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sephiRoth IRA
Jun 13, 2007

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

-Carl Sagan

mellonbread posted:

You're right, there's also big dicked film noirman and big dicked bounty hunterman.

Though you may be onto something, because Strapado, the one I liked best as a pure horror story, did not have any hard boiled elements, or any supernatural element at all.



Yessss strappado is my favorite too! And that's exactly what I'm talking about. Barron does love his big dick noir for sure, but his gems (in my stupid online opinion, of which there are many) are the little moments of exquisite dread, and that story tops the list.

But yeah, knee-jerking aside there's a Lotta noir dickery

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PsychedelicWarlord
Sep 8, 2016


mellonbread posted:

You're right, there's also big dicked film noirman and big dicked bounty hunterman.

Though you may be onto something, because Strapado, the one I liked best as a pure horror story, did not have any hard boiled elements, or any supernatural element at all.


I think about Strappado all the time. I think what makes it so horrifying is that it's mostly about just going with the flow and ignoring your hunches to get along... and then having a horrible fate

value-brand cereal
May 2, 2008

Ornamented Death posted:

Tom Monteleone is nuking his legacy over on Facebook. He's gone fully hood-off.

Don't be shy. What's going on in facebook land?

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

value-brand cereal posted:

Don't be shy. What's going on in facebook land?

He tried to nominate Stuart David Schiff for a Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award - which is fair and probably deserved. However, he did it in the most assholish way possible, berating two past LFA winners as being undeserving diversity picks (Carole Glover and Jewelle Gomez). He reposted the nomination to his personal FB page, and received a lot of flak for it but kept doubling down. Basically it was a lot of "old white man hates it that the playing field is just the tiniest bit more level now."

Then some known white supremacists showed up and supported him, and he liked that so much he went on their podcast and said and/or agreed with a lot of racist, homophobic, and transphobic poo poo.

The writing boot camp he founded, Borderlands Boot Camp, which became part of the Scares that Care Charity last year, has cut ties and rebranded as the Scares that Care Writers Workshop. I'd say it's very likely the HWA is going to kick him out, and may even revoke his LFA.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Ornamented Death posted:

Tom Monteleone is nuking his legacy over on Facebook. He's gone fully hood-off.

Having read one of Monteleone's novels years ago, I can't imagine that there's much legacy to nuke.

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Jedit posted:

Having read one of Monteleone's novels years ago, I can't imagine that there's much legacy to nuke.

His legacy is more things like the boot camp, the Borderlands anthologies, and Borderlands Press rather than his writing, though even that has its fans.

Of course the boot camp is out of his hands and has cut ties, the anthologies have been a joke for years, and Borderlands Press is absolute garbage. He was coasting on a lot of goodwill for his past achievements, but decided to set all of that on fire to fight "wokeness."

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming

Ornamented Death posted:

I'd say it's very likely the HWA is going to kick him out, and may even revoke his LFA.

It's done

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Yep. And for what it's worth, it appears the HWA bylaws appear to specifically forbid revoking past Stoker awards, including the lifetime achievement award*. I can't say I disagree with such a rule, because while such a move is arguably justified in this situation, not explicitly banning it leaves too much room for bad actors go after people they don't agree with.

*Note the above says it revokes the benefits of award, not the award itself.

Relevant Tangent
Nov 18, 2016

Tangentially Relevant

Finished In the Valley of the Sun. It was really great, western with vampires. The vampires don't know much about being vampires, which is the funniest kind of vampire.

Lil Mama Im Sorry
Oct 14, 2012

I'M BACK AND I'M SCARIN' WHITE FOLKS
Re-read Strappado only to remember how much I love The Broadsword.

