Book Review: Holly by Stephen King

 

Holly by Stephen King

449 pages, Hardcover
Published September, 2023 by Scribner

Maybe you have heard of Stephen King? Just kidding look several people have told me they were looking forward to my review as I play it straight up. I love Uncle Steve, I think I love him as a person more than I do as a writer. I love his interviews and the highs in his career have been good enough I will always check out his work.

Like a new Metallica album in the metal scene, the release of a new Stephen King novel will get an opinion out of everyone. My Stephen King love is mostly in the older early work but that doesn't mean I have not enjoyed some recent works. I absolutely loved Doctor Sleep and Later.  At the same time, I found Fairy Tale and The Institute to be unreadable. The Outsider started strong but the end didn't deliver on the promise of the first two hundred pages. My point is I love Stephen King but I am also honest about my opinion.

That said I enjoyed Holly.  Is it perfect? It doesn't have to be. King has written plenty of masterpieces even for Steph Curry misses a shot or two.  I'll take as many Metallica albums and Stephen King novels as we can get.

Holly Gibney is the point of view character of this novel, and although this is the third Holly book if you count 1/4 of a novella collection. This one is Holly in the spine of the book. I admit I leave for vacation tomorrow and I have one foot out the door as I write this review, but let me start by saying that for the most part a lot of the things that annoyed me about books like Fairy Tale are not here.

This novel has a focus. It feels like King, who is notorious for not having plan, had to have an idea. The novel has a structure that Fairy Tale didn't have. Events had to happen in a certain order, there was research he had to do into the Harris couple.

It is not a spoiler to point out that the book is about serial killer seniors. The concept of the super carnivore professor who thinks eating human livers will keep him and his wife young appeals to this vegan. King is said that he wouldn't be good at who-done it. This is a who-done-it for Holly but for the reading is a why-done-it. You dig.

SK cuts back and forth between points of view and timelines to set suspense from the parallel track of the stories. This makes me think he must have had some kind of plan. Just as important to the book as Holly is the 2021 post-COVID era it is set in.  That was interesting to me because I traveled around that time I had the experience of seeing regional levels of public response. Where I live in San Diego the fears of COVID were pretty light, we have year-round warm weather lots of outdoor options. When I traveled to the Bay Area was the first time I was asked for a Vax card to get into a movie. It seemed to me that the COVID reaction was over the top but that is likely my perception.

The story starts with Holly's MAGA mom dying from COVID. There are some interesting moments about online funerals. Holly wants life back to normal and takes a gig looking for Penny Dahl's lost daughter Bonnie. Her partner is sick with COVID and the clock is ticking.

It is no mystery to the readers. We saw the old professors Rodney and Emily Harris take Bonnie and through flashbacks, we know they kidnap and eat their victims. King does an excellent job juxtaposing these events to create tension. while I have some nitpicks overall I think the novel works quite well.  

Before I talk about the nitpicks I want to say I know this is a little like telling Mozart he hit some wrong notes. Stephen King is human and I am just a reader here. I think King being one of those baseline authors that everyone reads means he is like a common language we can speak in. It gives a much wider world of readers and writers a common book we can talk about the mechanics of what works and what doesn't. Being the most popular writer in the universe means he is a language we all speak. Plus a nimrod like me won't hurt his sales right?

So the Harris couple as a serial killer team can't have the motivations of a normal, sad sack lonely serial killer. They are open to each other, so the motivation SK develops is a good one. The idea that this carnivore zealot forces their victims to eat almost raw liver before dying was horrifying to this vegan.  Kudos to him for putting a vegan in that basement who refused.  Because for that scene I had the thought that if I was there I would do the same thing you. You are going to kill me anyways fuck you I am not eating that.

This book has brutal moments, it has thoughtful moments. There were typical asides that SK is known for. He probably spent more pages on the Bowling league which led Holly to find the killers.   My friend Ivan Zoric was more bothered by that, and for me, it was chapters about Barbara, Holly's partner's sister learning from a  poet that felt too long and unneeded. Together 60 or 70 pages could have been trimmed but I am OK with a few Stephen King asides.

I can live with that, but the novel has constant Tell don't show moments. One of the first fundamental rules of writing is Show, Don't Tell. As in don't tell me what happened, show me. It is one of the first bad habits editors have to pound out of young writers. Constantly in a chapter from the victim's point of view, it will give background about the other victims, stuff they couldn't know.

