Posted August 30, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Heaven Official's Blessing
Genres: Fantasy,
Horror,
Mystery,
Romance Pages: 438
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #2 Rating: 
Synopsis: THE TOUCH OF A HAND, A ROLL OF THE DICE
Xie Lian has confirmed that the bewitching youth San Lang is actually Hua Cheng, one of the Four Calamities and a supreme ghost despised by all heavenly officials. Still, he has trouble matching the terror of his companion’s reputation with the charming, clever, and protective young man he’s come to know.
When a distress signal leads Xie Lian into Ghost City, a bustling metropolis containing all the horrors and delights of the dead, he sees Hua Cheng in his element—and his true form—for the first time. But despite their chemistry and care for one another, there are missions to fulfill and secrets to uncover, and Xie Lian’s centuries of troubled history are never far behind.
The second volume of Heaven Official’s Blessing finishes up with arc 1 and begins arc 2: I can see why some readers complain that the volumes are split in weird places, but I think it’d end up with ridiculously chunky volumes and then really skinny ones if it was split by arcs or something, and I bet you people wouldn’t like that either. Still, I agree it feels weird that it’s basically one continuous story, and you can’t stop and feel satisfied at the end of a volume; that’s kind of unavoidable, given it was a webnovel first.
As with the first volume, I’m sure that there are critiques of the translation, but it’s pretty internally consistent and it’s definitely readable, and not significantly better/worse than the translation of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, for example. I believe the translators are different, but something of the underlying style does seem to come through — though at times I could do without it (stop yelling, Qi Rong).
The end of arc 1 gives us a visit to Hua Cheng’s domain, followed by some answers about Xie Lian’s past in the form of confronting Qi Rong, his cousin, with Hua Cheng figuring out what happened during an infamous and bloody event, and manipulating matters so that Xie Lian can no longer claim all the blame for himself. There are some really nice character/relationship moments there, and then act 2 begins, which seems to be all a long flashback to Xie Lian’s life before godhood (going into his first ascension afterwards, in book 3).
All in all I’m really enjoying it. There’s a lot more detail and complexity than in SVSSS, which makes sense since there are eight books in total. I fear how MXTX is going to torture Xie Lian and Hua Chung… but I’m all-in.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, horror, Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù, mystery, romance, SF/F
Posted August 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Love Everlasting
Genres: Fantasy,
Graphic Novels,
Horror,
Mystery,
Romance Pages: 136
Series: Love Everlasting #1 Rating: Synopsis: Joan Peterson discovers that she is trapped in an endless, terrifying cycle of"romance" -- a problem to be solved, a man to marry -- and everytime she falls in love she's torn from her world and thrust into another tear-soaked tale.
I really loved the art in volume one of Tom King and Elsa Charretier’s Love Everlasting. It’s stylised and expressive, with well-differentiated characters and designs. It’s a fun race through a bunch of different styles of love story, with the main character Joan Peterson always dying just as soon as she’s declared her love for someone.
The fact that Joan — and a weird masked cowboy — are the only constants does mean that there’s not really much character-building, especially as Joan herself isn’t really exactly the same in every single scenario. The concept is the most interesting thing there, rather than the character (though Joan’s approach to her problems is, ah, entertaining).
By the end, it’s getting a touch too repetitive without any explanation, but it’s a really fun concept, and I am itching to know a bit more. I hope the second volume will explore the plot stuff from the fifth issue and deepen the story a bit.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Elsa Charretier, horror, Matt Hollingsworth, romance, SF/F, Tom King
Posted February 2, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Road of Bones
Genres: Graphic Novels,
Horror Pages: 128
Rating: 
Synopsis: Horror, history, and Russian folklore collide in this brutal survival tale, where the worst prison in the world is merely the gateway to even darker terrors.
In 1953, the Siberian Gulag of Kolyma is hell on Earth--which is why Roman Morozov leaps at the chance to escape it. But even if they make it out, Roman and his fellow escapees still have hundreds of miles of frozen tundra between them and freedom. With the help of a mysterious being straight out of his childhood fairy tale stories, Roman just might make it--or is the being simply a manifestation of the brutal circumstances driving him insane?
