Book Review: HOLLOW TONGUE by Eden Royce
… Known for her Southern Gothic horror writing, Royce writes with the same genre vibes in Hollow Tongue, but approaches the field in unexpected ways that emphasize the psychological horror of trauma and symbolism…
Book review: Smothermoss by Alisa Alering
Smothermoss is entrancingly immersive, with entirely evocative language, fascinating fantastic elements, exciting action, and two very vividly drawn protagonists, sisters who have little in common and feel a lot of friction but eventually come together, with a bit of supernatural succor, to face a fearsome foe.
779. Woodworm by Layla Martinez — Reading Rangers
https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/sand-f-779-woodworm/SandF_779_Woodworm.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSGenerational terror, walldads, and haunted homes, oh my! Shaun Duke and Daniel Haeusser join forces to discuss Layla Martinez’s Woodworm (out now from Two Lines Press). Together, they explore the novel’s themes of generational trauma, class warfare, the horrors of growing up, and even what it’s like living in a cursed home. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy the episode!
777. John Wiswell (a.k.a. The Cozy Monster) — Someone You Can Build a Nest In
https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/sand-f-777-john-wiswell/SandF_777_JohnWiswell.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSCrunchy humans, errant organs, and family curses, oh my! Shaun Duke and Paul Weimer are joined by John Wiswell to discuss his new novel, Someone You Can Build a Nest In. Together, they explore John’s approach to narrative, tackle the beauty and terror of body horror, chat fairy tales and aromantic protagonists, and so much more. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy the episode!
Book Review: CRAFT: STORIES I WROTE FOR THE DEVIL by Ananda Lima
At the dawn of the Millennium, a writer attends a Halloween party and meets the Devil. She’s come dressed as a distinct reference to the past: Inauguration Nancy Reagan. He’s dressed in a baggy suit with a rumpled orange wig. When she asks the Devil what he’s supposed to be, he simply answers: The future. Cue terrifying shiver in readers. So begins Craft, and so starts a series of encounters between the writer and the Devil. While those future meetings will be neither as prolonged nor as intimate as this first, the effects of each experience will profoundly influence the progression of the writer’s art: her craft. The magic of Lima’s debut work is its effective amalgamation of form, genre, and theme. Craft is most recognizable as a collection of short stories with interludes of the meetings between the writer and the Devil through time. But readers will quickly find the numbered stories blending into one another, and the unnumbered interludes blending into the stories, to the point where Craft manifests characteristics more particular to a novel, united with a third-person omniscient perspective that may not be as fragmented as a collection would normally have. Craft is also most recognizable as literary fiction, with an emphasis on words, writing, and ideas that dominate plot or character. Yet it also conjures the realms of genre, and is published by Tor Nightfire, a horror imprint. The stories, or episodes, of Lima’s debut are reminiscent of the surreal fiction and magical realism that previous generations of Central and South American authors have pioneered. A Brazilian expat settled in the United States, Lima offers a unique and personalized perspective in Craft that addresses the immigrant experience, with inspiration from the difficult years since the US election of 2016, through the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, up to the present. At points, Lima compares and contrasts elements of the political administration of her current home, to the that of her homeland where family still lives. I describe this as if the writer who appears in Craft is an autofiction stand-in for Lima herself. Possibly. Possibly not. Here again, Lima’s work exists as a blending with uncertain definition between fiction and memoir. Are these biographical details of truth that Lima has put into Craft from her experiences? Are they a broader truth, related with completely fabricated details? Lima writing a writer character who writes stories inspired by events and encounters with the charismatic enigma of the Devil makes a large portion of Craft meta, with frequently amusing commentary on the process of writing – particularly the vagaries of peer review. “Idle Hands”, one of the ‘stories’ in Craft, consists entirely of notes, or reports, written by members of a writer’s group as critique of a short story the writer has produced in the workshop. All the perspectives combine into a contradictory and impossible-to-address mess of opinions and points of view, creating an ambiguous idea of what the actual story may have been and the realm of possibilities for its strengths or weaknesses. The most surreal entry of Craft (and a brilliant one), “Antropófaga”, features a wearied woman who discovers a vending machine at work that dispenses miniature little American people of various types, in crisp plastic packaging for consumption like candy. Equally brilliant on the other end of the spectrum of realism would be an entry like “Ghost Story”, using magical realism to explore separation of people in ordinary situations. Returning to the topic of Craft‘s publisher, one might wonder how horror enters into the picture here. Indeed, from what I can gather through brief research, Lima herself was surprised that her work could be characterized or marketed as such. Horror fans who are familiar with the very broad spectrum of the genre won’t be surprised here, but casual horror fans or those who normally avoid horror might be more confused through preconceptions or expectations. Craft is not about eliciting constant terror or fright – or about pulling jump scares. It’s not filled with gore or overt violence. It’s a vibe. A disquieting soul that draws from our own collective experiences over the past decade (or even beyond) and the nightmare that may exist in our realities. And it’s about living through them and finding oneself even through the uncertainties and unfairness of it all. Craft also evoked the horror genre for me a bit through its structure, particularly compared to the common format for horror anthology movies. These usually consist of multiple independent stories, with a bridging narrative between each to hold them all together. At times, the worlds of each episode and the interludes meet one another in meta fashion. Craft contains this same effect, with the unnumbered (and untitled) interludes serving as this type of cinematic bridge narrative. Similar to this form in movies, the bridging narrative never quite gels in strength compared to many of the distinct episodes, yet contains fragments of brilliance and serves as that essential glue for the whole. Lima’s Craft is well worth checking out for genre fans that like the literary fiction side of the spectrum (or the reverse.) I’d also recommend looking into other reviews if interested (or still undecided) that go more into specific stories. I often find myself writing reviews that disagree with a lot of other opinions out there, or see different things, but in the case of Craft, most of the coverage seems fair and on-point.
