Book Review: The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone

Ezekiel Boone's 2016 horror novel The Hatching can be broken down into two works...

Spider and Apocalypse, or one portmanteau

SPIDERPOCALYPSE!

The novel works like a standard disaster movie, a number of characters are introduced in different places, jobs, etc. and through their eyes we view the disaster. The disaster in this novel, however, is a plague of man-eating spiders. My inner twelve-year-old could not allow me to pass this book by, so although I'm not a huge fan of spiders, I thought I would give it a go.

Following a Billionaire, an FBI Agent, The President of the United States Chief of Staff, various scientists, a mystery writer, and some doomsday preppers, the novel moves around the globe as mankind is plagued by a seemingly endless hoard of spiders - man-eating spiders.

The novel is filled with any number of gruesome deaths, a really fun sense of increasing tension, and a few scenes that left me, as a life-long fan of the horror genre, more than a little frightened.

The book is pretty much exactly as advertised, full of spiders, and not the kind you'll forget anytime soon.

Book Review: The Wild Wood

Charles De Lint's 1994 novel The Wild Wood, was part of a series called Brian Froud's Faerielands, wherein four different authors based short stories on four paintings presented by Froud.

The version I read was a recent reprint, and did not include the illustrations that appeared in the first edition (which I'm now eager to hunt down), but the novel still stood quite well on it's own.

The book follows Eithnie, a Canadian artist who has been living alone in the northern Ontario woods for a few years after a personal tragedy. After she begins to see strange creatures in the woods, she visits friends in Arizona, and after finding her inner balance returns to her home and the creatures that surround it.

The novel moves on two levels, a mythical one, wherein Eithnie finds she has become part of a strange prophecy, and a very human one, focusing on the healing process after grief.

I was really impressed by the book, and although it was shorter than I had hoped, it was still a great read and left me wanting more.

Novella Review: Death Leaves and Echo

It’s funny, one of the first Charles de Lint books I ever purchased (my wife had read most of them years before me, but did it by using our public library), was pretty much an accident.

Café Purgatorium is a collection of three horror novellas by Dana Anderson, Ray Garton, and Mr. de Lint, which I originally picked up as I’m a fan of horror short-story collections. It then sat on my “To Be Read” shelf for years while I moved through other titles and it was only when looking through Charles de Lint’s website when I saw the cover and thought “Hey, don’t I already own this?” and tracked it down.

The novella begins with a terrifying concept; what if you woke up one morning and found you were no longer together with your spouse? And worse, what if you although you remembered your entire relationship, it appears as if they never existed at all?

The story had a really creepy “Twilight Zone” meets Phillip K. Dick sort of feel to it, and although I won’t give spoilers, it was definitely worth a look. As I’ve found with his other entries into the horror field, Charles de Lint can deliver the creepy just as effectively as he can the awe and wonder that exists in his fantasy fiction.

Book Review: Mulengro

My Charles de Lint book for June was actually a little bit of a departure from the first three; although I would still consider Mulengro: A Romany Tale a fantasy novel, it was much darker in tone than his previous books, almost moving in thriller territory in some scenes. The book follows a series of murders involving Gypsy (Romany) culture, and moves in and out of a look at the subculture itself and then the more magical aspects as well.

Like his previous book Moonheart, Mulengro has an ensemble of characters rather than one protagonist, and at this point I found all of the characters quite engaging and interesting. Adding to that the darker elements of the story and it could almost be considered dark fantasy (one of my favourite sub-genres of both Horror and Fantasy), so the book definitely worked for me.

Well worth the read, and I finally feel that I’m getting into the rhythm of his writing style, really glad I decided to give his works a try.

Oh Anne - How could they?

As a guy I admit that I didn’t grow up reading a lot of books featuring girls as main characters.  But one of the few I read wasAnne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maude Montgomery.  The book (if you’ve never heard of it) is a classic of Canadian literature, and tells the story of a young red-headed orphan girl named Anne Shirley, who is sent to the farm of Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert to stay – only they had asked for a boy.

Honestly this book is one of the sweetest pieces of literature I’ve ever come across and even though I’m a guy, I hold that story and it’s characters pretty dear to my heart.

So then this happened today.

Yup – an American publishing company decided that what Anne really needed was a makeover, lets make her blonde, about ten years older and posed like a pinup – also lets forget the story is set in the early 1900s in Prince Edward Island, Canada so she can wear some less appropriate clothing as well.

Honestly, I don’t really have much to say – I guess I kind of feel bad for the model in this new cover, as many of the twitter and posting comments about the new cover image get pretty personal, pretty fast.

Check out the story here.