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.