Movie Review: NEW LIFE (2023) Directed by John Rosman
Viewers should have the greatest possibility of enjoying Rosman’s genre-switching debut New Life by going in cold, with as few details about its plot or themes as possible. This makes it a tricky movie to review and inform its potential audience about. Now available streaming on-demand, it is a movie worth checking out by fans of SF thrillers, apocalyptic cinema, and horror. Yet, New Life never really steps fully into any of those genres. Foremost, it is a generic thriller, whose plot developments and backstory tangentially intersect genre staple touch points now and again. Though not without faults, New Life succeeds in telling its story and grappling with themes in an interesting way that should captivate audiences. As long as the audience hasn’t been completely ruined by fast-paced media trends that constantly barrage viewers for attention without time for deep engagement. New Life is a slow burn, with its first half (~40 minutes) proceeding without overtly revealing the true nature of the story to the audience. Shots are relatively long, dialogue is relatively sparse. But the visuals and superior acting grab attention and give audiences some clues to find footing for what exactly is transpiring. The movie begins with a woman (Hayley Erin) on the run, bleeding. We don’t know anything about the circumstances, but she’s clearly in danger, terrified and desperate, and the people after her have guns. Later we learn her name is Jessica. We then are introduced to two other characters: Raymond (Tony Amendola) and Elsa (Sonya Walger.) Raymond seems to be a handler, running the operation of operatives that is after Jessica, mining camera feeds, and police and hospital reports for her traces. He’s sending instructions to operative Elsa, who rises in the morning with a gun and weekly pill box at the ready, looking searchingly at herself in the bathroom mirror where she’s taped a pair of handwritten affirmational quotes. The intel suggests Jessica is headed north toward the Canadian border. Elsa must stop her reaching there, but she’s also battling a medical diagnosis she’s kept secret from Raymond. New Life begins with this and follows the thriller path of obfuscation before that halfway point where the situation of the plot becomes overtly clear with its SF and horror genre element nods. Part of that obfuscation is the nonlinear chronology of the plot. Intermittent flashbacks reveal more about Jessica’s past and what has set her upon this path. Even as the film reaches its conclusion and what the film is doing with its characters seems fairly set in the stone of genre tropes, New Life reveals some additional twists. I had the nature of Jessica’s situation and those after her figured out very quickly after the start. This made the first part of the movie a bit more frustrating, even if still engaging with its acting and cinematography. The frustration mostly arose from the nonlinear narrative and bits of cloaked dialogue that are scripted clearly to hide things from the audience and create tension of uncertainty in what exactly is going on. It becomes unnecessary particularly when a viewer can take a few clues and figure things out early. Had the film skipped the flashback structure and just went with a linear plot, I don’t know as it would have actually been less, and for some viewers it might actually have been an improvement. However, I was still pleasantly surprised by how things went for characters by the end, with twists that were less obvious and deviations from viewer expectations of how a certain branch of horror stories work. The movie also draws tremendous thematic strength from its comparisons between Jessica’s situation and Elsa’s medical diagnosis, of how these relate to life and death. With its relatively slow pace, New Life finds success with its camera work and its actors. Shots of the barren, cold landscape of the Northern Central US go well with the shots that show the turns of despair and resilience on the pair of female leads. While Hayley Erin is great (she’s done a lot of work in soap operas), she’s limited somewhat by a script that could have done more with her motivations for the choices she makes in the film. (The script actually has a few gaps in logical flow of why things happen as they do, other than they need to occur that way to permit the plot.) Sonya Walger (who you may know from Lost or the CSIverse) is absolutely fantastic, and I’ve been a fan of Tony Amendola from his turn in Stargate SG-1. I still don’t want to be too precise in labeling New Life for it to find its audience, but fans of well-acted ponderous thrillers should appreciate it. Though technically SF and technically horror, it could be enjoyed by anyone who doesn’t gravitate (or even avoids) those genres. Though with flaws in the script, New Life suggests that John Rosman is a name to look for again in the future.