For example on page 271. In the scene, Holly is at the Bowling alley getting closer to the killers Professor Harris, through his bowling team. Several chapters earlier an entire chapter was devoted to Penny Dahl talking about Holly on social media, Rodney and Emily Harris were on to her and it was creepy.  Then in a Chapter from Holly's  POV, "It never crosses her mind  that Penny Dahl has outed her Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter." Well yes it would be impossible for it to cross her mind that. That is the point. You already showed us that earlier no need to tell us again.

On page 290 Bonnie is in the basement "There's a Porta-john in the corner of the cell, and like Jorge Castro, Cary Dressler, and Ellen Craslow before her (Stinky Steinman Perhaps not so much), She knows what it means: someone intends for her to be here awhile."

Bonnie has no reason to know the names of the other victims, or that one victim didn't need a porta potty as much. Where the fuck was King's editor to ren pen that and say "all you need here is She knows what it means: someone intends for her to be here awhile."

Sorry to nitpick but King deserves better editing than that. We all writer sentences like that, we all push ideas that someone has to say "I see what you are trying but it doesn't work." I also feel like King is not trusting his readers to remember. Look I get the man is 75 years old. I hope to live that long and stay as sharp as him but the editing let him down.

Overall I liked Holly, I enjoyed the process but was bothered by a few of these tiny moments. Holly is not a bad book and I am simply holding King up to the high standard I expect from him after reading 50 or so of his books.

Book Review: Ascension by Nicholas Binge

 

Ascension by Nicholas Binge

344 pages, Hardcover

Published April, 2023 by Riverhead Books

I have discovered more than one book or author thanks to the tweets of Stephen King, in the case of Adrian Walker's End of the World Running Club I was totally hooked and thankful that I followed Uncle Steve's advice.  This book was not on my radar until Mother Horror Sadie Hartman thanked King for putting this book on her radar. As soon as the Sci-fi/horror hybrid was mentioned I put a hold on the book and went into it totally cold.

Like every book, I went into Ascension rooting for it to knock my socks off. I don't know Nicholas Binge, and since I understand how much work a book like this requires, it is very hard for me to come across as trashing a book. That said I have published more than a thousand reviews at this point and I have been told they trust me because I am a straight shooter.  I am going to try to be constructive and maybe we can learn from this experience.

Personally, I believe Binge was let down by his editor, as this book is written in a prose style that tore me out of the narrative constantly and made suspension of disbelief impossible. Clearly, this worked for other readers so it may not bother you. There is a five-star old-school SF concept that mirrors At the Mountains of Madness while updating with some Interstellar-like time whimey stuff.

Ascension is a novel about a scientific exhibition. Harold is our point-of-view character who is drafted into a mission to explain this massive skyscraping impossible mountain that has suddenly appeared in the Pacific Ocean. The last research team (that included his ex-wife) mostly disappeared or went crazy from the experience. What is up on that mountain? How did it get here the mystery of it all is an amazing set-up. I am here for it.

The execution is the problem. I ended up rounding in my rating to three stars because I did like the story but the execution is two stars at best.  I have been clear in the past that I am not a fan of first-person narratives. The reason is the novelist often cheats by writing the prose like a novel, there are examples that don't cheat King's Delores Claiborne is my go-to example. Recently his hard case crime novel Later was in first person and the prose grew-up with the character.

Ascension takes it a step further by being both first-person and epistolary. This to me is where the editor failed Binge. Great concept, but this book needed another draft. That said plenty of people are reading and enjoying this book so if you don't want t spoilers here is your chance to jump out of this review and come back and see where you land on this one.

You see for me I was constantly seeing the author making choices, and this constantly took me out of the book and made it hard for me to lose myself in the story. Why? In the prologue, Harold is found in a mental institution with a bunch of unsent letters. The first mistake is throughout the book we know Hardold escaped and was able to write these letters. First mistake of the narrative device. As such each letter opens "Dearest Harriet" which gave me Civil War letter vibes.

This letter set-up could've worked as framing, but honestly, it did nothing for the story at all. Besides divorcing the reader from the events, making the events secondary threw the letters had me nitpicking the language. You see the prose constantly cheats. If you are going to write a novel in letters they have to sound like letters.

