strange and random happenstance

The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison
Published by: Gollancz
Publication Date: June 25th, 2020
Format: Kindle, 219 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Shaw and Victoria are an unexpected pairing. Coming together on a drunken night with Victoria ranting about people born looking like fish they quickly part. Are they actually star-crossed lovers or just narcissists oblivious to what is right in front of them? A kindred spirit. Another person who views the world as they do. Only time will tell. While their lives diverge they keep in sporadic contact, though mostly on Victoria's side with long rambling emails that go unread for the most part. Because the oddities of their lives need to be spoken to someone who will understand. Yet they seek no deeper meaning in the bizarre turn their lives have taken, they just need someone to hear their story. They need to hear the sound of their own voices. Shaw is trying to piece together his life. Living in a bedsit the only job he can hold down is as a courier for his neighbor Tim, who is awash in conspiracy theories which he promotes on his blog, The Water House, and runs his business out of a boat. Shaw travels around the country delivering boxes to stores that while all diverse have a samness to them. He's also trying to flog Tim's book which is just as disorganized as The Water House. He doesn't question his job, he just gets on with it, repulsed by the world around him while trying to reintegrate into it. In his spare time he visits his mother who is suffering from dementia, but those visits are too stressful to contemplate. Meanwhile Victoria has taken up residence in the Midlands in her mother's house which she has recently inherited. The townsfolk are odd and seem inordinately obsessed with Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies. The house feels alien to her. The land is menacing, ghostly voices trail through the air, and the water table is rising. Rumors of people with green skin are becoming more and more common. Entropy has taken hold, but are either Show or Victoria able to comprehend what this means? Or will their ignorance lead them into oblivion?

I have no idea what I just read. Google tells me that The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again is about the psychogeography of post Brexit Britain. And that doesn't help at all. Because I have no idea what that means either. But thanks again to Google I now know that psychogeography is about how a location can affect someone's emotion and behavior. And, yeah, that does make a bit of sense, because we follow Shaw and Victoria and how their environments change them. How their paranoia takes hold and the weird Lynchian situations they find themselves in and the people they encounter are very much people who Trump would love to have on his jury, so hardcore Brexiters. But here's the thing, I'm not sure even David Lynch could make sense of this rambling incoherent mess other than apparently everyone should be reading The Water Babies. Which oddly enough I have a copy of in my set of Children's Classics that my brother and I got one Christmas despite the fact that I'm pretty sure Charles Kingsley didn't want his book categorized as reading for children. But you don't get to choose once you're dead and gone. He should be content with the classic categorization. One this book will never get in a million years. Because the thing about this book is that there's not really anything here. It's situations and feelings and at the end you're left wondering where your time went. It should be a quick read but it's not. All I have are these vague feelings of unease. Which maybe ties into the psychogeography of it all? Can psychogeography relate to places you only encounter in books? Because if so, yeah, I experienced that. The overriding vibe I had though was that M. John Harrison really wanted to write something political while at the same time Lovecraftian and, well, maybe this is success? Because I felt unease about the politics and the environment, and well, I kept thinking of the people who reside in Innsmouth, the Deep Ones. The Deep Ones are part of the Cthulhu Mythos and have to be related to the "people" in this tale. But this is all just projection. Because seriously, I do not know what I just read. This was a screed, a rant, an unfinished thought. This was oddly a call to arms, but a call to arms that has come too late. We're just here watching the spread of deep-seated dread. So, if you want to be confused, paranoid, and develop some unshakable panic, then this is the book for you!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brexit, Charles Kingsley, Cthulhu, Entropy, For the Love of Book Clubs, H.P. Lovecraft, Innsmouth, M. John Harrison, Psychogeography, The Deep Ones, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, The Water Babies, Water

Stranger Things Holiday Specials by Michael Moreci, Chris Roberson, Keith Champagne, and Todor Hristov
Published by: Dark Horse Books
Publication Date: December 20th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 112 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Get all three Stranger Things holiday specials in one package!

In the Halloween Special, Will, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin gather in Castle Byers to eat candy and scare each other with a spooky story, revealing the quaint town’s darkest secret: the Child-Eater of Hawkins.

In the Winter Special, Eleven and the kids of Hawkins are getting into the full spirit of the season. As they recall their favorite stories from their childhoods to teach Eleven about Christmas, tensions run high as Dustin swears he saw something spooky lurking in the forest outside.

In the Summer Special, Officers Powell and Callahan patrol the "mean" streets of Hawkins, Indiana with the enthusiasm of two hefty dachshunds pretending to be bloodhounds. Typically they don’t have to chase down more than the occasional petty theft and teenagers smoking refer but lately, the town has been getting weirder, and while they might not get to the bottom of it they just might be lucky enough to survive.

Featuring writing by Michael Moreci, Chris Roberson, and Keith Champagne, and art by Todor Hristov, ABEL, and Caio Filipe. Colors by Chris O'Halloran, DJ Chavis and Dan Jackson, with lettering by Nate Piekos."

Because obviously I had to feature something Christmassy this week.

Lair of the Crystal Fang by S.A. Sidor
Published by: Aconyte
Publication Date: December 20th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"When a mysterious killer haunts Arkham, three struggling investigators must confront the eldritch horrors of their past in this action-packed pulp adventure from the world of Arkham Horror.

In the swirling sewers beneath Arkham, excavators uncover a crystalline formation that hints at dark events from the city's past. As the discovery makes headlines, so too does a series of bizarre murders. With no leads, the Arkham police are always one step behind. Acting on a hunch, down-on-his luck former journalist Andy Van Nortwick reunites with adventurer Jake Williams and struggling filmmaker Maude Brion to unearth the truth. The trio know of the supernatural horrors that lurk beyond this world, and the reality haunts them. But time is running out and between them they must face their nightmares before the city of Arkham is lost to blood and chaos."

Seriously, Lovecraft and pulp go together so well, but don't take my word for it.

Sleeper Omnibus by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Published by: DC Comics
Publication Date: December 20th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 736 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Sleeper is the critically acclaimed graphic novel series written by Eisner Award-winner Ed Brubaker (Criminal, Deadenders, Captain America) and stylishly rendered by legendary artist Sean Phillips (Marvel Zombies, Criminal, Incognito).

Agent Holden Carver is forced to live one day at a time in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse he plays with the leader of the secret criminal organization he has infiltrated while trying to elude detection."

I'm just saying, if there's a chance you forgot to buy me a Christmas present, well, look what came out this week...

Death of a Minor Character by E.X. Ferrars
Published by: Felony and Mayhem
Publication Date: December 20th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 206 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Virginia Freer has had it with her sort-of-ex-husband's taste for drama. Yes, Marcus Avery was a dear old duffer who lived in Virginia's town. Yes, Lillian Pace, Felix Freer's neighbor in London, was a sweet old bird. Yes, it's terrible they were murdered, but we live in a naughty world. But look at the coincidences! - Felix insists. That unpleasant silversmith. That awful couple seeking revenge. These were not two separate murders, I tell you: There is Something going on.

Virginia raises an eyebrow and sighs deeply: The world lost a second Olivier, she thinks, when Felix opted for gambling, mooching, and petty theft rather than the stage. But eventually even her relentless pragmatism gets worn down, and thank goodness, because there is, indeed, Something going on. And Felix and Virginia are just the duo to sort it out, chalk and cheese though they may be."

