It’s been quite a while since the last time I read a novel on the scale of Duma Key. At well over seven hundred pages in length, it’s not a read for the feint of heart. To tell the truth, that is about the only aspect of it that seems daunting, or perhaps even a touch terrifying. Don’t get me wrong, the story is well written with a depth to it the hints at the way a painter layers on glaze after glaze of color to bring a painting to life.

There’s a hint of Lovecraft in Duma Key, in the telling and the story’s soul. It follows three distinct time frames: the story of a little girl as she’s recovering from a head injury, the story Edgar Freemantle rebuilds his life after a debilitating accident, and the time of the narrator, who also happens to be Edgar. The first two tie together in an intertwining thread that follows Edgar and the little girl’s journey to rediscover themselves, sometimes literally, through art. But both paths move past the mundane application of shape and form into something… else. The time of the narrator foreshadows, sometimes almost too much, what is to come. Of course, this is a Stephen King novel, so any mention of something happening to a character is likely an ill portent to say the least.

Overall, I would say this is a good read and would definitely recommend it. There are definitely scarier stories out there, and more horrifying, but sometimes that’s the point.

View all my reviews

I originally started reading this book several months back and had to set it aside due entirely to external factors. At the time, it looked like the text was off to a good start. So, when I picked it up this time, I had high hopes only to see it come crashing down under the weight of gratuitous prose. The story centers around a character, named suspiciously the same as the author, who repairs time machines and hopes to one day locate his lost father, an uncredited co-discoverer of the theory behind time machines. Unfortunately, that’s the entire plot right then and there. More than half the book is exposition about the narrator’s past and just how bad that past was, or rather, mediocre it was.

On top of the near complete lack of story, the prose drove me nuts. Yu likes big words and uses them throughout the text without caring if there is anything to warrant their usage. It seems his overall goal is to add academic weight by the sheer mass of verbiage he uses.

There are numerous points where ideas are drawn out so far past the point of interest that I found it difficult to not skim over them to find the next interesting bit. It’s almost as if the entire point of 75% of the text is for the main character to whine about wallowing in self pity.

Overall, Yu attempts to invoke the whimsical nature of Douglas Adams with a dash of Pratchett on the side and fails miserably. If I could make one suggestion to the author, cut out about 20~30 percent of what’s there in the next draft!

View all my reviews

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fair warning: this is a dark, disturbing, and horrendously gruesome book. If you have a weak stomach, have difficulty with the idea of self inflicted violence in every conceivable form and fashion, or can’t imagine a world where death is not the worst thing that can happen then this is not a book for you. Otherwise, Chuck will not disappoint.

Haunted is written in a somewhat unusual, at least to me, style. There is an over arching story that frames a collection of short stories, each of which is preceded by a short about one of the characters. The short stories are meant act as a window into the past of each character in the framing story. For me, this style was a bit of a problem. The contextual switches between the short stories kept distracting me. That coupled with the text’s graphic content forced me to read the book much more slowly and in much smaller chunks than I would have liked.

My introduction to Haunted was an article on Chuck Palahniuk’s site, The Cult, titled The Guts Effect. Guts is the first of the short stories after the opening scenes of the framing story. It does a good job of setting the tone for the rest of the book and is by no means the worst of what lay within. I don’t know if I can convey to you how horrific this text is without giving too much away.

I’ll say it again, fair warning. This is not a book to read if you’re having even the slightest hint of stomach troubles.

View all my reviews

There is a sense of elation and accomplishment that comes with completing a run like that, and some withdrawal pangs as you realized it’s all over.  I can honestly say that this competition has devoured almost all of my free time since it was first announced back in January.  Now that it’s finished, I will have to get to work on some of my own writing again and back to my sorely neglected reading list.

If you didn’t get around to reading entries before the April 1st deadline, don’t worry. Scare Us from last year is still online with all the entries and comments that went with them, and I’m certain that Teleport Us will be left up indefinitely as well.  All you have to do is get an account on LitReactor to access all of those amazing and sometimes gruesome stories!

Here’s a short list of my favorites with quick links:

• The Gorund – A story about a robot who learns what the world is like outside his building ….
• Rings – Who is really in charge of the universe?
• Anamoly – Find the one who isn’t human …
• Ubi Cor Ibi Domu – The good life of a guard dog …
• The Machinery of Xmas – Christmas by the numbers …
• Fracture – What part does an evil master mind have in uotpia?
• One Tunguska Story – An isolated family finds something amazing …
• Gravidism – A new life and a lost job …
• An Incy Wincy Holocaust – This one has one hell of a twist!
• Corporate Person – What is the essence of a person?
• Of Flesh and Steel – Factory life is for the robots …
• Higher Minds – Dangerous minds …
• State of the Art – When writers become obsolete …
• The Song of the Ship – Can you hear what’s wrong?
• A Song for my Brother – A sisters trys to save her brother …
• The Last Dance – Comfort at the end of life ..
• His Man Stanley – If you’re a Dr. Who fan, think of the “Planet of the Ood”
• The Memory Remains – Time heals all wounds …
• Sunken Hearts – Their mission is destruction …
• Yes, Admin – So much worse than slavery …
• The Human Argument – What does it mean to be human …
• The Demon Chef – A family obligation, a family curse …
• Kill (command) – Freeing the world from perfection …
• Chip Head – The dangers of temptation …
• Deep Sleep – What happens when the world goes to sleep?
• The Business Spirit – Coming to terms with death …
• An Incident at Winter House 12 – Surviving against all odds …
• The Horse With No Head – Fighting for her masters life …

Yeah, way too long a list!  There’s also my own entry, Implant, but it seems disingenuous to include it in a list of my favorites.  Good luck to all those who entered!  As I’ve said before, there were some down right amazing gems  in this challenge!  I wonder if any of my picks will win?

