Fantasy Book Critic: 2020 Review/2021 Preview

I want to start my “best of” list with a friendly acquaintance of mine, horror author Stephen Graham Jones, author of one of my favorite werewolf yarns, MONGRELS. He’s got two places on my 2020 list. First of all, there’s THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS, a chilling revenge story with one of the most original and unusual antagonists in modern horror literature. To say more would be to rob you of an excellent reveal, but I’m here to testify that this is top-shelf horror, long on ambiance, beautifully structured, with three-D characters you give a damn about. As a bonus, it’s also a meaningful look inside America’s grossly underrepresented indigenous culture. Likewise, THE ATTACK OF THE FIFTY FOOT INDIAN, a short story redolent of 1950’s black and white monster horror, but with a delightfully jarring shift in perspective.

Paul Tremblay’s SURVIVOR SONG was another standout. Having read Chuck Wendig’s excellent WANDERERS last year, I was excited by early rumors of yet another plague novel in 2020, this time by modern horror’s grandmaster of pacing and perhaps the writer most deft at weaving social media and smartphone culture into his narratives, Paul Tremblay. Little did I know SURVIVOR SONG would pair so well with the headlines. That I still very much enjoyed Tremblay’s real-time micro-odyssey through a New England visited by a rage plague is a testament to the author’s readability – Tremblay’s style is nothing if not charismatic, a handsome blend of erudition and approachability.

One book that came out of nowhere and knocked me back on my heels was A LUSH AND SEETHING HELL by John Hornor Jacobs. Actually two novellas in one novel-length collection, HELL presents us first with THE SEA DREAMS IT IS THE SKY, the story of a woman’s journey into a Chile-like South American country and the cosmic horror behind its dictatorship. In MY HEART STRUCK SORROW, music historians discover the supernatural origins of a 1930’s deep-south murder ballad that brought death and ruin to those who encountered it. Both of these exquisite stories are immersive, bewitching, and, in places, terrifying.

Rounding out my New Horror recommendations for 2020 are atmosphere-rich Titanic reimagining THE DEEP by the new queen of historical horror, Alma Katsu; THE NESTING, a tidy, evocative ghost story by CJ Cooke; and one of the finest prose-makers in the genre, Canadian Andrew Pyper, with THE RESIDENCE, a what-if story placing an actual devil in the White House. Yeah, I know. But think 1850’s.

Although I wanted to focus my lens on the excellent new horror I found this year, allow me a parting detour into fantasy. I started the year with Joe Abercrombie’s A LITTLE HATRED, which begins his AGE OF MADNESS series, a follow up to the gold standard of grimdark, the FIRST LAW series. While HATRED was beyond worthy, and a hell of a good read, it was eclipsed for me by THE TROUBLE WITH PEACE–come for the aftermath of accidental incest between siblings unknown to each other, stay for the nightmarish, Saving-Private-Ryan-esque battle sequences. Seriously, that pike battle.

(refills bourbon glass with trembling hand)

Happy reading!

Festive Holidays!

And I wish us all a 2021 where escape into a good book is recreation, not urgent self-care.

On the horizon for Christopher

in 2021, Christopher will publish his fantasy debut, The Blacktongue Thief - the first in a three-book fantasy series. The Blacktongue Thief is the story of an indebted thief, a veteran knight, a witch-in-training, and a blind rescue cat who must journey together through a world still scarred from a brutal, decades-long war with goblins.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christopher Buehlman is the winner of the 2007 Bridport Prize for Poetry and the author of several plays and five novels: The Suicide Motor Club, The Lesser Dead (named the American Library Association’s Best Horror Novel of the Year), The Necromancer’s House, Between Two Fires, and Those Across the River (a World Fantasy Award nominee for best novel). He spends half the year in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the rest on the road.