Why have I never heard of this series until now? It's like a snarkier Nick and Nora!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Arkham Horror, Chris Roberson, E.X. Ferrars, Ed Brubaker, H.P. Lovecraft, Nick and Nora Charles, S.A. Sidor, Sean Phillips, Sleeper, Stranger Things, Stranger Things Holiday Specials, Virginia Freer

Kill Creek by Scott Thomas
Published by: Inkshares
Publication Date: January 21st, 2020
Format: Kindle, 432 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Sam McGarver's career could use a little help. He has gotten nowhere on his new novel, spending hours watching the cursor blink on his computer screen. Sam tells himself, and his agent, that he's concentrating on his teaching and healing from his separation, but really it's because he's rattled by the past and the present making it so that he just can't move forward. In desperation he agrees to a PR stunt for the streaming service WriteWire. The founder, Wainwright, is a billionaire's son who is desperate to make his own mark on the world. He's famous for "events" that he elaborately stages and streams to his millions of viewers worldwide. Yet he longs to be taken seriously and to that end his newest endeavor is a little more pared down yet artistically thematic. He has invited four of the most distinguished horror authors to partake in a roundtable interview on Halloween in the notorious haunted house on kill creek, last owned by the Finch sisters, and immortalized in the book Phantoms of the Prairie: A True Story of Supernatural Terror. Like Sam, the three other authors have their reasons for being there, Sebastian Cole is a legend past his prime and facing irrelevance, Daniel Slaughter is losing ground with his Christian fanbase who used to devour his teen tales of terror that always ended with a morality lesson, and T.C. Moore has been cut as screenwriter from her own book's adaptation, a book ironically called Cutter. They all expect Wainwright to pull some kind of stunt. Yet despite the cutting questions it's all above board and they leave the next morning. What happens next will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

H.P. Lovecraft, R.L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Stephen King get together at a haunted house for a PR stunt. A clever conceit that if hewed to, instead of ending up a gore filled version of Burnt Offerings, would have set a new meta benchmark in haunted house horror. But the promise of the first few chapters, of Sam's lectures being the literary equivalent of Scream, are all but forgotten as you force yourself to just get the book over and done with. All the witty banter and badinage between the four authors is so delightful that every time the book strays from the quartet Thomas's editors should have told him to cut it because anything beyond that grouping is extraneous. I started to think that being run over by a bus wouldn't be that bad a fate because then my part in this story would be over. My main problem was that while the house is the epicenter of the evil Thomas lets the evil wander a little too far afield. The house almost becomes an afterthought while it should be the focal point, the fulcrum on which the whole book hinges. When they literally just left the house halfway through the book I was yelling at them that this isn't how it's supposed to happen. Yet while this is my main problem it is far from my only problem. You can tell this is the first book Thomas has written because it feels at times so amateurish and heavy-handed. Sam's dark secret? The mystery of the third floor bedroom? I knew what was going on the second they were mentioned. And as for the number of horror films and books he just straight up rips off? If he had kept the light, meta approach, this could have been humorous, instead it felt lazy. And as for a professional photographer using an HP PhotoSmart Printer, I'm not even going to go there.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Burnt Offerings, Going Gothic, Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, Haunted House, Kansas, Laurell K Hamilton, Meta, PR Stunt, R.L. Stine, Scream, Stephen King, Supernatural

Rules For Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall
Published by: Viking Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: September 24th, 2019
Format: Kindle, 416 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

In the town of Briar Glenn the kids play a game. The game is innocent enough. You hold someone's hand, close your eyes, and take thirteen steps. Then a road will appear in the woods and you'll see the ghost of Lucy Gallows. Everyone thought it was just an urban legend. Everyone except Sara's sister Becca. A year ago Becca snuck out to play the game and disappeared. Since then Sara has become withdrawn and preoccupied with the origins of Lucy Gallows. She has pushed away all their mutual friends and obsesses about finding Becca. A few days before the anniversary of Becca's disappearance everyone gets an anonymous text to find a partner, find a key, find the road. In other words, to play the game. The REAL game. This could be what reunites the group. A chance to find Becca. Anthony has been Sara's best friend longer than she can remember and he's secretly in love with Becca, so he agrees to help Sara pull this off despite them barely talking for a year. Then there's Trina and her younger brother. Nick and his girlfriend. Anthony's douchebag best friend. And Sara's crush, Mel. Though Mel has apparently brought not just one but two dates along with her! After one of Mel's dates takes offense to the menage, the group is ready to take the first step. The only problem is, they're an uneven number. The game states you HAVE to have a partner. At this point Sara doesn't care, she's willing to bend or break this rule to find Becca and get on that road and once that road appears, things get real. As real as the stones beneath their feet. From Becca's notes they have to pass through seven gates to get to the end of the road and they are returned home, hopefully finding Becca along the way. The first gate though takes a toll. They lose two people. Because they broke the rules. Which means they can not break any more. But that gets harder and harder as the tasks required of each gate get more complex and dangerous. The road might be asking too much, but if they save Becca and Lucy too, is the price worth it? Only those who love Becca most could say that for sure...

Rules For Vanishing is a YA version of Annihilation. There's even a scene in a lighthouse for Pete's sake. That is the crux of my problem with this book, it's too much other things and never it's own thing. The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking, this reminds me of something but I just can't place it. Probably because the author draws from so many sources you'll see what you connect to most. Here's a bit of Dungeons and Dragons, here's a bit of The Goonies, here's a bit of The Neverending Story, here's a bit of Labyrinth, here's a bit of some other eighties movie that didn't let you sleep for months. On a side note, what was it about "children's" movies in the eighties that they seemed to be purposefully designed to traumatize us? If the story had leaned into the urban legend part of the setup and veered away from the very Lovecraftian named city of Ys as the road's destination, maybe this would have worked for me. And yes, I know it's actually a legend from Brittany, hence all those French books in the aforementioned lighthouse, but Dahut was doing it with Cthulhu wasn't she? Also, the faux-documentary style likened to The Blair Witch Project in the book's blurb... well, I've seen it done better. I like that they try to incorporate many forms of media from recordings to written transcripts to cellphone footage, it's just, as I said, I've seen it done better. There's something a little clunky about how it's handled here. It's like Kate Alice Marshall is trying too hard to keep certain things hidden and not show her hand that the writing suffers. The story should be first, the gimmicks should be second. But what I did like was the representation in this book. In the gang of teenagers that go into the woods we have at least two LGBTQ characters, two different minorities, and two different disabilities. I felt like that this not only gave anyone reading the book someone to identify with, but it also felt more real. My friends are diverse and it's rare that we get to see this in literature. So while there where things I didn't like, tropes that were overdone, at the same time I want to point at the book and tell others that THIS is what needs to be seen more often! THIS is true representation!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Annihilation, Brittany, Cthulhu, Eighties Movies, Going Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, Kate Alice Marshall, LGBTQ, Lucy Gallows, Representation, Rules For Vanishing, The Blair Witch Project, The Road, Tropes, Urban Legend

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
Published by: A Public Domain Book
Publication Date: 1901
Format: Kindle, 109 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

