Tag Archives: book review

CONFESSIONS OF A PUPPETMASTER Author: Charles Band with Adam Felber Publisher: William Morrow

TALES FROM THE CROSSROAD The world of publishing has changed, but while many companies are either trying to desperately to cope with these changes or coming up with new and exciting ways to exploit them, Crossroad Press is doing a damn fine job of showing how it can be done right. They’ve got a fairly extensive and consistently growing catalog …

RISE By Gareth Wood Permuted Press  Amidst the wave of post apocalyptic zombie novels currently flooding the market, there are sure to be some real gems. This is just such a book, and is very probably one of the best yet. Wood’s book takes the form of diary entries, which he wrote on the dates they take place as a …

INFECTION: ALASKAN UNDEAD APOCALYPSE BOOK I Author: Sean Schubert Permuted Press We’re starting to see the other side of the zombie fixation now, with the world starting to move on a bit from the obsession with zombies that has gripped popular culture for the past few years. The thing is, this is happening because the zombies that are being offered …

MazeI know only one prayer. Whatever gods are in this maze, may you suffer as we have suffered. May our prayers leave you ill and dying, as you have left us. I like bizarre, complicated stories. The kind that warp and wrap themselves into intricate designs of opaque obscurity and leave you scratching your head and rereading the same paragraph …

If Dr. Cale was telling the truth about what she’d been able to do –and I had no reason to doubt her, even if Nathan wasn’t quite so sure- I was talking to a tapeworm that had been given full control of its very own human body. And that same tapeworm had been watching me sleep, just in case I …

We, as a people, carry a bizarre obsession with serial and spree killers. My wife has a rather large section of our library dedicated to the subject and she is, by no means, alone in her focus. They seem to be a part of the American mythic collective, where we tend to view them as something significantly more, or less, …

I’m starting to wonder what will happen if I keep staring at these words, what will happen if I keep reading them, what will happen to them, to me? Will they slide down onto the scuffed Formica tabletop, slither over to my hand, melt into my skin, ride my blood to my brain and burn themselves forever there? Gary Braunbeck, …

THE DARK SIDE – ISSUE 145 Ghoulish Publishing Editor- Allan Bryce UK magazine The Dark Side is going from strength to strength with this new era of its publication, and while some may point out the new layout and design evokes the old Fangoria style, the content sets it apart from a lot of other horror magazines. Despite a dark …

“A disquiet hush clung to the medical clinic, as if in actuality it were a mortuary rather than a place of healing. Dr. Ratterman prowled the deserted hallway like an undertaker afraid of waking the dead entrusted to his care. The last patient had left. Both nurse and receptionist had gone home. Only the doctor and the demons that possessed …

BEYOND THE BARRIERS Author: Timothy Long Permuted Press And the zombie fiction juggernaut thunders on with another addition to the genre. This time it’s by Timothy Long, and has the potential to be a better book than many of your run-of-the-mill zombie yarns. Once again we’re stuck with the damn first person narrative though, which is getting more annoying as …

Abarat – Absolute Midnight – Author Clive Barker Here was the mystery of creation, played out on a field of dirt and desperation. Candy could see it, this mystery. It was happening all around her. Out of the common earth of living beings, fragile and afraid, came the extrodinary forms of the glyph beyond conceiving of any single mind. She …

“I’m no Hero,” she repeated. “Real Heroes die young. Their too honest, too good. I can’t help playing dirty. That’s why I’m just a sidekick.” She shrugged. “At least I get to live.” -“Worthy”, M.E. Garber When someone decides to write about a sidekick, they’re deciding to write a different kind of story. It isn’t going to be about glory …

ROTTERS “My father spoke, and still I tried to listen, but my ears buzzed with the low hum of disease. He told me, and I tried to understand, that what we had done was something ancient and possibly noble, but also vilified and to be undertaken with the utmost solemnity; and that, most importantly, it was a craft passed down …

This tome features horror luminaries such as Stephen King (and son), Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley. A fairly safe bet then, for some classic tales to darken the corners of the room. The introduction is worth a mention, as it appears to catalogue every single horror story penned in 2009. How anyone goes about compiling such encyclopaedic reference material is …