The nitty-gritty: Sumptuous prose, body horror and complex relationships make up a heady mix in Milkteeth, Caitlin Starling’s outstanding take on the vampire trope. “You will lose your own needle teeth soon enough. In your maturity, your teeth will be all but identical to your prey’s. Just sharpened, lengthened canines, the better to slice, your […]
The nitty-gritty: Get ready for monster karaoke, exploding cows and more in Monsters of Ohio, an absurd but heartfelt story about change. “There are monsters here, and they’re going to wreck our town. They’re just not us.” John Scalzi excels at a certain brand of humor, and once again he’s brought that humor to his […]
The nitty-gritty: Multilayered and full of shocking twists, J.H. Markert tackles the cult subgenre in his latest, an intricately plotted thriller with plenty of surprises. Once again, I’ve been blown away by a new-to-me author, and this time it’s J.H. Markert and his new book The Chain House. This has everything I love in a […]
The nitty-gritty: Monsters both human and supernatural inhabit the pages of It Looks Like You in the Dark, a thoughtful and sometimes frightening Indigenous horror story. “I understood it, her, whatever the monster was. Her hunger was my hunger, as familiar as it was horrifying.” Based on the dark, moody cover, I was excited to […]
The nitty-gritty: A fun mash-up of murder mystery, time travel and 1990s culture, Night of the Mallrats is an entertaining blast from the past. I thought this was going to be a time travel story, and it is, sort of. But the time travel element is much smaller than I expected, so I think my […]
The nitty-gritty: A surreal, hallucinogenic road trip to repatriate the old bones of a Blackfeet boy takes a deadly turn in Stephen Graham Jones’ latest, a terrifying—and sometimes confusing—tale of redemption. “This RV was a rolling circus, a nightmare unfolding at sixty shaky miles per hour.” That quote pretty much sums up Off the Reservation, […]
The nitty-gritty: Tananarive Due mixes history and survival horror with well drawn characters and plenty of tense action in her latest, an entertaining tale with never a dull moment. “Sometimes good luck whistled for bad luck to follow right behind it.” Mazywood is one of the most surprising books I’ve read this year, for a […]
The nitty-gritty: Clever, charming and romantic, The Killing of a Chestnut Tree is the perfect bite-sized, feel good tale for our times. I’ve been a fan of Oliver K. Langmead since 2015 when I read and loved Dark Star, and he continues to surprise me to this day. The Killing of a Chestnut Tree is […]
The nitty-gritty: A weird, magical story with nods to Greek mythology, Find Me Where It Ends is full of raw emotion and thoughtful reflections on life and death. “As it moved, Antigone saw proof again of what it was: its pelt seemed to eat the evening light. It was a negative space, a hole cut […]
The nitty-gritty: A young visual effects designer discovers the dark side of social media and fame in Alma Katsu’s latest, a fast-paced, modern day cautionary tale. Alma Katsu has taken her knowledge of social media—she was one of the first social media research analysts—and turned it into a harrowing tale about the price of fame. […]