Good Citizen
Aug 12, 2008

trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump
Felt like reading some splatter/extreme since I hadn't done it in a while and it seemed like a good way to pad out my book reading stats at the beginning of the year. Here is my few sentence reviews of these mostly disappointing books

The Complex, Brian Keene: A very Brian Keene-rear end Brian Keene book. Decent thrill ride where completely unexplained naked maniacs are attacking an apartment complex and also the greater city at large, complete with unnecessary tie in character to the greater Keene-iverse. You will absolutely guess the exact way this book ends several chapters before it happens. Enjoyable, but probably wouldn't be in my top couple recs from this author

The Television, Ed Lee: A relatively new Ed Lee book and its somehow not set in the hill country South. There's a TV in a trailer park home in England that shows the worst atrocities in history, and since this is an Ed Lee book, a large portion of the book is spent describing those atrocities. It feels like its building up to something and then just... doesn't, and ends.

Creekers, Ed Lee: Ed Lee in his natural habitat of writing deformed inbred hillfolk terrorizing a community. It's also got some detective story stuff and a splash of cult weirdness for a bit of a mix on the formula. Also a half decent ending compared to everything else on this list

They All Died Screaming, Kristopher Triana: I was actually kinda mad about this one because the premise of the virus, that it makes you start screaming until you die of insomnia or kill yourself, is terrifying in concept and its early execution. Then it just kinda stops being that halfway through the book and becomes a generic zombie/rage virus where people just start screaming when they attack? Then there's the B plot where you start off wondering how this is gonna get integrated into the main story and then halfway through you realize, oh no, this is either a flash back or maybe a flash forward isn't it, and yep, its that. Yeah I'm still mad

Rolo
Nov 16, 2005

Hmm, what have we here?
My post from the King thread:

Rolo posted:

Finally decided to read Pet Sematary. It was good! Not as good as Shining or Salems Lot but I don’t think I’m gonna get that experience out of King again.

Also watched the movie after, which I’m realizing now they did a pretty good job with! I like how the book gives more personality to the evil/haunted area, which he does soooo well with the other books I mentioned, but I get how hard it is to do that with a movie. Also anything using traditional monsters like the loving Wendigo is awesome.

All in all, neato. I’m gonna take a break from King and finally get into Blackwater by Michael McDowell. Elementals ruled and I’m ready to get back into the same author.

Basically finished a pretty good spooky book and I’m excited to jump into another one. I’m assuming the Blackwater saga is good?

Opopanax
Aug 8, 2007

I HEX YE!!!


Sematary definitely isn't my favorite King book, but that little 2 page bit where Louis is chasing after Gage as they head towards the road might be the best thing he's ever written

The Polish Pirate
Apr 4, 2005

How many Polacks does it take to captain a pirate ship? One.

Opopanax posted:

Sematary definitely isn't my favorite King book, but that little 2 page bit where Louis is chasing after Gage as they head towards the road might be the best thing he's ever written

Read this when my daughter was 3. Whole book wrecked me.

gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord
it's been like 20+ years since I've read Pet Sematary but I remember it being scarier to me than anything else King wrote. Except maybe The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, for some reason that really got to me too.

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
The Black Maybe by Attila Veres is incredible btw. one of the best horror collections ive read in a while

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.
I finished THE WIDE, CARNIVOROUS SKY and it was pretty good. It was maybe a little formal though. Lil' bit too self aware. Horror for horror writers if you will.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



General Battuta posted:

I finished THE WIDE, CARNIVOROUS SKY and it was pretty good. It was maybe a little formal though. Lil' bit too self aware. Horror for horror writers if you will.

I kinda feel that way about everything I've read from Langan. The Fisherman really felt self aware in a way that made it not very enjoyable to read imo.

UwUnabomber
Sep 9, 2012

Pubes dreaded out so hoes call me Chris Barnes. I don't wear a condom at the pig farm.
Not gonna lie I thought North American Lake Monster kinda sucked except for two or three of the stories. Can anyone explain the angel story to me? Please?

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

If I had to guess, the deal with that story is that it's a metaphor for the destructive power of festering grief and resentment, the idea that the pain these people feel for the loss of their son can only be satisfied by the destruction of something pure and beautiful, but it felt like it really went into the weeds with the adultery stuff. In general, NALM had a fixation on male sexual jealousy that made a lot of it not click for me.

