The Genre Bucket

      Hello internet! Miss me? If you're one of the few people who read this blog don't worry I'm not dead. Rather this year has been..... challenging. Between the state of our actual world right now and events close to home I really couldn't bring myself to write let alone finish a book to write about. But as this year comes to an end I hope to get a few posts up. Now before getting to the review I have some housekeeping to discuss about the blog. From the beginning I have tried to divulge edition information about the books I review so you can find them yourselves but I have decided to take that one step further. If you go to the drop down menu on the blog there is a search bar that you can look up books I review and it will take you to bookshop.org to possibly purchase them. Yes, I have joined the horror of affiliate links but outside of me receiving a small commission a portion of every purchase on bookshop.org goes to funding independent bookstores in the US. I ...

In John Saul's 1988 effort The Unloved,  a man unwittingly pulls his family into his personal terrors by returning to his Southern family's estate to make peace with his dying mother and estranged sister. Vindictive and cruel in life his mother soon dies but her cruelty is far from over. This was a solid horror novel featuring juicy family secrets, palpable atmosphere, and some excellent murder set pieces. In many ways The Unloved is similar to Saul's Hellfire (1986) except he took the best elements of that prior novel and ratcheted the tension and violence even further. Saying that, the villain of the novel is very obvious. To Saul's credit though,  he uses that to his advantage and jolts the reader with a surprisingly savage murder closely following the second character death. He lets you know quickly that his villain choice will not limit the violence or the kill count.  1988 Bantam Books Paperback Several influences are on display in this novel ranging from the film...

It is the fourth month of 2020 and instead of the gleaming future long promised by various avenues of media and pop culture we find ourselves deep in a global pandemic. This is an unprecedented moment that has no neat resolution on the horizon and in the meantime humanity is united by our individual isolations in quarantine. What do you read in times like this? Is it even possible to distract ourselves in this period of crisis? In lieu of my regular planned TBR I  thought it was more fitting to offer a list of what I think are compelling, comforting reading choices for the current moment. I'm only human and though current events are weighing on me I will try to maintain this blog as a source of entertainment and escape. Be well. Be safe. 1) V For Vendetta Vertigo's paperback reissue Alan Moore's seminal dystopian indictment of the Thatcher era grows ever relevant. More than that it's a testament to what's worth fighting for and the strength of the human spiri...

For my first read in Women in Horror Month I decided to dig out After Louise by Teresa Crane from my mystery purchase pile. Some explanation is needed here. I try to buy most of my books in person at used book stores but every couple months I will buy stuff online and when I do I try to buy stuff I have been looking for but can't find at stores or I will buy books I can't find any information on and am intrigued enough to buy because it's under 5 bucks. After Louise is the latter situation and it's fascinating. There is almost no information online about the out of print dark romance line this was part of and it appears to be a UK only paperback original. Paperback originals as mentioned previously on this blog, were novels written explicitly for the cheap paperback market and almost never released as hardbacks. Fontana's Nightshades line appears to be a failed dark romance line for this market and after reading Crane's novel I'm surprised it failed. Featuri...

Happy late Valentine's everyone! To celebrate the holiday I decided to read the seasonal "classic" Broken Hearts by R.L. Stine. Due to events I will explain there will be SPOILERS in this review but I will not reveal the final twist. Also I am not the target audience for this book so teen girl points are back into play! What are teen girl points you ask? As outlined in my first YA Horror review on here this book will be judged using 3 criteria for a total of 15 points. The criteria being for 5 points each: Is the main character likable/relatable?, Are the supporting characters annoying or likable?, And most importantly how good is the WTF moment? Now that is out of the way let's get to the review. Archway's 1993 Paperback Edition Broken Hearts is essentially about 3 sisters, a pair of twins named Josie and Rachel and their baby sister Erica. In the last days before school starts they go horseback riding with a mutual friend, Melissa and a horrible accident ha...

Happy February everyone! Now many people think February is just commercial holiday month with Valentine's Day or they are more historically and socially minded and paying respect to Black History Month which is also observed in February. But what I'm excited about in February is Women in Horror Month! The month of February is the active culmination of the spotlighting and support that the grassroots Women in Horror Month group does all year for women in the field of horror. You can pay respect to these women in many ways and definitely check out Women in Horror Month or Ladies of Horror Fiction online to get some ideas on participation. For me personally, I flip between watching female directed horror like Eve's Bayou or Near Dark and reading horror by female authors. This year I have chosen to read horror by female authors and specifically, do a mix of classic and contemporary. New York Review Books 2008 Paperback Daphne Du Maurier is one of the horror greats and Don...

