Yes, it’s bonkers.

Yes, it’s crude (certainly the most dildos-per-page, or dpp, I’ve ever seen)

But it’s also hilarious, highly entertaining, and surprisingly heartwarming. Our two main characters are incredibly endearing, and a series of interspersed flashbacks fill in the necessary character development. The story has a wild premise, but it’s grounded by layers of authenticity. The coming of age, the new romance excitement, the treatment of maturity, relationship, and self - all of it was written in strokes that I could relate to on various levels (despite the sheer audacity presented in some of the scenes)

And speaking of strokes...oh cmon now.

I’m talking about the artwork. Which is great. Which is perfectly detailed in most of the panels and wonderfully magical in the scenes portraying what Susie calls the “Quiet Place” (I’m not repeating what Jon calls it).

All in all this is a fun series and I’m intrigued as to where it will go next!

Thank goodness for Kenzie Jennings who, with a single tale of violent survival, revived my hope and excitement for the splatter western series from Deaths Head Press!

Okay, that may be a little much, but I'm riding high after finishing this one. The series had taken a serious downturn with the previous two books, and I was beginning to lose faith.

But then came the lady in the red dress, bearing blades and a deadly disposition. Then came Clyde, a woman full of intelligence, true grit, and mystery. She is THE reason to love this book. Sure there's a creepy build up of tension and some wonderfully gory fight scenes, but none of that would matter as much without her. What's interesting to me is that there appears to be a larger story with Clyde in the background, and Red Station was merely a stop along a grander journey. I sure hope we see more of her in the future.

The story begins by introducing our group of characters who will soon become pawns in the slaughterhouse station. Their rapport is enjoyable, if a bit long-winded at times. They reach a giant house and their hosts invite them in for the night. The family seems friendly, but there's something a little "off" about them. Tension is building, and Clyde is increasingly on guard. Then, in the middle of dinner, and right at the midpoint of the book, things go gloriously off the rails.

No spoilers, but basically what you were dreading/anticipating finally happens. It's not a surprise, but it's a fantastic payoff to all the set up in the first half. Amiable drama becomes slow burn becomes survival horror thriller. The wildly violent second half plays out like a movie, both in the turn of events and the author's descriptive style. It's fast-paced, brutal, and a lot of fun. My few complaints are that Clyde has several moments of serious miscalculation that seem out of character, and there's a weird Texas Chainsaw-esque twist thrown in at the very end. Otherwise this is a pretty sold story and, I want to reiterate this, I need to see more books chronicling the adventures of Clyde!

I'm not going to beat around the bush; I absolutely love this collection of plague poetry! The writing is beautiful, the imagery is exquisite (though ghastly and disturbing), and the focus on the Black Death is so cool...though a little unnerving considering when I read this (i.e. middle of a pandemic).

There are lots of intriguing overarching topics that span the collection; from the idea that this was either punishment or abandonment by God, to the utter havoc this disease caused in society, to the idea that it killed indiscriminately and leveled social classes. I also love how the author gives us a glimpse into the various perspectives from the time period. We see how the plague affected both prince and pauper alike, and some of my favorite poems are the ones written from the POV of people like the "Village Gravediggers" and the "Brothers of the Dead" (beaked plague doctors). There are also some cool poems that personify the disease as various demons, malicious spirits, and even a horseman of the apocalypse (Pestilence, of course).

It would appear that Tantlinger did her research for this collection. No one could write with such vivid authenticity about buboes, hemorrhaging, and puss otherwise (I hope). It also shows in poems such as "The Siege of Caffa" which is about diseased bodies being launched over city walls during wartime, and "Death Ships," which is about how the plague came to Sicily by boat. Such poems lend another level of weight and authenticity to what is already a well-thought-out collection. So many of these poems had me wanting to spend hours researching the terrifying historical veracity that spawned them.

I could go on and on about the poems in this collection. Like how there's one about people, in their petrified ignorance, who tried killing dogs and cats but left the rats alive. Or one about an awful storm that blows into a port city and exacerbates the disease. Or the ones toward the end of the collection that reach into the present and examine other infectious diseases, such as schistosomiasis, cysticercosis, and even covid. I could go on and on, but I'd rather you just go experience them for yourself!!