Rich Douek’s Road of Bones is horrifying, and it’s one of those stories that is horrifying more because of the humans in it than anything else. The art is heavy, dark, in a way that’s appropriate but erases the individuality of people: there’s only the brutality of the Gulag and the brutality it breeds in everyone. It doesn’t always make it easy to follow exactly who is talking and to whom, though, and sometimes that’s important.
It ends up being a very gory story, and a harsh message; in the end, it almost feels like a cop-out that there’s a supernatural element here, given the real history and the real ways humans can be absolutely terrible. It just feels a little too obvious. It’s not shying from the brutality, but it risks giving it an excuse. A reason other than “humans are flawed, especially under pressure”.
I can’t say it was enjoyable, given the topic, but it was fascinating.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: Alex Cormack, book reviews, books, comics, graphic novels, horror, Justin Birch, Rich Douek
Posted January 17, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
House of Drought
Genres: Fantasy,
Horror Pages: 117
Rating: 
Synopsis: On the island of Sri Lanka, at a colonial mansion between the forest and the paddy fields, a caretaker arrives with four children in tow after pledging to keep them safe. When violent thugs storm the house demanding that Ushu repay his debt, young Jasmit and the other children hide in an upstairs bathroom where a running tap opens a gateway to escape. But the Dry House is not the only force at work in the place where the forest and the estate meet—something else stirs in the trees, something ancient, something that demands retribution.
The Sap Mother bides her time, watching and learning from the house’s inhabitants. She burrows beneath the foundations of the Dry House, hungry for atonement. Pulled between these warring powers, Jasmit must choose between saving those trapped in the mansion’s bulging stomachs and preparing the house for when the Mother emerges again.
I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
This horror novella didn’t entirely work for me, though I appreciated a number of things about it (the setting, the tension, the fact that it didn’t give the reader too many answers too quickly). The structure kind of annoyed me, with the order of events jerking around. It’s hard to describe, but first you get the frame story, the “present day” if you will. Then you jump back in time to the crisis point of other characters’ story… then forward just a little to how those characters got into that situation. Then forward back to the present day, and then a new set of characters.
It feels like the story tried very hard to come full circle, bring things together and find a way to end the story — but it felt like it missed a step. How did a certain character figure things out? Why is she so eager to save people she doesn’t know?
It’s an interesting novella but I didn’t find it wholly successful.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Dennis Mombauer, horror, SF/F
Posted December 15, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Clean Room: Immaculate Conception
Genres: Graphic Novels,
Horror Pages: 160
Series: Clean Room #1 Rating: Synopsis: Somewhere between the realms of self-help and religion lies the Honest World Foundation. Its creator started out as an obscure writer of disposable horror fiction who decided to change the world—one mind at a time. Now its adherents rule Hollywood while obeying their leader’s every command.
That’s almost all that anyone knows about the movement—or is it a cult?—founded by reclusive guru Astrid Mueller. But reporter Chloe Pierce is sure that there’s something deeper hiding behind Honest World’s façade. Her fiancé was a devoted follower of Mueller, right up to the moment that he blew his brains out while holding a copy of her book. Now Chloe wants answers from the woman whose words command the loyalty of millions—and she’s ready to storm the top-secret sanctuary known as the Clean Room to get them.
But there’s more to Astrid Mueller than Chloe could ever imagine—and the truth that she’s about to discover is more astonishing than any of Astrid’s accomplishments, and more terrifying than any of her novels.
Volume 1 of Gail Simone’s Clean Room is an introduction to a heck of a world. If you’re not into horror, this is quite possibly not for you, because it doesn’t go lightly on the gore and weirdness. It’s not just “oops, there’s someone’s intestines”, but weirdnesses like a guy literally tied into knots, physically speaking.
