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California Literary Review

Horror

Book Review: The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry

by Katherine Tomlinson

March 10th, 2010

The Extinction Clock is counting down. Time is short—10,800 minutes (just seven days)—and if the clock zeroes out, billions will die.
Ex-cop Joe Ledger and the DMS (Department of Military Science) are assigned the mission to stop the clock and the men behind it, a pair of freakishly brilliant monsters who intend to commit genocide on an apocalyptic scale.

A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

by Katherine Tomlinson

February 15th, 2010

Novelist Lee Harwell is having breakfast at his favorite Chicago diner when a hostile homeless guy shouting a single word—obstreperous—interrupts his meal. He’s unsettled by the encounter and finally realizes why. The homeless man reminds him of his childhood friend Hootie who has been confined to a mental hospital since the sixties and communicates only in single words and literary quotations.

William Bibbiani interviews writer/producer/director Mick Garris!

by William Bibbiani

February 9th, 2010

Today, as you may have noticed, is a day of many, many interviews. In addition to interviewing the lovely and insightful Julia Rhodes, I also had the opportunity to interview Mick Garris, a horror filmmaker best known for the “Masters of Horror” television series, and of course the landmark Stephen King TV mini-series The Stand. We discussed his new show “Post Mortem,” his work with Stephen King, and his early work on such films as The Fly 2 and, most importantly, Critters 2: The Main Course.

Under the Dome by Stephen King

by Katherine Tomlinson

November 10th, 2009

Still, despite the ending, this is King’s best work in years, a richly textured novel of people under pressure that will move readers and provoke them and make them want to tell their friends. Forget Blaze and Duma Key, the King is back. Long live the King.

The Child Thief by Brom

by Katherine Tomlinson

October 26th, 2009

There are moments of genuine mystery and magic, scenes where we are bedazzled and terrified simultaneously. The walk through the mist, crunching on the bones of those who strayed from the path has a Tolkienian resonance. The bloody battles that Peter leads in the real world echo those in the enchanted world. And the myth of the Horned One, who is Peter’s father, overshadows everything. For Peter is an immortal wild child who may look mostly human but who is decidedly something … other.

Odd Hours by Dean Koontz

by Elinor Teele

June 24th, 2008

Ogres are like onions, the great philosopher Shrek once said. Onions have layers, ogres have layers. And, one might add in an irrational syllogism, ogres and onions are a lot like Odd Hours by Dean Koontz.

Mike Carey: Novelist and Comic Writer

by Alex Dueben

October 16th, 2007

“People too content with their lot make lousy protagonists. (laughs) There has to be a source of drama, a source of conflict. You can start with a character that’s out of tune with his time or his life or some aspect of his life. And then if it’s a Hollywood movie with a Hollywood happy ending it’s the story of redemption, the story of how you get from that discontent position to your own perfect space. The first Back to the Future movie is kind of archetypal in that respect. You start by showing all the things that are crappy about the kid’s life and then he comes back to this sort of paradise at the end. My characters don’t tend to find paradise, but they do sometimes find themselves.”

Family Values

by Jem Bloomfeld

June 13th, 2007

Their glossy and frequently rather smug “postmodernism”, which refuses to acknowledge any authority other than previous horror movies, masks a fear that such authority is all too real, and is probably furious with them.

Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Book One, Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz and Kevin J. Anderson

by Robert C. Cheeks

May 27th, 2007

He has taken it upon himself to examine society’s present milieu under the lens of traditional western mores and in so doing has presented the public with works that are perfectly entertaining and, more importantly, prescient.

The Works of Russel Kirk

by Robert C. Cheeks

April 24th, 2007

Throughout his career Dr. Kirk, the only American to earn a degree of doctor of letters from St. Andrews University in Scotland, published over thirty books and countless articles, essays, and reviews.

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