Chas McGill
Oct 29, 2010

loves Fat Philippe
NALM was a lot less fun than Wounds. Pretty cool that he has that range though.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



I'd say I found NALM a lot more memorable and Wounds a lot more enjoyable, lol. They're both really good IMO but I wouldn't begrudge anybody putting NALM down after a story or two, some of them are genuinely kind of tough to read if you're not in the right mindset I think.

Also I've said it a billion times but I want more stuff like The Butcher's Table, that was so extremely my poo poo and I haven't come across much like it.

Opopanax
Aug 8, 2007

I HEX YE!!!


I'm just finishing Wounds up and it's definitely broaded that NALM, but I loved both. He's got a new, full length book coming out soon that sounds like it'll really play to his strengths, I'm very much looking forward to that

value-brand cereal
May 2, 2008

Hi. It's me. I read things. Maybe things I read you like too? Maybe. Here.

A Different Darkness and Other Abominations by Luigi Musolino [anthology, single author short stories]

quote:

The highly original and truly terrifying folk horror of Italy’s Luigi Musolino was introduced to an international audience in the acclaimed The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, and now at last an entire volume of the author’s best work – eight stories and three novellas – is available in English for the first time.

Musolino’s tales, set among the plains and mountains of his native Piedmont, are uniquely Italian, but the darkness he probes is universal. As Brian Evenson writes in the introduction, ‘Musolino has a strong and original voice and uses it to get to some uniquely dark places. Rather than blood or gore, he’s ultimately interested in what’s truly terrifying: the vertiginous darkness that threatens to open up and swallow us. A darkness that calls to us, calls to us, until we can’t help but answer and stumble toward it.

Contents:
Lactic Acid
Les Abominations des Altitudes
Uironda
The Carnival of the Stag Man
Queen of the Sewers
The Strait
Black Hills of Torment
The Last Box
Like Dogs
Pupils
A Different Darkness

It's been a while since I read an anthology I really really enjoyed. I didn't even realize this was folk horror. I figured italians were just like this, regarding their horror lol Kind of reminds me of more classic horror writing. The descriptions in the story 'Black Hills of Torment' were really amazing to me. It's hard to describe eldritch things and otherworlds, and I think the author did well here. I didn't like the story 'Like Dogs', and not just because the rampant child abuse. It was pretty depressing as a whole, which I understand was the point. It just wasn't a pleasant read.

Favorite stories
The Carnival of the Stag Man
Les Abominations des Altitudes


The Puller by Michael Hodges

quote:

A tale of man versus the elements and monsters, The Puller begins with Matt Kearns heading up to “the shack,” his father’s cabin in the Upper Peninsula, so he can process his father’s death. In the area, there’ve been reports of local wildlife being pulled into the air and hung in the trees by a mysterious force. The surrounding wilderness makes for an eerie location already, with its eccentric locals and isolated locale, but once the creature yanking animals around (dubbed “The Puller” by Matt’s inner voice) takes an interest in Matt, the fact that he keeps getting brutally yanked back to the family cabin makes the place more of a prison.

Things were already strange before, with the unusual wilderness, the family “mousetrap,” and Matt’s flashbacks and hallucinations, but when the gigantic invisible elephant creature shows up, the place feels truly nightmarish and the cabin feels both safer (the Puller doesn’t go inside, at least for the first couple of days) and a lot more claustrophobic (it won’t let Matt leave).


Interesting plot and well written. Not really my thing as it's a bit masculine bravado and all the women characters were either sex objects or children. I can appreciate the random unknown monstrous thing. The pacing was OK. I mainly read it for the descriptions of the landscape. Had an attempt at 'Our ancestors have spoiled / conquered the land and now what is our place in it?' which I rolled eyes at but it was alright. But it wasn't as irritating as Winterset was about this.

Sign Here by Claudia Lux

quote:

A darkly humorous, surprisingly poignant, and utterly gripping debut novel about a guy who works in Hell (literally) and is on the cusp of a big promotion if only he can get one more member of the wealthy Harrison family to sell their soul.

Peyote Trip has a pretty good gig in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell. Sure, none of the pens work, the coffee machine has been out of order for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jägermeister, but Pey has a plan—and all he needs is one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul.

