I loved the movie already which I still consider one of the best SF/horror movies out there, so I was really curious to dive into the Southern Reach series especially after hearing the story diverged heavily from the movie. And indeed while the latter borrowed some parts from the book it felt like a separate expedition into Area X so everything felt fresh and full of suspens, and I was on the edge of my page for most of it.

It was really an amazing plus over the movie to be in the main character’s head and see them change through the book from the inside as well. The prose is really dry and methodic while containing lots of beautiful descriptions, overall it does an amazing job at putting you in her head and shoes. I loved also how the “final” scene managed to be transcribed equally beautifully by text than in the crazy visuals of the movie. On that note I thought in terms of showcasing the wildness of the zone’s wilds the book was tamer than the movie, revealing less and playing more on the characters and the psychological horror than the actual “creations” of the zone. So I’m really eager to dig into the rest of the series, especially knowing it’s still ongoing. Now I just need to find them in library 😛

People compare this series to Jurassic Park a lot which immediately made me curious. But I wasn’t prepared oh no , not only is this book a FUCKING BLAST but it really reads like a great movie (and would make one too): in the way it describes scenes, in the characters and the way the action moves. But this script-like nature really works and makes for a tight pace that slowly and methodically unravels the horrors of Henders Island, while also having a lot of comedy and suspense, and I liked that it gets really nerdy with the science too even if it’s probably movie-deep there too compared to hard-SF.

And indeed it does feel like a great Jurassic Park very often and I mean this as a compliment as huge dino nerd and JP fan! But I loved discovering the cast of insane arthropod creatures conjured by the author and all the various fucked up things they’re capable of, and holy fuck does this book get extra gnarly at times but it makes the horror really visceral (literally sometimes), I already don’t fuck with ants but the story’s disk-ants send extra shivers down my spine. I really admired Nell for her absolute resolve and lack of fear in the face of so much of this shit but I also her absolute nerdiness in describing this untouched ecosystem and how it all works, and that part really delivers, it’s a very fun and well thought out world to plunge in (before something plunges in you).

Because the author would love to make it a movie he has spent a lot of time gathering/making visuals for the books so it’s also really been extremely fun to see come alive some of the best moments, and to compare with my own take on them 😛 But I do really hope the movie project goes somewhere because this deserves a big screen for sure. Give this shit half the budget of Avatar ffs. There is a sequel to the book that I’m really eager to dig in as well even if I’m sure it’ll be filled to the brim with many more disgusting shit to crawl all over my nightmares 🐜

It’s not often that I read contemporary books but this one gripped me before even opening it, from the title and cover alone. What I expected was a modern political horror story and on that front it more than delivered; I loved the elegant simplicity of the full story but the clever way it’s slowly untangled, it reminded me in that way of Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House which was another clever modern spin on the original Shirley Jackson book which serves as self-admitted inspiration for this one.

But beyond that I wasn’t ready for what it would mean to read a first-person horror story narrated from a viewdpoint not unlike my own. While me and the book’s Alice don’t share the same views or the same lives, it often felt like she was in my head. Embedded deep, both when recounting stories of her life which echoed mine but also in all the trauma and fears that society inflicted on her. In that way, her haunting was as much mine as it was hers, and so it felt extremely difficult sometimes to go through the hardest of scenes, because it’s a violent and graphic book that spares no word in trying to haunt you too. As such not only were Alice’s words hard at times, but even more so Ila’s, because she’s of course not just a transphobic character, she’s a transphobic character written by a trans woman. She’s her own self doubts and fears projected back into page, all the ones that society embeds into you. And so again I sometimes found my enemy’s word to be echoing the dark thoughts in my head.

Above all I loved the premise and main metaphor of the book, describing fascism as a haunting of society. One born out of the cumulated trauma, hate and deaths that was inflicted and still permeates our modern world. One that can come back, haunt people, push them to act. One that you can’t just destroy but need to exorcise out the collective mind. I do think the metaphor is perhaps spelled out a bit too much, I think the parallels between the story’s real and theoretical haunting could have been highlighted more subtly. But I also agree with what she says about the time of subtly being over, because time and time again satire falls flat in the ears of the ones who would need it most. Fuck nazis you know! And her living the very real sinking of the UK into fascism I understand wanting to just put out in the open the raw black cruelty of it.

