Posts tagged with horror
The Dead Seekers, by Barb and J.C. Hendee
Barb and J.C. Hendee's new novel The Dead Seekers has a very specific target audience: people hoping for a serious take on movies like Van Helsing or Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Set in the same world as the Hendees' best-selling Noble Dead series, The Dead Seekers features a vaguely Eastern European setting, loads of ghosts, and two gloomy protagonists—Tris, an uptight ghost-slayer for hire, and Mari, a young woman determined to avenge her murdered family...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Dead Seekers, by Barb and J.C. Hendee
This week's Book Giveaway is The Dead Seekers, the first book in a new series by Barb and J.C. Hendee. The Dead Seekers is set in the same world as the authors' bestselling Noble Dead saga, but should (hopefully) work as a standalone. A full review will follow shortly...
Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays, by Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon
Written by Onion alums Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon, Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays is an R-rated choose-your-own-adventure story that takes you through countless holiday misadventures, ranging from moderately gloomy to gross as hell. The set-up is simple: your family is out of town, and your relationship is too new for a shared Christmas, so...
Bad Blood, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Bad Blood is the fourth and final book in Jennifer Lynn Barnes's Naturals series. Once again, Barnes has delivered a briskly-paced thriller seemingly tailor-made for a CW adaptation. (Seriously, the fact that this series isn't already on my TV is bewildering to me.)
Cross-marketing
The website Cosmic Booknews informs me that Goosebumps and Fear Street author R.L. Stine is currently working on a comic book series for Marvel. Details are non-existent (Stine is quoted as saying...
Two thumbs up
Entertainment Weekly recently put together a useful list of 31 Spooky Books to Read This Halloween. In addition to the fact that I always love dorky holiday-themed reading lists, their picks are actually really good: there are plenty of expected names...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Otherworld Chills, by Kelley Armstrong
It's October, and we've been in a very horror-lite mood lately, so this week's Book Giveaway is Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld Chills, a collection of "rare and never-before-published novellas and short stories" set in her "Women of the Otherworld" 'verse. A full review will follow shortly...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Creeping Shadow, by Jonathan Stroud
This week's Book Giveaway is Jonathan Stroud's The Creeping Shadow, the fourth book in his delightfully creepy Lockwood & Co. series. Trust me, dear readers, this is pretty much the perfect way to kick off the fall season. Our review will follow shortly...
Chaos Choreography, by Seanan McGuire
After a two-book-long detour, the fifth installment in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series brings the action back where it belongs: on ballroom-dancing, ass-kicking cryptozoologist Verity Price. In Chaos Choreography, Verity has set aside her dancing career in favor of full-time cryptozoology... but when she gets a call from the producers of the reality TV series Dance or Die, she decides...
Remembrance, by Meg Cabot
Remembrance, the fifth and final book in Meg Cabot's 'Mediator' series, is her third attempt at transforming one of her YA series into a story for grown-ups. The end result is vintage Meg Cabot—brash, funny, and just a little bit lazy—but now with more swearing, violence, and sex...
Hmm. Maybe.
According to Lainey Gossip, there's a modern Jekyll and Hyde-inspired project in the works, possibly starring Captain America's Chris Evans. The plot sounds pretty thin...
Confused
The first trailer is out for the movie adaptation of M.R. Carey's zombie novel The Girl With All the Gifts. The movie has a recognizable cast (including Glenn Close and Gemma Arterton), and it looks very artistically gloomy, but...
Weekly Book Giveaway: And I Darken, by Kiersten White
This week's Book Giveaway is And I Darken, the first installment in a new teen series by Kiersten White. This book is apparently (very) loosely based on the historical events surrounding Vlad the Impaler. I have no idea how a story about a murderous, sadistic, 15th century nutjob will translate into a darkly seductive YA novel, but I'm looking forward to finding out...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Julia Vanishes, by Catherine Egan
This week's Book Giveaway is Julia Vanishes, the first book in Catherine Egan's new Witch's Child trilogy. The plot description—involving magic, orphans, thieves, and serial killers—sounds pretty exciting, so I'm looking forward to reading it. A full review will follow shortly...