When the Harrisons retreat to the family lake house for the summer, with their daughter Mickey’s precocious new friend, Ruth, in tow, the opportunity Pey has waited a millennium for might finally be in his grasp. And with the help of his charismatic coworker Calamity, he sets a plan in motion.

But things aren’t always as they seem, on Earth or in Hell. And as old secrets and new dangers scrape away at the Harrisons’ shiny surface, revealing the darkness beneath, everyone must face the consequences of their choices.

It's funny, touching, has a decent mystery, and a very good conclusion. I can appreciate hell being so beruao beurou beauroucratic like an office setting and lovely apartment world. The carefully metered twists were great, I liked the main character being jerked around.

Fair warning this does involve some child abuse [nothing sexual] that is explicit. It's integral to the plot but the paragraphs can probably be skipped if need be.


Seeders by A. J. Colucci

quote:

George Brookes is a brilliant but reclusive plant biologist living on a remote Canadian island. After his mysterious death, the heirs to his estate arrive on the island, including his daughter Isabelle, her teenage children, and Jules Beecher, a friend and pioneer in plant neurobiology. They will be isolated on the frigid island for two weeks, until the next supply boat arrives.
As Jules begins investigating the laboratory and scientific papers left by George, he comes to realize that his mentor may have achieved a monumental scientific breakthrough: communication between plants and humans. Within days, the island begins to have strange and violent effects on the group, especially Jules who becomes obsessed with George's journal, the strange fungus growing on every plant and tree, and horrible secrets that lay buried in the woods. It doesn't take long for Isabelle to realize that her father may have unleashed something sinister on the island, a malignant force that's far more deadly than any human. As a fierce storm hits and the power goes out, she knows they'll be lucky to make it out alive.
A.J. Colucci masterfully weaves real science with horror to create a truly terrifying thriller, drawing from astonishing new discoveries about plants and exploring their eerie implications. Seeders is a feast of horror and suspense.

Who likes parasite horror? This was a neat one. Some of the characters [cough rich old british fart] were really stale and one note. But I read it more for the slowly unfolding mystery of the strange fungus.

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns [an indigenous author, by the way!]

quote:

In this gripping, horror-laced debut, a young Cree woman’s dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.

When Mackenzie wakes up with a severed crow’s head in her hands, she panics. Only moments earlier she had been fending off masses of birds in a snow-covered forest. In bed, when she blinks, the head disappears.

Night after night, Mackenzie’s dreams return her to a memory from before her sister Sabrina’s untimely death: a weekend at the family’s lakefront campsite, long obscured by a fog of guilt. But when the waking world starts closing in, too—a murder of crows stalks her every move around the city, she wakes up from a dream of drowning throwing up water, and gets threatening text messages from someone claiming to be Sabrina—Mackenzie knows this is more than she can handle alone.

Traveling north to her rural hometown in Alberta, she finds her family still steeped in the same grief that she ran away to Vancouver to escape. They welcome her back, but their shaky reunion only seems to intensify her dreams—and make them more dangerous.

What really happened that night at the lake, and what did it have to do with Sabrina’s death? Only a bad Cree would put their family at risk, but what if whatever has been calling Mackenzie home was already inside?

I deeply love this book, and am kinda sad and mad that this author hasn't written more. I loved the family ties and sisterhood shared in this family. I thought it was very touching and an interesting look at horror as both grief and healing, as a MAJOR SPOILER metaphor and an actual supernatural creature.

