Book Review: THE TUSKS OF EXTINCTION by Ray Nayler
It touches on big issues, features biological speculation that is near and dear to me, but it does all this without skimping on character-driven aspects and precise language that evokes empathy and reflection.
Book Review: 12 HOURS by L. Marie Wood
The reader of L. Marie Wood’s short novella 12 Hours will realize what has happened to this cabbie long before he grasps the truth about himself. And that’s an integral part of the construction of the novella, of how Wood is directing the reader’s emotions and connection to her protagonist through his psychological horror.
Book Review: BLEAK HOUSES by Kate Maruyama
Bleak Houses, by Kate Maruyama, represents the debut of this line, consisting of two novella-length stories: Safer and Family Solstice. The small independent press Omnium Gatherum previously published Family Solstice in 2021, when Rue Morgue Magazine named it Best Fiction Book of the year. The release of Bleak Houses by RDSP thus represents an opportunity for new readers to discover that story while also being treated to another previously unpublished story born from the horrors of pandemic isolation.
Book Review: Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris
In Green Fuse Burning, Morris takes Dylan Thomas’ theme of the intertwined nature of life and death in an endless cycle of time and applies it through a spectrum of ecosystems from the grandiose to the individual to explore the psychology of grief and guilt both personal and collective.
Book Review: Dehiscent by Ashley Deng
Dehiscent has a form of New Weird that combines eco-horror with what might be considered cozy horror, despite unsettling themes of the prison that can form from the recognition of privilege while feeling powerless to change it. With rich, quiet atmosphere and an exceptionally compelling and realistic, empathetic protagonist, Deng lifts a mirror to our current lives to reflect a fantastic image of how divisions of humanity would continue.
