protean depravity

Wolf gave me an ancient butcher knife to pose with my books, 😆! It was too rusty to cut, though, no worries. Let's face it; my to-be-read list is hopeless, as everybody's is probably too. It is off the charts and yet I find myself over and over again joyfully discovering new titles which all sound better than the other and I want to read all of them. But for the majority of the time I struggle to keep up with my own reading plan. I am my worst nemesis.

 The shorties are here, enjoy!

A couple of years ago my way to work passed through the so-called "Pissallee" behind the Berlin train station Zoologischer Garten - a terrible, derogatory name for a street in Charlottenburg inhabited by homeless people, the walkway usually packed with tents, makeshift beds, blankets, shopping carts and bags full of stuff to live on scattered all around, so much so that sometimes you didn't really have space to walk. One evening on my way to the train station I saw from the corner of my eye a sleeping bag - nothing unusual in this street - which looked empty to me the way it was thinly spread across the floor. Just as I was passing, it started moving and wriggling around like an earth worm, giving me for a split second the impression the empty sleeping bag is doing this eerie squirmy dance. In that split second I felt such a dread in me, felt my stomach drop and my spine chill with such a force that it threw me off for a moment and I felt the need to first collect mysel...

Slowly but surely, the "Indian Lake Trilogy" is on its way to become author Stephen Graham Jones' magnum opus - that's the prime takeaway from the recent, massive and very much justified success surrounding its second installment Don't Fear the Reaper (only Reaper in text for purposes of brevity). It isn't unusual for a second book in a series to achieve more success than its predecessor, the first one having already separated the wheat from the chaff among readers and having established a backstory and setting for the protagonist. Solely people who accept and enjoy the terms set in the first book will stick around for more. The first book My Heart Is A Chainsaw ( Chainsaw ) of the Indian Lake series and its follower Reaper are no exceptions. When Chainsaw came out in the summer of 2021, it truly dropped like a bomb into horror circles. Even though there had been indigenous representation in the genre, (not the least thanks to Jones himself and his riveting...

Here are my latest shorties, enjoy!

In a chat with the Shine & Shadow group, author and editor Clarence A. Haynes explains how the project "Nubia: An Awakening" came to fruition, the core ideas and intents behind it and anything you might wonder about the book he co-authored with actor Omar Epps. In order to make full sense of this conversation you may want to read the book or some detailed reviews. In terms of reactions, firstly, I've noticed that some people are picking up on some of the elements of the book that defy expectations of the genre, for instance Zuberi being a girl character who's really unapologetically determined, willful and powerful in the decisions she makes, what makes her feel strong, etc. This was something Omar and I purposely did. In the same way, Uzochi is more sensitive and emotional, internal, overtly frightened, is growing into his role as protector in a way that Zuberi already knows how to handle. Most of the cast we wanted to play with expectations in some way and make ...

I don't often read extreme horror or splatterpunk, but when I do, I am still looking for certain criteria like good writing, a story that goes beyond violence for violence's sake and maybe even some element of gain, of enjoyment. Done smartly and with intent, extreme horror can offer you a fresh take on things and even teach you about yourself. All criteria Kristopher Triana, one of the most prolific extreme horror authors out there, fulfills in his books, as far as I have read and can say. Everything I have read by him so far was absolutely exquisite and didn't fail to dumbfound me in addition to impress me with exceedingly good writing. Triana will be in Germany in the beginning of May and if you ever wanted to meet him, this is your chance. You have two choices: first one is at the Festa Office Building in Leipzig on Saturday, April 29, from 2 pm on - I think people will even be staying over night but I'll return to Berlin early evening, so if anybody planning on do...

Thinking about where to start with Black City Skyline and Darker Horizons , my thoughts keep on going in circles which always end in the same one word: Providence. "I can't tell you what's going on in this city, Detective. Maybe it's a combination of gentrification, global warming, and crime, with a hefty dose of lockdown anxiety. Maybe it's something else." Courting ground to Edgar Allan Poe as well as home to H.P. Lovecraft, Cormac Mc Carthy and yes, Barry Lee Dejasu, Providence has a substantial claim to fame when it comes to North American literature. In the tradition of other evil small towns like King's Salem, Levin's Stepford, or the more recent examples of Baxter's Gulpepper, Jones' Proofrock, Junji Ito's Kurouzu-cho, Dejasu's Providence too plays a crucial, almost characterlike part in his debut short story collection. So much so that this horrible place, of which characters often complain but never do or even can leave, is th...

I have been told to specify here that one of the co-authors of this book, Clarence A. Haynes, is one of my best friends in life and although I don't think so, I may be biased in my review of his book. Irrespective of my friendship with one of the authors, it is a little hard to review a Young Adult book as someone who doesn't enjoy the genre, but I think it speaks for the book that it was a pleasure to read for me, it doesn't follow the same path conventional YA does and managed to keep me interested through an "adult" approach to the themes it treats. Is it possible for a YA novel to not undermine the intelligence of its readers, represent them with respect and not be condescending? Is it possible for a YA novel to have characters not feel like naive caricatures, but actual people with valid worries and struggles? In the case of the urban fantasy Nubia: The Awakening , yes. Yes, it is. The world building, plot and social commentaries in this debut of actor Omar E...