“Death Masks” is the fifth in the Dresden Files, a series of books written by Jim Butcher that follow the character Harry Dresden, a wizard living in modern-day Chicago. The books follow a fantastical world that exists alongside the normal world, with magic, a wizard council, vampires, werewolves, demons and all the usual magical creatures.…
This is the first Stephen King novel I have read. (I have seen the movie adaptation of this, which I enjoyed very much.) I have to say, I was wondering initially why it is considered a scary book, even though I was enjoying it. I was waiting for the scares, and they just weren’t happening…
“Come Along with me” includes Shirley Jackson’s final story as well as sixteen other short stories and three lectures. The stories range from humour to the gothic horror for which Jackson is best known. I will touch on a selection of stories. “Come Along with Me” was Shirley Jackson’s last story, and unfinished. This is…
A story told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, with events seen through the veil of an apparently dissociated mind, makes for an interesting narrative, where we wonder how much we can trust what the narrator is telling us. Turns out, we can trust her more than we imagined, as long as…
This is the second in a series of five books, but can be read without having read the first novel. It involves a young boy who is the seventh son of a seventh son, and on his eleventh birthday discovers he has magical powers, being the last of the Old Ones, servants of the Light…
“The Father Christmas Letters” is a collection of letters and accompanying pictures written by JRR Tolkien for his children. Of course it is traditional in many countries for children to write letters to Father Christmas, but Tolkien’s children were lucky enough to receive letters back. (What a great dad Tolkien must have been, with so…
“The House of Usher” (1960) is one of Roger Corman’s series of films based on Edgar Allen Poe stories. Starring Vincent Price, it centres around the family of Usher, a brother and sister living in a rundown old house over a ‘tarn’ or mountain lake. A visitor comes to the house, who in the film…
Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” is considered a classic of horror fiction. I will admit immediately that I didn’t find it particularly scary. The 1963 film adaptation, which kept fairly close to the book, may be partially responsible for that, in that I knew what was going to happen and how it would…
By the author of “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” and “Piranesi”, these eight short stories are a combination of stories set in the world of “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” as well as some fairy tales that readers will find familiar, though reworked in the author’s own style. It’s a highly entertaining group of stories…
“Piranesi” is a novel about a House, with no end, and no exit. The main character, referred to as Piranesi (though this is not his name) lives in the House, and is alone except for one other living person and thirteen dead ones. The story is told through a series of journal entries he makes.…
Eclectic Assemblage 