Yoyogod's 2015 Reading List

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Yoyogod's 2015 Reading List

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1yoyogod
des. 26, 2014, 11:28 pm

I've managed about 230 books in 2014. Let's see how many I can read in 2015.

2drneutron
des. 27, 2014, 9:41 am

Welcome back!

3xymon81
des. 28, 2014, 2:40 pm

Wow that is an impressive number. How did you manage it and still do other things? Good luck in the coming year.

4The_Hibernator
des. 28, 2014, 11:37 pm

That's a lot of books! I wasn't so lucky last year.

5yoyogod
des. 29, 2014, 10:50 am

>3 xymon81: One of the few benefits of my job is that when things are slow I spend my time reading.

6xymon81
des. 29, 2014, 5:05 pm

>5 yoyogod:: I do that as well. There are alot of times just waiting around torwards the end of the day where I find a little extra time for a few pages

7xymon81
des. 31, 2014, 2:06 pm

8yoyogod
gen. 1, 2015, 11:44 pm

It looks like I have my first book of 2015 already finished:

1) Mercenary Road by Hideyuki Kikuchi

Here we have the 19th volume of the English language version of the Vampire Hunter D novels. Once again the half-vampire D teams up with some human warriors and kills a bunch of vampires and their minions.

9yoyogod
gen. 2, 2015, 7:52 pm

And another book:

2) Apocrypha by Brian Keene

This ia collection of novel fragments, unused pitches for books and comics, obscure nonfiction, and juvinalia by horror grandmaster Brian Keene. This is an interesting collection of rarities that will appeal to Keene's fans, but probably not the general public, which is just as well as it is only available in limited edition.

10yoyogod
gen. 4, 2015, 10:44 am

3) The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

I think this was one of the best fantasies I've read in a while. I really enjoyed the characters and almost wish this was part of a series.

11yoyogod
gen. 4, 2015, 11:47 pm

4) Resurrection House by James Chambers

This is a fairly excellent collection of short horror stories.

12yoyogod
gen. 7, 2015, 1:08 pm

5) Unbound by Jim C. Hines

I've been enjoying this series, but while I liked this volume, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the previous two--most likely because there is far less libriomancy in this book due to the main character having had his abilities erased in the previous volume.

13yoyogod
gen. 8, 2015, 10:33 am

6) The Thousand Names by Django Wexler

I wasn't always 100% certain what was going on in this book, but I did enjoy it and will probably read volume 2 of the series after it comes out in paperback.

14yoyogod
gen. 9, 2015, 4:48 pm

7) Hag by John Goodrich

This is a very cool horror novel about a man with cancer who moves to Boston to be near the only hospital he's found that offers him a hope of survival. Unfortunately, his apartment building is haunted by the very angry ghost of a murdered female slave.

15yoyogod
gen. 10, 2015, 2:57 pm

8) Asura Girl by Otaro Maijo

This book starts out normal enough. The main character is a rather self-centered teenage girl who is regretting having casual sex with one of her classmates. Then said classmate is kidnapped. Soon there's some stuff about a serial killer and an online bulletin board whose members are running amok. Then things get really strange.

16yoyogod
gen. 12, 2015, 11:14 pm

I manged to finish a bunch of books.

9) Shadows over Somerset by Bob Freeman

This was a fun novel with occultist and werewolves battling against evil vampires. It had some minor plot holes, but not enough to really detract from the story.

and a bunch of short novellas:

10) Survivor's Guilt by Kelli Owen

This is the story of a man who fakes his own death in the wake of 9/11 when he realizes that his family would be better off without him. Then he dedicated his life to removing other husbands whose families would be better of without them, too.

11) Crossroads by Kelli Owen

The story of a group of teens who take a Ouija board to an isolated gravesite for fun, but something goes wrong (and not in the way you would expect).

12) Buried Memories by Kelli Owen

The story of a man who is undergoing hypnosis to quit smoking and recovers memories that reveal that his past isn't what he thought it was. This is one of the least horror-y of Kelli Owen's stories, but oddly I also think it's one of her best.

17yoyogod
gen. 14, 2015, 7:36 pm

13) Saint Odd by Dean Koontz

This was a mostly satisfying end to the Odd Thomas series. My only complaint is that we never do find out what smooth and blue means.

18thornton37814
gen. 15, 2015, 9:55 pm

>17 yoyogod: I just ordered that one for the library today.

19yoyogod
gen. 18, 2015, 3:11 pm

>18 thornton37814: I hope you enjoy it.

14) The Dagger's Path by Glenda Larke

Here we have volume 2 of Larke's latest fantasy series. This book does a great job of answering questions from the previous volume and setting things up for the next volume, and it's got a lot of drama.

20yoyogod
gen. 19, 2015, 12:10 am

15) Screaming to Get Out & Other Wailings of the Damned by J. F. Gonzalez

This is the final short story collection by the late J. F. Gonzalez. There are quite a few good horror stories in here including stories that tie into several of his novels including his Clickers series, The Beloved, and They.

21yoyogod
gen. 20, 2015, 6:01 pm

16) Across the Wall by Garth Nix

This is a collection of mostly fantasy short stories, including one in the Abhorsen series. I liked some of the stories better than others, but over all it was a pretty good book.

22yoyogod
Editat: gen. 21, 2015, 7:18 pm

17) The Last Passenger by Manel Loureiro

I got the Kindle edition of this for free last moth, and it was a good choice. It's Spanish horror novel involving a ghost ship and Nazis.

23yoyogod
gen. 24, 2015, 11:08 pm

18) Goatman: Flesh or Folklore? by J. Nathan Couch

This was a surprisingly well written cryptozoological book about the legendary Goatman.

24yoyogod
gen. 28, 2015, 7:21 pm

19) Thief's Magic by Trudi Canavan

This is definitely not Canavan's best work. The book tells two completely disconnected stories. One about a young man who finds a magic book and is framed for a crime he didn't commit. The other story is about a young woman with latent magical abilities who lives in a society where using magic is viewed a sinful. The two characters never meet, and as far as I can tell, both live in different worlds. Only the first of these two plotlines interested me. I still might get the second volume when it comes out if it's not two expensive.

25yoyogod
gen. 29, 2015, 5:13 pm

20) Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears by Geoffrey Pearson

This is a British history of the moral panics that pop up every few decades about rising juvenile crime and the imminent collapse of society. It's a fairly interesting topic.

26yoyogod
gen. 31, 2015, 10:31 am

21) The Uncanny Valley by Gregory Miller

This was a really good collection of (very) short stories set in a fictional town called Uncanney Valley where, as the name suggests, some very strange things happen.

22) Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire-The Complete Series, Volume 2 by Michael Terracciano

Here we have the 2nd and final omnibus edition of one of my favorite webcomics. After re-reading it, I noticed that Terracciano does tend to overdo the dialogue when writing, but still manages to tell a story that is moving and occasionally funny.

27yoyogod
feb. 2, 2015, 7:33 pm

23) Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite

This was a good (and very much character-driven) horror story. I didn't much care for the excessive amounts of drug use in it it, and (as is common from horror novels from the late 80's/early 90's) there's way too much sex in it. Still it was good.

28yoyogod
feb. 4, 2015, 11:31 am

I managed to get a bunch of reading finished last night:

24) Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James

These are some good ghost stories, but I must admit that I found them a bit old fashioned (not surprising considering how old they are).

25) F9 by Michael McBride

This is a short novella about a doctor looking for the reason why certain people go on murder sprees.

26) The Plot: The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion by Will Eisner

Like anyone with a function brain, I knew that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were a hoax. This book uses the comic format to tell the story of Protocols from before it's beginnings to the present, where despite being revealed as a fake nearly a century ago, it still keeps popping up like some sort of horrid literary weed.

29yoyogod
feb. 4, 2015, 12:22 pm

And one more short one I just finished:

27) Peeler by Gord Rollo

This is a shortish horror novella about a fry cook in a mental hospital and a patient named the Peeler.

30yoyogod
feb. 5, 2015, 11:52 pm

28) Dearest by Alethea Kontis

I love this series of fantasy novels based off of fairy tales, all of which are centered around the seven sisters of the Woodcutter family.

31yoyogod
feb. 7, 2015, 12:30 pm

29) Discoveries in Fantasy edited by Lin Carter

This is a collection of fantasy short stories by authors who were considered obscure back when it was published in 1972. These days, with POD technology and expired copyrights, I expect many of these authors are still in print. The stories weren't bad, but were that old-fashioned sort of proto-fantasy that doesn't appeal to me as much as the more modern stuff does.

32yoyogod
feb. 8, 2015, 11:54 pm

30) Dr. Nikola - Master Criminal by Guy Boothby

I enjoyed this omnibus, though the second novel (being a Victorian-era tale set in China) is a tad racist.

