Grady Hendrix’s ‘Horrorstör’ is book thirty-nine of 2023.
I’ve read one book from Hendrix before, and I loved it—’My Best Friend’s Exorcism’. ‘Horrorstör’ is more of a novella than a novel, coming in at under 200 pages. The short length means that this book was perfect, as the previous book I read was a 700+ page mammoth.
‘Horrorstör’ follows Amy, a poor, down-on-her-luck employee of Orsk. Orsk is Ikea, but Hendrix has changed the name to avoid a lawsuit. It’s a massive store with many departments, each designed to look like a section of a house. We all know how Ikea works. Well, it turns out that things are going bump in the night, and Amy’s boss, Basil, is set on finding an explanation. It’s a haunted house story set in a furniture store—a pretty cool idea.
Overall, I liked ‘Horrorstör’, but I didn’t love it. The premise is better than the execution. It doesn’t mean it’s terrible. It’s fun; the pages breeze by. There are a few fun pokes at capitalism and corporate culture. It didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does the job fine. The shorter length is a plus because it’s a fun little fling.
I’d read more from Hendrix in the future, but I hope they are more like ‘My Best Friend’s Exorcism’.
Paul van Loon’s ‘Der Gruselbus’ is my next read of the year.
I started reading this in time for Halloween, in my quest to better my German skills. The German in this book was trickier than in R. L. Stine’s ‘Goosebumps/Gänsehaut’ books. But it wasn’t too difficult to the point of incomprehension.
The story follows a class of children and their teacher as they embark upon the titular bus. A driver in a skeleton costume and a strange man on this bus greet them. The stranger is a writer with ten strange objects and a short story to go along with them. Between each tale, the tale of the children on the bus—hearing these stories—progresses. It’s all quite meta, especially for a children’s book.
I had a blast with this book. It’s the most entertaining book I’ve read in German so far. Despite the intended audience, some tales are bleak and gruesome. They had me on the edge of my seat—quite a feat for a kid’s book. The fact that the book consists of several stories, each about ten pages or so, keeps the book feeling fresh. It helps when reading a book in a foreign language.
I would read other books from Paul van Loon in the future.
Stephen King’s “If It Bleeds” is my nineteenth read of the year.
“If It Bleeds” is a collection of four short stories—King’s most recent collection. And, to get right to the point, I loved it. Of course, with short story collections, there’s always the tendency for the stories to end up hit or miss. But there’s not a single miss in “If It Bleeds”; every piece fires on all cylinders. I’ve not read a short story collection this strong since King’s own “Full Dark, No Stars”.
“Mr Harrigan’s Phone” (now a movie?), “The Life of Chuck” and “Rat” are fantastic short stories. But the book hits its stride with the titular “If It Bleeds”. It’s clear why King chose this to be the collection’s namesake. The story follows Holly Gibney. Holly has starred in “Mr Mercedes”, “The Outsider”, “Finders Keepers”, and “End of Watch”. I have yet to read the last two novels, but I’ll get around to them soon. I aim to do so before Holly’s solo book “Holly” comes out in September.
Without spoiling too much, “If It Bleeds” follows similar lines to “Mr Mercedes” and “The Outsider”. Reading this before I read “Finders Keepers” and “End of Watch” worked fine. Although, it did spoil one thing about those two novels, with which I’m completely okay. It has King’s classic multithread approach, culminating in a thrilling finale. So I’ll summarise it with a single word: brilliant.
If you like King, you’ll like “If It Bleeds”.
And if, like me, you love the man, you’ll feel the same way I do about this short story collection.
Adam Nevill’s “Some Will Not Sleep” is book 14 of 2023.
Nevill’s is a name I’d heard of in horror circles. He penned “The Ritual”, which others have recommended to me. Alas, I have yet to read the book or see the movie. But, based on “Some Will Not Sleep”, I will give it a shot at some point.
“Some Will Not Sleep” is, as the subtitle suggests, a collection of “selected horrors” from Nevill. The stories—from various points in his career—cover many horror subgenres.
As with Clive Barker’s “Books of Blood Volume 1”, not every story is solid gold. But there are far more hits than misses in Nevill’s collection. And when the horror hits, boy, does it hit. Some tales within are absolute fire and disturbing in imagery, plot, and implication. I particularly enjoyed his unique twists on tried-and-true horror formulas.
Give “Some Will Not Sleep” a shot if you are on the fence about Nevill’s work. The man’s shorter fiction is easy to read and packs a punch.
I want to read more from Nevill, which is the best compliment I can give.
Wow! So, here we are! 100 followers! *Cue party blowers and confetti showers* I didn’t think I’d ever get to the point where 100 people would voluntarily subject themselves to my waffling posts and inane ramblings that I try to pass off as “writing”. But here we are! So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you — it really means a lot! Here’s to many more stories in the future! 🙂
I do apologise that my Bite-Sized Horror series has fallen by the wayside recently, but I’ve had neither the time nor the energy to keep it up at a consistent quality. Maybe when my life returns to something that resembles normality, it’ll make a return! In the meantime, I hope my short stories alone are enough fuel for thought (fuel for nightmare?).
Okay, so, that fanfare and apology is out of the way and done with — on to the next part. Writing is one of my main hobbies, alongside music (which I write, record and publish online) and art. It’s this latter point I’d like to draw your attention to. I like to make my own art (mostly digital paintings), and I’ve recently been adding images of my own creation to my short stories (check out the latest additions, for examples!). Well, it turns out that I’ve amassed quite a lot of art over the course of this hobby, and a few weeks ago I started sharing the pieces via Instagram, to positive response. I thought to myself, “Why not do the same on WordPress?”
I didn’t want to start uploading art onto this blog, as it’s solely for my short stories and horror pieces, and I didn’t want to get my threads crossed or to strike tonal inconsistencies — my stories are, for the most part, horror-themed, whereas my art is quite gentle, dreamy, and psychedelic. So, I’ve made a sister site on WordPress, dedicated entirely to my art. If you’re in any way interested, you can find it here: https://artinsoulstudio.wordpress.com/ — but at the moment, it’s in its fledgling stages!
An example of the sort of art I’ll be sharing! Artwork by Joshua G. J. Insole
Don’t worry, though — writing is (and shall remain) my main point of focus (even if I don’t have time to work on Bite-Sized Horror!). Art is quite a quick time-filler — I can bash out a painting in ten minutes or so; it doesn’t occupy that much time. I just thought it might be nice to also start sharing my other creative hobbies, as well!
Well, I guess that’s all I really wanted to say! So, thanks for the follows, likes, comments and shares over this past year — I look forward to many more years of blogging with you guys!
P.S. If you’re interested in my music, you can find it on YouTube or SoundCloud!
Well, hello there! How are you today? If you’re interested, I have just added a handful of short stories to the site; why not take a gander? Some of them are quite old, but together they tell the tale of my progression as a writer.
I am currently in the process of rewriting some older works that need a bit of polishing. Hopefully, these’ll be up under the Short Stories section in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
I’ll also be adding newer pieces in the future, once I’ve finished uploading the older short stories. At least, those that I deem upload-worthy.
joshuainsole.com 