I feel like, in a way, getting answers about exactly what’s going on here would be an anticlimax; half of the experience is the wondering what the fuck is going on. Figuring out who the good guys are isn’t straight-forward at all (actually, the answer is that there aren’t any, but you’ve got to pick someone to root for — or I do, at least).
The art and character designs are gorgeous, at least where they aren’t gory or unsettling, and despite not being much of a horror-lover, I’m curious enough to continue.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Gail Simone, horror
Posted December 7, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Gideon Falls, vol 1: The Black Barn
Genres: Graphic Novels,
Horror Pages: 160
Series: Gideon Falls #1 Rating: Synopsis: The lives of a reclusive young man obsessed with a conspiracy in the city's trash and a washed-up Catholic priest arriving in a small town full of dark secrets become intertwined around the mysterious legend of The Black Barn--an otherworldly building alleged to have appeared in both the city and the small town throughout history, bringing death and madness in its wake.
Rural mystery and urban horror collide in this character-driven meditation on obsession, mental illness, and faith.
Gideon Falls is something that’s probably slightly more in my wife’s wheelhouse than mine, since it’s a horror comic — but something about it piqued my interest and I decided to give this first volume a shot. I’m not always a fan of the art, which feels messy. Sometimes that adds to the tension or weirdness of a scene, and sometimes it just means that I’m not quite sure what I’m looking at.
As far as the plot goes, it’s genuinely weird and creepy. In this volume, few explanations are forthcoming: there’s a strange barn that appears and disappears according to its own rules, and it has been the cause of disappearances and deaths for a long time. It seems to have an echo in the city, as well. Our characters are a probably alcoholic Catholic priest who seems to be struggling with his faith, and a probably schizophrenic amnesiac in the city who searches through the garbage for bits and pieces which he believes to be parts of the Black Barn.
It definitely has tension and despite not being a horror fan, I’m curious about what is going to happen, and what (if anything) the explanation is for the horrors. I’ll probably give the second volume a try.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: Andrea Sorrentino, book reviews, books, comics, Dave Stewart, horror, Jeff Lemire
Posted November 30, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Rogue Planet
Genres: Graphic Novels,
Horror,
Science Fiction Pages: 133
Rating: Synopsis: Salvage vessel Cortes tracks the Lonely Orphan, a planet with no star system to call its own. Somewhere on this hostile rock is a payload fit for a king. To attain it, though, the crew of the Cortes must brave razor rock, poisonous vapors, treacherous footing, and... the most mind-numbing horrors imaginable. Struggling to stay alive, they are beset at every turn by horrors from their own nightmares. Now, they have discovered that they are not alone on the planet, and the other inhabitants welcome them... as sacrifices to an elder god.
Stranded on a vicious, murderous, seemingly intelligent planet, the crew of the Cortes must reevaluate what it truly means to survive, and what they are willing to do in order to spare their own lives.
Cullen Bunn’s Rogue Planet is a fairly predictable sci-fi/horror story: a group visit a planet where they should, in theory, be able to get rich quick, led in by a beacon… and of course things go messily wrong, with gore and horrors a-plenty.
I didn’t think it stood out among that sort of genre, with the characters having little to make them jump out; the art was okay, but didn’t particularly impress me with “hey, that looks really neat” or “that’s gorgeous” or even “that’s a whole new way to make something look gross”.
It wasn’t bad in any way, I don’t think, just… fairly run of the mill if you’re an SF/F reader. I’d been hoping for something a bit more innovative, I suppose! I think it could be fun if you’re less versed on the tropes of the genre, since it’ll come as a bit more of a surprise.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: Andy Macdonald, book reviews, books, comics, Cullen Bunn, horror, Nick Filardi, SF/F
Posted November 18, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Yellow Jessamine
Genres: Fantasy,
Horror Pages: 140
Rating: Synopsis: Powerful shipping magnate Evelyn Perdanu lives a tight, contained life, holding herself at a distance from all who would get close to her. Her family is dead, her country is dying, and when something foul comes to the city of Delphinium, the brittle, perilous existence she's built for herself is strained to breaking.
