Aug 20 2025

Creepshow Vol 3 edited by Ben Abernathy

Given my literary consumption of recent years, I’m genuinely wondering whether I ought to pivot away from my usual mental palate cleansers of classic/cozy crime in favor of horror anthologies like this one! This volume certainly acted like a much needed reset on my brain, serving up short, sharp and entirely self-sufficient diversions to give my weary mind the low commitment but high reward reading it desperately needed.

As overseen by Ben Abernathy, the ten comics collected here fulfil the Creepshow remit with aplomb. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Creepshow first debuted as a Stephen King-written and George A Romero-directed anthology movie in the early 1980s. It was conceptualized as an homage to the EC horror comics of the 1950s, and was successful enough to spawn several sequels and, in a nice full-circle moment, a comic of its own.

Creepshow was revived as a television show in 2019, which is where this latest comics iteration comes in. Greg Nicotero and Brian Witten, the producers of that show, have also cleverly solicited for writers and artists to contribute to accompanying print anthologies, of which this is the third. Each volume so far has showcased some of the best talent in comics today. This one is no different, with a stacked line-up that includes Chip Zdarsky, Mike Carey and Kami Garcia, among others. Shout-out as well to Pat Brousseau who lettered every story but one here, keeping an excellent sense of continuity going almost entirely throughout.

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Aug 19 2025

Reissue Recap!

I received four books recently that are all coming out in a new format today, with a fifth publishing next week. What better way to celebrate all five than with an exclusive round-up column!

The first is the sequel to a crime debut I super loved for its investigator protagonist. Charlotte Vassell’s The In Crowd is now out in paperback, and continues the story of DI Caius Beauchamp as he solves crime while navigating the race and class politics of modern England. Here in the series’ sophomore novel, DI Beauchamp must investigate two cold cases which couldn’t possibly be related… or could they?

Early one morning, a men’s rowing team discovers a body floating face down in the Thames. Many years before, the chief executive of a clothing manufacturer walked off with a multi-million dollar corporate retirement fund and disappeared without a trace. Now, the discovery of this body forces that cold case to be reopened.

Meanwhile, DI Beauchamp has his own evening at the theater upended by the discovery of a corpse just a few seats away. Two decades ago, Eliza Chapel, a fourteen-year-old student at a girls’ boarding school in Cornwall, disappeared in the middle of the night under dubious circumstances. A second body means a second cold case reopened.

As DI Beauchamp — along with his associates Matt Chung and Amy Noakes — investigates these parallel missing persons cases, he finds himself ensnared in the unexpected political machinations of a duke-in-waiting. The deeply irritating Rupert Beauchamp (no relation, probably) returns in these pages, but I’m rather glad Nell doesn’t play a prominent role here, as I thought she was kind of a drip in the first book. Regardless, I’m looking forward to finding time to dive in and enjoy Caius, Matt and Amy’s company once more!

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Aug 18 2025

T. Kingfisher BINGO and Hemlock and Silver Review!

the cover of Hemlock and SIlver by T. Kingfisher has a red apple surrounded by snaking vegetation against a black backgroundHemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher comes out this week, August 19th! As always with T. Kingfisher’s prolific work, Hemlock and Silver is both creepy and kind, thought-provoking and comforting. It’s a must-read for any of T. Kingfisher’s existing fans and a fabulous first T. Kingfisher book for those who have not yet read her.

To celebrate this book and the ways that it engages many beloved tropes also explored in her other books, my well-read friend Larisa and I have made you a present! Expanding on our previous T. Kingfisher celebrations, we have made you THREE BINGO CARDS (downloadable after the cut) to play whenever you read any book by T. Kingfisher, and to try to win with Hemlock and Silver!

In Hemlock and Silver, we meet Anja, a scientist who studies poison and its antidotes in her desert kingdom. She spends most of her time experimenting in her laboratory, but also heals kids who lick fly paper and addicts who overdose. A steady, useful life that nothing is likely to interrupt, right?
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Aug 16 2025

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

The battle lines of the Italian campaign in World War II have moved northward from the outskirts of Florence. In a villa once owned by the Medici and then the Jesuits, lately used as a hospital by the Allies, two people remain. One is a nurse, a young Canadian woman who has been tending soldiers as the armies worked their way up the Italian peninsula. Bucking order, she has stayed in the villa to tend the English patient, a man who has been burned nearly beyond recognition, and who she says is too fragile to be moved any further.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

At the beginning of the book, Ondaatje establishes how she cares for her patient, washing him every four days, bringing him food and water, injecting him with morphine, reading to him at night in the empty villa. “She reads to him from whatever book she is able to find in the library downstairs. The candle flickers over the page and over the young nurse’s talking face, barely revealing at this hour the trees and vista that decorate the walls. He listens to her, swallowing her words like water.” (p. 5) She also tends a garden, and ventures occasionally to other nearby settlements to barter for necessities, but otherwise there is only the English patient and the nurse, whose name is Hana. She is tending her own, inner, wounds as she keeps her last patient alive.

