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tk I heard you like capsule reviews? Here are some capsule reviews. The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett Years ago, I picked up an early novel by Robert Jackson Bennett after seeing plenty of praise for his fiction. The book turned out to not quite be my thing — not bad, but also in the “didn’t quite click for me” camp. But I’d been seeing (and reading) plenty of good things about his work since then, and The Tainted Cup won a boatload of awards (and was nominated for a boatload more), so I picked up a copy and…
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Since 2011, I’ve had a tradition of reading a book by a single author on Christmas Eve. Initially, that was John Steinbeck; now, it’s Muriel Spark. In 2025, that reading didn’t go as planned due to some mid-December travel and the resulting Viennese Death Cough. Some antibiotics and a trip to Frenchtown Bookshop later, I wasn’t able to find a Spark I hadn’t already read, so I opted for a contemporary of hers about whom I’ve heard good things, Elizabeth Taylor. And a few days after Christmas, my copy of a new-to-me Spark novel arrived in the mail. Quick thoughts…
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Once more, I’ve written a strange seasonal yarn for Jon Solomon’s 25-Hour Holiday Radio Show. Here we were, 76 miles from the end of the Parkway. A clear night on Christmas Eve. Washburn told me it was important to look for them at the right time. “If no one was watching, they’d come out on the regular,” he said. “But people are always watching, eyes craned up to the skies. Too many and it’s…what’s the phrase. Tipping point.” It wasn’t anything like stargazing, he explained. It was more of a seance, us earthbound and the shapes above. “We look up,”…
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Spend much of the weekend in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania at the third installment of VoidCon. I had very little sense of what to expect going in, other than the involvement of some indie presses whose recent output has left me impressed. The idea of going to central PA (to my dad’s alma mater, even) for a couple of days didn’t sound like a bad idea at all. To make a long story short, I had a blast. The metal/hardcore vibes were strong throughout, from the blistering sets from Athame and Treeknock that closed out the event to the onstage mention of…
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You can tell a story set in the distant future or in a fantasy world using virtually any medium imaginable, but prose has one advantage over many of its compatriots: writers don’t have to worry about disappointing visual effects. There’s a point in the 1968 occult thriller The Devil Rides Out where the film’s heroes confront what’s supposed to be a demonic apparition that chills them to their very souls. One assumes that in the Dennis Wheatley novel on which the film was based, this vision was indeed something eminently horrifying. Unfortunately what we see on screen is a middle-aged…
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This might be the beginning of a recurring feature where I write about, well, recent cultural experiences I’ve had. Octet at Hudson Valley Shakespeare I probably have an essay in me on my conflicted relationship with musicals. For a long time, that translated into me being Not a Musicals Guy. That wall has gradually broken down, due in part to John Doyle’s production of Company and in part due to John M. Chu’s adaptation of In the Heights. A recommendation on a Discord prompted me to drive an hour north of the city to see a production of writer/composer Dave…
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Sometimes, by complete coincidence, you end up watching two different movies set after the end of the world. Sometimes those two movies, though stylistically very different, are weirdly complementary. And so you’re left with little choice but to write about them. A positive review from Bilge Ebiri piqued my interest in In the Lost Lands, written by Constantin Werner and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. The setup feels as much Western as fantastical: Boyce (Dave Bautista), a Man With No Name type, is hired by Gray Alys (Milla Jovovich) to take her into the ravaged landscape outside of the city,…
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thoughts on two very unsettling books featuring many, many bugs Joe Koch, Invaginies Some years ago, during a point in time when I was listening to a lot of The Soft Boys, I suggested that some ambitious editor should commission a horror anthology based on the band’s music. Mostly, I had their song “Kingdom of Love” in mind; specifically, I was thinking of these lines: You’ve been laying eggs under my skin Now they’re hatching out under my chin Now there’s tiny insects showing through And all them tiny insects look like you Do you like your post-punk with a…
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Trying to write a bit more about older books I read, so: quick thoughts on two SF novels that could be described as cult classics that I finally got around to reading in recent months. John Shirley, City Come A-Walkin’ I’m not sure I’ve read anything by John Shirley since my teenage years, when I picked up the anthology Mirrorshades. I picked up a used copy of City Come A-Walkin’ at Ridgewood’s Topos; it fell into the category of books I’d heard about for years but had never read. Spoiler alert: it kicked my ass. I’ve mostly thought of Shirley…
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In the last two weeks, I saw three films on the big screen that all left me very impressed. I haven’t done a year-end movie list in a while; still, I’m pretty sure these three will be at or near the top of it. So here are some quick thoughts on all three. SINNERS; written and directed by Ryan Coogler There’s a moment in this film’s first half where Coogler shows Jack O’Connell’s primary antagonist Merrick on the run from a group of Choctaw vampire hunters. The latter group only makes a brief appearance in the film; I’ve seen a…
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Notes, thoughts, & miscellany 