Scott Hale

This is a book that practically no one has read, but

THAT MUST CHANGE.

First, a word to the wise. This novel continues a long tradition of great adventure fantasy and discovery while being extremely rooted in the very best traditions of better-than-Cthulhu horrorgore.

Getting through the book was was like eating great key-lime pie (and I like key-lime pie) while understanding that I'm actually a post-Cthulhu monstrosity born to a world that has already had the great beast awaken and convert our modern landscape into so much trash and reality-corruption, and the key-lime pie is actually dead babies.

Sound like too much for you? Well, just wait! The beginning of the book gets us a solid introduction by way of an initiation ceremony, which is pretty standard stuff until she passes dead cell phones in the brackish water. After that, and moving through a few important scenes leading to being part of a larger scouting party, the novel is really easy to enjoy. Her quests keep the story moving so smoothly that I just couldn't put the book down until I drowned in my body's exhaustion, and the first thing I did upon waking was resume it. Finishing it has left me with an enormous hunger for more.

Am I impressed as hell? Did I get my fill of key-lime pie? No! Because I haven't read anything quite this horrifying and unabashedly imaginative since only a few of Clive Barker's books, and those tend to get a bit digressive. Scott Hale's novel was damn direct and adventuresome, and while the eventual reveals were not entirely mind-blowing, they were, on the other hand, very satisfying and grand. There was a hell of a lot of payoff in this novel, and not only from the evocations of horror, but also from characterizations through actions, pathos through deeds and force of will in doing what she thinks is right.

I LOVE HORROR, and I feel that love pouring through to me from this author, too!

I have no higher praise that I can give to this, or any other, novel. It grabbed me by my tastebuds and threw me into a post-apocalyptic supernatural nightmare world and never once let up or lost its tension. Please, may I have some more?



Update: The book is free for a limited time on Amazon, so there's no real reason to avoid reading this, peeps.

It is truly excellent and holds up well on reflection. I'm still very excited about it. :)… (más)

The title *may* be misleading. Spoiler alert! There aren't actually six other issues of this magazine! lol This is a fairly standalone short story.

I'm a mess of emotions when it comes to trying to review this short story. On the one hand, it's horror and self-referential reality-bending loops. It also has a fair dose of cameos from villains and even a few heroes from [b:The Bones of the Earth|25705795|The Bones of the Earth (The Bones of the Earth, #1)|Scott Hale|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1433980591s/25705795.jpg|45536225]. Nothing wrong with any of that. A bit of a modern mentorship program going on, with nasty necklaces and missing dolls, carnivorous trees and ghosts.

Mind you, this was a short story. A lot of interesting things flew by, but the MC seemed a little all over the place. What age was he, really? From the excessive hyperbole at the beginning, I thought he was in his early teens. At the end, I thought he was in his early twenties. School-time with his peers felt distinctly middle-school, but the emailed critique felt very college-like.

There was a lot of this kind of confusion, and while reading it, it annoyed me. It distracted while I was focusing on the bloody adventure he was writing a chronicle for. I can't help but think that this short story would have been better served in a longer tale that could have exposed and explored the aging craziness, because there was way too much to be anything but deliberate.

Unlike the other two shorter works, there was something very disjointed about this one, but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of it. It glories in its horrorifics and adds dimension to the greater worldbuilding inherent in the rest of Mr. Hale's tales, but let me be honest: it belongs in an anthology of related Hale-Tales, and not truly as a standalone.

That being said, hold off on reading this until you've read the others first!… (más)

This is the first short story collection, all leading up to the events in [b:The Bones of the Earth|25705795|The Bones of the Earth (The Bones of the Earth, #1)|Scott Hale|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1433980591s/25705795.jpg|45536225] and [b:The Three Heretics|30748910|The Three Heretics (The Bones of the Earth, #2)|Scott Hale|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1475420942s/30748910.jpg|51294699].

I was surprised to find that the ones that I had already read were smoother, but here's the best part: The ones I hadn't read were great. :) It's really nice having geeky kids and hardened investigators and hapless family members slowly discover that the world they live in is not their own. Objects and objects of horror often have a lot more life than anyone guesses.

But before you think that these are regular horror stories, check your premises at the door and read these. What always appears to be steadfast and true usually turns into truly nightmarish surrealism brought on by the actual warping of reality or mind or both.

The scale? Getoutofhere... you wouldn't believe the scale.

My favorite of this bunch was the new one I hadn't read yet, but I did get a very nice glimpse of in Three Heretics. The Black Hour has the fabled Dread Clock. :) Again, check your premises. What Scott Hale does with a simple grandfather clock boggles all expectations. :) This is the truly gruesome and extreme horror I've come to know and love and expect.

I can't tell for sure whether I'd recommend these stories before or after the novels, but they would be an interesting "regular life" exploration of the kinds of powers that completely overwhelm and fracture the world later. :)

Honestly, I think anything can be read in any order without any issue, with the novels before or after these stories. Characters and objects are persistent and show up in the strangest of ways. It's like piecing together a tapestry of events and people among an enormous horrorshow of epic proportions. :)

And golly, is it fun! :)… (más)

People should be flocking to this series! :) :)

It's really fair to say this book is a Hell of a Horrific ride!

Hell Yes.

Look:

Comparing this book to most of the horror genre is like wondering what it would be like to see Clive Barker step up his game in a very big way, but instead of piddling about with normal modern tropes before stepping off the deep mythological and epic horror themes, we get right down to the nitty-gritty good stuff.

Yes. The blood and the gristle are everywhere. So are the gods of nightmares, worldwide corruption, characters we've grown to love from the previous novels, and the sheer terror that makes us wonder if this entire future earth after the Trauma is, indeed, Hell. It's really hard to tell.

People are alive. A lot of them aren't and they just don't recognize the need to lay down. Some straddle the fence so much and explode with red veiny stuff occasionally, too. And then we get into the really colorful stuff.

Suffice to say, I really loved everything about this novel and indeed the whole series. It makes my mind explode with delicious gore and beautifully insane reality and very strong stories interweaving it all.

Vrana is back, ya'll. *sings Changes by Bowie* *Then hangs his head in shame*

I also had a bit of a heartbreak. This stuff is fantastic and fantastically evil. It's a must-read for all you people who think you're horror fans. Nothing is sacred. Everything is fair game. :)

I can only say, "Please! More!"… (más)