When one of her ships arrives in dock, she counts herself lucky that it made it through the military blockades slowly strangling her city. But one by one, the crew fall ill with a mysterious sickness: an intense light in their eyes and obsessive behavior, followed by a catatonic stupor. Even as Evelyn works to exonerate her company of bringing plague into her besieged capital city, more and more cases develop, and the afflicted all share one singular obsession: her.
Panicked and paranoid, she retreats to her estate, which rests on a foundation of secrets: the deaths of her family, the poisons and cures that hasten the dissolution of the remaining upper classes, and a rebel soldier, incapacitated and held hostage in a desperate bid for information. But the afflicted are closing in on her, and bringing the attention of the law with them. Evelyn must unearth her connection to the spreading illness, and fast, before it takes root inside her home and destroys all that she has built.
Caitlin Starling’s Yellow Jessamine is a horror novella, following a young woman who fell heir to her family’s estate and business after the tragic deaths of all her family. Evelyn Perdanu likes to tightly control her life, managing the business around the war that will all too soon come to her home, and managing her household according to her own (slightly eccentric) needs. Her solace is her garden, where the things she grows can both heal and harm.
Slowly, the extent of what she does becomes clear — in response to the sudden appearance of something like a new plague, which leaves people empty and catatonic, after a brief period of total obsession with Evelyn. It’s all very creepy and tense, both with the plague and with the fear of the enemy and the eventual death of the town, and the fear of being found out for what she’s done.
Where it failed for me is that Evelyn is hard to pity, since she’s ruthless despite her fragility. She thinks nothing of blinding a man, even as she’s supposed to be nursing him to health. Poison is an answer that comes easily to her hand. It’s hard to feel sorry for her — for me at least — given how culpable she is. Points for atmosphere, but the character didn’t work for me: just a step too far into her own private madness to ever seem sane and worth investing in as a reader.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Caitlin Starling, horror, SF/F
Posted May 23, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment
The Salt Grows Heavy, Cassandra Khaw
Received to review via Netgalley
I didn’t expect to come away from this book thinking about how oddly tender and romantic it was! Which is not to say it would appeal to someone who is looking for those things, because there’s a lot of gore and darkness as well, and this is definitely more dark fantasy/horror than romance. It’s just that out of that dark story, the friendship that grows up between the narrator and the plague doctor really shines.
I think the juxtaposition of that against the gore and darkness actually makes it feel a lot stronger, where it otherwise might feel unsatisfactory for want of detail.
Khaw doesn’t give you a lot to work with here in terms of setup or worldbuilding: each piece of information you get is fed to you a sliver at a time, with many unanswered questions left over at the end. You don’t know every step that brought the characters to where they are, nor exactly where they will go from the end — these things are just sketched in, leaving the horror and the relationship between the two main characters in strong relief.
It would not, on the surface, be my kind of book, but the plague doctor won me over.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Cassandra Khaw, horror
Posted April 26, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
A Season of Monstrous Conceptions, Lina Rather
Received to review via Netgalley
I really liked Lina Rather’s previous novellas, so I leapt on this one even without reading what it was about. It follows Sarah Davis, an apprentice midwife who is more than a little uncanny herself, in a year when uncanny children are being born all over London. By chance, she meets Sir Christopher Wren’s wife, who is pregnant, and becomes her midwife — and thus gets drawn more and more into the strangeness, tugged between Sir Christopher’s ambitions for her uncanny powers, and those of the midwives she works with.
It’s an interesting setup, and I liked that the motivations of everyone had some justification behind them. Everyone thinks they’re a hero and doing the right thing, in their own head, and I could see that these characters did too.
As a novella, it doesn’t get into an enormous amount of depth with most of the characters, but Sarah is pretty clear, and her fledgeling relationship with Margaret, and the liminal world of almost-respectable, almost-unrespectable that she inhabits and struggles with.
I love Sisters of the Vast Black more, but I’m glad I picked this up!
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, horror, Lina Rather, SF/F
