievable, had just enough of a touch of ‘based on something real’ for the surreal parts to flow in a… logical way, should I say? In that sort of inner logic pertaining the book.

Conclusion: 3 stars. Interesting and funny enough for me to probably try another novel by this author at some point.

Yzabel / December 31, 2016

Review: All Darling Children

All Darling Children by Katrina Monroe

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

All boys grow up, except one.

On the tenth anniversary of her mother’s death, fourteen-year-old Madge Darling’s grandmother suffers a heart attack. With the overbearing Grandma Wendy in the hospital, Madge runs away to Chicago, intent on tracking down a woman she believes is actually her mother.

On her way to the Windy City, a boy named Peter Pan lures Madge to Neverland, a magical place where children can remain young forever. While Pan plays puppet master in a twisted game only he understands, Madge discovers the disturbing price of Peter Pan’s eternal youth.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

I read Barrie’s book, as well as watched Disney’s Peter Pan movie, so long ago that I honestly can’t remember all details. Still, this retelling looked interesting, and so I decided to give it a try.

Madge, Wendy’s granddaughter, lives a not-so-happy life with her grandma, and keeps trying to escape to find her mother who may or may not be in Chicago. One night, when she finally gets a chance to leave, she gets spirited to Neverland: another chance, one to learn more about her family, her mum, and everything Wendy never told her. However, Neverland quickly turns out to be more terrifying than an enchanted island full of fairies and forever-boys. Clearly not the fairy tale a lot of children and people think about when they hear the name of ‘Peter Pan’ mentioned.

There are interesting themes and ideas in this book: what the boys’ rituals involve exactly, what happened to Jane, the slow disintegration of Neverland, what happened to Hook and Tiger Lily… I’ve always liked the “Hook as an ambiguous villain” approach, and here, he’s definitely of the ambiguous kind, since it’s 1) difficult to know if he wants to help or hinder, and 2) he’s no saint, but Pan is no saint either, so one can understand the bad blood between those two.

I was expecting more, though, and had trouble with some inconsistencies throughout the story. The time period, for one: it seems Madge is living in the 1990s-2000s—welll, some very close contemporary period at any rate—, which doesn’t fit with the early-1900s of the original story. I know it’s not the main focus, yet it kept bothering me no matter what: there’s no way Wendy could still be alive, or at least fit enough to bring up a teenager, and she would’ve had to give birth to Madge’s mother pretty late in life as well. And since there’s no hint that ‘maybe she stayed in Neverland for decades, which is why Jane was born so late,’ so it doesn’t add up. Also, Michael is still alive at the end? How long has it been? He must be over 100 or something by then.

None of the characters particularly interested me either. I liked the concept of Pan as tyrant, but I would’ve appreciate more background on this. And while Madge was described as someone who was strong enough to make things change, her actions throughout the story didn’t exactly paint her in that light; it was more about the other characters saying she was like that, or telling her what she had to do, and her reacting.

I found the ending a bit of an anticlimax. Things went down a bit too easily (I had expected more cunning, or more of a fight, so to speak?)… though props on the very last chapter for the people it shows, and for being in keeping with the grim underlying themes of Neverland (kids who ‘never grow up’, huh).

Conclusion: Worth a try, but definitely not as good as what I expected from a Peter Pan retelling.

Yzabel / September 27, 2016

Review: The Screaming Staircase

The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

When the dead come back to haunt the living, Lockwood & Co. step in . . .

For more than fifty years, the country has been affected by a horrifying epidemic of ghosts. A number of Psychic Investigations Agencies have sprung up to destroy the dangerous apparitions.

Lucy Carlyle, a talented young agent, arrives in London hoping for a notable career. Instead she finds herself joining the smallest, most ramshackle agency in the city, run by the charismatic Anthony Lockwood. When one of their cases goes horribly wrong, Lockwood & Co. have one last chance of redemption. Unfortunately this involves spending the night in one of the most haunted houses in England, and trying to escape alive.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

An entertaining book, even though it didn’t blow my mind as I would’ve expected from the author of the “Bartimaeus” series.

In a United Kingdom where the dead tend to come back fairly often as ghosts—whose touch is lethal to the living—agencies have sprung up. Gathering all kinds of young people with the ability to see or hear spectres, under the supervision of adults, these groups patrol cities at nights and investigate various hauntings, in order to send ghosts back to the grave. Lockwood & Co. is one of such agencies. And so, when young agent Lucy Carlyle finds herself looking for employment in London, she applies for a job there… an unusual one even for her line of work, since Lockwood’s doesn’t have any supervisor, and his two other youth are a little on the reckless side. Well, especially Lockwood himself.

