Monthly Archives: October 2026

books, Horror, Reviews

Something Is Killing the Children: Hope Is a Knife by James Tynion IV, Kiersten White

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Stars: 3 out of 5

I read the Something is Killing the Children comic books, and I was fascinated by the violent and gory world James Tynion IV created. It’s brutal and unforgiving, and our main character, Erica Slaughter, has to be just as brutal and unflinching. The comic books are truly the story of a monster hunting other monsters.

I was intrigued to see how a full-length novel would tackle this world and the character of Erica herself. And the answer is… eh, it’s fine, I guess.

Don’t get me wrong, all the ingredients of a good Something is Killing the Children are there – a small town down on its luck, with the typical small-town mentality and cliquishness. Everyone has skeletons in their closet. And yes, something is killing the children. And Erica is there to discover what it is, which child is causing it, and stop it once and for all.

The problem is that all of this has a lot less impact than the comics did. Yes, the ingredients are there, but the story itself feels half-baked. Like maybe the proportions were wrong, so the result looks like it should, but doesn’t quite taste right.

A lot of the plot points are a bit on the nose – the only rational and “good” family in town are people of color, and they are ostracized for it. The zealot priest with an almost cult-like following who turns out to be a sh!t human being in the end. His most devoted follower suddenly comes to Jesus and sees the error of her ways (not to mention how much of a scumbag the guy is) after worshiping the ground he walked on for most of the book. I mean, she literally turned from believing everything he said and deferring to him to actively opposing him in less than a chapter. As I said, a little bit too on the nose.

My biggest disappointment, though, is how Erica is portrayed in this book. In the comic books, she can be impulsive and brash, and she tends to run headfirst into danger, but she isn’t stupid. She has a pretty good head on her shoulders and good observation and deduction skills.

Here, she jumps to conclusions immediately after getting into town and seems to dismiss anything that would go against her initial theory. She literally can’t see the stuff that is staring her in the face. Seriously, I guessed who was summoning the monster almost from the first chapter she was introduced in, so why did the experienced monster hunter not pick up on all the clues faster?

Erica simply didn’t feel like the character from the comics. She felt more like a mimic wearing Erica Slaughter’s skin – she looked the part, but you couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease the more you read about her.

All in all, it was an okay story, but I would highly recommend starting with the comic books if you are unfamiliar with this universe.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for my free copy.

books, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

The Shadow Saint (The Black Iron Legacy 2) by Garth Hanrahan

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Stars: 4.5 out of 5

Wars come and go, but the city of Guerdon persists. Many times conquered, it still stands, even when those conquerors have long turned to dust. This is a city that constantly evolves and reinvents itself. And those who seek to conquer or destroy it end up being assimilated whether they want it or not.

This book picks up a few months after the end of the previous book and the Gutter Miracle, when Cali and Spar hijacked the spell destined to free the Black Iron gods and created the New City. One might argue that this was more of a curse than a blessing, since Guerdon is in disarray now, and the alchemists’ guild is all but destroyed, just as the Gods war is coming closer and closer to its shores.

While the previous book was a book of the poor and the forgotten, the little people eking out a living in the shadows of the mighty city, this book is about politics… and spies. Nobody, apart from Cali, Eladora, and Spar, understands what happened in Guerdon, and how the Gutter Miracle came to be. So all other countries sent their spies to find out. Oh, and to also find out what came of the dreaded bombs that destroyed a Goddess so thoroughly that her valley is virtually dead now.

The pace of this book is slower, since there is a lot of politicking and cloak-and-dagger intrigue, but that didn’t make it less interesting. It shows us a different facet of this multidimensional world. We also learn a lot more about the God War and the horrors the mad gods bring to the world and even their own followers.

And of course, we get to spend a bit more time with some of the characters from the first book, and discover what they are up to now. We get to meet new protagonists as well, and they were just as endearing. I will definitely continue with this series.

books, Horror, Reviews

Dive Bar at the End of the Road by Kelley Armstrong

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Stars: 3.5 out of 5

October is the best time for spooky horror, and there is nothing spookier than getting stranded in the middle of nowhere on a rainy night, with your car disabled and no phone service. Yet that’s exactly the situation Ellie, Henry, and a few other strangers find themselves in. At first, finding an open dive bar with a strangely friendly bartender and a silent, solitary guest feels like a blessing, or at least a reprieve from the elements, but nothing is as it seems. There are monsters lurking in the trees, and isn’t that bartender a little bit too friendly?

Even though the book features POVs from several different characters, I might argue that Ellie is the main protagonist in this story, and her POV is the only one written in the first person, while everyone else is third person. We also learn a lot more about her past than we do about the other characters. Well, we learn a bit more about Henry, but almost nothing about the old man who gets killed by a rabid dog. In fact, I’m still a bit puzzled about his inclusion in this story. It almost seems like his ordeal was written for pure shock value for Ellie and Henry, which does him a big disservice.