I'm very conflicted on my feelings towards this one.

Is it very good? Mostly. Was it over-hyped? A bit.

I can understand why people are raving about it. The whole concept behind the story is super disturbing, and many of the scenes genuinely made my skin crawl with their graphic depictions of human slaughter. And the way Bazterrica writes these scenes, with cold, mechanical indifference, makes them even more unnerving. It's a fine bit of social commentary that takes on a LOT of big topics. And I truly loved the story for the first half of the book. I was sick to my stomach, totally engaged, and locked in wondering just what was going to happen to narrator Marcos now that he's taking care of a female "head".

But then I found myself losing interest, and even outright frustrated in certain scenes, during the second half. It's kind of hard to explain without spoiling things. I began to realize that by taking on so many topics the book doesn't really give fair commentary on many of them. I began to realize that many scenes were dragging on, and that if you took away the whole "humans as meat" conceit it would be a fairly boring book. And I began to really dislike the main character. The few reasons we have to empathize with him in the first half are lost in the second, and he becomes someone to loathe. And that ending...I closed the book wondering what the heck I just read.

I get that this is dystopian fiction, and many of the aspects I disliked were possibly a result of playing to the genre. But the thing is I, as a rule, love dystopian literature so I'm not sure why this one didn't really do it for me. Maybe I wasn't in the right head space. Maybe I will love it a few months from now. Or maybe it's just not as good as it's made out to be.

It's been a little while since I've devoured a book as quickly and feverishly as I did SILVERS HOLLOW. It's nightmarish, uncanny, and absolutely captivating.

I love how the author drops us right into the narrative with the protagonist, both of us lost, confused, and increasingly afraid as the story goes on. The story starts with a nameless young woman who has been picked up from a train station by a police officer and can't remember why she's there. As we go on there are strange little disturbances and hints that things aren't quite right. It's perpetually night, but there is no moon or stars. It's the town she grew up in, but it's a ghost town, and the few people remaining are treating her very oddly. The sideways glances, the looks of fright, the vague remarks. It's the empty house she grew up in, and the red door, and the disturbing memories that are clawing their way to the surface.

Why is she there? Why is everything so strange? And what is the "emergency" everyone keeps referring to?

I don't want to say too much as this is DEFINITELY a book to be experienced instead of explained. I love the way it was written so much. The atmosphere and pacing are perfect. I sensed the timelessness of an out-of-body experience. I felt adrift in a starless nightmare, the kind where the terror is subtle until it suddenly isn't. I knew something was off, but I couldn't figure out what. I thought of Channel Zero's second season NO-END HOUSE, the TV version of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, Rob Zombie's song "Perversion 99", and remnants of various psychological thrillers.

I loved everything right up until the very end. It's weird, but I'm very indecisive about ambiguity, especially when it comes to endings. Typically I don't mind it, but there are times I dislike it. Unfortunately, this is one of those times. Because the majority of the book is all questions and few answers, the way it ended was simultaneously intriguing and frustrating to me.

Inventive, emotional, complex, confusing, and full of great Cronenberg vibes.

Set in the future, this is the character study of a woman named Catrin and her struggles with relationship, loneliness, co-dependency, love, lust, and so on. Unable to connect relationally to anyone human, Catrin is married to an Artificial Intelligence partner. After a decade of marriage her partner, who's meant to bond for life, disconnects and sends Catrin spiraling into an increasingly depressing and deranged hunt for meaning at the cost of her own sanity.

Lonely Receiver is a wild ride that raises a lot of interesting questions while delving into topics of toxic/abusive relationships and our relationship with technology - all through a weird and surrealistic sci-fi lens. There is some horror here (more in the second half), but also a lot of despair and cruelly fulfilled yearning. There's also a lot of nudity/sex, strange AI dreamscapes, unsettling future tech and body modification, and hallucinatory sequences of intimacy and violence.