Harold survives this harrowing otherworldly experience and writes a letter to his family is he going to write chapter breaks, and end letters with a twist that perfectly sets up the letter, carefully building the tension. No, he wouldn't.  Would he write dialogue scenes like "There's a man," He said, glancing at his colleague. "Well, there's a..." He pressed his eyebrows together." A novelist writing a novel does details and description not someone writing a letter. On page 27 Harold speaks in the "letter" to Harriet but mostly the letter format is forgotten. Using that framing however, meant I was constantly looking for moments that didn't make sense.

There is an easy fix that an editor could suggest, by starting the chapters with letters and fading into third person later.  This Is How You Lose the Time War is a 2019 science fiction epistolary novella by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone uses this method, and that novella is one of the best reads of the last decade for me. The difference is they didn't cheat. The letter format in Ascension comes and goes willy-nilly.

Once we get on the mission in the second act of the book I was able to get lost in the narrative a bit. Still the nagging problem of none of this should be a letter hung around the neck of this story like an albatross. The science elements of the mountain, and the mystery of what it was had a bit of a Solaris/ Lem vibe and I really enjoyed that element. of course, how we got there was a problem.

There is subtle but important cosmic horror commentary "I'm not sure," Thomas said, Leaning in. "That seems like human arrogance. We only think that because humanity imagines itself as the defining model against every other example is copied. Just because we define intelligence by how closely it apes the human psyche, it doesn't mean that it can't be wildly different."

There are some really great reveals and moments deeper into the book.  "I gazed across rises and gorges, across vast plains of ice and mountains of rock, and I saw something odd. Off in the distance, I saw things. A whole group of flickering, moving black shapes they must have been hundreds of meters away. My breath caught in my throat; at first, I was certain that they were more of the octopus creatures but as i squinted I could see they were people."

Who was up on this unnatural mountain with them? I won't spoil but it was a great reveal.  

OK serious spoilers here!!!!

The most important reveal of course comes on page 203 and makes use of Arthur C Clarke's famous saying that any significant technology would be indistinguishable from magic. I really enjoy the reveal here which I consider to be the mission statement of the concept. blending a science fiction horror set-up and using what feels like science and cosmic horror to set up this crazy reveal...

"What are you saying?" I asked as a gust of freezing wind blew past my face. "not just Mount Olympus, but the mountain of all gods, throughout time. Harold if my theory is right, we're standing on the holiest site in the history of the entire human race."

That is the thing. Great concept, the execution of the reveal was good but for me, it was like having a great painting in a hideous frame that distracted from the intended art itself.

Ascension is a cool idea, and I am going to blame his editor whom I assume was paid to oversee this book and apparently didn't see these problems. That said the top-selling author in the history of the universe didn't appear to have a problem with this. There are plenty of five-star reviews from readers who didn't have this problem. It may be a result of my writer's brain over-ruling my reader brain.

There were enough positive elements for me to say I was glad I read it, and I will give Nicholas Binge another chance. I liked the story, and the concept a lot.

 

Book Review: Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey

 

Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey

544 pages, Paperback
Published: March, 2023 by Orbit

Mike Carey is a writer I have been a fan of since long before he was writing novels. His run on Hellblazer made me a fan instantly. Under his own name, he wrote a series of novels about an exorcist named Felix Castor. I have read three of those books, and they are good but at the time I kinda felt he was a better comics writer. That said he was good enough that when I saw The Girl with All The Gifts under the name M.R. Carey I checked it out and when realized it was the same author I read it instantly. I was glad I did because I felt That Mike Carey reached a new level.

The Girl with All the Gifts is what I would call an instant classic. It took a tired zombie genre and in injected new life with a high-concept premise and unique point of view for the narrative. I was not alone as this novel was written under a pen name (OK just M.R. instead of Mike Carey) as it became a huge hit, and the author was even asked to adapt it into a pretty solid movie starring Glen Close.
 
That is when M.R. Carey became the brand and a series of really good novels followed. Crossing science fiction, thrillers, and horror, the only thing that really unites the M.R. Carey books (let's just say MRC now) are high concepts. They work to various degrees and The Girl With All the Gifts is an example of the concepts working.  MRC takes massive and daring swings. This book Infinity Gate might be the most massive of swings.