Though Ondaatje writes that Hana has tended the Englishman for months, it is apparently only when they are alone in the villa that he begins to recount his story, telling how he came to be so badly burned, how he came to be among the British army moving through Italy. The novel is divided into ten chapters, and it moves back and forth through time roving from the present when the war has left the characters behind back to the 1930s, as the nurse, the patient, and eventually two other men reveal varying amounts about their pasts.

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Aug 15 2025

Tantalizing Tales — August 2025 — Part Three

Hello, dear readers! It is midway through August and publishers are already pivoting hard to horror, as is tradition. Tho I gotta tell you, the pivot does feel a little more comforting than usual this year, given the state of the world and the ways in which horror stories are oftentimes just how the mind tries to cope with crimes so grotesque as to seem unsolvable.

Thus we have some great horror and mystery novels to highlight for you this week, beginning with Daphne Fama’s electrifying horror debut, House Of Monstrous Women. Infused with a dose of rich Filipino folklore inspired by the author’s own upbringing in a Filipino community in the American South, HoMW blends the childhood stories she learned from her mother with interviews from Carigara elders and folk practitioners of both healing and cursing.

Our heroine Josephine lives alone, orphaned after her father’s political campaign ends in unimaginable tragedy. Her older brother is in Manila, where a revolution brews. The country is in turmoil, and so is Josephine’s life. As Josephine begins to feel even more hopeless and uncertain, an unusual invitation arrives from her estranged childhood friend, Hiraya Ranoco: Why don’t you come visit, and we can play games like we used to?

Josephine left Hiraya in the past for a reason: she is rumored to come from a family of shapeshifting witches, or aswang, who live in a maze-like manor perched beside a treacherous sea. But there’s something about Hiraya that Josephine has never been able to resist.

When Josephine arrives at the eerie old house, she discovers that her brother has also been summoned and that a perilous game is afoot. The winner will earn all their heart’s desires. For Josephine, who has lost everything, this is a tantalizing proposition. But there is something menacing about this invitation…and it’s clear that Josephine and her brother do not know the entire truth about why they are here. As the Philippines descends into chaos outside the manor’s walls, danger is lurking around every corner on the inside as well. And if Josephine isn’t careful, she’ll find that change is sometimes bought with blood.

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Aug 14 2025

Flame Con Anticipation

This coming weekend, August 16 and 17th will be Flame Con in midtown Manhattan! I like my conventions small and progressive, and Flame Con is therefore generally one of my favorites each year. Created by the organization Geeks OUT, Flame Con is a celebration of queer aspects of various fandoms including books, comics, tv, film, movies, gaming and cosplay.

With Flame Con 2025 right around the corner, I’m both thinking back fondly on the fun I had there last year, and looking forward to specific things that are on the schedule for this year.

From left to right, ND Stevenson, Molly Knox Ostertag and moderator Sara Munson delighting the audience and each other at Flame Con 2024

From left to right, ND Stevenson, Molly Knox Ostertag and moderator Sara Munson delighting the audience and each other at Flame Con 2024

Last year, a major highlight for me was the panel “N.D. Stevenson and Molly Knox Ostertag in Conversation” moderated delightfully by Sara Munson. Before a fabulous session with the couple, Sara Munson asked the audience if anyone there liked Chappell Roan, and the raucus yeses kind of set the tone for the hour to come. Stevenson talked about how he got She-Ra and the Princesses of Power to be as successfully lesbian as it was, and Ostertag talked about her new graphic novel, The Deep Dark, among many other projects, and they each discussed their working styles.

I also really appreciated the panel “The Secret (and Queer) History of Libraries” with Glen J. Benedict and Emily Drabinski, which both discussed the history of LGBTQ+ professional organizations in US libraries as well as current censorship issues facing librarians today. This panel on progressive library history had a full and enthusiastic audience.

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Aug 13 2025

How To Spot A Magical Woodland Creature by Sarah Glenn Marsh & Lilla Bolecz

Wahey, I’m back to my regularly scheduled review programming! And what lovelier way to return than with a gorgeously illustrated children’s book that artfully blends science with fantasy, for a delightfully whimsical read.

This field guide to enchanted creatures starts with several very important caveats to young readers, in a way that absolutely aligns with its mission for people to see outside their usual boundaries and consider the magic contained in the everyday. Before plunging into descriptions of the fantastic, Sarah Glenn Marsh reminds readers of all ages of the importance of respecting the woods, and of the limitations of any field guide. The disappointed child of decades past in me deeply appreciated how she stated exactly what kind of terrain her book covers: the flora and fauna of temperate forests are quite different from what you can expect of other kinds, and the fact that she clearly delineates her area of coverage makes it clear that she’s thought of readers who don’t have physical access to that kind of wilderness. There’s no leading eager youngsters along in search of the familiar, only to disappoint them in the end because our differences and needs are never recognized. That might seem like a very small thing to people who’ve always been catered to by the mainstream, but it means a lot to a reader who rarely saw herself addressed in manuals like these growing up.

