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Graphic Novel Review: Road of Bones by Rich Douek, art by Alex Cormack

cover art for Road of Bones by Rich Douek

Road of Bones by Rich Douek, art by Alex Cormack

IDW, 2020

ISBN-13: 9781684055982

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, comiXology  ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

It’s 1953. Roman Ivanovich Morozov is a prisoner in the Siberian gulag of Kolyma for slandering Stalin, given 25 years of hard labor as punishment. He and his fellow prisoners are forced to work in harsh conditions. If the frozen environment doesn’t kill them, the guards certainly will. One evening, Roman is caught leaving food out for a domovik, a creature from fairy tales that protects a household.

This is survival horror at its finest. The story continually keeps the reader on their toes, wondering if the creature stalking the escaped prisoners is real or if it lives solely in Roman’s head. The isolation and paranoia the men experience both in and out of the gulag is intense. The artwork is excellent, but at times it is confusing to decipher who is communicating. I had to continually go back and reread a few sections to make sure I was keeping characters straight. It was somewhat easier to track at the beginning. The escaped prisoners have similarities in appearance. There are very subtle differences, including the color of different pieces of their clothing and even eye color. The landscapes and color choices are amazing. Even the panels when the men are sitting around the campfire are effective. The shadows are deep and definitely add to the oppressive atmosphere. Cormack is clearly a talented artist. Highly recommended.

This volume collects issues #1-4.

 

Contains: blood, cannibalism, gore

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Editor’s Note: Road of Bones is a nominee on the final ballot of this year’s Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel. 

Posted on May 3, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: The Deep by Alma Katsu

cover art for The Deep by Alma Katsu

The Deep by Alma Katsu

G.P. Putnam, 2020

ISBN-13: 978-0525537908

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Those who enjoy historical horror devoured Alma Katsu’s The Hunger, which should have taken home the major awards last year, will take the plunge into The Deep, a cross-genre tale that is beautifully disturbing and might even top her previous novel. Perfect timing, as it’s up for top honors at the Stokers this year.

Whereas her last novel mined the ill-fated travels of the pioneers who traversed the Donner Pass, this one dives into the mystique of the Titanic, with a twist. The ship had a sister – the Britannic. This ship was retrofitted to be a hospital to be used during the war.

The story is told by Annie Hebley, a young woman who takes a job as a maid on the Titanic, alternating chapters between the time prior to the sinking and after the disaster. Annie meets the enigmatic Mark Fletcher, a father of a infant and husband to an even stranger character, Caroline, and finds her fate forever intertwined with theirs. As the chapters alternate between her time on both ships. Annie left her  home to see a strange one on the high seas, but is quickly drawn to Mark, who holds a dark secret.

When Annie takes a job on the Britannic after recovering from the sinking of the sister ship, her life turns from serving as a maid to serving as a nurse, where she learns the horrors of war firsthand. Her mind has yet to heal, though, a fact that rears its ugly head when she encounters a man in one of the beds of the wounded. She is convinced it is Mark. Yet, why won’t he admit it to her? Her sanity begins to further unravel as readers are treated to the unreliable narrator motif… or are they?

In the part of the story told prior to the sinking of the Titanic, horror soon creeps in as other passengers, the rich Madeline Astor and her husband, are convinced something sinister has boarded the ship with them – or was built into the hull of the Titanic. After a tragic death, the passengers sense this presence growing, something that Annie seeks to explain while attempting to help Mark and his daughter, who may be facing a much more heinous foe. By the time the ship hits the iceberg, Annie realizes the scope of the disaster matches her own cracking psyche.

The Britannic is supposedly built to be safer and sturdier than the predecessor. Lightning can’t strike twice, can it? Annie’s relentless quest to convince Mark of what truly happened spirals into the dark currents of the Atlantic as it seems the forces that plagued the first ship may have followed her there as well.

What sets this novel apart from other disaster stories is the research Katsu has imbued between the pages. She nails every detail of the period, the ship itself, and the events that occurred on both ships, in a manner that could be exhausting in lesser hands. Instead, The Deep envelops the reader in its setting and drags them down until the final page. Her characters breathe and bleed through the chapters in both stories here, with minor players carving out roles which further both the mystery and the horror.

