Horror Month is Coming!

 

It's coming up to October and in some traditions (maybe tradition is the incorrect word, but I'll run with it), it's the month where horror movies and books begin to take peoples' fancies. The AMC television network usually shows its favorite horror movies. I think TCM does the same thing. And then when Hallowe'en hits us, it's all out mayhem! I seem to recall Buffy the Vampire Slayer starting one Hallowe'en night and I was trying to watch it and dish out treats at the same time. (Ed Note. I readily admit my memory ain't what it used to be, so please feel free to take my remembrances of things horror at face value. 🧛)

So here's my plan for the next few posts. What I plan to do is to highlight horror novels I'm currently reading (there are two), some of my favorites from the past and then finish with some I currently have on my bookshelves that I might read in October. Just to give you some ideas if you are thinking of focusing on horror books this October.

Before I do get into books, many years ago, in 2010 in fact, I posted a listing of my Top Ten favorite horror movies. If you want to warm up with that, just click on this link. I know it was made almost 15 years ago and there have been many, many more horror movies made since then, but just consider this as horror film from a historical perspective. One other thing to highlight. In the right hand column of this Blog (in my format anyway), if you scroll down the page... way down... way, way down, you'll see a heading called 'Labels'. I try to add labels to each post to identify what it may cover. There is a label identified as 'Horror' which, if you click on it, will take you to the posts where I might have reviewed horror novels, etc. Check it out if you have the 'nerve'.

So with that preamble, let's look at the two books I'm currently reading that I believe fall into the Horror genre. (If you disagree, I'm totally fine with that. And if you don't care if I'm fine with that, well, I'm fine with that as well... Now, avoiding getting into a continuous loop of whether you care and I'm fine with it, let's check out the two books.)

I'm currently reading 12 books. I don't usually read that  many but I've been finding myself getting caught up with bright new books and not being able to resist trying them. And then, you know what it's like, some get neglected and yada yada...

Currently Reading

1. Wanderers by Chuck Wendig (2019). This is one of the books I've neglected. Not because I'm not enjoying because I am very much. It's a tome, 750+ pages and it's heavy (physically) so I find it easy to put down. But I have to say it flows nicely, is well-written and is a fascinating story so far. Think of the Stand and maybe the movie Contagion. Of course, that's an initial impression. I'm open to being surprised even more. The synopsis is provided below.

"Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and her sister are not alone. Soon they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other "shepherds" who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead.

For as the sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America, the real danger may not be the epidemic but the fear of it. With society collapsing all around them--and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them--the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart--or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world."

2. Devolution by Max Brooks (2020). The first book I ever read by Max Brooks was World War Z, which I figure will make an appearance in one of my future posts on this subject. Wait for it. The synopsis of this book sounded both interesting and different. I may be wrong but I don't think there have been a whole heck of a lot of horror novels involving Bigfoot. What I'm enjoying so far is the format of the story, mainly one of the character's journals, interspersed with interviews. I have to say, it's now getting very tense and creepy. Here is the synopsis.

"The #1 bestselling author of World War Z takes on the Bigfoot legend with a tale that blurs the lines between human and beast--and asks what we are capable of in the face of the unimaginable. As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier's eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now. But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town's bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing--and too earth-shattering in its implications--to be forgotten. 

In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate's extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it. Kate's is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity's defiance in the face of a terrible predator's gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death. Yet it is also far more than that. Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us--and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity. Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it--and like none you've ever read before."

So there you have it. The first in a series (or at least two or three) of posts on the Horror genre. I hope this might have whetted your appetite and you'll get some reading ideas for October.