Books that take high-concept risks are some of my favorite works of Science Fiction but authors who take risks sometimes write books that don't work.  For example, the last MRC book I read was the first book of the Rampart Trilogy the Book of Koli. The big swing in that book included a gimmick in the prose that didn’t work for me and I struggled even to finish that book while respecting the concept. I think readers who are not writers might not nitpick the nuts and bolts of the prose, but I just couldn't vibe with that book. Still, I respected the effort and the past work of MRC was strong enough that I jumped on Infinity Gate as soon as I could, I didn’t even read the back cover. I knew it involved the multi-verse from the tagline on the cover.

If you trust my reviews and want to go in cold let me start by saying this is one of my top reads of the year, and I think MRC’s biggest swing has led to him hit hitting the ball into the parking lot. For those who don’t like basketball analogies – it is great. As strange and out there as a novel can be and providing a new universe and experience that is bold as hell. It operates on so many levels in 500 pages that it has more themes and story potential than entire Science Fiction franchises.
 
The most impressive thing is making a story about the multiverse bold and original. Considering the massive success of Everything, Everywhere All at Once, Spider-Verse, Star Trek, and Marvel all doing stories about multiple dimensions. I am not going to spoil plot twists or final acts but this is your last chance to avoid the basics of this masterpiece. Hyperbole?  I know what the hell I am saying. I offered how skeptical I was of MRC’s last series to avoid any accusations of Hyperbolic fan-boying crap. That said in all the right ways I am jealous of this amazingly insane science fiction novel that creates a universe as vast as Dune while commenting on Climate Change, the Socio-political effects of militarism and colonialism, Artificial intelligence, Quantum Physics, Multiple Worlds theory, and the ethics of biological and technological created life.

It is a lot.  That is one reason this book is a magic trick.

Reading the book without the back cover, or any knowledge worked well as the first act, set up the mystery well, a scientist Hadiz Tambuwal in Legos Nigeria is desperate for a solution for the dying earth. Working with an AI she creates a device that will send her to another earth. She finds one that is unspoiled. She has a decision, use it as an escape, or become rich and exploit this other Earth the same as the one she is escaping. She starts to travel to many universes and that puts her on the radar of a more powerful force.

What happens to Hadiz feels shocking and she drops out of the book handing off the Point of view to mostly to Essien Nkanika who is an escort working the streets of an alternate Nigeria When Hadiz meets him. There are other shifting POVS so it is pretty seamless when Essien is drafted into the multiverse military force that he hands the story over to the next character, and this happens a few times in the book it is earned.  

Infinity Gate is a long book with several major characters including some of the different species on Earths with different evolutions. You see Hadiz learns that the multi-verse she just learned to travel has trillions of earths, each one different. Some evolved similarly, some radically different. In the first act, it would be easy to see this as the story of Hadiz, and it is. That said through a series of set-ups and pay-offs new characters enter the fray.

We should not overlook the most impressive thing that MRC is doing. What force did Hadiz wake up?

“What can be said of the Pandominion that hasn’t been said already?  It was an empire that governed trillions of selves on hundreds of thousands of worlds, yet all of them the same world – your world – your world as well as mine, the earth, in different causality and in different continua.”

One of the things that makes a Dune, Thrones Trek, or Wars franchise so vast and effective is the scope.  MRC by creating this multiverse model and with the Pandominion MRC has created a galaxy. For this novel and his characters to encounter his version of Klingons, Borg, or The Empire his characters never have to leave Earth. He can build a thousand worlds and species all on earth.

It is an absolute narrative magic trick to develop a universe in 500 pages that feels as lived in as any franchise with decades of world-building. MRC does this by shifting point of view between characters that include People, AI, Collective machine armies, humanoid rabbits, and cats who evolved on other earths.  

Consider this scene shortly after Essien is drafted into the Pandominion military. This is such smart writing.  Essien is a fish out of water, he is as new to this vast multiverse as we are...

“Men and women” was a broad term. They were roughly human in terms of body plan, but like Watchmaster Venmmet and Moon Sostenti, they were surprising in other ways. Many were furred, a few scaly or feathered.”

These characters like Paz (the rabbit) add to the odd and offbeat feeling of Infinity Gate. In this way MRC comments on how species develop and cultures themselves. Early in MRC’s novels (it is my memory and I could be wrong) he stuck to the first person in the Felix Castor books, and as incredible as Girl With All the Gifts was constantly slipped into present tense (that is on the editor in my opinion). Infinity Gate not only handles switching the narrative POVs but it makes the universe feel more epic because they feel like different books in those moments.
 