Highly recommended as both a horror novel and a suspense tale that should widen Alma Katsu’s audience even further.

 

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Editor’s Note: The Deep is a nominee on the final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Novel. 

 

Posted on March 21, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

cover art for The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

(  Bookshop.org )

The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

Sourcebooks, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1728206028

Available: Hardcover, paperback

 

Stuart Turton probably wouldn’t describe his books as horror, but they are compelling, original, and dread-inducing. In a departure from the surreal Agatha Christie-like The 7 1/2 Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle, in The Devil and the Dark Sea, this story takes place in 1634, on a ship leaving from Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia), the center of the Dutch East Indian Trading Company, for Amsterdam, home of the company’s headquarters, a journey of about eight months during which many ships were lost as sea. Readers expecting accurate historical fiction will not find it here: in a note, Turton essentially says he did the research, but threw it out the window if he found it wouldn’t work with his story. By changing as much as he did, he’s basically written an alternate history, which would be fine except that he never identifies it as such, which is unfair to readers unfamiliar with the setting, who will think it’s solidly grounded in the historical period (I guess once someone calls your work genre-bending it’s hard to commit).

 

Passengers on the Saardam include Jan Haan, the ambitious governor general of Batavia; his wife, Sara Wessell; and their inventive daughter, Lia; his mistress, Creesjie Jens, and her sons; his chamberlain, Cornelius Vos; and guard captain Jacobi Drecht.  Also traveling on the ship is Sammy Pipps, a Sherlock-type detective and alchemist of unknown origin who has been accused of spying, and his bodyguard/case recorder, former Lieutenant Arent Hayes. Before the ship leaves, a leper warns the passengers not to leave, warning that the devil “Old Tom” will be their downfall, but the governor general is insistent on leaving for Amsterdam immediately. Complicating things by bringing religion into the mix on a ship where passengers and crew are already uneasy and superstitious, a predikant, or preacher, and his acolyte Isabel, stow away on the ship as well.

 

Just as the ship sets off, the sail is unfurled to show a symbol that Creesje, the predikant, Arent, and one of the sailors individually recognize and associate with Old Tom. Is the devil really on the ship with the passengers and sailors, are they imagining things, or is someone playing with the characters’ fears in hopes of personal gain? The predikant, a former witch hunter, claims they’ll know for sure once three unholy miracles have occurred. As the ship gets further out onto the open ocean, the unholy miracles are identified, and the weather worsens, the onboard situation gets more violent and treacherous, and it becomes clear that, real or not, Old Tom has followers among the crew. As the histories of the characters and plot twists are unraveled, and the deaths stack up, the situation becomes even more unnerving. Is the ship haunted by Old Tom, or is something else going on?

 

Turton does a fantastic job of creating a sense of mystery and dread. There is no escape from the ship out on the ocean, just people, most of whom don’t like or trust each other, adrift after a storm. Turton admits he took liberties with history for the purpose of the story, so I don’t know if sailors truly lived continually in such brutal, violent environments, but he paints a vivid picture of the dynamics. Characters who could have been one-dimensional were fully developed: Arent turns out to be the governor general’s nephew, and while Haan might have been terrible to his wife and underlings,  he clearly cherishes his relationship with Arent. Haan’s wife Sara could have been set up in opposition to his mistress, but they turn out to be close friends. Sammy and Arent, for all their similarities to Holmes and Watson, are completely different in body type, personality, background, and overarching motivation. I found the very ending unneccessarily brutal, unrealistic and extremely disappointing, and felt it marred the story in a big way,  but I felt the atmosphere, character development, and descriptive language still made this worth reading.

 

The Devil in the Dark Water reveals some very dark aspects of overseas trade and the participants in it during the 1600s. No one comes away untainted. Despite the faulty ending, it’s a tale I won’t soon forget, and I would certainly give Turton another chance.

Contains: violence, gore, murder, implied rape, brutal killing of animals, body horror, mass murder

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

Posted on February 24, 2021 by , Reply
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