Gregor Xane's Blog, page 15

Microchip Murder by Martyn V. Halm

There's something satisfying about watching an exceedingly competent professional at work. With these Katla KillFile shorts, I get the same gee-whiz feeling I get when watching a documentary showing master craftsmen building things, anything.

This was a good read, but I liked "Locked Room" more. The overabundance of location and street name details bogged this one down some for me.

Also, with this story, you get a greater sense that Katla really is an all-business, cold-blooded killer. That's...

What the Dark Brings by Edward Lorn

If you like short short stories, you'll really like this collection. Short shorts are exceedingly hard to write, and Mr. Lorn seems to have a real knack for them.

This book has 22 stories crammed into 145 pages!

Lorn is primarily thought of as a horror writer, but the bulk of the stories to be found here are more quirky and bizarre, not so much out-and-out horror. There are some straight up horror pieces near the end (including the three bonus stories), but I enjoyed the somewhat lighter, fun...

Chuggie and the Fish Freaks of Farheath by Brent Michael Kelley

I would guess that Kelley wrote this after Chuggie and the Desecration of Stagwater. It seems to me that he's come to grips in a major way with what makes the Chuggie character work, and this mastery came after spending an entire novel figuring everything out. Chuggie, the drunken, cocky embodiment of drought, comes off as fully formed here, perfectly related in short order, and I don't really think this has much to do with me having read Stagwater first. I think Chuggie's voice is second-nat...

Seeker by Ade Grant

Seeker is a slim collection of six short stories. It doesn't look to have gotten much attention since its release, which is kind of surprising to me. Yeah, it's a bit rough around the edges, meaning it could have stood another round of proofreading, but the writing and storytelling to be found here is pretty darn fine, if you ask me.

Oddly enough, I found the titular story the least interesting of the bunch. It served as a decent enough jumping off point. But if it had been a bit more of a gu...

Peeler by Gord Rollo

Peeler is a cool character and this is a pretty cool little story. I really liked the main villain's back-story in this and the ending was pretty great. Also, this piece takes place in an asylum, and I'm a sucker for a good asylum story. I thought the writing wasn't as clear as it could have been at times, and found myself re-reading sentences here and there to try to decipher their meanings. I also found some of the procedures at the institution less than believable, the kind of reality bend...

Harmlessly Insane by The Light Brothers

Full disclosure: I kinda-sorta know the Light brothers. We've never met face-to-face, but we've had numerous online interactions. I'd go so far as to say that I consider them to be two good Internet pals of mine. I don't believe the feeling is mutual, really. But that's beside the point.

What I'm trying to get at is that if any of the above causes you to dismiss this review as biased, so be it. Don't read onward. I'm OK with that.

All right, here's the setup: I've been kicking the idea around...

No Such Thing by Edward Lorn

This short story had many of the Lorny things that make me like Lorn's stuff: character descriptions and situations that catch you by surprise and force a double-take, inventive violence, and crisp, forward-leaning writing. However, I just didn't buy several aspects of the ending. It didn't seem like enough time had elapsed for one character to do what he does. Two characters end up in another room seemingly for no other reason than it was more convenient for the story's reveal (though what's...

Short Stories & Only Short Stories

My mission to read only short stories this May in honor of National Short Story Month continues. Here are some more short stories I've read:

"Pay Back" by Evans Light
"Curtains for Love" by Evans Light
"Candie Apple" by Evans Light
"The Package" by Evans Light
"Black Door" by Evans Light
"The Sisters Who Gave the Devil His Due" by Richard McGowan
"How to Get Ahead by Kissing Frogs" by Richard McGowan
"The Awful Wages of Unbridled Lesbianism" by Richard McGowan
"Taken" by Adam Light
"Way Out of Here" by...

2014 Locus Award Finalist: A Terror by Jeffrey Ford

My favorite author of short fiction, Jeffrey Ford, is a 2014 Locus Award finalist for his novelette A Terror.

You can read it for free at Tor.com.

Or, you can purchase a copy at Amazon.com.
You should give it a read. It is National Short Story Month, after all.

May is National Short Story Month!

I'm not sure who exactly had the power to make it so, but it looks like May is "National Short Story Month." To celebrate, I'll be reading nothing but short stories this month, and I'll be posting some brief thoughts about what I've read on this here blog.

Serendipitously, I just started reading a rather large anthology this month called Harmlessly Insane . It collects all of the short fiction published to date by horror authors and brothers Evans & Adam Light.

So far, I've read the followin...