protean depravity

Wheee!! Another year has passed and everybody's favorite book blog turns five!

Nuzo Onoh is a Nigerian-British horror and dark fantasy author, also known as The Queen of African Horror. She is the author of at least eight novels, and has received, as the first African and Black-British, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2022. I have gotten to know her work in the past year, and I definitely intend to explore it further, so I’m very excited that she accepted an interview for Protean Depravity!

Guys... I don't really know where to start discussing this movie... In its opening week it came second only after "How To Train Your Dragon" and debuted many millions of dollars (well deserved); the internet is teeming with heated discussions (especially about the end), and I feel like I didn't even know I've been waiting for this... On the day it was released in Germany I left work early so I could literally run to the theater and watch the first English showing. I've seen it twice more since then, and I'm still thinking about this movie and about going to see it one more time. Why? Because it's a movie where there's so so much going on, and despite their imperfections, or maybe because of them, I love movies likes that. DON'T FORGET THAT I ALWAYS HAVE TO SPOIL EVERY MOVIE AND EVERY BOOK, SO PLEASE GO AND SEE THE MOVIE BEFORE READING THIS!!! 

The yearly StokerCon was last week, and the latest Bram Stoker Awards (BSA) have found their new owners. The BSA's are arguably the most important awards in horror fiction because they basically decide which books will enter the horror canon and which will not, and authors who have been granted the award, or even have been nominated, carry that title with a certain kind of honor - even though it's the books that make the authors, not the awards. Being a USA-based award, the lineup is usually heavily from there, which can be a shame as there's great horror from everywhere these days. It's always wonderful to see a name or two who made it despite being in translation, and this year there's Mariana Enriquez from Argentina and Sofia Ajram from Canada, but unfortunately nobody outside of the American continents. It is usual I don't always agree with the nominees or winners, as I think the same names keep on rotating and some fresh horror authors who do deserve to be ...

Every year in June, at the middle of the road, I turn back to take a look at the year in horror and the books I have read so far, and since time is nothing but a blur these days, we're there already. In order to do so I answer a series of questions that we use to sum up our reading year/half year over at the Shine and Shadow reading group on Goodreads. I feel like my reading considerably slowed down this year, and I indeed decided to read less fluff and more books that are of value to me. I still feel like chasing my own tail though, and I'm not achieving much of my reading goals. Let's break it down to how it went so far!

Finally did I collect enough short reviews to post here... I have been reading a lot of non-speculative fiction and the birthday week of the Hammett bookstore plus my regular day job finished my energy off, resulting in me not being able to read everything I wanted. But I'm still happy there were a couple of really good books amongst the ones I managed to read. So, here are the short reviews, I hope you enjoy them!

In the age of never-ending reinvention of the vampire trope (and frankly, of every other trope too), it is pretty damn hard to create something original, and more importantly, something meaningful out of this rusted, crusted, dusted motif. One way of achieving such originality is putting the vampire in all sorts of unconventional, unexpected, surprising, sometimes even silly or compromising situations, which, if we're being honest, isn't all that original anymore. Another way is to dive into the heart of what vampires are about, and use or maybe modify that foundation in order to suit your story and to make your point. Horror author Stephen Graham Jones makes exactly that in his latest novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter , and to make a meaningful point, as is well known, is his strong suit. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is the nested narrative of present-day academic Etsy Beaucarne who wants to write a book about the 1912 diary of her great great great grandfather Arthur after it wa...

Guys, I forgot to add two important things to my early summer blog post that you shouldn't miss if you can; This weekend, starting tomorrow and going on Sunday, it's time for the Final Girls Brain Binge again! I'm just pasting a picture of the program here, you'll need to subscribe as usual, and, of course, it is free as usual: