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jdhacker's reviews
1421 reviews
You Know It's True by J.R. Hamantaschen
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0
In what is supposedly his final short story collection, J.R. Hamantaschen holds true to form with this twelve stories in some ways, though to a long time reader shows some divergence from what one might have come to expect. The characteristic deep reflection an navel gazing either done by or about his characters, especially those displaying his characteristic depression and anxiety, is as always present. The, for me at least, expected dread and discomfort surrounding relationships which may or may not be functioning well (mostly romantic, but also between friends) is present in most of these stories as well. 'No Hole in a Small World Can Truly Be a Small Hole' is a great example and one of my favorites. One thing that I think is new, or newly prominent, maybe do to changes in Hamantashen's own life, is horror surrounding kids. While the Birds/Covid send-up, 'House of Katz' was not my favorite story in the collection, the several times near the end where the protagonist is internally encouraging the dog to tear up and throw the 'cats/katz' around was particularly effective. 'May As Well Blame it on the Heat' mixes the author's frequent themes of relationships either gone/going wrong or the participants feeling like they are (arguably maybe the same thing?) with the loss of an expected child and the desire to have one being the linchpin in that dysfunction. And while 'Grab More Knives' ultimately causes no harm to a little tyke, the threat to a child is ever looming, and the compulsion to protect drives much of the action. Children, of a sort, are the center of the story in 'Its Always Time to Go', which I particularly enjoyed.
I do think the opening story, involving a suicide pact, and the closing story involving a sexual super power, are probably both the most Hamentaschen-y of the included stories particularly due to their protagonists and I think will feel the most comfortable and expected by fans. Post-first story the pacing is a bit slow, but certainly picks up with 'Grab More Knives' and I don't feel it slows down after that.
I know there's been a vocalized desire by Hamentashen to maybe work on something longer, and the final story here is a novella. However, a number of these feel as though they could easily be expanded into something longer, possibly even novel length.
I do think the opening story, involving a suicide pact, and the closing story involving a sexual super power, are probably both the most Hamentaschen-y of the included stories particularly due to their protagonists and I think will feel the most comfortable and expected by fans. Post-first story the pacing is a bit slow, but certainly picks up with 'Grab More Knives' and I don't feel it slows down after that.
I know there's been a vocalized desire by Hamentashen to maybe work on something longer, and the final story here is a novella. However, a number of these feel as though they could easily be expanded into something longer, possibly even novel length.
Let's Go Play at the Adams' by Mendal W. Johnson
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
I did the thing, read this classic shocker.
It was okay, but not amazing. In terms of the events themselves, its not nearly as shocking as its billed as. I'd like that say that's thanks to decades of horror porn movies and splatterpunk writing shifting the needle, but then I think about Last House of the Left and Deliverance and think its not necessarily that. I think, along the lines of a banned book, the very unavailability of Johnson's book for so long until Valancourt re-issued it is what gave it this mystique.
The writing itself, much like its shock value, clocks in at the moderately okay. It seems to be struggling, reaching, for something greater, but never really gets there. Johnson clearly wanted to say *something*, buts its always muddy what exactly that message is. Is it about capitalism? About the politically and socially left and right? If its just a simple commentary on human nature writ broad that doesn't feel successful either. I think this lack of clarity and focus, when he's clearly struggling to communicate something beyond the shocking nature of the story itself, ends up really detracting from the overall believability of the characters as well. Its difficult to accept them as written as believable people, which would be excusable if they were clearly metaphors, but it just doesn't work.
Sadly, Let's Go Play doesn't live up to the hype, and Valancourt likely could have found something much more worthwhile (or enjoyable) to reprint.
It was okay, but not amazing. In terms of the events themselves, its not nearly as shocking as its billed as. I'd like that say that's thanks to decades of horror porn movies and splatterpunk writing shifting the needle, but then I think about Last House of the Left and Deliverance and think its not necessarily that. I think, along the lines of a banned book, the very unavailability of Johnson's book for so long until Valancourt re-issued it is what gave it this mystique.
The writing itself, much like its shock value, clocks in at the moderately okay. It seems to be struggling, reaching, for something greater, but never really gets there. Johnson clearly wanted to say *something*, buts its always muddy what exactly that message is. Is it about capitalism? About the politically and socially left and right? If its just a simple commentary on human nature writ broad that doesn't feel successful either. I think this lack of clarity and focus, when he's clearly struggling to communicate something beyond the shocking nature of the story itself, ends up really detracting from the overall believability of the characters as well. Its difficult to accept them as written as believable people, which would be excusable if they were clearly metaphors, but it just doesn't work.
Sadly, Let's Go Play doesn't live up to the hype, and Valancourt likely could have found something much more worthwhile (or enjoyable) to reprint.
Gremlins by George Gipe
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
I picked up these novelizations because I had heard that the author, writing directly from the screenplays without seeing the movie, just made up and filled a lot of details regarding the mogwai, gremlins, their dialogue and thoughts, and their background. And that it was absolutely bonkers.
While that is all true to a degree, there is certainly not nearly as much of that as I was led to believe, nor hoped was there. It is a pretty interesting take though. There's also a scene with the cops later on poking holes in the three rules that reminded me a lot of a scene from the Masters of Horror entry, 'Deer Woman' many many years later.
Besides the alien origins and off the wall background, the main differences between this and the movie we hopefully all love is one of tone. Its darker and more serious than the film, with Gipes' style feeling a little like the pulp detective noir. The characters are less wholesome and lovable than in the movie, the romantic subplot is a lot more subdued, and there's another subplot involving Mrs. Deagle trying to sell off most of town to a chemical company that ends up being kind of unimportant and unrelated to anything else. I did really like the additional background and lost militaristic dreams of Billy's mother, and the bit of a payoff for the bathroom buddy near the end.
I would likely have given this an even higher rating if there was more gonzo mogwai/gremlin/mogturmen background. Worth a read if you find it cheap, don't go out of your way for a collector's priced copy though.
While that is all true to a degree, there is certainly not nearly as much of that as I was led to believe, nor hoped was there. It is a pretty interesting take though. There's also a scene with the cops later on poking holes in the three rules that reminded me a lot of a scene from the Masters of Horror entry, 'Deer Woman' many many years later.
Besides the alien origins and off the wall background, the main differences between this and the movie we hopefully all love is one of tone. Its darker and more serious than the film, with Gipes' style feeling a little like the pulp detective noir. The characters are less wholesome and lovable than in the movie, the romantic subplot is a lot more subdued, and there's another subplot involving Mrs. Deagle trying to sell off most of town to a chemical company that ends up being kind of unimportant and unrelated to anything else. I did really like the additional background and lost militaristic dreams of Billy's mother, and the bit of a payoff for the bathroom buddy near the end.
I would likely have given this an even higher rating if there was more gonzo mogwai/gremlin/mogturmen background. Worth a read if you find it cheap, don't go out of your way for a collector's priced copy though.
A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Re-read, read it before right when it was published.
Test Patterns: Creature Features by Duane Pesice
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
I believe this is the last of Planet X publications books on my shelf to read, and may in fact be the last one of their physical books put out period that I hadn't read. I'm pleased to say that it can end on a high note.
The presentation, the blurb, even the title of 'Creature Features' might make one believe they're in for a collection of monster tales of various but semi-traditional kinds. There is maybe one werewolf story, a few Frankenstein's Monster/created adjacent stories, but by and large these are truly tales of 'creatures': monsters, aliens, gods that defy ready classification.
It gets off to a bit of a rocky start, the first couple of stories were a little rough. But by the time we hit Cody Goodfellow's weird western, 'The Greedy Grave' the collection fully hits it stride as weird fiction for weird times, with unnameable creatures. Other entries like Farah Rose Smith's 'In The Room of Red Night' play in genre bending spaces more akin to William Hope Hodgson's The Night Lands. Kurt Fawver's 'Extinction in Green' is a fantastic epistolary piece, and Natasha Bennett's 'Underground Rose' is a surprisingly sweet story about finding acceptance in a small town. Orrin Grey, ever the master of monsters, is of course present with a story that could easily by an X-File, 'The Pepys Lake Monster.'
Some of these really stretch beyond the genre and simply frame much more real world and psychological terrors within a 'horror story.' Erica Ruppert's 'Pretty In The Dark' doesn't ever let us know if something truly supernatural has occurred, but we can all sit with the shared horrors of loneliness, of places and memories that have the world has moved on from and abandoned, of lost youth. Robert Guffey's 'The Eye Doctor' can be read as a terrifying and action packed otherworldly adventure, but the fear of a child that thinks its been abandoned by its parents, that they cannot help it, and are in fact fallible human beings is something far more relatable and likely to hit home. James Fallweather also deals with childhood traumas and the scars war leaves on the families of those hurt or left behind in "A Little House In The Suburbs." "Aphantasia" by Robert S. Wilson again has some superlative monster fighting action, but underlying that are some really poignant ideas about love beyond and not including the physical or sexual, and the transcendence of being seen for what we are rather than what others would want us to be. And in James Russell's 'Spirit of the Place' we get some very straightforward commentary on the consequences of colonialism.
John Paul Fitch's 'Signals', S.L. Edwards 'With All Her Troubles Behind Her', John Linwood Grant's '/For Whom There is no Journey', 'Mrs. Doogan' by Lana Cooper, and Aaron J. French's 'Chosen' are all super fun, action heavy, stories ranging across subgenres.
We also have some humor mixed in, with Buzz Dixon's 'The Bride of the Astounding Gigantic Monster' and the very self aware 'Bride of Castle Frankenstein' by Jill Hand as well as the Outer Limits or Twilight zone-esque 'Normal' by John Claude Smith.
The presentation, the blurb, even the title of 'Creature Features' might make one believe they're in for a collection of monster tales of various but semi-traditional kinds. There is maybe one werewolf story, a few Frankenstein's Monster/created adjacent stories, but by and large these are truly tales of 'creatures': monsters, aliens, gods that defy ready classification.
It gets off to a bit of a rocky start, the first couple of stories were a little rough. But by the time we hit Cody Goodfellow's weird western, 'The Greedy Grave' the collection fully hits it stride as weird fiction for weird times, with unnameable creatures. Other entries like Farah Rose Smith's 'In The Room of Red Night' play in genre bending spaces more akin to William Hope Hodgson's The Night Lands. Kurt Fawver's 'Extinction in Green' is a fantastic epistolary piece, and Natasha Bennett's 'Underground Rose' is a surprisingly sweet story about finding acceptance in a small town. Orrin Grey, ever the master of monsters, is of course present with a story that could easily by an X-File, 'The Pepys Lake Monster.'
Some of these really stretch beyond the genre and simply frame much more real world and psychological terrors within a 'horror story.' Erica Ruppert's 'Pretty In The Dark' doesn't ever let us know if something truly supernatural has occurred, but we can all sit with the shared horrors of loneliness, of places and memories that have the world has moved on from and abandoned, of lost youth. Robert Guffey's 'The Eye Doctor' can be read as a terrifying and action packed otherworldly adventure, but the fear of a child that thinks its been abandoned by its parents, that they cannot help it, and are in fact fallible human beings is something far more relatable and likely to hit home. James Fallweather also deals with childhood traumas and the scars war leaves on the families of those hurt or left behind in "A Little House In The Suburbs." "Aphantasia" by Robert S. Wilson again has some superlative monster fighting action, but underlying that are some really poignant ideas about love beyond and not including the physical or sexual, and the transcendence of being seen for what we are rather than what others would want us to be. And in James Russell's 'Spirit of the Place' we get some very straightforward commentary on the consequences of colonialism.
John Paul Fitch's 'Signals', S.L. Edwards 'With All Her Troubles Behind Her', John Linwood Grant's '/For Whom There is no Journey', 'Mrs. Doogan' by Lana Cooper, and Aaron J. French's 'Chosen' are all super fun, action heavy, stories ranging across subgenres.
We also have some humor mixed in, with Buzz Dixon's 'The Bride of the Astounding Gigantic Monster' and the very self aware 'Bride of Castle Frankenstein' by Jill Hand as well as the Outer Limits or Twilight zone-esque 'Normal' by John Claude Smith.
Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
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? Yes
2.5
This was...alright? Not great, not unreadable. Its supposed to be a mystery, our protagonist is a magic using PI like in many other series riding the urban fantasy wave of the aughts, except there's not really any investigation going on? We have a mystery (a murder!), but its mostly action and the main character running around asking people for help rather than doing any actual sleuthing, magical or otherwise. The twist and the murderer are also telegraphed pretty clearly pretty early on.
Maybe its suffering from being the first in a series. I believe the library has the rest of them, and they're fast reads, so I may give another 2-3 of them a shot to see if it improves, but I'm not sold on them at present.
Seeing that the author writes a lot of spider gwen comics also goes a long way to helping me understand where the pacing and type of storytelling might be coming from as well.
Maybe its suffering from being the first in a series. I believe the library has the rest of them, and they're fast reads, so I may give another 2-3 of them a shot to see if it improves, but I'm not sold on them at present.
Seeing that the author writes a lot of spider gwen comics also goes a long way to helping me understand where the pacing and type of storytelling might be coming from as well.
Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
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
3.0
I thought I had read some Silverberg before, I may have been mistaken. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but this was a lot more raunchy (Heinlein and then some) than I was expecting, and there's definitely some racist language to get over.
Think Heinlein-esque (but again, raunchier) 60s free love romp, without all the heavy political commentary. Instead we get a pretty decent time travel as corrupt capitalism story that's not half bad. The future world, culture, and subcultures are believable and I think at least at the time it was written most of the historical bits were at least semi-accurate (obviously some literary license is taken). The twist ending was unexpected and fun. It was, overall, a little heavy in parts on the history lesson, but at least it works within the framework of the time traveler as travel guide structure.
If you like Heinlein and his ilk, you'll like this. If, for various reasons, you find the house of Heinlein distasteful, you'll definitely want to skip this one.
Think Heinlein-esque (but again, raunchier) 60s free love romp, without all the heavy political commentary. Instead we get a pretty decent time travel as corrupt capitalism story that's not half bad. The future world, culture, and subcultures are believable and I think at least at the time it was written most of the historical bits were at least semi-accurate (obviously some literary license is taken). The twist ending was unexpected and fun. It was, overall, a little heavy in parts on the history lesson, but at least it works within the framework of the time traveler as travel guide structure.
If you like Heinlein and his ilk, you'll like this. If, for various reasons, you find the house of Heinlein distasteful, you'll definitely want to skip this one.
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Meddling Kids was definitely not was I was expecting when I cracked it open, and in this case that's not a good thing. Even were I to disregard not living up to expectations, there are also some jarring craft issues that leave me baffled as to its popularity and success (besides what I'm sure is Blumhouse's marketing machine).
First, do not go in expecting an actual scooby doo, or in even scooby gang, style romp. It bills itself as that and as horror/comedy and neither is really fitting. Scooby doo and lovecraftian influences can be mixed to a great deal of success, as Mystery Inc. showed us, and a more grown up, adult version of those characters could have been a lot of fun. Though I do think a lot of current things playing in this space overlook the fact that in original scooby doo the gang was clearly in their late teens through mid 20s rather than stranger things-esque children. That's not what we get here. There's backstory about them as a scooby style troop in their pre-teen years, but by the time we pick up the story one of them is dead and the rest aren't really analogous to scooby gang characters (velma and daphne seem merged into one character and we have a non-anthropomorphic dog, but otherwise the characters seem disconnected from that mythos).
There's a lot of weird anthropomorphizing of one characters hair throughout the book that seems to serve no purpose?
The dog is definitely *not* anthropomorphized, yet we get occasional and seemingly random internal monologue from him, that also doesn't seem to be explained by the pay off at the end.
We have a hallucination, that insists its a ghost, that apparently isn't a ghost, but is also not effected by if or how much of his medication the hallucinating character takes, which feels nonsensical but also serves to make the entire character extraneous to the plot?
