Horror general thread [+]

[overgeeked]

I just finished Twentieth Anniversary Screening, a novella by Jeff Strand that earned him a Bram Stoker Award. It’s crazy short but won the long-form award, go figure. It’s a horror-comedy story in the mockumentary style. A psycho becomes obsessed with a trashy slasher flick and tries to kill people in the theater in the same way as the on-screen killer does. Twenty years go by and the sleazy owner of the theater wants to cash in, so he organizes a screening of the film…only for a psycho to ruin the night by trying to recreate the original attempt at killing…only for two more psychos to ruin the whole thing by also trying to recreate the original attempt. Horror and comedy ensues. Great, quick read.

 

[overgeeked]

I just finished I'll Bring You the Birds From Out of the Sky, a novella by Brian Hodge. Damn. What a spectacularly beautiful book. It's definitely a Lovecraftian cosmic horror...or maybe chthonic horror. Like with Ballad of Black Tom, I'd heartily recommend this as a door into modern cosmic horror. There's no gore to speak of, but there is a bit of body horror. I picked this up today and fell into it. Finished it in two sittings only because I was forced from my spot. As someone with ADHD, that kind of head first being absolutely absorbed in a book doesn't happen that often. This one is just really, really good.

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I'm also chugging along on the horror comics. I realized it's taking me longer to write up those mini reviews than it does to actually read the things, so I'm done with that.

 

[Autumnal]

I’ve only read a few things by Hodge, but I’ve really enjoyed each one. He has such a distinctive voice.

 

[Older Beholder]

Saw this in a bookstore the other day, cool cover…

 

[Autumnal]

I love that cover.

 

[overgeeked]

I read Vaults of Yoh-Vombis yesterday. It’s a Lovecraftian horror short story by Clark Ashton Smith. Archaeologists on Mars explore some ruins and find more than they bargained for. I gotta say I wasn’t impressed. The monster was kinda neat. The writing was really awkward and stilted.

I just finished Aliens: Female War, by Steve Perry, the third in a trilogy of novelizations based on Dark Horse comics. This is the stuff they started writing between the release of Aliens and Alien 3. So Hicks is renamed Wilks and Newt is renamed Billie. The writing is good. I enjoy the adaptation. Fast-paced and very visual as you’d expect. The plot was really annoying. In the first two books Earth is overrun by xenomorphs. Which is fine. No complaints there.

And now Ripley, Wilks, and Billie have a plan. Go to the xenomorphs’ homeworld, kidnap the queen mother, transport her back to Earth, drop her near this one bunker with a nuke…wait six months…in the hopes she gathers all the xenomorphs into that one place, then nuke the entire site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure. No, I’m not exaggerating any of that. Oh, and just for giggles, apparently Ripley is an android.

Sigh.

I like trash. I like dumb trash. But that’s a level of stupid that could only be accomplished by committee.

 

[overgeeked]

I just finished The Talosite, a novella by Rebecca Campbell. The subtitle could have been “Or: the modern Frankenstein.” It was such a good book. Well written and utterly engaging.

The main character, Anne, is our Victor Frankenstein. She reanimates corpses for the Allies in an alternate history Great War (WW1). The point of divergence is reanimating corpses is a long-held tradition dating back to antiquity. Spartans at Thermopylae used them as did various others throughout time, though they only last a week and could either be controllable or rampaging berserkers. But these new reanimated corpses of Anne’s are the result of modern scientific advances, so they last longer and can be controlled.

The book obviously involves body horror. But it’s not that horrific, it’s almost cold and clinical. If you’ve ever read a monster book for an RPG with weird, stitched together undead, you know what you’re in for.

Campbell blends folklore, Frankenstein, and the Solomon Grundy nursery rhyme into some great world building and, for lack of a better term, “magic system” for reanimating corpses. Fans of Ravenloft should definitely check it out. Anne, her creations, and the endless battlefields of the Great War would make for a wonderfully nasty Domain of Dread.

 

[overgeeked]

I just finished the 2005 Bram Stoker Award-winning novella Best New Horror by Joe Hill. I picked this one because I’ve never read a Joe Hill story and because it won a Stoker. If you don’t know, Joe Hill is one of Stephen King’s kids. While King can’t stick an ending to save his life, I had hoped some of his chops had rubbed off on Junior here. No such luck. Not in evidence in this piece at least. This was such a meh-tastic nothing burger it’s making me question whether it’s worthwhile to pay attention to the Stoker Awards.

The plot. A horror anthology editor is burned out on the genre but keeps doing it for the little bit of money and invites to cons. A story comes to him that finally brings back the old spark. So he decides to track down the author to pay him to be in the anthology. A lot of words are spent on how weird, creepy, and horrendous horror fans are. And surprise, turns out the writer is a literal Nazi and is such a bloodthirsty psycho that he and his brothers are going to kill the editor. The story ends with a slight reskin of scenes from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Editor runs into the woods as one of the brothers starts up a chainsaw. The End.

Near as I can tell this story has three things to offer. One, crapping on horror fans. Two, kissing editors’ and pro writers’ butts. Three, lots of references to the most popular horror movies of the 70s and 80s.

Here’s to hoping the other award winners are bangers and 2005 was just a wretched year for horror, because damn.

 

[MGibster]

I just finished the 2005 Bram Stoker Award-winning novella Best New Horror by Joe Hill. I picked this one because I’ve never read a Joe Hill story and because it won a Stoker. If you don’t know, Joe Hill is one of Stephen King’s kids. While King can’t stick an ending to save his life, I had hoped some of his chops had rubbed off on Junior here.

I thought Heart Shaped Box, Horns, and NOS4A2 were decent. Like his father, Hill is pretty good at creating believeable characters.