literature – PopCult Reviews

Book Update – January/February 2025

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Sixteen, edited by Ellen Datlow
Another year means another Ellen Datlow Best Horror of the Year. As with all of these, it’s a mixed bag. I loved some stories; others were fine, and even some I forgot as soon as I was done reading them. Here are the stories that were highlights for me.

The Importance of a Tidy Home by Christopher Golden

Set in the winter holiday season, this story follows two homeless men in Germany who encounter the Schnabelpercten. These diminutive creatives are said to go home to home during the Epiphany and inspect homes to ensure they are clean. In this story, if they are unhappy with the house’s tidiness, they murder the inhabitants inside. This is a genuinely creepy and very wintery tale.

My Favorite Books Read in 2024

Good Night, Sleep Tight: Stories by Brian Evenson

I have never been disappointed by Brian Evenson, so I was delighted to see his short story collection coming out the exact same day as Laird Barron’s new book. These two books helped improve my October, and I needed it. This story collection was a slight shift from Evenson’s normal fare. I noticed a lot of variations on the same themes (mothers, robots, the end of humanity) and a shift to more science fiction stories than just horror.

Book Update – September/October 2024

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I had this recommended when I asked for people’s science fiction novel recommendations on a social media platform. I can’t say I loved it as intensely as I’ve seen others, but it has some incredible ideas and moments that have stuck with me. The parts I liked appealed to some existential ideas I have been thinking about for years, particularly humans, disregarding that they are ultimately just a type of animal who benefited (or were cursed) by being taken down an intense path of evolution.

Book Update – May/June 2024

A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews

Without a doubt, this was the best thing I read over these last two months. I found a scanned PDF of the Salon.Com Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Authors online. That book played a pivotal role in shaping my reading as an undergrad. It was published in 2000 and has never been updated, providing a snapshot of what was seen as prominent contemporary lit circa the turn of the century. Crews has a write-up in that book where his work is compared with Kafkas and described as presenting a parade of social misfits against a Gothic Southern backdrop. That explains A Feast of Snakes perfectly.

Book Update – March/April 2024

A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan

What a strange book. Remy and Alicia are an odd couple. One of their favorite pastimes is to scroll through Jen’s social media profiles and make fun of her. Jen’s a former co-worker of Remy’s from when he was a waiter. Alicia clearly has insecurities because Remy has the hots for Jen but pretends he thinks she’s a pretentious basic bitch. Things have evolved into a weird sexual roleplay where Alicia will pretend to be Jen while Remy pretends he doesn’t like it. That’s not where the strangeness ends. Alicia insists strange noises are coming from the kitchen in their apartment at night. Remy says it’s probably just their roommate.

Book Update – January/February 2024

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

As a teenager, I came across this book in the now-defunct Wizard Magazine. I am trying to remember the context in which it was brought up, but I do remember the striking cover. Years later, when I took Chaucer & Medieval Literature in college, someone told me Hyperion was a retelling of The Canterbury Tales. Only at the end of 2023, at 42, I picked up Dan Simmons’ acclaimed science fiction epic to read. Wow. What an incredible treat to enjoy.

Ariana’s Favorite 2023 Reads

It’s that time of the year when we sort through all the books we read and try to find some favorites.

Seth’s Favorite Books Read of 2023

Fiction
In A Lonely Place: Stories by Karl Edward Wagner

This was a republishing of an out of print horror short story collection by Wagner, a fellow native of Tennessee. He set out to become a doctor in the late 1960s but became quickly disillusioned with the medical industry’s focus on reactive rather than preventative care. Instead, he leaned into writing with horror & fantasy being his favorite genres. Wagner struggled with mental illness and used alcohol to self-medicate. He died in 1994, at age 48, from heart and liver failure due to alcohol. His stories are in the classic pulp vein, a little sleazy & very scary.

Book Update – September/October 2023

Books of Blood Volume 2 by Clive Barker

Because it was October and I enjoyed Books of Blood Volume One so much (I have read it twice), I decided to pick up the following collection by Clive Barker. This one does not have stories as strong as volume one. There are good ones here, but the weaker entries make volume one much more substantial.

“Dread” – This is one of the best and most fully developed stories in the collection. A college student comes under the thrall of a svengali who is fascinated with making people confront what they dread. This has a fantastic conclusion that is vividly rendered by Barker.

Book Update – July/August 2023

The Inconsolables: Stories by Michael Wehunt

I was an instant fan of Michael Wehunt after reading his debut collection, Green Pastures, back in 2016. I’ve been waiting for more, and this year, we finally got his follow-up collection. What I found interesting is that he’s changed a lot since that first book. The two still have common threads, but these felt like a real development of those initial ideas. I would argue Wehunt is taking on a significant influence from Robert Aickman, creating supernatural scenarios where the exact nature of the dreadful presence is never detailed. It might be strange things happening in the window in the apartment across the way, as in “Holoow,” or haunting childhood memories resurfacing, as in “Vampire Fiction.” Wehunt returns to some slightly familiar territory with “The Pine Arch Collection,” which continues his fantastic work translating found footage into horror lit. Wehunt works better with words to evoke powerful images than most horror films. My absolute favorite in this collection was “The Teeth of America,” framed as various excerpts from books and news articles detailing a bizarre event in the Appalachians involving hundreds of white supremacists congregating for a ritual. Once again, Wehunt’s imagery is so strong I don’t want any of this ever adapted to a visual medium because, in my opinion, it would diminish the potent horror of the source material.