I still think about this book and will maybe take her next one although I believe it’s also in the same vein so I need a pause first to really digest this one and the things it also made me question about myself and my self-esteem. I think it’s maybe a book that affected me more as a trans woman like the author so of course it might not work on everybody the same but I really recommend it.

I bought this anthology to discover more horror authors from South America since it’s my understanding there’s a whole scene of it, just like french extremist horror is its own niche within horror films, and I wanted to get a sample of it. And I was NOT disappointed, this collection is short and to the point (of no return). It was exciting to discover parallel fears to my own, forged by centuries of history that I don’t have. And yet I could feel those stories, it truly felt like I was there in a lot of them. Some of the imagery in the book still stays with me, parts for how abstract and unknown the horror was like with the excellent Bone Animals or In The Mountains. Parts for how cruelly real it was like with That Summer in the Dark, Soroche or The House of Compassion (which resonated with me even more being transgender like the main character and author).

It was also very fun to go from one author’s style to another, which I wasn’t used to since I’ve never read “collections” like that from multiple authors. I’ve learned a bit about the Calico collection this came from and I really love the endeavour and how unique each entry seem to be so I’ll likely pick up more from it!

I picked this book up randomly based on the description and I devoured it in a few days. It reminded me of the best “near future speculative” Black Mirror episodes like Hated in the Nation, and I loved the multicharacter interweaving narration although I mixed up people a few times at first 😅 But the payoff of the storylines (mostly) converging was really fun.

And I really liked the various themes of the plot, as someone who always touts myself a revolutionary at heart it even touched on a few of my fears. Like how the decentralized nature of a good revolution is also its weakness, how you never know where the puppet strings end when helping one, how multiple aligned forces can sabotage each other by not knowing they’re working towards the same goal, etc. I’ll be interested to check the author’s other books as I believe they have this same mix of being 2/3 story and 1/3 questions/reflexions, mostly asked to the reader in a way which I liked.

I love when you start a classic and from the beginnings you instantly see why it is so. I picked up this book because back when Oumuamua said hello a lot of people mentioned it and so when I finally saw it at the book store I had to check it out, and my god I wasn’t disappointed. I read it so fast because the it has such a perfect pace, setup and delivery. It alternates perfectly moments of action, of wonder, of reflection, and all throughout making it feel so realistic and actual in its science aspects.

I got so engaged in the story that the book came and went very fast, as such it was weird for me to say goodbye to Rama so fast but the book plays on that as well through its characters. I was just disappointed to learn the rest of the books in the series don’t feel like this at all, being written by a friend of the author. And I mean I’m interested in the universe you’d setup but that doesnt mean you just make the fanfiction canon Arthur dammit!! YOU VET THAT SHIT. So now I will do like the Wikipedia article says and consider this book alone in its own little “true rama” series :(

I loved this little book, I grabbed it some time after finishing the first Wayfarer from the same author, so I knew from the get go her brand of slice of life sci-fi but I was starting to miss the positivity in my life 😅

This one was about four astronauts exploring four planets in a row for potential future spot for us. I thought it would go wilder but in the end I liked that the rollercoaster ride was replaced with scientific study of the actual planets.
It was really cool to feel part of the crew as you follow their explanations and experiments, as well as reflect on the kind of life and sacrifice they made by leaving Earth for so long with so many dangers just to help mankind “someday maybe”. So I found the book’s exploration of that really interesting and it reminded me a lot of Solaris which had a lot of these reflections around our place in relation to the greater forces and mystery of the universe.

I think it’s a short enough book that even the most detractor of Becky Chambers’s style would still be able to glide through it and appreciate but I’m sure I’m biased 😛 Anyway I recommend!!