33yoyogod
feb. 9, 2015, 8:41 pm

31) Cold Comforts: Tales of Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem by Peter Crowther

As the title suggests, this was a collection of mystery short stories.Some of them I enjoyed, and some of them I didn't.

32) Red Equinox by Douglas Wynne

I think this qualifies as one of the better Lovecraftian novels I've read.

34yoyogod
feb. 11, 2015, 7:37 pm

33) J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard and the Birth of Modern Fantasy by Deke Parsons

An interesting history of the birth of the modern fantasy genre in the 1930's.

35yoyogod
feb. 12, 2015, 11:48 pm

34) Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Considering the protagonist is an unlikable psychopath, I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

36yoyogod
feb. 13, 2015, 4:34 pm

35) 12 Doctors, 12 Stories

This was a mostly great collection of stories where each one is about one of the 12 Doctors from Doctor Who. The only bad apple in the bunch was the first one by Eoin Colfer, whose story reads nothing like a First Doctor adventure, and makes me wonder if he'd even bothered to watch a single episode of the original series before trying to write this story.

37yoyogod
feb. 15, 2015, 10:40 am

36) A Share in Death by Deborah Crombie

I've been wanting to read more mysteries, and I picked this one up because I'm trying for a sweep in this month's TIOLI challenge. It's one of those books where a detective goes on vacation and people start getting murdered all around him. It wasn't bad.

38yoyogod
feb. 15, 2015, 3:10 pm

37) Audubon and Other Capers by John H. Jenkins

This is one of those odd books that I added to my Amazon wishlist years ago, and I can no longer remember why. It's a memoir-ish book by a Texas bookseller/publisher who once helped the FBI capture some mafia guys who stole a valuable Audubon folio. There are also bits about writing book catalogs, strange self-published books, buying a $10million+ book collection, and Texas history.

39yoyogod
feb. 16, 2015, 9:56 am

38) Messenger by Edward Lee

Oddly enough, this is the second horror novel I've read where an evil entity spreads chaos through a post office. As is usual with Lee's books, this one is fairly depraved and gory.

40xymon81
feb. 17, 2015, 12:34 am

>36 yoyogod: I was just looking at this book yesterday. The fact that Neil gaiman wrote one has me curious.

41yoyogod
feb. 18, 2015, 8:46 pm

>40 xymon81: I really enjoyed the Neil Gaiman story. I thought it was one of the better ones in the collection.

39) The Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

This was a cool thriller.

42yoyogod
feb. 19, 2015, 2:11 pm

40) Lady Las Vegas by Susan Berman

I admit that I'm fond of Pawn Stars and the other History Channel shows set in Vegas. I thought this might be an interesting book to read to learn about the city's history, especially since it's written by the daughter of one of the mobsters responsible for the birth of the Vegas casinos. I did learn a bit, but I didn't really care for the author's style as her constant referrals to Vegas as her sister grated.

43yoyogod
feb. 19, 2015, 11:01 pm

41) You Know Me Al by Ring Larder

This is a collection of fake letters from an imaginary baseball player who has just come up from the bush leagues in the early 20th century. It's supposed to be funny, but it didn't amuse me.

44yoyogod
feb. 23, 2015, 6:54 pm

42) The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
I don't think I've ever read another book where I disliked every character, the plot, and the philosophy behind the book as much as I did this one.

45yoyogod
feb. 24, 2015, 11:37 pm

43) The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

This was the second Professor Challenger book. It wasn't anywhere near as good as The Lost World.

46yoyogod
feb. 27, 2015, 11:22 am

44) The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry

This is one of those thrillers about the secrets of the Kights Templar. I mostly got it because I'm trying to read all the books whose characters were used in the FaceOff anthology that I read last year. This novel was alright, and I may very well read the rest of the series at some point.

47yoyogod
feb. 28, 2015, 2:37 pm

45) The Spitting Image by Michael Avallone

I picked up the first 8 volumes of this mystery series on Kindle back in 2012, but I never got around to reading beyond the first volume, despite enjoying it. I think I will try to read one of these a month, and maybe pick up the rest of the series too.

48yoyogod
març 1, 2015, 11:58 pm

46) Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman

A great collection from Gaiman with the only problem being that I have already read several of the stories in their original anthologies.

49xymon81
març 2, 2015, 12:30 am

>46 yoyogod:, I just finished it yesterday. It was a great collection even with repeats

50thornton37814
març 3, 2015, 2:26 pm

>48 yoyogod: Neil Gaiman books have a habit of growing legs and walking out of the library on their own at our place. We did just place an order for it. I guess I'll see how long this one stays on the shelf. The last one was only there about a month.

51yoyogod
març 5, 2015, 12:56 pm

>49 xymon81: >50Neil Gaiman is a realy good author.

47) A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

I got a review copy of this from the publisher, and I really enjoyed it. It's about a young girl whose older sister is suffering from schizophrenia, but there father has recently become crazy religious and is convinced the girl is possessed. Since the family is desperate for money, he convince the family to take part in a reality show where the older girl gets an exorcism.

52yoyogod
març 8, 2015, 2:23 pm

48) The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

This was an enjoyable fantasy.

53yoyogod
març 11, 2015, 12:12 am

49) Moonbane by Al Sarrantonio

Wow. This was one of the scariest horror novels I've read in a while, and it's about a werewolf apocalypse, which is way rarer than a zombie or vampire apocalypse.

54drneutron
març 11, 2015, 12:47 pm

On the list it goes.... :)

55yoyogod
març 11, 2015, 10:51 pm

41) Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel

The account of a woman who traveled through Tibet in the early part of the 20th Century (when it was more or less off limits to foreigners) to learn what she could about Tibetan Buddhism and the country's occult and mystical practices. It all makes for an interesting story.

56charl08
març 12, 2015, 10:38 am

>55 yoyogod: Ooh, interesting. I enjoyed 7 years in Tibet - have you read that? Would you say there was much of an overlap if so?

57yoyogod
març 12, 2015, 3:00 pm

>56 charl08: Nope, I never read that one, though I'll have to add it to my wish list.

42) Prisoner 489 by Joe R. Lansdale

Unually when someone bad takes a lot of killing and then doesn't stay dead, you expect it to be a vampire or a zombie (or some other undead), but Lansdale goes a completely different route and uses an underutilized monster, the golem. It makes for a good novella.

58yoyogod
març 14, 2015, 12:32 am

43) Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane

I've bbeen enjoying this mystery series. Now I'll have to get a copy of volume 3.

59yoyogod
març 14, 2015, 10:57 pm

44) My Life As a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

I got this as a Santathing gift back in 2013 and finally got around to reading it. It was a surprisingly good urban fantasy take on brain munching zombies.

60yoyogod
març 16, 2015, 10:42 am

45) The TollTaker by James Sneddon

I picked this up because I had heard it was set in a fictionalized version of the town I was born in, though I've also heard it was set in a fictionalized version of Philadelphia. After reading it, I'm not sure which one is right (if either). It's the sort of book that's labeled a horror novel, but isn't really. It's more of a coming of age story set in the 1970's, and features an eight year old boy who still hasn't come to terms with the fact that his dad, who was declared MIA and presumed dead, isn't coming back from Vietnam. The stuff that got it labeled horror, is the story of some vague monster called the TollTaker that lives in the storm drain near his house. Frankly, the book would have been better if that had been cut, and it had just been done as a coming of age story (and this is coming from a horror fan).

61yoyogod
març 17, 2015, 12:25 am

46) Brainfused Colorwheel by Gina Ranalli

This is a collection of bizarro short stories. Ranalli is one of the few writer's whose bizarro short stories I enjoy. Generally I prefer that genre in novella length or greater.

62yoyogod
març 20, 2015, 10:02 am

47) Dead Game by Michael Avallone

This is the third volume in the Ed Noon detective series. It involves $20k, a missing (phoney) Edgar Alan Poe diary, and a murder in a baseball diamond that takes place in front of a stadium full of fans. It's good stuff.

48) The Driver's Guide to Hitting Pedestrians by Andersen Prunty

Here's another collection og bizarro short stories. These are some really strange stories, but I enjoyed them.

63yoyogod
març 23, 2015, 9:11 pm

49) Dust Devils by Jonathan Janz

I picked this up on the Kindle after Brian Keene picked this as one of jis top 10 books for 2014. I tend to agree. It'sa very well done vampire western. It's a bit heavy on the gore and sex, but that's not unexpected for horror.

50) White by Tim Lebbon

This one has been sitting on my Kindle for a while, but I finally decided to read it after Keene recommended it in one of his recent podcasts. This is a good apocalyptic novella about people trting to survive in a world of snow and monsters.

64drneutron
març 25, 2015, 11:42 am

The Lebbon novella looks really good. I'm going to have to track it down.

65yoyogod
Editat: març 26, 2015, 2:19 pm

I've been slacking off on listing things here:

51) It Happened to Me Vol. 1 from Fortean Times

This is a collection of letters and emails that Fortean Times magazine has gotten about readers' weird experiences. I enjoyed reading it even though it made me wish I could still affor a subscription to the magazine.

