'48 by James Herbert

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• Published July 1998 (paperback version)
• Finished reading it on March 27, 2000
• Nobody does a better Apocalyptic view of the world better (or more often) than James Herbert. And '48 is no exception. In this case, at the close of World War II Hitler unleashes a biological weapon that kills everyone except those with AB negative blood. Some folks die quickly and violently; others drag on for years, slowly being eaten away by the disease until blood literally bursts from their body. The story follows Hoke, an AB negative American, caught in London and doing his best to avoid and survive the slow diers. This is an excellent novel which grips you from the first page and does not let go until after you finish. The action is non-stop, and it is during the action that each character reveals themselves and becomes that much more interesting. So although the action is there to keep you interested, it is really the people and their actions which keep pulling you back to read more. This is not a novel to miss! By the way, I am still amazed that Herbert is still not more famous than what he is now. He is one of the more under appreciated authors that I am aware of.

The Facts of Life by Graham Joyce

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• Published June 2004 (Washington Square Press paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on July 09, 2005
• When I first started reading Joyce's novels, they were more spooky and dealing with the supernatural in some way. At some point, he kind of morphed away from that and moved into a more literature method of writing. Looking at The Facts of Life, there are ghosts in the story but for the most part the ghosts are clear indicators of the past trying to teach the present. They are not scary, spooky, let me freak you out type of ghosts but a more literal past lives existing with present ones and seen by only a few. Does this detract from the novel in any way? Not at all. It is in fact a great novel that is very well written. The characters are all fully developed. The story involving a young boy growing up in this unique family and learning about life is involving and interesting. And it is something I would recommend to others. It's just that I'm not used to my reading material falling into a more literature oriented category. Further evidence within this book is that the final ten pages are a Readers Club Guide; it includes a short interview with Joyce and thirteen Questions and Topics for Discussion. Again, it doesn't take anything away from the novel; it leaves me feeling slightly off kilter though.

Face by Tim Lebbon

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• Published May 2003 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 13, 2004
• This is a book that I really enjoyed, up to a point. And unfortunately that point was the last 25%. The story starts with Dan, Megan and their daughter Nikki on their way home when they pick up a hitchhiker. Things get weird, they throw the hitchhiker out and then the really weird and spooky things start happening. A good start and it's carried through with all the right elements: cloven hoof-prints that track through the snow from where the hitchhiker was picked up to where he was dropped off, the guy be able to know exactly what scares the family and at the same time what the family wants. All those little things that help to freak you out when reading. But, and you knew that was coming, the big payoff at the end of the book didn't really satisfy me. There is a final confrontation and things are resolved, to a degree, but I was expecting more. A lot of the motivation seemed missing. Or maybe it was looking back and realizing that the characters weren't as three dimensional as I thought. I'm not quite sure. It's something that I can't quite identify but it's enough to make me lose some of the enjoyment of the book. I'm going to hunt down more books by Lebbon and give them a try. As I said, I did enjoy the book but thought something was missing.

False Allegations by Andrew Vachss

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• Published 1996 (hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on March 05, 1999
• Book 9 of the Burke novels
  Yet one more excellent novel by Vachss. It is another Burke story but this time rather than directly going after a child molester, he instead does a lot of investigations for an attorney. Justice is still given out in the end but the story is not as intense as past stories. Maybe intense is not the right word. There is no major sting against someone. The danger is not there as much as in the past. There just wasn't that much tension. Don't get me wrong, it is still a good novel and in fact, the supporting cast goes through a lot of changes and that alone makes it a must read. But the action wasn't as much as in the past.

Fear of Gravity by Brian Keene

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• Published November 2005 (Delirium Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 4, 2008
• Before I started this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew Brian Keene wrote it so I would probably enjoy it, but my thoughts were along the lines of pretty strange title for a novel. It turned out to be a collection of short stories instead. And then after the introduction, I understood why the strange title. It kind of refers to waiting for the shoe to drop. That fear that for the good thing which happens, that something bad has to also happen. It's that fear of falling once you've gotten to that high point. Hence, the fear of gravity bringing you back down. Most of the stories in this collection follow the bleak approach that comes from dreading the worst as mentioned above. Not so much that something great happens then something bad. More along the lines of that fall occurring in the story. Of gravity kicking in for the characters. Some of the ten stories are stronger than others but they are all very good and leave quite an impact. I'm including my favorites of the bunch below.

  "Slouching in Bethlehem" - Some angels and demons visit earth for a modern twist.

  "I Am An Exit" - A simple, direct story with an unexpected twist.

  "Castaways" - Nature has different plans for reality TV.

  "The Garden Where My Rain Grows" - The short story that was part of the basis for the novel The Conqueror Worms.

Fearful Symmetries by Thomas F. Monteleone

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• Published December 2004 (Cemetery Dance Publications hardcover signed and numbered edition)
• Finished reading it on August 22, 2007
• Most of the time with a short story collection there are three categories the stories fall into: the bad, the good and the excellent. Most of the stories generally end up in the good category; they are good, solid, enjoyable reads. Monteleone's Fearful Symmetries is one of those rare ones where the bulk of the stories end up in the excellent category. I literally would go from one awesome story to the next awesome story. And I don't think that there was a single loser or bad story in the entire book. Then throw in that there are over 26 stories and almost 500 pages and you have a hell of a deal. There is no way you can lose with this book. It is that good, or should I say excellent. Go out and buy it now! I found it very difficult to do but I narrowed my favorites down to these seven.

  "Identity Crisis" - A man fired from his job gets revenge on his boss.

  "Spare The Child" - A couple does the charitable thing and donates to help save a child in a foreign country.

  "Yesterday's Child" - A suicidal man reminds himself about the dreams for his life.

  "No Pain, No Gain" - A professor measures the pain and heartache at a remote hotel.

  "Triptych Di Amore" - A woman does what she can to survive across the centuries.

  "Between Floors" - Doctor Doom helps a fired man face down his boss.

  "Rehearsals" - A man goes back and confronts his father and betters his life.

Fears Unnamed by Tim Lebbon

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• Published February 2004 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on November 06, 2007
• Lebbon is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. It could be the spot on characterizations. It could be his lack of fear in not having a happy ending. (I'm not sure if it was on purpose but most of the stories in this book did not end on an upbeat.) Whatever the reason, I am definitely enjoying the books and collections from him. Fears Unnamed is a collection of four novellas; I'm not sure if they were all printed elsewhere or not but I think only one is published here for the first time.

  "Remnants" - A lost city of the dead is found and investigated.

  "White" - I've read it elsewhere but it is still a great read every time and my favorite of the bunch.

  "The Unfortunate" - A story about luck, good and bad, and how it affects people. Extremely imaginative and a close second for best of the book.

  "Naming of Parts" - A tale involving zombies and the search for safety that left me looking for a little more.

Ferocity by Stephen Laws

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• Published January 2007 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 13, 2008
• There really wasn't too much horror in this book. Considering that the monster is a wild, abnormally large big cat / panther who can camouflage, there isn't much supernatural about that. The story though is still entertaining if not quite as engaging as I hoped. Cath and her daughter move to the country after her husband is murdered in the city. Drew, already living in the country, is trying to get over the death of his wife in a horrible accident. When Cath's housekeeper arranges for the two of them to talk to the town about their own specialties, you know they are destined to be together. Fortunately the Big Cats, drug runners and some bad weather help to make that occur in a finale that has them facing their fears. This was a book that I really wanted to like a lot but I just couldn't quite do so. Laws' The Wyrm was so much stronger than this one; I was hoping for more of the same. Maybe his next book that I read will be able to pull me in again.