The downside I suppose is that because there is so much going on, some of it is confusing and frustratingly dense. I feel like there is a lot of emotion and personal experience/musings in the story, which I love, but not all of it translated onto the page in a way I could firmly grasp. Then there are moments which aren't meant to be firmly grasped, and thus I struggled to fully understand. Like a lot of great surreal mind trips in entertainment, this one is going to take several read throughs to wrap my head around.

By the way, the art is fantastic here! The illustrations by Jen Hickman perfectly embody the story, and the color palette is gorgeous. I also really enjoyed the lettering by Simon Bowland. Great work all around by the creative team here.

(3.5 stars rounded up for Goodreads)

This one is a character driven, slow burn story with haunted house, cult, and cosmic horror elements woven in. I really liked all of the elements, however I was left wanting more.

The two main characters are great. Struggling young mother Lena is a pitiable, sympathetic, and earnest person and she pairs well with the elderly, trustworthy, kind landlord Ellis. I didn't realize so much of the story was going to focus on the relationship between the two of them, but luckily they have an engaging and dynamic rapport. However, all this focus on their lives ends up leaving less room for the horror to kick in.

When I say this is slow burn I mean it takes well into the book to get really creepy. There are a few mysterious elements scattered in, but not enough to make me feel the weight of dread I typically like in slow burn horror. Though I will say, when the horror parts do appear in the second half I really liked them!

The more I think about the elements of this book I enjoyed (the characters, the possible cult, the well in the woods, the unnerving "creatures," and so on), the more I'm a little frustrated it ends where it does. So much is left unexplained and unfinished. At that point I was 100% invested in the story/characters, so to have it end on a cliffhanger was maddening. I wouldn't mind as much if this were the first in a series or something (and it totally should be), but for now the plan is to keep it as a standalone book.

Overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend people read it, but the issues mentioned above kept me from really loving it.

*Thank you to the author for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!*

I’m a fan of Batman, but I’m so far behind on the various storylines and such in the comics. So take everything in this review with a grain of salt. I haven’t read the previous series, so I came into this one treating it as a stand alone. And for what it’s worth, I LOVED it!

The story is a lot of fun and takes so many turns that I was not expecting. It leans into the terrifying and the ridiculous, and there are jaw-dropping moments aplenty. Lots of interesting queries into the idea of happiness and what makes Batman who he is. And the Batman Who Laughs is a truly horrifying villain. His whole design and persona is super creepy.

Oh and the art by Jock is incredible. I’m a big fan of his work, and it’s displayed gloriously here. It creates the perfect atmosphere of chaos and madness for the story, and there are some super cool layouts. I also really liked the way the lettering is done, especially the parts where Batman is changing, though it can be hard to read at times.

There’s some stuff in here that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I just suspended my disbelief (as one does in comics) and had a lot of fun with it!

I’m coming into this with very little knowledge of any recent Batman plot points, characters, and story arcs so perhaps my view is naive - but I thought this was excellent!

I was somewhat familiar with the whole Court of Owls premise from the TV show Gotham, but I think it’s all done much better here. It’s unsettling to see how badly Batman is roughed up (physically and mentally) by them in their underground layer, and the fact that it’s only going to get worse is blowing my mind. What a great cliffhanger ending for this first volume!

The art is also detailed and brutal, and does some fun things with layouts and panel formats. I tore through these first few issues in a single sitting, and I’m already reserving the next few from the library. Great stuff!

Everything I loved about the first book (see previous review) is continued here: grotesque and terrifying aliens, loads of gore and fast-paced action, an intriguing storyline, and - perhaps surprisingly for this type of story - loads of characters I’m actually invested in!

CALL OF THE VOID builds on the first book perfectly, continuing the super engaging story and style while also introducing cool new elements. The fight against the monstrous parasites from another dimension is far from over, but this next chapter in the series is not to be missed!

I was listening to the DOOM video game soundtracks as I read to get in the mood, and they fit the action scenes well. But then I found myself switching over to THE THING soundtrack, needing that slower build of eerie dread. I guess what I’m saying is the authors do an excellent job of alternating between scenes of high velocity action and nail-biting suspense. There are also plenty of moments for much-appreciated character building, helping me care more about those risking their lives on the Mars space station (yes, even the cruelly efficient Braun).