I would say that the lack of attention given to the characters other than Ellie and, to a lesser degree Henry, made me dock a star off my rating. As I already mentioned, the old man is barely a footnote in the story. The young couple is a bit more fleshed out, while the gay stockbroker is a walking caricature of a narcissist. Just from seeing the lack of depth to their characterizations, I could predict who would survive to the end of the book and who wouldn’t, which killed part of the suspense for me.

All in all, I liked the premise behind the story and the reason why all these characters ended up in that car pile-up on a rainy road, and subsequently in the dive bar. It’s one messed-up situation, which made me hate the bartender even more. Just the idea that the woods outside of the bar would show you your biggest fear is… well, terrifying. And I will not go into any more details because I don’t want to spoil the book.

I had fun reading this story, and I rooted for the characters to survive and break out of this vicious little pocket universe. I will definitely recommend this as a spooky read for a spooky season. Oh, and think twice before taking an unfamiliar road at night.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for my review copy.

books, Fantasy, Grim Dark, Reviews

The Daughters’ War (Blacktongue 0) by Christopher Buehlman

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Stars: 4 out of 5.

This was a very dark introduction to the Blacktongue series, but I liked it all the same.

This book is a definition of grimdark fantasy. It’s brutal and, at times, hopeless. The world is harsh and unforgiving, and mankind, or kynd, battles a foe that can’t be reasoned with or bargained with. A foe for whom we are just food. Kynd is cattle to be hunted down and either butchered for meat or drugged with poisons until they are no better than cattle, unable to think for themselves.

The battles are brutal and graphic. You can really feel just how overwhelming the goblin horde is, how foreign and lethal their magic is, and how little kynd can do to oppose it now that all the horses are dead. Even the formidable corvids are an experimental species that are just as likely to turn against their handlers as to kill goblins.

The descriptions are vivid and often poignant. Take the description of the city, for example. We really get to walk its streets with Galva and her brother and see its beauty… only to watch it be defiled by goblins as kynd armies are caught by surprise and overrun.

I really liked Galva, our main protagonist. She is brash and prone to quick judgment sometimes, and she still has a lot to learn, but she her heart is in the right place. She loves all of her brothers, even the one who always falls short. So his betrayal is a blow both to her and the reader, and her revenge afterwards feels justified.

All of the characters in this book are interesting, even if not all of them are endearing. I wept for the corvid knights as they made their last stand on that bridge against overwhelming odds. I was heartbroken when I learned the fate of Galva’s youngest brother. This war destroyed her family and took everyone she cared about away from her in the end.

All in all, this was a very strong introduction to this world and this series, and I can’t wait to read the next book.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for my review copy.

books, Military science fiction, Reviews, science fiction

Crying Wolf by Doug Joseph

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DNF at 75%

I tried to finish this book, I really did, but I can’t force myself. I don’t understand where the 5-star reviews came from, but I would guess it’s from people who have no clue about how the military in general and the Navy (be it Earth Navy or space Navy) function.

I am a military spouse. I lived the life, I know the rules, and I know how these men and women talk and behave. And let me tell you, this ain’t it. The characters in this book behave more like they are the crew of a civilian cruise ship than a Space Navy battleship on a special mission. I mean who lets an Ensign address the Captain of the ship by first name? What is the deal with first names on a naval ship? Since when is that a thing? I can tell you that I never knew anybody’s first names in the service. It was either rank and last name or call sign.

Also, all the conversations in this book are way too casual. All of the characters read as civilians on a cruise ship instead of elite military.

Plus, most of the characters are just plain dumb. Why did it take this long to look at the drone footage they took at the stranded ship? The captain should have ordered a review of all of them immediately after the ship imploded. He also should have interrogated Temkin immediately and asked all the hard questions. Instead, he pussyfoots around his “feelings”. Dude, that ship imploded, and before it did, there were signs of a shootout. And your only survivor tells you a story that’s too strange to believe. He should be in the brig. A message should have been sent to High Command immediately with all details and a request for assistance.

Most of the characters fail to arrive at obvious conclusions because otherwise the plot wouldn’t happen. I mean, why does it take them weeks to even think about checking their mainframe for a cyber attack? Your ship has been throwing suspicious errors left and right, a med robot went murderous, yet nobody went on high alert until the Martian frigates collided.

The author also tends to overexplain everything ad-noseum. First the Captain says something to one character, then he explains almost the same thing to another, then they say they will do something… before they go ahead and do it. The action drags, the dialogue between characters is painful to read, and the story is propelled forward only because nobody can think logically in this future, it seems.

I will not be recommending this book.