The Ferryman by Christopher Golden

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• Published September 2003 (Cemetery Dance signed limited hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on August 19, 2009
• While this is a ghost story, it's not really a traditional ghost. Instead the characters are haunted by a supernatural being who brings the past back to terrorize. No matter how you call it though, it is a compelling story. Janine Hartschorn has just gone through the harrowing event of losing her baby during birth. An event that she also experienced through a vision involving Charon the Ferryman of Greek mythology. While turning to friends and past lover David Bairstrow for support, she just as quickly find her friends starting to disappear and die. Deaths that she soon learns are due to Charon. Together, Janine, David, their fellow teacher friend and a priest must face Charon and the dead he has brought back to life. The events of the story flow naturally and are mostly spooky. There are a few points where I wondered why Charon seemed to be toying with them instead of going after Janine directly. But overall that was a minor point. The characterization and story settings more than make up for any limitation that I perceived. The book is absolutely one of the better ghost stories out there.

The Fifth Harmonic by F. Paul Wilson

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• Published October 2003 (Hampton Road Publishing Company hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on August 31, 2006
• I am a big fan of Wilson's work but this wasn't one of my favorites. It was a solid book and enjoyable and worth reading, but there were a few things that he did which detracted from the enjoyment of the novel. The story follows Dr. Will Burleigh as he learns to deal with an incurable throat cancer. His diagnosis: death within months if not sooner. After pursuing more traditional medicine, with a highly skeptical mind Dr. Burleigh turns to alternative medicine. With nothing to lose and wanting to at least give it a try, he follows Maya Quennell as she takes him in search of good health in an area that Maya calls Mesoamerica, an region between the Yucatan Peninsula and the Pacific Ocean. I won't give away his journey or his final fate but Maya was one of the reasons I was disappointed with the book. During their trip to Mesoamerica, she keeps spouting off about how societies have crumbled and things fallen apart because people stopped worshipping female gods in favor of male gods. Plus she kept talking about how the Mayan people lost their culture. Rather than the character coming across as fanatic or interesting or troubled, it struck me more as Wilson trying to get his political view across. It was more tastefully done than what John Grisham or Dean Koontz has done but it still rubbed me the wrong way. If you can look past that aspect of the novel, it was pretty good. Not his best stuff but better than others out there.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

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• Published 1997 (hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on January 12, 2003
• After seeing the movie a bunch of times and loving it each time and after seeing a couple of other books by Palahniuk in the book stores, I figured that maybe I should give him a try and see what I think. And I was absolutely impressed! The book is awesome and just like the movie. Actually I should reverse that and say that the movie was an extremely accurate translation of the book. Either way, the book includes more detail and more little nuances than the movie did and it is always those things that make a book really great. In case you haven't seen the movie, they both tell the story of young man who is bored with his consumer-based life and searches for understanding. Rather than passively "looking into his soul", he ends up outside of the normal rules with a fight club. This then becomes the catalyst for deconstructing the rest of society. It's an idea that should touch everyone who gets tired of the same old stuff day in and day out; it's when you want to feel alive. The book has a better ending than the movie does. It's both a happy ending and a scary ending. Not so much for the main character but for what is set in motion. I highly recommend the book and am going to hope that Palahniuk's other books are just as great.

A Fine Dark Line by Joe R. Lansdale

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• Published October 2003 (Mysterious Press paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 20, 2004
• I'm sure that there is some writer out there thinking "Life is not fair. Not only does Lansdale right one coming of age novel (The Bottoms) but he goes out there and writes two of them. And both of them are excellent!" Rather than a near turn of the century, the story this time takes place in the summer of 1958, in a small town in Texas. At the start of summer, Stanley Mitchell uncovers the remains of a burned down house in the woods and the mystery of two girls who died on the same night many years back. Finding out more information starts as something for Stanley to do and slowly becomes an itch that needs to be scratched. Along the way, many weird things happen as well as Stanley growing up and making new friends. If you are already a fan of Lansdale, you don't need me to tell you how enjoyable his novels are. If you are not a fan, read this book and The Bottoms and you'll quickly be a convert.