This trio of characters follows a typical dynamic (2 boys, 1 girl), with banter and sometimes tense relationships. Lockwood tends to act before thinking, and appears as too easy-go-lucky at times; George is the librarian, the one who remembers they should do their research before investigating; and Lucy, the only one of the three with the ability to hear ghosts and potentially communicate with them, is somewhere in between: more thoughtful at first, yet possessed with instincts that sometimes cause her to make strange decisions. All in all, this dynamic highlighted potential flaws in the team (Lucy didn’t tell them immediately why she went to London, Lockwood doesn’t talk of his family or why there are no adults supervising his agency…) as well as room for growth (learning to trust each other, among other things).

The descriptions of ghosts, places and hauntings are vivid enough, and it’s very easy to picture every happening. They convey an idea of a darker London, whose mists may not only be mere pollution or weather-related, but also announce the coming of ghosts. The story as a whole, a bit like in the Bartimaeus series, has a semi-Victorian feeling: the time is now, yet readers may find themselves forgetting this since the era itself isn’t so important (and the use of rapiers and iron filings could go well in a historical setting). This may or may not be a problem; personally, I quite liked it. The atmosphere throughout the novel, though, wasn’t exactly horrific for me; I’m not sure if I could consider it the right amount of “scary” for a ghost story presented as such.

On the downside:

– The plot felt too disjointed when it came to its two main parts. I’m not sure why exactly, nor what could have made it better, but I got this feeling that the cause-and-effect relationships were forced together, instead of one appearing as logically following the other.
– I could have done without the fat-shaming (towards George). I don’t know if this was supposed to make Lockwood (tall and thin) look better, or Lucy appear superior, but it achieved neither. I really don’t see any point to that.
– I mentioned the characters’ dynamics and room for growth, however by the end of the book I thought this was lacking a bit, and the team didn’t feel like a team as much as I had expected after all the “surviving together” (the fire, the burglary, the Red Room…). The relationship between Lucy, George and Lockwood remained a wee bit… flat?

Conclusion: 2.5 stars. I enjoyed it on the surface, as light reading, but I’m not particularly eager to pick up the second book either.

Yzabel / September 18, 2016

Review: Nine Candles of Deepest Black

Nine Candles of Deepest Black by Matthew S. Cox

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

She saw it coming. She knew it would happen―but no one believed her.

Almost a year after tragedy shattered her family, sixteen-year-old Paige Thomas can’t break free from her guilt. Her mother ignores her, doting on her annoying little sister, while her father is a barely-functioning shell. He hopes a move to the quiet little town of Shadesboro PA will help them heal, but Paige doesn’t believe in happiness anymore.

On her first day at school, a chance encounter with a bullied eighth grader reawakens a gift Paige had forgotten, and ingratiates her into a pack of local outcasts. For weeks, they’ve been trying to cast a ritual to fulfill their innermost desires, but all they’ve done is waste time. After witnessing Paige touch the Ouija board and trigger a paranormal event, the girls are convinced another try with their new fifth member will finally work.

Once the darkness is unleashed, it’s not long before they learn it will give them exactly what they asked for―whether they want it or not.

Review:

(I got a copy from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.)

A little lengthy at times, but overall an enjoyable “coming of (witchcraft) age” story that, while resting on archetypical elements, turns out to go deeper than what could be expected at first. Even though, looking at it with a more mature eye, I wouldn’t shelve it as a favourite, I can say that teenage!me would probably have loved it (I really was into that kind of witchcraft stories at the time).

For once, I’ll start with the elements I found problematic. First, depending on its moments, the story reminded me of “The Craft”—incidentally, a movie I had liked when it came out in 1996—since it rests on similar premises: girl moves to a new town, arrives in a school where she doesn’t know anyone, quickly becomes friends with the local wannabe-witches, then becomes the last member they needed to perform their rituals… and said rituals turn out to be not-so-nice magic after all. I don’t know if this was on purpose or not (after all, the author listed his inspirations at the end of the book, so I don’t see why some would have been hidden and others not). This said, this kind of plot is definitely not unique, and I’ve seen it in several other movies and books, so…

Quite a few tropes, like the ones mentioned above, are also involved—the goth-looking girls being bullied because they dress in black, the Ouija board… I’d deem this as “problematic… or not”, because truth be told, there are days when I just love myself a handful of tropes.