After a surprisingly eager response over on the Instagram page @genrebucket I decided to cover something different today: comic books! But why, you may ask, aren't comic books just superheroes? Actually, comic books are a rich and varied art form with just as many genres as books, as well as sub genres including literary adaptation. The grandfather of this genre being according to AbeBooks, Albert Kanter who was a Russian born publisher. He started Classic Comics later Classics Illustrated as a way to engage children with classic literature and was hugely successful. Running under his leadership from 1941 until its sale in 1971 all issues were comic book adaptations of classic literature like The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. He got into comics very early in the art forms existence and saw their appeal as a natural way to encourage reluctant readers. All the comics in his line were ad free except for promotion on the inside cover to order issues of the comics themselves which furthe...

It was bound to happen at some point. Me, a horror critic accidentally buying two books with the same title. What I can't view as an accident is how terrible both of these books are. Enter The Nightwalker by Diane Guest and Thomas Tessier respectively. One invokes the name of V.C. Andrews on the cover but actually is only as disturbing as spoiled mayonnaise. The other sports praise quotes from Peter Straub and Stephen King and after reading it I doubt they actually read this garbage. Both of these suck in unique ways so I'm going to cover The Nightwalker by Diane Guest first. I feel like I should also mention that this was published only in the UK and after reading it I understand why. HarperCollins 1994 Paperback Edition The event that sets in motion the idea a ghost walks its ancestral estate is literally a collection of fine china being destroyed. So spooky. Honestly, this entire novel can be summarized as a bucket of haunted ancestral estate cliches with a topping of m...

January. The time for resolutions and in the book reading/reviewing community time for a Book Ban. What is a Book Ban you may ask? Exactly what it sounds like a temporary or permanent ban on purchasing new books. People in this community have a tendency, myself included, to purchase books even when we have an already gigantic To Be Read pile. To curb this many of us choose to go on a sort of book buying fast to induce the reading and clearing out of our collective TBR's. So in that spirit I am committing to a Book Ban until my birthday Month in May. The only new books I will allow in my life are free digital ones I download on my Nook since they don't take up physical space and any books gifted to me/ won in contests (I recently won a free copy of Black Ambrosia from Valancourt Books). Saying this that is why I probably will not undertake reviewing V.C. Andrews' actual catalogue or review more Shirley Jackson until this Summer. But I do have plans to review many books over ...

Unlike the worst list my best of was really hard to narrow down. I only completed 35 books but as I discussed in my previous post in general, I enjoyed most of what I read. To compromise with myself there is an honorable mentions section this time featuring books that didn't quite make the cut. With that out of the way these are my Top 5 Best Reads of 2019! 5) The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson Written by the same author as future genre classic The Troop, this slim but emotionally rich meditation on memory and loss made me cry like a baby. On the surface about a man's memories of his summer adventures with a quirky uncle it unfolds into so much more successfully combining the myths of childhood with the real spectres of growing up and untimely death. This would rank higher but I was expecting this to be actually horror instead of a coming of age story but it still deserves to be on this list. 4) Monster by Christopher Pike This YA Horror was insane in t...

Hello Humans of the Internet! As you know it is now 2020 and like many readers I tracked the books I completed last year and decided to do a Top 5 Worst and Top 5 Best list. Why did I choose Top 5? I personally, think I didn't read enough to warrant a longer list. I only completed 35 reads in 2019 and in general my reading experience was fairly positive. A quick note though. I don't hold onto books I don't love 100% because of this I will not have the usual book edition info I provide since I don't have the books on me. All photos on this blog are taken by me of books I have purchased but I always ty to thoroughly document editions etc. so you can search for them yourself. On the Best list I will omit edition info simply for space. So without further ado here's my Top 5 Worst Reads of 2019! 5) Nightmare Hall #1 (The Silent Scream) by Diane Hoh This book is on here because it breaks my most important mandate: A book can't be boring. It's trying hard to ...

