Long time no see! Well, this is me stating the obvious, but for the past couple of months things have gone off the rails a bit. Again. And then followed a period of procrastination, days in which I would rather bask in laziness than do something that could be called productive. But it seems now that enough is enough, so here is my attempt of resuming my journey through bookish things. In 2014 Fox Spirit Books started travelling across the world in search of monsters. A fictional expedition, that is, in form of collections of short stories under the guidance of Margrét Helgadóttir and Jo Thomas ..read more

Marcela Bolivar’s amazing artworks are popping more and more on book covers and it is only for the best, after all she is a tremendously talented artist and with imagination aplenty. Take only the last year or so and I can recall off the top of my head the covers of Eric Schaller’s “Meet Me in the Middle of the Air”, Sunny Moraine’s “Singing With All My Skin and Bone”, Kristi DeMeester’s “Beneath” or the May 2017 issue of Apex Magazine. There is another coming in the near future, this one for Mercedes Murdock Yardley’s collection of tales, “Little Dead Read and Other Stories”, brought in limit ..read more

Cassandra Khaw is one of the most exciting emerging talents of speculative fiction. And she has plenty of published works to prove this statement, short stories like “In the Rustle of Pages” (Shimmer 25), “The Games That We Play” (Clockwork Phoenix 5), “Breathe” (Clarkesworld 116) or “And in Our Daughters We Find a Voice” (The Dark Magazine, November 2016), just to name a few that caught my eye, and the novellas “Hammers on Bone” (Tor.com Publishing) and “Food of the Gods” (Abaddon Books), collecting the two Rupert Wong adventures “Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef” and “Rupert Wong and the End of th ..read more

The wait is over! After two months ago I’ve admired the cover artwork for the US edition of Jay Kristoff’s “Godsgrave” now I am able to bask in the beauty of the UK/AUS one, due to be published by Harper Voyager. I already said that the amazing “Nevernight”, the first novel in Jay Kristoff’s series “The Nevernight Chronicles”, benefitted from two wonderful covers and, as it was expected, the same goes for the second novel, “Godsgrave”. Of course, again, I find myself hard pressed to choose between the two editions since my bookshelves are already overcrowded, but I am still thrilled to see thi ..read more

Last week, at LexiCon 2017, the 38th New Zealand National Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention, the winners of the 2017 Sir Julius Vogel Awards have been announced. BEST NOVEL “Into The Mist” by Lee Murray (Cohesion Press) BEST YOUTH NOVEL “Light in My Dark” by Jean Gilbert and William Dresden (Rogue House Publishing) BEST NOVELLA/NOVELETTE “The Convergence of Fairy Tales” by Octavia Cade (The Book Smugglers) BEST SHORT STORY “Splintr” by A.J. Fitzwater (At the Edge/Paper Road Press) BEST COLLECTED WORK “At the Edge” edited by Dan Rabarts and Lee Murray (Paper Road Press) BEST PREOFFESIONA ..read more

Becoming a parent changed my priorities entirely, but also added a new set of fears and terrors haunting me into the nights and sometimes during the day too. My perception of the subjects of parenting and childhood in fiction suffered a transformation as well, I find myself more connected to stories centered or touching on such themes. Nowadays, these stories are also an attempt for me to exorcise these fears, to keep them at bay and let the mind wander less on dark alleys in the middle of the night. The disappearance of a child is such a subject, be it in crime, thriller or horror novels, and ..read more

“Elves, Volume 1” Written by Jean-Luc Istin & Nicolas Jarry Illustrated by Kyko Duarte & Gianluca Maconi Colors by Diogo Saïto Translated by Christina Cox-De Ravel Published by Insight Comics Back in 2014 I discovered a series of comic books dedicated to the legendary fantasy race of elves. I came upon it a year later than it began being released by Éditions Soleil, a French comic book publisher, but the main point is that I really loved the concept behind it. The Elves series features stories centered on five different races of elves and each tale is approached from the perspecti ..read more

One of my favorite anthology series, “Terror Tales” edited by Paul Finch, hit a bump in the road when its publisher, Gray Friar Press, sadly had to close its doors. Fortunately the anthology quickly found a new home at Telos Publishing and now the tenth volume, “Terror Tales of Cornwall” is available for purchase. As is the case with the previous nine volumes of Paul Finch’s series of anthologies “Terror Tales of Cornwall” features short stories based not only geographically on its specific region but gravitating around the mythology, traditions, legends and history of the area. Also, the inte ..read more

“Moon Scars” by Ángel Luis Sucasas Translated by James Womack Published by Nevsky Books Review copy received through the courtesy of the publisher There are countless worlds at my disposal through speculative fiction and there is a world around me waiting to be discovered. And when these two meet I wish to be able to explore the speculative works of writers of different nationalities, to see how their local influences leek into their writings. I am perfectly aware that aspects like translation, market and costs are very important to this process and make my wish a bit difficult to be granted ..read more

Undertow Publications has set upon itself the tremendous task of gathering some of the best weird fiction and bringing it into our attention through its published books. And for the past three years this brave independent press counted among its titles the anthology series “Year’s Best Weird Fiction”. There are various such yearly anthologies gathering short fiction of a particular genre or sub-genre on the market, but “Year’s Best Weird Fiction” stands out not only for the chosen subject, but also for the quality of its selections and by bringing different visions for each of its volumes. Bec ..read more