The Three by Sarah Lotz

quote:

Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists the three are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he's right? The world is stunned when four commuter planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. Facing global panic, officials are under pressure to find the causes.
With terrorist attacks and environmental factors ruled out, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters a child survivor is found in the wreckage.
Dubbed 'The Three' by the international press, the children all exhibit disturbing behavioural problems, presumably caused by the horror they lived through and the unrelenting press attention.
This attention becomes more than just intrusive when a rapture cult led by a charismatic evangelical minister insists that the survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse.
The Three are forced to go into hiding, but as the children's behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, even their guardians begin to question their miraculous survival.
Day Four by Sarah Lotz [side-quel / same universe]

quote:

The chilling follow-up to THE THREE, Sarah Lotz's "hard to put down and vastly entertaining" debut (Stephen King).
Hundreds of pleasure-seekers stream aboard The Beautiful Dreamer cruise ship for five days of cut-price fun in the Caribbean sun. On the fourth day, disaster strikes: smoke roils out of the engine room, and the ship is stranded in the Gulf of Mexico. Soon supplies run low, a virus plagues the ship, and there are whispered rumors that the cabins on the lower decks are haunted by shadowy figures. Irritation escalates to panic, the crew loses control, factions form, and violent chaos erupts among the survivors.
When, at last, the ship is spotted drifting off the coast of Key West, the world's press reports it empty. But the gloomy headlines may be covering up an even more disturbing reality.

A long time ago I read 'The White Road' by this author and the ending stuck in my head to this day. Praying it wasn't a one off, I finally picked up 'The Three' and hell yeah this was just as interesting. There's also the side-quel / sequel 'Day Four' which is set in the same 'universe' but has a different plot that involves a similar premise. I think you can read either and in whatever sequence you want. I liked The Three a lot better though. The 'The Three' ending was a bit ambiguous, but Day Four has a more solid conclusion if you prefer that. I liked the rotating pov in both books as it helped with the tension. A lot of times such a technique feels like being rushed through the plot, or the author failing to make the plot appealing so they resort to sudden scene cuts.

Honorable mentions.

The Grand Dark by Richard Kadrey
Technically dark science fiction? Historical cyberpunk? I don't know. Not horror, certainly. But I enjoyed it enough to add a mention. I liked the semi historical, dystopian setting, it's almost Disco Elysium esque, if you need a frame of reference. I also appreciated theunderdog character. He's a stool pigeon who's smart enough to understand the danger he gets into, and isn't smart enough to get himself out. I also appreciate that MAJOR SPOILERS it isn't a hunger games esque scenario. He's not a special boy who saves everyone and gets the girl. There's an actual revolutionary group that has been making an effort to change the world. He's just a random guy who happens to be useful to them. Again, a lucky stool pigeon.

Dishonorable mentions.

Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm
Oh boy. White fragile coquette #girlgirl gothic except not really or maybe? I'm sorry I can't stand fake deep poo poo. I also can't stand incredibly tedious recitations of what a random white girl has done on her summer vacation job. Does this get scary or gothic? Maybe. I didn't read far enough to see that. This got mentioned on a few different new horror of 20XX lists, and I just don't understand why. Maybe I just don't get gothic.

It Looks Like Us by Alison Ames
Ok. Ok it's young adult, I shouldnt expect much. But my word. Ok imagine John Carpenter's The Thing and Campbell Jr.'s Frozen Hell. Now make it for teens, but fudge the details enough so you don't get sued for plagiarism. Is it different enough to be interesting? Sure, if you're a teen and simply want more X/Y/Z of The Thing. Is it good? Ahh.... no. The villain is a capitalist stereotype, to appeal to the kids in a defanged 'eat the rich' theme. It stands on its own but hm, meh. It's forgettable.

Also yes, this does feature the spider monster creature from The Thing, complete with chest bursting. Well. If it's not broken, don't change the formula, strained grin.

Anyways, current reading list. Maybe these will stike someone's fancy too! I have no idea if they're decent or not. Cross your fingers!

Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie

quote:

This heart-pounding novel of horror and psychological suspense takes a ghost hunting reality TV crew into a world they could never have imagined.
Fade to Black is the newest hit ghost hunting reality TV show. Led by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin, it delivers weekly hauntings investigated by a dedicated team of ghost hunting experts.
Episode Thirteen takes them to every ghost hunter's holy grail: the Paranormal Research Foundation. This brooding, derelict mansion holds secrets and clues about bizarre experiments that took place there in the 1970s. It's also famously haunted, and the team hopes their scientific techniques and high tech gear will prove it. But as the house begins to reveal itself to them, proof of an afterlife might not be everything Matt dreamed of. A story told in broken pieces, in tapes, journals, and correspondence, this is the story of Episode 13.

