Author Archive: NealeMonks
The Actual Star by Monica Byrne (SF book review)
‘The Actual Star’ is one of those books that tries to tell multiple stories at once, intertwining them and using each to explain something about the others. In this case, the author is aiming to critique our world, in particular, concepts such as gender identity and self-sacrifice, while playing with the classic Science Fiction trope […]
The Quanderhorn Collexion: The Complete BBC Radio 4 Sci-Fi Comedy by Rob Grant & Andrew Marshall (CD review).
If the titular character, Professor Quanderhorn, immediately suggests Bernard Quatermass, you’d not be far off the inspiration for the BBC Radio 4 comedy series, ‘The Quanderhorn Collexion’, presented in this collection. Across two serials and various extras, spanning almost ten hours, listeners are drawn into the bizarre world of Quanderhorn, apparently locked into a time […]
Necronomicon (Gothic Dreams) by Sammy Maine (book review).
‘The Necronomicon’ was, of course, a fictional book first used by HP Lovecraft in a short story, ‘The Nameless City’, published in 1921. Part of the ‘trick’ was to name-check ‘The Necronomicon’ alongside other real books, which lent it a certain plausibility. Lovecraft and his peers enjoyed these sharing their inventions and other writers, such […]
The Monster In The Mirror: Looking For HP Lovecraft by Robert H Waugh (book review).
As one of the foremost exponents of Lovecraft scholarship, Robert Waugh sagely kicks off this impressive study by asking that most crucial of questions: why study Lovecraft at all? His half-joking response is that Lovecraft simply refuses to go away, despite having been published in the most trivial of media during his own lifetime, the […]
Dungeon Twilight: Vol. 4: The End Of Dungeon by Sear, Trondheim, Alfred and Mazan (graphic novel review).
Diving into a comic-book series with the final collection is probably not the best approach, and to be fair to this book, it is very much about tying up loose ends from the earlier stories. On top of this, the book is very much a European graphic novel rather than one from the English or […]
Creature Feature by Steven Paul Leiva (audio book review).
Set in the early 1960s, ‘Creature Feature’ kicks off in a Chicago TV studio where Kathy Anderson is playing Vivacia the vampire woman. Vivacia is the host of a late night horror movie show, hence the title of the audiobook, and making a fair living that way but, yearning for more challenging roles, she quits […]
Cthulhu: Dark Fantasy, Horror & Supernatural Movies by Gordon Kerr (book review).
From the striking front cover painting of Cthulhu literally eating the world through to the mind-flayer smoking a pipe on page 89, ‘Cthulhu: Dark Fantasy, Horror & Supernatural Movies’ is a richly and sometimes bizarrely illustrated guide to the most famous godlike entity in popular culture. It really is popular culture we’re focusing on here, […]
A Monster Of Voices: Speaking for H.P. Lovecraft by Robert H. Waugh (book review).
When it comes to the deeper criticism of HP Lovecraft, there’s little out there to match Robert H. Waugh. What sets Waugh apart from, say, S T Joshi, is his willingness to explore what Lovecraft’s stories mean, not simply where they came from. It’s this that makes this collection of Waugh’s essays so enjoyable. Take, […]
The Annotated Supernatural Horror In Literature written by HP Lovecraft and edited by ST Joshi (book review)
In 1927, an essay was published in ‘The Recluse’ magazine in which its author, HP Lovecraft, described the development of what we broadly call horror fiction. Over the years, the essay has been accepted as one of the best reviews of the subject, partly because of its terrific breadth, but also because of the insightful […]
Lovecraft Annual #14 (2020) edited by S.T. Joshi (book review).
Each year, the ‘Lovecraft Annual’ collects various essays, reviews and articles by or about H.P. Lovecraft. As such, it’s a heterogenous mix and, while not every piece included will appeal to everybody, there’s bound to be a few pieces that justify the modest price of admission. Certainly, this year’s collection is as varied as ever, […]