Finally, another thing I sometimes had trouble with were the descriptions, more specifically the ones about clothes. They’re not bad; it just felt odd when Paige’s outfit, for instance, was described every time she changed. The really strange thing here is that a character not changing clothes during a whole movie or series spanning more than a couple of days would bother me, yet when I see it mentioned in written form, actually I’d prefer it not to be. This is clearly linked to the medium: I’ve had the same feeling with other novels, too. As for other descriptions, the ones of the “mirror world” were creepy-good, although I wasn’t too impressed with the antagonist’s appearance, to be honest.

Where “Nine Candles” shone for me, on the other hand, was on the tropes it did -not- use, and on the presence of Paige’s family. For instance, in this story, you won’t find the typical, vomit-inducing love polygon, causing the main character to balance between which love interest to choose why the world is getting destroyed. Vapid love has no place here, as another character quickly finds out when she fails to get what she wants, and the one truly strong love is actually the one of family bonds. Because what’s thankfully missing as well is the Absent Parents trope, with our MC happily traipsing around unsupervised like every 16-year-old in the world does.

In fact, Paige’s family is very present, and turned from slightly annoying in the first chapters to a solid cluster that nothing can break. “Annoying” because of the initial situation: the father depressed and absent in mind after the death of the elder sister Amber, the mother only paying attention the younger sister Melissa, and Paige being somewhat invisible in the middle—it was a bit extreme, and led to Paige appearing at first like a pouting child. Especially since Melissa is really, really cute and nice, and not at all the spoiled brat cliché often expected when younger siblings are mentioned. But then, it turned into situations where Paige made a fragile truce with her mother, rediscovered her relationship with Melissa, and more. And Paige’s “wish” during the ritual (not a spoiler, everybody did expect The Ritual, right?) was a noble one, not a selfish one, confirming her character as a good person.

Families are present throughout the whole novel: as loved ones; as people to trust and who’ll support you even though they’re not convinced you’re saying the truth; as potential victims; as triggers of darker deeds; as ways of highlighting to which extent some characters are superficial, too. More than one aspect, and more than one family, is explored here, and I really liked that.

Conclusion: in its theme, not particularly original, yet definitely worth it for the inclusion of family themes (not only biological families—Paige and Co are also a second family for Sofia, for instance). It would make a good coming of age-slash-horror story for teenage readers. 3.5 stars.

Enregistrer

Yzabel / June 5, 2016

Review: HEX

HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay until death. Whoever comes to stay, never leaves.

Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Blind and silenced, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children’s beds for nights on end. So accustomed to her have the townsfolk become that they often forget she’s there. Or what a threat she poses. Because if the stitches are ever cut open, the story goes, the whole town will die.

The curse must not be allowed to spread. The elders of Black Spring have used high-tech surveillance to quarantine the town. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break the strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into a dark nightmare.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I do love stories set in little towns with secrets, and especially when said secrets are quite “normal” there, and only outsiders would get really shocked about them because the locals have gone… numb and used to them? It’s definitely creepy, and keeps making me wonder when the crap’s going to hit the fan, when the normalcy of horror will become actual horror, when the mask will be thrown away and it’s showtime. Something like that.

Well, at some point it’s showtime in “HEX”, clearly. The only question is “when”.

It starts with a very normal day in the lives of the Normal McNormal family, in Normal Town, USA. Except for the woman who gets crushed by an organ right at the beginning (and that’s when you do a double-take and think “wait, what? I’d better pay more attention to what I’m reading.”). That’s what got me from the start: the feeling that something troubling was was presented as normal, and everybody but me just went about their day without blinking an eye. Soon enough more information surfaces, through other everyday scenes: the Grant family having dinner while a mysterious “Gramma” sits in the next room with a napkin on her head… The council/local organisation policing the town keeping an eye on a couple of newcomers, desperately trying to dissuade them from buying a house in Black Spring. These first chapters were really intriguing and I couldn’t wait to read more.

I didn’t like this novel more, though, because I think at some point, the horror became a little too… close? As in, when you KNOW what’s going to happen, when you KNOW things are going to get very wrong and you suspect how they’re going to unfold, when you start foreseeing such events, there’s always a risk, at least in my case, of distanciating myself from the story in advance. I guess that’s what happened here, and when all the bad things befell various characters, it didn’t creep me out so much anymore. Perhaps that’s just my personal problem with horror stories, and I unconsciously distance myself from their events. Perhaps I don’t do that all the time. It takes a very, very fine and fragile balance to take me where I’d like to be (caring about the characters, feeling invested to the point that every setback for them will be a blow for me).

