David Case (1) (1937–)

My second Case this year, and this one was as good as [Wolf Tracks]. This one is so different in tone and voice as to doubt whether the same author wrote both - a testament to Case's abilities. While the other reviewers rightly characterize it was a zombie/mummy book, there is a slight element of lycanthropy about the narrative, too - that changing into 'the Other' that makes these kinds of books.

A self-styled mystic believes he's found an ancient Egyptian formula for immortality and enlists the services of a scholar to translate some hieroglyphics and runes etched into a mummy's tomb. Impatient to begin the work, the mystic experiments on a person to disastrous effects.

Arkham originally published this one and Valancourt resurrected it in a new edition, like [Wolf Tracks]. Case is under appreciated.

5 bones!!!!!
Highly recommended… (mehr)

This diminutive lycanthropy tale is far too unknown - there are no reviews on LibraryThing and only a couple conversations about it, probably conversations where some of my LT pals recommended the book to me. It's well written, very Dickensian in structure with multiple perspectives from different characters that are extremely well drawn. It's an interesting take on lycanthropy, very psychologically based, while still leaving the resolution ambiguous enough to include the sceptic and the true believer. And from a story-telling perspective, it's quick and rich. As I recently learned from a search, there are far fewer werewolf tales than vampires ones, and this one is absolutely required reading for lycanphiles.

5 human bones and 10 wolf bones!!!!!
Highly Recommended!!!!!… (mehr)

Better than I expected from this slim novel. I thought it would be a run-of-the-mill mummy story but it turned out that mummies were almost incidental to the story. There were zombies too. And creepy houses with locked doors. However, the author kept the plot fresh enough that despite all these tropes the story was pretty engaging. Plenty of suspense and eerie menace.

The writing was good and the vocabulary wasn't insulting and the author had me wanting to turn the next page so I gave it four stars.

For those that care, it has some quirky illustrations and some clever typographical embellishments.… (mehr)

4.5 stars

This collection of horror stories written in the gothic style really, really worked well for me.

For the modern horror reader, gothic style means that these tales contain very little blood and gore. It also means that the language used is usually rather flowery and descriptive. In this case, the language used was beautiful, but NOT flowery and going on and on about the scenery and whatnot.

The fact that there was very little blood and gore does not make these tales any less horrific. Stories about a young, virgin wife being raped by an unknown entity, a science experiment gone very, very wrong, are truly terrible and actually scary . I'm very rarely disturbed by horror stories, but I was disturbed by these. In fact, I just LOVED them.

This edition has a nice intro by Stephen Graham Jones and the afterword by the ultra knowledgeable Kim Newman, (which resulted in my adding a few more books to my HUGE TBR), made for nice bookends to these gothic tales.

I highly recommend this book to fans of gothic style stories and beautiful writing!

You can buy this book here: http://www.amazon.com/Fengriffen-Other-Gothic-Tales-David-ebook/dp/B016LPBNUS/re... and other… (mehr)