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Book Review: Fettered and Other Tales of Terror by Greye La Spina, edited by Michael J. Phillips Jr.

Fettered and Other Tales of Terror by Greye La Spina, edited by Michael J. Phillips Jr.

From Beyond Press, 2023

ISBN-13: 979-8987574331

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

 

 

Greye La Spina (1880-1969) was a prolific American writer, who published in various genre magazines (e.g. Weird Tales) more than one hundred dark short stories and novelettes, most of which, sadly, have been lost.

 

During her lifetime she was extremely popular, more than HP Lovecraft (who, incidentally, had a low opinion of her fictional work).

 

Tracing her stories is indeed a hard task nowadays, so praise to From Beyond Press for making available again to the public some of her production.

 

The present volume collects four stories and a novella, providing to today’s readers a pleasant, small  taste of her body of work.

 

“Fettered” is a dark novella dealing with the theme of vampirism, certainly a bit outdated today, but addressed by La Spina with a vivid and disquieting approach, able to unsettle even the readers well-used to this particular topic.

 

“The Last Cigarette” is a very short but effective story featuring a suicidal man whose plans are ruined by an unexpected occurrence.

 

“The Remorse of Professor Panebianco”, despite its unlikely pseudoscientific basis, is a powerful, intriguing story able to fascinate and disturb.

 

In the tense, dramatic “The Scarf of the Beloved”, a grave robber has to face a terrible truth, while in the engrossing “Wolf of the Steppes” a dangerous werewolf is finally discovered and defeated.

 

The themes addressed in the included stories are traditional enough, but I have the feeling that this is the very reason why these specific tales have survived or have been saved throughout the years.

 

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

Posted on October 26, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Among the Lilies by Daniel Mills

Among the Lilies by Daniel Mills

 

Among the Lilies by Daniel Mills

Undertow Publications 2021 (release date September 14)

ISBN-13: 978-1988964317

Available: Pre-order Paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org |Amazon.com)

Author of the excellent novel Revenants, the short story collection The Lord Came at Twilight and various short stories that have appeared in various magazines and anthologies, Daniel Mills is a New England native perfectly at ease with ghosts, hauntings and disturbing presences.

His style is elegant and classic, following the tradition of the masters of the genre but displaying a voice of his own, greatly appreciated and highly praised by readers and reviewers. The present, long awaited collection, includes eleven stories (two of which have never been published before) and a novella (which formerly appeared in print as a chapbook).

As it happens, not all the featured tales worked for me (which is not unusual when dealing with collections and anthologies) but some of the stories are exceptionally good and deserve to be specifically mentioned.

“The Lake” is a beautiful tale about the subtle melancholy of life and of childhood turning into adulthood, and about the terrors buried in the depth of the human soul.

In the dark and atmospheric “The Woman in the Wood” country horrors affect the mind of a young boy.

“Lilies” is a  long, complex story where the power of the past throws its shadow on the inhabitants of an old mansion, while “Dream Children” is an atypical , very dark mystery following the elusive traces of a disappeared woman.

Other readers or reviewers may disagree with my choices and prefer other tales , but certainly this is a book not to be missed by fans of stylish dark fiction.

 

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

Posted on August 15, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: The House that fell from the Sky by Patrick Delaney

cover art for The House That Fell from the Sky by Patrick Delaney   ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

The House that fell from the Sky by Patrick Delaney

Oblivion Publishing, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-0578660790

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

This book is perfectly placed for those who miss the weird horror of Bradbury and Bentley Little, and are aching for something new. Patrick Delaney has arrived with a strong entry into horror that is tough to classify here; is it weird horror, cosmic horror, or something else? Read on. The journey (quite long at 566 pages) is a wild and rewarding one.

What do you do when a house lands in the middle of town, seemingly dropped from the sky? Well, first off, it’s not quite a house. What it truly is defies logic. Several stories tall, with unknown rooms within, it both petrifies and intrigues the town. In classic horror novels, the townsfolk would run for cover (save for the cliched characters in bad movies). In this case, true to the current unreality that’s taken over our world, everyone treats the unknown entity like a traffic accident that needs to be examined, eschewing any dangers.

Scarlett, Tommy, Jackson, and Hannah meander through life. Scarlett, a recent dropout from college at age 29, is in search of something to connect herself to anything meaningful. She’s the glue that holds the group– and the novel– together. Each major character is drawn in believably flawed design, so that the mixture of the group adds to the intrigue and horror that lead them to enter the house, and elicits true empathy for the characters– not neccesarily a given in horror today.

Of course, corporate America steps in (a nice touch) and offers up a lottery to determine who will be the first visitors/victims to the monstrosity sitting in their city. There is a cash reward for entering, but  exiting could be a bit difficult from this Lovecraftian Hotel California.

When Hannah buys her way in, the others jump in to help save her.

What is the house itself? To save the secrets within and protect readers from spoilers, what lurks within is drawn much differently from any generic haunted house. Delaney borrows from the greats and devises something unique. Refreshingly, his storytelling and plot twists sidestep a number of cliches common to the haunted house subgenre.

Delaney has spun a fun tale that will keep fans of intriguing horror entertained throughout, and produced something that will keep everyone on their toes. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 

Posted on January 18, 2021 by , Reply
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