Gone To See the River Man by Kristopher Triana

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Weaving together elements of American blues folklore, urban fantasy, and extreme horror, Kristopher Triana creates something entirely captivating and unsettling with Gone To See the River Man.

Lori is a middle-aged woman who cares for her brain-damaged and childlike older sister. She’s also a middle-aged woman who’s developed the same unhealthy obsession with an incarcerated serial killer we see in real life whenever and wherever one looks. The difference here is that she is sent on what seems like a simple quest by the killer, to retrieve a key and deliver it to The River Man. Nothing is quite so simple, though.

As the story continues, it becomes clear that Lori has an exceedingly disturbing past. The narrative we find ourselves caught up in becomes progressively darker and more uncomfortable as things become increasingly surreal and nightmarish in the real world as well as within Lori’s mind.

As we approach the end, we find ourselves wondering how we could have expected it to end any other way, as we experience the heartbreak for ourselves that no one within the story is human enough to feel.

https://grindhouse-atlatlpress.square.site/product/gone-to-see-the-river-man/95?cs=true&cst=custom

Pets During Wartime by Weston Ochse

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Pets During Wartime by Weston Ochse provides a tantalizing glimpse of a distant future where everything is simultaneously familiar and startling bizarre. While it tells a self-contained tale, it feels like an introduction to a larger story just waiting to be told. I sort of hope that’s the case, because I would love to experience more of this future America (and colonized solar system), where biological and technological evolution has created a plethora of both wonders and horrors, a version of our future of which Ochse paints a vague portrait.

As a lifelong dog lover, it’s strange to imagine a society where pets are not only outlawed, but considered deadly because of their water consumption. But this is precisely the version of Arizona we witness within this short tale. It’s a common sense, calculated bit of propaganda based on water rationing…but it’s no less depressing for the necessity of it all.

Pets During Wartime

All Men Are Trash by Gina Ranalli

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Gina Ranalli has managed to write something cathartic with AMAT (I’m going to avoid using the proper title since I already got banned from Facebook for seven days by sharing a photo of the cover). This book is something necessary in response to cultures of incels and MRAs, as well as the sheer volume of toxic, sexist reactionary trolls attacking any attempt at inclusion or acknowledgment of intersectionality. In another (more superficial) sense, it’s also a bit of fantasy violence geared toward women in the same way literally decades of fiction has provided men with a plethora of fantasy violence. It works on all fronts with equal efficacy.

Reading this book, I was reminded of two other works of fiction. There was a television series, Masters of Horror, quite a few years back, and one of the self-contained stories was entitled “The Screwfly Solution.” The other fictional work it reminded me of was David Moody’s series of books that started with the novel, Hater. Both of those works were built around the concept of sudden, unexpected violent impulses arising within the population and a stark division between “us” and “them” becoming the way of the new world. All Men Are Trash takes a similar concept and infuses it with strong feminist sensibilities and a whole lot of satisfying violence.

This is perhaps not a good book for anyone prone to say things like, “Not all men,” or maybe it’s precisely the sort of thing they should read…to gain a little bit of perspective.

All Men Are Trash

I’m Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberly Jones & Gilly Segal

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I’m Not Dying With You Tonight is not a book I think I normally would have picked up, but I’m glad I did. I’m not the biggest fan of “young adult” literature in most instances, but this is so much more than just a young adult novel. This is something that I could see being considered a classic someday, decades down the road. Like so many of the classics, this book intimately and expertly peels away superficial elements and displays integral bits of human nature.

It’s initially offputting, reading a book entirely written in first-person with alternating chapters from the two protagonists’ perspectives, but they’re so well-crafted and uniquely voiced that it quickly ceases to be an issue. It’s a little bit experimental, in that sense, but I’ve never been one to shy away from experimental literature. In that sense, it’s reminiscent (in the loosest way) of the novel-length poem Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski, just not focused on two lovers and not spanning the whole of history.

Campbell and Lena attend the same high school but exist in different worlds until a riot at a football game forces them together as unlikely partners attempting to find safety and security. The two girls begin developing a bond, despite their differences and cultural ignorance with respect to one another’s lives and experiences, showcasing not that we’re all the same (because that’s a naive perspective) but that we can find common ground and understanding even when we aren’t the same. Just when they think the worst is over, when they believe they’re in the home stretch, everything around them seemingly collapses into chaos and violence.

It’s almost prescient, how timely this book ultimately ended up being, with the events of 2020 and the turmoil surrounding race relations…but that’s how it is with the best books, they help to shine a light at just the right time in the right place, quite the opposite of the circumstances that brought Campbell and Lena together.