Culturally, I feel like there's some questionable treatment of LGBTQIA+ folks. Its great we have an LGBTQ main character, but her internal narrative and behavior towards others seems *very* male gaze-y and insists she's not a lesbian save for one specific character? Which feels like a combination of erasure and just being poorly written by a male author. There's also a lot of distasteful stuff towards where everyone seems to be pressuring that character to be trans because they're a butch/masc maybe lesbian? There's also a character that is repeatedly referred to as a 'hermaphrodite', but I'm not even sure its referring to their sexual organs?
On to the problems with craft...
Seemingly at random, the structure of the writing changes back and forth between a novel and a script. This includes stage and camera direction. Sometimes there is stage and camera direction even when its structured like a novel. There are also, again seemingly at random, offhand meta-textual comments about the structure of the text and how it relates to events which *sometimes* characters also seem aware of? This might mean describing or referencing an event that happened as 'it occurred two lines ago' or 'as we saw in the previous paragraph'. Maybe I'm too dense and there's some pattern to all of this that is absolutely brilliant ala House of Leaves playing with text, but I'm pretty sure there isn't and its just lazy.
The author also has a bad of making up words...not in a creative, Shakespearean, expanding-the-language sort of way but rather by just mashing two pre-existing words together an calling it good. Again, it feels lazy.
I have some piddly quibbles with how the action is written as well, but those are minor.
The positives I would say I had were 1)I think its got some great things to say about traumas and how they effect the rest of our lives, have the potential to change us as people, and the road to recovery. And 2) I think some of the minor, side characters were a lot of fun and a lot better written than our protagonists.
All in all, a disappointment that really misses the mark on what could either have been a very dark and grown up interpretation of scooby doo, or a very fun light hearted romp that either way I could have seen expanded into a series.
First, do not go in expecting an actual scooby doo, or in even scooby gang, style romp. It bills itself as that and as horror/comedy and neither is really fitting. Scooby doo and lovecraftian influences can be mixed to a great deal of success, as Mystery Inc. showed us, and a more grown up, adult version of those characters could have been a lot of fun. Though I do think a lot of current things playing in this space overlook the fact that in original scooby doo the gang was clearly in their late teens through mid 20s rather than stranger things-esque children. That's not what we get here. There's backstory about them as a scooby style troop in their pre-teen years, but by the time we pick up the story one of them is dead and the rest aren't really analogous to scooby gang characters (velma and daphne seem merged into one character and we have a non-anthropomorphic dog, but otherwise the characters seem disconnected from that mythos).
There's a lot of weird anthropomorphizing of one characters hair throughout the book that seems to serve no purpose?
The dog is definitely *not* anthropomorphized, yet we get occasional and seemingly random internal monologue from him, that also doesn't seem to be explained by the pay off at the end.
We have a hallucination, that insists its a ghost, that apparently isn't a ghost, but is also not effected by if or how much of his medication the hallucinating character takes, which feels nonsensical but also serves to make the entire character extraneous to the plot?
Culturally, I feel like there's some questionable treatment of LGBTQIA+ folks. Its great we have an LGBTQ main character, but her internal narrative and behavior towards others seems *very* male gaze-y and insists she's not a lesbian save for one specific character? Which feels like a combination of erasure and just being poorly written by a male author. There's also a lot of distasteful stuff towards where everyone seems to be pressuring that character to be trans because they're a butch/masc maybe lesbian? There's also a character that is repeatedly referred to as a 'hermaphrodite', but I'm not even sure its referring to their sexual organs?
On to the problems with craft...
Seemingly at random, the structure of the writing changes back and forth between a novel and a script. This includes stage and camera direction. Sometimes there is stage and camera direction even when its structured like a novel. There are also, again seemingly at random, offhand meta-textual comments about the structure of the text and how it relates to events which *sometimes* characters also seem aware of? This might mean describing or referencing an event that happened as 'it occurred two lines ago' or 'as we saw in the previous paragraph'. Maybe I'm too dense and there's some pattern to all of this that is absolutely brilliant ala House of Leaves playing with text, but I'm pretty sure there isn't and its just lazy.
