protean depravity

Did you, as a child, enjoy the later episodes of the children series Hallo Spencer and grew up to be a geeky adult who listens electronica, reads speculative fiction and has an affection for house plants? If that's a pretty accurate description of you, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't miss the live streams of Ugress -  a music/storytelling project from Norway with the ruthless charm of Spencer (though, with only one character and songs instead of sketches), awesome music, self written stories and fun, interactive games, starring my dear friend and fellow book clubber, the unbearably congenial Gisle Martens Meyer.

illustrated by Gustavo Barroni   Original Fiction by Lindsay Taylor The publisher had dutifully tried to hype the whole affair, but there’s only so much that could be done under the circumstances.

Recently I tried to focus on finishing books I had started reading at some point in the past and didn't finish for one reason or another and it's looking good so far; here are some results of project DNF, as well as newer reads that I had been anticipating. Two of the books I am discussing here are slashers and the other three can definitely pass as (dark) fantasy but also as contemporary literature depending on where your focus is. Enjoy!

Well... There goes that hint of hope everything is going to be alright again. Berlin was doing so well after the initial COVID19 shutdown in the spring. We even tentatively started sticking our heads out of

When Marlon James jokingly termed the first book of his "Dark Star Trilogy", Black Leopard, Red Wolf , the "African Game of Thrones", little did he know that he could seriously share that title with C.T. Rwizi and his wonderful epic fantasy Scarlet Odyssey . Although no, stop! Let's not start the review of this brilliant debut with a comparison and create false hopes or expectations - there are no graphic scenes of sex and violence and not every man dies here; but there are plenty of intrigues, misfits on a mission and powerful magic games. Scarlet Odyssey is first and foremost an epic fantasy which borrows its cultural, folkloric and mythological elements from Africa. It is furthermore in both the description of administrative intrigues of a society and more importantly in the magic system that it demonstrates and excels in complexity, the latter probably being the most remarkable factor in this fascinating work.

Enjoy the new short reviews!

Treacherous mother, Hereditary (2018) Say farewell to Jack Torrance, it is now mothers who attack, betray, damage, make suffer and hurt with their absence in horror movies. I have watched three horror movies last weekend, “Becky”, “The Lodge” and “Come to Daddy” and ALL of them are marked by the absence of the mother – either because of a sad death, a tragic suicide or the physical absence on a father-son vacation. And that absence has devastating consequences. Is that a coincidence? For anyone who watched horror movies in the 80s and 90s the lack of parental authority is something not only familiar, but almost a prerequisite, but what about only the mother disappearing? Is that a thing in horror movies right now? A little research into the topicalization of mothers in horror shows that mothers are actually depicted so frequently in horror movies that it is safe to say they rule over the genre. Mothers have ALWAYS lived in the castle and their absence has frequently been the stuff of n...

In her relentless account on the colonization of the American continent entitled La Férocité Blanche , the wonderful author and activist Rosa Amalia Plumelle-Uribe states something along the lines of "For the ones who know what it is, colonialism is not a word that needs to be explained. It consists of horrific and dreadful deeds" - in other words; horror is an inherent part of colonialism; horror is in colonialism . In the recently published The Only Good Indians the also wonderful Blackfeet author Stephen Graham Jones ingeniously reverses this statement by putting colonialism inside horror and brings horror back to where it has always belonged. During the whole time I was reading The Only Good Indians , not once did I guess where the plot would lead, nor did I foresee the emotional magnitude of that glorious conclusion. The story of Rick, Lewis, Gabe and Cassidy, four indigenous men who are being haunted by the elk they have hunted a decade ago, at first sounded like a...

Enjoy my new short reviews!