Mount Fitz Roy by Scott Sigler

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An amazing book, written by Scott Sigler, and expertly narrated by Ray Porter. I’m actually sort of glad the book was initially made available only through audiobook format (and is still only available as an audiobook, as near as I can tell). The quality of the narration only helps to enhance what is a thrilling, claustrophobic adventure.
Scott Sigler’s Earthcore was an amazing combination of adventure, science fiction, and horror…the sort of thing that Sigler excels at providing his readers with. Mount Fitz Roy is an expectation-shattering follow-up to that novel, with nods to most of Mr. Sigler’s existing catalog of material tossed into the mix.
This book has a little bit of everything. We have a race to locate and unearth a massive treasure buried beneath an Argentinian mountain, we have multiple parties seeking revenge against an alien species that’s remained hidden for millennia deep within the Earth, and (of course) we have aliens and lots of violence. We also have a fair bit of drama and loss embedded into the narrative in a way that makes the high stakes of everything hit home with quite the impact.
Fans of Earthcore might be a little surprised with the direction this story ends up going, but I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed.

https://www.amazon.com/Mount-Fitz-Roy/dp/B08MQQSMW8/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mount+fitzroy&qid=1612025392&sr=8-1

Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

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Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones is a haunting tale of childhood, family, and loss. Told from the perspective of an adult looking back on a tale that began when he was 12 years old, it feels authentic and captures the way a child might have interpreted things.
Jones weaves a fascinating tale of a young indigenous boy who discovers the ghost of his father lurking in their home. What begins as a story with a potentially uplifting tone gradually and insidiously becomes increasingly sinister and tense.
I particularly enjoyed the fact that there’s something akin to a combination of the mythologies associated with tulpas and golems involved in the manifestation of the ghost. I’m not familiar enough with indigenous folklore that I can pinpoint any particular element that corresponds to this story.
Listening to the audiobook for this story was particularly captivating because the narrator did an excellent job of capturing a cadence and accent that approximated the tone and speech patterns I’m familiar with from indigenous people I’ve known. That touch made the narrative feel more like someone was simply telling me a story from their own life.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mapping-the-interior-stephen-graham-jones/1125140263?ean=9780765395108

Treif Magic by John Baltisberger

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John Baltisberger’s Treif Magic is at once a captivating urban fantasy/horror tale and simultaneously an introduction to Jewish culture and mythology/spirituality for those who are viewing the story from outside of that society. I’ve always argued that the best fiction still manages to teach us something while we’re immersed within it and the best lessons are framed in a narrative structure to better convey and reinforce the information to be learned. This book succeeds in proving that point quite well.
As a story, Treif Magic introduces us to the world of Ze’ev Kaplan, a man who could have been a rabbi if life had turned out differently. Instead, encounters with inhuman forces of both evil and good have marked him and led him down a path that’s molded him into something that’s equal parts private detective, magician, and exorcist.
In my opinion, it’ll be a damn shame if Ze’ev doesn’t become as iconic within the urban fantasy genre as Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden because there are definitely strong parallels between the two characters while Baltisberger manages to avoid a lot of the “Mary Sue” narrative cheats that Butcher employs in his Dresden Files, ultimately making Ze’ev the more human and relatable of the two characters. In that sense, the character is more in line with Anton Gorodetsky from Lukyanenko’s Night Watch (and its sequels), Carl Kolchak from the classic television series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, or Harry D’Amour from Clive Barker’s literary universe (and the film adaptation of The Last Illusion, Lord of Illusions).
Filled with supernatural creatures, powerful necromancers, magic, action, and mystery, there’s so much to love about this book.
Without offering up any spoilers, I suspect many readers will come away wanting more and with a burning question begging for an answer: Who is this “she” that the necromancer mentions near the end?
Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. May as well pick up a copy for a friend or family member too, since it’s always fun to have people you can discuss your books with.

Treif Magic – Book of Ze’ev 1

Musings On Education

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STEM is important, vitally important.

We absolutely need basic comprehension of math and science literacy to be more widespread here in America (and throughout the rest of the world, of course). We’ve seen precisely how dangerous ignorance of those topics can be.

Just as important, we really need accurate, unbiased, objective lessons in history and sociology to be treated as being of paramount importance for our children. The study of history and of social structures is no less imperative than the study of STEM subjects.

Additionally, it would be great if we could incorporate some low level critical thinking and logic education as early as elementary school as well. Mindfulness and self-awareness could be useful too.

Sure, these things wouldn’t lead to a perfect society…such a thing can’t likely exist…but it would make for a better society, more well-equipped to tackle the obstacles that come with both day-to-day life and more challenging times.

Writing Update

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Attending virtual KillerCon Austin last August was a massive turning point in my life…in ways that are only now becoming clear to me.

Chatting with Carver Pike (and discussing his experiences with respect to self-publishing) was what led me to pull the trigger on putting my novel, Innocence Ends, out there, after designing the cover art and all that jazz.

Watching a panel with Lisa Lee Tone was what led me to perusing her numerous book reviews and deciding that it might be worthwhile to send her a copy for review purposes.

Interacting with John Baltisberger during and after the con (and seeing how hard he worked to keep everything running during the virtual con) led me to explore a good deal of the Madness Heart Press catalog…in addition to inspiring a great deal of respect for the man and how much he was willing to put into the things he cared about.

Each of these things sort of fed into one another and produced a sort of cascade effect that is making me happier and more content with my life. I owe each of those three people a massive debt of gratitude…a debt that keeps on growing.

I would not be where I am right now, with a novella to be published by MHP and more work hopefully soon to follow, were it not for the fantastic KillerCon experience.It’s just funny how something done mostly for fun can change one’s life…in my case, definitely for the better.