Skulls in the Stars

Book 9 of my 26 books for 2024 goal! (If you notice that book 8 is missing on the list, that was a private review of an upcoming book for a publisher, which I’m counting, because I’m way behind!)

A lot of horror novels work by being unpredictable, and providing a lot of twists and turns that keeps the reader guessing — and shocked — throughout their run. Others, however, have a sense of doomed inevitability to them, where the reader knows with near certainty that doom is approaching, and the book is all about following that painful path to the horrific end. Joan Samson’s The Auctioneer is a book that is like that, where from the very first page you are inexorably ground down. I immediately thought of it as I finished reading The Abyss (1981) by Jere Cunningham, which has recently been reprinted by my friends at Valancourt Books.

The novel is set in the Appalachian hill town of Bethel, which has been in decline for years after the abrupt closure of M-19, the nearby coal shaft that is the deepest ever dug. The mine was closed after an accident, but the coal company is back to reopen it and bring employment and prosperity to the people of Bethel, who welcome it.

Book 7 of my 26 books for 2024 goal! Getting closer to catching up.

Okay, so this is one of those books that I’ve meant to read for years and never quite got around to! I came close about a year ago, when I finally broke down and bought a copy… however, I left it on the floor next to the couch and a cat managed to puke on it. I only got around to getting a new copy a couple of months ago, and have finally read it.

The book in question is Horrorstör, by Grady Hendrix.

As is clear from the title and the image, Horrorstör is a haunted house story set in what amounts to an Ikea! It is a quite entertaining story, though I wouldn’t exactly refer to it as “horror comedy” as it is referred to on Wikipedia.

Book 6 of my 26 books for 2024 goal! Way behind in reading now due to life, but working on it.

One of my big hangups in life is that I suffer from “already seen it” syndrome, as I just made up a name for it: if a story has permeated the public consciousness sufficiently and I am even familiar with a bastardized version of it, I am very unmotivated to visit the source material.

For this reason, in part, I had never gotten around to reading the novel that largely launched modern science fiction and horror, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The other reason I had never gotten around to reading it is because the printed versions of it, being an old public domain novel, have largely been very cheap and disposable, and I like pretty books.

But check out this Union Square & Co. deluxe edition!

This gorgeous edition includes lovely illustrations by John Coulthart, and finally convinced me to read the book.

There probably isn’t that much I can say about such a famous, hyper-analyzed book that hasn’t been said before, so I’ll share a few of my random observations.