Kiernan’s densely plotted and atmospheric tales of dread—supernatural and otherwise—make for a memorably unsettling read.
This collection abounds with uneasy psyches, unsettling fauna, and blurred boundaries between the real and the bizarre.
Much of Kiernan’s fiction exists on the border between psychological horror and the same genre’s more supernatural division. Many of the stories in this collection exemplify this: While there are strange rituals, cursed objects, and a tinge of cosmic horror, Kiernan places a strong emphasis on the headspace of her characters. Several of the stories here—including “Untitled Psychiatrist No. 2” and “Untitled Psychiatrist No. 3”—create memorably disquieting scenes as characters recall moments from their pasts that are laced with horror. The use of memory lends an air of ambiguity to the proceedings, which intensifies the feeling of something ominous. “Fairy Tale of Wood Street,” which centers around a woman who may or may not have a tail, takes the book’s psychological elements to their apex. “Fake Plastic Trees,” set in an environmentally devastated world with echoes of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, blends high-concept science fiction with a deeply subjective narrative as its narrator grapples with memories and nightmares inspired by those memories as she attempts to document a haunting event that she witnessed. Some of these stories veer into the outright Lovecraft-ian, including “The Cats of River Street (1925)” and “Excerpts from An Eschatology Quadrille.” The latter, set in four different time periods, creates a powerful sense of unease even as it demonstrates Kiernan’s range and command of setting. And the title story makes use of deeply deliberate pacing as the encounter between two travelers whose paths cross in South Dakota gradually becomes something at once charged and menacing.
Kiernan’s densely plotted and atmospheric tales of dread—supernatural and otherwise—make for a memorably unsettling read.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59606-882-7
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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