There once was a house. It is now nothing more than ruins. There once were strange occurrences there. They are long forgotten. Only a journal tells of what happened there at the house near the abyss and that journal has been found by two travelers. They went looking for some good fishing in the west of Ireland and instead found a tale which will ensure they will never return to this benighted land. The author of the journal lived in the house with his sister who acted as his housekeeper and his dog Pepper. The house was long thought cursed by the locals, and after his experiences, perhaps they were right. One night he had an out-of-body experience and traveled through space to another planet that had a vast plain. There a valley housed a jade replica of his own home. The valley looked more like an arena because the mountains rise up in such away around the house that it feels as if they are watching it, along with the idols that dot the mountains. Before he returns home he sees a humanoid pig creature trying to force its way into the jade version of his house. The creature clearly sees him before he departs. Months later the humanoid horrors attack his home. This time it's not on some distant planet but right outside his door. He doesn't know how, but he fights them off. They appeared to have come out of an ever growing pit near his home and after the attack he plans to investigate. He and Pepper laboriously work their way further and further into the pit only to see that at the bottom there is no bottom, just an abyss. They have to fight their way out of the pit against rushing water and their own frailties. Pepper is injured in the exodus. The pit becomes a lake but the sound of rushing water is constant, which leads to the realization that a mysterious door in the cellar of the house leads directly into the abyss. The house is perched above nothing. Time expands and contracts. He sees his lost love, he sees Pepper age and die before his eyes, he sees the creatures return, he sees the door open...

At the very heart of this book there is a great Gothic horror story to be had, but you have to wade through a lot of slop to get to it. It's not that the slop isn't interesting from a historical point of view, you can obviously see how this work influenced authors from H.P. Lovecraft to Terry Pratchett. Pratchett even said that The House on the Borderland was "the Big Bang in my private universe as a science fiction and fantasy reader and, later, writer." Not knowing that Pratchett felt this way prior to reading it when the protagonist ends up on a foreign planet surrounded by idols I was instantly reminded of Pratchett's writing to a distracting degree. I'm just happy it turns out I wasn't hallucinating this, which is probably what most of this novel is. But going back to what worked in this novel, one night the house is attacked by the humanoid pigs previously seen in the vision of the other planet. They have somehow emerged from the pit near the house and decided to attack it. They are vicious and intelligent, but after a battle raging a full twenty-four hours the protagonist is victorious if still perplexed. Where did these creatures come from? Where are the bodies of those he successfully killed? He doesn't go out into the garden for days after the battle for fear of attack, but could the survivors really have taken away their fallen comrades? And did any of this even happen. That's what I find most interesting about this story is that here we have an entirely unreliable narrator, yet for these few pages as the battle rages, he seems lucid enough to be telling the truth. Yet his omissions make you question your own opinion on his sanity. The biggest problem is where is his sister? She seems to come and go throughout as an afterthought, but during a battle one would think that she would make an appearance. So then you start going further down the unreliable narrator rabbit hole and wondering if she even exists. What's more, are the humanoid swine really trying to break into the house on Earth or, because we saw the house on that far distant planet where the swine are supposedly from, is the attack happening to that house and somehow there is a rift in time and space? Whatever is really going on here, this small slice of the pie makes the rest of the hallucinatory rants almost worth it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Book Club, Going Gothic, Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, Horror, Humanoid, Interstellar, Journal, Ruins, Science Fiction, Secret Door, Swine, Terry Pratchett, The House on the Borderland, The Last Word, William Hope Hodgson

The Best Thing You Can Steal by Simon R. Green 
Published by: Severn House Publishers
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 192 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Welcome to London, but not as you know it. A place where magics and horror run free, wonders and miracles are everyday things, and the dark streets are full of very shadowy people...

Gideon Sable is a thief and a con man. He specializes in stealing the kind of things that can't normally be stolen. Like a ghost's clothes, or a photo from a country that never existed. He even stole his current identity. Who was he originally? Now, that would be telling. One thing's for sure though, he's not the bad guy. The people he steals from always have it coming.

Gideon's planning a heist, to steal the only thing that matters from the worst man in the world. To get past his security, he's going to need a crew who can do the impossible...but luckily, he has the right people in mind. The Damned, the Ghost, the Wild Card...and his ex-girlfriend, Annie Anybody. A woman who can be anyone, with the power to make technology fall in love with her.

If things go well, they'll all get what they want. And if they're lucky, they might not even die trying..."

A delicious black black market world!

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this remarkable debut based on actual events, as a team of male scholars compiles the first Oxford English Dictionary, one of their daughters decides to collect the “objectionable” words they omit.

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip, and when she learns that the word means “slave girl,” she begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.

As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.

Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world."

Because of course men would omit women's words and voices!

Broken (in the best possible way) by Jenny Lawson
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Furiously Happy and Let’s Pretend This Never Happened comes a deeply relatable book filled with humor and honesty about depression and anxiety.

As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken, Jenny brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way.

With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, Jenny humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to Shark Tank to the reason why Jenny can never go back to the post office, Broken leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way. And of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor - the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball - is present throughout.

A treat for Jenny Lawson’s already existing fans, and destined to convert new ones, Broken is a beacon of hope and a wellspring of laughter when we all need it most.

Includes Photographs and Illustrations."

I really had to think of which books Jenny would like to be between on this post. Yes, this was very important to me!

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
Published by: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A dark, twisty modern fairytale where three sisters discover they are not exactly all that they seem and evil things really do go bump in the night.

Iris Hollow and her two older sisters are unquestionably strange. Ever since they disappeared on a suburban street in Scotland as children only to return a month a later with no memory of what happened to them, odd, eerie occurrences seem to follow in their wake. And they're changing. First, their dark hair turned white. Then, their blue eyes slowly turned black. They have insatiable appetites yet never gain weight. People find them disturbingly intoxicating, unbearably beautiful, and inexplicably dangerous.

But now, ten years later, seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow is doing all she can to fit in and graduate high school on time - something her two famously glamourous globe-trotting older sisters, Grey and Vivi, never managed to do. But when Grey goes missing without a trace, leaving behind bizarre clues as to what might have happened, Iris and Vivi are left to trace her last few days. They aren't the only ones looking for her though. As they brush against the supernatural they realize that the story they've been told about their past is unraveling and the world that returned them seemingly unharmed ten years ago, might just be calling them home."

Sold at the suburban disappearance!

Litany of Dreams by Ari Marmell
Published by: Aconyte
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Dark incantations expose the minds of Miskatonic University students to supernatural horrors, in this chilling mystery novel of Arkham Horror.

The mysterious disappearance of a gifted student at Miskatonic University spurs his troubled roommate, Elliot Raslo, into an investigation of his own. But Elliot already struggles against the maddening allure of a ceaseless chant that only he can hear...When Elliot’s search converges with that of a Greenland Inuk’s hunt for a stolen relic, they are left with yet more questions. Could there be a connection between Elliot’s litany and the broken stone stele covered in antediluvian writings that had obsessed his friend? Learning the answers will draw them into the heart of a devilish plot to rebirth an ancient horror."

If like me you always thought that Miskatonic University was always the best part of Lovecraft, this book is for you!

Titan Song by Dan Stout 
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The third book in the acclaimed Carter Archives noir fantasy series returns to the gritty town of Titanshade, where danger lurks around every corner.

Forbidden magic, murder...and disco. Carter's day keeps getting worse.

With the return of spring, new life floods into Titanshade. The sun climbs higher and stays longer, the economy is ascendant, and ever more newcomers arrive to be part of the city's rebirth. Even pop culture has taken notice, with a high-profile concert only days away. When a band member's murder threatens to delay the show, the diva star performer demands that the famous Detective Carter work the case. But Carter has secrets of his own, and his investigation unearths more victims and dark secrets, triggering a spiral of deceit, paranoia, and nightmarish magical transformations.

As conspiracies are exposed, Carter is sucked even deeper into the machinations of the rich, the powerful, and the venerated. Soon the very foundations of the city threaten to collapse and Carter's own freedom is on the line as he navigates between old enemies and fragile new alliances while racing to learn the true cause of this horrific series of deaths."

Yaroo, a new Carter Archives book!

The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon
Published by: Gallery/Scout Press
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Invited and The Winter People comes a chilling new novel about a woman who returns to the old family home after her sister mysteriously drowns in its swimming pool…but she’s not the pool’s only victim.

Be careful what you wish for.

When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it’s just another one of her sister’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister’s things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. And as she dives deeper into the research herself, she discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have ever imagined.

In 1929, thirty-seven-year-old newlywed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. In an effort to distract her, her husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring is showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives.

A haunting, twisty, and compulsively readable thrill ride from the author who Chris Bohjalian has dubbed the “literary descendant of Shirley Jackson,” The Drowning Kind is a modern-day ghost story that illuminates how the past, though sometimes forgotten, is never really far behind us."

Ghost story from the "literary descendant of Shirley Jackson!?!" Well, whomever wrote that you knew how to hook me!

Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeaon Chapman
Published by: Quirk Books
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Inspired by the McMartin preschool trials and the Satanic Panic of the ‘80s, the critically acclaimed author of The Remaking delivers another pulse pounding, true-crime-based horror novel.

Richard doesn’t have a past. For him, there is only the present: a new marriage to Tamara, a first chance at fatherhood to her son Elijah, and a quiet but pleasant life as an art teacher at Elijah’s elementary school in Danvers, Virginia. Then the body of a rabbit, ritualistically murdered, appears on the school grounds with a birthday card for Richard tucked beneath it. Richard doesn’t have a birthday - but Sean does...

Sean is a five-year-old boy who has just moved to Greenfield, Virginia, with his mother. Like most mothers of the 1980s, she’s worried about bills, childcare, putting food on the table...and an encroaching threat to American life that can take the face of anyone: a politician, a friendly neighbor, or even a teacher. When Sean’s school sends a letter to the parents revealing that Sean’s favorite teacher is under investigation, a white lie from Sean lights a fire that engulfs the entire nation - and Sean and his mother are left holding the match.

Now, thirty years later, someone is here to remind Richard that they remember what Sean did. And though Sean doesn’t exist anymore, someone needs to pay the price for his lies."

Based on a true crime? Um, yes please!

Pride an Premeditation by Tirzah Price
Published by: HarperTeen
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Perfect for fans of the Lady Janies and Stalking Jack the Ripper, the first book in the Jane Austen Murder Mysteries series is a clever retelling of Pride and Prejudice that reimagines the iconic settings, characters, and romances in a thrilling and high-stakes whodunit.

When a scandalous murder shocks London high society, seventeen-year-old aspiring lawyer Lizzie Bennet seizes the opportunity to prove herself, despite the interference of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the stern young heir to the prestigious firm Pemberley Associates.

Convinced the authorities have imprisoned the wrong person, Lizzie vows to solve the murder on her own. But as the case - and her feelings for Darcy - become more complicated, Lizzie discovers that her dream job could make her happy, but it might also get her killed."

Austen and murder seem to go together so well, and the title is pure Midsomer Murders. 

Doctor Aphra by Sarah Kuhn
Published by: Del Rey
Publication Date: April 6th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Dr. Aphra teams up with Darth Vader himself in the original script to the audiobook production - an expanded adaptation of the critically acclaimed Marvel comics series.

Dr. Chelli Lona Aphra, rogue archaeologist, is in trouble again.

A pioneer in the field of criminal xenoarchaeology, Aphra recognizes no law, has no fear, and possesses no impulse control. To her, the true worth of the galactic relics she discovers isn’t found in a museum but in an arsenal. This viewpoint has led to a lot of misunderstandings. After her latest plan goes horribly wrong, her roguish ways are on the verge of catching up to her. That’s when suddenly Darth Vader, terror of the galaxy, swoops in with his lightsaber and...saves her life?

Don’t get her wrong - it’s not like she’s ungrateful. Sure, her new boss is a lord of the Sith. And okay, she may have just become a pawn in a deadly game being played by him and his boss, who happens to be the Galactic Emperor. And yes, the life expectancy of anyone who disappoints Vader can be measured in seconds.

But she’s back doing what she does best. She’s got a ship to fly, a heist to pull, and two unorthodox but effective metal buddies: Triple-Zero, a protocol droid specializing in etiquette, customs, translation, and torture, and BT-1, an astromech loaded with enough firepower to take down a battlecruiser. Together, they might just find a way to get the job done and avoid the deadly performance review that waits at its conclusion.

Just kidding. She’s doomed."

If you're like me and hate audiobooks, look, they made the audiobook I really wanted to read into a book book! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ari Marmell, Clay McLeaon Chapman, Dan Stout, Doctor Aphra, H.P. Lovecraft, Jennifer McMahon, Jenny Lawson, Krystal Sutherland, Pip Williams, Shirley Jackson, Simon R. Green, Tirzah Price

There are some people out there who would say that as a show Lovecraft Country is too all over the place, never settling on one style or even one genre, to them I say, that's the point! It is so fun and invigorating to have so many pulp genres in one show. We have haunted houses, epic adventures, ghost stories, space odysseys, and curses, with homages to everything from The Goonies to Indiana Jones to The Evil Dead! The Evil Dead one being a fabulous deep dive because the franchise deals with the Necronomicon, a book create by the writer H.P. Lovecraft, and what with the name of the show, when Leti is running through the woods in the first episode and takes shelter in the exact cabin from the franchise, my geeky heart did sing! Lovecraft Country also does an epic job of giving you unforgettable scenes that are simple but you know will stick with you forever for how haunting they are. The malevolent spirits Topsy and Bopsy who haunt Diana will forever haunt you. How can simple choreography be that terrifying!?! Though the first episode chase scene will now forever after be for me the most gut-wrenching I've ever witnessed. It's not the speed, it's not the action, it's what's at stake. Tic, George, and Leti have to get out of a sundown county with the police on their tales. If they fail to escape, they are surely dead. But if they speed, they will be pulled over. They are fighting the setting sun while crawling along the highway in the most nail-biting scene ever. That something so simple could be so compelling just shows what this show was capable of. But what makes this show work on a higher level is that despite being a period piece set in the 1950s that even had an episode all in Korean about a kumiho, a nine-tailed fox creature, it felt so relevant. The inability to get a job not because you lack the qualifications but because of the color of your skin. The constant police brutality and intimidation. The death of poor Emmett Till. This show encapsulated the Black Lives Matter movement in the most unique way possible. We need more shows out there willing to tell the truth, willing to take the risks, and willing to break the rules.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 1950s, And the Emmy Goes To, Black Lives Matter, Emmett Till, Genres, H.P. Lovecraft, HBO, Indiana Jones, Jordan Peele, Korea, Kumiho, Lovecraft Country, Necronomicon, Pulp, Sundown County, The Evil Dead, The Goonies

Locke and Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
Published by: IDW Publishing
Publication Date: February 20th, 2008 - December 18th, 2013
Format: Paperback, 984 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Rendell Locke always told his wife Nina that if anything were to happen to him she should take the kids and leave San Francisco, pack up and go back to Lovecraft, Massachusetts, to the family home, to Keyhouse. When Rendell is killed by a disgruntled student Rendell's eldest son, Tyler, can't help but wonder if his father always knew that something like this would happen. That there would come a time when he would no longer be able to protect them and Keyhouse would. That a Sam Lesser would enter their lives and ruin everything. Now a world away from the lives they led, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode, have to decide who they'll be. This is a new start and going to the high school their father attended Tyler and Kinsey don't want to have the label of victim hanging around their necks. But when Sam Lesser breaks out of juvenile detention hellbent on finishing what he started with their father the Locke siblings realize their lives will forever be entwined with tragedy. Though they will choose if they are the victims or the victors, and the house will help. Because Keyhouse isn't just the family ancestral seat that prosperous locksmiths built... it's so much more as Bode soon discovers.

Bode has been finding keys about the house. These aren't just skeleton keys to open any door in the house, they are keys with specific and unique abilities. One key allows you to walk through a door and become a ghost, another will open a door to anywhere in the world so long as you can picture it in your mind. At first these keys seem a gift, but Sam knows about the keys too. How could a disturbed youth who's lived his whole life on the other side of the country know about the secrets of Keyhouse that even the Locke kids didn't know about? Echoes through time... When Rendell was Tyler's age he used the keys with his friends. He used them for fun. Then one day he decided to use them for personal gain. Everything changed. A dangerous creature was unleashed and Rendell knew one day there would be a reckoning. He didn't send his children to safety, he set them to a warzone and they were oblivious to their danger. Though surviving Sam Lesser's attack has made the Locke kids oddly ready for this otherworldly battle. They can wield the keys for good. With the help of their friends they will set right what their father set in motion all those years ago.

Who hasn't dreamt of living in a big Gothic mansion with magical keys that open doors? There's a magic to childhood where big houses are full of secrets to be uncovered and old keys could open a door to adventure. The Locke and Key series taps into these memories and fantasies of youth and revitalized in me my love of reading. I was having all these feels. I was flashing back to reading Judy Blume's Fudge-a-Mania and the Hatcher family's vacation to Maine where the house had the separate taps in the bathroom, just like in my house. Because the quirks and personalities of houses are something I've always reveled in when reading books. All these callbacks to my childhood and how Keyhouse only lets the young, those who will do no harm with it's powers, uncover it's magic just made me want to pack a bag and move to Lovecraft, no matter it's H.P. overtones. But there's also a darker magic, an adult nature to Locke and Key that is taking what we love and remember from our childhood and subverting it, making it for adult readers. This is the perfect tale of terror in my mind, the nostalgia of youth combined with the horrors of the real world and I wouldn't have it any other way.

What makes this series so unique is that all these fantastical and Cthulhu originated elements are secondary to the journey of the characters and one family's struggle to survive. You care so much about the characters that the fantastical elements are almost a side note, yet one that you readily accept without qualms because if one aspect of your story is so rooted in reality you can't help but accept the fantastical as real as well. Re-reading this series over the last week while getting ready to write this review I was struck by something I didn't notice while reading the series over the course of a month last summer and I really should have because I think it's why the series speaks so strongly to me. This series taps into the same storytelling elements of one of my favorite television series ever, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy had a way of making the fantastical monsters of the week be about the daily struggles of being a teen in high school. Here we have the magic of Keyhouse shining a light on the humanity and struggles of the Locke family. They are two sides of the same coin. This was really brought home to me in the epic final battle, which occurs after Prom, a more Buffy plot device I couldn't think of. Plus, Joe Hill's wiliness to indiscriminately kill characters we've come to know and love? What's more Buffy than that?

Though there is one aspect of the narrative I question and that's this somewhat blanket forgiveness of the baddies. Sam Lesser not only murdered Rendell Locke but indiscriminately murdered his own parents and anyone that helped him in his journey across the United States to finish off the Locke family and because he helps to warn of the ultimate evil that tricked him he's kind of given a free pass. Excuse me? One act of kindness doesn't make up for all the horrors wrought! What's more that "act of kindness" was more an act of revenge. He felt tricked and cheated and would do anything to bring down the person who destroyed him. So how can vengeance be kindness? It's self-serving and therefore not an act of benevolence and therefore Sam Lesser should burn in hell. Forever. And as for that ultimate evil? The fact that a very human person was corrupted by an elder god from H.P. Lovecraft's plain of Leng from the Cthulhu Mythos gives this other human a free pass? As said human, and can I say how hard this is to write without spoilers, lays dying they say that the evil was within them all along, the Lovecraftian creature just flipped a switch to make bad feel oh so good. But the evil was there all along! How does that warrant forgiveness? Yes, it's nice to think we, as humans, can be magnanimous in our ability to forgive, but someone responsible for killing forty-five teenagers in one night isn't worthy of any understanding OR forgiveness. It just sits wrong with me.

While I usually spend most reviews dissecting every aspect of the story the truth is with Locke and Key, more than any other series I've read, the art perfectly balances the narrative so that one without the other wouldn't be Locke and Key. Therefore I have to discuss Gabriel Rodriguez. He has a very detail oriented style, at first I was strongly reminded of this series my grade school library had. In it all the great classics were lovingly drawn out as comics in exacting detail to ensnare reluctant readers like myself. In fact, thanks to these comics I am far more knowledgeable with regards to the plays of Shakespeare and the great classics of literature than I should be. The thing is that while that art style captured my imagination as a child my personal aesthetics have changed over time, so while I admire those capable of that level of detail, the watercolors of Tyler Crook in Harrow County, or Sean Phillips's work from Fatale to Criminal, have mood-oriented styles I can't help but adore. Rodriguez therefore had to overcome my own artistic prejudices and it literally only took a few pages. What makes Rodriguez stand out is his ability to not only draw amazing and lifelike detail but he is able to capture familial resemblances. So much of this comic is the dynamic relationships of the Locke family, and by God, you can tell they are related. Not just siblings, but ancestors, and parents. This is a feat that I don't think enough people applaud. Rodriguez's abilities are what make these characters real people and makes me pity the casting directors at Netflix as they work on the upcoming adaptation.