52) The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told edited by Martin H. Greenberg

This is probably the most inaccurately named anthology in my library. First off, unless you define a crime story as "any story in which a crime takes place," which seems extraordinarily broad to me, then about half of these stories aren't crime stories. Secondly, one of the stories only has paranormal elements in the last few paragraphs (and they don't play a major part in the story). Thirdly, stories featuring the paranormal and crime date back to at least the late 19th century, but other than one story from 1995, all the stories in this anthology are from 2004-2009, so unless you believe that all of the best writing on the subject has been done in the last two decades, the claim that these are The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told is highly dubious. I'm just glad I picked this up for cheap at my local used bookstore.

53) The Big Tree by Rick Hautala

This is a coming of age story involving a hurricane, a big tree, and a mysteious girl, who isn't what she appears to be. Despite by being written by a well-known horror author, it's not really a horror story, but it is good.

66xymon81
març 26, 2015, 3:17 pm

>52 yoyogod: I have to agree with the crime stories. It was on my shelf for a few years after getting it discounted at Barnes and Nobles. I finished it end of last year. There were some winners though. I think P N Elrond was my fav out of it.

67yoyogod
març 28, 2015, 11:10 pm

54) Never Knew Another by J. M. McDermott

This was a rather interesting fantasy that I picked up for the Kindle a couple of years ago when it was free. It's a bit different than the usual sort of fantasy I read, but I enjoyed it. I would continue the series, but they seem to be a bit overpriced on the Kindle (at least I think $9.99 is a bit much for an ebook that was released over three years ago). Maybe I'll get a used paperback copy cheap.

68yoyogod
abr. 4, 2015, 11:17 pm

55) The Picture Frame by Iain Rob Wright

I actually finished this last week and kept forgetting to post it. It's a rather boring horror novel about a man who finds a cursed picture frame that kill anyone who's picture is put into it. Naturally his family photo ends up in it. After that it becomes a long and tedious battle to save the life of the man's wife and son.

56) Five Complete Hercule Poirot Novels by Agatha Christie

After reading a review copy of After the Funeral a few months a go, I discovered that I enjoyed the Poirot stories, so I decided to read more of them. Since there was an omnibus edition with five of them, I decided that would be a good place to continue. I enjoyed the, so next up I'll have to find the copy of Elephants Can Remember that's sitting unread somewhere in my library.

69yoyogod
abr. 5, 2015, 10:01 pm

57) The Very Best of Charles de Lint

Since de Lint is one of my favorite writer's it's no surprise that I loved the short stories in this book. It's also no surprise that I'd already read most of them in previous short story collections.

58) The Lost Level by Brian Keene

Keene is another of one my favorite writers, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this book either. It is a bit of a departure for him. He's primarily a horror writer, but this is more of a science fiction/fantasy lost world sort of story about a modern man who finds himself transported to a strange reality. I love the cover, too. My only real complaint is that as it's volume 1 of a series, it has a cliffhanger ending.

70yoyogod
abr. 6, 2015, 6:57 pm

59) Lie with the Dead by Mike Oliveri

This is another great book. Werewolves and noir go together surprisingly well.

71yoyogod
abr. 10, 2015, 11:34 pm

60) Spellbound by Blake Charlton

This was an interesting book. I hope volume 3 in the series comes out sometime soon.

72yoyogod
abr. 15, 2015, 2:24 pm

61) It Happened to Me! vol. 2 from Fortean Times

Another collection of reports of strange occurrences from Fortean Times magazine. It's not as good as the first, but is still entertaining.

62) Two Trains Running by Lucius Shepard

This was an odd book that I'm still not sure why I had it on my wishlist. It's mostly about hobos. The author apparently spent a little time riding the rails while researching an (included) article about the FTRA, an alleged hobo mafia. Besides that article, the book contains two short stories about hobos. One is more or less a fantasy, and the other is more non-genre. They're both pretty good.

73yoyogod
abr. 17, 2015, 9:24 pm

63) The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

I picked this (and the third volume in its trilogy) up at the local Goodwill a couple of days ago because I usually enjoy Lackey's books. It's pretty good, stuff for a standard epic fantasy trilogy. Now I just have to wait for the copy of volume two of the trilogy that I ordered to arrive.

74yoyogod
abr. 19, 2015, 11:43 pm

64) Wolf Hunt 2 by Jeff Strand

Strand is very good at doing horror comedy. In this case, two reasonably nice thugs are given the choice between being set on fire or kidnapping a teenage girl who is a werewolf. Things just sort of go downhill for them from there.

75yoyogod
abr. 21, 2015, 4:16 pm

65) Blood Song by Anthony Ryan

This was a fantasy novel that was picked out for me by my Santathing person last year. It was a pretty good book.

76yoyogod
abr. 23, 2015, 2:08 pm

66) Dark Screams Volume Three ed. by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar

This series just keeps getting worse and worse.

77yoyogod
abr. 24, 2015, 11:39 pm

67) It Happened to Me! volume three by Fortean Times

Another collection of strange events reported to my favorite magazine.

68) The Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon

This is one of those coming-of-age horror novels about a group of teenagers who go to see a traveling vampire show that appears in their small town. There's far less gore than I'd expect for a Laymon novel, and despite the fact that it took a while for anything horrific to happen, I really enjoyed this.

78yoyogod
Editat: abr. 29, 2015, 7:44 pm

69) Violence in Velvet by Michael Avallone

This is volume 4 in the Ed Noon series of hard boiled detective novels. In this book, Ed has to solve the murder of an actor's wife where the suspects include the actor, his 10-year-old daughter, his mistress, and a playwright who is in love with said mistress. It's pretty good stuff.

79yoyogod
abr. 29, 2015, 7:52 pm

70) Land of the Dead by Robert Swartwood

I picked this up largely because Brian Keene recommended it as one of the best zombie novels he'd read in years, and I agree with Brian. It's interesting to see a novel set in a world in which the dead have taken over, and the living are referred to as zombies and hunted by the dead who fear them. It's all told from the perspective of one of the zombie hunters who slowly comes to realize that there really isn't all that much difference between the dead and the living.

80yoyogod
maig 1, 2015, 11:41 pm

71) Giallo Fantastique ed. by Ross E. Lockhart

Here we have an anthology of short stories that are intended to combine crime and horror. It generally succeeds, though one story is more sci-fi/crime than horror/crime. Overall, the stories were good. My favorite was John Langan's "The Communion of Saints." My least favorite story was "Balch Creek, "by bizarro author Cameron Pierce, who I tend to feel does a much better job with novel and novella length works than with short stories.

81yoyogod
maig 2, 2015, 1:14 pm

72) Bumper Crop by Joe R. Lansdale

Here is a collection of favorite short stories by one of my favorite writers. They didn't really seem to be representative of his usual style, but they were mostly enjoyable.

82yoyogod
maig 3, 2015, 12:31 pm

73) Shazam!: A Celebration of 75 Years by quite a lot of people really

This is a collection of some of the highlights of the 75 year worth of appearances of the original Captain Marvel (aka Shazam). I found that I generally preferred the golden and silver age stuff to the modern appearances.

83yoyogod
maig 5, 2015, 6:58 pm

74) To Light a Candle by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

I'm enjoying this fantasy trilogy.

84drneutron
maig 5, 2015, 8:19 pm

One more!

85yoyogod
maig 7, 2015, 2:40 pm

And I hit 75 already:

75) The Power of Darkness: Tales of Terror by Edith Nesbit

This is a collection of Victorian era horror stories by an author more well known for her children's book The Railway Children, which I haven't read. These are mostly ghost stories, which while inferior to M R James's stories, aren't bad. There are also a few mad scientist stories, which I found laughable.

86scaifea
maig 8, 2015, 6:35 am

Congrats on 75!

87yoyogod
maig 8, 2015, 1:11 pm

>86 scaifea: Thanks

76) Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road by Brian Keene, Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Nate Southard, J. F. Gonzalez, Wrath James White, Shane McKenzie, Bryan Smith, and Ryan Harding

As you would expect from a novel with nine authors, this isn't a book that's destined to be remembered as one of the world's great works of literature. It's not even destined to be remembered as a classic of the horror genre. It is, however, better than you'd think from reading the reviews of it on Amazon.

This book is more or less exactly what you'd expect to get when nine extreme horror authors collaborate on a book written for the sole purpose of raising money for a fellow author with brain cancer, especially when one of these authors is Edward Lee. The book is full of gore and perverted sex (including bestiality and necrophilia). There is also a lot of vomiting going on for no apparent reason. Really, this isn't a book for the faint of heart.

