Difference between revisions of "Newest Horror Reviews"
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Well, when that is asked of a vampire CIA assassin who has lived through untold horrors and seen innumerable deaths, and Jaz Sparks, his spunky human-but-getting-less-so-with-every-book colleague-turned-lover, it only comes down as a major understatement. | Well, when that is asked of a vampire CIA assassin who has lived through untold horrors and seen innumerable deaths, and Jaz Sparks, his spunky human-but-getting-less-so-with-every-book colleague-turned-lover, it only comes down as a major understatement. | ||
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Revision as of 10:56, 8 April 2012
Horror
The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda
Gene - not that he remembers he's called Gene - is one of the few remaining survivors in a city peopled by vampires. His mother and sister were killed when he was just tiny and his father finally succumbed to a fang bite infection some years before. Gene's life is all about concealment. He shaves his body hair. He's careful to avoid any situation in which he might sweat - swimming is ok, but other sports are not. He files his nails. He behaves, always, as a vampire would behave. Everything is going so well until the Heper Hunt is announced... Full review...
I Have Waited, and You Have Come by Martine McDonagh
Rachel's world is in a state of decay. Her house is falling apart, her boyfriend has left her and civilization has crumbled in the wake of plague and extreme climate change. Her only friend, Stephanie, is separated from Rachel by the now insurmountable barrier of the Atlantic Ocean, their communication dependent on an increasingly unreliable satellite connecting their phones. At Stephanie's prompting Rachel gives her number to local trader Noah, who promises to call. Instead the number falls into the hands of the mysterious and sinister Jez White, initiating a disturbing game of cat and mouse, where the line between stalker and victim becomes blurred as Rachel finally decides to take control of her life. Full review...
The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett
George never knew his father, a man with whom his mother had a brief relationship when the Vaudeville - a travelling theatre company - came to town. Sixteen years later and George is following in the footsteps he believes to be his father's, by playing piano at a theatre on the circuit and hoping his father will show up. He doesn't, so George goes in search of him. The first glimpse George has of the man he thinks of as his father is at one of the troupe's shows. He is captivated not just by Silenus, but by the entire company. Full review...
The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore
Set in 1952 in Yorkshire, a young couple move into a rented flat. Philip is the new, young doctor while his new wife Isabel struggles with the isolated life with no friends or family and Philip's frequent absence due to the demands of his job. Things take a turn to the spooky when, waking from under the warmth of the old greatcoat Isabel finds in the flat, she hears a tapping at the window and finds there an RAF pilot, Alec, who appears to know Isabel intimately. Full review...
The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Mara has just started her whole life over - new city, new school, new start. It's just what the doctor ordered, and her family - though still treating her like she might fall apart at any moment - are tentatively hopeful that it's just what she needs to get back on her feet. Mara just hopes her memories return. She needs to know what happened the night her two best friends and her boyfriend died in an accident she somehow managed to escape unscathed. Full review...
Sherlock Holmes and The Affair In Transylvania by Gerry O'Hara
I normally start reviews with a brief plot summary, but it seems almost besides the point to do so for a book entitled 'Sherlock Holmes and the Affair in Transylvania'. From those seven words, the reader will have no doubt guessed that this is a Holmes meets Dracula story, and so we may as well move straight on to the burning question – is it any good? Full review...
Monster's Corner by Christopher Golden (Editor)
The Monster's Corner is a collection of tales that are told from the monster's perspective. It takes the idea that we are all the heroes of our own story and has a gloriously good time with it. Ranging from the thought-provoking to the strange, to the shocking and gory – they're a great selection of stories from the likes of Kelley Armstrong, Kevin J. Anderson, Sarah Pinborough and many others. Full review...
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
To start, for once, with the book's style - this has probably the least dialogue of any book you'll read this year. There are some comments from characters, but they're few and far between - as are those characters that can actually speak. For we're in a devastated New York, later this century, and our three main protagonists are cleaning up after a worldwide plague of zombies. The active ones have mostly been gunned down by the military, but there are a few still locked away in hidden corners - as well as inactive ones, called stragglers, who seem stuck in one instant, whether finishing off their last office job for the millionth time, or like a ghost haunting a place relevant to them. Full review...
Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley
Ooh, ooh - two Frankenstein-related books one after the other! More of that in the further reading at the end. Mr Creecher isn't a retelling, a sequel or a prequel; it's an interlude, set midway through the events of Mary Shelley's novel.
It's Regency London, the Industrial Revolution is beginning to crank up, and Billy is an orphan and pickpocket trying to survive in the grimy streets. About to rob what he thinks is a corpse, Billy is set upon by some acquaintances to whom he owes money. Before Fletcher's knife prises out Billy's eye, the corpse - not a corpse at all, in case you didn't guess - comes to his rescue. This huge, shambling man is not a pretty sight. But he has a job for Billy. Mr Creecher has come to London on the trail of Victor Frankenstein, with whom he has a bargain. And he needs Billy to follow Frankenstein to make sure he doesn't renege on the deal. Full review...
This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel
Victor and Konrad Frankenstein are twins, born just two minutes apart. They look alike but their personalities couldn't be more different. Konrad is calm, assured and capable. People like him. Victor is intense and arrogant with a burning ambition. He rubs people up the wrong way more often than not. The twins live with their beautiful, sometimes wayward, cousin Elizabeth and the three are educated alongside great friend and wordsmith Henry. It's a charmed life in the Frankenstein chateau in the Genevese republic. Full review...
The Haunted by Niki Valentine
Valentine's novel opens with a sinister tale that has nothing to do with haunted boths – but everything to do with rotting relationships. Susan and Martin are attempting to have a second honeymoon but the dynamic between them is clearly flawed from the very start. Susan seems to be experiencing feelings of seemingly hysteria-driven love, continually alternating with resentment. The opening scenes are played out in the relative calm of a smart hotel, but the tension and irritations between the couple are painfully clear. Full review...
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Arthur Kipps is a young solicitor working in a fog-bound London and soon to be married. All looks rosy for Arthur until one day he is called into his boss' office where he is tasked with the affairs of the deceased recluse Alice Drablow. Alice Drablow had lived in the melancholy village of Crythin Gifford in an isolated house on the remote Eel Marsh, a house only accessible by a strange causeway when the tide is out. It is here Arthur must travel to firstly represent his firm at her funeral and then to sift through Mrs Drablow's house to ensure all her legal paperwork is in order. Full review...
Tarantula: The Skin I Live In by Thierry Jonquet
In a large French country house, an expert in facial reconstruction surgery keeps a beautiful woman locked up in her bedroom. He placates her with opium, but barks orders through hugely powerful speakers and an intercom. She tantalises him with her sexuality, which he tries to ignore, except for when he seems to abuse it in a sort of S/M way when he does let her into society, as he forces her to prostitute herself. Elsewhere, a young, inept bank robber holes himself up in a sunny house, waiting for the heat to die. And finally, a young man is held chained up in a cellar at the hands of an unknown possessor. Full review...
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
A young couple find the beginnings of a dream life together in a new apartment in a New York building that a friend says is a hotbed of death and misfortune. But it seems perfect. His job prospects as an actor have never been better, and they're quickly accepted into the elderly community of their neighbours. What's more, she - Rosemary - gets pregnant. Nothing can go wrong, can it? None of this happiness and hope can come at a dreadful cost - can it? Full review...
John Dies at the End by David Wong
'John Dies at the End' begins with friends John and Dave going to a party and meeting a Jamaican drug dealer who provides John with a hit of something called 'soy sauce'. Thereafter, John starts to see things that others can't see. Dave thinks he has had a bad reaction to the drug until he accidentally takes a hit and also starts to have strange experiences, seeing odd shadow creatures, none of whom are very friendly. Even worse, people start to die and a dog takes on human characteristics. Before long, John and Dave are facing death on a regular basis and are aware that they have access to dimensions that normal people don't know about. Full review...
Newsflesh Trilogy: Deadline by Mira Grant
Ever since the untimely death of his sister, Shaun Mason has been alive, but not much more so than the zombies that populate his post-apocalyptic world. For the man who built a career on poking dead things with a stick, just for laughs, life's just no fun anymore. Full review...
Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
The story begins in London. It is 1888 and Queen Victoria is on the throne. She has recently remarried, taking as her husband the infamous vampire Count Dracula. Dracula's influence is all around London as more and more of its citizens turn willingly to vampirism, whilst others resist its temptations. A distinct sense of social and political unrest is in the air as factions speak out against the race of vampires, somehow spurred on by the serial killer at large. Known at first as the Silver Knife, but later as Jack the Ripper, this killer targets young vampire women in Whitechapel, prostitutes who have recently turned to vampirism, known as new-borns. Full review...
The Dark (The Dead 2) by David Gatward
We pick up exactly where we left off in this second book in David Gatward's The Dead series. Lazarus Stone has been killed (twice), resurrected (twice), been to the world of the Dead (don't ask), become a Keeper (dangerous job), got himself a personal guardian angel (Arielle, alcoholic), a Dead guide (Red, whose skin's fallen off), and has gone some way to locating his father (prisoner of the Dark and seriously not having a good time of it). Along with best mate Craig and ex-possessed nurse Clair, Lazarus has a mission. Full review...
Epitaph by Shaun Hutson
To state the obvious, all of us are afraid of different things. Gina, a woman having an affair in cheap hotels, is scared of getting caught. Paul, mid-30s and in advertising, sees the redundancy notice he's just been handed as prelude to a nightmarish future. And Laura, 8, can find the underpass from school to home, and echoing footsteps within it, too spooky. The nastiest thing about this book is that for all these characters, they're forced beyond these horrors, to find something even more frightening. Full review...
The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross
Our world is not as it seems. We share it with aliens, zombies, demonic spirits, with ancient god-like entities that are all keen to eat our bodies and devour our souls. It's lucky, then, that we have the British secret service to protect us, more specifically a top secret branch of the secret service called The Laundry. This organisation is so secret that even the bosses at MI6 don't know of its existence. The point of the Laundry is to keep all the myriad of terrors endangering the Earth at bay by the careful use of science, technology and magic, magic being a little known branch of applied maths. Full review...
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No. 1: Night of the Living Rerun; Coyote Moon; Portal Through Time by John Vornholt, Arthur Byron Cover and Alice Henderson
There is something really satisfying about a huge brick of a book: the prospect of settling down for hours and hours of reading pleasure is very tempting. And this book offers an even more tempting lure for Buffy fans, because it contains three whole stories, adding variety to the mix. It's absolutely ideal for a holiday read. Full review...
Blood and Ice by Robert Masello
Journalist Michael Wilde cannot pass the opportunity of spending some time at a research station in Antarctica. His girlfriend is in what could be a permanent coma following a trip that they both made together and he needs to get away. Expecting to see some amazing sights, he is not disappointed. What he was not expecting, however, was to find a block of ice during a diving expedition in which the bodies of a man a woman, perfectly preserved, were chained together. By their side were several bottles of what appeared to be wine. However, once the bodies are brought to the surface and defrost, strange things start to happen and before long, everyone at the research station is fighting for their lives. Will Michael ever manage to return home safely? Full review...
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel by Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith and Tony Lee
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie story of any renown will not remain simply a zombie story. Before you can say the risen undead it will become a series of books, inspiring others, and/or lead to the same story being published in many different guises. Here, then, on its way to Hollywood, is Jane Austen’s story of Lizzie Bennet, the feisty young woman trying to ignore Mr Darcy while fighting off the manky unmentionables – at least she is until the hidden truths open up to her, just as the soft soils of Hertfordshire do to yield their once-human remains. And this time it’s in graphic novel form. Full review...
Zombie: An Anthology of the Undead by Christopher Golden (Editor)
Anyone who enjoys a good horror story and likes zombie films will love this book, which is a collection of nineteen short stories by a variety of authors. I have to admit that I have only heard of one of the authors before - Mike Carey, who writes the Felix Castor novels - but I am not an avid reader of the genre and don't doubt that the authors will be known to readers more familiar with it. Despite this unfamiliarity, I thoroughly enjoyed most of the stories, with just one or two seemingly not up to scratch. Full review...
