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Book Review: Passing Through Veils by John Harrison

cover art for Passing Through Veils by John Harrison

 

Passing Through Veils by John Harrison

Wordfire Press, 2023

ISBN-13 : ‎ 978-1680574234

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.orgAmazon.com

 

Sometimes, the best stories have the worst narrators, at least in reliability. Spending time with the character who we travel through the book with, wondering how much is accurate versus that person’s perception, makes for an intriguing read-– if written well. Passing Through Veils has been compared to Gone Girl and The Haunting of Hill House, but John Harrison has penned a novel that forges its own path in Passing Through Veils, constructed with skill and insight, into a mentally unstable mind. Harrison has plenty of experience in entertainment, from writing episodes of Creepshow, to directing Tales From the Darkside, and the horror miniseries Residue, on Netflix.

 

The novel opens with a vicious murder, witnessed only by a young boy, and is seemingly unconnected to the rest of the novel.

 

The reader is then introduced to Kathryn, once a promising star in the legal field until a complete breakdown sends her to a psychiatric ward for six months. When released, she secures a job with a friend’s firm, and purchases a townhouse with her mother. She hears music and other noises through the walls, but just as she is about to relapse, she punches through the wall – and discovers a secret room with a vanity, o ther items, and the source of the music.

 

As Kathryn investigates who used to live there, possibly the murdered woman from the scene at the beginning of the book, reality begins to unravel in front of her. Visions of a strange woman plague her, and she is having bouts of dissociation when in the house or with items left behind. She meets an intriguing man with a connection to the house and his odd brother, both who have integral roles in the story. How the story is resolved is worth the read. Recommended to fans of ghost stories and unreliable narrators-– or simply well told tales.

 

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Book Review: Kiranis: Secrets of the Universe (Kiranis #3) by Ronald A. Geobey

Cover art for Kiranis #3 by Ronald A. Geobey

Kiranis: Secrets of the Universe, by Ronald A. Geobey

Temple Dark Books, 2023

ISBN: 9781739749248

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Amazon.com

 

 

The saga continues…

The third volume in the Kiranis series, Secrets of the Universe continues the far-reaching galactic odyssey.

 

As in the previous two books, it is staggering in scope, and takes place in an entirely new era, with a new slate of characters.  However, while the series is still a very good read, it’s starting to feel like the foundation may be trembling a bit. Adding more detailed explanations to certain parts would certainly help shore the story up.

 

The basic idea still revolves around the hidden planet Kiranis and the fate of Earth, although the Garran race and their planet, Sieltor, play a part also.  A couple of the characters from previous books do play a part, Cassandra Messina being one, and as always, the prophet Naveen flits in and out of the story.  Having a new cast of characters is good and bad in this case: lt allows for a whole new dynamic group of characters, unfortunately just as we got used to the last batch (it’s a shame Sam Vawter didn’t make it back in, he was one of the best characters). At face value, the story is excellent, and as always, adds new items that play a crucial part of the story.  In this case, this includes the Barrier as one of the big ones, and the new spaceship drive that appears to be powered by the sun.  There’s a lot of dialogue in the book, but also a number of large space battles: the author certainly has a flair for creating them with a lot of ships, and a lot of destruction.

 

As good as the story is, it might be getting to be too much for some readers, I’ve never read a series with a scope as large as this one.  It would help to explain a few things a bit more: the author tends to insert new things from his imagination (and they are well-imagined), but they just appear without narrative paragraphs to really clear them up.  While things start to make sense as the story progresses, it would help to offer more details up front.  The Fate Lines are a prime example, I’m still not really sure how those work, and how the characters use them.  The Barrier is another example: it was not in the other two books, and some background would have helped, as it is such a big part of the story.  There is a lot of mental, psy-type material in the book, it’s tougher to grasp than tangible things.  Clearing these areas up would help propel the story to the next level.

 

Bottom line?  It’s still very good and worth the read for fans of the series, but could use a few tweaks at this point for clarification, so readers don’t get totally blown out of the water.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Graphic Novel Review: Let Me Out by Emmett Nahil, illustrations by George Williams

cover art for Let Me Out by Emmett Nahil

 

Let Me Out by Emmett Nahil, illustrations by George Williams

Oni Press, 2023

ISBN: 9781637152362

Available: Paperback, KIndle edition

Buy: Bookshop.orgAmazon.com

 

It’s 1979. Mitch wakes up after a terrible assault near the local Y. His friends scold him for going there alone and take him home to recuperate. There’s also been a murder in the quiet suburb of Columbiana, New Jersey. The body of Pastor Holley’s wife, Kelly, has been found with demonic sigils carved into her body.

 

New Jersey Sheriff Mullen and FBI Agent Garrett partner up to investigate the case. At least, that’s how it appears to the locals. Behind the scenes, they are devising a Satanic Panic cover to conceal their own crimes. They set their sights on a group of queer punks; Mitch, Lupe, Terri, and Jackson.

 

Sheriff Mullen hears a rumor that Pastor Holley records extra sermons for himself, and confronts the priest about them. It takes a little convincing, but Father Holley turns over some of the tapes to be played on the local radio station. A federal agent issues a warning, announcing the lurid details of satanic rituals, and asks teenagers to keep an eye out for anyone different. After a violent altercation between Lupe and the manager on duty at the local grocery store, the authorities quickly pin Kelly’s murder on the teens. When the friends flee to a cabin in the woods, they find the building gone and a bloodstained pentacle embedded in the ground. Mitch knows they aren’t alone out there.

 

I love a good Satanic Panic plot. With a diverse cast of characters, each with a unique personality and story, Let Me Out has a unique angle on the “devil in the details”. There is good LGBTQ+ representation, as well as people of color. There are parents and adults who are not accepting of their children, which is difficult to stomach, but is a painful reality some LGBTQ+ teens face. As hard as it was to confront on the page, I am glad that Nahil didn’t shy away from that. The character designs were really good and well rendered, as were the backgrounds and sweeping landscapes.

 

Nahil and Williams opted to include trigger warnings at the beginning of the book. I know there have been conversations in the horror community about the idea of including these warnings in general. My view is that if it makes someone’s enjoyment of a book better to have a warning, I have no problem with that. For those of us who are library workers, we are probably familiar with Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science. Content warnings align well with three of the five laws: every reader their book; every book its reader; and save the time of the reader. Highly recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker