Book Review: Respectable Horror by K.A. Laity Horror is a wide-ranging genre, which can be tailored to a variety of tastes. Some folks prefer their scary fiction with a maximum of gushing blood and sharp objects being plunged into soft flesh; others like a more genteel approach that emphasizes the subtle wrongnesses and growing atmospheric… Continue reading Book Review: Respectable Horror
Tag: madness
Magazine Review: Thrilling Mystery March 1936
Magazine Review: Thrilling Mystery March 1936 by various Thrilling Mystery was a pulp horror magazine created by Thrilling Publications; I’ve been unable to find publication history details in a quick search. It specialized in “weird menace” tales, which had supernatural trappings but were ultimately revealed as having non-supernatural (but not necessarily plausible) explanations. It did… Continue reading Magazine Review: Thrilling Mystery March 1936
Book Review: Penny Dreadfuls: Sensational Tales of Terror
Book Review: Penny Dreadfuls: Sensational Tales of Terror edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz While the term “penny dreadfuls” proper belongs to a particular type of inexpensive newsprint periodical, as explained in the introduction to this volume, the twenty stories chosen here can all be described as lowbrow sensationalist literature written for those seeking thrills in their… Continue reading Book Review: Penny Dreadfuls: Sensational Tales of Terror
Comic Book Review: Essential Defenders Vol. 6
Comic Book Review: Essential Defenders Vol. 6 written (mostly) by J.M. DeMatteis, Pencils by Don Perlin The Defenders are one of Marvel Comics’ more oddball teams, beginning with a line-up of Doctor Strange, Hulk, Silver Surfer and the Sub-Mariner, four of Marvel’s most powerful characters who did not belong to other teams. After a couple… Continue reading Comic Book Review: Essential Defenders Vol. 6
Book Review: Classic American Short Stories
Book Review: Classic American Short Stories compiled by Michael Kelahan This book is more or less exactly what it says in the title, a compilation of short(ish) stories written by American authors, most of which are acknowledged as classics by American Lit professors. The stories are arranged by author in roughly chronological order from the… Continue reading Book Review: Classic American Short Stories
Comic Book Review: Essential Captain Marvel Vol. 2
Comic Book Review: Essential Captain Marvel Vol. 2 by various creators. Back in 1967, Marvel Comics became aware that the name “Captain Marvel” for a superhero had fallen out of trademark status. It was too good a name for Marvel to pass up, so Stan Lee quickly came up with a character to appear in Marvel… Continue reading Comic Book Review: Essential Captain Marvel Vol. 2
Comic Book Review: Essential Tomb of Dracula, Volume 2
Comic Book Review: Essential Tomb of Dracula, Volume 2 mostly written by Marv Wolfman and art by Gene Colan. When the Comics Code restrictions on horror were loosened in the 1970s, DC primarily went in for horror anthology comics, while Marvel Comics based entire series around horrific heroes and villains. One of these was the… Continue reading Comic Book Review: Essential Tomb of Dracula, Volume 2
Manga Review: Ooku 10 & 11
Manga Review: Ooku 10 & 11 by Fumi Yoshinaga Quick recap: In an alternate Shogunate Japan, a plague wipes out 80% of the men, requiring women to take over most of the jobs previously held by males. This includes being shogun (military leader, the day to day ruler of Japan, as opposed to the Emperor, who… Continue reading Manga Review: Ooku 10 & 11
Book Review: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume
Book Review: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume edited by Judith Merril This 1957 volume contains speculative fiction stories from magazines published in roughly the previous year, hand-picked by the editor to represent the best the field had to offer at the time. (I’ve previously reviewed the fifth annual, which switched the… Continue reading Book Review: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume
Book Review: Demons of the Night and Other Early Tales
Book Review: Demons of the Night and Other Early Tales by Seabury Quinn Seabury Grandin Quinn (1889-1969) was a prolific pulp author, producing more than five hundred short stories. He’s best remembered for his Jules de Grandin stories appearing in Weird Tales, featuring a French-accented occult detective. This particular collection, however, is focused around his other early… Continue reading Book Review: Demons of the Night and Other Early Tales