Happy New Year everyone! In the last days of December I had the pleasure of reading two different paperback originals so different in scope that I thought I should review both on here. Firstly, for newcomers to this blog or to vintage horror from the 80's Horror Boom when I say paperback original I refer to a work that was printed only in paperback format to reach the widest audience cheaply. This doesn't cheapen the stories these types of books tried to tell but goes to explain the type of over the top plot, eyecatching cover art etc. you see with the paperbacks within this period because they were in competition with thousands of other cheap paperbacks for reader attention. Also when I refer to the scope of a book specifically in genre fiction like horror, I'm referring to the scale of imagery the work creates in my mind. Do I feel like I'm immersed in a high budget movie or is the feeling I'm getting more akin to viewing a forgotten made for TV special? To pinpoi...

After complaining as much as I did in my review of Book of Three  I thought it was only fair to discuss the fantasy subgenre I do enjoy: Sword and Sorcery. Coined in the 1960's as a way to describe what made Robert E. Howard and other writers stand separate in their fantasy output from what people referred to as High Fantasy ie Lord of the Rings, Sword and Sorcery simply put is fantasy made immediate. But what does that mean? Essentially High Fantasy focuses on all encompassing world significant battles of good versus evil whereas Sword and Sorcery is marked by the battle an individual may fight against a monster for instance, and the consequences that could affect them from that fight. By paring down the stakes to the effects on an individual those stakes become that much more real to the reader and consequently more visceral. Focusing in on an individual also gives room to flesh that character out with believable flaws and strengths. High Fantasy falls into the trap of Mary Sue c...

I have a confession to make. I enjoy fantasy but I find it intrinsically boring. In many ways all fantasy blends together for me especially since I'm familiar with the patterns mythos and fairytales work within due to having read some Joseph Campbell and his works on comparative mythology, as well as my general knowledge and interest in folklore and mythology. The real genre fatigue for me though comes from the fantasy genre specifically overusing high fantasy tropes familiar to most people from Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. This year I decided to try and participate in Fantasy December which is a practice in reading circles to read works from the Fantasy genre in December since it lends itself well to the season. I had always been mildly interested in Disney's The Black Cauldron film and thought hey, it's based on a book series this could be fun. Judging by the movie it's going to be harmless kids fantasy but could be a light, entertaining treat. I was wrong. I ...

Hello wonderful humans. You asked for it. You voted for it on my instagram @genrebucket. That's right, I'm going to review Young Adult Horror on this blog now! So what does that mean? Essentially Young Adult Horror from the 1980's through the late 1990's will be reviewed on here around every other week. Keeping in mind I'm no longer a teen girl (teen girls were actually the predominant audience for these books) I will be rating these using a scale of 15 teen girl points. These points will come from 3 categories each worth a max of 5 points each. These categories being likability/relatableness of the main character, the level of annoyingness/likability of the supporting characters, and the quality of WTF moments. Ah the 90's. The era of landline telephones, thriving malls, and teens making money watching kids of adults they barely know. This is the world of R.L. Stine's The Babysitter 4. The final volume in R.L. Stine's Babysitter  series for Point Horror...

Although I'm getting to this review a little late I thought it was important to talk about my final read during Epic November,  Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon. There are many comments online about its similarity to Stephen King's The Stand but I would argue that 1987's Swan Song should instead be viewed as its more violent, fantasy inspired cousin. Saying that, I have to preface that I have only seen The Stand's miniseries production. I was planning on reading it back to back with McCammon's novel but to McCammon's credit after finishing what could be called one of his finest novels, I needed to move on to something lighter. So what is Swan Song actually about? Similar to Stephen King's novel/doorstop (depending on who you ask) it's about the end of the world or more succinctly what humanity becomes in its aftermath and the powerplay between good and evil. Drastically different from King's work the apocalypse comes from all out nuclear war hinted at...

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A gaggle of school children on the cusp of puberty in the 1960's try to find out what happened to a missing fellow kid during the summer only to become embroiled in supernaturally tinged horrors in their small town. No this is not Stephen King's 1986 doorstop It I'm instead describing Dan Simmons 1991 doorstop Summer of Night . Dan Simmons has recently re-entered humanity's consciousness with the AMC adaption of his novel The Terror  and if like me, you devoured the far superior source novel you would have found out about Summer of Night with a quick search for a list of Simmon's back catalogue. Although many people's initial response would be to punt this 600 page paperback into the cash grab King knock off bin if you stop and give it a chance you'll find a story although similar in some beats far more affecting and rich in presentation. Taking place in fictional Elm Haven, Illinois we follow a group of boys from...