The normalcy factor and many characters being a bit cliché may also have “helped” in not making me care too much : trying too much killed the effort, so to speak. The Grants look like a too perfect family (the mother doesn’t do much except being the Good Wife, to be honest), the teenagers’ exactions on the witch ended up being more of the sensational-seeking kind than really creepy, the HEX people were forgettable, the new couple settling in town were, in the end, just an excuse to hand out a block of information (they never did anything noteworthy after that)…

Finally, I also felt Katherine’s involvement wasn’t too clear : she’s dangerous but she also was a victim ; there’s a curse but you never know how exactly it started and/or manifests through the witch (“touching her” and “living in Black Spring” are a bit vague); so developments towards the end didn’t make as much sense as would’ve been needed to drive the horror through. As if the plot here kept sitting on the fence, not knowing whether to go the way of humans or monsters. Which is too bad, because there’s that whole theme of “the curse we inflict upon ourselves by forgetting we’re humans and by turning against each other as if we had never learnt anything”.

There were “good” horror moments (the search for the dog at night…) but in the end it was an “OK” book for me, nothing more. 2 to 2.5 stars.

Yzabel / May 21, 2016

Review: Black Magick: Awakening, Part One

Black Magick, Volume 1: Awakening, Part One by Greg Rucka

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Collecting the first five issues of the critically-acclaimed new series from creators GREG RUCKA (Lazarus, Star Wars: Shattered Empire) and NICOLA SCOTT (Secret Six, Earth-2). Rowan Black is a detective with the Portsmouth PD… and a witch, two aspects of her life she has struggled to keep separate. Now someone is targeting Rowan, someone who knows her secrets and means to expose her… or worse.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

3.5 to 4 stars. A fairly good read, containing the first 5 issues of the “Black Magick” series. Portsmouth P.D. Detective Rowan Black is also a witch, one who meets with her coven to practice rituals, and she definitely doesn’t want this other part of her life to bleed into the mundane one. Until a perp reveals he knows so much about her… but she’s never met that man, so what’s happening, who’s after her, and how far are they ready to go to achieve their goals?

The art throughout this comics, both panels and covers, was good. There’s a certain harshness to the characters’ features, showing that this isn’t going to be a nice story, and what’s meant to be frightening and threatening, well, is. Just like her colleagues or her friend Alex, a fellow witch, Rowan appears as a “no nonsense” person, one you’d better not mess up with, even though all these people may be out of their league here… for now. Most panels are also coloured in sepia/black and white washed tones, and when colours are applied, it’s only to highlight very striking moments, involving flames bursting out or spells being cast, and it’s quite impressive. As for the crime scenes panels, they depict well enough the corpses found, the wounds they suffered, and so on. It’s not meant to be pretty, after all.

I’d say the magick here (the rituals, the warding, the gatherings in the forest, etc.) aren’t too original—“mainstream pagan magick” put into pictures—but if you’re willing not to look too much into it, it works within the scope of the story, and it didn’t make me roll my eyes (too much). Sometimes you want authors to go further than that… and sometimes it doesn’t matter that much, all things considered.

Another issue I had was with the characters, because we have more glimpses about them than anything to really chew on. We have the basics (where they live, their jobs, the people they meet), but as *people* with psyche of their own, they still seem a little blank. This first volume reads more as an introduction to them. On the other hand, much like the settlements of a larger plot are put in place here, it may just be that issues 6+ will start delving into this more and more, which I hope. I’d like to know why Rowan seems to be able to do so much more with her magick, but doesn’t. Or how she met Alex the very first time (there are hints very early in the story that these “witches” go through reincarnation cycles or something, and tend to find each other in every new lifetime?).

I’m willing to check the next issues, to see if this is going to happen. If it does, this series will be on its path to its real potential. But there’s also the othe possibility, so… fingers crossed?

Yzabel / April 21, 2016

Review: Life After Dane

Life After Dane by Edward Lorn

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

A mother’s love is undying… and so is Dane.

After the state of Arkansas executes serial killer Dane Peters, the Rest Stop Dentist, his mother discovers that life is darker and more dangerous than she ever expected.

The driving force behind his ghostly return lies buried in his family’s dark past. As Ella desperately seeks a way to lay her son’s troubled soul to rest, she comes face to face with her own failings.

If Ella cannot learn why her son has returned and what he seeks, then the reach of his power will destroy the innocent, and not even his mother will be able to stop him.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Well, that was quite a twisted ride here. A sort of “making of a serial killer”, seen through the eyes of the killer’s mother, Ella, as she reminisces about the past after her son’s death, while stranger and stranger events start happening around her.