The author also has a bad of making up words...not in a creative, Shakespearean, expanding-the-language sort of way but rather by just mashing two pre-existing words together an calling it good. Again, it feels lazy.
I have some piddly quibbles with how the action is written as well, but those are minor.
The positives I would say I had were 1)I think its got some great things to say about traumas and how they effect the rest of our lives, have the potential to change us as people, and the road to recovery. And 2) I think some of the minor, side characters were a lot of fun and a lot better written than our protagonists.
All in all, a disappointment that really misses the mark on what could either have been a very dark and grown up interpretation of scooby doo, or a very fun light hearted romp that either way I could have seen expanded into a series.
The Phantasmagorical Promenade by Duane Pesice
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.25
Another fantastic collection from Planet X Pulps, this one, clearly with the theme of 'ghosts'. You'll see some familiar names with predictably strong showings; notably Mer Whinery's 'The Children of Crow Hollow Skillet' (otherwise only available in a discontinued collection), Sean M. Thompson's 'Avaunt' (which will hopefully remind you as much as I of your dad or friend telling campfire stories), and Philip Fracassi's 'Take' (a murder tale with a fun POV). There are a lot of just really solid, well, traditional (and less traditional) ghost stories. Ghosts as warnings, ghosts as messengers, ghosts trying to get revenge (Russell Smeaton's 'Purpose'
0. Jill Hand's 'Not A Ghost' was a great haunted house story, Matthew A. St. Cyr's 'All Through the House' is a little genre bending/breaking christmas scare, Sarah Walker's 'Be Careful What You Wish For' seems like a western (the culture, not the genre) weird spin on a Ring-like yarn.
Both Rob F. Martin's 'We're All Haunted Houses' and John Claude Smith's 'You Can't Live Here Forever' give us interesting takes on the 'haunted house' theme as well. James Fallweather's 'The Philip Experiment is an action packed, scifi horror, with some interesting world building.
A.P. Sessler's 'A Bitter Pill' has a great unreliable narrator, with some shades of the yellow wallpaper.
Scott J. Couturier's 'Ten Cents a Bottle' has to be mentioned as I too have spent far too much in a Meijers...
E.O. Daniels 'The War Over Walter' felt like a serious palate cleanser and better handle on the whole thing after reading Piers Anthony's 'On A Pale Horse'.
Can Wiggin's 'Haint' feels like a perfect companion piece to the aforementioned Mer Whinery story, and I wish they had been put side by side. It feels made to slot into his world.
Justin A. Burnett's 'Slave House' was a standout, playing with coming of age tropes and intergenerational traumas. In a quite different way, S.E. Casey's 'Gods Rushing Madly' is also looking at what we inherit and pass on, in a particularly touching an heart rending way.
0. Jill Hand's 'Not A Ghost' was a great haunted house story, Matthew A. St. Cyr's 'All Through the House' is a little genre bending/breaking christmas scare, Sarah Walker's 'Be Careful What You Wish For' seems like a western (the culture, not the genre) weird spin on a Ring-like yarn.
Both Rob F. Martin's 'We're All Haunted Houses' and John Claude Smith's 'You Can't Live Here Forever' give us interesting takes on the 'haunted house' theme as well. James Fallweather's 'The Philip Experiment is an action packed, scifi horror, with some interesting world building.
A.P. Sessler's 'A Bitter Pill' has a great unreliable narrator, with some shades of the yellow wallpaper.
Scott J. Couturier's 'Ten Cents a Bottle' has to be mentioned as I too have spent far too much in a Meijers...
E.O. Daniels 'The War Over Walter' felt like a serious palate cleanser and better handle on the whole thing after reading Piers Anthony's 'On A Pale Horse'.
Can Wiggin's 'Haint' feels like a perfect companion piece to the aforementioned Mer Whinery story, and I wish they had been put side by side. It feels made to slot into his world.
Justin A. Burnett's 'Slave House' was a standout, playing with coming of age tropes and intergenerational traumas. In a quite different way, S.E. Casey's 'Gods Rushing Madly' is also looking at what we inherit and pass on, in a particularly touching an heart rending way.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0