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...

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...

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...

Like many people I became introduced to author Thomas Harris through the 1991 movie adaptation of his novel The Silence of the Lambs. It's a powerhouse of a movie with a brain searingly memorable and iconic performance from Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I loved the movie so much that I looked up the author and found out that Lambs was actually a sequel to a prior novel called Red Dragon. Not entirely convinced yet to read the books I tracked down the 2002 film adaptation (there's a 1986 adaptation called Manhunter but it's too hard to find) and sat down to watch. Red Dragon the film was fantastic. Not as amazing as Lambs but it would be hard to even try to be on that film's level. Instead it's better to view the movie as stand alone even if it involves Lecter albeit briefly. Dragon is actually a prequel and follows Will Graham who barely survived his encounter and capture of Lecter being pulled in to help on the capture of another serial killer. This book ...