Yaddith Times

Ten Sleep by Nicholas Belardes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


[My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.]

As a Wyoming native (though no longer resident), I was intrigued by the premise of this modern weird Western. A 20-something woman, adrift after dropping out of the U. of Wyoming (yes, I'm an alumna) and getting left by her girlfriend, takes up a friend's offer to work on a 10-day cattle drive outside the small town of Ten Sleep. Unfortunately, the drive leads into a canyon haunted by centuries of bloodletting, and hungry for more.

The Wyoming setting and characters of this novel rang true for me. Greta Molina, the main protagonist, is both flawed and deeply sympathetic. Her complex family history, though not always relevant to the plot, gives her something to hang onto when things start getting strange -- as they do very quickly. Unfortunately, it also blinds her to the considerably darker family circumstances of the friend who hired her. Generational curse, anyone?

The narrative proceeds through each night/sleep of the drive at a deliberate, often nerve-wracking pace. Sections of straight narrative are interspersed with scenes focused on animals, birds, or other entities -- scenes which don't always seem to follow from the section before. Most do eventually tie into the main plot, but a few never did for me. Greta is also riding with a headful of memories and anxieties, which may explain why she went on this drive in the first place, but do not necessarily move the story forward. When the dénouement comes, however, it's fast-paced and relentlessly bloody. In the wilderness, Belardes seems to be saying, we die like any other animal.

Ten Sleep is ambitious, imaginative horror with perhaps too many things going on at once. In addition to the family curse aspect, it incorporates historical horror, cosmic horror, eco-horror, supernatural horror, and more than I ever wanted to know about taxidermy. This makes for a creepy but scattered reading experience, as there are simply too many pieces to fit into this nasty little puzzle. It held my attention throughout, though -- and I can truly say I've never read anything quite like it.

Recommended for slow burn horror fans with a fascination for the weird West, and a certain amount of stamina.



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The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I chose to listen to this after noticing a copy of the paperback being featured in early episodes of The Rig. Although it does not have a great deal to do with this series (no spoilers!), it does resonate with it to some extent.

That said, this is a rather dated though suspenseful alien invasion/slow apocalypse novel set in the UK in the 1950s. I was a little disappointed by the ending, but enjoyed the buildup & the characters. Wyndham knew how to build suspense & create disquiet, definitely. Possibly not worth a full credit purchase unless you particularly enjoy War of the Worlds style SF, but I don't regret having experienced it. It also has some foreshadowing of today's cli-fi trend.



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Earth Day
we pilgrims return
in hazmat suits

https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2025/

---Ann K. Schwader

The Five Points Ripper by Larry Correia

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Third in a series of SF police procedural novellas set on Croatoan, a barely useable planet which got settled as a last-ditch effort after the colony ship went astray. Or was that really an accident, after all?

DCI Lutero Cade has been trying to figure this out for a while, now -- for family reasons -- and it's an intriguing mystery. Unfortunately, this novella doesn't get him much closer to the answer. Instead, the listener is swept up in a suspenseful "bug hunt" for a killer who's been leaving a mess on four of the five habitable mountain tops of the colony. There's some excellent world-building, and Cade's hardboiled personality shines through as always with Oliver Wyman's narration. I had no trouble sticking with this one to the end -- but for once, that end came too soon. I wanted more progress on the overall mystery of how Croatoan got settled, which didn't happen.

These novellas are available free on Audible as part of one's membership, which seems a good way to enjoy them. Too short to justify a full credit purchase, at least to me, but I'm hooked on the series and the character. Recommended for listeners who loved movies like Outland or Bladerunner.




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Pat Barker's Women of Troy series finishes strong with this novel, which turned out to be as much a ghost story as a mythological one. Narrated mainly by Cassandra's slave woman -- but occasionally by Cassandra herself, or by Queen Clytemnestra --it relates Agamemnon's doomed return to Mycenae with his unwilling concubine. Most who read this novel will already be aware of the ending . . . but, as usual for such retellings, it's the viewpoint that makes the difference. And, in the queen's case, her motivation.

The primary ghost in this retelling is Iphigenia, Agamemnon's eldest daughter whom he sacrificed to assure a fair wind to Troy for his invading armies. She haunts the entire novel, but is joined in the palace at Mycenae by other, older child ghosts -- and their own reasons for vengeance. Unfortunately, the children's appearances are accompanied by occasional very English nursery rhymes, which can be jarring for the reader. I enjoyed this one on Audible, and had no problem with the British narration otherwise. The rhymes simply damaged my suspension of disbelief, removing me from ancient Greece to a malignant English nursery

That point aside, this one is definitely worth a full credit purchase for those who have been following the series. I preordered mine, and wasn't disappointed.

