Tag: horror

Review – Mexican Gothic

Posted November 5, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I’ve been meaning to read this forever, and in fact I originally had an advance copy of this. As often happens when I get a much-anticipated book as an advance copy, I actually bought it as soon as it came out, since it didn’t feel fair to read the ARC anymore. So… Mexican Gothic follows Noemí Taboada, a girl from a rich Mexican family, living in the city and hoping to go on to study more, enjoying her life as a socialite. Her cousin recently married, but it seems that something odd has happened to her — she sent home an almost incoherent letter, raving about the awful things happening to her — and Noemí’s father decides to send her to see what’s happening.

Noemí goes, partly out of affection for her cousin, partly out of curiosity, and partly to prove herself. She immediately finds that Catalina’s new family are rather odd, with oppressive rules and a rather awful house. And Catalina is ill: tuberculosis, the doctor says, and yet Noemí doesn’t think it seems to fit. When she snatches a moment along with Catalina, her cousin sends her to get a remedy from a local woman, and yet it seems to make her even more ill…

I won’t say too much more about the plot: it settles in to be nicely Gothic and weird. I don’t know if it was because of the books I’ve been reading lately (I shouldn’t name them, in case it’s too much of a spoiler), but I figured a good chunk of the plot out through noticing a recurring motif. I found that I wasn’t as riveted as I’d hoped to be, because it took me time to really connect with Noemí — – her confidence in her own intelligence, beauty and charm was a bit too much toward overconfidence, and though I can’t say that I’d fall in with the traditions of Catalina’s new family(!), it also seemed weird that she was so unwilling to respect simple things that are asked of her as a good guest, like not smoking in the bedroom. (Sure, different era and all, but… being a good guest hasn’t changed that much.) She just seems quite entitled.

However, as we got to see more of Francis, and as Noemí worked things out, it started to work a lot better for me — and the last third/quarter of the book, ish, is pretty nail-biting. Naturally, it doesn’t end in a terribly comfortable way, leaving a few questions and horrible possibilities hanging…

Really enjoyable, all in all, though I didn’t get into it as much as I’d expected to until later.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, horror, SF/F, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Review – Threshold

Posted July 7, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments

Threshold, Jordan L. Hawk

Threshold takes Whyborne, Griffin, and their friend Christine to a mining town, after Whyborne’s father (who has a large stake in the company) asks him to investigate the strange rumours coming from the town. It’s time for more horrors, some amateur spellcraft on Whyborne’s part, and an awkward meeting with one of Griffin’s former coworkers. They investigate the mystery — and the mysterious changes of personality from a prominent member of the company — while Griffin and Whyborne trip over their relatively-new relationship and their insecurities.

The relationship stuff is… a bit frustrating to me, mostly, because I felt that it was somewhat contrived. We can’t have them be too settled in themselves, so Whyborne has to be jealous and Griffin has to be hiding something, and no one can just talk about it and tell the truth. They figure themselves out without it being dragged out too long, but Whyborne’s huff with Griffin felt very similar to his reaction in the last book, and that… bothers me. Like, can you ever just sit down and listen to Griffin’s explanations? Maybe trust him a little?

I really hope this will not continue to be a theme of these books, because it’s one that I’ll get tired of pretty quickly… and otherwise it’s a lot of fun! And it’s not that I don’t want to see any conflict between the leads, but I’d prefer it not to be something that is so thin and well-worn. I’m still enjoying this series a lot, but one more book of this kind of lack-of-communication will quickly start turning me off. Here’s hoping some more trust develops between Whyborne and Griffin!

All that aside, I tore through the book. The mystery and its explanation are perhaps a little obvious, but some of the details come as a gruesome surprise, and there are some genuinely horrifying moments. Christine is amazing throughout, and I have a feeling that — support Whyborne though she does — she’d concur with my second paragraph completely. She’s a joy, and a breath of no-nonsense fresh air.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, horror, Jordan L. Hawk, queer fiction, romance, SF/F

Review – Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You

Posted April 14, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, Scotto Moore

This book started out promisingly for me: a music blogger finds a new track on Bandcamp by a band that seems to have come out of nowhere. Once he listens to it, it’s life-changing: it’s the best song he’s ever heard, a full-body experience of bliss. And there’s going to be 10 more tracks, one released each day…

It’s likely that it’s best to know as little as possible about this one before going in, but to some extent I found that people saying that made me expect more of a mystery than there actually was. I was hoping for more buildup, more mystery; instead, this book is way more in your face than that. And that’s where it kind of lost me: I didn’t want it to come straight out and tell me what it was going to be so soon. I felt like the concept of this music was good enough it needed to be strung out for a good long while, teasing the reader.

