Ecdysis (Orville Nesbit Mysteries #1), by Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald

 

James D. Macdonald, Smashwords, ISBN 2940011288968, May 2011

Phil Paran is a police detective, investigating the latest in a string of serial killings. It's especially nasty, with the victims, always young women working as strippers, found dead and completely stripped of their skin. Remarkably neatly, too; very little blood found.

The Locked Coffin: A Judge Dee Mystery (Judge Dee #6) Lavie Tidhar

Tor Books, https://reactormag.com/the-locked-coffin-a-judge-dee-mystery-lavie-tidhar/ ISBN 9781250233544, October 2023

Good enough, for a vampire mystery. I'll admit that the use of the name, "judge Dee," annoys me.

What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier #1), by T. Kingfisher

Tor Nightfire, July 2022

This is a retelling of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." Kingfisher discovered on a rereading that Poe's story was much shorter than she remembered, and that there was room for...more.

More background and explanation of why this happened, in particular.

It's 1890, and Alex Easton is a retired soldier, plagued by tinnitus, from a tiny European kingdom called Gallacia. Kan is a "sworn soldier," a status which requires an exchange of gendered for nongendered pronouns. Kan is also the childhood friend of Roderick and Madeline Ussher, and travels to their ancestral home in Ruritania, in response to a letter from Madeline.

Madeline says she's dying.

Easton is nearly there when they encounter Miss Eugenia Potter, a knowledgeable and practical English mycologist, who shows them some of the creepier mushrooms of the area. This proves to be important information.

A House with Good Bones, by T. Kingfisher (author), Mary Robinette Kowal (narrator)

Macmillan Audio, ISBN 9781250886361, March 2023

Samantha (Sam) Montgomery is an archaeoentomologist, returned for a rare extended visit to her mother's home in North Carolina. She's been looking forward to it, is excited as she approaches the house, and initially not that worried by her brother's warning that "Mom seems off."

Then she walks inside, and the cozy clutter and lively colors of her mother's house are gone. Most of the walls are various shades of white (Sam is especially horrified by the ecru), while her own old room is rose. Her mother seems oddly timid, and has reimposed her own mother's, Gran Mae's, rules, of no swearing, grace before meals, and suggesting more modest clothing. What is she afraid of?

A Night in the Lonesome October, by Roger Zelazny (author), Matt Godfrey (narrator)

Recorded Books, ISBN 9781705061329, August 2022

Snuff is our narrator, here, and he's a smart, interesting, likable dog. He's the friend and partner of a man called Jack, and they are preparing for a major event. Jack has a very sharp knife, which he and Snuff use in gathering the necessary ingredients for the ancient and deadly ritual that will be performed on Halloween.

But Jack and Snuff aren't the only participants preparing for what they call "The Game."  Crazy Jill and her cat, Greymalk, The Count and his bat. Dr.Frankenstein, Rasputin, The Wolfman, and others--all (except The Wolfman) with their animal companions. Sherlock Holmes is very interested,  but not, himself, a player.

Alpha and Omega: A Companion Novella to Cry Wolf (Alpha and Omega #0.5), by Patricia Briggs (author), Holter Graham (narrator)

Penguin Audio, February 2013 (originally published in On the Prowl anthology, August 2007)

Anna is a werewolf. She was changed without her consent, into a pack where she is a disappointment--a submissive, rather than a female alpha. She's not happy with the rough contemptuous way she's treated, but she can't survive on her own as a werewolf, and she accepts her fate.

At least, until she learns that a newly changed young man has been sold to--someone. Someone who plans to use him as an experimental subject. Anna calls the werewolf king, and tells him what she knows about this crime the leader of her pack has committed. As a result, a dangerous conflict is about to break out.

In Defense of the Grim Reaper, by Riya Aarini (author), Glenn Hascall (narrator)

Riya Aarini, September 2022

This is  pretty cute little story, told in first person by the Grim Reaper, trying to set the record straight about what a nice, charming, and forward-thinking guy he is.

Uncanny Times (Huntsman #1), by Laura Anne Gilman

Gallery Books, ISBN 9781534415928, October 2022

It's 1913. Rosemary and Aaron Harker, sister and brother, are Huntsmen. Their blood isn't entirely human, and they have the ability to hunt and kill the Uncanny, unnatural creatures of the night who sometimes hunt humans.

The Uncanny don't hunt humans often, because of the Huntsmen. When they do, the Huntsmen respond, and kill the offender against a long, uneasy truce. The Huntsmen don't try to wipe out the Uncanny, because there are too many of them, and humanity would be the losers.

Rosemary and Aaron receive a letter, telling them a distant cousin, knowledgeable about the Huntsmen but not quite one himself, has died. He left a note saying that if he died in unusual circumstances, Rosemary and Aaron should be summoned. They quickly pack and leave, with their hound, Botheration, for a small town in upstate New York.