After leaving a book or television show behind they linger in your imagination but there is rarely something tangible that you can hold onto in the real world. As shows like Game of Thrones and Doctor Who and the fandoms that surround them have become bigger and more and more popular this isn't really the case anymore. There are prop replicas and tie-ins aplenty. Yes, I do personally have an Orb of Thesulah and it does make a rather nice paperweight, but there's a part of me that longs for books to have this same rabid fandom that television shows do. There are certain authors that have inspired merchandise, such as Terry Pratchett, where you can get everything from currency to postage for Discworld, and believe me, I have both. So I was more than a little excited to discover that the world that Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez have created with Locke and Key has developed such a rabid following that we have our own name, and yes, I consider myself one based on the number of Facebook groups I belong to to be a Keyhead. But what's more, thanks to the Skelton Crew Studio the keys are real. THE KEYS ARE REAL PEOPLE! So while I haven't found out how to properly work my Anywhere Key, just being able to hold it in my hand makes me so happy and makes this series that much more real.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chthulhu, Doctor Who, Gabriel Rodriguez, Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, Joe Hill, Judy Blume, Keyhouse, Keys, Locke and Key, Lovecraft, Netflix, Sean Phillips, Skelton Crew Studio, Tyler Crook

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
Published by: Doubleday
Publication Date: July 11th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

What if your life hinged on a single night? In 1977 the Blyton Summer Detective Club, a group of kids known locally to the inhabitants of Blyton Hills for foiling those up to no good, solved their final case. After that night the four kids drifted apart but were forever haunted by what happened during their final foray into crime solving. Usually the villain turned out to be someone in a rubber mask, but they weren't too sure about what happened with the fortune hunter they thwarted looking for the famous treasure in the Deboën Mansion. Something otherworldly was going on that night and it has stalked them ever since. The four precocious kids full of potential are long gone. More than a decade later those still alive are living lives of quiet desperation, slinging drinks, fleeing arrest warrants, and trying to forget in mental institutions. But Andy, she of the arrest warrants, is sick of always being on the run. She shows up on Kerri's doorstep and says it's up to them to find out what really happened that night at the Deboën Mansion. None of them can actually have a life without closure. Of course this means breaking Nate out of an asylum in Arhkam, Massachusetts, and hoping he can keep it together.

As they travel cross-county to the sleepy mining town in the Zoinx River Valley in Oregon where they spent every summer solving crimes the ghosts of their pasts haunt them. Nate more than most because the ghost of Peter, their erstwhile leader turned famous movie star who killed himself, is literally his constant companion. Why couldn't his companion be like Kerri's? An excitable Weimaraner would be way better than a ghost! Arriving back in Blyton Hills and holing up in Kerri's old bedroom, despite all the intervening years they feel like they used to; full of righteousness and possibilities. If only this were just a trip down memory lane and not a trip to uncover the darkness that lurks in the Deboën Mansion. Yet they are determined to solve their final case properly. To trek out to the Deboën Mansion on it's deserted island and lay the evil to bed. Only jumping back into their old investigative life isn't as easy as they thought. Knowing that something evil is lurking out there is far more terrifying to adults then to kids who think they are invincible. But they've come this far! What is a journey through abandoned mine shafts and looking into the true face of evil to being forever trapped in one night in 1977?

To me the biggest mystery of 2017 was that this book was wholeheartedly embraced by booksellers and readers everywhere. I don't think the origins of it's popularity could even be solved by the Blyton Summer Detective Club. Because the nostalgia factor just can't cut it when a book is this badly written and is so insensitive to LQBTQIA issues. This book brings nothing new or interesting to the table. The writing and action is repetitive. The characters flat. As for the Big Bad? Lovecraft did it better. So that leaves nostalgia as the only logical reason people picked up this book. Nostalgia is currently playing a huge role in popular culture and media. Just look to the behemoth successes of Stranger Things and the 2017 adaptation of It, which was so popular it (haha) is getting a sequel. But the reason I have chosen these two examples is they got it so right. They bring out all the feels of a kid growing up in the late seventies and early eighties and make it somehow fresh at the same time. Whereas the nonsensical Meddling Kids seems to just be wanting to tap into that cash cow without realizing you either get it right or go home. Edgar Cantero should have gone home.

The nostalgia Meddling Kids is attempting to cash in on is the continued love of all things Scooby-Doo. OK, here's the thing with me, I've spent my entire life worshiping Scooby-Doo. Perhaps in fact this is where my love of mysteries and all things Gothic started because rumor has it that shortly after I started saying "mommy" and "kitty" I started saying "Scooby-Doo." I even had a stuffed animal of Scooby-Doo that was literally bigger than me at the time my parents bought it. I fully believe that The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show/The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries was the best incarnation of Scooby, because Fred and Velma were nixed, and if only Scrappy had met the fate Eddie Izzard suggested in his Dressed to Kill special it would have been perfection. Therefore I can, without a doubt in my mind, say that this isn't an homage to Scooby-Doo, this is just really badly written slash, aka a fanfiction subcategory pairing two male or two female characters together. This book is just Edgar writing prurient scenes of the Daphne and Velma characters for no reason other that to fulfill his own fantasies. Now I don't have a problem with fanfiction or with slash, what I have a problem with is when it's badly done and is sold as a book and is not available in some forum online, I'm looking at you Cassandra Clare. This does a disservice to nostalgia and makes it pornographic.

And for some reason this slash angle has resulted in making Kerri's hair another character. Andy has been in love with Kerri for forever and Kerri by the end of the book is willing to accept the love but not really reciprocate it, but that's an entirely different issue I have with the book. What this results in is that Andy watches the moods of Kerri's hair because it somehow embodies the essence of who Kerri really is. Andy's heightened awareness of Kerri's hair is like some weird spider-sense. I just call it Kerri's stupid ass "living" hair. If it was used once or twice, I wouldn't have had a problem with it, but again and again with the hair! The over the top descriptions of Kerri's hair get to the point where it's like a masturbatory fix for Andy. She can't just watch her hair but has to fetishize Kerri's hair. When I think of all the time wasted in this book that was in desperate need of some forward momentum spent on a character's hair it just enrages me. And what's more, I don't know what to do with this information. Why is it important? Did Edgar have a real thing about Daphne's hair on Scooby-Doo? Or does he just have a hair thing? I seriously am baffled by this choice and the fact no editor went, "What's with the hair Edgar?" But then again I had so many issues with this book if I had been it's editor I would have just thrown in on the trash heap.

Because the problematic crux of this book is that it is transphobic. At first I wasn't sure. Perhaps I was reading into something that wasn't there. Perhaps all the nasty asides about Andy wanting to be a boy was more a sign of the times, the book being set in 1990, and that Edgar figured that Andy being labelled as gay wasn't a mean enough taunt for the bullies to hurl at her. But the more this happened the more I was unnerved by the book. I started to read other reviews and saw that I wasn't the only one thinking this way. In fact, I missed something big right in front of my face. Edgar's first book, The Supernatural Enhancements, had some issues with pedophilia, and from everything I've heard about his newest book, This Body's Not Big Enough for the Both of Us deals with twincest, so I'm guessing it's a trend that his books handle big issues in a tactless manner... But that means it's even more important for the reader to call him out on this! He is a modern writer who has decided to set a book in a less enlightened time and he has a duty to be better. To call out the creeps and say that calling Andy a boy isn't right. But instead he builds it all to a reveal that shows his insensitivity and that for me makes it so that anyone who loves this book in my mind has a bigoted small-mindedness that I don't want to be around. On the surface it might look fine, but look deeper, find the monster in the lake... it's a whole lotta hate.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Dressed to Kill, Eddie Izzard, Edgar Cantero, Enid Blyton, Fanfiction, Going Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, It, LGBTQ, Meddling Kids, Nostalgia, Scooby-Doo, Slash, Stranger Things, Transphobia

Locke and Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
Published by: IDW Publishing
Publication Date: February 20th, 2008 - December 18th, 2013
Format: Paperback, 984 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Rendell Locke always told his wife Nina that if anything were to happen to him she should take the kids and leave San Francisco, pack up and go back to Lovecraft, Massachusetts, to the family home, to Keyhouse. When Rendell is killed by a disgruntled student Rendell's eldest son, Tyler, can't help but wonder if his father always knew that something like this would happen. That there would come a time when he would no longer be able to protect them and Keyhouse would. That a Sam Lesser would enter their lives and ruin everything. Now a world away from the lives they led, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode, have to decide who they'll be. This is a new start and going to the high school their father attended, Tyler and Kinsey don't want to have the label of victim hanging around their necks. But when Sam Lesser breaks out of juvenile detention hellbent on finishing what he started with their father the Locke siblings realize their lives will forever be entwined with tragedy. Though they will choose if they are the victims or the victors, and the house will help. Because Keyhouse isn't just the family ancestral seat that prosperous locksmiths built... it's so much more as Bode soon discovers.

Bode has been finding keys about the house. These aren't just skeleton keys to open any door in the house, they are keys with specific and unique abilities. One key allows you to walk through a door and become a ghost, another will open a door to anywhere in the world so long as you can picture it in your mind. At first these keys seem a gift, but Sam knows about the keys too. How could a disturbed youth who's lived his whole life on the other side of the country know about the secrets of Keyhouse that even the Locke kids didn't know about? Echoes through time... When Rendell was Tyler's age he used the keys with his friends. He used them for fun. Then one day he decided to use them for personal gain. Everything changed. A dangerous creature was unleashed and Rendell knew one day there would be a reckoning. He didn't send his children to safety, he set them to a warzone and they were oblivious to their danger. Though surviving Sam Lesser's attack has made the Locke kids oddly ready for this otherworldly battle. They can wield the keys for good. With the help of their friends they will set right what their father set in motion all those years ago.

Who hasn't dreamt of living in a big Gothic mansion with magical keys that open doors? There's a magic to childhood where big houses are full of secrets to be uncovered and old keys could open a door to adventure. The Locke and Key series taps into these memories and fantasies of youth and revitalized in me my love of reading. I was having all these feels. I was flashing back to reading Judy Blume's Fudge-a-Mania and the Hatcher family's vacation to Maine where the house had the separate taps in the bathroom, just like in my house. Because the quirks and personalities of houses are something I've always reveled in when reading books. All these callbacks to my childhood and how Keyhouse only lets the young, those who will do no harm with it's powers, uncover it's magic just made me want to pack a bag and move to Lovecraft, no matter it's H.P. overtones. But there's also a darker magic, an adult nature to Locke and Key that is taking what we love and remember from our childhood and subverting it, making it for adult readers. This is the perfect tale of terror in my mind, the nostalgia of youth combined with the horrors of the real world and I wouldn't have it any other way.

What makes this series so unique is that all these fantastical and Cthulhu originated elements are secondary to the journey of the characters and one family's struggle to survive. You care so much about the characters that the fantastical elements are almost a side note, yet one that you readily accept without qualms because if one aspect of your story is so rooted in reality you can't help but accept the fantastical as real as well. Re-reading this series over the last week while getting ready to write this review I was struck by something I didn't notice while reading the series over the course of a month last summer and I really should have because I think it's why the series speaks so strongly to me. This series taps into the same storytelling elements of one of my favorite television series ever, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy had a way of making the fantastical monsters of the week be about the daily struggles of being a teen in high school. Here we have the magic of Keyhouse shining a light on the humanity and struggles of the Locke family. They are two sides of the same coin. This was really brought home to me in the epic final battle, which occurs after Prom, a more Buffy plot device I couldn't think of. Plus, Joe Hill's wiliness to indiscriminately kill characters we've come to know and love? What's more Buffy than that?

Though there is one aspect of the narrative I question and that's this somewhat blanket forgiveness of the baddies. Sam Lesser not only murdered Rendell Locke but indiscriminately murdered his own parents and anyone that helped him in his journey across the United States to finish off the Locke family and because he helps to warn of the ultimate evil that tricked him he's kind of given a free pass. Excuse me? One act of kindness doesn't make up for all the horrors wrought! What's more that "act of kindness" was more an act of revenge. He felt tricked and cheated and would do anything to bring down the person who destroyed him. So how can vengeance be kindness? It's self-serving and therefore not an act of benevolence and therefore Sam Lesser should burn in hell. Forever. And as for that ultimate evil? The fact that a very human person was corrupted by an elder god from H.P. Lovecraft's plain of Leng from the Cthulhu Mythos gives this other human a free pass? As said human, and can I say how hard this is to write without spoilers, lays dying they say that the evil was within them all along, the Lovecraftian creature just flipped a switch to make bad feel oh so good. But the evil was there all along! How does that warrant forgiveness? Yes, it's nice to think we, as humans, can be magnanimous in our ability to forgive, but someone responsible for killing forty-five teenagers in one night isn't worthy of any understanding OR forgiveness. It just sits wrong with me.

While I usually spend most reviews dissecting every aspect of the story the truth is with Locke and Key, more than any other series I've read, the art perfectly balances the narrative so that one without the other wouldn't be Locke and Key. Therefore I have to discuss Gabriel Rodriguez. He has a very detail oriented style, at first I was strongly reminded of this series my grade school library had. In it all the great classics were lovingly drawn out as comics in exacting detail to ensnare reluctant readers like myself. In fact, thanks to these comics I am far more knowledgeable with regards to the plays of Shakespeare and the great classics of literature than I should be. The thing is that while that art style captured my imagination as a child my personal aesthetics have changed over time, so while I admire those capable of that level of detail, the watercolors of Tyler Crook in Harrow County, or Sean Phillips's work from Fatale to Criminal, have mood-oriented styles I can't help but adore. Rodriguez therefore had to overcome my own artistic prejudices and it literally only took a few pages. What makes Rodriguez stand out is his ability to not only draw amazing and lifelike detail but he is able to capture familial resemblances. So much of this comic is the dynamic relationships of the Locke family, and by God, you can tell they are related. Not just siblings, but ancestors, and parents. This is a feat that I don't think enough people applaud. Rodriguez's abilities are what make these characters real people and makes me pity the casting directors at Netflix as they work on the upcoming adaptation.

