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Ellen Datlow's 2002 Reviews
Hunted Past Reason by Richard Matheson (Tor) is a fastpaced
thriller in the traditional men's adventure/survival vein, in which two
longtime friends go backpacking and discover that they have less in
common than they thought. Matheson knows how to grab and hold his
audience for the long haul.
The Snowman's Children by Glen Hirshberg (Carroll & Graf) is a dark, haunting first novel by an author who is already an expert teller of ghost stories. It's partly a coming-of-age story and partly about the fragility of childhood friendships. The book shifts between the 1994 homecoming of the protagonist, and his boyhood in mid-1970s Detroit during a winter of fear generated by a serial childkiller dubbed the "Snowman." Although marketed as mainstream, there is a shadow of impending doom over the characters that should attract and satisfy many readers of horror. Coraline by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins) with illustrations by Dave McKean is a deliciously creepy confection for children of all ages. Coraline's boredom prompts her to explore her family's new flat discovering a secret doorway that leads her to excitement and danger. A quick, enjoyable read. The Scream by Joan Aiken (Macmillan's Children's Books,U.K.) is an extraordinarily unsettling tale of a witchy, very focused little girl and her brother, who has been crippled in the car crash that killed their parents. The children live in the city with their grandmother, a strange old woman who had been the "Ridder" (exterminator of pests) for her community on a remote Scottish island. Trauma by Graham Masterton (Signet, first published in 2001 as Bonnie Winter in the Cemetery Dance Publications novella series) is an excellent short novel about a harried wife and mother with two jobs: selling cosmetics and running a company that cleans up crime scenes. She is faced with the horrific, grisly, and inexplicable gruesome murders of families by one of their members, while her own family life is deteriorating, her jobless husband and their teenage son taking more and more after his dad. White Bizango by Stephen Gallagher (PS Publishing, U.K.) is a dark, fast-moving novella about a New Orleans police detective's search for a creepy con man who uses his apparent voodoo powers to intimidate and bilk unsuspecting victims. Gallagher has a good feel for New Orleans and keeps up the suspense. Joe R. Lansdale provides an introduction. Available in hardcover and paperback editions, all numbered and signed by the author. White Apples by Jonathan Carroll (Tor) is imaginative, charming, fierce, scary, and strange. An admitted philanderer discovers that he has been brought back from the dead by his lover. As in all of Carroll's fiction the reader will be taken by surprise as events unfold in their surreal manner. (notice-I am Carroll's editor at Tor). The Scar by China Mieville (Del Rey) is a darkly intelligent and ambitious novel set in the same world as Perdido Street Station. It tells the story of a political fugitive who has found passage on a huge ship to a colony that needs her linguistic talents. But pirates take her, the other passengers, and crew to a giant floating city created by the bits of pieces of pirated vessels where she becomes caught up in the secret intrigues of the strange rulers of the floating city: The Lovers. The world brims with fascinating races, including vampires, cactus people, mosquito people. A brilliant mixture of sf/f/h. Kisscut by Karen Slaughter (William Morrow) is set off when a teenage quarrel at the local skating rink in a small southern town explodes into unexplained violence, and the police chief is forced to shoot one of the teenagers. He and the pediatrician/medical examiner gradually uncover ugly secrets, with repercussions throughout the community. Some shocking bits and good twists. The Straw Men by Michael Marshall (Jove) is Michael Marshall Smith's pseudonymous first suspense novel and it's a doozy. Three mysterious strands of events come together into a complex and evil global conspiracy to create a new fascist society: a massacre in a small town in Pennsylvania, the return home of man whose parents have died in an auto accident, and the seemingly random snatchings of teenagers in broad daylight. Acid Row by Minette Walters (Putnam) Despite a slow start during which the reader is introduced to a depressing cast of characters who live or work in the seething, crime-ridden housing project called Bassindale Estate, known by residents as Acid Row, the story very quickly becomes a riveting thriller that hits all the right buttons. Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk ((Doubleday) is funny, biting, and dark. Who could expect less from the author of Fight Club? By horrible accident, a journalist discovers that a rhyme in a children's book is a culling song, killing anyone who hears it. He ends up on a road trip across the U.S. with some very odd companions desperately trying to destroy all copies before it gets out into the world. Quietus by Vivian Schilling (Hannover House) is a compelling novel about a woman who survives an airplane crash against all odds and comes to believe that she and those of her companions who also survived should have died and that something is stalking them. There are some amazing passages about adjusting to one's impending death and some very creepy bits. But the novel as it is now is overlong and contains at least one major plot hole. Word is that there will be some major revisions before the novel is released by Penguin in 2003.. |