I think a lot of the perversion and depravity to do with the fact that the book was written round robin style, and the authors were continually trying to top each other in grossness, which resulted in passages that come close to (or even top) stories I've read that have come out of the infamous World Horror Convention Gross Out Contest. It also resulted in a book with no real resolution that also somehow managed to have one of the best (and most disturbing) endings I've read in horror.

88drneutron
maig 8, 2015, 8:59 pm

Congrats!

89yoyogod
Editat: maig 12, 2015, 9:39 pm

>88 drneutron: Thanks

77) Hercule Poirot's Casebook by Agatha Christie

I decided to continue my journey into the world of Hercule Poirot with this collection of the complete Poirot short stories. They were all pretty good, though I do enjoy the stories narrated by Poirot's friend Hastings better than the ones without him. Next up, I'll have to get a copy of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, so I can start reading the rest of the novels in order.

78) The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

I picked this up because Neil Gaiman recommended it as one of his favorite children's books. It was fun.

90scaifea
maig 13, 2015, 6:40 am

Oh, I love The 13 Clocks! Our edition has a lovely introduction by Gaiman, too.

91yoyogod
maig 16, 2015, 11:27 pm

79) When Darkness Falls by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

This is the final volume of the Obsidian Trilogy. While I enjoyed it, I thought the defeat of the forces of darkness seemed a bit to easy and almost anticlimactic. Still, I know I'll have to get the books in the follow up trilogy set 1000 years after this book.

80) Every Shallow Cut by Tom Piccirilli

I think this is the most depressing novel I've ever read. It's about an author who has recently lost everything; his wife divorced him, creditors seized his house, and his career is in the toilet. All he has left is his dog, his car, and a few meagre posessions, so he travels across the country to move in with his brother, and loses his mind along the way.

92yoyogod
maig 18, 2015, 7:26 pm

81) Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

These club (or bar) tale stories are one of my favorite underused classes of story. Sadly Clarke's version isn't as good as some of the others I've read, but is still enjoyable.

93yoyogod
Editat: maig 19, 2015, 12:37 pm

82) Dominoes by John Boden

I picked this up because Brian Keene recommended it as one of the best horror books of 2014, and it sounded like an interesting concept. It's designed so that, from the outside it looks like one of the Little Golden Books that (if you're like me) you read as a child. Only, this isn't a children's book at all. It's a series of short, flash fiction-type scenes about events leading up to the apocalypse. I would tend to describe it as more disturbing and evocative than possessing of a coherent story. I found it different and interesting, though naturally (as it is mimicking a children's book) very short.

94yoyogod
maig 20, 2015, 9:05 pm

83) Strange Creatures from Time and Space by John A. Keel

I loved The Mothman Prophecies, so when I saw that a few of Keel's books were available as part of the Kindle lending library, I decided to get his one. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. The book is dated, and mentions quite a few things that are hoaxes. It was also annoying that keel kept referring to himself in the plural (ie "we" and "us") during the book.

95yoyogod
maig 21, 2015, 11:54 pm

84) 4 AM by Brian Keene

This was a chapbook with a handful of very good short stories.

85) The Alarming Clock by Michael Avallone

This is the 5th Ed Noon Detective novel. In this book, Noon is given an alarm clock by a client, and a group of Russian spies want it. I didn't think it was as good as the previous books, being more thriller than mystery, but it was still enjoyable.

96yoyogod
maig 23, 2015, 11:22 pm

86) It Happened to Me! volume 4 by Fortean Times

Yet another collection of strange events from the readers of Fortean Times magazine.

87) Fix by F. Paul Wilson, J A Konrath, and Ann Voss Peterson

I'm a big fan of Wilson's Repairman Jack series, and when I heard he'd decided to revisit it again in a crossover with the Codename: Chandler series (which I haven't read), I knew I'd have to read it. It's a great story, far better than the Repairman JAck crossover that appeared in the FaceOff anthology last year.

97yoyogod
maig 24, 2015, 1:09 pm

88) The Regulators by Richard Bachman

I'd been meaning to read this one ever since I read Desperation last year, as they are companion novels. I don't think it's King's best work, but it's far from his worst either.

98yoyogod
maig 25, 2015, 7:46 pm

89) The Ravine by William Meikle

This was a fairly enjoyable weird western that's half about a cavalry officer who has to help an angel prevent the devil from being released from a tree and half about a small town that's menaced by some people who ate some really bad fish. Besides the obvious Christan overtones of the angels and devil business, there also some almost Lovecraftian stuff as well. It makes for a strange read.

99yoyogod
maig 27, 2015, 9:24 pm

90) Operation Ice Bat edited by Brian Keene

This was an anthology that was put out a few months ago to raise money for a friend of the authors. They're mostly good stories, though I thought James A. Moore's story was one of the worst Sherlock Holmes pastiches I've read (though actually still entertaining), and Wesley Southard's story was just (unintentionally) ridiculous.

100yoyogod
maig 30, 2015, 11:29 pm

91) The Mountain King by Rick Hautala

There aren't a lot of bigfoot horror novels, which is a shame. It actually worked very well in this book.

101yoyogod
juny 1, 2015, 11:09 am

And here are a couple of novellas:

92) Peppermint Twist by Gina Ranalli

This is a bizarro novella about a couple of children who spend all of there time playing video games and eating junk food, until their grandmother buys them a game called Peppermint Twist, which warps reality into a a real, candy-filled video game.

93) The Copycat Murders by William Meikle

This is a supernatural mystery about a police detective who tries to figure out how a newsreaser is killing people in locked rooms while he's on the air.

102yoyogod
juny 1, 2015, 10:39 pm

94) The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

After reading a few Poirot omnibuses, I decided to read the rest of the series starting at the beginning. While I enjoyed this, I didn't think it was as good as some of the later books, which isn't surprising as it is a first novel.

95) Berks the Bizarre by Charles J. Adams III

This is a collection of newspaper columns from a paper in Reading, PA. It deals with ghosts and various other strange goings on in Berks County, Pennsylvania. It's not as good as the author's books dedicated solely to ghost stories, but it's still good.

103yoyogod
juny 4, 2015, 11:18 pm

96) Mike Nelson's Death Rat! by Michael J. Nelson

This is one of the funniest novels I've read in a while.

104yoyogod
juny 8, 2015, 3:49 pm

97) Divine Scream by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

When I started reading this one, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not as I thought it was kind of slow to get moving. By the time I finished it, I knew I liked it a lot.

It's about a gut whose banshee rescues him from becoming a gift to the Assembly, who are bunch of supernatural beings tasked with protecting reality in some way that I really didn't understand. The Assembly is also more or less psychotic in the slasher movie sense.

The best part of this book is the characters. I liked the banshee character straight off, because she actually seemed to care and was cool and tough. At first, I didn't much like the protagonist, Jared, because he was kind of whiny and annoyingly helpless, but by the end of the book I was actually empathizing with him. I don't know how he did it, but some how Ethridge even made me care about the Assembly, despite the fact that they were horrible beings.

105yoyogod
juny 10, 2015, 11:51 am

98) The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

When I started reading this book, I didn't much like the protagonist, Carolyn, because she's almost completely amoral and has no objection to using people, murdering them, and doing other generally horrible things. Oddly, I also had a hard time putting the book down once I picked it up. This is because despite being almost monstrous,or in some cases actually monstrous, the characters are interesting, and the plot is exciting.

This was a really great book, though it is very gory and is very much a dark fantasy/horror type of story and may be a bit too disturbing for some.

106yoyogod
juny 13, 2015, 9:53 am

99) The Man on the Bench by Robert Swartwood

This was a nice, novella-length horror story about a man on a bench who only young children could see, and a monster that no one could see until it was too late.

100) Knight Life by Peter David

This was a humorous fantasy novel about King Arthur returning to run for mayor of New York City.

107yoyogod
juny 15, 2015, 12:19 am

101) Shadows on the Sun by Michael Jan Friedman

I'm not sure when or why I bought this book. I don't read that many Star Trek novels and I'm not that big a fan of the series, but for some reason I have a several unread Trek novels sitting around. It's an interesting story going into Dr. McCoy's history, and it tells the story of an adventure on a planet where assassination was once legal.

108yoyogod
juny 16, 2015, 11:39 am

102) Tales from Gavagan's Bar by L. Sprague De Camp & Fletcher Pratt

This was an enjoyable collection of barroom tales. It's more fantasy based than Tales from the White Hart, and in my opinion, is superior to it.

109yoyogod
juny 22, 2015, 11:55 am

103) Punktown by Jeffrey Thomas

This is probably the oddest science fiction book I've read that wasn't put out by a bizarro publisher. It's set on a human colony in the future that's populated by humans, aliens, robots, and extra-dimensional beings. There's lots of gore, violence, and depravity.

110yoyogod
juny 22, 2015, 7:26 pm

104) Paradise Sky by Joe R. Lansdale

This is Lansdale's second western about Nat Love, a real-life black cowboy. As usual with Lansdale, it's a great book, and it makes me want to read Love's actual autobiography.

