This review originally appeared on Goodreads on April 17, 2019.

The Ritual

By Adam Nevill – Pan Publishing – May 28, 2011

Review by Robin Marx

The Ritual tells the story of four friends from college who have attempted to revive their camaraderie via a camping trip in the Swedish wilderness. They overestimate their stamina, however, and when two of their number are hobbled by injuries, they elect to take a “shortcut” back towards town through an ancient forest. They soon encounter strange noises and disturbing relics, and realize they are being stalked by something powerful and stealthy, capable of eviscerating a grown man and flinging him up into the tree branches.

I greatly enjoyed the 2017 movie adaptation of The Ritual, but wished that more had been revealed, and that the finale had been less rushed. I picked up the novel hoping for more of what I enjoyed in the movie, and this book certainly delivered.

Despite the surprisingly fast pace of the book, a great deal of attention is paid to establishing an oppressive, ominous atmosphere. The reader is made to feel a great deal of empathy for the exhausted and injured hikers lost in the primeval Nordic wood. Tempers flare and nerves fray as the gravity of their situation becomes clear.

While much of the film is a close adaptation of the book, the two works diverge considerably when the protagonist encounters the local residents of the wilderness. The movie plays it safe with a fairly conventional evil cult, while the book heads in a much more interesting and original direction. (To me, anyway; apparently it's somewhat controversial to some other readers.)

Despite its bleakness, I was unable to put this book down. It was a horror novel of a grueling kind not often seen. The protagonist is pushed to extremes, suffering a laundry list of injuries coupled with incredible mental strain. His struggle and slipping sanity are incredibly effectively rendered on the page, resulting in the most engaging horror novel I've read in a number of years.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on August 27, 2019.

The Book of Cthulhu

Edited by Ross E. Lockhart – Night Shade Books – September 1, 2011

Review by Robin Marx

This is an uncommonly strong anthology of recent(ish) Cthulhu Mythos stories. Anthologies of this nature often fall prey to Lovecraft pastiche, but for the most part the stories here offer fresh and imaginative takes on the source material and span a wide variety of time periods.

While the average quality is high, a number of stories stand out in particular. Although I had read it before, “A Colder War” by Charles Stross remains a masterful melding of Cold War paranoia with the Mythos. “The Men from Porlock” by Laird Barron and “The Crawling Sky” by Joe R. Lansdale are particularly creepy and effective tales of rural folk encountering the otherworldly. “Fat Face” by Michael Shea offers a fun update of a classic Lovecraftian creature.

Lovecraft has attracted a great deal of negative attention in recent years for his vehement racism, to the extent that some argue that he should be excluded from the horror/science fiction canon. I think that would be a terrible shame, however, as a number of writers have combined Lovecraftian inspiration with more palatable views on race. “Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear and “Jeroboam Henley’s Debt” by Charles Saunders are both very Lovecraftian stories that benefit greatly by centering race and starring black protagonists. Outside of this anthology, a number of other recent stories and novels have worked with a Lovecraftian foundation while dealing with race-related issues to good effect.

Overall, this is an easy book to recommend to Lovecraft fans curious about recent Mythos-related fiction.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on November 6, 2013.

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All

By Laird Barron – Night Shade Books – April 2, 2013

Review by Robin Marx

The best stories in this collection could be labeled “rustic horror.” Many of them take place in the Pacific Northwest, in the deepest forests and shadowy valleys. The protagonists are often rough and tumble men who are nevertheless set on edge by a variety of creepy occurrences. Imagine Jack London writing spooky stories and you'd be on the right track.

While the rustic horror stories are great, the ones set in more modern and more urban locales were much less engaging. These stories tended to be longer and also more obscure (probably with the intent of creating a phantasmagorical atmosphere), which made matters worse.

One thing I found interesting was the use of Old Scratch himself, the Devil, as the prime supernatural threat in many of the tales. While this might seem cliched to some, I actually found it delightfully retro, reminding me of the “Satanic Panic” stories from the 70s and 80s. There's some Lovecraft homage in here too, but more an appreciative acknowledgement than slavish devotion.

While I didn't love every story in this volume, I came away with a strong interest in Laird Barron's work. Recommended for horror fans, especially those who enjoy the classics of the genre and rural settings.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on September 23, 2021.

Survivor Song

By Paul Tremblay – William Morrow – July 7, 2020

Review by Robin Marx

A virus sweeps America. Quarantines are in place. Hospitals are overrun, and the staff are concerned about insufficient Personal Protective Equipment. Vaccines are starting to be distributed, but far right elements of the population hinder efforts, fearing the “deep state” and/or foreign nations.

This is the setting of Survivor Song, a world that’s...pretty close to our current one. Instead of a novel coronavirus, the virus in the novel is a “super rabies” capable of spreading from animals to humans, turning them into berserk and belligerent infection vectors akin to the rage zombies from the movie 28 Days Later.

While this book was written before the COVID-19 outbreak, it turned out to be rather prescient. In interviews, Tremblay has acknowledged that, if anything, he underplayed how the pandemic would be exacerbated by the more ignorant right-wing portion of the population. Reading this book more than 18 months into the pandemic, I tend to agree.

