Tag: horror

Review – Yellow Jessamine

Posted November 18, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Yellow Jessamine

by Caitlin Starling

Genres: Fantasy, Horror
Pages: 140
Rating: three-stars

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

Review – The Salt Grows Heavy

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

Review – A Season of Monstrous Conceptions

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

Review – The Dark Between The Trees

Posted January 17, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Dark Between the Trees, Fiona Barnett

I found The Dark Between the Trees very absorbing, but in the end a little disappointing. Not because of the rather open end, or because the mysteries weren’t explained, but because I felt that I was pitched a story where some kind of genuine investigation would be done — at least some semblance of a rigorous, academic approach to this strangeness.

Unfortunately, the character who seemed set up to do that turned out to be driven mostly by compulsion, and when she reached the heart of the strangeness, she… stopped. It makes it a mildly interesting study of the character of someone inexplicably driven, wrapped up in the mystery before they even came into contact with it directly, but I found it a little disappointing that her academia was nothing but a veneer.

The interweaving of the two stories, the modern team and the ragged band of Parliamentarians, is done quite well and used to good affect: each story reflects and mirrors the other.

I felt like the descriptions of the forest and the way it directed people inwards, to the heart of the forest, had much borrowed from Tolkien’s Old Forest. The concept of the two forests existing simultaneously, no, but the general mood, the evil at the heart, the rising fear and tension… and the ways the forest is creepy, the seeming movement of the trees, the root deliberately popped up to trip, the bracken and undergrowth through which you can fight only one way… I wouldn’t have been entirely shocked had the story suddenly involved Old Man Willow, somehow. That section of The Lord of the Rings is one I always found rather fascinating, even if I could do without Bombadil, so this isn’t a complaint, merely a note on the tone and similarity!

I did start to notice a number of editing issues in the latter half of the book: words missing, mostly, and in some cases (and I wasn’t entirely sure if it was deliberate or not), a line break where it didn’t feel there ought to be one. The author didn’t use these elsewhere and they didn’t feel very impactful to me, so I think they were just outright errors.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Fiona Barnett, horror, SF/F

Review – The Only Good Indians

Posted May 14, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones

Horror is usually not my thing, but I like trying things and broadening my horizons, and the blurb of this made it sound like it had some crossover with fantasy (a genre I do read a lot of). There’s a lot of gore and violence in this, which was a little much for me (though to be honest, not worse than some of the fantasy I’ve read), but the mystery does have a supernatural side.

To me it seems like a fairly predictable plot: four Blackfeet hunters kill elk they’re not supposed to, and years later, strange things start to happen as it seems that they’re each being hunted in their turn. I won’t say too much more about the exact plot — it’s not too surprising, I think, with that basic summary… but still, there are some grey areas and things that you’d want to read through without being prejuced by another reader’s take on them.

The characters are not exactly sympathetic, except in that they’re everyday fuck-ups like the rest of us (some of them more than others). It does a really good job of making them people, for sure: I can believe in Cassidy and Lewis and Gabe Cross Guns and Ricky Boss Ribs.

For those side-eyeing the title or the themes, the author is of the Blackfeet Nation; obviously, being Welsh this isn’t remotely my history or culture, so I can’t comment on how respectful he’s been or how accurately he’s portrayed things, but I think in this case that doesn’t matter — he’s mostly portrayed people and the things individuals believe, and individuals can be wrong.

I found the ending a tiny bit predictable; it wouldn’t have been out of place in any of the genre novels I read, which is probably why.

In the end, it’s still not for me, and I’m wavering about the rating to give it. In terms of personal enjoyment, it’s probably less than this, but that’s probably unfair to the book because I knew what I was getting into, and also despite this really not being my preferred genre, I read the whole book in just a few days. So I’ve split the difference a bit.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, horror, SF/F, Stephen Graham Jones

Review – Wylding Hall

Posted February 7, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Wylding Hall, Elizabeth Hand

Wylding Hall uses Fairport Convention’s real history as a starting point: the tragedy (a suicide in this book, two deaths in a car crash in real life), the music and style, and the time spent at an old house in the countryside (Wylding Hall in the book; Farley Chamberlayne for Fairport Convention)… and then Hand takes it off into imagination. It’s not really about Fairport Convention, just using them as a jumping-off point, but if you’re into their music you can’t help but think of them while you read. (Though this time I was thinking about Siobhan Owen’s version of “Scarborough Fair”, as well. There’s something wistful and otherworldly about her voice that makes a good accompaniment to this book.)

The format is of interviews with the remaining members of the band and some other people who got involved in the story — as if it’s a documentary, long after the fact. Slowly, each character contributes what they saw, heard and felt, building up a picture of something eerie and chilling, but indeterminate. Hand is very careful not to reveal the horror until near the end.

I think the Neolithic barrow with Julian’s watch in it and the final photo of the girl are probably actually a bridge too far — it takes the book from being haunting and eerie, lightly touched by something ancient and unknowable, and gives it a moment of horror that doesn’t quite sit with it. It doesn’t spoil the book, but it’s a slightly discordant note. Then again, without that finality, it’d feel like the story just tails off. So maybe that’s the best ending, after all.

The book was a reread for me; not something I’d have predicted myself rereading, but the book does have something special, that restless strangeness at its heart that doesn’t have a satisfying answer. It came back to me all of a sudden when someone was talking about a different book written in interview format, and I suddenly had to read it again!