Dane Peters, a serial killer known as the Rest Stop Dentist (after his places of killing and his “collection” of teeth from his victims), is gone, sentenced to death and executed. It’s time for his mother, who followed the trial for months, to go back home, where she finds shelter in religion, the only thing she has left—and even that is less than certain, for Dane’s reputation as well as an article by journalist Sven Gödel have tainted her, made her into “the killer’s mother”, and he own church may not want her anymore. So Ella tries to go on as she can, but her enemies are many, tagging her house at night and leaving accusatory articles in her mailbox, while her friends, like Talia, are few.

Enters Dane, his presence brought back through a DVD he left in Sven’s care, a video containing a last message for the person he loved most. His mother? Well… This is when Hell on Earth breaks for Ella and Sven, haunted more and more by Dane. A real ghost? A common hallucination? A hallucination that can hurt and kill, for sure. Threatened and manipulated, the mother and the journalist have no choice but to go on a sick quest of Dane’s making. But did Dane turn evil just because it was in his nature, or did someone made him into a killer?

For me, the supernatural and horror aspects were intriguing, but what interested me even more was the abuse running rampant in Dane’s family. While I would definitely disagree with anyone affirming that being abused as a child turns people evil, the fact is, abuse in any form is very, very likely to leave children (and their future adult selves) scarred, in one way or another. This novel is perhaps more a study of abuse than a ghost/horror story: a study in how a father perpetuates on his son what was done to him, on how a scared mother may choose to turn a blind eye on said abuse, thus becoming complicit in the daily torture, on how love can get horribly warped, on crappy justifications to horrible actions…

As a result, the main characters felt unpleasant yet also sympathetic, a dichotomy that isn’t so easy to achieve. Unpleasant because of their flaws, their tendency to justify them, their voluntary blindness to ugly truths, their hypocrisy, too (Ellaconsidering herself a good Christian, while letting the abuse go on). Sympathetic, because, all in all, Ella and Dane were victims first and foremost (to use the same example, Ella found refuge in her beliefs precisely because facing the truth alone was too hard and she was too scared).

And, to be honest, the teeth motif particularly struck me: losing teeth is one of my deep fears, and in general, anyway, imagining people having their teeth ripped out of their mouths is… just frightening. It hurts terribly, it touches you directly in your face, so close to the seat of your thoughts, it disfigures you, and it’s such a horrible way to bleed to death, too…

Nice touch at the very end, too, but I’m certainly not going to spoil anything.

Yzabel / March 29, 2016

Review: Hides the Dark Tower

Hides the Dark Tower by Kelly A. Harmon

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Mysterious and looming, towers and tower-like structures pierce the skies and shadow the lands. Hides the Dark Tower includes over two dozen tales of adventure, danger, magic, and trickery from an international roster of authors. Readers of science fiction, fantasy, horror, grimdark, campfire tales, and more will find a story to haunt their dreams. So step out of the light, and into the world of Hides the Dark Tower—if you dare.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

This collection of short stories revolve around the theme of “towers”, and more specifically towers of the dark kind: towers of sorcery, alien towers in strange world, sinister lighthouses, towers of the Underworld… There are very few “nice” dwellings here, and a lot of the stories do not carry much hope, or are tinged with a bittersweet side.

I found this a quick and pleasant read in general. While I admit not caring much for the first story (a poem), there was nothing really catastrophic in there. On the other hand, no story felt really above the others as far as I’m concerned. Mostly it’s a matter of a good deal of stories feeling somewhat “unfinished”: too short for me to properly get to care about the characters (“Beneath the Bell Bay Light”, “Core Craving”), with endings that were often too open, as if something was missing (“Giving a Hand”, “Smoke and Sprites”), even though at first they did seem complete. That’s something I’ve struggled with myself, and something I find regularly in other anthologies, and I won’t fault this one specifically. So, all in all, it’s a solid 3 stars, though not more.

The stories I liked best:

“Squire Magic”: Bittersweet indeed, but a nice lesson about magic, and how the most powerful spells aren’t always able to best a cunning mind who knows what to do with “simple” spells.

“The Tower”: a quaint and quiet little town, a man staying close to its roots, and the evil looming abover everyone, in the shape of an old water tower. It had a bit of a Stephen King feeling.

“They Warp the Fabric of the Sky”: Beware what you’re looking for… and do not disregard the power of a smile.

