jdhacker's reviews
1345 reviews

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Blish is a more than capable science fiction author, already familiar with writing Star Trek scripts and has a good feel for characterization and canon (at least up to the 1970/tos point), so this is a solid, fast read.

TekLords by William Shatner, Ron Goulart

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adventurous funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Carceral Capitalism by Jackie Wang

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challenging emotional informative slow-paced

5.0

And At My Back I Always Hear by Scott Nicolay

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dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Its been many years since Scott Nicolay's first collection. This long in coming second collection was certainly worth the wait.
And At My Back I Always Hear contains several previously published pieces as well as some brand new ones.
Among those stories not previously published was, "The Anodizing Line". Taking place during a young man's summer job at a small town factory, this was the star of the collection. Others have called this possibly the best thing Nicolay has written, and while I've not yet read *everything* he's written its definitely among the best stories of his I have read. The realism, quality of writing, characters that easily to identify with or identify analogs of in real life, the creeping dread and strangeness of the employer itself is just...perfect. The more relatable horror of the protagonist's struggle with his implied and later outright stated sexuality as well as the all too real tragedy that later becomes of his life, are more unsettling than any of the Weirdness that ensues. Even the all too common in America horror of a town and its inhabitants so dependent on a single employer and what that can mean in their lives serves to connect this highly readable story to universal reader experiences. I would even say that this story alone would make it worth picking up the collection.
There is an integration of these sorts of commonplace, real world, horrors and monsters throughout most of the collection, in counterpoint to its more esoteric and weird horrors. The train hopping unhoused subject of "Tenebrionidae" has to worry about train bosses, other unhoused folks, food, and infection as well as the possible cultists pursuing him. "after"'s monster plays second fiddle to the specter of domestic abuse, rape, and the tragedy of economic and climate collapse, and ultimately is the only real threat that is resolved in any way. We see some of those same threats, as well as the simple threat that a real, complex, and flawed human being can pose in "Noctuidae". "The Croaker" reminds us of the all too everyday terror that we cannot change the past, or the actions we've taken there, and that somethings in addition to being unchangeable will always haunt us.
The final story in the collection, "The Always Rising of the Night", takes a turn into what at first feels almost like bizarro, but shapes up into a delightful tale that I can't properly characterize. It has its creeping threats, its aura of strangeness, and the sadness that can grow from the relationship parent and child...but despite the unresolved ending (a thing it shares with many of the other stories) it almost feels hopeful. The closure spoken of by its characters was something I felt as a reader, which is fitting for its place here.
The note at the end of "The Green Eye", which was enjoyable in and of itself, does a fantastic job of giving us a window into Nicolay's particular creative process. In particular, it addresses both a flaw I found in his first collection, but was happily absent here. Our protagonists throughout the collection are incredibly diverse in terms of background, current circumstances, gender, sexuality, etc. But in this note Nicolay embraces the fact that he puts much of himself into his characters. However, in this second collection I think he's done a more masterful job of drawing correspondences between himself and his characters, rather than then being simply reflections of him.

The Midnight Creature Feature Picture Show by David C. Hayes

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dark funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.75

I was prepared to enjoy this more than I did, unfortunately.
A collection of short fiction from a (very nice) local-ish author. Between the monster and movie themes I was really hoping for something in vein of Orrin Grey's collection. While I suppose thematically that held true, in that these are clearly interpretations of B- and exploitation movie genres (Vampires! Mummies! Aliens! Girl Gangs! etc.) it just didn't meet my expectations. My fault perhaps.
The very first story, Hack, was probably the one saving grace and what propelled me through the rest of the collection hoping for more of that quality. A fun, Monsters- or Tales from the Crypt-esque, tale about a comedian giving a life or death pitch to a potential patron who will make or...end...his career. Other than suffering from an issue that the whole collection does in terms of needing another copy editor's pass or two, it was thoroughly enjoyable, the character(s) were fleshed out and three dimensional, a fun if predictable outcome...in other words, exactly what I was looking for. Even the Mummies! story, "That's a Wrap" has this same sort of fun, silly, tales from the crypt feel.
Sadly, and I won't delve into them each individually, the rest of the stories don't measure up to what Hayes is clearly capable of producing. There's a lot of the over the top, kind of meaningless schlock violence I see in Bizarro or Splatterpunk collections, that feels like its there purely for shock value...save that any fans of those genres are unlikely to be shocked. The Girl Gangs! entry, Rode Hard and Put Away Wet, feels particularly guilty of this. Those that don't fall entirely victim to this still feel like pastiches of the worst sort of bad/low budget horror movies, rather than clever entries.
While I wouldn't recommend this collection, its clear that Hayes can produce some fun if not ground breaking stories, especially with better copy editors at the helm. I'd be interested to see what of his crops up in collections by some other publishers with a little more distance from the bizarro and splatterpunk world.

The Stand by Stephen King

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