The places it goes are fun, but it wasn’t what I thought I was settling in for, and it felt a bit too… well, like I said: it felt in-your-face. It said the quiet bit out loud. Consequently, it kind of lost me and I didn’t buy in for the rest of the ride.

Rating: 2/5

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

Review – Hekla’s Children

Posted November 11, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Hekla’s Children, James Brogden

I saw some really glowing reviews about Hekla’s Children, and particularly about its originality, so I picked it up despite some reservations about the story as presented by the blurb. There are some kids, check. They vanish mysteriously, apart from one kid who is found a few days later, in a condition as though she is starving — even though she wasn’t missing long enough for that to have been the case. And then a bog body is found in that rough location, yet one of the leg bones — dated to the right period — is nonetheless found to have been pinned to heal from a break using 20th century medical techniques… And this bog body was supposed to protect against some awful horror, which may now be free to terrorise people.

I’m afraid I found it really predictable from the start, and as in another recent read of mine (In the Night Wood), I wasn’t impressed by the stock male character who had his romantic prospects dashed (he was sleeping with a woman who was engaged to be married to someone else, but woe is him, she chose the other guy). Sympathy with him is rather key to the whole thing working and to not seeing the twists coming, so perhaps that’s part of why it didn’t work for me at all.

There were some aspects I felt positive about — there’s a section in the otherworld where a main character gets into a homosexual relationship, and that’s dealt with carefully and sympathetically in a way that works. But otherwise… no, fairly meh.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, horror, mystery, SF/F

Review – Dread Nation

Posted August 12, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Dread Nation, Justina Ireland

I can’t remember who I spoke to who thought this might be rather like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, just a sort of awkward shoehorning of zombies into a historical period in a fairly superficial way. That’s not how this comes across — I’d compare it more closely to Mira Grant’s Feed and sequels in terms of the way it’s built into how society works — and it does seem to me to reflect the era of history fairly well. Set after zombies rose during the American Civil War, this book follows the fortunes of Jane, a black girl who has been sent to a combat school in order to learn to kill zombies (along with all other non-white children of her age). No longer slaves, but definitely second class citizens, black people bear most of the burden of fighting zombies, leaving white people living in luxurious safety.

For the most part, anyway. Maybe things aren’t safe as they seem. But as soon as Jane starts to poke around into that even a little bit, she’s caught and carted off to a new settlement, a place that’s meant to be safe from zombies — safe because it’s guarded by a vast perimeter wall and the endless patrolling of people like Jane. Naturally, there’s all kinds of nastiness — in terms of race, class, and just plain horribleness — and a whole mystery into which Jane must dig.

I enjoyed her character on a superficial sort of level, though I found her somewhat contradictory. One minute she hates Katherine, another girl from the school, and the next she does her a favour with the thinnest of reasoning. (Tit for tat doesn’t work if you don’t like or trust the person covering your back if you cover theirs, especially if the stakes are rather different between the two of you.) Katherine’s the same, one minute despising Jane and the next relying on her. The interpersonal stuff just never quite adds up for me.

The setting works well, and I believe in the way Ireland has tweaked history and changed things up. What she changes makes sense, as far as I understand history, and the social consequences are all too easy to imagine. The story ticks along well, action following action rather than getting stuck — it certainly keeps the pages turning. In the end, though, I just wasn’t in love with it. It wasn’t bad, but nor do I feel any pressing need to read the sequel when it arrives.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, historical fiction, horror, SF/F

Review – The Atrocities

Posted April 17, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

The Atrocities, Jeremy C. Shipp

Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 17th April 2018

I really liked the sound of The Atrocities right up front; I did expect something horror/Gothic ish in tone, but kind of expected something maybe less dramatic than this turned out to be. It starts out with great atmosphere and that uncanny feeling, but even after thinking it over for a few days, I’m not entirely sure what I make of it as a whole. Once things started being explained, it didn’t feel quite satisfactory to me, and by the end I was a little confused about what was real. The main character is probably meant to be unreliable, given the recounting of her dreams as almost seamlessly integrated into the text, but it didn’t quite work for me — it just felt confusing as in I couldn’t figure out what was going on, not in not being able to figure out what’s true, if you see the difference there. It started feeling rather rushed, too.