A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Consisting of a novella, two novelettes, and a concluding Afterword, A Conventional Boy is a somewhat brief ( 211 pp. in my hardback) but highly entertaining series of sidetracks through the Laundry Files universe. The novella which gives the book its title details the adventures of Derek Reilly, a once-teenage Dungeon Master wrongly imprisoned by the Laundry a few decades back, during the Satanic D&D Panic. All Derek really wants to do is to escape for one weekend, to attend a local gaming convention . . . but it gets weirder than that, of course. A lot weirder. Derek's successful escape attempt brings him into the crosshairs of an actual group of cultists using the convention for their own eldritch purposes. This, in turn, brings in other members of the Laundry (some of whom sounded familiar to me), and chaos rolls on.

The two novelettes (at least one of which I've run into before in electronic form) are both Bob Howard adventures. Again, these are sidetracks rather than essential bits of the Laundry universe -- but regular readers will enjoy the extra details they offer. The Afterword is mainly an explanation of the D&D Satanic Panic of the 1980s, and how it happened to inspire this book. It's helpful to be familiar with tabletop role-playing games, though I suspect quite a lot of Stross readers (including myself) are.





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Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Another meaty, detail-rich Tudor mystery for Sansom's somewhat unusual detective: a hunchbacked lawyer more comfortable with property cases than murder most foul. This time around, it's a double investigation set during the waning days of Thomas Cromwell's career in service to Henry VIII. Reluctantly assisting Cromwell, Matthew Shardlake must investigate the disappearance of a formula for Greek Fire -- while also attempting to save the life of a young woman accused of murdering her cousin. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, nearly everything. Sansom was a master at combining deep historical information with nonstop anxiety and frequent action scenes, & Dark Fire does not disappoint. Those particularly interested in or informed about this period in Tudor England will probably be even more anxious than the average reader. A brief (5 minutes' listening time) but comprehensive historical endnote helps separate fact from fiction, which I also found useful.

Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys English historical mysteries, & isn't afraid of extensive detail.



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The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


An entertaining offering in the current trend for feminist retellings of Greek myth, The Children of Jocasta digs deeper than some. By crafting a variant on the standard Oedipus story, Natalie Haynes manages to feature not one, but two neglected women: Jocasta herself, & her younger daughter Ismene. The novel moves back & forth in time between these two women, which can become confusing -- especially if you're an Audible listener, as I was -- but generally works out well.

I found it interesting to see what plotting choices Haynes made, & particularly appreciated the detailed Afterword in which she made these clear. Apparently, there have always been alternative versions of many of the characters & events in this tragic cycle.



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When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


[My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.]

When We Were Real is near-near-future SF, or possibly present-day SF in any one of a number of realities. The concept -- we are all living in a simulation, and were made aware of this seven years ago -- is intriguing. A varied cast of characters are on a bus tour organized by Canterbury Trails (two nuns this time, Chaucer lovers!), visiting a series of Impossibles left behind by whoever is actually running the simulation. These sites are all violations of the laws of nature, physics, or both, and the pilgrims themselves are pretty messed up to begin with.

The author's omniscient point of view allows him to shift from character to character, generally one character per chapter, as the story moves forward. This works well most of the time, though it took me a while to get everyone straightened out and keep track of whose personal plotlines were intersecting. The Impossibles themselves (beginning with a Frozen Tornado and progressing in orders of weirdness to the Zipper) are the most obviously sfnal bits of the book. The hard-science explanations of why they're Impossible do tend to bog down the narrative a bit, however

Gregory is a terminally witty writer, and I found myself highlighting numerous lines as I clicked through the chapters. The plot situations become increasingly bizarre, occasionally at the expense of clarity. If you're a fan of surreal, consciously literary work, this isn't likely to bother you. If you're accustomed to more conventionally linear texts, it may.

There's plenty to think about here, and more than enough action (physical and emotional) to keep the pages turning/clicking. The last couple of chapters, however, were a real disappointment to me. Although most plot entanglements get untangled, at least one does so in a brutally random manner. The resolution draws upon several possible endings -- which makes sense within the context of "reality" as a simulation, but leaves a last impression of vagueness. I'd call this a solid four-star read for those seeking SF-flavored Literature -- but for mainstream SF readers like myself, possibly a three.




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Penumbra #5

My dark sonnet "Wind Tarot" appears in the 2024 issue of this yearly journal of weird fiction, poetry, & criticism. Edited by S.T. Joshi and published by Hippocampus Press, this perfect-bound trade paperback includes over 300 pages: twelve stories, one classic reprint, 8 pieces of nonfiction / critical essays, & ten poems.

For a complete TOC, or to order:

https://tinyurl.com/3sby4pb7


Where the Silent Ones Watch

I have a new 4-sonnet sequence, "Night Landing," in Where the Silent Ones Watch, edited by James Chambers & published by Hippocampus Press. This 278 page trade paperback offers twenty-seven tales & poems written in celebration of William Hope Hodgson's weird fiction.


For a complete TOC, or to order:

https://tinyurl.com/brnx5esk