What are you currently reading?

 Ron, you summed up Golden in a way I couldn't: The secret sauce that makes me enjoy a writer is missing. Thank you!

 Back to UNEARTHED, last night I read a longish story by A.G. Slatter, about a female supernatural detective, Kit Caswell, which I really enjoyed. It ended a little abruptly, but still a worthwhile read.

Three more stories finished in UNEARTHED, one by Gemma Amor, and neither really did a thing for me. Shaping up to be a subpar anthology.

Posted by: @rmquist

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Just finished an eARC of In Their Eyes that the author, Simon F. Godin, provided to me. It's a riveting psychological thriller and happens to be his debut novel. 

Honestly, I thought it was fantastic - so well written and engaging that it could easily have passed for a book by an author with many published works under their belt. 

I've got a spoiler-free review on my blog here: https://www.pagesfromthemist.com/2026/06/review-in-their-eyes.html,

Just wanted to mention that IN THEIR EYES by Simon F. Godin was released this week... If you have a chance to read it you should. It really is excellent!.

 Knocked out another two stories in UNEARTHED. Both decent, with wet fart endings. I long for the days when Editors would actually EDIT, and tell an author that something was wrong or sub-par, and to try another pass at it. This collection has been meh, at best, but every story suffers from either an unintelligible ending or a "that's it...?" ending.

 On the plus side, ANNO DRACULA 1918: THE BLOODY RED BARON wrapped up in spectacular fashion, and I'm starting the bonus novella, VAMPIRE ROMANCE, as we speak. 

I've been churning the the White Noise Press antho. I've read through about half the book and they are all solid stories. The Chizmar story is the only one I thought was dull so far. 

Posted by: @benstaad

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I've been churning the the White Noise Press antho. I've read through about half the book and they are all solid stories. The Chizmar story is the only one I thought was dull so far. 

Is that the collection of all of the chapbooks?

Brian

Posted by: @brianjamesfreeman

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Posted by: @benstaad

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I've been churning the the White Noise Press antho. I've read through about half the book and they are all solid stories. The Chizmar story is the only one I thought was dull so far. 

Is that the collection of all of the chapbooks?

Brian

 

 Yeah, Keith published a collection of all of the chapbooks. I have all of them, but I grabbed the collection, since I remember nothing about any of the stories, except for thinking they were all either great or really good.

Posted by: @dannyboy121070

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Posted by: @brianjamesfreeman

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Posted by: @benstaad

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I've been churning the the White Noise Press antho. I've read through about half the book and they are all solid stories. The Chizmar story is the only one I thought was dull so far. 

Is that the collection of all of the chapbooks?

Brian

 

 Yeah, Keith published a collection of all of the chapbooks. I have all of them, but I grabbed the collection, since I remember nothing about any of the stories, except for thinking they were all either great or really good.

 

I absolutely loved those chapbooks. It ended up being a terrific set.

Brian

@brianjamesfreeman Yep. Like Danny stated, it is a collection of all the chaps from Keith. I think there is a little extra from some of the authors at the end of the book.

The White Noise chapbooks were not only well-written and beautifully illustrated and designed, the price was an absolute steal!  

2 more stories down in UNEARTHED. The Cavan Scott story, the literary equivalent of a found-footage film, was really enjoyable. The other, by V. Castro, wasn't as good, but was definitely better than most of the others in this anthology.

Posted by: @dannyboy121070

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Posted by: @rmquist

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Posted by: @dannyboy121070

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 I read two good stories yesterday, by Tim Lebbon and Christopher Golden

I read Christopher Golden's recent release CARRY ME TO MY GRAVE not too long ago and thought it was excellent 

 Something about Golden's writing just doesn't click with me. I usually find his stories very bland. Maybe I should give him another try.

 

I think Golden is better at shorter fiction.  I remember his collection The Secret Backs of Things, as being pretty good, though it’s probably been 15 or 20 years since I’ve read it.

The three or four of his novels that I’ve read over the years didn’t do anything for me.

B

Taking a break from The Weird Tales anthology to start Whalefall by Daniel Kraus.

Saw a trailer the other night, and the movie looks intriguing, though the premise still seems ridiculous.

B

So... I finished Black House this evening. The first person narrative "voice" that bothered me in the beginning few chapters became less annoying the deeper into the book I got... I think in part because I got used to it, and also that it wasn't used as much as the story unfolded (it was still there, but only in relatively short passages). 

Posted by: @rmquist

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One thing that has surprised me is that, unlike with The Talisman, I'm finding that I do not remember a whole lot of the story from my earlier reads. For whatever reason, The Talisman has stuck with me over all the years and while I didn't always recall specifics the scenes & characters were all very familiar to me on my most recent re-read. With Black House (at least so far) it's almost like reading it for the first time...  

I don't know how this could be possible, but now that I've finished it, I realized that it wasn't that I'd forgotten the specifics of the story ... the entire book was new to me. I can only conclude that I must never have read it before. Color me flabbergasted! I would have sworn that I'd read it at least once, if not two or more times before.

In any event, I think I'm ready for Other Worlds Than These when it gets released in a couple of weeks.