Post by brlesh on Jun 14, 2020 23:52:59 GMT
I finished 7 in May.
The Skinless Face was a pretty solid collection by Donald Tyson. Tyson's Lovecraftian stories are his strong suite and most of the 14 stories in this collection fall in that category. His attempts at stories outside the Lovecraft pastich are less successful, in my opinion. Favorite stories were the Skinless Face & The Organ of Chaos (one of the darkest stories I've ever read), both reprinted from the Black Wings anthology series. Fans of Lovecraft should definitely seek out Tyson's work. 4 / 5
La Belle Fleur Sauvage by Caitlin R. Kiernan is a post-apocalyptical story of a plague of alien parasites that infest the wombs of women of child bearing age, essentially placing the human race on the slow path to extinction (making it the perfect reading material when lockdown due to a pandemic!). Kiernan tells the story through a series of vignettes (none more than 5 or 6 pages long), offering numerous points of view on the species-ending plague. It takes a little while to see how all the vignettes relate, but once you get into the story they all fall into place. Excellent novella. 5 / 5
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant is a pretty solid creature feature. It tells the story of a young marine biologist who joins a research crew headed to the Mariana's Trench to try to find out what happened to her sister, a member of an earlier crew that disappeared several years before. This was the first thing I've read by Grant, and I was fairly impressed. She handles the science deftly and provides a plausible hypothesis for the creatures existence. This a fast paced story with a lot of action to it. One drawback is that some of the character interactions tended to be quite melodramatic. Don't know if this is due to Grant's YA background or if it is just her writing style. However, she doesn't dwell on the melodrama and usually moves quickly on to the next action sequence. Looking forward to the next book in the series. 4 / 5
I Am the Abyss was an anthology with the theme being of stories set in the afterlife. The nine novella length stories tended to be too surreal and over the top for my liking. The two bright spots were 'Faith' by John Little and the 'The Burning Wood' by Michael Marshall Smith, easily the best story in the anthology. The Jeffrey Thomas story, set in his Hades world, was also pretty good. Unfortunately, the rest of the stories were pretty much forgettable. 2.5 / 5
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is a long & complex story that juggles three timelines (early 1930's, mid 1950's & mid 1970's) while addressing the question of whether Dracula, in the form of the Wallachian prince Vlad Tepes, still exists. The story is slow paced, though not necessarily boring (though it does help if the reader has at least some interest in European history). There are several big coincidences throughout the novel used to move the storyline along, though for the most part the author does address these coincidences (though there is a big one towards the end of the story that just gets completely glossed over). I found the ending to be too quick and anti-climatic to be truly satisfying for a story as long and complex as The Historian. Overall not a bad read, but I went into it expecting more from the story. 3.5 / 5
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher started out interesting enough; a women in her mid-30's is asked by her elderly father to clean out her recently deceased grandmother's house in the woods in North Carolina. After spending a few days at the house (with her dog Bongo) she discovers that the quiet woods are not all they seem to be. OK, a great premise for a horror story, but about half way through I just found myself growing bored with the lead characters internal dialogue and eventually I just lost interest in the story. I put it aside with about 100 pages to go. DNF
The Autopsy & Other Tales was a hefty collection of stories by Michael Shea published by Centipede Press. Most of the stories I would categorize as horror tinged with science fiction, though there a few fantasy stories and several aimed at a mostly comedic effect. My favorites were 'Fat Face' (classic Lovecraftian), 'Salome' (horror story of a crossed love avenged) and the classic 'The Autopsy' (IMO one of the best examples of SF/Horror ever written). 4 / 5
B
The Skinless Face was a pretty solid collection by Donald Tyson. Tyson's Lovecraftian stories are his strong suite and most of the 14 stories in this collection fall in that category. His attempts at stories outside the Lovecraft pastich are less successful, in my opinion. Favorite stories were the Skinless Face & The Organ of Chaos (one of the darkest stories I've ever read), both reprinted from the Black Wings anthology series. Fans of Lovecraft should definitely seek out Tyson's work. 4 / 5
La Belle Fleur Sauvage by Caitlin R. Kiernan is a post-apocalyptical story of a plague of alien parasites that infest the wombs of women of child bearing age, essentially placing the human race on the slow path to extinction (making it the perfect reading material when lockdown due to a pandemic!). Kiernan tells the story through a series of vignettes (none more than 5 or 6 pages long), offering numerous points of view on the species-ending plague. It takes a little while to see how all the vignettes relate, but once you get into the story they all fall into place. Excellent novella. 5 / 5
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant is a pretty solid creature feature. It tells the story of a young marine biologist who joins a research crew headed to the Mariana's Trench to try to find out what happened to her sister, a member of an earlier crew that disappeared several years before. This was the first thing I've read by Grant, and I was fairly impressed. She handles the science deftly and provides a plausible hypothesis for the creatures existence. This a fast paced story with a lot of action to it. One drawback is that some of the character interactions tended to be quite melodramatic. Don't know if this is due to Grant's YA background or if it is just her writing style. However, she doesn't dwell on the melodrama and usually moves quickly on to the next action sequence. Looking forward to the next book in the series. 4 / 5
I Am the Abyss was an anthology with the theme being of stories set in the afterlife. The nine novella length stories tended to be too surreal and over the top for my liking. The two bright spots were 'Faith' by John Little and the 'The Burning Wood' by Michael Marshall Smith, easily the best story in the anthology. The Jeffrey Thomas story, set in his Hades world, was also pretty good. Unfortunately, the rest of the stories were pretty much forgettable. 2.5 / 5
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is a long & complex story that juggles three timelines (early 1930's, mid 1950's & mid 1970's) while addressing the question of whether Dracula, in the form of the Wallachian prince Vlad Tepes, still exists. The story is slow paced, though not necessarily boring (though it does help if the reader has at least some interest in European history). There are several big coincidences throughout the novel used to move the storyline along, though for the most part the author does address these coincidences (though there is a big one towards the end of the story that just gets completely glossed over). I found the ending to be too quick and anti-climatic to be truly satisfying for a story as long and complex as The Historian. Overall not a bad read, but I went into it expecting more from the story. 3.5 / 5
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher started out interesting enough; a women in her mid-30's is asked by her elderly father to clean out her recently deceased grandmother's house in the woods in North Carolina. After spending a few days at the house (with her dog Bongo) she discovers that the quiet woods are not all they seem to be. OK, a great premise for a horror story, but about half way through I just found myself growing bored with the lead characters internal dialogue and eventually I just lost interest in the story. I put it aside with about 100 pages to go. DNF
The Autopsy & Other Tales was a hefty collection of stories by Michael Shea published by Centipede Press. Most of the stories I would categorize as horror tinged with science fiction, though there a few fantasy stories and several aimed at a mostly comedic effect. My favorites were 'Fat Face' (classic Lovecraftian), 'Salome' (horror story of a crossed love avenged) and the classic 'The Autopsy' (IMO one of the best examples of SF/Horror ever written). 4 / 5
B