What a WEIRD fucking book, and I picked it specifically because I wanted more of the author’s unique brand of “off”. I was expecting gothic horror but it was in fact a collection of “social (sometimes horror)” stories, each being very real life situations that take a spin for the odd. This is a book that hooked me on and off, and I almost dropped it even before being hooked again.

My issues are twofold tho: first of all the spin is sometimes hard to “get”, sometimes it does end up indeed being scary especially the more feminist stories that play on the fears one can have and such. But other times I just plain didn’t get it and had to look up explanations because they relied on having the experiences and fears of someone living a century ago.

But more importantly, all stories end right as they start, and it was a repeated almost intentional pattern that I didn’t manage to appreciate. From the very first story, that seems to end abruptly or be missing a page, the tone is announced. And sometimes that amplifies the scariness or commentary of the story… but sometimes it felt like a waste of time. Like watching only the beginnings of five movies in a row.

I still liked it for how it was a window into a different time which is something I really looked forward and that got really satisfied by how “real” the stories were. It was fascinating to read stories play on fears and anxieties that were, for lack of better words, the consequence of how shitty the times were, especially stories commenting how racist and sexist they could be.

Took me some time to finish it because this is a very slice of life book in the end, but once I got into it I really felt the hopepunk vibe I was sold on. I got to really know the characters and it was super fun and positive to “hang” with them through the book.

I’m eager to continue but first I want to let it settle and explore a bit people’s fanart because what I saw is awesome already!!

I loved how unapologetically weird and dark the main character was while at the same time expressing it mostly as a form of love for her family. I loved her relation with her sister and the characters, including the castle which is its own.
It’s a book that is dark while being full of light and cheer, I kept expecting it to go in a different direction which is always cool for an older work.

My version came with a cool afterword by someone else which highlighted the importance of food throughout the book and that’s something really interesting I hadn’t caught on, especially as she describes how it relates to Shirley Jackson’s own issues with food.

I saw there was a movie I’ll need to check it out I guess!

A succession of short horror stories weaved into a meta story about a girl starting work at an institute storing and studying haunted objects. The premise is super cool although the book is rather short so it never goes past using it as a decor and mean to move the stories forward and into one another.

But each story was really fun and cool, short enough that they never overstay their welcome and weird enough that you never know what to expect. Some fall short a bit though but that’s collections for you maybe. It also has a lot of humor and since the author is Korean there’s a lot of cultural tidbits and folkore and so on so it’s also very interesting from that point of view.

Overall a fun and short ride, a bit like a haunted house. The context of the institute reminded me of The Bureau in Control a bit so that was really fun too.

A fascinating story that really stretches your imagination as it carries you on an observation voyage above the beautiful planet Solaris. I loved how hard-SF the story was, with multiple explanations of the history, study and philosophy around the whole “science” of the planet.

I also really liked how the main character seemed unphased by the situation, despite the story being permeated in surreal psychological horror. He keeps trying new experiments in the face of his conception of reality breaking at the seams, and rarely seems at a loss in the face of the unknown. At times it feels like the book is at its core a scientific study of particular cosmic horror.

The movie took some liberties and I regret missing all that “scientific” part but I liked that they doubled down on the psychological horror, making it feel even more like some of my darlings like Silent Hill 2.

A really cool exploration of first-hand accounts of both injustice and grassroots initiatives to combat them, it was quite an interesting followup to the last one as it gave concrete examples of a lot of the points raised. Not really a depressing read despite the title as the accounts of hope and selfless organization create a really cool balance

An extremely interesting dissection of the inputs/outputs/mechanics of our social system

Bien que l'ayant lu depuis un certain temps, Gerald's Game fut l'un des livres de Stephen King qui m'est le plus revenu en tête quand à mon tour j'ai voulu écrire. Sorte de huis-clos tant mental que physique, ce livre raconte l'histoire d'une femme – Jessie – qui se retrouve attachée à un lit au milieu de nulle part. Les thèmes abordés outre l'évidente solitude sont la perte progressive de tout...