“Kiss of Death”: Somewhat comical and light, yet also a beautiful love story. (And it has a Lich and a Necromancer! Bonus points!)

“Annie the Escaper”: actually, not really a favourite; however, I liked the idea of a species realising in the end it couldn’t live without the other, although not for the most obvious reason.

Special mention for “The Blind Queen’s Daughter” because Arthurian & Lovecraftian mythos together.

Yzabel / March 13, 2016

Review: The Beauty, Vol. 1

The Beauty, Vol. 1 by Jeremy Haun

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Modern society is obsessed with outward beauty. What if there was a way to guarantee you could become more and more beautiful every day? What if it was a sexually transmitted disease?

In the world of The Beauty, physical perfection is only one sexual encounter away. The vast majority of the population has taken advantage of it, but Detectives Vaughn and Foster will soon discover it comes at a terrible cost. Now, they’ll have to find their way past corrupt poiticians, vengeful federal agents, and a terrifying mercenary out to collect the price on their heads.

Collects the first six issues of the critically acclaimed, Pilot Season winning series by writer/artist JEREMY HAUN (Constantine, Batwoman) and co-writer JASON A. HURLEY.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Creepy cover is creepy. I admit this is why I requested it for starters.

This book gathers issues 1 to 6 of this comics series, in which “the Beauty” is a STD that a lot of people go out of their way to catch. Because once you’re infected, thinning hair regrows, fat and flab disappear, wrinkles go away, and it’s like a new chance at youth and beauty. The catch? Just a slight though permanent fever. Nothing to write home about, right? Until some of the infected people start to cough blood and self-combust. Not so nice anymore.

Time for detectives Vaughn and Foster to get into the limelight and try to figure out what’s happening. They’re part of a unit specialised in the Beauty—there are some anti-Beauty/terrorist groups out there, and their job is to prevent bombs from blowing up, hostages from being killed, and so on.

To be honest, I felt a few things were missing from this comics. While the idea was deliciously gruesome, I would’ve liked to learn more about the mechanics of the illness itself: apart from the constant fever, what would possibly make people self-combust/go headexplody in a matter of a few seconds? In itself, scientifically-speaking, it doesn’t make much sense. Although the graphics involved kept making me shiver: there’s something about that black blood, those black veins snaking along slim members, those shadows around eyes that can’t see anything anymore and mouths opened on silent screams… Part of me couldn’t look at the drawings, and another apart felt compelled to look.

The story also follows a somewhat typical “cops investigating a case and finding a lot of red tape (or worse) on their road” plot. It’s both good and bad. Bad, as it makes for a not so original premise; good, because when it’s the kind of plot you want to read about (and I did), then you get what you were expecting.

I found the art in general pretty efficient: in carrying the action, in depicting the horror of the half-mutilated corpses (that black blood, I tell you!), in

The “good guys” were a little bland at first (seasoned cop with younger/beautiful partner), but I grew to like them over these 6 issues. Foster wants to do what he feels is right, even though he knows it may get him fired—and then comes a surprise of his own he has to contend with. Vaughn is a strong person who doesn’t hesitate to bend some rules when it’s necessary, and has a vested interest in this from the beginning, since she’s infected and hates it. And this is part of one of the themes explored throughout this series. Is beauty worth it when you know, every passing second of your life, every time you look in the mirror, that you’re only “beautiful” because you’re sick? Isn’t it worrying? The Beauty appeared two years ago in that universe, and as every “young” illness, who can tell how it’s going to evolve and possibly mutate? Obviously, here it’s all about beauty being a symptom, but it can easily be translated into what some people in modern society are ready to do, the lengths they’re willing to go to, in order to stay young and beautiful for as long as possible. And can they be blamed? Nobody wants to get old and wrinkled and flabby-looking. (Seriously—I’m not particularly beautiful, but when I hear someone say “only beautiful women fear getting old”, I can’t help but think “that’s not true, this fear is somewhere in each of us, though not with the same strength”.)

The authors also tried to develop their villains. It didn’t work so well for some (I really couldn’t care less about the psychopath with a mask who guts out and mutilates his victims), but it was good to see that it went well for others, like the shady CDC scientist who happens to have a wife and children, and then turns her coat when she realises everything’s gone too far and it’s her duty to help.

In spite of the few things I mentioned, I could easily enact my my suspension of disbelief here, and enjoy the art and the story. I’d definitely like to read issues 7 and beyond, if only to know what’s going to happen: the end is half-cliffhanger, half tying quite a few things, so I’m wondering where it’s going to go from now on.