Category: Horror

An Interview With Nick Setchfield, author of The War In The Dark

Q: I was dead impressed by your idea to fuse the Cold War spy and occult horror genres, a concept I had yet to come across before reading your book. How did The War In The Dark evolve? A: As I discovered I’m actually following in the footsteps of a few people – Tim Powers, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/25/an-interview-with-nick-setchfield-author-of-the-war-in-the-dark/

The War In The Dark by Nick Setchfield

I cannot get over how stunning that cover is. Anyway! This is a really cool mash-up of old school James Bond and what I feel is best described as Lovecraftian horror, with demons and cultists and sorcerers galore. It is 1963, and British Intelligence agent Christopher Winter is set to complete the assassination of a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/17/the-war-in-the-dark-by-nick-setchfield/

An Interview With G. S. Denning, author of My Grave Ritual

Q: Every series has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. Reading A Study In Brimstone, I figured this series would mostly be a light-hearted spoof, so have been greatly excited by how it has developed into an intriguing, complex ongoing narrative with the release of My …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/27/an-interview-with-g-s-denning-author-of-my-grave-ritual/

My Grave Ritual (Warlock Holmes #3) by G.S. Denning

If A Study In Brimstone was the introduction to Warlock Holmes, and The Hell-Hound Of The Baskervilles essentially his origin story, then My Grave Ritual brings the machinations of The Woman to the forefront. Not for G.S. Denning the consignment of Irene Adler to a single story. She is, instead, a constant, if elusive, presence …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/04/my-grave-ritual-warlock-holmes-3-by-g-s-denning/

The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles (Warlock Holmes #2) by G.S. Denning

I seriously underestimated my reading load (again) and spent the last few chapters of this book in a reading panic. Fortunately, it’s a good, fun read, tho I feel that the last half of the book, a mash-up of The Hound Of The Baskervilles and Warlock Holmes’ origin story, suffered from the same flaws that …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/26/the-hell-hound-of-the-baskervilles-warlock-holmes-2-by-g-s-denning/

A Study in Brimstone (Warlock Holmes #1) by G.S. Denning

Weirdly, given how I love and devour mystery novels, I have never really been into reading Sherlock pastiches. For that matter, I’ve never been a huge fan of the source material, having read the originals only insofar as they were available to me in the library of a paternal uncle whom my family visited in …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/23/a-study-in-brimstone-warlock-holmes-1-by-g-s-denning/

Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1) by Justina Ireland

Wow, I didn’t even know about the firestorm over this book and the author and her Twitter use until after I’d read and thoroughly enjoyed Dread Nation. It’s a really terrific novel: what if zombies rose after the Battle of Gettysburg, and American history took a decided turn to deal with this new existential threat? …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/19/dread-nation-dread-nation-1-by-justina-ireland/

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club Book 1) by Theodora Goss

Delightful novel, and well worth the rush read. This is the first in the chronicles of the Athena Club, a group of women brought together by the fact that they are all monsters. Or, to be more precise, the daughters/offspring/creation of mad scientists (as well as the doughty Mrs Poole and the plucky Alice. Let’s …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/04/12/the-strange-case-of-the-alchemists-daughter-the-extraordinary-adventures-of-the-athena-club-book-1-by-theodora-goss/

Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) by Dan Simmons

I am getting So. Fucking. Tired of picking up a sci-fi “classic” and having to read through pages and pages of barely endurable garbage to come to the conclusion of “what the fuck was that?!” And I don’t say this about all the classics, obviously: decades on, Ender’s Game, Parable Of The Sower and A …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/04/09/hyperion-hyperion-cantos-1-by-dan-simmons/

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff

What a terrific book. What it lacked in pathos for me, it more than made up for in the breadth of its empathy and historical vision. Structured as eight short stories and an epilogue connected by their cast and timeline, Lovecraft Country plunges an ordinary black family of the 1950s and their friends into the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/03/18/lovecraft-country-by-matt-ruff/