September was another slow month, reading-wise.
Only finished 4.
1. Swedish Cults by Anders Fager. This was the first English translation of Fager’s Lovecraftian collection, first published in Sweden in 2009. The collection included 5 longish stories / novellas and 4 story fragments. Overall I enjoyed the collection. It got off to a fast start with ‘The Furies from Boras’, a blood drenched story about a cult of teen age girls that offer a sacrifice to an elder god in the woods. It hit a lull after that, as the next two stories were my least favorites, but picked up with the last two stories,’Happy Forever on Ostermalm’, about a man with a mysterious new job who returns home from a business trip with a strange affliction, and ‘Miss Whitt’s Great Work’, a story about an artist who blurs the line between art & pornography, and why her latest work was so fervently expected by a mysterious cult. The story fragments in between were all very interesting, and I would like see another collection by the author where they are expanded into full length stories. Overall I really liked Swedish Cults, though it is definitely aimed at fans of Lovecraftian fiction. 4 / 5
2. The Possession by Michael Rutger. I really liked The Anomaly, so I went into The Possession with high hopes, which were met in the first half of the book. A teen age girl goes missing, only to reappear 2 weeks later in perfect health claiming she was living alone in the woods. With the reappearance of the girl strange things begin to happen in town. The second half of the story had too many WTF moments for me. 2.5 / 5
3. The Children of Gla’aki ed. by Brian Sammons & Glynn Owen Barrass was another disappointing anthology of Lovecraft inspired stories, though in this case I guess they were Campbell inspired stories. Of the 18 total stories, ‘The Collection of Gibson Flynn’ by Peter Rawlik was my favorite by far. Also pretty good stories by Tom Lynch (‘Scion of Chaahk’) and Tim Curran (‘Night of the Hopfrog’) were also pretty good. The others ranged from OK to not so good. 3 / 5
4. HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Based on the reviews I also went into this one with high expectations, about a town under a centuries old curse from a persecuted witch, and the extent the town’s people go to keep that knowledge from the outside world. Part One, which took up nearly 3/4 of the book was glacially paced; not uninteresting, but not a compelling read by any extent. HEX has a Cabin in the Woods vibe to it that requires a complete suspension of disbelief to get into the story. Things picked up at the beginning of Part 2, but over the last 40 pages Heuvelt completely lost me. Was the witch an avenging character or a protector? I also didn’t care for the direction the author took his lead character (Steve - the father). Also similar to The Possession, just two many eye rolling, WTF moments to keep me invested in the outcome of the story. 2.5 / 5
B
Only finished 4.
1. Swedish Cults by Anders Fager. This was the first English translation of Fager’s Lovecraftian collection, first published in Sweden in 2009. The collection included 5 longish stories / novellas and 4 story fragments. Overall I enjoyed the collection. It got off to a fast start with ‘The Furies from Boras’, a blood drenched story about a cult of teen age girls that offer a sacrifice to an elder god in the woods. It hit a lull after that, as the next two stories were my least favorites, but picked up with the last two stories,’Happy Forever on Ostermalm’, about a man with a mysterious new job who returns home from a business trip with a strange affliction, and ‘Miss Whitt’s Great Work’, a story about an artist who blurs the line between art & pornography, and why her latest work was so fervently expected by a mysterious cult. The story fragments in between were all very interesting, and I would like see another collection by the author where they are expanded into full length stories. Overall I really liked Swedish Cults, though it is definitely aimed at fans of Lovecraftian fiction. 4 / 5
2. The Possession by Michael Rutger. I really liked The Anomaly, so I went into The Possession with high hopes, which were met in the first half of the book. A teen age girl goes missing, only to reappear 2 weeks later in perfect health claiming she was living alone in the woods. With the reappearance of the girl strange things begin to happen in town. The second half of the story had too many WTF moments for me. 2.5 / 5
3. The Children of Gla’aki ed. by Brian Sammons & Glynn Owen Barrass was another disappointing anthology of Lovecraft inspired stories, though in this case I guess they were Campbell inspired stories. Of the 18 total stories, ‘The Collection of Gibson Flynn’ by Peter Rawlik was my favorite by far. Also pretty good stories by Tom Lynch (‘Scion of Chaahk’) and Tim Curran (‘Night of the Hopfrog’) were also pretty good. The others ranged from OK to not so good. 3 / 5
4. HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Based on the reviews I also went into this one with high expectations, about a town under a centuries old curse from a persecuted witch, and the extent the town’s people go to keep that knowledge from the outside world. Part One, which took up nearly 3/4 of the book was glacially paced; not uninteresting, but not a compelling read by any extent. HEX has a Cabin in the Woods vibe to it that requires a complete suspension of disbelief to get into the story. Things picked up at the beginning of Part 2, but over the last 40 pages Heuvelt completely lost me. Was the witch an avenging character or a protector? I also didn’t care for the direction the author took his lead character (Steve - the father). Also similar to The Possession, just two many eye rolling, WTF moments to keep me invested in the outcome of the story. 2.5 / 5
B