5 Stories by Peter Straub

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• Published August 2008 (Borderlands Press paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on June 9, 2011
• Peter Straub definitely knows how to hook a reader and seduce that person with his writing. Straub's style is poetic and lyrical. He is a master at crafting a scene and pulling the imagery through to the reader. This remains true for his characters too which evolve into fully dimensional characters. With all the images being created, his stories generally take a little while to build up; when they do get that time, they are awesome. This book is a collection of five short stories and unfortunately, none of the stories really have the length that they need to become gripping. "Little Red's Tango" is a great character visualization; the short pulls multiple scenes together to illustrate a guy named Little Red. However, there is no story; it could have continued and revealed more of the characters or stopped earlier to reveal less. "Lapland, or Film Noir" and "The Geezers" both had more story but not enough to pull me along. "Donald, Duck" was the most interesting of the five. It revealed the life of Donald Duck and the rest of the Duck clan as they are beseeched by a Black Widow. A Black Widow that Donald is to love-blind to see. And the final story "Mr. Aickman's Air Rifle" fell into the same problem of not having enough story to actively engage me. The writing is gorgeous and very beautiful to picture but I was hoping for a bit more action to occur.

Flesh by Richard Laymon

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• Published September 01, 1988 (Tor Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 21, 2005
• Laymon loves to take the fantastical, mix it with some sexy women, throw in a hint of a psychotic man or two, provide some home grown character development and voila, produce another great novel. And that's exactly what this book is. This time we have three young college women who end up being stalked by some creature that takes control of a person's body, sort of like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" but not really. And actually the creature is more obsessed with one of the women than all three but since they are all roommates, it becomes a package deal. I'm sort of in a Laymon reading streak right now (four of his books in two months with another three or so in the near future) and everything that I keep thinking of to say seems like a repeat from other reviews. I can say though that this was another one of his books that kept me up late while I kept reading just one more chapter.

Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee

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• Published February 2005 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on July 16, 2006
• It's been a while since I've read a good haunted house story and this book fit the bill perfectly. It had the required haunted house with ghosts, demons and other entities. It had a cast of complex characters who you weren't quite sure of which ones to trust. And it had a ton of sex. Ok, sex isn't required in a haunted house story but it certainly adds to the enjoyment. After a brief prologue and the introduction of all the characters, the story follows Westmore, a reporter who has been hired to determine the secrets behind some murders which occurred by her husband at a huge mansion. Westmore soon gets set up at the house along with two assistants and four psychics; the investigations start turning up weird event after weird event. Before we know it, paranormal events are happening daily and are taken as normal. Stranger and stranger events unfold. And a supernatural charge within the house builds until the climatic ending. All in all, a very exciting and mostly spooky read that I highly recommend.

Fletch Reflected by Gregory McDonald

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• Published August 01, 1995 (Jove Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 29, 1998
• The title of this novel figures in to the story in many ways. The person being investigated, Chester Radleigh, is supposed to have invented a better mirror. He is trying to make his family's reflection to society be perfect. And it focuses more on Jack Faoni, Fletch's son more than it does on Fletch himself. The story is entertaining and a very fast read. And it has a lot of the same quirky dialogue and weird story placement that most of McDonald's books do. But at the same time, there seemed to be something missing. Maybe it just wasn't as witty or as clever. Maybe it was that it happened to fast with little real investigative work done by Jack or Fletch. Maybe it was the 2-dimensional presentation that was given to everyone except for Jack and Fletch. Whatever it was, it left me wanting more from the story. I was disappointed from my own lack of involvement in the story. When I finished it was sort of like "Ok, no biggie, yawn, next book." I would say that if you've never read and other of the Fletch books, then you would probably enjoy this. But us long-time fans will want to go back to his earlier work and refresh ourselves there.

Flood by Andrew Vachss

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• Published July 1986 (paperback version)
• Finished reading it on July 24, 1996
• Book 1 of the Burke novels
  This is an excellent, very intense detective story. Well, I'm not really sure that I would call Burke, the main protagonist, a detective but it's kind of the best label for the character and the novel. This is a revenge story which brings its readers through the worst sections of New York where we experience some of the worst that humanity can create. Confronting these slimeballs along with Burke are his few friends who are loyal to friendship. Together Burke and his friends are a rag tag gang whom no one would want to find themselves facing. The novels yanks us through the events and luckily also allows us to leave. If you love hard-core novels, do not miss this one!

