The best single horror collection of the year features 26 pieces of short fiction by top writers, as well as a superb review of the year's output in horror writing in the English-speaking world by editor Jones. There's also a necrology by Jones and Neil Gaiman (The Sandman: Book of Dreams with Edward E. Kramer, p. 918) noting the horror writers, actors, and others involved in the genre who died during the past year. The hugely burgeoning modern horror genre, as this collection demonstrates, consists of diverse elements drawn from traditional horror fiction and folklore, science fiction, fantasy, and splatterpunk, among other genres, and melded into a highly original fictional continent as massive as the Arctic ice cap. Horror, as Mammoth reminds us, has its own galaxy of stars, stretching far beyond Stephen King, authors who can write like angels, win awards, but who rarely climb onto bestseller lists. Fans will slather over many British titles discussed here that have not been published in the States. Outstanding novels, such as Kim Newman's The Bloody Red Baron (1995), better written and more fun than most mainstream novels, do not get excerpted, nor are there any bloody chunks torn from King's 1995 Rose Madder. Selections are made, however, from various 1995 omnibuses of short horror fiction, the object being to offer a quality throughout to equal the best Tokyo beef. What's particularly outstanding in this all-outstanding package? Ian R. MacLeod's leadoff story, ``Tirkiluk,'' tells of a lone WW II meteorologist at an Arctic weather station who takes in an outcast Inuit female, after which one or the other of them becomes more than human. Editor Gaiman's story-poem ``Queen of Knives'' (which first appeared in the Tombs anthology, 1995) is dark and powerful. Others in fine form here include Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Ligotti, and Lisa Tuttle. If you think all horror is hackwork, try this.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-7867-0372-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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