Gabino Iglesias

Echo, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor Nightfire 978-1-250-75955-9, $29.99, 416pp, hc) February 2022.

Reviewing the work of Thomas Olde Heuvelt is no easy task, and Echo, his latest, is no different. Translated from the Dutch by Moshe Gilula, this is a complex, creepy, atmospheric, labyrinthine monster that comes in at more than 400 pages.

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt is a novel about many things; grief, trauma, unconditional love, ...Read More

Mage of Fools, Eugen Bacon (Meerkat Press 978-1-94615-484-2, $15.95, 220pp, tp) May 2022. Cover by Tricia Reeks.

Eugen Bacon’s Mage of Fools is the kind of too-close-to-reality science fiction nar­rative that manages to simultaneously awe with its use of language and imagination and serve as a warning of what things could become.

Mafinga used to be a great place to live, a place where free speech and freedom of ...Read More

No Second Chances, Rio Youers (Morrow 978-0-06300-105-3, $27.99, 400pp, hc) May 2022.

Rio Youers’s No Second Chances is many things: a thriller, a story of redemption, a crime novel, a tale of friendship, and a narrative about identity, influence, and power that sometimes dips its toes into the realm of horror. However, the important thing is that it’s wildly entertaining, and that it might be Youers’s best book yet. ...Read More

The Fervor, Alma Katsu (G.P. Putnam’s Sons 978-0-59332-833-0, $27.00, 320pp, hc) April 2022.

Fantasy, spy thrillers, horror; Alma Katsu can do it all. A quick glance at her oeuvre, which includes titles like Red Widow, a 2021 spy thriller that changed the game by focusing on women; the Taker Trilogy, which brings together the supernatural with elements of fantasy, romance, and suspense; and The Hunger, a truly ...Read More

The Unfamiliar Garden, Benjamin Percy (Mari­ner Books 978-0-35833-271-8, $26.00, 224pp, hc) January 2022. Cover by Chrissy Kurpeski.

Benjamin Percy can apparently do it all. From novels to comics to television, Percy seems to be everywhere, but as a reader, I selfishly wish he would just sit at his desk (or wherever he writes) and crank out a novel every three months or so. Yes, The Unfamiliar Garden is that ...Read More

All the Wrong Ideas, Jeremy Robert Johnson (Coevolution Press 978-1736781524, $13.99, 272pp, tp) August 2021. Cover by Dave Cordia.

Picture this: one of your favorite bands – one you started listening to when they were doing rough demos in the drummer’s garage, kept listening to when they put out their first few records on an indie label, and ended up screaming their songs alongside thousands of fellow fans once ...Read More

Milk Teeth, Helene Bukowski (The Unnamed Press 978-1-95121-335-0, $26.00, 223pp, hc) September 2021. Cover by Chrissy Kurpeski.

Helene Bukowski’s Milk Teeth, which has been beautifully translated from the German by Jen Calleja, is an enigmatic narrative about three women that succeeds as much because of what’s on the page as it does thanks to the questions left unanswered at the core of the story. Atmospheric, dark, a bit ...Read More

Road of Bones, Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Press 978-1-25027-430-3, $27.99, 240pp, hard­cover) January 2022.

Christopher Golden’s Road of Bones packs a mixture of horror and adventure its 240 pages that makes it feel like a 100-page novella. Full of memorable characters and taking place in a truly unique and inhospitable location, the narrative walks a fine line between an all-out horror story about impossible creatures threatening a group of ...Read More

Spontaneous Human Combustion, Richard Thomas (Keylight Books 978-1-68442-755-0, $29.99, 250pp, hc) February 2022.

Richard Thomas is a seasoned professional and one of the best short story writers out there. Spon­taneous Human Combustion might be his best yet. As dark as a pool of black ink at midnight on a moonless night, the fourteen stories that make up this collection bring together noir and horror in ways that explore humanity ...Read More

Mickey7, Edward Ashton (St. Martin’s 978-1-25027-503-5, $27.99, 304pp, hc) February 2022.

One of the most impressive things about genre fiction is its ability to surprise and entertain regardless of how long we’ve been reading it. Edward Ashton’s Mickey7, his third novel, is a multilayered, wildly entertaining story that takes readers into a human colony fighting to survive on a truly inhospitable planet of rock and extreme cold that ...Read More

Flowers for the Sea, Zin E. Rocklyn (Tordot­com 978-1-25080-403-7, $13.99, 108pp, tp) October 2021.

Zin E. Rocklyn’s Flowers for the Sea is one of those rare narratives that somehow manages to be fantastical, smart, and hor­rific, all in just over 100 pages. An impressive debut, the latest from a strong, unique new voice in science fiction, this is the kind of novella that’s read in a single sitting not ...Read More

How High We Go in the Dark, Sequoia Naga­matsu (Morrow 978-0063072640, $27.99, 304pp, hc) January 2022.

Reading Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark is not always a pleasurable experience. Emotionally gritty, uncomfortably plausible, and incredibly timely, this novel is packed with pain, grief, loss, and the kind of possibilities that make you want to forget how much you don’t know about the future. However, it’s also ...Read More

Dead Silence, S.A. Barnes (Tor Night­fire 978-1250819994, $27.99, 352pp, hc) Febru­ary 2022.