The Folks 2: No Place Like Home by Ray Garton

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• Published January 2008 (Cemetery Dance signed limited hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on December 31, 2009
• While I did not read the first book (The Folks) and while it was obvious that there was some back history that I missed, I did not feel left out. I was able to quickly figure out who all the characters were and any pertinent history that I needed. It did help a bunch that this story basically picked up from a fresh start. Andy Sayer is a new man after surgeries to remove scars from burns he received as a child. He is living with the Bollinger family, a peculiar collection of adopted, deformed children with a caring father. Andy's life begins to change when he falls in love with Roxanne, a normal girl from the local town. Unfortunately Andy's past girlfriend Amanda Bollinger isn't ready to give up on Andy quite yet. Overall the story is not that complex and there's not a bunch of plot twists or turns. It is an enjoyable story though. A demented love story with monsters but still very much a joy to read. Plus it's a quick read so you should be able to use is a break between more "serious" novels.

Footsteps of the Hawk by Andrew Vachss

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• Published November 1996 (Vintage Crime / Black Lizard paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 05, 1999
• Book 8 of the Burke novels
  This is yet one more chapter in the continuing story of Burke. This time rather than being the predator and actively running a scam against someone, Burke is the target. But the story becomes why and how. Burke runs in to his usual share of problems and incidents, more than enough to completely dishearten any normal person. And the story is as sold as ever. Add to that the loose threads from previous novels which get tied up here, and you have one more awesome adventure which should not be missed.

Foreign Bodies by Stephen Dedman

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• Published November 2000 (Tor paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 15, 2003
• While a solid and very entertaining book, Foreign Bodies had a few minor quirks to it that left me slightly disappointed. The story follows Mike Galloway, an average citizen of San Francisco in 2014, just going through life as normal, until one day when he is body-jumped and finds himself in the body of a homeless woman. As he adjusts to living in his new body, he discovers a neo-Nazi plot from the future which ties into the reason he was body-jumped in the first place. The biggest quirk that I saw was that after waking up in a new body, Galloway pretty much accepted it and started looking forward to enjoying his new body. In a world where body swapping is not yet a possibility, Galloway took it pretty much at face value without lamenting for his old body or anything. Maybe a chapter or two of him whining about his circumstances wouldn't have been that enjoyable, but it would have been more realistic. Also the "rules" of body swapping are consistent through most of the novel until the end where it is broken to deal with the neo-Nazi forces. It wasn't an outrageous break but it was still something that went against much of the spirit of the first half. Both of these were minor issues though and did not detract from the enjoyment of the entire book. It's still a good recommendation. Oh yeah, pay attention to the chapter titles. I didn't and found myself lost a couple of times.

Forever Will You Suffer by Gary Frank

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• Published February 2006 (Medallion Press paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 13, 2007
• This book has all the makings of being one to really enjoy but in the big pictures, I had some problems with it. Rick Summers is leaving a cemetery when he realizes his cab driver is a reanimated corpse. The corpse drives him to his ex-girlfriend's place where even weirder and stranger things occur. Over the course of the story, we encounter dead bodies, reincarnation, evil spider things, time shifting houses and magical powers. The story itself is good and I really enjoyed every where it went. The problems that I had though were with the characters. I didn't like most of them. They were too much of a caricature: the doubting Thomas who doesn't believe the supernatural despite it happening in her face, the know-it-all who comes up with solutions and answers and more. Plus they always seemed to respond to each other with anger and yelling. Rick meets someone at his ex's house and within seconds, they are yelling at each other. Most of the time the characters were being assholes to each other. It's what made liking them difficult. I do look forward to Frank's next novel; I just hope he has nicer characters in it.

The Forgotten by Tamara Thorne

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• Published November 2002 (Pinnacle Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on October 17, 2004
• I'm writing this review a couple of months after I finished the book which is turning out to be not a good thing. I remember zooming through the book in a short amount of time. I remember really liking it while I was reading it. But I can't seem to remember much about it now other than the basic outline of the plot and the characters. They were a diverse set of characters that were unique and fun to explore while I was reading about them. I feel bad though that I can't remember more about a book that I know I enjoyed reading. Pretty ironic considering the title.

