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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I suspect I wasn't the ideal reader for this collection. Although I'm somewhat familiar with Kiernan's work -- I've read one novel, one novella, and a handful of their short stories -- I'm not a devoted fan. This particular collection has a deeply personal feel. Each of its twenty-five stories offers an afterword, explanatory or autobiographical or both. The vast majority first appeared in Sirenia Digest, a subscription-only ezine Kiernan produces.

Kiernan's brand of weird fiction is nearly impossible to describe. It's decidedly literary, atmosphere-forward, and influenced by their work in paleontology. There's a subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) vein of Lovecraft running through it, though it never approaches pastiche. This collection included a handful of what I would consider Lovecraftian stories, including one set in his Dreamlands. Quite a few others read more like SF, embracing themes of first contact or the discovery of alien artifacts. One or two were solidly climate fiction.

Although disturbing and well-crafted, however, many of the stories in this collection didn't seem to end in any conventional sense. I counted ten of the twenty-five as having distinct (often horrific) conclusions. The others read more like vignettes, either from the start or fluctuating between structured fiction and vignette throughout the reading experience. As someone accustomed to more conventional genre fiction, I found this frustrating -- even though I kept right on reading, pulled along by the disquieting effect of Kiernan's prose.

A few of Kiernan's themes also became somewhat repetitive. Dreams and dream retellings, visits to psychiatrists, and the miseries of freelance journalism all came in for possibly more than their share of attention. The deep ocean was also a frequent theme, but this is a bit more common in Lovecraft-influenced writing.

In the end, I wound up elevating my three-star rating to four stars solely on the strength of the writing itself, and on its eerily immersive quality. I suspect that Kiernan's more dedicated fans will find this collection a solid five star experience. My thanks to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for providing me with an ARC.
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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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Always Haunted: Hallowe'en Poems by LindaAnn LoSchiavo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


LindaAnn LoSchiavo's Always Haunted: Hallowe'en Poems, is distinctly more than that. This smart, well-crafted collection strays beyond the graveyard (though it goes there, too!) to deliver a chilling variety of topics. Historical horror, true crime, multi-cultural mythology . . . it's all here, in twenty-four poems including a few haibun and one microfiction.

Although the collection begins with a lyric -- the quietly breathtaking "Samhain" -- the majority of these poems are narrative. In the timeless tradition of storytelling in meter, LoSchiavo makes frequent use of blank verse. This is an effective choice. When well used, blank verse approximates the natural rhythms of English, allowing the "crafted" aspect of the poem to get out of its own way and let the story flow. And flow it does, through retellings of Sleepy Hollow and A Night on Bald Mountain, to a celebration of "Elizabeth Siddal Rossetti, Cemetery Superstar" to the dark historical "Don't Monetize Those Poltergeists."

Many other verse forms appear in this collection as well -- again, in the service of storytelling, and often women's history. One Italian sonnet celebrates "Hetty Green, the 'Witch of Wall Street", while an abecedarian (26-line poem incorporating each letter of the alphabet as a first letter) deals with murder and its vengeful feminine aftermath. A pair of bilingual haibun celebrate Our Lady of the Holy Death.

There is much to learn as well as to enjoy in these poems -- fortunately, LoSchiavo includes unobtrusive notes for the curious. Several original black and white illustrations complete this intelligent, diverting, and at times extremely creepy seasonal entertainment.

My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.




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Baltimore ward
a last mystery
evermore


-- Ann K. Schwader

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe

(never too late to remember . . . . )

first autumn color
on Buck's Row
fresh red


-- Ann K. Schwader

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Nichols

The Real History of Dracula by Sara Cleto

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A short (10 lecture) Great Courses audio course with a remarkable amount of interesting information on the book, the movies, and a diverse set of other Gothic & folkloric topics. This is actually less about the character -- or even the novel -- than about influences on Bram Stoker, Bram Stoker's influence on other writers & creators, and many speculations on why we as readers/viewers are still fascinated by vampires.

Despite the bubbling enthusiasm of Sara Cleto & her audio colleague Brittany Warman, this came off as a solidly academic experience. I've had a good bit of coursework on the Gothic & have been reading horror/vampire literature for longer than I want to confess, and I still got something fresh from this. This Great Course was included in my Audible subscription (not a credit purchase), and I found it listening time well spent.





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Vampire Ventures: Poems by LindaAnn LoSchiavo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This slim chapbook offers exactly what the title implies: vampire poetry in a number of forms, all executed by an experienced speculative poet who knows what she's doing. The focus is mostly on Dracula (both character and novel) , though many of the poems are set in contemporary times and none of them felt old-fashioned in a pejorative sense. Forms range from sonnet to prose poem to Fibonacci to the first truly dark Golden Shovel I've encountered, along with two longer narrative poems which felt more like free verse.

The overall feeling of this collection is fun rather than heavily Gothic, though there's plenty of depth. Poetically inclined fang-fans might find it a tasty seasonal stocking stuffer.




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Season of Skulls by Charles Stross

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Even by the elevated standards of the Laundry Files as a whole, Season of Skulls is remarkably weird. Stross exploits the time-travel & time-branching aspects of his dream roads for all they're worth, allowing the improbable combination of The Village(yes, that Village, be seeing you) & The New Management to wind itself up to an epic conclusion.

This one is Eve Starkey's novel (finally!), which gives the reader a good look into the complex magical system of the Laundry universe. Eve is a highly talented sorceress on a desperate mission, & she won't allow trivialities like a whole Hunt of Tindalos to get in her way. Meanwhile, back at home, brother Imp & his superpowered housemates are doing their utmost to help -- which of course results in additional chaos.

Like all the Laundry novels, this one is self-referential -- do not attempt until you're up to date on at least the New Management arc, preferably the whole series. Stross has also introduced characters both real & literary from the Regency period, though he includes some helpful comments in his Acknowledgments. All in all, I found this one a bit complicated at points, but in no way disappointing. And it does indeed complete the trilogy which began with Dead Lies Dreaming.



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The Horror Writers Association announced the 50-poet lineup of its latest Poetry Showcase this week. I am thrilled & honored to be among those chosen, with a historical / supernatural sonnet.

Find the full post, with TOC & a cover reveal, here:


https://horror.org/announcing-hwa-poetry-showcase-x-selectees/

The Showcase will be offered in both hard copy & e-formats later this year.