105) The Case of the Bouncing Betty by Michael Avallone

This is the sixth Ed Noon novel. This time around, Noon is hired to protect a 400+ pound mattress tester and ends up a murder suspect.

111yoyogod
juny 24, 2015, 1:29 pm

106) The Authorized Al by Tino Insana and Al Yankovic

This is a fictitious autobiography of "Weird Al" Yankovic written in the 1980s. It's got some funny bits, but is mainly a collector's item these days.

112yoyogod
juny 27, 2015, 12:57 am

107) Kumquat by Jeff Strand

This is a romantic comedy about a couple who meet at a really crappy film festival one day, and the next day decide to go off on a road trip from Florida to Rhode Island to get a hot dog. Despite being a Jeff Strand novel, it's not horror (except maybe for the peanut butter and jelly hot dog, which sounds pretty horrible).

113yoyogod
juny 29, 2015, 10:43 am

108) Through a Mirror, Darkly by Kevin Lucia

This was a great collection of interrelated short stories. It's about a man who's reopening his father's used bookstore, and discovers that someone left a mysterious box of books on his desk without him noticing. Inside he finds a journal with strange stories set in his town and written about people he knows.

114yoyogod
jul. 2, 2015, 12:50 pm

109) Haunted Houses: Guide to Spooky, Creepy, and Strange Places across the USA by Daniel Diehl and Mark P. Donnelly

This is basically a guide book to haunted houses in the USA. It lists some of the more well known ones in each state, provides historical info and info on the alleged hauntings, and tells you when and how you can visit the place with street and (where available) web addresses.

115yoyogod
jul. 2, 2015, 8:34 pm

110) Centralia, Pennsylvania: The Fiction that Fuels the Fire by John G. Sabol Jr.

This is a very short book about fiction and songs and such about Centralia, Pennsylvania. Honestly, it was kind of boring.

116yoyogod
jul. 4, 2015, 11:15 pm

111) The Psychic Detectives by Colin Wilson

This book wasn't bad, but it would have been better if Wilson had spent more time writing about crimes where psychics were involved and less time writing about the history of psychometry.

112) Children of the Dragon by Rose Estes

This was a fairly good YA fantasy novel about children rescuing a dragon egg from an evil blacksmith. The only real problem is that it has the sort of lame cliff-hanger ending that you usually only see in series fiction, but for some reason there are no sequels to this book.

117yoyogod
jul. 5, 2015, 11:55 pm

113) Lowland Rider by Chet Williamson

This was a cool horror novel about a man who lives in the New York subway system after witnessing the murder of his infant daughter and the rape/murder of his wife. He sort of goes crazy and becomes a vigilante, eventually coming up against a supernatural evil called Enoch.

114) The Creek by Chris Hedges

This was a short horror novella about two boys and a girl they kill (no, not murder, just kill).

118yoyogod
jul. 6, 2015, 8:51 pm

115) Sacred by Dennis Lehane

This is the 3rd volume of the Kenzie & Gennaro series of mystery novels. It was a great book. I'm really loving the series.

119yoyogod
jul. 9, 2015, 11:02 pm

116) Dawn by Tim Lebbon

Now I have to read volume 3 of this series.

120yoyogod
jul. 12, 2015, 11:38 pm

117) Hiram Grange and the Chosen One by Kevin Lucia

I picked this up a few years ago when the writer was doing a local signing and never read it for some reason. It's a sort of multi-author urban fantasy series about a gut named Hiram Grange who battles supernatural evil for some shadowy government agency. This was a decent book, and I think I'll look into getting the rest of the series.

121yoyogod
jul. 17, 2015, 10:36 am

118) Looking for Miss Crabtree by Kevin W. Buck

I got this one last week when the author was giving a talk about gravehunting. It's a book about the graves of celebrities he's visited with short biographies and talk about why each celebrity was important to him.

122yoyogod
jul. 18, 2015, 10:52 pm

119) Disneyland of the Gods by John Keel

This is certainly a much better book than the Keel book I read last time. I did find some of his assertions dubious, and the three occasions he made predictions for the future, which is now the present (record albums no longer in use, AI exists, and population over 10 billion) are all wrong.

123yoyogod
jul. 19, 2015, 11:29 pm

120) The Case of the Violent Virgin by Michael Avallone

This is volume 7 of the Ed Noon mystery series. This time Ed is paid $50 to escort a woman to her train, but when the bad guys follow her onboard, so does Ed. Pretty soon he has a body dumped in his lap, and ends up in a strange case involving a statue called The Violent Virgin, a diamond called Blue Green, a bomb, and far too many criminals for comfort.

124yoyogod
jul. 21, 2015, 10:20 am

121) The Last Falcon by Colleen Ruttan

This is a fantasy novel that I picked up for my Kindle when it was free a while ago. Unlike so many other books I picked up for free, this one was actually good. It's not terribly original though, being about an ORPHAN girl, with a SECRET PAST, and a PROPHECY who is being HUNTED BY THE BAD GUYS. Still, it was fun to read and I already purchased the sequel for my Kindle.

122) Spooky Stories and Twisted Tales by Roger Hurn

Sadly, this is one of the books I downloaded for free that sucked. It is a collection of very short horror stories that "aren’t just for kids - they’re for everyone who enjoys having their spine tingled and their imagination stirred!" Sadly, this is a lie. The stories are mostly rehashes of urban legends (phantom hitchhiker and several others) and old folktales (one is that old tale about a servant meeting death in a marketplace ans heading to Samarra to escape) with nothing original added, and are written by someone who apparently is a member of the dumb it down school of writing children's stories.

125yoyogod
jul. 22, 2015, 10:14 pm

126yoyogod
jul. 23, 2015, 2:24 pm

124) Weird U.S.: The Odyssey Continues by Mark Moran, Mark Sceurman, and Matt Lake

Interesting, but I liked Weird Pennsylvania and Weird England better. Maybe I should try some more of the weird state books.

127yoyogod
jul. 23, 2015, 10:03 pm

125) The Beast of the Rails by Phil & Kaja Foglio

The latest Girl Genius book. It just arrived today, and I read it right away. This is my favorite webcomic series.

128yoyogod
jul. 24, 2015, 10:48 pm

126) Dragon Fire by Colleen Ruttan

This is the sequel to the book in >121 yoyogod:

It's a good follow up. I hope volume 3 comes along soon.

129yoyogod
jul. 26, 2015, 11:50 pm

127) Leprechaun in the Hood: The Musical: A Novel by Cameron Pierce, Adam Cesare, and Shane McKenzie

A 30 year old loser decides to make a musical based off of the movie Leprechaun in the Hood, unfortunately for him, the Leprechaun is real and isn't happy about having his IP stolen. His solution: carnage.

130yoyogod
jul. 31, 2015, 8:57 pm

128) The Winds of Khalakovo by Bradley P. Beaulieu

This is one of those very political fantasies that's full of betrayals and intrigue. For some reason, everyone in this book's world seems to be either Russian or some sort of gypsy. It was fairly interesting, but not interesting enough that I'll read the rest of the series.

131yoyogod
jul. 31, 2015, 9:51 pm

129) Libra Nigrum Scientia Secreta by Brian Keene and J. F. Gonzalez

The two authors each have an overarching mythos that connects their novels, and since they have collaborated on a few novels, those mythoi are interconnected. This book if a pseudo-grimoire containing spells, prophecies, and occult history set in the authors' worlds. As a fan of both authors, I really enjoyed it, though it's definitely nor for everybody, which is OK, since it's a limited edition book that will never be reprinted.

132yoyogod
ag. 2, 2015, 11:48 pm

130) The X-Files: Trust No One ed. by Jonathan Maberry

While I like the X-Files, I'm not really a big fan of it. However, I am a fan of Maberry and several of the contributors to this anthology. It's actually pretty good.

131) The Mondo Vixen Massacre by Jamie Grefe

This was a very short bizarro novella.While the concept was interesting, I didn't care for the author's style all that much, and would have preferred a more fleshed-out story.

133yoyogod
ag. 3, 2015, 8:58 pm

132) The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

The second Poirot novel. This time I was able to solve the crime well ahead of time.

134yoyogod
ag. 5, 2015, 8:10 pm

133) Joe Golem and the Drowning City by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden

I like occult detective stories, so when I heard about this, I picked it up. It was really good. Now I'll have to pick up the forthcoming Joe Golem comic book series when it comes out in November.

135yoyogod
ag. 6, 2015, 10:51 pm

134) The Life and Adventures of Nat Love by Nat Love

After reading Joe R. Lansdale's books about Nat Love, I decided to read Love's autobiography. The man certainly led an interesting life (assuming even half of what he claimed was true). He was pretty racist against Mexicans and Native Americans, but for a 19th century American cowboy, that really isn't very surprising.