“Sentients on every world have this moment when they think intelligence is what separates them from the rest of creation. It takes them a lot longer to figure out that they’re arguing from the very heart of survivor bias, and therefore underestimating the importance of blind, brute chance.”

One of the things that really drives the book is the sense that the multi-verse itself is in danger. Once Step technology comes to a version of Earth they become part of a larger conflict. I wonder if the stakes will be clear for some readers, but once Hadiz steps into another universe she is seen as a risk to many, many worlds.

“But the Pandominion wasn’t made overnight, and it didn’t come without a cost. The first few parallel worlds that learned how to Step wounded and wasted each other in endless, unwinnable wars- Wars that were nothing but onslaught, since stepping made every square foot of ground a battlefront – until they finally came to see that infinity made war obsolete.”

One of my problems with the Garth Edwards SF movie The Creator was that the narrative needed less black and White in the characters. That movie suffered from having clear heroes and villains. Infinity Gate has a few clear protagonists but the sides of the conflict get blurry all the time. Shades of grey as it were.  

The unvisited worlds and concepts like people saying "Selves" instead of people are little examples of things the reader needs to adjust to.  Some of the "Rules" of this universe...excuse me Multiverse are like silly-putty. Not as bad as JJ Abrams having people beam across the quadrant in Star Trek Into Darkness, but remember in a multiverse story this is a feature, not a bug.

Without going into the concepts of the third act that nicely set up more books in this universe the Pandominion gets a rival to supremacy across the universes.  The Pandominion is a complicated democracy, not exactly ideal, so when the Annsecrection the antagonist develops the battle lines are as complicated as they are in our world.

Infinity Gate might be the best read I have had this year, in a year filled with super great reads just in modern SF alone. The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, The Terraformers by Analee Newitz, Meru by SB Diviya, and Suborbital7 by John Shirley. Heck of a year.  I think only one of those might be better in my mind.
 


 

Book Review: Suborbital7 by John Shirley

Suborbital7 by John Shirley

336 pages, Paperback
Published June, 2023 by Titan Books

Check my podcast interview with John On Suborbital7:

Video of my interview with John on this book

Audio of interview

For those who have never spent time in LA, it is easy to forget that the studios and people who make movies are actual people, not computer programs. After getting my copy of this book signed at Dark Delicacies I crossed LA to catch my train back to San Diego and passed striking writers and actors out in front of those buildings. Since then at least the writers won their right to return to work. The process in Hollywood normally starts with translating multi-dimensional pieces of art into a ridiculous binary process of boiling down every story into this popular movie meets this successful movie.  Every time I describe books or movies that way a part of me dies but it has to happen.

So here it is brace yourself for the soul-killing cross description of John Shirley's new novel.  "Well, kiddies this novel is Apollo 13 meets Blackhawk Down."  This description of Suborbital7 is an absolute go-order for me as a movie. I can immediately see that concept working as a movie. As a novel, the concept is all in the execution as a novelist has to get details, upon details right. It has to be well-researched and written with a certain power.

Enter cyberpunk and horror fiction legend John Shirley who co-wrote one of the best genre action movies in The Crow. John has written several pieces of Science fiction masterpieces including (the far too advanced for 1978) City Come A' Walkin, and The groundbreaking early 80s Song Called Youth Trilogy. In the tie-in world, he wrote Hellblazer, Alien, and Batman novels to name a few. One of his best tie-in novels is the underrated Forever Midnight - a  Predator franchise novel that is fantastic Sci-fi action and is dripping with classic Heinlein vibes.

John Shirley has Science Fiction action experience in several forms of media and that makes him one of the smartest people to develop this concept. Considering that this is being developed by Alcon Entertainment (Folks behind The Expanse and Blade Runner franchise) and published by Titan Books it is clear the novel is IP management.  Intellectual property for those not that steeped in movie talk. Regardless of Alcon or Titan's motivation John Shirley's main concern is the person holding the book and reading gets a thoughtful thrill ride.

In a year when I have read some really great mind-bending Science Fiction epics from thought-inspiring works like Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, weird epics like S.B. Divya's  Meru or M.R. Carey's bonkers Infinity Gate. Cracking my top ten reads this year is no small feat. John Shirley has written that next-level weird books in the past but that was not the mission with this one.  It is a solid exercise in by-the-numbers genre writing that is effective.

