Review: HOW TO GET TO APOCALYPSE AND OTHER DISASTERS by Erica L. Satifka

Having read Erica L. Satifka's rural cyberpunk novella Busted Synapses last year and chatted to her about it a little bit on this blog, I thought I knew what kinds of stories to expect going into How to Get to Apocalypse i.e. stories about working class people doing their best to navigate the grim technological...

Review: HORUS RISING (The Horus Heresy #1) by Dan Abnett

I only really read Horus Rising cos one day I opened the Warhammer 40k wiki and spent a wonderful three hours of my life barely making a dent in the lore. I got obsessed pretty quickly and wanted to read the stories set in this world while also getting a more substantial grounding in the...

Review: SPIFFING by Tim Mendees

Spiffing is a fun little cosmic horror novella about Bertram 'Bertie' Lexington-Brown, a quirky, rich businessman with a fascination for the macabre. Old cursed necklaces, crystals supposedly housing the imprisoned essence of antediluvian demigods, that sort of thing. His latest acquisition is the sarcophagus of an ancient and, up until now, mythological Egyptian priest who...

Review: THE PASSAGE by Justin Cronin

This book sucked ass. I don't usually have such deeply held negative opinions about the books I choose to read - after all, I'm a pretty good judge of what I like so I'll usually find something about a book I like even if it wasn't that hot overall. But guys. This book. Sucked. Ass....

Review: THE MOLD FARMER by Rick Claypool

I've read some really great books since deciding to actively delve into the small press world, and Rick Claypool's The Mold Farmer is an imaginatively sinister, outside-the-box, weird little novella I'm super glad I discovered. Pitched as a story of cosmic claustrophobia and workplace survival horror, it's the story of Thorner, an everyday family man...

Mini Reviews: UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED, RIOT BABY & NOPHEK GLOSS

I've still got a review hangover from Wyrd and Wonder I think. I've written two reviews since the start of June and just can't seem to get in the right headspace for them. But I've realised not every review has to be an in-depth 3000 word essay and I can actually just write some more...

Review: THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN by C. L. Polk

Oh hey, it me, your favourite fantasy period romance fan. Words I thought the world would never hear. But hey, appaz after reading The House In The Cerulean Sea and actually quite enjoying full on steamy post-apocalyptic sci-fi erotic romance Deal With The Devil, C. L. Polk's The Midnight Bargain is the latest romance story...

Review: THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE by Eric LaRocca

Jesus fucking Christ I was not prepared for this book. In the best, most disturbingly unsettling way possible. THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE is a horror novella from small press Weirdpunk Books about two women who meet in an online forum in the early days of the internet. What begins as an...

Review: THE ALCHEMIST by H.P. Lovecraft

This is very much an unplanned and unexpected addition to my Wyrd & Wonder reading, though I dunno how much of a review of this particular story this is gonna be and how much it's just gonna be me talking about embarking on a new obsession with cosmic horror. In any case, in an attempt...

Review: THE LAST BANQUET OF TEMPORAL CONFECTIONS by Tina Connolly

Saffron is the royal taste tester, a position she was compelled to take up when the Traitor King, Duke Michal, usurped the throne and took her into his service. Saffron's husband Danny is a master baker who discovered a way to invoke the powerful and vivid reliving of memories in the people who eat his...