protean depravity

Over the past year I have been steadily reading a thriller or two monthly and I think I could get used to reading more crime - if they don't involve much drama and relationship stuff. On the other hand I realized that I don't read much horror anymore but totally miss it, so I might in future up the terror dosage a little and look for books who can be placed within horror as well as crime. I need to do some research but I'm optimistic I'll find plenty books that fit the description. But before, here are the latest short reviews of other freakness, enjoy them!

I'm still holding on to my quest of reading and reviewing the complete “Rewind or Die” series for the Otherland Newsletter; a sum total of 23 retro-horror paperbacks (I recently realized that the series isn't even complete yet, so it's still counting!) inspired by 70s, 80s and 90s horror movies. Ever since I first found out about this series I am dreaming about these colorful little books with amazing cover art and extremely over the top storylines. Tongue-in-cheek, bizarro, absurd, gore-splatter, wild ride or pulpy are terms that come to mind describing this incredibly fun series that I will happily read and discuss for you guys in the near future.  

Enjoy the latest short reviews!   The Silent Patient Alex Michaelides   Famous painter Alicia Berenson and her husband Gabriel are seemingly the perfect couple and live a dream life in a beautiful house - until one night she shoots him five times in the face and never ever spoke again. Now Theo Faber, a new therapist at the Grove, the psychiatric unit she resides in ever since the incident, is determined to try his luck and make the legendary "silent patient" open up. What I learned from Michaelides' gripping psycho-thriller is above all that if a person looks as beautiful as a Greek god, beware of them. Seriously, all problems in this book issue from people described as such and maybe it is one of the points of the book that if things look too good to be true, there must be something fishy involved.

Secretly I have this nagging fear that as I get older, I might be losing my ability to picture fantastic worlds in my head and the joy this ability gives me. So I was a little nervous about starting to read Adrian Tchaikovsky's massive, action loaded space opera Shards of Earth because it is exactly the kind of book for which that ability is vital. The first installment of the "Final Architects" series is set in a universe which is deeply marked by a great war with intriguing adversaries; the moon sized, mysterious Architects. This war has ended with the help of psychic-like humans who can communicate with these moons, the Intermediaries, but years later there are new traces from the Architects and the fear is great they are back. I have to admit that I had a little help, though - the glossary and the historical timeline at the end of the book which list and briefly explain worlds, characters, ships, main political movements and species and for which I am extremely grate...

[...] she didn't care, all she wanted was to go back to a normal life, to life before the Transition. Never ever has a book of mere two hundred pages weigh as heavy as Agustina Bazterrica's cannibal dystopia Tender is the Flesh ! Oh-My-God. I haven't had such an intense reading experience in a very long time. This book grabbed me, it sucked me in, got under my skin and stayed there. Every sentence is meaningful, every single development shocking in Bazterrica's English debut. Surely this book is likely to win a place amongst other dystopian classics like Burgess' A Clockwork Orange or even Huxley's Brave New World. It is a really big deal for me to compare a book to Brave New World in its greatness (Remember my article from the Otherlander's blog a few years ago?) and I would lovingly write a comparative essay on the similarities as well as differences between the two books. Nevertheless, I don't want this review to be based solely on a comparison - ...

In addition to, or rather complementarily to, my own reading program I will in future be reading and reviewing advance editions (well, sometimes advance and sometimes not so advance) for Pan Macmillan here on Protean Depravity and people, am I excited about this!

Here's my latest wrap up; enjoy! The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata Zapata's debut, The Lost Book of Adana Moreau very elegantly and very skillfully braids the intersecting lives of a myriad of people, concentrating on a frame story revolving around Chicagoan Saul Drower and Maxwell Moreau, grandson of the late ingenious science fiction writer Adana Moreau. It is a love letter to science fiction, parallel universes as well as storytelling in general and really has the potential to enchant you. I'm a sucker for the "story-within-story" technique, so was really delighted Zapata uses it so masterly here. Unfortunately I did not read it in print, I listened to the audiobook. And the thing with audiobooks is that if you don't click with the narrator it can substantially reduce your enjoyment of the book and that happened to me here. I might try reading it in print at a later stage maybe. Love in the Time of Dinosaurs by Kirsten Alene When a few m...

I have a new favorite horror author who has me in a proper frenzy - a Hailey Piper frenzy. Within the last month I have read three novellas by her ( Benny Rose, the Cannibal King; The Worm and His Kings; The Possession of Natalie Glasgow ) and can't get enough of her writing, she's that good. Even though I didn't always like her choice of stories, that's not the case with The Worm and His Kings , which I would say is the best horror book I have read this year so far - this book blew-my-mind! We follow the story of Monique, who lives in the tunnels under New York City after she and her girlfriend Donna lost their jobs and became homeless. But that’s not the biggest of Monique’s troubles; Donna disappears without a trace too. Word is under the streets that there is a talon-ed and absolutely huge creature called “Grey Hill” lurking underground snatching women and Monique is convinced that Donna was taken by this monster. But it turns out Grey Hill is nothing but ...

Elizabeth Hand is one of those veteran authors that genre aficionados know and appreciate but who has never made it completely into the mainstream. Honestly, this is a big shame, because every single book by her is a professionally written world of its own - well crafted, well researched, always with an extra mile beyond the ordinary story line. Her Locus and Shirley Jackson nominated latest book Curious Toys is no different; it combines elements of historical fiction, crime fiction and horror in a way that will keep you up at night turning the pages. I for my part enjoyed reading it so much that I carefully rationed the pages so that I wouldn't devour it within a couple of days in my haste and in order to prolong my enjoyment. Truth is, this isn't only a book. This is a captivating time capsule that will carry you away to the early 20th century and that definitely lives up to its title! It's August 1915 and the Riverview Amusement Park in Chicago features many curiosit...