The mission is a realistic hard science fiction near future look at orbital combat. Shirley showed a bit more restraint than his excellent recent underrated Cyberpunk cli-fi novel Stormland. If you want to get the full modern Shirley experience you must really read that one.  Suborbital7 in lesser hand would not have flowed. My reading experience was quick, mostly read over two long bus trips that made my commute to a series of events fly by.

Rightfully, Shirley is as you'll hear in my interview protective of spoilers giving away a few of the twists in the second and third acts. I  understand because the novel is about a team of Delta Force-style rangers who use a space plane to rescue hostages from the Russian mafia and that happens fairly quickly in the first act. The techno-thriller subgenre most famous for Gravity or Apollo 13 gets a military upgrade. Suddenly the Astronauts trying to solve a disaster in space, have hostages and the political ticking clock that might mean global war. Plot-wise these are the many elements that Shirley is weaving into the narrative.

Shirley creates a team of space combat rangers that jump off the page.  These are not cookie-cutter characters, A Muslim ranger, and a lieutenant who has to balance command as a woman in this unit. Art Burkett who opens the book is a great POV character but he doesn't dominate the story. His arc and his wife's on-the-ground efforts could've dominated this story, but Shirley balances several settings and characters to dramatic effect. The wife of the ranger on the ground fighting for her husband is one of the tropes of the genre used like a power cord to drive the rhythm of the story. Trope is not a dirty word here. As a fan of the genres being crossed here part of the fun is to see how Shirley hits these notes and deploys them for this story.

It is too much to quote but over pages 26 and 27 Shirley introduces the teams and their backstories through the eyes of Art. Once the action starts the background of the characters informs how the team works together. The hostages and political situation are expertly women together.

The best example of this happens on page 121.  The team is trying to problem-solve the escaping Oxygen. They have 18 hours left.  

"We're sure to get help before we run out."
Mayweather snorted. "We're sure, are we?"
Burnett wished he was sure."Okay, we'll probably get help.  despite the political...complications."  Political bullshit, he thought. "Meanwhile, we could do some Orbital scavenging."

This is the source of the thrills. So if you are looking for gun battles and that type of combat, just know those don't fill up the pages.  This is more Apollo 13 than Blackhawk Down, but the suspense and tension are there for the reader who relates to the characters.

Suborbital7 is better than I expected. Yeah, John is one of my favorite authors, a friend, and a colleague.  I knew he would do a great job, but he exceeded my already high bar. I finished this book really wanting to see the movie, which I think it can be done for a relatively modest budget. Alcon has zero-g experience with The Expanse and honestly creating the micro-gravity is the filming challenge.

The biggest challenge is getting the story right, and that John Shirley has solved.

Book Review: Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology Edited by Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

 

 Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology Edited by  Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. 

 416 pages, Paperback
Published September, 2023 by Vintage

**I will be interviewing co-editor Shane Hawk at the book launch in San Diego at Mysterious Galaxy bookstore on October 20th So see you there. After that, there will be a podcast interview with Shane**


Sometimes a book happens that makes so much sense you can’t believe it didn’t happen before. The success of Stephen Graham Jones and Rebecca Roanhorse in the horror and SF marketplace might give you the impression that indigenous horror was marketing subgenre like extreme horror or quiet horror. When you look at the credits of the author in this collection – that could’ve been the case in the sense that many of these authors had novels, collections, and stories published widely. It took Hawk and Van Alst to tie their efforts together into one book.

As a long-time horror nerd, I can remember when Owl Goingback blazed this trail. Two-time winner of the Stoker Award for his novels Crota and Coyote Rage. Goingback suffered more than one indignity including conventioneers thinking he was cosplaying to Facebook refusing to accept his real name. Thankfully the horror community itself recognized his talent. Goingback’s books always left the reader wanting more horror from that cultural point of view.

The thing about First Nations is there are so many different cultural points of view one author cannot represent that diversity. A project like this is what you need for something like that. The introduction by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones makes perfect sense except that means we don’t get a story by SGJ.  He perfectly opens the collection by suggesting how he might approach the idea of a Never Whistle at Night at Night story. He goes through the thought process and then suggests a few ideas.