Forms of Heaven by Clive Barker

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• Published December 1996 (hardback version)
• Finished reading it on August 8, 1998
• Here we are given another collection of plays done early in the career of Clive Barker. Unlike his other collection Incarnations, this group of three plays are much more light hearted and not as gloomy. However before you start thinking of them as comedies in the modern way, remember that they are written by Clive Barker and as such are extremely unique, fantastical and mythical. "Crazyface", the first play, is the least mythical of the three. It is mostly a telling of Tyl Eulenspiegel as he changes and learns about some of the hardships of life while also staying his crazy self. I had the weirdest feeling that I had read "Paradise Street" before but I know that I had not since I don't normally read plays. However it is very likely that the idea was carried over by Barker into one of his short stories within the Books of Blood. Not having easy access to my copies of those, I can't look it up to confirm, but I did have that deja vu feeling the entire time that I was reading the play. The final play, "Subtle Bodies", has a direct time in to the dream world which is so prevalent in Barker's later works. It is a commonality between the two times which just shows how much of an influence it was upon Barker's writings, past and present.

Fountain Society by Wes Craven

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• Published November 2000 (paperback version)
• Finished reading it on May 17, 2002
• My hopes were a little high for this novel since it had been written by Wes Craven, king of so many horror movies. Unfortunately the book didn't quite meet those expectations. The story follows Peter Jance, a brilliant weapons scientist who is on the verge of creating a new powerful weapon. The only problem is his health; Jance is dying. However he quickly gains a new lease on life through a radical experiment which also starts to create ripples in his personal life. Overall the plot is pretty good and the writing was done well enough to keep me reading, but the story has too many coincidences in it. In a moment of escape, one character makes friends with a stewardess who then risks her job to smuggle her onto a plane. Plus there is a much larger coincidence with two main characters meeting; yes, I know that it is supposed to mean that they are fated to be together but it was still too much. Plus the ending was a bit too simple in the solution that came up; it was almost a Deus ex Machina but not quite. Maybe it was more of a contrived happy ending. Contrived or not, it was still predictable as was much of the book. So the book was not really a waste of time but it wasn't as good as it should have been.

Four Dark Nights by Bentley Little, Douglas Clegg, Christopher Golden and Tom Piccirilli

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• Published December 2003 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 17, 2005
• As the title suggests, this book is a collection of four novellas; each one centering around a single night. A nice, simple idea that I thought would end up better than it actually did. Since there was only four stories, I thought that the stories would have some common factor other than a single night. However, there is none. The stories stand on their own. And as such, their reviews will be separate too.

  "The Circle" by Bentley Little - An excellent start to the book. This story is actually more of what I thought the book was going to be. It follows first one family as weird stuff happens. Then it goes to one of the neighbors on the same night and more weird stuff. And then another neighbor where we find out why and everything connects together. An excellent story!

  "Pyre" by Christopher Golden - Another really solid story. The focus this time was a teenage girl who recently lost her father and finds an interesting way of accepting and moving one from the death. Just like Little's story, this one invoked striking images

  "Jonah Arose" by Tom Piccirilli - And this is where the enjoyment slowly seeped out of the book. For some reason I just couldn't keep up with what was happening and the hallucinations or weird happenings. I generally like stories where there is more events happening and I don't remember enough happening here to keep my attention. I do remember skipping the second half of this story because I just couldn't get through it.

  "The Words" by Douglas Clegg - The enjoyment crept back in here. My pattern with Clegg held up with this story; generally I don't like Clegg's novels but I do really enjoy his short stories. Now, I can add his novellas to the mix. The story here follows two best friends as one proves to be more psychotic than the other. Not quite as strong of an ending to the book as it began but still more than good enough to recommend based on the 75% positive rating.

Fourbodings edited by Peter Crowther

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• Published December 2004 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on August 24, 2005
• Another collection of four novellas into a single collection. I finished Four Dark Nights earlier this year which did the same thing of collecting four novellas into a single volume. While that collection was a little more direct and straight forward in its stories, this collection is what editor Crowther said they would be: uneasy stories. None of them were ones that struck me as immediately scary and I wasn't freaked out while reading them. However, each story left that little seed in my mind to germinate unseen. And each seed would later poke their sprouts into my mind, causing me to rethink the story again and become uneasy at a later point. Exactly the point of the stories. Thereby, making the book a success in my mind.

