My Booklist: #1 (Edited)

I'd like to keep this blog regularly active, but I certainly don't have enough rambling around in my head to warrant a blog post every day, so in addition to my blogs and random rants, every Wednesday I'll post my "Booklist", which will probably be of no interest to anyone save myself but will at least keep me in regular blogging form.  As with everything else writing, I've discovered if I nail down a schedule I have to maintain, I get so much more done.

So.  Let's split this into the following categories:

1. What I'm reading now
2. What I just finished
3.  Who I've recently discovered

(Note: all these categories may cross over into each, but I'll try to not repeat myself too much)

Also, if any of you have any recommendations.... 

1. What I'm reading now:

 - For Fear of the Night, (TOR Horror) by Charles L. Grant. Crosses over into #3, so I'll save my exposition until then.














- The Secret Backs of Things, (Cemetery Dance), by Christopher Golden - I've not yet dug into any of Chris' work, but I like what I've seen so far.  This is one of those cool ARC review things I get as a review editor, so this isn't available anywhere, yet....but a review will be coming along shortly...

2.  What I've Just Finished:

- The Falling Away, (Thomas Nelson), by T. L. Hines.  Another ARC, although you can pre-order this.  Review coming very soon. Probably Tony's best work yet, and proof positive that "Christian Fiction" is NOT an oxymoron.   About as "out of the box" as they come, and just plain well written.

- The Place, (Tor Horror), by T. M. Wright - also covered in #3, so I'll save it until then.

- Conspiracies, (Tor Books), by F. Paul Wilson. Also covered in #3.


















3. Who I've Discovered:

Charles L. Grant & T. M. Wright - Quiet horror.  A revelation to me, in many ways.  I've always known that I preferred atmospheric horror to grue and gore and violence, but until I discovered both of these authors, I had no idea what I was missing. In what I've sampled of the two so far: Black Carousel, The Grave, Stunts and now For Fear of the Night by Grant and only The Place by T. M. Wright, I've encountered a wonderfully vivid and TENSE prose that ratchets up the suspense with the smallest turns of phrase.  Imagine Bradbury in his young, tighter days...and just a bit darker.

The only quibble I have with Grant is that so far, with the exception of Black Carousel, his novels have featured terribly depressing, almost futile endings.  I'm not saying they were BAD endings - illogical or poorly written - just downers.  We'll see about For Fear.  The Place, however, had a pretty satisfying ending, and it was also a dash of serendipity that in it Wright features a "special" girl who very probably would've been diagnosed with Aspberger's, but published in 1990, they didn't even have a name for that, yet.

F. Paul Wilson.  Repairman Jack.   Buy everything he's written.  NOW.  Shamefully, it took two awesome Borderlands Boot Camp sessions under him for me to delve into his work, and I'm totally hooked.  His narrative is tight and spare without seeming to be.  His stuff is so blasted READABLE.  That, and I love his strict adherence to POV, and how he's able to channel every character's voices, perfectly.

That, and so far I LOVE Repairman Jack.  He's a self-made outcast, pariah...the CLASSIC antihero...but he's got a CODE.  So important for me.   Make no mistake.  Jack "fixes" things.  Sometimes people,  people who DESERVE to be fixed.  So his life is steeped in violence...

 But he's a hero.  Bottom line.  Gotta love it.