jdhacker's reviews
1411 reviews

I wish I liked this more. It took me three attempts before I just bore down and forced my way through it. Carter's language is rich, florid, and impressive (even if I feel like she's a little too in love with alliteration and some other literary devices). And I fully understand this is like the first modern re-imagining of a lot of fairy tales. But...it kind of just feels like I'm back reading my classics of western (british) lit as an English major. This feels, and I don't mean this in a good way, like any number of other victorian romantic or erotic writers. Is it even erotic? I guess? In the very heavily veiled in indirect way that a bunch of victorian lit is? Is it disturbing? Sort of? I'm so lost in dense language most of the time that the real impact of horror or eroticism is kind of lost in the words.
Part of me imagines it would be better read to me, rather than read by me. Part of me also imagines that, despite this being one Carter's more popular books, that her longer form novel work would probably be a great deal more enjoyable than the short fiction. The through line and structure of plot would go a long way towards supporting the weight of her language and imagery. I think maybe that's where these really fail for me...they can't support it, and they also seem to lack the allegorical lessons that normally give form and structure to fairy tales. 

This is my first Brian Stableford, and it appears unfortunately in the midst of a series. I did really enjoy it though...I would say more pulp detective/hammet meets scifi than the harder scifi of its day. And despite Stableford being a traind sociologist, it comes across as a lot less preachy and thought-experimenty regarding other human civilizations than, again, a lot of his contemporary science fiction writers.
I'll definitely be looking up the rest of this particular series, and likely some of his lovecraftian stuff as well.

For all their flaw, I really enjoyed the Xanth books when I was young. And a weird standalone book, But What of Earth, by Anthony is something I really loved. I never read the Incarnations books when I was young, so this was among the 'first books in a series that I missed out on at the time' that I decided to test out and see whether the series would be worth my time now.
I can definitely see Anthony playing with some of the same notions and techniques he uses time and again in Xanth, and even some shades of But What of Earth. And maybe, like a lot his other books, this just didn't age well (I try to set aside the intense misogyny I expected going on), but this book barely held my attention. I didn't care about the protagonist, most of the supporting characters, or their dilemmas (moral or otherwise). The characters I did enjoy had such bit parts (a few of the 'clients', a few of the ghosts) that it wasn't worth it, and the world building was really all over the place.
If you like Anthony, or other similar fiction contemporaneous to this, you might like it. Or enjoy it for nostalgia sake, but I'd say for the casual reader to pass, and I likely won't be finishing the series.

This collection brings together many of Whinery's shorter works set in and around his Coffin Mills area of Oklahoma. Some of these have appeared in his own collections previously, some in sundry other anthologies, and a few are new to Obscene Folklore.
If you're already a fan, you'll find familiar work to enjoy here as well as new work to delight. If you're new to his work, this can be a good introduction as it demonstrates a nice cross section of Whinery's strengths. "The Hungry Boy" shows how deftly he can write in a voice as distinctive from his own as that of a very young, lovesick girl (with a nice, never quite revealed, twist involving her grandmother). "The Loved Ones", not to be associated with the amazing movie of the same name, is a rare venture into science fiction for Whinery. A number of these stories are doing some great world building around his Coffin Mills/Black Knot/Lavera/Bava universe. "Little Red Tent at the Edge of the Woods" connects to a real world tragedy in a really interesting way. And "The Tenth Life" feels like a good old fashioned fairy tale more than anything

I'm familiar with Alice Coltrane both as a Detroit native aware of some larger figures in our local history, and as a jazz fan. I feel like the blurb/description for Monument Eternal is a little misleading. I expected something a bit more akin to an autobiography about Coltrane's journey away from Christianity and into a different spiritualism, through the lens and in the context of broader events in her life and likely the culture of the local area, country, and world at the time.
Instead I got what is, unequivocally, nothing but a straight forward religious text, communicating her specific spiritual beliefs and myths. Even at that, its not a particularly accessible text.
If you're looking for interesting history or biography, this is most definitely not for you. If you're already a fan of religious conversion texts, or even some more pop spiritualism like the Celestine Prophecy, this might be for you.

Much that I said to Whinery's first full length novel, Trade Yer Coffin for a Gun, applies here, but if anything more strongly.
Country Girl's Guide feels like an even more 'grown up' novel than Coffin, while simultaneously being a coming of age story. Whinery has seemingly mastered King's knack for showing us characters both young and old 'come of age' through trials both horrific and terribly mundane a small town...though in a forlorn corner of Oklahoma instead of the new england states. 
For readers familiar with Whinery's work, connections abound to previous stories as a whole regional mythos and history if clearly being constructed. An entire alternate world in fact, masterfully constructed of nostalgic references changed just enough from the world in which we live to create a sense of unreality but close enough to still pull us in to our own dust covered remembrances. 
What I was perhaps most unprepared for was the sadness and loss that I think tugs at the hearts and minds of readers of a certain age, that King and Bradbury so perfected in stories where innocence and childhood are lost.
Oh yeah, and there are great monsters and fantastically written action scenes as well!

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez visual, first person chronicle of his personal and musical journey across the world makes for a stunning coffee table book. Composition and technique are as varied and interesting visually as one might expect from his music.
If I had one complaint with the collection, is that I would have liked a little more from the photographer regarding context or thoughts for each piece.

Trade Yer Coffin is a departure from the previous short story collection of Whinery's I've read, though there was a fairly long form novella in a previous collection.
Like that previous longer form piece, Trade Yer Coffin does not fail to deliver in fast paced, believable action, characters who's internal life and relationship to others feels real and genuine, and a perfect balance of horror and magic. Its startling to me that Whinery has not broken through to a wider audience as his work always feels like the perfect balance of genre and accessibility to appeal to main stream audiences as well as genre and indie die hards.
Whether you're looking for western horror, dark magic, or something regional, you can't go wrong with this release from one of Oklahoma's best currently writing native sons.