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escape artist posted:Anyone heard of The Reformatory by Tananarive Due? It takes place in Jim Crow Florida... sounds pretty amazing honestly. I’ve heard good things about this novel, and actually have it in my to read list. I appreciate the Gollitok recommendation from here, as it really scratched all my Eastern European/apocalypse/the horror of the mundane society/Kafka buttons. The prose was great too, very dry but somehow made it more compelling in the same way Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfeg described her spiraling Bosch-Ian horror.
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Dec 22, 2023 20:10
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| # ¿ Dec 7, 2025 16:31 |
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escape artist posted:I have been nagging my library to order this and When Night Cowers. Thanks for the review. loving love Bartlett's work, even though I've been priced out of a lot of his writing the way he releases it. I ended up finishing The Reformatory in an insomnia-driven drive from 1-5 am the day before new years and wow, yes, it is an amazing book. I also second the fact that I'm learning history. It's worth it to stick past to the author's acknowledgements about additional reading wrt race-based issues still present in modern society. While the ending really neatly wraps everything up in a nice 'they got their just desserts' sort of way, the author mentions this is based on a family relative whose bones were just unearthed and examined in 2015, and actually never made it off the boys 'reformatory' school he was sent to back in the 20s-30s. The fact that his remains weren't evaluated until just 2015 is mind-bogglingly sad. value-brand cereal posted:Badass! I love to hear that! Maybe this book would be up your alley too? It's not horror. More dystopian dark scifi kinda genre. It's certainly european and hopeless. And has political intrigue featuring a cog in the machine! Thank you! Having lived in a Western democracy, but having the chance growing up to visit my parents' country where rampant corruption/class disparity is still sprawling makes this genre appeal to me. I suppose it's like Kafka meets Lovecraft, and that scratches some nostalgic memories I suppose
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Jan 4, 2024 17:56
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value-brand cereal posted:Badass! I love to hear that! Maybe this book would be up your alley too? It's not horror. More dystopian dark scifi kinda genre. It's certainly european and hopeless. And has political intrigue featuring a cog in the machine! Following up on this, about 80% thru this book and really liking it. I especially liked the (no spoilers) early world-building that really helped flesh out the characters and intrigue, as well as the parallels to modern society. zoux posted:Nothing at all like BtF, and I'd agree that it's the weakest of his horror offerings. It's not bad, merely average. Lesser Dead/Suicide Motor Club are better. I will still maintain it's not a bad read, but it definitely is more of a slow-burn character study more than the stellar horrific medieval setting with hints of supernatural flair that BtF was. I liked the interplay of mythology. I really should take more notes because aside from that it's not as memorable a read compared to BtF definitely. I'd also rec the suicide motor club/lesser dead as better novels in his ouevre.
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Jan 17, 2024 21:33
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C2C - 2.0 posted:Yeah, that’s a good one. Procession of the Black Sloth is one of my favorite short stories ever written. Laird Barron is great because he does Lovecraftian cosmic horror alongside historical/covert ops stuff. Some of his stories are frankly terrible/meandering but they are run through with this gripping cosmology that works. I like that short story quoted above because it absolutely reminds me of the fever dreams I had with jetlag on business trips and some of the hallucinations I got up to with too much travel/caffeine/alcohol. I think he can be summed up by a quote I'm paraphrasing about "Nobody told me the CIA was so full of satanists" which is a great summation of some of the themes he works into his short-stories. https://lairdbarronmappingproject.com/ this was pretty good for keeping different stories together since it all vaguely weaves together. ( I went on a bender and read all his work on a bad insomnia flare a few months ago) I still think his short stories are the best but the Croning is good as a chaser once you get to know the universe more.
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Mar 12, 2024 19:47
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Jack B Nimble posted:I've made an impromptu book club with a couple friends and our first book was my suggestion, Between Two Fires. I'd already read it, but in the book club read we've finished Part One. Maybe determining what realistic horror there was in the middle ages (low life expectancy, frequent illness/pestilence, quality of life, lifelong indentured servitude) vs phantasmogoric/unreal horror (night tourneys, demons etc) as mentioned in the book Cultural expectations vs individual paths, what choices each character made towards better self-individualization vs. rote/societal expectation Just some things I remembered thinking about while reading. anilEhilated posted:"The Middle Ages sucked. Discuss." i mean my response is pretty much, expanded, lol
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Sep 30, 2024 21:35
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escape artist posted:My first read for October will be A Sunny Place For Shady People, the newest short story collection from Mariana Enriquez. I enjoyed her first story collections a bit (Dangers of Smoking in Bed) and her second short story collection was among my favorites in the past decade. She is an Argentinian writer and that is what appealed to me. I really enjoyed the way she wrote about cartel violence in some of her stories, but she there's way more to her than just that. She has a sprawling novel entitled Our Share of Night that came out in 2023, but I have not read it. Has anybody else read Our Share of Night? Wanted to take a look given how great her short story collections have been received and I'm maybe 100 pages in and looking to probably give up on the prose. It's meandering and impressionistic, but doesn't seem to cohere with any momentum. Especially given I've got about 600 pages left it's looking more likely to DNF and pick up some of the short story collections instead.