S.A. Barnes’s Dead Silence is a creepy and incredibly at­mospheric horror novel that bridges the gap between Gothic horror and extreme horror while simultaneously exploring the role that past trauma and PTSD can play when someone who suffers from them is exposed to fresh trauma.

Claire Kovalik is about to be forcefully retired and has no idea ...Read More

The Death of Jane Lawrence, Caitlin Starling (St. Martin’s Press 978-1250272584, $27.99, 368pp, hc) October 2021. Cover by Colin Verdi.

Caitlin Starling’s The Death of Jane Lawrence is a horror Gothic with romance elements that relies on much more than atmosphere and a crumbling manor to hook readers and keep them glued to the pages. Between dark magic and gore, this is a novel with a historical angle that ...Read More

The All-Consuming World, Cassandra Khaw (Erewhon 978-1645660200, $25.95, 288pp, hc) September 2021. Cover by Ashe Samuels.

Once in a while a debut novel comes along that deserves to be on every radar, and Cassandra Khaw’s The All-Consuming World is that kind of book. An explosive, lyrical, foul-mouthed science fiction novel in which tech­nological advances fail to silence the most basic human emotions, The All-Consuming World is an interstellar trip ...Read More

The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess, Andy Marino (Redhook Books 978-0316-62948-5, $16.99, 352pp, tp) September 2021.

Andy Marino’s The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is a creepy, tense narra­tive that exists somewhere between vio­lent psychological thriller and supernatural horror novel. However, while most of the elements of those two subgenres are present here, the novel also delves deep into serious topics like guilt, substance abuse, and mental health. The ...Read More

Midnight, Water City, Chris McKinney (Soho Crime 978-1-64129-240-5, $27.95, 312pp, hc) July 2021. Cover by Vlado Krizan and Janine Agro.

What would happen if the world was turned upside-down and submerged in the ocean? That’s the first guiding question in Chris McKinney’s Midnight, Water City, an SF novel with one foot in whodunits and the other one in classic noir. There are more questions, of course, but that ...Read More

Radiant Apples, Joe R. Lansdale (Subterranean 978-1645240419, $40.00, 160pp. hc) November 2021. Cover by Ken Laager.

Two of the elements that make Joe Lansdale one of the best storytellers of our time are his ability to make a story flow with the ease of a large river after heavy rains and the way in which he mixes action, violence, and humor to deliver wildly entertaining narratives. Both of those ...Read More

Near the Bone, Christina Henry (Berkley 978-0-59319-976-6, $17.00, 336pp, tp) April 2021. Cover by Spencer Fuller.

Christina Henry’s Near the Bone is a horror novel that brings together real life horrors and monsters that walk a fine line between the supernatural and the what-if world of cryptozoology. At once a narrative about abuse and survival and a tale of creatures stalking people up on a snow-covered mountain, Near the ...Read More

The Book of Accidents, Chuck Wendig (Del Rey 978-0-399-18213-6, $28.99, 544pp, hc) July 2021. Cover by Fritz Metsch.

More than about being great, writing is about consistently getting better, and Chuck Wendig’s latest, The Book of Accidents, shows that he’s not only great; he’s also really good at improving. A touching narrative about trauma, magic, and traveling to and from a series of collapsing alternate dimensions, The Book ...Read More

Later, Stephen King (Hard Case Crime 978-1-78909-649-1, $14.95, 272pp, tp) March 2021. Cover by Paul Mann.

Later, Stephen King’s latest, is a horror story – something the narrator reminds readers of from time to time – but it’s one dressed up like a thriller with supernatural ele­ments, and it has all the working parts of a pulpy crime novel. King has been known to walk the interstitial ...Read More

The Sentient, Nadia Afifi (Flame Tree Press 978-1-787-58432-7, $14.95, 304pp, tp) Septem­ber 2020.

Nadia Afifi’s debut novel The Sentient is the kind of science fiction narrative that comfortably inhabits the realm of plausi­bility. There is superb technology on display here, including ways of dealing with trauma that would be very useful today, but human suffering, stress, death, and the dark side of religious fanaticism are at the core of ...Read More

Ink, Jonathan Maberry (St. Martin’s Griffin 978-1250765888, $17.99, 464pp, tp) November 2020. Cover by Jonathan Bennett.

People are the amalgamation of their memo­ries and experiences, and Jonathan Maber­ry’s Ink explores what happens when we lose our most important memories. A sprawling, dark narrative made up of the interwoven stories of a set of misfits that struggle to get by, Ink is a moody horror novel that deals with grief, ...Read More

Disease, Sarah Tolmie (Aqueduct Press 978-1619761933, 120pp, $12.00, tp) August 2020.

Sarah Tolmie’s Disease is a strangely funny book about fictitious diseases and psychological conditions. Presented in a scholarly tone that resembles a series of academic case studies, this book looks at some bizarre ailments that range from scavenging, a psychological affliction in which people compulsively move into old houses, to a poor guy who developed an allergy to ...Read More

Remote Control, Nnedi Okorafor (Tordotcom 978-1-250-77280-0, 160pp, $17.99, hc) January 2021. Cover by art by Greg Ruth.

Nnedi Okorafor’s Remote Control is a dark fantasy with Africanfuturistic elements that explores life, death, and loneliness while chronicling a few years in the early life of young girl who becomes the Angel of Death. Easy to read, emotionally gritty, and wildly imaginative, this is a short novel that takes readers into ...Read More