Genre Archives - Page 3 of 27 - The Gothic Library

Humorous Ghost Stories

Not every ghost story has to be terrifying! Indeed, horror and humor are surprisingly similar modes of writing—both depend on eliciting certain emotional reactions from the reader through carefully timed revelations and unexpected juxtapositions. Horror can all too easily give way into unintentional humor, as any connoisseur of schlocky B-movies can tell you. But that blurred line can also be courted intentionally. All throughout the Golden Age of the ghost story—from the mid-nineteenth century through the early twentieth—writers poked fun at the popular genre with silly and satirical takes on the ghost story. Here are just a few of my favorite examples of spectral tales more likely to make you split your sides with laughter than scream in fright:

Photo of a sheet ghost holding a yellow smiley face balloon in front of an elaborate clock-face window — Photo by Tandem X Visuals on Unsplash

Continue reading Humorous Ghost Stories

Review of A House with Good Bones—Bugs, Blooms, and Boogeymen

Old houses always have buried secrets. An archeological entomologist is perhaps extra qualified to dig those up—and she’ll need to if she wants to get to the bottom of her mom’s strange behavior in A House with Good Bones, a delightful Southern Gothic by T. Kingfisher which came out back in March. In a fun coincidence, the audiobook for this one is narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, author of the book I reviewed last week, The Spare Man. Continue reading Review of A House with Good Bones—Bugs, Blooms, and Boogeymen

Review of The Spare Man—Murder Mystery in Space

Don’t you hate it when someone gets murdered on your honeymoon? To make matters worse, Tesla’s brand new husband gets accused of the crime in The Spare Man, a brilliant sci-fi mystery thriller from Mary Robinette Kowal, which came out last year. Continue reading Review of The Spare Man—Murder Mystery in Space

Review of A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe

Do we really need a new biography of Edgar Allan Poe, a man who has been continually talked about since his death nearly two centuries ago? It turns out—yes we do! There’s still plenty more to say about the father of modern horror. (And mystery. And true crime.) For one thing, we still don’t know exactly what caused Poe’s inexplicable death and the preceding three days of delirium in the city of Baltimore in 1849. For another, Poe’s image has loomed so large in pop culture that even what we can know about him has been largely obscured by stereotype, slander, and exaggeration. Mark Dawidziak sets out to shed some light on Poe’s shadowed life in his new biography, A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe, which came out back in February. Continue reading Review of A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe

Review of Camp Damascus—Horrors Real and Imagined

Summer camp is one of the last places you want to find yourself if you’re living inside a horror novel. But the scariest thing about Camp Damascus? Rose can’t even remember attending it. Internet-famous erotica author Chuck Tingle deftly pivots to serious horror in his first traditionally published novel Camp Damascus, out tomorrow, July 18. Continue reading Review of Camp Damascus—Horrors Real and Imagined

Review of Nettle & Bone—Fairy-Tale Fantasy

Marrying a prince seems like the ending of a fairy tale, but for Marra’s sister’s it is only the beginning of a nightmare. So, Marra sets out on her own fairy tale quest to find whatever magic or powerful allies can kill a prince in T. Kingfisher’s Nettle & Bone, which came out last year. Having thoroughly enjoyed Kingfisher’s Poe-inspired horror tale What Moves the Dead, I was excited to see what this author would bring to more straightforward fantasy. Kingfisher certainly has a gift for creating fantasy worlds that seem comfortingly familiar and yet also strange and unique. Continue reading Review of Nettle & Bone—Fairy-Tale Fantasy

Review of Starve Acre—Slow-burn Folk Horror

“There’s not an inch of soil that’s still alive.” Nothing grows on the land where the town hanging tree once stood in Andrew Michael Hurley’s folk horror novel Starve Acre. Originally published in the UK in 2019, Starve Acre is being newly released in the U.S. tomorrow, July 4. Continue reading Review of Starve Acre—Slow-burn Folk Horror

Classics: Mistress of Mellyn

Mistress of Mellyn first edition cover — *Mistress of Mellyn* first edition

I talk a lot on this blog about the initial Gothic heyday at the turn of the nineteenth century, which sprung up after the publication of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and brought us such authors as Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, and William Beckford. But these days when you mention the Gothic to someone not overly familiar with the genre, they may picture a more recent heyday: the boom of Gothic romance and suspense novels in the mid-twentieth century, many of them mass-produced by a handful of genre-focused publishers. These books are perhaps best remembered today for their evocatively illustrated covers that employed common visual tropes such as a fleeing woman in a diaphanous dress or nightgown, a looming manor castle in the background, and a single illuminated window peering out like an eye. The book most often credited with kicking off this boom is Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt. Continue reading Classics: Mistress of Mellyn

Review of Night’s Edge—A Vampire Pandemic

You’re not sick of pandemic books yet, are you? Liz Kerin uses the premise of a vampire pandemic—and the restrictions and lockdowns that come with it—to explore complicated family relationships in her sophomore horror novel Night’s Edge. The book, which follows a young woman who has devoted her life to being caretaker to her infected mother, comes out tomorrow, June 20. Continue reading Review of Night’s Edge—A Vampire Pandemic

Review of The Scourge Between Stars

“Don’t open the door.” This warning comes just a little bit too late for Jacklyn and her crew in The Scourge Between Stars, a stunning debut sci-fi thriller by Ness Brown that came out in April. This tense game of cat-and-mouse between a starship crew and unseen alien intruders lurking within the vessel’s walls is perfect for fans of the Alien film franchise who have been waiting for something new and fresh in that vein. Continue reading Review of The Scourge Between Stars

Category: Genre

Humorous Ghost Stories

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Review of A House with Good Bones—Bugs, Blooms, and Boogeymen

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Review of The Spare Man—Murder Mystery in Space

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Review of A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe

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Review of Camp Damascus—Horrors Real and Imagined

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Review of Nettle & Bone—Fairy-Tale Fantasy

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Review of Starve Acre—Slow-burn Folk Horror

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Classics: Mistress of Mellyn

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Review of Night’s Edge—A Vampire Pandemic

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Review of The Scourge Between Stars

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