Gregor Xane's Blog, page 11

The Hanover Block Released!

The Kindle Edition of my new novella, The Hanover Block, is now available.

You may order it now, if you please.
It's also available for $0.00 to  Kindle Unlimited  subscribers.
What's it about?
Living in the long shadow of a tragic accident, Marion struggles through his solitary suburban life. He's resigned himself to a static existence, to living and dying in a world where every house looks exactly the same. Then he notices changes in his neighborhood. Tool sheds and playhouses are...

The Late Night Horror Show by Bryan Smith

This is mindless good fun, and a book that was obviously and unapologetically written to appeal directly to your ghoulish and prurient proclivities. Everything I've read by Bryan Smith so far has been has been like a love letter to your lizard brain.

This is no exception.

Is it ridiculous? Yes.
Is it over-the-top? Yes.
Are all of the characters stock horror movie cliches (hot guys and horny gals in their early 20s)? Yes.
Is this book chock-a-block with gratuitous sex and violence? Yes.
Will you...

Monstrocity by Jeffrey Thomas

This book had a lot of elements that I like: a vast, nasty SF city populated with alien and human monsters, general sleaziness and grime, an investigation into the occult, sex, violence, and gore. But I was bored to tears for the last 40% of it and couldn't wait to be finished so that I could move on to something else.

The vast conspiracy seemed pretty nebulous, and I found it hard to care about how things would turn out. I wasn't impressed with the world-building either. One of the major ali...

In the Tall Grass by Stephen King & Joe Hill

The product description for this book wasn't honest, and that kind of ticks me off. The way it's listed on Amazon, it looks like you're going to get a novella-length story written by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill. There is no mention of the fact that the last 25% of the eBook's length is taken up by teaser chapters from King and Hill's forthcoming novels (at the time), Doctor Sleep and NOS4A2, respectively. When the advertisements stuffed into the back amount for 25% of the page count, it...

Carrie by Stephen King

I liked this more than I expected I would. Generally, if I've seen the movie adaptation before reading the book, I'm bored. Rarely do I ever actually read the book if I've seen the movie first. I figure it's all been spoiled. I never read the first three Harry Potter books because I'd already seen the films and started the books at Goblet of Fire.

So, why'd I read this one?

A friend of mine is re-reading all of Stephen King's novels in publication date chronological order and I told him I mig...

Cruelty (Episodes 1-5) by Edward Lorn

Full Disclosure: You might think this review is biased because Edward Lorn and I are friends who help each other out with beta reading/editing/proofreading and the like. However, you must also keep in mind that I wouldn't offer to read early drafts of some creepy Internet stranger's work unless I really and truly enjoyed something else I'd read by that person. Early drafts are often pretty shitty. Lorn's aren't. But most are. And I didn't read this book as an early draft. I bought it fair and...

Fuckness by Andersen Prunty

Full Disclosure: I don't know the author of this book. I've never interacted with him. He didn't provide a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I bought this book on Amazon and will likely be paying interest on this purchase for the rest of my life. I've seen this book around, popping up here and there, for quite some time, and I never much cared for the title. I thought it was kind of gimmicky and really didn't have much interest in picking this up. Then a friend recommended i...

Blue Estate (Volume 1) by Viktor Kalvachev & Andrew Osborne

Uneven writing and uneven artwork. There is nothing new here to make this really stand out from other works of noir fiction.

Also, this four-issue collection doesn't complete a single story arc, which I found less than satisfying.

I didn't hate it. It just felt flat to me. However, if someone handed me the rest of the comics in the series, I'd read them.


Read this book!

28 Far Cries by Marc Nash

The flash pieces in this book are like ZIP files that need to be unpacked.

No. That's close but not quite right.

This book is like a display case filled with 28 finely crafted, exquisitely detailed miniature sculptures. You have to pick each one up in turn, examine it on its own while lying on a hammock for a while, before returning to the case to pick up another. After reading one or two of these pieces, I decided to take my sweet time with this collection, and I'm glad I did. You could read...

Horror 101: The Way Forward by Joe Mynhardt (Editor)

If you can get it on a freebie day, you'll be glad someone collected and compiled these blog posts from various websites for you.

You'll find some helpful nuggets mixed in with some thinly-veiled fits of self-promotion.

The verdict? Not worthless!


Read this book!