136yoyogod
ag. 11, 2015, 12:24 am

135) The Dark Elf Trilogy by R. A. Salvatore

I read The Icewind Dale Trilogy a few years ago, and have been meaning to read more of the adventures of Drizzt for a while. This was a prequel trilogy, but unlike a certain much reviled film prequel trilogy, these books are good. Now I'll have to get the next trilogy soon.

137yoyogod
ag. 15, 2015, 4:23 pm

136) Fool's Quest by Robin Hobb

This was a great book. I can hardly wait for volume 3 of the series.

138yoyogod
ag. 17, 2015, 10:50 am

137) Slowly We rot by Bryan Smith

I picked this up because it was free in the Kindle Lending Library, and horror grand master Brian Keene recommended it as one of the best horror novels he's read this year (and one of the best zombie novels ever). While I can see why he said that, this book wasn't for me. It started and ended well enough, but part 3 took a bizarre hallucinatory turn when the protagonist has a psychotic break. Even after finishing, I have no idea what actually happened in that section of the book.

139yoyogod
ag. 17, 2015, 7:13 pm

138) The Crazy, Mixed-Up Corpse by Michael Avallone

Here we have volume 8 in the Ed Noon detective series. This time around there's a drive-by shooting, an unidentifiable corpse, a deranged stripper, a giant Texan, and a Chinese laundry bombing. I don't think this is the best of the series so far, but it's not the worst, either.

140yoyogod
ag. 18, 2015, 10:40 am

139) Scenes from an Unholy War by Hideyuki Kikuchi

This is the 20th Vampire Hunter D novel. This time D is hired to protect a village from a gang led by a pseudo-vampire. It's not bad, but as with most really long-running series, the quality of later books isn't as high as early ones.

141yoyogod
ag. 19, 2015, 9:05 pm

140) World's Weirdest News Stories from Fortean Times

This is a collection of weird news stories from around the world as collected by Fortean Times.

142yoyogod
ag. 22, 2015, 11:54 pm

141) The Aylesford Skull by James P. Blaylock

I read the first 2 volumes of this series a while ago. Now I read volume 5. I should probably read 3 & 4 at some point.

143yoyogod
ag. 30, 2015, 11:35 am

142) The End of the Story by Clark Ashton Smith

This is part one of a series of the collected fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, who was one of the great writers in H. P. Lovecraft's circle. The series title is a bit of a misnomer as about half of the stories in this collection are science fiction, and many of the others are horror. I guess the publishers didn't think calling it weird fiction, which is a more accurate name, would have conveyed any meaning to the general public. Smith was a good writer, but most of the science fiction stories here are pretty lame (the exception would be "The Planet of the Dead," which is really more of a fantasy with SF trappings). The fantasy and horror was good though.

144yoyogod
ag. 31, 2015, 11:27 am

143) Graynelore by Stephen Moore

I picke this up after seeing it on John Scalzi's blog a few weeks ago and discovering that they Kindle edition was going for $1.99 at the time. It's set in a brutal world that's loosely based off of the medieval English/Scottish borderlands, where apparently extended families of reivers would spend all of there time raiding each other and killing anyone they didn't like. On top of that, there's a missing Fairyland and the protagonist is some sort of half-fairy (which is a killing offense). It all made for a good fantasy.

144) Paranormal Journeys by Paul Cagle

I picked this up for free on the Kindle three years ago, and finally decided to read it last night. It's the true "adventures" of a small paranormal investigation group. It's pretty much like one of those ghost hunting TV shows, only since it's a book you can't see any videos or hear any alleged EVP, which makes judging the accounts harder. In any case, it was rather boring.

145yoyogod
set. 1, 2015, 12:34 pm

145) The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch

I'd been meaning to buy this since it came out in paperback. It's just as well I waited, since the next volume in the series has been delayed and won't be out unil sometime next year (and the paperback will probably be another year after that).

146yoyogod
set. 2, 2015, 5:50 pm

146) Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore

Moore is a really funny writer, but I didn't think this was his best.

147yoyogod
set. 2, 2015, 11:07 pm

147) The Hatch by Kelli Owen

This novella-length book is a sequel to Kelli Owen's previous novella Waiting Out Winter. Winter was about a family struggling to survive swarms of deadly flies that could kill with one bite. In Hatch, nature has compensated for the flies, and now the survivors have to face off against hordes of enraged spiders. It's creepy fun for all of us arachnophobes.

148yoyogod
set. 6, 2015, 12:53 am

148) Sherlock Holmes: The London Terrors by William Meikle

This is Meikle's third book of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. This one features 2 novellas with Holmes solving horrific myteries involving Lovecraftian entities, a mummy's curse, and Voodoo zombies. It's pretty good.

149yoyogod
set. 9, 2015, 5:04 pm

149) by the Way, Day by Day by P. G. Wodehouse

Recently a group of Wodehouse scholars came together and pored over the "By the Way" columns in the Globe newspaper from 1901-1908 when Wodehouse was one of the writers for it. They compiled stuff they deemed to have been written by Wodehouse into two volumes. This one is mostly humorous paragraphs summing up news items of the day.

150yoyogod
set. 12, 2015, 11:33 am

150) Agatha Christie's Detectives by Agatha Christie

This omnibus edition contains 2 Hercule Poirot novels, 1 Miss Marple novel, 1 Superintendent Battle novel, and 1 Tommy and Tuppence Beresford novel. I definitely liked the Poirot novels the best, but I enjoyed all of them and will probably give the other series a shot once I've finished with Poirot.

151yoyogod
set. 14, 2015, 2:42 pm

151) Lake Fossil II: The Refossiling ed. by Christine Morgan

This is the second horror anthology put out to annoy homophobic, misogynistic, racist, serial stalker/internet troll Nickolaus Pacione. As with the previous volume, several of the stories feature thinly veiled parodies of Pacione. Overall, it's a good anthology if you're familiar with Pacione's antics.

152yoyogod
set. 16, 2015, 11:30 pm

152) The Beast of Cretacea by Todd Strasser

As it's description makes clear, this book is an homage to Moby Dick. I haven't read Moby Dick, so I can't say how similar they are. I do know that both books share character names and take place on ships whose captains are obsessively pursuing a great white beast that took his leg.

This book is a work of science fiction and is seeming set on an alien planet in the distant future, but as you may guess from the title, is actually supposedly set in the Earth's Cretaceous Period (and I have no idea if the creatures in the book accurately represent life at that time). The book largely deals with the very modern concerns of environmental collapse and the threats posed by the extremely rich and their mega-corporations. It also manages to be a good adventure story, and is well worth reading.

153) The Quality of Mercy & Other Stories by William Meikle

This is Mekle's 2nd book of Sherlock Holmes pastiche, and contains the novella that constituted the first one, Sherlock Holmes: Revenant. In these stories, Holmes and Watson get involved in cases with a supernatural or super-science twist. It's very entertaining.

153yoyogod
set. 20, 2015, 11:36 pm

154) The Phantom of Menace by Ian Doescher

This book proves the old maxim about polishing a turd. If you turn a cruddy movie into a pseudo-Shakespearean play, you just end up with a cruddy play. Also, I want to point out that changing Jar Jar Binks fro m a bumbling halfwit into a smart person who pretends to be a bumbling halfwit only makes him more loathsome.

154yoyogod
set. 21, 2015, 7:22 pm

155) Not Exactly Ghosts and Fires Burn Blue by Andrew Caldecott

This is a decent collection of ghost stories (with some unitentional humor in the story "Authorship Disputed").

155yoyogod
set. 23, 2015, 3:33 pm

156) By the Way: 200 Verses by P. G. Wodehouse

As the title suggests, this is 200 poems (probably) written by Wodehouse during hist stint writing for thje Globe's By the Way column. Some of the poems are good, some are bad, and they're all based off of news stories from more than 100 years ago.

156yoyogod
set. 24, 2015, 11:17 pm

157) The Voodoo Murders by Michael Avallone

This was a very exciting story even if the version of Voodoo owes more to the fake kind in horror movies than the real religion.

157yoyogod
set. 25, 2015, 10:53 pm

158) Mercy House by Adam Cesare

This is a very scary horror novel. It starts off with a couple taking their mother , who is in the early stages of Pick's disease (and also a racist who hates her black daughter-in-law). Suddenly all the elderly resident's become super-strong and homicidally insane for a reason that is never explained.

158yoyogod
set. 27, 2015, 10:23 am

159) Haunted Lancaster County Pennsylvania by Dorothy Burtz Fiedel

This is a collection of local (to me) ghost stories. They aren't the best, but they are far from the worst collection of "true" ghost stories that I've read.