Very well written! The world of the Nameless dwarf has a great deal of depth and richness to it. Reading through this story has made me want to go hunt down other books in the Nameless Dwarf series just to explore the world Prior has put together. The forward also struck a cord with me as I’ve done a bit of role playing on in the past and often wondered about writing something based on an old character. One thing I will say for Prior, he is very good at describing combat and his Nameless dwarf does “Kill. A lot.” If you’re a fan of dungeon crawling definitely get a copy of this book.

View all my reviews

The first thing that I noticed about reading this was that percentage counter at the bottom of my kindle display was keeping up with the chapter numbers. Dani used extremely short chapters as a means of quickly bouncing around her cast of characters, giving the book a very fast paced feel. I started out not sure how well this would work in the story and wound up finding that it worked out quite well. With the number of characters in the story, the quickly switching point of view keeps things moving.

There is a degree of graphic violence in the story. Of course, if you’re reading a story titled The Killing League you should really expect quite a bit of violence. Again, it’s not overdone anymore than your average action movie.

Overall, I’d say this is a pretty good read.

View all my reviews

It’s like seeing different mixes of the same ingredients or ratios of colors. They all start with a similar set of base elements—maybe the author picked up a certain distaste for insects, perhaps they watched one too many old Star Trek episode, or maybe they’ve read a little too much Lovecraft lately—and mix them up with just slightly different spices. Not that there is anything wrong with that; it’s just frustrating when you want to see something different and suddenly find yourself remembering a monster or character from some other story. The wider read you are, the more likely it is that you will be reading something and suddenly realize that it fits this formula or it’s a monster like that. Then you find yourself judging the present work in light of what you remember about the other one.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that readers are colored by their own experiences more than authors. I can tell you, from personal experience, that I’ve had what looked like a wonderfully unique idea, as a writer, only to discover that someone came up with it fifty years ago. Of course, a good deal of what I like to read is at least that old. ( Ahh the joy’s of a good space opera! I may have to write something in that venue . . .)

So much for that rant! Now if I can only get back to my current projects . . . . ARGH!

I am ashamed to say that I didn’t finish this book and will very likely never finis this book. It is definitely not up my alley. If you like gratuitous over use of excessively pretentious language, then you might find this intriguing. It’s not a matter of vocabulary so much as it is a question of deliberately applying the most round about way of stating the simplest things. That and the 200 word sentences. The author is exceptionally found of paragraph length structures with nary a period among a sea of commas.

I will say that I made it to page 39 before I set the thing aside while the front cover claims that something worth “bursting out laughing” over could be found on page 54. The few parts of what I read that weren’t so clouded as to be opaque carried an intense sexual undertone to the. Some degree of the husbands — not personality, say character — was beginning to filter through the narrator’s about the time I closed the book. It was starting to feel more concrete by that point but the clouded daze that went before was too much for me to wade through.

This is the kind of thing that I would expect to see an English professor delightfully inflicting upon their students. I can read Lovecraft’s stuff. I can read Tolkien. This stuff burned me out in 39 pages.

View all my reviews

Disclosure Note: I received a copy of the book to review from the author.

With this episode in the story of Eilidh and Munro the world of the Fae takes on an element of reality and depth that was not visible before. The Druids learn that their new world is not so far removed from that which they left, Eilidh must decide what it means to be a Queen, and they all learn the consequences of power.

India has done an amazing job of taking a realm where even the smallest child has the power to bend reality to their will and bringing it down to Earth. Another author I’ve ready made the assertion, “An armed society is a polite society.” Enemy of the Fae explores what happens when the rules are broken and old crimes take on a potency when colored by the power of the Fae.

This book can really tear at your heart. Still, India does show that life goes on and that there can be joy and hope after hurt and betrayal. Old ghosts do pass and new friends are there to be found.

Enemy of the Fae is definitely worth the read.

View all my reviews

Disclosure Note: I received a copy of the book to review from the author.

With this story, we revisit the world Caledonia with Eilidh, Munro and the others and find that there is more to the world of the Fae than their arrogance and vanity. We find that their scheming and plotting could rival any merely human royalty, that their secrets are just as deadly, and discover the cost of duty.

I found this story to be much more smoothly paced than the first book, Blood Faerie. I found myself reveling in the intrigue and building conflict. It has always been enjoyable to watch an underdog find that the bully is really not as big as they think they are. This book had me chuckling with glee as the story played out. Ok, I’m weird and probably a little nuts.

There is a little something for everyone in this story: conflict, love, hate, intrigue and well, you’ll just have to read it to find out.

View all my reviews