Slightly more than halfway through this at the moment. A little slow but fairly interesting. It's sort of epistolary in that it's all transcripts and video descriptions. I wish they mixed it up more with sections not sourced from the main characters. Like articles on the locations backstory, random blog posts about the hauntings, interviews with the previous owners, and such. I do like that it isn't a copy paste of the Scooby Doo gang. I'd tentatively rank this lower than Smithy by Amanda Desiree and Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall. It does have a decent haunted house and the paranormal scenes are well done. Above Wylding Hall, certainly.

Also yes this takes place on a plantation mansion / mansion near a plantation. But so far that has almost no baring on the story past some mentions of it.


Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones [sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw]

quote:

December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author, Stephen Graham Jones.

Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.

Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday.
Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over.
Don’t Fear the Reaper is the page-turning sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.

I confess I haven't read the first one. BUT I'm glad I didn't because I hate duologies [cough 90% cash grabs and poo poo editing] and unmentioned sequels. So I'll be glad to read them both in one go.

Vampire Weekend by Mike Chen

quote:

Being a vampire is far from glamorous… but it can be pretty punk rock.

Everything you’ve heard about vampires is a lie. They can’t fly. No murders allowed (the community hates that). And turning into a bat? Completely ridiculous. In fact, vampire life is really just a lot of blood bags and night jobs. For Louise Chao, it’s also lonely, since she swore off family ages ago.

At least she’s gone to decades of punk rock shows. And if she can join a band of her own (while keeping her… situation under wraps), maybe she’ll finally feel like she belongs, too.
Then a long-lost teenage relative shows up at her door. Whether it’s Ian’s love of music or his bad attitude, for the first time in ages, Louise feels a connection.
But as Ian uncovers Louise’s true identity, things get dangerous—especially when he asks her for the ultimate favor. One that goes beyond just family… one that might just change everything vampires know about life and death forever.

I loved Chen's 'We Could Be Heroes' and want something hopefully more chill than hardcore paranormal or gorey monsters. This seems very cute.

Well peace out til next time.

UwUnabomber
Sep 9, 2012

Pubes dreaded out so hoes call me Chris Barnes. I don't wear a condom at the pig farm.

Antivehicular posted:

In general, NALM had a fixation on male sexual jealousy that made a lot of it not click for me.

Thanks, that makes a little more sense. And the portion I quoted is one of the things I found frustrating about it for sure. I finished it, didn't really hate it but meh. I liked it better than Wounds, for sure.

Started Clickers by J F Gonzalez. Wasn't really expecting to see Stormtroopers of Death name-dropped.

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

UwUnabomber posted:

Started Clickers by J F Gonzalez. Wasn't really expecting to see Stormtroopers of Death name-dropped.

Jesus was part of Brian Keene's clique, they do nothing but namedrop in pretty much all of their books. It gets pretty distracting once you know all the authors and bands and whatnot because it's basically a giant neon sign of a winking face, over and over again, in every book.

C2C - 2.0
May 14, 2006

Dubs In The Key Of Life


Lipstick Apathy

UwUnabomber posted:

Thanks, that makes a little more sense. And the portion I quoted is one of the things I found frustrating about it for sure. I finished it, didn't really hate it but meh. I liked it better than Wounds, for sure.

Started Clickers by J F Gonzalez. Wasn't really expecting to see Stormtroopers of Death name-dropped.

“…you’re dead.”

UwUnabomber
Sep 9, 2012

Pubes dreaded out so hoes call me Chris Barnes. I don't wear a condom at the pig farm.

Ornamented Death posted:

Jesus was part of Brian Keene's clique, they do nothing but namedrop in pretty much all of their books. It gets pretty distracting once you know all the authors and bands and whatnot because it's basically a giant neon sign of a winking face, over and over again, in every book.

