THE COUNT OF ELEVEN
England’s Ramsey Campbell is one of the finest horror scribes on the scene, and THE COUNT OF ELEVEN one of his best-ever novels
COUNT DRACULA’S CANADIAN AFFAIR
In the seminal “Fantasy Five-Foot Bookshelf” feature in THE TWILIGHT ZONE Magazine, R.S. Hadji places this dreadful novel at number 3 on his “Worst Stinkers of the Weird” list. I believe he was being overly generous, as I’d probably move it up to number one.
CORALINE (Book)
The rapturous reception CORALINE has received is surprising, as it’s likely the darkest children’s novel I’ve ever read.
CONSUMED
CONSUMED is the better-late-than-never debut novel 71-year-old David Cronenberg. It has a thoroughly unique and individual voice that falls somewhere between those of William Gibson and Don DeLillo in its concentration on technological minutiae and elegant perversity. It’s also fully in keeping with the obsessions and subject matter of Cronenberg’s films.
CONE ZERO
Not having read any of the other Nemonymous anthologies, I was unsure what to expect. That, it turns out, was an ideal state of mind in which to approach this book
THE COMPASS STONE
Fernando Arrabal is Spain’s grand master of the avant-garde, a playwright, artist, filmmaker and sometime novelist. THE COMPASS STONE (LA PIERDA ILLUMINADA), translated by Andrew Hurley, is one of a handful of Arrabal novels available in English (the others are BAAL BABYLON, THE BURIAL OF THE SARDINE, THE TOWER STRUCK BY LIGHTNING and THE RED VIRGIN), and for me the standout, an astounding torrent of madness, perversion, hallucination and murder, but graced with a probing, boldly intellectual edge. It’s told from the point of view of an unnamed teenage girl living in a vast, crumbling mansion run by her father, known only as “the Maimed One”, who spends his days watching TV and decrying the decadence of modern society. “The Sisters”, two gluttonous handmaidens, are on hand to attend to his every need.
COMPARTMENTS
I’m firmly convinced that anything by Zoran Zivkovic is worth your time, and that’s definitely true of this strange and wonderful five story collection. Drafted in Zivkovic’s usual clear and uncluttered prose, it’s quite short (161 pages of large printing) but contains enough wisdom and imagination to fill a sci fi trilogy.
COLOR ME BLOOD RED
When perusing COLOR ME BLOOD RED, the last of H.G. Lewis’ novelizations of his fabled early 1960s gore flicks, there are a few things to keep in mind: 1). The film it novelizes is, as Lewis himself has conceded, not one of his better efforts, 2). It was not among the Lewis novelizations Fantaco reprinted in 1988 (and clearly there’s a reason for that), and 3). Lewis has subsequently admitted he “spent less attention” on this adaptation than he did the others. Yet even allowing for those things, COLOR ME BLOOD RED is worthwhile reading for horror buffs in a forgiving mood.
COLD MOON OVER BABYLON
The late Michael McDowell never wrote a scarier novel than COLD MOON OVER BABYLON, a neglected classic of atmospheric horror
COLD HOUSE
Another bizarre, fascinating, deeply enigmatic novel by T.M. Wright, one of the horror genre’s most singular talents. COLD HOUSE is even more enigmatic than normal for Wright, as it forsakes most of the genre trappings of his previous books (which include essentials like STRANGE SEED, THE WAITING ROOM and THE ISLAND) in its dreamlike account of star-crossed lovers Michael and Elizabeth, each trapped in a strange alternate reality.