Survivor Song focuses on Natalie, a heavily pregnant woman. When her husband is killed by a rabid intruder and she’s bitten on the arm during the struggle, she meets up with her pediatrician friend Ramola and the two of them embark on a dangerous quest for medical treatment.

This book was a fast-paced, gripping read. It was tense throughout. I also enjoyed the small scale of the story. It didn’t deal with the pandemic as a whole, it focused on this one pregnant woman and her friend. “Immediacy” is the one word that most sums up this novel for me.

However, despite the high personal stakes of the premise, the emotional dimension of the story mostly fell flat for me. Throughout the book, Natalie records voice messages for a baby she becomes increasingly convinced she won’t survive to raise. While normally this would be tear-jerking stuff, even as a parent I wasn’t affected in the way the author intended. This side of the story felt too obvious and familiar, perhaps. Instead, the conclusion of the plot thread involving Josh and Luis, two teenage boys that apparently appeared in a Tremblay book I have not yet read, left me more moved than anything involving the main characters. Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts did a better job of reaching me emotionally, I think.

While my heart strings were left more or less un-tugged, this book was a propulsive and exciting read. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone struggling during the coronavirus pandemic, however, as under the current circumstances this book lacks much in the way of escapism.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 23, 2021.

Horrorstör

By Grady Hendrix – Quirk Books – September 23, 2014

Review by Robin Marx

Silent Hill IKEA.

Instead of a haunted house, this fast-paced horror novel centers on a haunted housewares store. After a number of vandalism incidents and strange happenings at an Orsk, an acknowledged IKEA rip-off, the manager Basil chooses a pair of employees to stay with him overnight to get to the bottom of the mystery. Inevitably, these hapless retail workers find out they’ve gotten much more than they bargained for.

The first half of this book feels like a Scooby Doo cartoon, with a light tone and broadly drawn characters. Things take a decidedly darker turn in the second half, when the true nature of the haunting is revealed. Each character reveals more depth and surprising resourcefulness as their situation grows more grim. There’s also some social commentary dealing with consumerism and the plight of retail workers, and the whole story ends on a particularly satisfying note. Highly recommended for horror fans.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on January 20, 2022.

John the Balladeer

By Manly Wade Wellman – Baen Books – July, 1988

Review by Robin Marx

John roams the mountains of Appalachia carrying little more than his silver-stringed guitar and a rucksack with some provisions. Motivated by curiosity, he seeks out folklore and new songs to add to his repertoire. Along the way he encounters simple folk in need, sinister magicians, and supernatural horrors. John lives by his wits, the magic-defeating silver of his guitar strings, and his knowledge of folklore and biblical lore.

There’s a wandering outsider hero, black magic, and otherworldly menaces. These stories aren’t precisely sword & sorcery, but if you like that sort of thing, you’ll like THIS sort of thing.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 26, 2021.

Final Girls

By Riley Sager – Dutton – July 11, 2017

Review by Robin Marx

Quinn Carpenter is the sole survivor of a massacre at a remote cabin in the woods. Dubbed a horror movie-style “Final Girl” by the sensationalist press, she finds herself lumped in with two other girls with similar experiences: Lisa, who escaped a sorority house bloodbath; and Sam, who was attacked during a motel murder spree. Despite the best efforts of the media to bring these Final Girls together, for years the three resisted the idea of meeting in person. But when the apparently well-adjusted Lisa suddenly kills herself, Quinn is approached by Sam. The two of them have dealt with their trauma in very different ways, and Quinn both sees a kindred spirit in Sam and a challenging, threatening side to her mercurial personality.

What happens to the Final Girl when the movie is over? How do they come to grips with their trauma while dealing with sometimes skeptical law enforcement and reporters desperate for the salacious details? This clever thriller deals with the aftermath of the kind of events we see in horror movies.

This is a gripping mystery that veers in several unexpected directions. While it contains no supernatural elements, given the Final Girl premise horror movie fans are especially likely to enjoy it.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on February 6, 2019.

The Burrowers Beneath

By Brian Lumley – Grafton Books – January 1, 1974

Review by Robin Marx

This was a fun but not earthshaking (oh-ho-ho) addition to the Cthulhu Mythos.

The book has a lot of fun ideas. The subterranean squid-like Chthonian creatures themselves are great. The Wilmarth Foundation, a secret organization of like-minded individuals working against the Mythos, is also an interesting addition to the canon. The execution of the book is a bit less than ideal, however.

The book is structured as an epistolary novel, composed of both letters and diary entries from a variety of characters. Some of the letters are very atmospheric and engrossing. The stories about about a mine inspector who encounters extraterrene eggs and a coastal rig that strikes more than oil stand out in particular. The result is a bit uneven, with mostly self-contained vignettes that are actually more entertaining than the primary narrative. And although he's positioned as the protagonist, Titus Crow is a passive figure for much of the book, either being directed by or receiving exposition from helpful supporting characters that seek him out.