Grim Tales, by E. Nesbit (author), Peter Yearsley (narrator)

LibriVox (original publication 1904)

I had no idea Edith Nesbit wrote for adults, but, since she did, it makes sense she'd write at least some horror.

A total of seven stories, they're darkly creepy rather than filled with screaming, dramatic incidents of terror, and gore.

A man in love is approached by another woman he knows with a letter his beloved wrote to the woman's brother--a passionate love letter. He ends his engagement, and gradually, comes to love, and marry, the woman who exposed the truth. But was it the truth? Was the letter a forgery? Can the answer to both questions be "yes"? He makes a tragically wrong decision, and has a tragically dark encounter.

That Story Isn’t the Story, by John Wiswell

Galaxy's Edge, November 2021

 

Anton is living in a spooky old house in New York City. The house belongs to Mr. Bird, and so do Anton, Pavla, Yoanna, and Mr. Bird's senior familiar, Walter. Mr. Bird bites them, each one in different places on the body. It's a dark, gloomy, unpleasant life, and they're all afraid to run away.

Anton has called an old friend, Grigorii, who has arrived to pick him up, while Mr. Bird isn't around. They go to Grigorii's home, and Anton starts living a very different life.

Them Mr. Bird and the other familiars come after him. and we learn what control he has over his familiars.

What I particularly like about this story is our growing understanding of how Mr. Bird's power works, and Anton's growing understanding, too.

Recommended.

I received this story as part of the 2022 Hugo Awards Packet, and am reviewing it voluntarily.

The Sin of America by Catherynne M. Valente

Uncanny Magazine, March 2021, 

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-sin-of-america/

Sadly, I did not like this one.

It starts with what feels like a relatively long section of really drab, colorless detail, with no real reason to care about any of the people mentioned--most of whom, in the end, really do turn out not to matter in the story.

Then the story starts to get meatier, with one of the characters being identified as the chosen "sin-eater" for America, to eat all the sins of our history, in a diner in Wyoming. We learn some of the details of her life, of the people around her, and how she was chosen to be the sin-eater this time.

Emergency Landing A Short Horror Story (Come Join Us By The Fire, Volume 2: Book #15), by: Seanan McGuire (author), Natalie Naudus (narrator)

Tom Doherty Associates, ISBN 9781250811684, March 2021 (original publication March 2019)

Caitlin Wilson is a scientist, an epidemiologist, who, in the current situation, is glad to be able to say that she doesn't actually work for the government. She's a consultant. This doesn't help as much as she'd like.

What is the current situation? She traveling on business, this time flying out of the Atlanta airport. They've just taken off when she sees some flashes of light and feels what a less observant and less informed person would think was merely atmospheric disturbance. When Caitlin realizes that it was falling bombs and they were likely the last people to get out of the Atlanta airport, she flags down a flight attendant she knows from previous flights. She recommends that when wifi is turned on, it should be made free to all passengers, because as soon as some people have access to information about what just happened, unequal access is likely to lead to conflict and panic. 

The Days of Flaming Motorcycles by Catherynne M. Valente (author), Natalie Naudus (narrator)

Tom Doherty Associates, ISBN 9781250807489, March 2021

Caitlin is a young woman living in Augusta, Maine, during the zombie apocalypse. She's surrounded by zombies; all the non-zombies, except her, have left Augusta for safer regions. She's even sharing her home with a zombie, her father. Her mother, who also became a zombie, wandered off.

Caitlin is recording her thoughts, observations, and experiences in a children's school notebook. The current one has a picture of flaming motorcycles on the cover. Her observations contradict much of the official information, still broadcast by tv and radio stations in places where the zombies haven't displaced the non-zombies. One of those observations is that the zombies have a culture.

Origin Story A Short Horror Story (Come Join Us By The Fire, Volume 2: Book #7), by T. Kingfisher (author), Natalie Naudus (narrator)

Tom Doherty Associates, ISBN 9781250811677, March 2021 (original publication October 2020)

The last survivor of three fairy sisters works in a slaughterhouse, because even a fairy has to eat. She's the best butcher in the slaughterhouse, and she can handle animals too difficult for others. Her coworkers slowly realize she's living there, too, but that's no great concern.

Even more slowly, they realize she's making things, small things. like things somewhere between birds and bats, out of leftover pieces and parts from the slaughtered animals. That's creepy and wrong and very disturbing. But she's the best butcher there, and the foreman says that when one of them is the best butcher he has, he'll listen to the complaints. Then one day an old mare is brought in, who isn't really ready for death, but she can't do her old job anymore, and can't be sold for enough to keep her out of the slaughterhouse. The fairy persuades the butcher to let her have the mare, and makes a promise to the mare.

Ring Shout, by P. Djèlí Clark

Tordotcom, ISBN 9781250767011, October 2020

I really don't read horror, honest.