Mr Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett
Marcus Connelly, a quiet, reserved and private man, has recently joined the mass of humanity travelling west in search of work. It's the Midwest in the 1930s and the Great Depression is in full swing. The dustbowl is a desperate place and there's none more desperate than Connelly. But Connelly doesn't need a job and he has a wife and a home. Connelly isn't missing prosperity; he's missing his daughter, and he's in search of the man who killed her. Full review...
My Dead Body (Joe Pitt Casebook) by Charlie Huston
Joe Pitt's New York is one riddled with Vampyres, infected by a Vyrus that makes them drink blood and die in the sun. It is also a wasteland of lawless tribes of Vampyres, gang warfare carving up Manhattan into territories, each with their own leaders, specialist workers, fighters, animosities. As we start book five, Joe's New York is actually a subterranean one, as he hides from everyone in the sewers and tunnels, until the enterprise of a top dog character flushes him out, and tells Pitt to find his daughter - a messianic poster girl for the future of the city. Full review...
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
There was a time before Stephen King. There was time before The Shining. There was a time when 'horror' was not rooted in blood, guts and gore. I owe a slight apology to Mr King, because along with the gutsier side of the genre, I will own that he is a master at suspense. Full review...
The Magdalena Curse by F G Cottam
Mark Hunter is the sort of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident, his surviving son Adam has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices of the dead. Plagued by horrific dreams, able to speak Russian in the hours after he wakes, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herself. Full review...
Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth by Chris Priestley
Young Robert is put on a train back to school by his stepmother. It's the first journey he's made on his own. It turns out to be more of a challenge than he could ever have imagined. The train stalls at the mouth of a tunnel and while the other passengers sleep through the wait, a mysterious woman in white tells him a series of stories - stories with a difference. Full review...
Tales of Death and Dementia by Edgar Allan Poe and Gris Grimly
Wow! What a wonderful combination: Edgar Allan Poe, master of the gothic horror short story, and Gris Grimly, outstanding illustrator, known for his work with Neil Gaiman. Poe's Tales of Death and Dementia are shown off at their very best in this edition. Full review...
Last Rites by Shaun Hutson
A man gets viciously beaten up by unknown assailants in a North London street. Only afterwards do we discover anything about him - he is a teacher, with a dead daughter, an estranged wife, and after the assault a new-found urge to flee, and to move on to something and somewhere new. Meanwhile, in rural Buckinghamshire, odd things are happening. People are brutally killing and displaying animals, while unconnected teenagers with both long-term aims and immediate intentions, are suddenly and flippantly killing themselves. Full review...
Every Last Drop (Joe Pitt) by Charlie Huston
Joe Pitt is a heavy-drinking, chain-smoking, superhuman Vampyre. A rogue in a secret world of violence and bloodlust set in the heart of The Bronx. Away from the steady infrastructure of American society, the various Vampyre clans have found the perfect place to hide themselves away from the 'Van Helsings' of their world. The clans, each with their own agenda, have claimed a piece of The Bronx as their territory and over the years have established themselves well. Full review...
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Mary has lived her whole life in a village in the middle of the Forest of Hands and Teeth, protected from the Unconsecrated by a fence. Life in the village is simple if you follow the rules – obey the Sisterhood for they know best, preserve the next generation by marrying and having children and stay away from the fence.
Then Mary's mother is bitten when she strays too close to the fence, looking for her husband who was lost some months ago. The Guardians want to kill her before she turns and becomes Unconsecrated, but Mary's mother chooses to live and join her husband in the Forest. Full review...
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Coraline has just moved to a new flat in a huge converted old house. It's the summer holidays, but her parents both work from home but are busy, so operate a general policy of benign neglect. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible on the ground floor offer Coraline the odd cup of tea - and read its leaves to boot. The crazy old man upstairs is busy training a mouse circus. There's plenty of scope for exploring in the grounds, and so that's what Coraline does, just as Alice did before she found Wonderland. Full review...
One More Bite (Jaz Parks) by Jennifer Rardin
You are in the business of ghost release?
Well, when that is asked of a vampire CIA assassin who has lived through untold horrors and seen innumerable deaths, and Jaz Sparks, his spunky human-but-getting-less-so-with-every-book colleague-turned-lover, it only comes down as a major understatement. Full review...
