The Genre Bucket

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...