After leaving a book or television show behind they linger in your imagination but there is rarely something tangible that you can hold onto in the real world. As shows like Game of Thrones and Doctor Who and the fandoms that surround them have become bigger and more and more popular this isn't really the case anymore. There are prop replicas and tie-ins aplenty. Yes, I do personally have an Orb of Thesulah and it does make a rather nice paperweight, but there's a part of me that longs for books to have this same rabid fandom that television shows do. There are certain authors that have inspired merchandise, such as Terry Pratchett, where you can get everything from currency to postage for Discworld, and believe me, I have both. So I was more than a little excited to discover that the world that Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez have created with Locke and Key has developed such a rabid following that we have our own name, and yes, I consider myself one based on the number of Facebook groups I belong to to be a Keyhead. But what's more, thanks to the Skelton Crew Studio the keys are real. THE KEYS ARE REAL PEOPLE! So while I haven't found out how to properly work my Anywhere Key, just being able to hold it in my hand makes me so happy and makes this series that much more real.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chthulhu, Doctor Who, Gabriel Rodriguez, Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, Joe Hill, Judy Blume, Keyhouse, Keys, Locke and Key, Lovecraft, Netflix, Sean Phillips, Skelton Crew Studio, Tyler Crook

Tales of H.P. Lovecraft by H.P. Lovecraft
Published by: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Publication Date: 1935
Format: Paperback, 346 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

The world is stranger than it seems. No one knows this better than those who have been to Miskatonic University. But then, if you've been to this Ivy League school you've probably been there to catch a glimpse of their extensive collection of occult books and are therefore used to the strange. Perhaps you are even hoping to see the famous Necronomicon, capable of summoning the Old Ones. If that is the case, stories of ancient creatures plaguing the dreams of artists and poets are probably your bread and butter. Meteorite's bringing luminosity and madness to a small valley might seem plebeian. But at least you are forewarned. At least you know of the dangers that can be had on a street that can never be found again where you listened to the most haunting of music played on a viol. You know that sounds within the walls might bring a sleepless night or they might bring death to those you care for. You know that there are aliens and creatures beyond man's knowing and that sometimes this knowledge brings madness. Perhaps you yourself are mad. Maybe you were a professor at Miskatonic University who was called to a strange happening and your eyes were opened to the depravities that are possible when man and beast unite. Or maybe you went on an expedition, nothing more simple or academic than that. Then something went wrong. Someone went missing. Your worldview was forever changed and you were left with one purpose, to conceal the discovery of this horror from the rest of the world forever. Here's hoping you succeed and don't get in league with evil. But evil is so persuasive...

While most readers would probably place Lovecraft in the horror or fantasy sections of their bookshelves, he was distinctly influenced by the Gothic and in my mind that is where he belongs. Such authors as Edgar Allan Poe and Robert W. Chambers helped lay the groundwork for Lovecraft and all three of these men straddled genres. If you keeping going backwards in classification you'll see that Gothic is the only way to encapsulate all of them, because horror eventually arose out of the Gothic tradition of the 18th and 19th centuries. Yet Lovecraft has almost defied classification, he has become a byword for cosmic horror and knowledge beyond the ken of man, knowledge that often leads to insanity. His greatest creation, Cthulhu, is known by those who don't even know who Lovecraft or Arkham or Miskatonic University is. His imagery has become a part of popular culture and his influence is still felt. For me his influence is felt even closer to home in that my family owns Stanton and Lee Publishers which started as an imprint of Arkham House, which was founded by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to publish Lovecraft's work in beautiful hardcover editions. Therefore it's kind of embarrassing to admit that while familiar with Lovecraft's work I had actually never read it until now. What struck me most about this collection of his short stories is you can instantly see why his writing is classic. It's not just looking beyond his work and seeing how much influence he has had on other writers from August Derleth to Terry Pratchett to Bruce Campbell to the Duffer Brothers, but it's how his work was so original. His work feels so modern, so fresh, so out of it's time. His legacy might be great, but it's endured because he was a gifted writer who saw the world differently, much like the afflicted artists who people his stories.

As for this collection hand-picked by Joyce Carol Oates after all the copyright issues were settled... without having read any of Lovecraft's stories not included here, I'd say it's a very solid collection that should have left "At the Mountains of Madness" out. Now I know those who are fans of Lovecraft are wondering why I would omit his most famous work. Well it's because a novella has no business being included in a collection of short stories, it creates an imbalance in the book's flow. Also, his writing style works better on a smaller scale. I'm not talking worldbuilding, I'm talking length. He has a way of packing such a punch with his shorter stories that having the time to search miles and miles of Antarctica AND see giant penguins who actually have nothing to do with the plot makes the punch lose it's impact. It's true, shorter is sweeter. As a reader I'm not a fan of short story collections. One really badly picked or placed piece can throw off my entire opinion of the book, IE "At the Mountains of Madness." Though in fairness to this collection I didn't hold the novella inclusion against it, that's Joyce Carol Oates's fault. But I did have issues with Lovecraft's writing, and not just with the occasional out-of-touch reference that is the product of his time that he expressed through his continued use of inbreeding as a plot point, but through his repetitive use of certain words, phrases, stylistic elements, and plot twists. That's the problem with a writer who has certain ticks when stories that weren't meant to be presented together are, you see where he repeats. You think perhaps you should start a drinking game for every time he uses the word "cyclopean" but then worry that you will die of blood alcohol poisoning. But I think that if you were to just space out the reading of his work you wouldn't find this as annoying as someone who reads right through.

Yet this repetition isn't all bad. Yes, it can be irksome, but it also helps his stories to have an inter-connectivity. It's interesting to me, reading these stories almost a hundred years after they were written that he is obviously setting all these stories within the same universe of his creation. He's worldbuilding on a level that, as time goes on, is becoming more and more popular. How many tie-ins, prequels, sequels, what-have-yous are now out there in the world? Characters from Miskatonic University reappear or are referenced in other stories. Events that have happened in an earlier story with say a University expedition have consequences in a story that was written later about a different expedition. This more than anything else is why people have latched onto his work. He has created his own universe and while his longest story is nowhere near a sizable book if you put them all together you have one heck of a story. I think this is why so many authors are drawn to writing stories within his world. It's not just that it's iconic, it's that it's so specific, so well built that to write within these confines gives you a freedom and the hope that a little of his genius will rub off on you. While I'm not going to debate the difference between true literature and fanfic here, because that is too thorny an issue, there has to be something said to the freedom of writing in someone else's voice. Even Neil Gaiman has gone all out fanboy with his Sherlock Holmes pastiche set in Lovecraft's universe, "A Study in Emerald" which should be noted isn't the only time Sherlock has fought with Cthulhu in various other authors work. But it is very interesting to muse on the fact that Conan Doyle and Lovecraft are contemporaries... makes you think, doesn't it?

Though, for me there were two stories that really struck home, "The Rats in the Walls" and "The Shunned House." Both stories deal with houses that have weird effects on the residents. Needless to say these homes have death within their walls yet hint at "the other." Be it cannibalism, paganism, werewolves, these stories work because not only are they suspenseful, but they are also left open ended enough that you have to draw your own conclusions. With the mysterious, sometimes having everything tied up neatly in a bow is dissatisfying. The hints, the surmises you reach, they can scare you more then knowing exactly what was going on. These two stories need to be read in one sitting, the pages turned as fast as your eyes can take in the words. These stories go for the tropes of traditional Gothic stories, and yet, Lovecraft knows how to tweak the narrative just enough to make the genre all his own. That is why I think so many people shy from calling him a Gothic writer, he has made the genre his bitch. While "The Shunned House" is slightly predictable, following genre conventions, I defy anyone to see that ending coming in "The Rats in the Walls!" A story about a man restoring his ancestral home, you expect a bit of ghosts and ghouls, you don't expect him to become a cannibal and eat his son's best friend after dreaming that he was a pig now do you? Right there is the essence of Lovecraft. Serving up the unexpected in a very macabre way. He's fused his own weird notions of aliens and outer space with what people expect from the Gothic and created what is and will always be Lovecraftian.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Arkham House, At the Mountains of Madness, August Derleth, Bruce Campbell, Going Gothic, Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, Horror, Lovecraft, Miskatonic University, Necronomicon, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Worldbuilding