While apparently set in the modern day (the early 1970s, when the book was published), Lumley's obvious affection for Lovecraft and old-fashioned gentleman's club occult detective yarns leads to a story that seems strangely untethered in time. Lumley's master occultist character Titus Crow seems like he'd be more at home in one of William Hope Hodgson's Edwardian Carnacki, The Ghost-Finder stories and Crow's Watson-style sidekick Henri-Laurent de Marigny also seems like a similar throwback to an earlier era. It felt a bit off reading about these smoking jacket / brandy snifter types discussing atomic testing.

There are some creepy moments as the Chthonians' capabilities are gradually revealed, but they don't get as much time in the spotlight as I would have liked. For ageless, godlike beings they turn out to be pushovers once the humans in the story figure out what's going on and get their act together. Apart from one fascinating scene detailing an attack on a massive captive Chthonian, the expulsion of the Chthonians from the British Isles is mostly glossed over. The book's conclusion feels like “Yeah, we lost some guys along the way but things mostly went according to plan.”

It's also interesting to note that the Chthonians only start acting directly against humans when their eggs are stolen or tampered with. They don't seem like much of a menace to humanity otherwise, apart from worshipping unappealing alien gods. In this aspect they brought to mind the misunderstood Horta from the original Star Trek episode “The Devil in the Dark.”

Some readers describe Lumley's Cthulhu Mythos output as Lovecraft fanfic. While that feels a bit uncharitable, it's not wrong, either. Lumley also borrows heavily from August Derleth's reinterpretation of the Mythos, where human beings have a certain level of Elder God support in the war against the “evil” Great Old Ones. Star-Signs of Mnar are wielded like crucifixes in the face of “CCDs” (Cthulhu Cycle Deities). While this sort of thing can be fun—I personally believe the Cthulhu Mythos is a sort of “big tent” that can accommodate everything from The Dunwich Horror to Bride of Re-Animator—readers hoping for actual cosmic horror are likely to be disappointed.

I enjoyed this book, but Lovecraft purists are better off reading something closer to the original source.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on November 3, 2020.

The Scarlet Gospels

By Clive Barker – St. Martin's Press – May 19, 2015

Review by Robin Marx

While this book was a page-turner and a nice return to form for Clive Barker, it’s a little light on plot and characterization.

The story brings together Barker’s occult detective character Harry D’Amour (probably most famous in his film incarnation, played by Scott Bakula in Lord of Illusions) and the demonic Hell Priest Pinhead, who was briefly introduced in the novella The Hellbound Heart and made famous in the Hellraiser movies. More interested in the human world than his colleagues, Pinhead arranges things so that Harry has no choice but to serve as Pinhead’s “witness” as the Cenobite enacts his master plan for Hell.

It was a bit of a disappointment seeing Pinhead reduced to a demon of middling influence in the Judeo-Christian Hell rather than a more dominating figure from the more enigmatic realm in the original novella and films. That being said, Pinhead is every bit as imposing as fans of the character would hope. The geography and politics of Hell are also intriguing and mysterious, if a bit under-explained.

It was nice seeing Harry again, but the friends that join him on his journey into the underworld could have been fleshed out a bit more. Their banter and flirtations could’ve had a bit more weight if they had a bit more development beyond “tall gay tattoo artist,” “heavily tattooed aggressive woman,” etc.

I enjoyed Barker’s gruesome prose. A lot of his more recent work has been in the Young Adult genre or straying towards lightly supernatural lit flick, but there’s plenty of old-fashioned Barker blood-letting in this story. There’s also a lot of beautiful and evocative scenes, another Barker specialty.

This book could have been much more—apparently the manuscript was edited down quite a bit—but it was still nice glimpsing Barker returning to his beloved characters.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on June 22, 2011.

The Ghost Pirates

By William Hope Hodgson – Stanley Paul – 1909

Review by Robin Marx

As with The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', William Hope Hodgson makes excellent use of his experience as a sailor, serving up an atmospheric ghost story. Apart from the nautical theme, however, The Ghost Pirates is a very different book from The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', and in some ways an inferior one.

The highlights of this book are without a doubt the dialogue and the atmosphere. The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' lacked any spoken dialogue, so its inclusion here is a nice change. The jargon-sprinkled sea salt conversations are at times hard to follow, but they feel authentic and flavorful. Some reviewers bemoan the lack of a glossary of nautical terms—Hodgson doesn't go to any effort to explain capstans and binnacles to the reader—but I didn't feel as if missing out on a word here or there impacted my enjoyment of the overall story.

While the plot itself is quite sleight (a characteristic shared by all of the Hodgson novels I've read to date), its execution is well done. Hodgson was a master of atmosphere, setting up a number of strange occurrences that gradually build into a tense, unnerving scenario.

I enjoyed The Ghost Pirates, but I think I would've liked it better had I read it before The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', rather than immediately afterward. 'Glen Carrig' is filled with such bizarre fever dream imagery that the spirits of the dead, however spooky, seem rather conventional by comparison. That being said, The Ghost Pirates is an interesting traditional ghost story, and well told.

★★★☆☆

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