However, I’m generally not a horror fan, so it’s very likely I’ve missed some aspects of the shape of the narrative — the ending felt familiar from seeing the ends of a few horror movies over my wife’s shoulder, at least. So it might be that someone more into the genre would appreciate it more. I did love the atmosphere and the whole first scene, with the entrance to the estate, was perfectly uncanny and discomforting.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, horror

Review – The Wanderer in Unknown Realms

Posted February 23, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Wanderer in Unknown Realms, John Connolly

I don’t quite know what to make of this book. It starts off well, and throughout it’s atmospheric and leaves me curious. The bit about the power of books is creepily powerful, and there’s some great description in the most uncanny bits. The main character is handled well, too, in my opinion: he has a past which he never has to elaborate on, but which nonetheless colours everything he does and says. But then you get to the end of the book and it suddenly… stops. As my wife pointed out to me, the ending is pretty classic horror stuff, with no closure, but… Then you’ve got the narrator, telling his story. To whom? How? Why? That aspect all rather broke my engagement with the story, because I like there to be a reason.

If you’re a fan of John Connolly or of creepy crustaceans in horror novellas, this might be your thing, but I don’t think I’d recommend it in general.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, horror

Review – The Twilight Pariah

Posted November 9, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

The Twilight Pariah, Jeffrey Ford

I am a total wuss. Complete and total. So I expected to have the pants scared off me for picking up a horror novella, and it didn’t really happen. There were a few creepy moments, but mostly I found myself wondering why it felt like an episode of Scooby Doo. (Considering Scooby Doo on Zombie Island gave me nightmares as a kid, that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be scary, but… I don’t know.)

The actual haunting part seemed solid and interesting. It was the characters and the way they went about tackling the problem that didn’t work for me — it just all felt totally unreal, and like set-up for the three main characters to set up like the Winchester brothers or the Mystery Gang. It felt truncated and just too easy, and some of the action scenes just made me go… “Really??”

If you’re looking for something scary, then this isn’t it, I think. There is a good story somewhere in here, but mostly it didn’t work for me.

Rating: 2/5

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

Review – The Family Plot

Posted February 18, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

The Family Plot, Cherie Priest

Received to review via Netgalley; released in September 2016

Cherie Priest has written a whole bunch of different books, and I don’t love them all, but I have found them all to be solid stories. The Family Plot has a fun setting and concept: a salvage crew go in to get what they can from an old house scheduled for demolition. Problem is, the house has a history, and its past occupants aren’t all gone. It makes so much sense: of course old houses are creepy, and of course salvagers are going to be more interested the older it is. And of course, the older it is, the more history it has, tragedy included. The main character, Dahlia, believes in ghosts already; she’s felt them, she knows they’re there, and mostly they leave the living alone.

I won’t discuss too many of the details of the plot, because that mystery is part of the interest. It is worth noting though that every summary I can find doesn’t match with the events as they unfold in the ARC I got.

The problem with me is that I’m a total wuss, so horror isn’t normally my thing — in fact, I only picked this up because it was by Cherie Priest. Even so, I felt that a lot of the elements were pretty traditional and obvious. Doors that slam behind you and won’t open. Burials where there shouldn’t be burials. Ghosts who scratch messages into the floor. It felt like we saw it all a bit too clearly for it to be creepy. The final resolution — the whys and wherefores of the haunting — also didn’t quite satisfy me. There’s so much monstrous build-up, and then the solution is kind of… anti-climatic.

Nonetheless, the setting works really well, and I loved Dahlia. She’s capable, but not a superwoman. She knows what she’s doing, she’s decisive and smart, but she doesn’t always make the right decisions. And she’s not some fresh-faced kid with no history: she has a past which informs the way she acts now and the way she interacts with those around her. The supporting characters weren’t developed as much, but I found myself oddly interested in Bobby in particular, and how he might get his life together. At the very least, he raised a decent kid in Gabe.

Overall, it’s enjoyable, if not ground-breaking, and probably worth a look if you’re into ghost stories.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Cherie Priest, horror

Review – Hex

Posted August 1, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Hex, Thomas Olde Heuvelt

I was a little hesitant to read this one, because I’m a wuss (let’s not even talk about Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, okay), and I was told it was pretty creepy. But actually, my problem with this book was not the creepiness — at least, not the supernatural stuff. I was really viscerally discomforted by the human nastiness. And the misogyny. And just… I don’t know, it really wasn’t to my taste, and I can’t even really find anything to say about it. I was more grossed out than weirded out — and it seems weird, because other bloggers I know didn’t remark on this stuff at all. (Though there are some Goodreads reviews that do, which I guess is reassuring.)

The witch herself is kind of creepy, but the modern trappings of the story didn’t fit for me. Reporting the appearance of a dead witch in your house via an app…? It’s clever, it works, but apparently I like my horror traditional.

I also didn’t get into the characters, at all; that’s probably what makes horror actually horrifying and absorbing for me, caring about what happens to a character. So the lack of that… eh. I can’t honestly say I enjoyed it at all. For a counterpoint, you might like Mogsy’s review.

Rating: 1/5

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