  "So Long Gerry" by Terry Lamsley - A dream apartment turns out to be on the wrong side of town and to be occupied by someone else.

  "Langthwaite Road" by Simon Clark - A section of the road responsible for many accidents turns out to be more than just a bad luck section.

  "In The Valley Where Belladonna Grows" by Tim Lebbon - Wow. A very interesting and memorable view of a person's isolation that I will remember for a very long time.

  "Stumps" by Mark Morris - A more typical horror-type story involving a family moving into a haunted house but still with an element of unease.

Frayed by Tom Piccirilli

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• Published April 2009 (Creeping Hemlock signed limited hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on August 22, 2009
• With only a little more than 100 pages in this novella, Piccirilli does an awesome job with compressing everything into it. The book is more surreal and stunning than I originally thought it would be. The scenes and emotions pull you in and don't let you out unaffected. The story focuses on two friends and the dark secret they have from twenty years ago when they killed an angel. The secret and their attempts to deal with it combine to bind the two friends together and also pull them apart. With the story taking place in a strange mental hospital (as if any mental hospital in a horror/suspense book will be normal), the surreal aspects increase even more. I was completely drawn into the story and loved it. The story quickly involved me with the characters and made me yearn for that next page. And the next. Not really being able to put it down until finished. Highly recommended to all.

Freezer Burn by Joe R. Lansdale

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• Published September 2000 (paperback version)
• Finished reading it on October 29, 2001
• Since most of the books by Lansdale that I've read lately are Hap and Collins books, let me start off by saying that this is not one. But that doesn't mean that it is not a good book; Lansdale still does a superior job of creating a world and characters to suck us all down in to. The story follows Bill Roberts, a loser who you want desperately to win, but who disappoints more often than not. The story starts with a robbery attempt on a fireworks stand since Bill has no money and he can't forge his dead mother's signature no matter how much he tries. And like all Lansdale novels, the craziness just increases from that point. Also like usual, all the characters are developed and rounded and quickly become lives that we enjoying following and seeing what happens. We want to follow the random happenstance that ends up with Bill joining the circus. Then we enjoy seeing what happens there. I kind of wish that the novel was a bit longer and had more to enjoy, but at the same time the middle section could have quickly devolved in to being repetitive and boring which it did not. I also kind of wish that we could have seen Bill win a little more often than he did; he's a character that you root for despite his ineptness. This book definitely makes it on the recommend list.

From A Buick 8 by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published December 2003 (Pocket Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 05, 2005
• Maybe it was because of lowered expectations but I didn't think this book was as bad as some of the reviews said it was. I saw a lot of articles that commented on how this was just another scary car novel, a la Christine. And how this wasn't some of his strongest writing. And I believe it was after the release and some of those reviews that King announced his planned retirement, a retirement that I'll believe when I see. Personally I think that he'll be like The Rolling Stone or Ozzy or Cher who announce their retirement but then keep on doing what they love. And even now King has announced his plans to do a crime novel called The Colorado Kid. But I digress, back to From A Buick 8. I'll agree that it was not one of his better books. Since there is no active threat, no monster looming or no quest driving folks forward, the action was minimal. The tale unfolds as several troopers reveal the history of a car that was impounded many years back. Their recipient of the story is Ned Wilcox, a young man who recently lost his dad, a fellow trooper. While the story is interesting and intriguing, there is also a level of detachment to the telling. This is probably due to it being told to Ned while sitting around a picnic table rather than experiencing the story live, so to speak. I'm not sure if this hurt the story or not but I know that I wasn't pulled into it as much as I am with other novels. At the same time though, Stephen King on his off-days is still tons better than a lot of other stuff out there. And for you completists, it does tie-in to the Dark Tower series but more on the peripheral than directly. In that regards it is a nice complement to Hearts In Atlantis.

