Author Archive: NealeMonks
Lovecraft Annual No. 13 (2019) edited by S. T. Joshi (book review).
As its name suggests, the ‘Lovecraft Annual’ is published every year and presents a variety of essays from a range of authors. In this 13th issue, there are fourteen in total, covering a variety of topics that explore and criticise Lovecraft’s stories and poems. As with any such pot pourri, the focus shifts wildly, with […]
Inukami! Omnibus Collection 1 by Mamizu Arisawa and Mari Matsuzawa (graphic novel review).
Kami are the spirits of Japanese folklore and an inukami, in particular, a dog-spirit that features in this manga series is called Yoko, a supposedly untrainable and rebellious spirit, despite her essentially benevolent nature. Keita Kawahira is a young man from a family of spirit trainers but, in time-honoured manga tradition, he’s really an idler, […]
Star Wars: Millennium Falcon by James Luceno (book review).
Writing a novel about a spaceship, albeit one as famous as the YT-1300 freighter ‘Millennium Falcon’ might seem a strange idea, but James Luceno pulls it off. Perhaps because the ‘Falcon’ was given a personality of sorts way back in the first ‘Star Wars’ film, the idea she’s a one-off isn’t difficult to accept and […]
Collected Essays Volume 4: Travel by HP Lovecraft and edited by ST Joshi (book review).
Famously, more interested in the architectural atmosphere of a place than the people who lived there, Lovecraft was surprising well-travelled, albeit within the eastern seaboard of North America between Florida and Quebec. But did travel broaden his mind? Did seeing new places simply reinforce his prejudices about them? Did he even understand architecture and its […]
A Monster For Many: Talking With H P Lovecraft by Robert H Waugh (book review).
The first thing to understand about this curious book, ‘A Monster For Many: Talking With H P Lovecraft’, is that Robert Waugh is an emeritus professor of English at the SUNY. As such, it’s scholarly stuff, pitched higher than, say, a website or newspaper article about Lovecraft. The second thing is that this is the […]
Fungi From Yuggoth — An Annotated Edition by H P Lovecraft and illustrations by Jason C. Eckhardt (book review).
While Lovecraft isn’t today well-known as a poet, in his time he wrote a great deal of verse in a variety of styles. Initially drawn to the Augustan style popular in 18th century England, he eventually tried out other, more modern forms. These poems are frequently regarded as self-conscious rather than inspired, lacking the uniqueness […]
Relentless: A Drizzi Novel book 3 of 3 by R.A. Salvatore (book review).
Effectively wrapping up the saga that started with ‘The Crystal Shard’ more than thirty years ago, ‘Relentless’ may be marketed as ‘a Drizzt novel’ but it is both more than that and less. More, in the sense that it is told on an epic scale, with battles on all fronts and a final revelation that […]
The Unfamiliar Garden (The Comet Cycle book 2) by Benjamin Percy (book review).
The idea that comets bring doom is hardly new. An image of Halley’s Comet is famously embroidered into the Bayeux Tapestry, implying heavenly consent to William of Normandy’s conquest of England. There are similar elements in Lovecraft’s ‘Colour Out Of Space’ and John Wyndham’s ‘The Day Of The Triffids’. While not exactly comets, both of […]
The End Of The Line edited by Jonathan Oliver (book review).
Using the London Underground as a setting for the bizarre or horrific has a venerable and significant history. Doyle, of course, used the discovery of a body on the tracks of Metropolitan Railway to start the story known as ‘The Adventure Of The Bruce-Partington Plans’, while James Herbert’s sets some of the most horrific scenes […]
The Many Lives Of Heloise Starchild by John Ironmonger (book review).
‘The Many Lives Of Heloise Starchild’ is fundamentally the story about the experiences of women through a line of matrilineal descent. Think of something like ‘Wild Swans’ but rather than biography, it’s fiction, with the literary device used being a paranormal gift that allows each girl or woman to access the memories of her forbears. […]
