Oh my god,
Christmas is less than a month away. And despite the tinsel-tinged
propaganda urging--practically demanding--I get into the
Christmas spirit, it just hasn't hit me yet. I'm in my thirties now
and I find my hokey cheerfulness doesn't really kick in until
December 20th. One of my neighbors put up his Christmas lights on
November 19th. Come on, that's unnecessary. The Christmas caroling is
going to get a tad grating after so many weeks, too. Yeesh, I'm kind
of a humbug, aren't I?
Oh well, just wait
until December 20th, then I'll be a jolly old soul. Until then, here
are some books I count as early Christmas presents:
Blood
and Other Cravings by
Ellen Datlow (editor) -
I can't think of an anthology yet that's disappointed me when Ellen's
name has been on the cover. If she mined gold the way she mined short
stories, she'd be a bazillionaire. This anthology is, you guessed it,
about vampires at least in part. I won this from Suzanne Johnson's
blog, Preternatura,
and it came with a wonderful signed note from Suzanne, which
incidentally promotes her own impending novel, Royal
Street,
due to be released in April 2012. Just sayin'.
The
Cage and
The
Last Zombie (Issue #1) by
Brian Keene -
A slew of horror and dark fiction authors took part in a giveaway hop
in October called the Coffin Hop. It was a neat way to check out
different authors, some I'm already familiar with and others I'm just
discovering. As an added bonus, many of the authors offered prizes,
and I wound up winning these two book from Kevin Lucia. The
Last Zombie has
to be the first single issue comic book I've held in my hands in--oh
god--fifteen
years. The time warp emotions with that make this prize a real treat.
Harbor
by
John Adjvide Lindqvist -
Count me among the ranks of those who absolutely loved Lindqvist's
debut novel, Letthe Right One In,
so it should come as no surprise that I jumped at the chance to read
and review his latest offering. I read a review somewhere that called
him the Swedish Stephen King. I don't know if I'd go that far, but
he's really good.
If Harbor does
half as much for ghosts as Let
the Right One In did
for vampires, then I'm going to love this book to death.
The
Placebo Effect by
David Rotenberg -
David Rotenberg will be stopping by the blog on February 1st to
promote the first book in his new series, The
Junction
Chronicles.
Simon
& Schuster Canada
was generous enough to send along an advance review copy of the book,
too. It's about an acting coach who moonlights anonymously as a human
lie detector for various companies, only to become a target, and he
suspects its because of something he heard during one of his
sessions. Plus, a government agent is hunting down him and others
with his talent. At face value, it sounds like a cross between Lie
to Me and
The
Fugitive.
I hope it's good.
Lunenberg
Werewolf by
Steve Vernon -
Nimbus
Publishing
sent me a review copy of Steve's latest book. If you enjoy folklore
and local legends and have yet to read Steve's work, you really need
to find one of his books. His collected stories revolve around the
Maritimes, yes, but the ghost stories and rural legends highlighted
in his books are easily accessible to anyone the world over. I have a
feeling this book will be no different. I recently blogged about a
children's book his wrote called SinkingDeeper,
which was also published by Nimbus. Good stuff.
What
books showed up in your mailbox this month?