From The Borderlands edited by Elizabeth E. and Thomas F. Monteleone

• Purchase it here
• 25 short stories by such authors as Bentley Little, Whitley Strieber and Stephen King
• Published September 2004 (Warner Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 16, 2005
• The hardbound edition of this book was originally published as Borderlands 5. And as you would expect from a series of short story collections, the stories have to be pretty good to keep it going that long. And these stories live up to that expectation. The stories are obviously not the same old, formula type stories that you would find in a normal collection. Instead the Monteleones found unique stories with a little something different which made them very memorable. While all of the stories were good, only a select few can be picked as favorites.

  "Rami Temporalis" by Gary A. Braunbeck - The story of a guy with one of those faces

  "All Hands" by John R. Platt - A man goes through life hoping that his hands will return to him

  "The Food Processor" by Michael Canfield - Two sons receive a food processor as a birthday gift from their father whose a chef

  "Answering The Call" by Brian James Freeman - A man house sits while families attend their loved ones funeral. This one was really good!

  "A Thing" by Barbara Malenky - This one reminded me of F. Paul Wilson's The Touch. A dying women is given a gift.

  "Stationary Bike" by Stephen King - A man's attempts to get healthy has side effects that he doesn't realize

Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi by Brian Lumley

• Purchase it here
• Published originally in May 1996 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 26, 1998
• I picked this collection of short stories up based solely on the title and a pretty cool title, isn't it? And the collection of stories inside are equally cool! They are awesome stories which are scary, suspenseful and extremely enjoyable. I would highly recommend this collection to anyone who enjoys horror of any sort. The only negative to the entire situation is that I now want to go out and pick up more novels by Lumley. Maybe not his Necroscope series but definitely something! My favorites are below.

  "The Man Who Photographed Beardsley" - A photographer reproduces some great works of art.

  "No Way Home" - A man can't find his way home.

  "Necros" - A demon takes its victims from visiting tourists.

  "The Cyprus Shell" - Part 1 of a two parter about revenge from a sea shell.

  "The Deep-Sea Conch" - Part 2 of a two parter about revenge from a sea shell.

Fuckin' Lie Down Already by Tom Piccirilli

• Purchase it here
• Published 2005 (Endeavor Press paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 17, 2007
• Wow! This is an extremely fast paced, hard hitting story. It's actually more of a novella than a novel but either way it kicks ass. Exactly what you would expect from a story titled like this one. The story is part Punisher (the comic book), part detective movie, and part revenge. Clay is a detective investigating the mob and he's doing a good job of it. He starts to get too close, so the mob orders a hit on him and his family. Wounded but not down, Clay tracks down those responsible and gets justice. For a story that is pretty simplistic, Piccirilli does a great job of making you care for the characters. You wish for Clay to do the smart thing and get them later but at the same time you see his pain and know he can't do anything else. It took me a little while to track down a copy of this book but I'm super glad that I did. Do the right thing and find your own copy soon.

The Future for Investors by Jeremy J. Siegel

• Purchase it here
• Published March 2005 (Crown Business hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on October 12, 2006
• This is one of the few non-fiction books that I've read lately. I was turned on to the book because I had seen it mentioned in several investor newsletter to which I subscribe. After it was mentioned for the third of fourth time in Morningstar's Dividend Investor, I figured that it was time to check it out and see what Professor Siegel had to say. And man did he have a lot of good things to say! The overwhelming bulk of the information is an analysis of the market from 1957 (when the S&P was formed) to 2003 (when the book was written). Some of it is what you would expect: large cap growth companies account for most of the money. But much is what you would not expect: large cap growth companies are a better investment than rapid growth technology companies. I'm not going to go over the details behind this and other observations because Siegel states it much more concisely. I will say that this book firmly entrenched my investing strategy into the dividend paying and dividend growing stocks. And so far it has been paying off, literally. Oh, I should mention that the full title of the book is The Future for Investors: Why the Tried and the True Triumph Over the Bold and the New.

Send comments or your opinions on these books to mike@kazba.com.

Last modified on October 29, 2011