Except, as I've said before, quite recently I think, when I do. P. Djèlí Clark seems to be getting almost a permanent pass for his horror. I don't look at it and say, no, it's horror; I look at it and say, oh, it's Clark.

It's the 1920s, with Prohibition, Jim Crow, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. But this is an alternate America. D. W. Griffith is a sorcerer, and the movie Birth of a Nation is a spell.

Not all the Klansmen are humans. Monsters are coming through from somewhere else, and they have their onw agenda, for which the KKK is useful.

Three young black women are friends and part of a resistance force against the monsters, which they call Ku Kluxes--Cordelia Lawrence, Sadie Watkins, and Maryse Boudreaux. 

Maryse is our viewpoint character, with a book of African-American folktales, and a magic sword that comes to her when she needs it. Sadie has her rifle, a Winchester 1895, which she calls Winnie. Cordelia is called Chef by everyone, but she doesn't cook food. She served in WWI, disguised as a man, and is an explosives expert.

Hammers on Bone (Persons Non Grata #1), by Cassandra Khaw

Tor.com, ISBN 9780765392701, October 2016

As all faithful readers of this blog know, I don't read horror.

Except when I do.

This is Tor's free download for September, and it features a P.I., and a kid who wants his stepdad killed. His stepdad is an abusive monster...no, literally, a monster.

Which is what makes John Persons, P.I., right for the job. He's a P.I. right out of the noir era, and that's because he's a monster, too, and the intelligence keeping the body alive and working is way older than anything as recent as the noir era.

So, reluctantly, Persons agrees to take the case, with the promise of being paid with the contents of the boy's piggy bank.

Judge Dee and the Three Deaths of Count Werdenfels: A Tor.com Original (Judge Dee), by Lavie Tidhar

Tor Books, February 2021

This isn't Judge Dee, the 7th century Tang dynasty Chinese magistrate and statesman. This is another Judge Dee, a fictional vampire judge, wandering medieval Europe, enforcing the law as vampires see it--which is mostly making sure vampires don't do things that attract too much human attention. Anything that would cause humans to become aware and alarmed enough to endanger vampire-kind. It's not about protecting humans; it's about protecting vampires from humans.

Judge Dee is accompanied by a young man named Jonathan, a human whom he rescued from underneath a pile of dead bodies for entirely practical, even selfish, reasons. He needed directions. Then he decided that Jonathan was useful, and kept him. Mostly he takes good care of Jonathan, but sometimes he forgets that his human servant needs food, and gets cold.

Two Truths and a Lie, by Sarah Pinsker

Tor.com, June 2020

Stella, while home on a visit after years away from her hometown, attends the funeral of an old friend's older brother, and agrees to help him clean out the brother's house. He was a serious hoarder, and Stella is glad she only committed to one day of the exhausting and disturbing experience. One thing we need to know about Stella is that she has a habit of making up lies, not for any particular reason, but simply to see if people believe her.. When she asks her friend, Marco, if he remembers a Saturday morning kids' show called The Uncle Bob Show, she expects him to say he doesn't, because she made it up.

But he does remember it. His brother, Denny, was on it, more than once. The tapes of those episodes are among the "treasures" Marco has uncovered so far, and he starts playing them. It's not your normal Saturday morning kids' show, and Stella is creeped out.

Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse, by Rae Carson

Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2020

Brit lives in a protected enclave with a community of women, in a time of zombie apocalypse. She's also very, very pregnant, near to giving birth. Some in the community are very supportive; others think she's being selfish, putting two of the community's most essential members at risk.

Zombies are attracted to the smell of blood, of course. They're even more attracted to the smell of birth. So the enclave has a separate, secure location for women to give birth in. When Brit goes into labor, she and her partner, Marisol, go to that location--a shipping container.

What follows is a story of the drive to reproduce, danger, courage, community, and female solidarity. 

I really, really don't like zombie fiction, and wouldn't have read this if it weren't a Hugo Finalist. And yet, after my initial resistance, I enjoyed it.

Recommended.

This story is available to read for free on the Uncanny Magazine website, and I am reviewing it voluntarily.

The Hollow Places, by T. Kingfisher

Gallery Books, ISBN 9781534451124, October 2020

Kara is recently divorced, and living in the spare room in the Wonder Museum that her Uncle Earl conveniently just happened to have ready for her. This means she doesn't have to go stay with her mother; both Kara and Earl know there would surely be murder done if she and her mother (Earl's sister) tried that. And really, Earl isn't as mobile as he used to be, and could use the help running the museum. His knee, in particular, isn't what it used to be.

The museum is filled with pretty strange and weird items, include

 But that's all normal enough, considering this is Uncle Earl and the Wonder Museum. When Earl's knee goes out completely, and he has no choice but to agree to surgery, Kara is lefte  running the museum on her own--and discovers a hole in the wall on the second floor, that opens onto concrete corridors stretching further than is possible in the building the museum is in. Oh, and there's a dead body, reduced almost just to bones, in a room off one of those corridors.