Tag: monster fiction

Reptile: A Novel by Jeremy Eads

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Reptile: A Novel by Jeremy Eads

Reptile is a novel in the classic “monster” genre of horror fiction, the kind of novel that appeals to readers and fans of werewolves, vampires — or perhaps, more specifically — characters like Frankenstein. Like the latter, Reptile offers the reader and interior glimpse into the dark side, the monster’s perspective.

I have read Eads before (The Lodge) and he does not disappoint in Reptile. The writing is well and thoughtfully crafted, producing tangible, human, and horribly flawed characters, the sort of people you recognize, for better or worse. There is a perverse kind of thrill in watching these characters succumb to the terror, and watching the terror itself come into being and unravel.

This review is necessarily short; I don’t want to give away what happens to Mark as he transforms into this monstrous predator. That said, the appeal of the novel is less about “what happens” than about becoming invested in the people it happens to. Eads’ characters are sure to elicit various reactions from readers, whether it is nausea at their depravity or cheer at the demise (there were a few characters I enjoyed despising).

Silver Nitrate: A Novel by Silvia Moreno Garcia

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Silver Nitrate: A Novel by Silvia Moreno Garcia

Moreno-Garcia not only understood the assignment, she did the extra credit! Silver Nitrate delivered all that a modern gothic horror should: slow, building ripples of doubt and uncertainty (the kind that make your eyebrows knit and you second-guess yourself), a female lead whose existence is threatened, a feminist focus in which oppression of the social kind is the baseline terror, actual monsters and gory scenes.

Silver Nitrate as the title suggests, reads like a film noir played out in intimate, literary detail. It is a must-read for film fanatics and bookish folks, alike.

The story revolves around a young woman and her best-friend, a man she grew up with and who also ended up in the film industry, and the tension between them. Both become friends with an elderly man, a former director of Mexican horror and their connection with him develops into an interesting — but ultimately deadly — project. The result of their collaboration opens up histories best left buried and occult forces beyond their control. Madness and death ensues.

Like true gothic horror, the novel and the madness unravels slowly, and the focus of the novel is character-driven. The reader is given a first row view into the woman’s mind, her desires, her fears, her past and present, as she slides into a dark world that was hiding all along within the one we all know and live in. It is, as with most good novels, a story about us and what lurks within. Moreno-Garcia is a pithy mistress of the genre.