Ancient Images by Ramsey Campbell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had good memories of this book from almost forty years ago, read when I was a kid and fascinated by all things horror.

Specifically, I loved learning all about the old (truly old) great actors of horror cinema and a mystery surrounding a destroyed film from the 1930's.

This is a very English novel. Old mysteries surround more ancient histories and legends, dark traditions, nobility, and delicious sacrifices. Because the English love their sacrifice. :)

I really enjoyed re-reading this. Campbell's horror is quite unlike King's, despite old comparisons between the two in the '80s. Campbell's peeps aren't really designed to be hated--at least in this one. But the inexorable mystery is still very compelling. And tasty. Like bread.



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The September House by Carissa Orlando
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a great Halloween book. Or even an anytime psychological horror book. Or perhaps something rather more psychological. House-shattering, even.

Honestly, the first thing that ran through my head as I began reading this was how refreshing it was to start a tale AFTER the events. It's all long-after the main action, so we've got a delicious wrap-up ahead of us. Or unraveling. You know how these things go.

And then it just got funny. Deliciously funny. And without spoiling ANYTHING, I'll just say, vaguely, that a lot of twists and turns will happen with our expectations. Wonderfully so.

Suffice to say, this woman can absolutely make a heaven out of hell. I feel seen, too, in how well we both can roll with the changes--no matter how decidedly fucked up they are. Of course, making do and having a strong mind and body to make a HOME out of this situation CAN seem to be taken a BIT too far. But I'm an INFP and I SWEAR this character is, too.

We get it. We make do in the face of absolute insanity. Have you seen the rest of ya'll?

Ahem.

No matter how I look at it, this book was one hell of a kickass horror. Total recommendation.




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The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire by Doris Lessing
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The last book in the Canopus in Argos series may not be a traditionally good book in any sense of the word, but it has something many do not: a purpose that is both interesting, sharp, and as tragic as it is funny.

For the first four books, we always get oblique views of WHAT Canopus is, a force of good, of spiritualism in empire form, always being subverted by its evil counterpart. It's the spirit of cooperation and the rising tide against those who betray and twist for their own benefit.

This is obvious and simplistic, of course, and the books are rich and complicated and even rather natural in the evolution of all this, but that doesn't change the basic fact.

This last book focuses almost entirely on words, words, words. Good god, the words. How to completely destroy an empire using little more than words. But here's the good part: it may as well be us. Everyone seems to be going through quite a bit of all we see here, written timelessly.

How to turn words meaningless, how to reverse their meanings, how to turn vital services into caricatures, how to enslave people while making them clamor for it until it's too late. The propaganda.

The goddamn propaganda.

The endlesss goddamn propaganda.

You might say it's a sore spot with me. And perhaps this book hit harder than it should just because of how like a spear it is with the goddamn propaganda.

But just as it is asked in the book: "Just imagine what you'd be if you turned all that to better purposes?"

Yeah. This is actually a rather dark book.

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Alchemised by SenLinYu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Here's a pleasant surprise for a dark fantasy. Sure, yes, it's absolutely a tortured romance with some very solid fantasy elements, but it's also more than that.

It's actually written in a pretty interesting way. If anything, I'd say it's a cool mix between the darker elements of Wuthering Heights and Mistborn.

Or rather, I like THIS romance better than THAT one, but by god, the kinds of things that they had to go through... Yeah. Let's just say that when a writer is told to kill their darlings, it usually doesn't includes outright torture, rape, gaslighting, necromancy, war crimes, questionable life decisions, and murder. But then, we all have our foibles, right? lol But here's the important part: this is written well. It's consistently fascinating, and once we get beyond the opening part, it gets REALLY good. The past after the present, flavoring EVERYTHING fresh. I love this shit.

So, yeah, I loved this read. Very dark, very disturbing. And yet, I never fell out of love of these two. Even when they did all they could to try to make it so. :)






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Exadelic by Jon Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I need to be very clear on this book.

It's a wild SF ride. It's what you'd expect if you had a love-baby between Heinlein's later books and Blake Crouch, with a heavy dose of modern tech and "Oh my god, I can't believe he just took it there."

That's not to say that it entirely fits in today's book market.

Indeed, it tries to bring back the "oh, wow" and the "that's COOL" back into a jaded market.

So why would anyone not like this?

Perhaps it's for the same reason that many people do like it. Magic and technology, Telluric bombs? Magic/tech wars, combos, matrix-like allusions, multi-universes, etc? I mean, hell yeah. The novel jumps from a techno-thriller mystery to claustrophobic adventure to misaligned love story to epic-level conclusion without ever missing a beat. It's wild, crazy, and just plain fun.

So why wouldn't anyone like this?

Could be they just don't have the patience to enjoy change. And that's one thing this book has in spades: change, change, and more change. And that's rather the spirit of freedom, no?

Don't sleep on this.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews is be interested in reading my SF (Very hard SF, mind you), I'm open to requests.

Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

Arctunn.com

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Mimic & Me 3 by Cassius Lange
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm of two minds on this one. I used to love this series for the weirdness and the humor, but not so much for the plot. The first book was pretty good, the second was rather fast-forwarded, and the third took on a breakneck speed.

I don't want to be unclear. It's fast not in the sense of a snappy pace, but huge swaths of things jumped ahead or just plain skipped over to get to huge, almost meta-breaking events.

It got huge, OP, and frankly, I feel sad because of that. It was better when it was small.

That's not to say that there weren't a bunch of great, weird things going on, (I'm looking at you, googly-eyed split-idiot Chester,) but I really got a bit annoyed with the System plot.

Not horribly so, but it is still real.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews is be interested in reading my SF (Very hard SF, mind you), I'm open to requests.

Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

Arctunn.com

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Classroom of the Elite: Year 2 (Light Novel) Vol. 2 by Syougo Kinugasa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one was interesting primarily for the ongoing reveals to other peeps about our MC's talents, their surprise, and preps for the new special exam.

But nothing much HAPPENED in this novel except the setup for more, later. And now I have to wait.. unless I switch over to the anime or something, lol. Oh, well.



Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews is be interested in reading my SF (Very hard SF, mind you), I'm open to requests.

Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

Arctunn.com

View all my reviews