Edited by Brian James Freeman & Richard Chizmar ★★★ This ninth volume of the Dark Screams anthology series offers a collection of six stories from different authors. This is very much a mixed bag, and is worth reading for three of the tales, while the other three are relatively weak. The stories included are:Kelley Armstrong…… Continue reading Dark Screams: Vol. 9
Tag: Horror
Survivor Song
Paul Tremblay ★★★★★ “THIS IS NOT a fairy tale. Certainly it is not one that has been sanitized, homogenized, or Disneyfied.”Tremblay warns you right from the beginning that what you are about to read isn’t going to be yet another happily-ever-after fable where the heroes (or in this case heroines) overcome adversity, kill the wicked…… Continue reading Survivor Song
Ghost Virus
Graham Masterton ★ A series of bizarre murders and suicides in London bring together two disparate police officers, who must work together to solve the increasingly unexplainable deaths. I’m not sure that I’ve ever read a Graham Masterton novel before, but if you’d told me that Guy N. Smith or Shaun Hutson had written this…… Continue reading Ghost Virus
A Cosmology of Monsters
Sean Hamill ★★★★★ I thought this was going to be an easy review to write, but so much of the story relies on the reader not knowing what’s coming. I’ve got a whole list of symbolism and elements [flashback to A-Level English Lit], and I can’t mention 99% of it because it would spoil the…… Continue reading A Cosmology of Monsters
Bone Harvest
James Brogden ★★★★ On the killing fields of World War One, a British soldier abandons his regiment to join the Grey Brigade – a company of deserters who pledge allegiance to no country and fight for no army. Amongst this motley group he meets Bill, an adherent of an old Celtic religion, who makes outlandish…… Continue reading Bone Harvest
Panik
Chris Selwyn James ★★ It starts in Oxford. At first, they thought it was murder, but it soon became clear that the victims were doing it to themselves. Cases increase on a nightly basis, for it is sleep that triggers the Panic. The only way to guarantee making it through the night is not to…… Continue reading Panik
Eden
Tim Lebbon ★★★ Decades ago, in a desperate international effort to reverse some of the damage we had inflicted on our planet, thirteen Virgin Zones were purged of humanity and left alone for the natural world to reclaim. Of these, Eden is the oldest, and the most dangerous. The Zones were fiercely protected by the…… Continue reading Eden
Bone Quarry
KD McNiven ★★ I adore creature features, and even more so if they’re marine creatures, so when I read the description for Bone Quarry I was immediately interested. Mystery marine fauna die-off? Check. Underwater graveyard of human bones? Check. Living dinosaurs which should have been dead for around 8 million years? Check. A cover showing…… Continue reading Bone Quarry
Sinkhole
April A Taylor ★ When choosing from a list of books to read for review, the information provided is often scant. It can be a brief synopsis of the story, or a copy of the blurb that will go on the back of the published book, or a couple of quotes from existing reviews –…… Continue reading Sinkhole
The Veil
Torstein Beck ★★★ In 2061, scientific improvements lead to the reclassification of a planet in the Tau Ceti system. New data reveals that not only is Orsus potentially habitable, it is one of the most Earth-like planets ever discovered, so much so that life may already exist on its surface. With cryogenics still unable to…… Continue reading The Veil
The Book Dragon 