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Book Review: Classic Monsters Unleashed edited by James Aquilone

Classic Monsters Unleashed edited by James Aquilone

Black Spot Books, 2022

ISBN-13: 9781645481218

Available: Kindle, Audible, paperback, hardback ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Classic Monsters Unleashed includes one poem that opens the anthology, followed by twenty-nine stories featuring, well, classic monsters. Dracula, the Invisible Man, Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Wolf-man are included in this homage to classic monsters. The list does not end there. Nosferatu, Captain Kronos, the Headless Horseman, the Blob and more, all find space in this anthology. I have narrowed my favourites down to my top ten, but that was difficult. Each story deserves its own time in the spotlight, really.



In Jonathan Mayberry’s “Hollenlegion,” Nazis search for the allegedly abandoned island of Dr. Moreau. Simon Bestwick’s “Mummy Calls” is one of the best, and most humorous, stories in the collection. Written as a submission letter to the anthology editor, Simon explains the story of the “Manchester Mummy” and how real she actually is. Lucy A. Snyder gives us a unique story of the Phantom of the Opera meeting Jack the Ripper in “The Viscount and the Phantom.” I do not want to give anything away, so I will just leave it at that. In “Modern Monsters” by Monique Snyman, a whistleblower contacts the crew of paranormal reality show Modern Monsters to document a science experiment gone wrong. There is some body horror in this one, but not so much that it gets too gruesome. “Hacking the Horseman’s Code” by Lisa Morton is a modern day take on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Gil contracts a Headless Horseman AI for Halloween festivities, much to his wife’s chagrin. To mess with a political rival, he alters the AI’s programming, which backfires spectacularly. Maurice Broaddus gives us a unique vision with his “The Invisible Man: The Fire This Time.” Broaddus weaves his story through a societal racial critique that is well done and very powerful. Mercedes M. Yardley’s “The Picture of Doriana Gray” is an excellent gender-swapped take on The Picture of Dorian Gray. Crystal Sapphire, a popular social media influencer, makes a new friend who in turn influences her. In “Da Noise, Da Funk, Da Blob” by Linda D. Addison, we are presented with the Blob in a new light and Its purpose for landing on Earth. Leverett Butts and Dacre Stoker’s “Enter, the Dragon,” told through text chats, emails, YouTube transcriptions, and CCTV coverage in the shadow of COVID, tells the story of a man kidnapped by an underground group to resurrect Vlad Tepes. It’s Dracula with a dash of the X-Files. Rounding out the anthology is Joe R. Lansdale with “God of the Razor,” focusing on an antique dealer who unexpectedly meets with Jack the Ripper. 

 

Other authors who contributed great additions to this anthology include Gary A. Braunbeck, Ramsey Campbell, JG Faherty, Geneve Flynn, Owl Goingback, Michael Knost, Alessandro Manzetti, Rena Mason, Richard Christian Matheson, Seanan McGuire, John Palisano, Lindy Ryan, Carlie St. George, David Surface, Gaby Triana, Tim Waggoner, Paul Wilson, Kelsea Yu, Sean Eads, and Joshua Viola.

 

I would be remiss if I did not mention the incredible artwork. Artists include Zac Atkinson, Frank Frazetta, Jeremiah Lambert, Sam Shearan, and Colton Worley. 

 

Pick this up if you want an anthology that pays homage to both the traditional classic monsters, as well as ones that do not get much attention.  Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

 

 

 

Posted on February 4, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Daphne by Josh Malerman

Daphne by Josh Malerman

Del Rey, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593157015

Available:  Hardcover ( Bookshop.org )

 

Will Daphne continue the massive success for horror’s superstar author/musician/nice guy? 

 

Without spoilers, that would be a resounding “yes.”

 

Josh Malerman hasn’t written the same novel twice. That’s an amazing thing– he keeps on spinning his muse into fascinating circles, from the blockbuster Bird Box, to the utter weirdness of Unbury Carol, to the stunning Inspection. I won’t even attempt to describe Pearl. The bottom line is that he doesn’t seem capable of churning out a bad story.

 

Enter Daphne. At first, the story might seem to be your basic slasher novel. Yet in Malerman’s hands, nothing is rote, cliche, or a retread. There’s always something twisted that elicits something beautiful from what could easily be a miss in lesser hands.

 

Kit Lamb is in her senior year and a star on the basketball team. She’s fresh off the win in her latest game and contemplating her future. She has a quirk that adds something both unique and relatable to the teenage mindset. She shoots the free throw and asks the question she’s thinking.

 

She asks the rim about Daphne, a legendary killer that might be a figure from the supernatural or simply a regretful death caused by the previous generation, in a similar vein as Freddy Krueger. Of course, she makes the basket, and the story takes off from there.

 

Stories of the brutal killer begin to circulate and confuse the town. Who or what is Daphne? What does she want? Why does she only appear when thought about? As Kit struggles with her own destiny, one by one the basketball team begins to fall. Malerman allows us to contemplate the reasoning while ratcheting up the tension. The novel separates itself from the typical slasher by developing the characters of Kit and her friends.

 

Kit suffers from anxiety. Not the typical teen stress– true generalized anxiety disorder, which so many of us know well (raises hand high). It’s handled well here: Malerman obviously knows more than a little about the condition himself. 

 

Daphne is another must-read novel by Josh Malerman, written with the relatable prose of that King guy, but with a voice all Malerman’s own. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 

Posted on February 3, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: The Fervor by Alma Katsu

Cover art for The Fervor by Alma Katsu

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593328330

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

( Amazon.com | Bookshop.org )

 

 

The Fervor takes place during World War 2 and alternates between five points of view. Meiko Briggs is a Japanese immigrant married to a white man, Jamie Briggs, a pilot in the army. She and their daughter Meiko are living in the Japanese internment camp Camp Minidoka, where residents are becoming infected with an illness that makes them violent and murderous. Archie Mitchell is a pastor who saw his pregnant wife and several children killed in an explosion thought to have been a Japanese bomb, who was friends with Jamie and has now gotten entangled with local white nationalists. Fran Gurstwold is a Jewish woman reporter who witnessed a similar explosion and decides to investigate locations where she suspects other explosions have happened. These alternate with journal entries from 1927 by Mieko’s father, Japanese scientist Wasaburo Oishi, who discovered poisonous spiders related to the yokai jorogumo, that cause the illness now spreading through the camps and nearby towns. The story follows Mieko, Aiko, Archie, and Fran as their stories intersect and begin to make sense in the context of Oisho’s writings, while dealing with a coverup by the government.

 

Katsu notes that this book differs from her previous ones because rather than portraying a specific historical event she was using a wider lens to explore the bigotry and violence against Asian-Americans in the past as a way to deal with it in the present, so while period details are correct , events and places may have been moved around for plot purposes.

 

This was a fascinating book, and better than The Deep. I am a fan of yokai whenever I see them, and I enjoyed the way Katsu incorporated this into the book. The portrayal of Archie as a person who is drawn into a white nationalist group due to weak character rather than malice, was accurate and well-written. Unfortunately, there continue to be too many people like him today.

 

Contains: racial slurs and violence

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on January 26, 2023 by , Reply
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