in:  Book and Comic Reviews,Books/Art/Culture,News   |   June 5, 2013 - 10:39 am   |  by:  Sean Hogan

Joseph D’Lacey’s “ROADKILL” (Book Review)

Following on the heels of their previous chapbook release (Conrad Williams’ unsettling THE FOX – see our review HERE), This Is Horror return with Joseph D’Lacey’s ROADKILL, an existential tale of automotive dark fantasy. The story contains little in the way of actual horror, demonstrating that the publisher refuses to be limited by any generic boundaries one might infer from their name; an admirable undertaking, although one that pays mixed dividends in this latest publication.

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in:  Books/Art/Culture,Features/Interviews,News   |   April 26, 2013 - 11:14 am   |  by:  Sean Hogan

Q+A: Stephen Volk on Cushing tribute novella “WHITSTABLE”

Perhaps best known for his screenwriting work (GOTHIC, GHOSTWATCH, THE AWAKENING) Stephen Volk has also become increasingly prominent as a writer of short genre fiction. His new novella WHITSTABLE tells a fictionalised tale of horror legend Peter Cushing encountering a real-life monster; not in a Transylvanian castle, but in a humdrum English seaside town. An empathic, deeply melancholic work, WHITSTABLE sensitively handles not only its account of everyday, domestic horrors, but also the character of Cushing himself: a decent, dignified man racked with grief over the death of his beloved wife Helen. Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay the book is that it manages to capture the essence of what has made Peter Cushing so beloved amongst successive generations of genre fans, and in the centenary of his birth, he could receive no finer tribute.

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in:  Books/Art/Culture,Features/Interviews,News   |   April 17, 2013 - 2:08 pm   |  by:  Sean Hogan

Q&A: Writer Pat Mills on 25+ years of superhero hunting with “MARSHAL LAW”

Originally launched in 1987, MARSHAL LAW was a gob of spit in the face of superhero comics; a gleefully violent satire of the genre. The titular character was a superhero hunter, a war veteran living in a dystopian future city, tasked with hunting down the array of superpowered criminals and psychopaths created and then discarded by the US Government. In the words of the Marshal: “I hunt heroes. Haven’t found any yet.”

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in:  Book and Comic Reviews,Books/Art/Culture,News   |   March 16, 2013 - 11:31 am   |  by:  Sean Hogan

“THE FOX” (Book Review)

For those who subscribe to the notion that horror fiction thrives on brevity, the recent proliferation of small presses offering shorter tales of the uncanny for the equivalent price of a newsstand magazine is a welcome development. UK publishers such as Nightjar and Spectral have dedicated themselves to the chapbook form, and their success in finding and commissioning quality material can be measured in the number of these stories that have subsequently gone on to be included within the array of ‘Year’s Best’ genre anthologies.

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