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Elizabeth Hand, horror, SF/F

Review – Flowers for the Sea

Posted December 29, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Flowers for the Sea, Zin E. Rocklyn

Received to review via Netgalley

I’m not certain why I originally requested this on Netgalley, because it is very much not my thing. It’s set on an ark, in a world where water has swallowed the land, and the main character is pregnant when others on board have all lost babies, died in childbirth, etc. Slowly, we get some details about the world before the ark, while it becomes obvious that it’s no ordinary pregnancy.

It’s a very visceral book, ripe with details about scents (most of them awful) and sensations (again, most of them awful). Much of it is body horror, which is extra specially not my thing.

It’s beautifully written, which is most of what kept me turning the pages. I sometimes felt that the dreamlike narrative got in the way of me understanding quite what was happening — mostly in the memory sections, and in the relationships between the characters. It probably didn’t help that it was so very much not my thing, as well: I can’t say I was paying my best attention to the details while cringing!

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, horror, SF/F, Zin E. Rocklyn

Review – Plain Bad Heroines

Posted July 11, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Plain Bad Heroines, emily m. danforth

In some ways, I guess it’s a surprise I picked this up, since it relies heavily on horror tropes and on the reader recognising horror tropes and horror movies and sly little references. That’s never really been my thing, though one or two authors have tempted me into that realm, or interesting concepts, etc. Anyway, the blurb tempted me in despite my total wussiness, and actually, I can’t say I was ever really creeped out.

It follows three women in the present as they make a movie about events of the past, when a girls’ school seemed cursed and some girls died in weird and unpleasant ways. It starts to seem like maybe the curse is real, because weird things keep happening around these three women now in the present. Or is it just the movie getting under their skins?

The book plays with that ambiguity throughout, and it feels like it’s building toward something explosive and genuinely frightening — there is a real tension and weirdness to it, but for me it never quite came off. The revelations that happen actually diminish the climax of it: now you know what’s going on, it seems much more mundane, even when weird stuff is still happening. It didn’t hold onto enough of the unknowable weirdness to really be unsettling. In the end, you get some answers, and for me at least, it was too many answers. It never managed to reach the fever pitch it was trying to build — I didn’t get even a little bit unsettled.

One thing that did work is the charge between three of the female characters — and the love between two of the characters in the past/flashback portions of the book. Those relationships work very well, and the way those relationships are far from idyllic, but sometimes capture moments of bliss, really works out for me.

Rating-wise, I feel like 2 is pretty fair. I didn’t DNF it, so there was stuff that kept me hanging on… but it was 600+ pages of waiting for it to live up to the promises it was making, and for me, it didn’t.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, emily m. danforth, horror, queer fiction, SF/F

Review – The Animals at Lockwood Manor

Posted March 22, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

The Animals at Lockwood Manor, Jane Healey

The Animals at Lockwood Manor follows Hetty, an assistant at the natural history museum, elevated to supervisor due to the beginning of World War II and the loss of the men of the department to enlistment. Hetty’s in charge of the evacuation of key parts of the museum’s collection, including invaluable type specimens, to a house in the country: Lockwood Manor. At first, the site seems close to ideal, but almost immediately there are issues: valuable items disappear, things are moved around when Hetty isn’t looking, and something sinister seems to be happening which makes her begin to doubt her sanity.

It’s all very Gothic and a little spooky, with brief interlude chapters from the point of view of Lord Lockwood’s daughter, Lucy, who is clearly haunted by the wild behaviour of her mentally ill mother. Throughout, there’s a sense that either there’s some serious gaslighting going on, or Hetty and Lucy are truly haunted — even as they become close and start a romantic relationship, clinging to one another amidst the awfulness of the seeming haunting and of Lord Lockwood’s dalliances with women younger than his own daughter.

On the one hand, I couldn’t point to anything special about the book — nothing I thought stood out, or particularly made it worth reading. On the other hand, I read it practically all in one go: there’s something about it which is gripping, helped along by the connection between Hetty and Lucy (at its best before they say a thing to one another, laying tension into each scene) and the fact that I am interested in Hetty’s job and the work she’s described as doing. It was enjoyable, though not outstanding; I may not even think of it again, but it certainly whiled away a few hours entertainingly.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, historical fiction, horror, Jane Healey, queer fiction

Review – Leviathan Wakes

Posted November 11, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey

The opening of Leviathan Wakes is just pure horror. Julie Mao has been trapped in a storage locker for days, during a takeover of her ship. When her need for food, water and other relief overcomes her caution, she bursts out… to find the ship empty and almost dead. She works her way to engineering to find —

Well, I won’t spoil that moment for you, even though it’s at the start of the book. The horror aspect recedes for quite a while, leaving more generic (but fun) space opera and a touch of noir. One side of the narrative follows James Holden and his tiny remnant crew after the destruction of their ship, the Canterbury, as they acquire a new ship (the Rocinante) and attempt to find (and hurt) whoever blew up the Cant.

The other side follows Miller, a halfway-decent cop who is melting down a bit after being ditched by his wife, and who fixates on a job he’s asked to do — to find Julie Mao, daughter of a rather famous family, and ship her back home. The two sides converge, of course, juxtaposing Holden’s righteousness against Miller’s almost amoral tendencies and making both of them look like assholes in the process. (Though in most ways I’m on Holden’s side, and Miller’s just kinda really creepy sometimes.)

The horror comes back in the middle, for sure, and threads through the rest. There are some epic fight scenes, some great character moments, some horrible revelations… and for my money, it all comes together really well. It’s pretty breathless, for me; for all that’s ~550 pages long, I didn’t often put it down. It was a reread for me, and it stood up to the memory. I’m looking forward to rereading Caliban’s War, too.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, horror, James S.A. Corey, SF/F