The caveats over, the contents themselves riff on established fact to create a world of whimsy for budding naturalists who love animals but who love magic as well. Ms Marsh compares the enchanted version of each creature with its mundane representation, building not only a solid scientific basis but also making it clear that magic is distinct and unusual and a springboard for the imagination. Throughout, she emphasises the importance of respecting wildlife while not being afraid of getting your hands a little dirty in the process of learning more.

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Aug 12 2025

Salvagia by Tim Chawaga (EXCERPT)

Hello, readers! Today we have an excerpt from a thrilling work of speculative fiction that falls under the cli(mate change)-fi heading, as a near-future scavenger finds herself embroiled in the murder of a powerful corporate figure.

Triss Mackey is flying just under the radar, exploiting a government loophole that lets her live quietly aboard her rented, sentient CabanaBoat, the Floating Ghost. To make ends meet, she dives for recycling recovered from the flooded areas of formerly-coastal cities known as the yoreshore. If she happens to find some salvagia — nostalgic salvage, valued artifacts from the past — well, that’s just between her and the highest bidder.

But when the federal government begins withdrawing from Florida entirely, Triss must buy the Ghost outright or lose her loophole. The corporate mafias, meanwhile, are poised to seize power. Triss needs a score big enough to keep her free from both the feds and corporations, before the Ghost is sent to a watery, insurance-scamming grave.

It’s while in pursuit of such a score that she stumbles upon the chained up, drowned corpse of Edgar Ortiz, the legendary owner of the Astro America luxury hotel and head of the corporate mafia known as Mourning in Miami. The last thing she wants is to get even more involved with anything to do with his death, but Ortiz’s hotshot spaceracing son Riley makes her an offer she can’t refuse. Partnering up with Riley to solve the mystery of his father’s murder could lead them to a valuable piece of salvagia – and with it, the hope of a sustainable, free way of Florida living.

Read on for the milieu-setting excerpt!

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Aug 11 2025

A year of Diana Wynne Jones: Wrap-up!

This post concludes my year of reading all of Diana Wynne Jones’s books! After her death in 2011, Earwig and the Witch was published the same year, and a collection of her nonfiction writing was published in 2012. Much more recently, Moondust Books has published collections of her plays and poems! In this post I’ll also be covering two outliers that I didn’t write about during the general readthrough: the very first published book by Diana Wynne Jones, Changeover (1970), which was her only non-speculative book for adults; and Yes, Dear (1992), her only picture book.

While I generally think of Diana Wynne Jones as a master of middle grades and YA fantasy novels, it’s lovely to get this wide perspective on the many other types of writing she did throughout her career.

the cover of Changeover by Diana Wynne Jones shows a stick figure looking at its shadowChangeover (1970)

Changeover was Diana Wynne Jones’s first published novel in 1970, and while it has no fantastical elements and is written for an adult readership, it already bears many of the hallmarks of her writing style that would come to characterize her books. When I think about Changeover in the context of Diana Wynne Jones’s work overall, it feels to me like a pilot for a show that underwent drastic changes before it got picked up.

Changeover is extremely out of print. I requested it through Interlibrary Loan and the loaning library stipulated that I could not take it home – I had to come read it on the library premises because physical copies of it are now so rare.

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Aug 10 2025

Two Short Takes

I’ve read that The Innkeeper’s Song is Peter S. Beagle’s favorite among his novels, and I think I can understand why. He writes the novel from no less than ten points of view — including a shapeshifting fox — allowing him to show events from numerous different perspectives, to show how the same actions have different meanings depending on who is telling what happened. The book is named for the innkeeper, but it doesn’t begin with him, and though it more or less ends with him (told from another point of view) the inn is only incidentally and intermittently a place for the novel’s action. The title, then, is just the first of many of Beagle’s acts of misdirection concerning this novel.

The Innkeeper's Song by Peter S. Beagle

I’ve shied away from calling The Innkeeper’s Song a story, because another important thing that Beagle does is keep the reader guessing about what kind of story the book is, or rather, keep the reader interested in all of the different kinds of stories that the characters are living through. One seeks his true love beyond death and back. She, for her part, wonders why she is returned, and who is this overly earnest boy anyway? The two other women traveling with her have their own quests though they, too, may be in the dark about what they are really up to.

At each turn, the story becomes something else. The desperate quest for a lost love becomes an attempt to find a new place, and to understand whether a connection that felt like it should last through eternity can continue even into the next year. A different quest for a lost friend and teacher brings the questers into the middle of a terrible, slow-motion feud. Did the old wizard want to be found? Did he know he would be regardless of his own desires, and did he use that as another gambit in his deadly game?

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