Isn't this already a Japanese movie?
The trailer is out for The Cell, the movie adaptation of the 2006 novel of the same name by Stephen King. I've never read it, but I treasure that dated cover and delightfully cheesy tagline. ("YOUR NUMBER IS UP!") Plus, I like John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, so...
Night Shift, by Charlaine Harris
Night Shift, the third book in Charlaine Harris's highly entertaining Midnight, Texas series, has the same strengths and weaknesses as its predecessors. With each installment, I grow more invested in the personal lives of Harris's characters... and with each installment, I grow more pained by her idea of what serves as romantic chemistry...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Night Shift, by Charlaine Harris
This week's Book Giveaway is Charlaine Harris's Night Shift, the third book in her excellent Midnight, Texas series. (Our reviews of the first two are available here and here.) While I would never call Harris "the Mark Twain of things that live under your bed"...
The Dark Days Club, by Alison Goodman
Reading Alison Goodman's new YA novel The Dark Days Club is a bit like eating a ten course meal: the individual elements were delicious, but eventually I found myself too full to properly appreciate them...
In a nod to Blackadder, this is King's magnificent octopus.
Entertainment Weekly informs me that production has finally gotten rolling on a movie adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower. According to the article, Idris Elba has been confirmed as the gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey will play the man in black. The film will be directed by Nikolaj Arcel...
At least it will be better than Crimson Peak.
I'm not sure if I'll see this movie adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel High Rise (although I do like the "creepy sales pitch" vibe of the trailer), but it did leave me with a more pressing question...
The Man in the High Castle (TV adaptation), by Philip K. Dick
Last week we reviewed Philip K. Dick's 1962 novel The Man in the High Castle, so this week we thought we'd take a gander at the first episode of Amazon Prime's recent TV adaptation of the material. The complete first season of this series is available here...
The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
According to Wikipedia, Philip K. Dick considered his Hugo Award-winning 1962 novel The Man in the High Castle to be his masterpiece, but was too disturbed by his own creation to ever finish a sequel. Seeing as Dick made a career out of churning out disturbing literature, this might seem surprising, but...
The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School, by Kim Newman
Kim Newman's The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School is 300 pages of precisely detailed world-building, held together with 100 pages of adventure. It's a fun read, at least if you're part of the (presumably small) subset of people who like slowly-percolating stories...
Devoted in Death, by J.D. Robb
Devoted in Death is the 41st installment of J.D. Robb's futuristic mystery/suspense “In Death” series, and—unsurprisingly—things are getting pretty damn stale. There are a couple of nice moments in this book, but 99% of it is the literary equivalent of a filler episode...
The Hollow Boy, by Jonathan Stroud
I absolutely loved The Screaming Staircase and The Whispering Skull, the first two installments in Jonathan Stroud's horror/adventure series Lockwood & Co. The third book in the series is more problematic than the first two...
Devoted in Death, by J.D. Robb
Devoted in Death is the 41st installment of J.D. Robb's futuristic mystery/suspense “In Death” series, and—unsurprisingly—things are getting pretty damn stale. There are a couple of nice moments in this book, but 99% of it is the literary equivalent of a filler episode...
Will I buy a ticket? Probably.
Funimation has released an English-language trailer for the live-action film adaptations of Attack on Titan, and I keep watching it, even though everything about this series grosses me out...
The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi
For a book blessed with interesting characters, a compelling conflict, and an absolutely spectacular hook, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife isn't actually fun to read. I don't mind violence, but there's a fine line between suffering that serves the plot and straight-up disaster porn, and too much of The Water Knife feels like the latter...
The umlaut really adds something.
Deadline informs me that Fox has hired Josh Schwartz (of The O.C., Gossip Girl, Chuck fame) to develop an hourlong "dramedy" inspired by Grady Hendrix's supernatural mystery novel Horrorstör...
The Raven's Child, by Thomas E. Sniegoski
Thomas E. Sniegoski's standalone graphic novel The Raven's Child has all the right ingredients for an epic fantasy: an inspiring protagonist, a memorable cast of evildoers, and a detailed, visually striking world...