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Oct 16, 2024 20:05
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MNIMWA posted:I'll post in here and also in the Stephen King thread in TBB, but I am reading King's Duma Key, a novel I hadn't heard anything about but am so far really enjoying - it's a very solid post-Dark Tower King, not set in Maine, starring a main character who so far does not have an age-inappropriate relationship with a woman. Spooky Florida happenings mixed with King's telepath/shining themes. I read Duma Key a long time ago and remember it being amazing. Can't remember much of the plot except his descriptions of Key West sunsets were so incredibly vivid and picturesque that I've had a soft spot and would like to visit Key West one of these days. GladRagKraken posted:I pushed through it, and it does get significantly better in the second half, but I feel if you gotta read 300 pages to get to the good part there's something wrong. Yeah I kept tryin and I've DNF'd it at this point. Maybe I'll revisit it later but glad I'm not the only one.
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Oct 17, 2024 22:41
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value-brand cereal posted:I just finished this book and need to share. It's VERY good. I really wanted to like Devils Kill Devils but the pacing was very inconsistent. Premise and initial backstory/setting was interesting, but the primary villain's final scene and conclusion fell flat, she didn't attack because philosophical reasons? Overall would may be have worked if there a better editor, but it did have a good sense of overall dread and unease which kept me going. anilEhilated posted:Since you mention Mitchell Lüthi, I recently read Pilgrim and quite enjoyed that. It's no Between Two Fires but definitely manages being a fun medieval horror road trip that keeps its monsters varied. Haven't got around to his other stuff yet but if the short stories are any indication, it should be at least decent. I dig his Luthi's other stuff too, a lot of it is free to read on Kindle Unlimited and while the Plagueborne Trilogy isn't Between Two Fires, it's a good medieval romp but be aware there isn't a Third one written which confused 3am me a lot one night looking for the conclusion. His short stories are pretty good too.
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Jan 10, 2025 22:18
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tuyop posted:The Descent (2005) is one of my favourite jump scare horror movies. I love it, saw it in theatres twice. Yeah I was going to say I vaguely remember the descent being a great jump scare thriller but the book has secret societies and evolutionary /parallel themes and the knights templar and conspiracy theories involving the freaking shroud of turin and is a completely different beast honestly it's a bit schizophrenic in its organization/parallel stories but imho it's pretty freaking good as a horror meets sci fi and anthropology meets indiana jones/adventure kinda book
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Feb 6, 2025 00:51
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escape artist posted:Oh I didn't even notice the text until just now. That would have annoyed me too. yeah VBC's posts were helpful to me and will be missed. a lot of good stuff in 24/25 was dt [their] recommendations MNIMWA posted:I wish I had done this sooner, but I'm starting an excel doc to keep notes on the books I'm reading with a #/5 system and notes. I started doing this too because this thread has had so many great recommendations.
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Mar 28, 2025 23:37
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All the Prospect Around Us by C.S. Humble was a giant DNF for me. I get that his inspiration was noir but his female protagonists are very trope-heavy/written heavily from a male gaze and consist of extremely over the top adulation and/or physical descriptors which needed a severely more critical editor to mitigate. Shame, because his setting and pace is good but I just could not ignore how heavy handed his writing was with regards to religion and romance was. Characterization fell flat for me protagonist is a sophisticated minister who has seen past his religious doubt, best buddy is a genius interlocutor, savant with a wicked wit, sidekick is literally a wise-crackin', bumbling oaf and the love interest is described as one who walks ...."where she made a mockery of every woman who ever dared to wield the velvet hammer of the feminine mystique" Shame because he's a nice guy on reddit and I was really looking forward to the series.
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Apr 17, 2025 20:37
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Has anybody else been duped by Stephen R. King? I was browsing late night for some horror and was recommended Infested by Stephen R. King and it was absolutely terrible until some additional googling informed me of how often this occurs
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Nov 10, 2025 20:55
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