It got me a little deeper in, though. I know how I'd feel hearing Speak English or Die playing from a comic book store. Double if I went in and dude at the register was wearing a Dead Kennedys shirt. I'm not old enough to know what that was like when Live at Budokan came out like in the book but I know the vibe we're shooting for there. Which is more than I can say for when Stephen King references that kinda thing.

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming
I'm halfway through The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson, who wrote The Boatman's Daughter... It's good, just feels like the story could be told in so many less pages, maybe even a novella. I will reserve the rest of my criticism until I finish.

UwUnabomber
Sep 9, 2012

Pubes dreaded out so hoes call me Chris Barnes. I don't wear a condom at the pig farm.
I'm a quarter of the way through Clickers 2 and lmao Prince Alhazred.

Good Citizen
Aug 12, 2008

trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump

UwUnabomber posted:

I'm a quarter of the way through Clickers 2 and lmao Prince Alhazred.

The Clickers series is such great B-movie as a book nonsense. Three mainline entries, a crossover vs Brian Keene's zombies, and an endorsed sequel from other horror authors that just liked the concept. It's all just the right amount of stupid, which is surprisingly hard to calibrate to for some reason.

For my money my absolute favorite dumb B-movie book is still The Haunted Forest Tour by Jeff Strand and James A Moore, though. It's Jurassic Park but in a weird haunted forest that suddenly popped up outta nowhere! It's way way more ridiculous than even that premise sounds, which probably goes without saying since Jeff Strand is involved. Strong recommend

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming

Good Citizen posted:


For my money my absolute favorite dumb B-movie book is still The Haunted Forest Tour by Jeff Strand and James A Moore, though. It's Jurassic Park but in a weird haunted forest that suddenly popped up outta nowhere! It's way way more ridiculous than even that premise sounds, which probably goes without saying since Jeff Strand is involved. Strong recommend
They always say don't judge a book by its cover but... I bought Haunted Forest Tour based on its cover and was not disappointed. It's good schlocky fun


I am having to push myself through the final 20% of this Andy Davidson book. There are some great pieces of prose but the story itself isn't interesting enough to justify an attempt at a multi-generational epic. Some of these characters feel less like characters and more like props for story beats.

Opopanax
Aug 8, 2007

I HEX YE!!!


That's reminding me of a short story I read recently but can't remember now, it was basically just an insurance form drawn up for a tour through a real haunted house, but I can't find it in any of the books I read last year, anyone know what I'm talking about?

Trainee PornStar
Jul 20, 2006

escape artist posted:

They always say don't judge a book by its cover but... I bought Haunted Forest Tour based on its cover and was not disappointed. It's good schlocky fun

I've bought a copy as I like "good schlocky fun".

I loved 'Clickers' so sounds right up my street.

UwUnabomber
Sep 9, 2012

Pubes dreaded out so hoes call me Chris Barnes. I don't wear a condom at the pig farm.
Clickers has been on the list for a minute and I liked it a lot more than I was expecting. Now I need to track down a copy of Clickers vs. Zombies. Whats the endorsed sequel by other authors called? Clickers, The Next Wave, Dagon Rising, and Clickers vs Zombies are the only ones on the goodreads page for the series.

Haunted Forest Tour sounds sick too. Love me some stories that just start with an insane event everyone goes "Yeah... okay." in response to.

Good Citizen
Aug 12, 2008

trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump

UwUnabomber posted:

Clickers has been on the list for a minute and I liked it a lot more than I was expecting. Now I need to track down a copy of Clickers vs. Zombies. Whats the endorsed sequel by other authors called? Clickers, The Next Wave, Dagon Rising, and Clickers vs Zombies are the only ones on the goodreads page for the series.

Clickers Never Die. There’s also Clickers Forever but I think thats a short story collection that strays into Gonzales’ other books too. Haven’t read it yet

value-brand cereal
May 2, 2008

Stumbles into thread hello I read something really interesting and good and it involves. Let's see. Other worlds, location horror, supernatural, time travel, rotating POV, thrillers, forest horror, 'Not Twitch dot Com' Lady Gamer Streamers, a indie video game that can be played only once?!, epistolary in that there's tasteful occasional outside viewpoints such as book excerpts blog posts a fake reddit site and such, and more.