“It’s kind of what we want, really.
And sure the anthropologists and social scientists and literary critics can all shrug and say maybe we like stories that function like that because they mean our story – the story of us in what’s for the moment called America – hasn’t quite processed all the way through yet, hasn’t completed. Things can happen. This place can be ours again. Why not.”

The diversity of this book is the strength, the first 60 or so pages of stories come from women, and more of the stories were by Canadian authors than I was expecting. That country has as nasty of a history with native populations so that voice is an important piece of this book, you would expect several of the stories like Sundays by David Heska Wanbli Weiden deal with the notorious boarding and church-run schools.

Many of the stories are set in nature, there is a connection to the land in the stories. Where the land itself is the agent of horror. Revealing a false “America.”  There are twenty-six stories and I could if I took the time break down the themes in each of them. Colonization, sexuality /gender roles, cultural harmful stereotypes, generational gaps, monsters, ghosts, haunted houses, legends from deep native American lore make up the threads woven into the fabric of the tales.
 
Mathilda Zeller opened the book with Kushtuka – The name of a Pacific Northwest mythological shape-shifting creature. The story starts with the narrator’s mother trying to get the main character is have the baby of the man she is having an affair with for money. The appearance of the shape-shifter in a story that starts off with this theme makes for an interesting opening story that mixes lore with questions of identity.
 
Rebecca Roanhorse’s White Hills and Nick Medina’s Quantum are similar themes of children, and the idea of blood Quantum, the amount of native blood, and what that means. For me, these were two of the most powerful stories early in the collection because they speak to identity and forces beyond the character's control. Pieces like Hunger by Phoenix Boudreau and The Ones Who Killed Us by Brandon Hobson are written in a surreal poetic prose style that is light on narrative but dripping with vibe.

Many of the stories take place in nature trips and one set on the four corners called Snakes Are Born in the Dark by D. H. Trujillo is one of the most powerful stories in the book. It is well-written and this story is strange and gooey. Also, out in nature is Before I Go by Norris Black is probably the darkest story of the entire collection, a heartbreaking and emotionally wrenching tale that involves a lost love.

Behind Colin’s Eyes by Shane Hawk – as co-editor of the project and my connection to the book, I am super proud of Shane, this story continues where his short story collection Anoka left off and certainly this story could have appeared in it. The story of father and son's hunting trip and the spirit of nature leaves a lasting feeling from the last words. The other editor of the project The Longest Street in the World by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., I don’t know about street but the opening sentence alone has many, many words. The story is an interesting character piece.

Capgras by Tommy Orange presents an interesting seemingly personal tale that is filled with good character moments but felt to me like one of the weaker stories that left me with no feeling at the end. I only point this out because it is a rare story here that didn't feel horror, that is actually a problem in many horror anthologies, and this was rare in this book. All the stories capture the vibe and tone for the spooky season.

Many of the stories are stories within stories, building on legends and lore. This is true of horror fiction no matter the cultural background of the authors. I am always interested in author bios when I read an anthology, I am always interested in where authors grew up or lived because I am interested in how geography informs these writers. Never Whistle at Night has a biography at the end of each story and yes their location is involved, but also important for their cultural heritage, which helps provide context from the heritage that is the not-so-secret ingredient.

Never Whistle at Night is the type of anthology like Dark Forces, Revelations, or Dark Matter that will live on for Generations.  Fans of short horror fiction should not miss this collection but it is also a must-have for horror readers that want to explore the genre through the work of diverse authors.

Book Review: Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

 

Everything Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

 226 pages, Paperback
Published June, 2023 by CLASH Books

 

As an author who has a book with the same publisher, I have watched the success of Eric LaRocca’s first Clash novel with a sense of pride and joy. I don’t know Eric, I reached out to him when I finished the book and hope to have him on the podcast. Still, it is a book I watched develop, and couldn’t be more excited for LaRocca who is quickly becoming a gold standard for queer horror. We have come a long way from Clive Barker who surprised no one who was reading closely when he came out. There was a time when Queer voices in horror were rare Poppy Z.  Brite/Billy Martin and Clive were it.

