A slender, variable but rich collection of fantasy-horror fiction, with a nonevangelizing emphasis on the spiritual.
Seven horror and fantasy stories inspire chills and awe in haunted and mythic locations, ranging from a serial killer’s lair to war-torn ancient Greece to the neglected Garden of Eden.
This is the first collection of short stories by DiCristofano—the title’s “Volume 1” designation presumes more are to be expected, and that’s not a bad thing, not a bad thing at all, especially for fantastic-fiction fans whose tastes run more toward thoughtful awe than splatterpunk and visceral torture-porn shock. Sometimes writing in a fetchingly archaic style more appropriate (despite modern slang) for Weird Tales in the 1920s and ’30s, DiCristofano conjures up seven macabre yarns (or six plus a plotless, introspective concluding monologue that lends the anthology its title). The material varies in quality, effectiveness and level of violence, but on the whole the stories testify to an imaginative writer with a skilled, even sublime grasp. The Lovecraft-influenced “Hydromancy 101” describes callous archaeologists and their greedy patron meddling with an unearthly biblical artifact, guarded since the reign of King Solomon and possibly capable of unleashing ultimate evil on creation. In “The Passing of Eric Webber,” a dying German soldier on the battlefield manages a rewarding conversation with Death after noticing that the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper wears tennis shoes under his charnel robe. “Divine Vengeance” revisits the lately much-revived Greek legend of the 300 Spartans, with a rip-roaring yet moving and philosophically profound follow-up in which slain hero-king Leonidas gets revenge against enemies, mortal and god alike, with the aid of vastly powerful new friends. Though this isn’t traditional inspirational fiction, DiCristofano’s Christian-religious outlook is most obvious in the longest tale, “Thy Kingdom Found,” in which a modern girl’s innocence (and, importantly, gift for storytelling) replenishes a certain long-lost Old Testament garden. And, yes, C.S. Lewis gets name-checked—though readers will also note some resemblance to Neil Gaiman, Edgar Allan Poe and the more magically inclined confabulations of H.G. Wells. And that’s not a bad thing, not a bad thing at all.
A slender, variable but rich collection of fantasy-horror fiction, with a nonevangelizing emphasis on the spiritual.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2010
ISBN: 978-0557295166
Page Count: 153
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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