Hey friends! Here some short reviews, hope you enjoy them!
The October Film Haunt: A Novel by Michael Wehunt
"Do you think a cult must be religious by nature?"
Coming from the pen of Wehunt, I thought this would be form over function, given Wehunt's prose weighed slightly more than the content in my judgment of his last short story collection, The Inconsolables, but this novel tipped the scale back into balance, as I loved the many layers of horror in The October Film Haunt. And also I'm a sucker for a good scary movie story made by mysterious directors with cult-followers. I could relate to Jorie's passion for the genre, the mere idea of camping at filming locations of good scary movies sounds like so much fun that I'm a little mad I didn't think of it (but not living in the USA my options would be slight anyway). I did think that at some point there were too many points of view for my liking (and that's something I prefer in very big series of books only, like Tad Williams' Otherland books) but in the end it all comes together nicely. Plus, the demon-villain thing was genuinely creepy, if you listen to the audiobook version like I did, the narrator does something with his voice that's really unsettling.
November / Darker Days by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
The "ones who walked away from Omelas" question packed into a small-town horror story during a month I hate... November.
Can you ever live happily if your prosperity and wealth depends on someone else's misery? The residents of Bird Street in Lock Haven, Washington, are confronted with this dilemma every year over again in November. From the outside they look successful, talented, healthy, happy, but during that month in the year, during the Darker Days, bad luck and calamity descends upon them. And to fend it off, they need to give a sacrifice, usually the elderly or terminally ill. But this year there is no one to sacrifice, so how far will they go?
When Thomas visited Berlin last year he told me he thinks I will like this book of his best, and I actually did. It did have some "Hex"-vibes, but has enough originality to be its own book, and it was a good thing I've read it in November, it enhanced the darker days atmosphere and strengthened my hate for this month (luckily it's over).
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
So I'm desperately trying to successfully accomplish my reading challenges (it doesn't look very good this year, I have been strolling too much) and for my book cover challenge I needed to read a book with vampires on the cover. Can you believe I couldn't find one worthwhile current book to read that fits that description? I then thought I'll just re-read this classic, a book I adore and can therefore quickly be done with.
The last man on Earth after a global vampire pandemic, Robert Neville, hunts vampires on daytime (when they sleep), and by night he hides in his home and prays that they don't get him back. Until one day he gets caught and makes a groundbreaking realization that will turn his short life upside down.
The last chapter of this book is so profound, so meaningful, so important (especially for the times we live in) and yet it's the one chapter they left out in the stupid movie adaptation... This can be the perfect philosophical book for everyone who never once doubted that they have always been "on the good side" of history.
Night & Day: Dreadful Dark: Tales of Night Time Horror/Merciless Sun: Tales of Daylight Horror, ed. by Ellen Datlow
The Bright Day by Priya Sharma, where we are presented a dystopic world in which advanced climate change caused the world to overheat, and a home invasion takes place in a time where being outside is deadly.
Trick of the Light by Brian Evenson - imagine being on a date with someone with a sinister baggage, a kind of monster that emerges at the same time every sunny day... Very creepy!
One Day by Jeffrey Ford - I'm admitting here that there's something very engrossing in Jeffrey Ford's short horror stories about weirdness creeping into the everyday lives of ordinary people living in the suburbs. Here, it's a baby snatcher who operates in broad daylight.
Trash Night is an awesome piece of writing by Clay McLeod Chapman following the night shift of a trash man who finds a baby's dead body in a plastic bag.
At Night, My Dad by Dan Shawn. When night time comes, MC is being visited by his demons during his heroin withdrawal. Luckily he has his father to take care of him.
and finally,
Mirrors by Pat Cadigan, in which an orphaned five year old girl lives with her grandmother, her roommate, and her roommate's girlfriend. As we all know though, two is company, but three is a coven. I definitely need to start reading Pat Cadigan because every time I read an anthology that features her writing, without doubt Cadigan makes it into my highlights. Does anyone have recommendations where to start reading her?
So, great concept, great authors, all in all great anthology - don't miss this.
Du hättest gehen sollen / You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlmann
Having read the magnificent historical fiction Tyll as a group, we the Shine and Shadow people decided to read another book by its author, and decided to go for You Should Have Left mainly because of its slight frame - it is a novella of merely 95 pages.
Accordingly, there's so much unresolved, left open in this story. I have never been a fan of Danielewski's monumental House of Leaves, which, fifteen years before Kehlmann's work invented, tackled and exhausted the trope of the house which looks different from the outside than it does from the inside and whose measurements just cannot be correct.
The protagonist of this book and his family rent a remote house in the mountains which defies the law of physics. While MC tries to finish a screenplay uncanny events unfold and he is trying to understand why. A very arrogant MC not enjoyable to read at all, and a half-baked story, which had its moment a decade and a half ago.
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