Everything The Darkness Eats carries on that tradition for sure, mostly it gives space for characters that at one time we didn’t see on the page. You’ll hear the Clive Barker comparisons often but that is in part because he was the first in the horror field to put realistic gay characters into the genre.
First thing first I want to say that this novel is able to achieve vibes and horror in a no-nonsense way that many novels would twice the pages to tell.  I like that the novel feels epic despite not being a thick book. LaRocca has written a tightly composed and structured horror novel that doesn’t waste words. It builds an off-beat New England horror vibe with plenty of insidious moments that echo for the reader. The characters like Ghost and Heart Crowley feel off-beat enough that if saw them on the street you might give them a wide berth.

LaRocca gives Ghost the right amount of depth that when his part of the story weaves into Crowley’s you’ll feel uncomfortable about it. To counterbalance this LaRocca gives you the heartbreakingly realistic characters of the story the Muslim-raised cop Malik and his husband Brett. Various victims of the disappearances that have scared the small community are quickly established, and that is essential in a horror novel.

“Indeed, there was something dreadful on its way- something pernicious and yet invisible as if it were some infectious disease knitting a gross patchwork of suffering humanity. Regrettably, this was no mere malady, no feverish sickness to be cured by mere antibiotic.”

Moments of vibe like that create tension and that gothic feeling will put you in the spooky mood. When LaRocca delivers those moments of pretty goth prose he does it carefully. In the past writers, even our beloved Clive Barker would fall in love with their own prose and overdo these moments. In some books these gothic descriptions last for pages. That doesn’t happen  Watch how LaRocca uses this method to quickly introduce his monster’s home.

“A monstrous house appeared beyond the tree line in the distance, rising into sight as if the ruins of an ancient civilization long since forgotten by mankind. Ghost’s stomach dropped as the vehicle meandered toward the house and pulled up to the sweeping front steps.”

The story is a classic one in horror. A monster that offers you everything you could ever want is one of the oldest tropes in horror and that is why you get comparisons to Needful Things which is a fluffier take on the subject, and The Damnation Game a more apt and darker take.  There is nothing wrong with tropes, I personally embrace them. La Rocca gives Everything the Darkness Eats a unique feeling.  The best thing you can ask for is a novel that feels like it can from the mind and fingers of the only human being who could combine these elements.  The story of Faustian bargain with a monster, the New England gothic setting, the vivid characters, and the bigotry that a gay couple faces.

Everything the Darkness Eats combines many elements that would work on their own but LaRocca smartly combines all the elements in a short but effective page count. Oh yeah, the book design is amazing. With some interesting designs and colors to the pages. Proud to share a publisher with this amazing book.    
 

Audiobook Review: Star Wars The High Republic: Into the Dark by Claudia Gray

 

 

Star Wars The High Republic: Into the Dark by Claudia Gray

425 pages, Hardcover
Published February 2021 by Disney Lucasfilm Press

The list of authors who have written Star Wars is in the hundreds at this point. The list of the ones who have it mastered is a bit shorter.  Claudia Gray has written a lot of Star  Wars and all of them have been good and entertaining. I think her masterpieces are The Lost Stars and Bloodline. The second of those really had a massive impact on the universe behind the scenes. Along with Windig's Aftermath books, I think they are super important for a deeper understanding of the sequel trilogy.

So I was pretty excited to hear Gray was involved with the High Republic books. The idea was that a group of authors would write a series of Star Wars media set a century or so before the events of the Skywalker saga. I have read the first novel, a few of the comics, and now this novel.  It should be noted that I am doing this through audio books. So I won't have quotes about my favorite passages or comments about narrative structure. I pick up less of that when I listen to a book instead of reading with my eyes.

Into the Dark has kinda a generic title, it feels slightly YA, but what Star Wars doesn't besides Andor. Jedi Padawan Reath Silas is our POV and he is a great character.  He is strong in the force but when he is sent to a mission in the outer rim he is not excited. He would like to work in the temple archives. He is a really excellent fully developed character. Around him are a couple of Jedis including a few we met in the first High Republic novel Light of the Jedi. They travel on a ship that comes from the outer region shipping guilds. All the characters from top to bottom are interesting.

After a very interesting hyperspace disaster, the ship has to seek safe haven on a deserted space station and they are confronted with a mystery with deep connections to the Force. It would be simple to compare the second half the second Alien film, and there is some monsters and weird horror.

a fun and exciting Star Wars novel, that adds to the  High Republic canon nicely.

A couple of my more detailed Claudia Gray SW reviews.

Bloodlines

 
Lost stars

 Princess of Alderaan