It even includes some sort of supplementary fiction on the authors site that you need a password for. Not quite arg, I suppose, but the book was interesting enough that yeah, I looked into it. You can find the pass word at the end of the novel. Don't know if that's a spoiler since it's in the TOC. You can find it, currently, on the front page of the author's website. https://briardark.com/ [You could also buy the website here, she has a list of locations selling them]

Anyways, the summary.

Briardark - S. A. Harian
Briardark #1 of #???

quote:

For Dr. Siena Dupont and her ambitious team, the Alpenglow glacier expedition is a career-defining opportunity. But thirty miles into the desolate Deadswitch Wilderness, they discover a missing hiker dangling from a tree, and their satellite phone fails to call out.

Then the body vanishes without a trace.

The disappearance isn’t the only chilling anomaly. Siena’s map no longer aligns with the trail. The glacier they were supposed to study has inexplicably melted. Strange foliage overruns the mountainside, and a tunnel within a tree hollow lures Siena to a hidden cabin, and a stranger with a sinister message…

Holden Sharpe’s IT job offers little distraction from his wasted potential until he stumbles upon a decommissioned hard drive and an old audio file. Trapped on a mountain, Dr. Siena Dupont recounts an expedition in chaos and the bloody death of a colleague.

Entranced by the mystery, Holden searches for answers to Siena’s fate. But he is unprepared for the truth that will draw him to the outskirts of Deadswitch Wilderness—a place teeming with unfathomable nightmares and impossibilities.

I liked the rotating pov and how the 'hero protagonist' not involved on the hike is a bit subverted. He isn't a random shmuck that suddenly has the hacker private investigator skills to do a entire investigation. Hell, he even gives up at some point for very logical, realistic reasons and only gets pulled back in because of a coworker needing a distraction from her personal life. I thought the forest horror was very well played out, the build up to it subtle but not tedious, and when poo poo goes down hill it's straight off a cliff. The author does juggle little details well, it doesn't feel like mentioned Checkhovs gun in one chapter, and firing it in the very next. There's subtly, which I appreciate.

The part about the monster [so to speak] being a mysterious cult woman with, yawn, spooky deer horns does feel played out at this point. But I haven't seen too much of that in the book, so maybe I should hold off judgement. It does give me slightly Silent Hill 1 vibes in that it's maybe a small town cult thing going on? Not entirely sure.

Fortunately or unfortunately, this is the first book in a series. I don't know if it's a duology, or trilogy.

Bonus hey there's some sapphic characters though it's not at the forefront, per se. Some medium spoilers? One woman character had romantic tension with another woman character. However it wasn't able to go anywhere as one woman vanished in the same mysterious location as the current hike. Whether she is truly dead or not remains [ha!] to be seen. I'm going to trust the author to give us decent bisexual/lesbian characters as she does thank her life partner of 15 years for support in the acknowledgements 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 Honestly I can't wait for the sequel.

UwUnabomber
Sep 9, 2012

Pubes dreaded out so hoes call me Chris Barnes. I don't wear a condom at the pig farm.
About a quarter of the way through Clickers 3 now and there's been quite a few instances of atheists praying to God in confrontations with the Clickers. The narration even talks about it in a couple of them. Combined with the anti-religious themes in 2 with the president I dunno what to make of it.

Loving the constant escalation. Clicker siege weapons. The Men in Black style agents hunting down survivors of Clicker incidents.

UwUnabomber
Sep 9, 2012

Pubes dreaded out so hoes call me Chris Barnes. I don't wear a condom at the pig farm.
Double posting because I might've hit my Clickers limit. Clickers vs Zombies feels like it's lost in itself. The POV and location of the story jump around too much for you to get enough of a feel for any of the narrators or settings.

And Clickers Forever is crazy expensive.

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Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Bad Hand Books has a new Laird Barron novella up for preorder, The Wind Began to Howl. It's the next Coleridge story. Also, for all preorders through 3/15, 100% of the proceeds go to help Laird.

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