159yoyogod
set. 29, 2015, 1:35 pm

160) Beguilement by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is another book that I picked up for cheap on the Kindle a few years ago, and finally got around to reading. Bujold is a good writer, but this is way more romancey than I like. The first part has some nice action where the protagonists fight against a fairly cool monster called a Malice, but the rest is all them falling in love despite the fact he fact that she's a farmer and he's a Lakewalker (and the two groups never intermarry). While it was enjoyable, I doubt I'll be reading the rest of the series.

160yoyogod
oct. 3, 2015, 12:19 pm

161) The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher

As much as I like the Dresden Files, it's nice to see Butcher write something else every once in a while. This is a fairly exciting steam punk-ish sort of fantasy. It's set in a world where the surface of the planet has become uninhabitable to humans, apparently due to being full of monsters, so everyone lives in Spires, which seem to be giant tower-like structures of some some sort. The main mode of transport is air ships that are powered by magical crystals. Also, there are sentient cats for some reason.

An enemy Spire attacks our heroes' spire so they can sneak in some marines led by a crazy, evil magic user who wants to steal a book. There is a good bit of action, with our heroes getting into fights with the enemy marines (and occasionally into an airship battle). It's a good book, but it doesn't explain why the surface is full of monsters, why the bad guys want to steal the book, or anything, really. That doesn't bother me, but from reading a lot of reviews, I know there are plenty of people who flip out when a book doesn't explain why things are happening.

161xymon81
oct. 3, 2015, 6:25 pm

>161 xymon81: Im glad you seemed to like it. It seems to be pretty popular.

162yoyogod
oct. 4, 2015, 10:50 am

>161 xymon81: Thanks.

162) Eastern Pennsylvania Ghost Files: Updated! by Charles J. Adams III

This is by my favorite author of true ghost story books. This book contains updates on ghosts stories from his previous books, reader submissions, and info on local ghost hunting groups.

163yoyogod
oct. 12, 2015, 5:25 pm

163) Irish Ghost Stories selected by Rosemary Gray

I didn't enjoy this very much.

First off, this book is very badly titled. Sure, all the stories are Irish, either in setting, characters, or authors, but half of them are completely lacking in ghosts. There are a lot of stories about leprechauns. We also see fairies, a banshee, a witch, and some giants.

Secondly, reading it was a bit of a slog. I hate reading stories written in dialect, and this book contained several written in an Irish brogue. Even worse some of the stories were really boring, especially "The Living Ghost" by Rosa Mulholland, which also had the bad misfortune to be one of the longest stories in the book. I suffered through 20 pages of a Victorian Gothic romance story with nary a sign of ghosts (or any supernatural elements) before skipping the next 50 or so pages and moving on to the next story.

This is one book I just can't recommend.

164yoyogod
oct. 15, 2015, 11:41 am

164) The Big Book of Pennsylvania Ghost Stories by Mark Nesbitt and Patty A. Wilson

Not the most well written collection, and it seems to be largely culled from other books on ghosts in various regions of Pennsylvania, many of which I have read.

165yoyogod
oct. 15, 2015, 11:20 pm

165) The Troop by Nick Cutter

This is a very good horror novel.

166xymon81
oct. 16, 2015, 6:00 pm

>165 yoyogod: I really liked that one. It was one of my favorite reads last year. I have his second book on my TBR list. I need to do it soon.

167yoyogod
oct. 18, 2015, 11:49 pm

>166 xymon81: Yeah, I'll definitely have to pick that one up some time.

166) Larry: The Stooge in the Middle by Morris Feinberg

I have now read biographies of Larry, Moe, and Curly. Now I have to see if I can find one for Shemp (and maybe Joe Besser and Joe DeRita).

168yoyogod
oct. 19, 2015, 11:12 pm

167) Meanwhile Back at the Morgue by Michael Avallone

This is the 10th book in the Ed Noon series. This time, the title has absolutely nothing to do with the story, in which Noon is hired to protect a Broadway producer who says his life is in danger.

169yoyogod
oct. 22, 2015, 11:04 pm

168) A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli

i'm not sure what to think of this book. Piccirilli was a very talented writer, and this book is an enjoyable read. However, it's confusing as heck, because of its plot, which seems to consist of a bunch random stuff happening for no apparent reason.

170yoyogod
oct. 23, 2015, 7:10 pm

169) Eldren: The Book of the Dark by William Meikle

This is a pretty good vampiric horror novel set in Scotland.

171yoyogod
oct. 24, 2015, 8:20 pm

170) October Dreams II ed. by Richard Chizmar & Robert Morrish

This is an anthology of Halloween themed horror stories and Halloween reminiscences by horror authors (plus an essay by Lisa Morton on her favorite Halloween TV shows). It's a great collection, but I seem to have read many of the best stories elsewhere.

172yoyogod
oct. 25, 2015, 11:39 pm

171) Living with Ghosts by Dorothy Burtz Fiedel

I think this is probably Fiedel's best work, probably because it's only partially about ghosts. Fiedel wrote this because she promised her deceased husband she'd write it. About half the book is taken up with an account of her husband's death and some of the possibly paranormal events surrounding it. The rest is updates on ghost stories from her previous books and new stories sent in by readers, but he first part is the best.

173yoyogod
oct. 29, 2015, 1:46 pm

172) Toybox by Al Sarrantonio

This was an enjoyable collection of horror short stories, though the overarching story that tied them together was rather weak.

174yoyogod
oct. 29, 2015, 11:25 pm

A couple of short horror novellas:

173) Okiku by Mary SanGiovanni

A woman flees to a remote Japanese town after a crazed stalker murders her classmates. It's pretty good, which isn't surprising since she has her own crazy stalker.

174) The Dark Man by P. A. Douglas

A bunch of teens drop some acid and one of their hallucinations is a creepy man in a dark suit. Only he's not just a hallucination as he proves by going on a killing spree.

175yoyogod
nov. 1, 2015, 12:09 am

175) Preacher: Book One by Garth Ennis

I've been meaning to read this for a while and decided to pick it up today because my local comic store was having a 20% off sale. I enjoyed it and will definitely read the rest of the series.

176) You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop by John Scalzi

This is a collection of Scalzi's old blogposts on writing. It's reasonably entertaining and informative.

176yoyogod
nov. 2, 2015, 5:06 pm

177) The God Stalker Chronicles by P. C. Hodgell

I enjoyed this fantasy and will have to get the rest of the series.

177yoyogod
nov. 4, 2015, 2:15 pm

And now for a couple of short books:

178) Wilted Lilies by Kelli Owen

This is a horror novella about a girl with psychic powers who gets kidnapped by a mdman. It's a good read, and I hope Kelli writes a sequel to it like she said she probably will.

179) Aylmer Vance: Ghost-Seer by Alice and Claude Askew

This is a very short collection of paranormal detective stories in the vein of, but generally inferior to, Carnacki. It's still worth reading for those of us who enjoy the genre, but probably not really worthwhile to anyone else, even other horror fans.

178yoyogod
nov. 5, 2015, 11:24 pm

180) Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

This was a great book. I'm really enjoying the series, and now I absolutely have to read the next one so I know what happens next.

179yoyogod
nov. 8, 2015, 10:58 am

181) The Gods of H. P. Lovecraft ed. by Aaron J. French

This is a good book, though I really don't like the inaccuracy of the title or description.

180yoyogod
nov. 9, 2015, 11:29 am

182) Peripheral: Tales of Horror at a Glance by Sylvester Pilgrim

I was a bit leery of requesting this one from ER. It's a collection of horror stories by an author I've never heard of that's published by a small press that I've never heard of (and which doesn't specialize in horror or even genre fiction in general). When I got the book and saw the it had to blurbs from two (non-horror) writers I'd never heard of whose books are also published by small presses that I've never heard of. All of this made me worry that the book wouldn't be very good.

I was right to worry. This book isn't very good. The writing style strikes me as very amateurish and unengaging. The stories run the gamut in quality from laughably bad (especially the one about the picnic) to boringly predictable (like the one about the police and a serial killer) to just plain annoyling stupid (the one about a terrorist that's told in reverse chronological order). The book is also full of enough spelling and grammatical errors to make me wonder if this publisher even employs an editor.

It's not completely bad though. A few of the stories The title story "Peripheral" was OK, but unfortunately it's divided into four parts, and the followups "Peripheral: The Beginning," "Peripheral: Redemption," and "Peripheral: Rapture" were all pretty stupid. With a bit more practice, the author might become good, but this is a book that I just can't recommend to anyone.

181yoyogod
nov. 12, 2015, 9:29 am

183) A Young Man Without Magic by Lawrence Watt-Evans

This is a different sort of fantasy that's all about politics and revolution. It's good.

184) Curtain by Agatha Christie

Jumping ahead and reading the last Poirot novel before I read all of the ones before it might have been a bit of a mistake. Not for continuity reasons, but because the ending will likely color my readings of the rest of the series.

182yoyogod
nov. 14, 2015, 11:43 pm

185) Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

This a history of the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley combined with a bit of a travelogue of Vowell's visits to sites related to the assassinations and her political musings on the (then) current American political scene. I didn't enjoy this as much as Vowell's other books, but it was still pretty good.

183yoyogod
nov. 15, 2015, 11:36 pm

186) Our Lady of the Shadows by Tony Richards

This is a much better horror collection than the last one I read.

184yoyogod
nov. 16, 2015, 3:59 pm

187) Ghost Brothers of Darkland County by Stephen King and John Melloncamp

Well that was a really depressing story.

185yoyogod
nov. 17, 2015, 11:30 am

188) SEAL Team 666 by Weston Ochse

This was a nice thriller about an elite team of Navy SEALs who are protect the USA from supernatural threats.

186yoyogod
nov. 18, 2015, 4:40 pm

189) Flower of Scotland by William Meikle

An interesting collection of horror stories. I think I've read one of them before, and 2 of them were reused (in altered form) in the novel Eldren that I read last month.

187yoyogod
nov. 20, 2015, 12:01 am

190) The Living Bomb by Michael Avallone

This is the 11th Ed Noon mystery, and I really didn't like it all that much. In this book, Ed Noon is hired by the President to track down a missing nuclear scientist. Looking at it 60 years later, all that red scare commie hating stuff seems a bit silly to me.

188yoyogod
nov. 21, 2015, 11:28 pm

191) The Witch of Prague & Other Stories by F. Marion Crawford

The "& Other Stories part was good, but The Witch of Prague was boring. The other stories are all horror, but Witch is more of a Gothic romance about a man called the Wanderer who is searching for his lost love, Beatrice, and instead meets Unorna, the witch, who attempts to use her hypnotic powers to make him love her. There's also Unorna's jilted lover, and an evil dwarf.

189yoyogod
nov. 23, 2015, 12:14 am

192) The Door the Faced West by Alan M Clark

This is a very gruesome western set in the late 1700s/early 1800s that's about the Harpe brothers who were apparently America's first serial killers.

190yoyogod
nov. 23, 2015, 11:04 pm

193) Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce

I picked this up for the Kindle years ago, and only just got around to reading it. It's a really great YA fantasy, and I really want to read the rest of the series. I just wish the ebooks weren't so ridiculously overpriced (they're $7.99: the exact same price as the paperback).

191yoyogod
nov. 24, 2015, 11:03 pm

194) The First One You Expect by Adam Cesare

This is a horror novella about a guy who makes ultra-low budget slasher movies. When his beautiful new coworker expresses an interest in starring in his next movie, he discovers that she's a real killer. It's good, but a bit short.

192yoyogod
nov. 25, 2015, 10:50 pm

195) Preacher Book 2 by Garth Ennis

I think I'm going to read one volume of this series each month if I can.

196) Offspring by Jack Ketchum

This was incredibly gruesome.

193yoyogod
nov. 27, 2015, 11:07 pm

197) I Want It Now! by Julie Dawn Cole

This was a memoir of the woman who played Veruca Salt in the 1971 version of Willie Wonka. It deals mostly with her time in the film, but there is also info on her life before and after the movie. It made for an interesting look into one of my favorite movies.

194yoyogod
des. 3, 2015, 11:25 pm

198) Callahan's Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson

I didn't enjoy this as much as I'd hoped I would.

195yoyogod
des. 6, 2015, 12:00 pm

199) A Mythos Grimmly edited by Jeremy Hochhalter

This is a book that I originally backed on Kickstarter (and I'm glad I did as the Kickstarter exclusive cover is far superior to the general release cover). I mostly backed it because it has stories by Mary SanGiovanni and J. F. Gonzalez, who are (or were in Gonzalez's case) two of my favorite horror writers, and stories by William Meikle and Brett Talley, who I haven't read as much of, but have enjoyed. On top of that the premise was interesting: a mashup of The Brothers Grimm and H. P. Lovecraft.

It didn't quite turn out like that. Not all of the fairy tales are from the Grimms. One is a retelling of the story of Cú Chulainn, a mythological Irish hero. One is a Winnie-the-Poo/Lovecraft mashup (and is probably my favorite story in the anthology, so I won't complain). There are several others that I couldn't figure out what fairy tales they're based off of assuming they weren't just written in a fairy tale style.

Even the stories with Brothers Grimm fairy tale origins had a varying connection to their originals. The first story, "The Arkham Town Musicians," by Christine Morgan, is pretty much a straight up retelling of The Bremen Town Musicians, only set in Lovecraft's New England and with the animal characters having otherworldly ancestry. The first "Little Red Riding Hood" mash-up (there are two of them), is "Ginger Snap," by Michael Wentela, and other than the fact that one of the characters is a girl with a red hoodie who jokingly refers to the protagonist as the big bad wolf, there is nothing of the original tale in the mash-up.

That said, if you have an interest in Lovecraftian fiction, this is well worth getting. I really enjoyed the the stories, even the ones that didn't have much to do with fairy tales.

196yoyogod
des. 9, 2015, 12:27 pm

200) Drawing Blood by Molly Crabapple

Crabapple is a New York-based artist. I've been a fan of her art for a few years now, and follow her on Twitter. I really enjoyed this book too.

201) Fender Lizards by Joe R. Lansdale

This book is a bit different from the other Lansdale books I've read. It doesn't fall into the horror, mystery, or western genres that his other books I've read do. It's the story of a girl named Dot who lives in a trailer with her mother, grandmother, and younger brother. Dot is a high school dropout who works as a rollerskating waitress at one of those drive-in restaurants. It's the story of a few interesting weeks in fer life where she beats up a guy with a two-by-four, falls in love with a rich boy, meets an uncle she never knew existed, tracks down her missing father, and competes in a roller derby. Also, the limited edition has 3 bonus stories of a young Hap Collins from Lansdales popular Hap Collins & Leonard Pine series.

197yoyogod
des. 14, 2015, 1:13 pm

202) The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart

This is an omnibus edition of a trilogy of fantasy/mystery novels set in ancient China. I enjoyed them.

198yoyogod
des. 16, 2015, 4:22 pm

203) Durarara!! by Ryougo Narita

I decided to pick this up after watching the anime series that's based off of it. It's a light novel set in the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo. The main character is a headless biker. I'll have to get the rest of the series.

199yoyogod
des. 17, 2015, 12:07 pm

204) The Drug & Other Stories by Aleister Crowley

I expect that if was a follower of Thelema, I'd have understood this better.

200yoyogod
des. 18, 2015, 4:54 pm

205) There Is Something about a Dame by Michael Avallone

This time around, Ed Noon is hired to find a man who may have read a lost Shakespearean play. Naturally things don't go according to plan.

206) The Complex by Brian Keene

This is the story of a group of people who live in a low-income apartment complex. One day a group of crazy, naked people swarm in and attack everybodt. I've heard other people say that this is Keene's best book in a while. I would tend to agree, but I expect that the book will annoy some people for two reasons: 1) Some cats are killed during the story, and 2) There is no explanation for the strange events that take place.

201yoyogod
des. 19, 2015, 4:08 pm

207) Christmas Horror: Volume 1

This is, as the title suggests, an anthology of Christmas-themed horror stories. It's pretty good, which isn't surprising considering the contributors.

202yoyogod
des. 21, 2015, 10:22 am

208) Gateway to Fourline by Pam Brondos

This was a moderately interesting, generic sort of fantasy novel that I picked up for free on the Kindle last month.

203yoyogod
des. 23, 2015, 6:48 pm

209) Preacher: Book 3 by Garth Ennis

I'm really enjoying this series, especially Arseface.

204yoyogod
des. 25, 2015, 11:28 am

210) The Greenwich Memoirs by Luke Keioskie

This is a strange book about a man from Greenwich, England who investigates the murder of his sister with the help of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a case involving a golem. Then he helps Annie Oakley deal with a werewolf problem in the old west. Finally he fights yet another supernatural evil on board the Titanic.

205yoyogod
des. 27, 2015, 10:48 am

211) Sower of Dreams by Debra Holland

This was a pretty decent fantasy that I recently got for free on my Kindle.While I enjoyed it, I didn't enjoy it enough that I'm willing to pay $6 for the ebook version of the sequel, so I probably won't be reading the rest of the series.

206yoyogod
Editat: des. 29, 2015, 12:48 pm

212) The Casebook of Sexton Blake edited by D. S. Davies

This is a collection of early 20th Century adventure/mystery (extremely short) novels featuring Sexton Blake. The writing style was extremely simplistic, an some of the stories were a bit on the racist side--including an African adventure, an Indian mutiny, and a yellow peril story--but they were still entertaining.

213) Piercing the Darkness edited by Craig Cook

This is a mostly excellent horror anthology published to raise money for charity. It includes great stories from many of horror's top names including Brian Keene, Jonathan Maberry, and Joe. R. Lansdale. Other than T. T. Zuma's story, which I thought was execrable, I thought the stories were great.