If you’ve read my blog enough, you know that I occasionally write introductions for volumes released by the excellent Valancourt Books, in particular a lot of introductions to the work of the late John Blackburn (1923-1993), master of horror and … Continue reading
Insects have long been ready protagonists for horror and thriller fiction. A few famous examples that come to mind are H.G. Wells’ 1903 story The Valley of Spiders and Carl Stephenson’s 1937 story Leiningen Versus the Ants. In the wild and terrifying … Continue reading
An ancient Egyptian mummy. An ominous and deadly curse. A growing collection of fatalities in the mummy’s presence. It is a familiar, and intriguing, plot for horror novels. But one of the earliest of such novels has gone unread for … Continue reading
The British author Ramsey Campbell has long been my favorite writer of horror, and one of his novellas — Needing Ghosts — has the unusual distinction of being the only story I’ve ever read that made me doubt my sanity when … Continue reading
This post marks a minor personal milestone: with the book featured in it, I have now read all of John Blackburn‘s published works. I put off reading this one for quite some time for a reason that I’ll explain at the … Continue reading
In my experience, Nick Mamatas’ novels are not pleasant to read — and I mean that in a good way. He is willing to dive wholeheartedly into ugly situations in his writing and challenge the reader with unhappy observations about the … Continue reading
Ever since reading author Basil Copper’s The Great White Space (1974) and Necropolis (1980), both of which were recently reprinted by Valancourt Books, I’ve been binge-reading the works of Basil Copper. I’ve read two of his short story collections so … Continue reading
The author of Skulls in the Stars is an associate professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas.
