Tag: reviews

August 26, 2012

Deep Space Dexter

Review of “Long Leap” by Derek Kunsken. In On Spec Vol. 24, No. 1, Spring 2012. By Derek Newman-Stille Derek Kunsken takes on a huge challenge by portraying a character who is utterly without emotions, a sociopathic (though not officially a sociopath) character who is distanced from the human and who murders. He portrays the ultimate monster – the one...

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August 21, 2012

What is Barbarism?

A review of: Regan Wolfrom’s The Hill Where Thorvald Slew Ten Skraelings (OnSpec #88, Vol. 24, No. 1, Spring 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille Regan Wolfrom’s The Hill Where Thorvald Slew Ten Skraelings recreates a Norse worlds where Seidr, magic, meets Viking might and ideas of strength. Wolfrom challenges ideas of masculinity in this short story, using a group of people,...

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August 13, 2012

Performing the Monster

A Review of Ian Rogers’ Temporary Monsters (Burning Effigy Press, Toronto: 2009) By Derek Newman-Stille Peterborough author Ian Rogers’ Temporary Monsters is a novella about illusion and performance, the insubstantiality of life and the performativity of everyday existence.  Rogers sets his story of monstrosity amongst a performative group of people, actors and actresses, who need to be ‘on’ while on-screen...

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August 2, 2012

Dark, Cold Memory Lost in Sun-happy Brilliance

A review of John Park’s Nightward in Tesseracts 14: Strange Canadian Stories. By Derek Newman-Stille In Nightward, John Park creates a world that has stopped spinning. The sun beats heavily on one half of the world, leaving the other half in darkness and a twilight in between. People in this world seek the sunlight, standing on towers at the dusky...

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July 28, 2012

Zombie Ethics 101: The Zombie Diet

A review of The Ethical Treatment of Meat by Claude Lalumiere (in Objects of Worship, Chizine, Toronto, 2009) By Derek Newman-Stille For those that have read my work before, you will know that I have a love of the monstrous and, particularly, the ability of the monstrous to question ideas of normalcy. Lalumiere’s short story The Ethical Treatment of Meat leaves...

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July 23, 2012

McCloud’s School for Supernatural Youngsters

A Review of Kelley Armstrong’s The Gathering (Doubleday Canada, 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille The Gathering, the first book of Kelley Armstrong’s Young Adult/Teen Fiction Darkness Rising trilogy is set in the same world as her Otherworld series. The supernatural is real, but hidden in this world, kept secret by the members of the supernatural races that inhabit it. In The...

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July 22, 2012

Aging Gods Lost in Modernity and the Search For Thought and Memory

A review of “Thought and Memory” by Catherine Knutsson. In On Spec Vol. 24, No. 1, Spring 2012. By Derek Newman-Stille Catherine Knutsson’s Thought and Memory expands on a line from the Norse “Sayings of Grimnir” in which Odin discusses his two ravens Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory) and expresses his fear that the ravens may be lost. Knutsson...

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July 14, 2012

Amateur Theatre… in Space

Review of “A Little Space Music” by Edward Willett. In On Spec Vol. 24, No. 1, Spring 2012. By Derek Newman-Stille In “A Little Space Music”, Edward Willett demonstrates his creative wit and humour. He plays on an issue that is familiar to any of us who have done amateur theatre… the issue of making a cast out of actors...

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July 10, 2012

Blind Magic

A Review of Alison Sinclair’s Darkborn, book 1 of the Darkborn trilogy. (Roc, 2010). By Derek Newman-Stille In the first novel of her Darkborn trilogy, Sinclair introduces us to the Darkborn, a race that was cursed long ago to live in perpetual darkness. Even tiny exposure to light causes them to disintegrate. As a result, all Darkborn have become fully...

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July 5, 2012

Deliciously Dark and Depressing Discourse on the Divine

Review of: The Object of Worship, Claude Lalumiere (in Objects of Worship, Chizine, Toronto, 2009). By Derek Newman-Stille In The Object of Worship, Lalumiere demonstrates his extraordinary powers to question societal norms about sexuality and the nature of ideas of family. His ability to engage with the strange and macabre makes this a powerful story that leaves the reader with...

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