Connor Rooke > Recent Status Updates

"Closet Dreams" by Lisa Tuttle may just be the scariest thing I've ever read.

"The Changeling", for homecoming day...which I think I missed by a lot, but I've never known when homecoming was for sure anyway. This one is eerie. I like it. I'll need to reread it down the line and puzzle over it a little.

"The Stagnant Breath of Change" would have been better if the author hadn't felt the need to shove in an explicit Lovecraft reference every couple pages. Still very good as is, though.

"In A Cavern, In A Canyon" by Laird Barron. Mister Help Me. Grade A horrible image.

Ahahaha, oh that's a great line for right before your cut to commercial

Pandemic horror stories don't feel the same way they used to

His FIFTIETH BOOK? HE'S ONLY 47 YEARS OLD

Right. Two orders.

This might be the more appropriate one, really.

Also hot damn that is some Dark Souls ass shit in that splash page

"An Article About Hunting" for Opening Day. I either don't have anything at all to hook onto here or I have one possible interpretation that I really don't like.

"Seventy-Two Letters" has such a brilliant concept. I almost wish it were a full novel.

What an idea! What a concept for a story!

"With performative language, saying equaled doing"

"Forlesen", for Labor Day. "Let's see Paul Allen's card."

Dead astronauts, dead astronauts, dead astronauts

...this feels a little cheap.

I like Istanbul

I love this little catachrest. Nut add cot et awl.

"Yet the cursing of Auk was new to me, grand and hideous as the birth of devils" marvelous turn of phrase here

He didn't stutter

I love that I keep flipping back to the dramatis personae pages and realizing the information listed there hasn't yet appeared in the text. When will you tell us of Green, Mister Wolfe?

"Warlockery"

Man, "Ghost Summer" is a top ten all timer of a story title

*Jennifer Lawrence saying "what do you mean" with increasing desperation*

JOHN HENRY WAS A STEEL DRIVIN' MAN

1) stop capitalizing realtor
2) is Mark going to get any interiority that turns him into something besides the most irritating narrative sandtrap I've ever come across?

Really? That's it? That's all the air "your house is haunted" gets? No arguments, no denials, not even a "Oh I thought it was just me who thought so"? Are you kidding?

Reading this character better not stay a chore.

There had better be more to this book than just the brother being a wretched little shit to the main character.

There's a way to write a character who is a terrible human being that's worth reading and then there's a character who is a terrible human being in the most exaggerated, least interesting ways. Reading Mark so far is like walking with a bee sting on the bottom of your foot.

This feels like it's two drafts and a polishing away from what I really wanted it to be