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Jul 30, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
The Jaguar Mask, by Michael J. DeLucaDeLuca’s surreal fantasy novel is set in Guatemala, in a society marked by political corruption, police brutality, and environmental destruction, but also by resistance and demonstrations. In the midst of all this walks Felipe, a young man who is really a jaguar and who can change his appearance, and the way most of the world sees him, by donning different masks.
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Jul 23, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
I feel that monsters are here in our world to help us understand it. They are an essential part of a fable.”~ Guillermo del ToroMonsters have been part of human storytelling from the very beginning.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
The Gilded Crown, by Marianne GordonA book that opens with the line “The first time Hellevir visited Death, she was ten years old” should obviously be featured at Psychopomp, and after reading an excerpt of The Gilded Crown, I am definitely putting it on my to-read list. Hellevir has been able to raise the dead since she was a little girl, but the mysterious figure who rules the afterlife claims a part of her for every resurrection.
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Jun 25, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
The Pandominion duology, written by British author M.R. Carey (who is probably best known for The Girl with All the Gifts), consists of Infinity Gate (published in 2023) and Echo of Worlds (published in June 2024). It’s a science fiction epic that includes three (and a few more) things I really, really like:1) A complex multiverse where travel between universes is possible. 2) An (initially) unidentified and seemingly omniscient narrator whose true identity is only revealed later in the story.
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Jun 6, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
Ray Bradbury wrote 600 (give or take) short stories in his long career. Not all of those stories are memorable but many of them are, and while his legacy (like the legacy of a lot of “Golden Age” spec-fic writers) is a mixed bag, he is often described as one of the writers that brought science fiction into the so-called literary mainstream. Some of Bradbury’s short fiction could be called quirky, melancholic, and beautifully poetic.
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May 28, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
“Death is neither the beginning nor the end for the children of Bridlington in this debut trans YA horror book for fans of Rory Power and Danielle Vega.” With a tagline like that, this book sounds like it was made to order for us here at Psychopomp. When one of the kids in the small town of Bridlington dies at the community’s abandoned old mill, his friend Paz Espino knows it was no accident.
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May 22, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
The horror genre is full of haunted houses, but beyond the creaking, sighing, bleeding walls of those buildings, there are also haunted towns. These are places where something uncanny, something twisted, something possibly evil (and sometimes hungry) lurks beneath the everyday. I’m thinking about places like Village of the Damned, Silent Hill, Twin Peaks, Stephen King’s Castle Rock, Gatlin from Children of the Corn, and that unnamed European village from Resident Evil Village, just to name a few.
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Apr 30, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
Over the last few years, I’ve read Aguda’s beautifully dark and unsettling short fiction in publications like Nightmare, Omenana, and TOR.com and I’ve always been impressed with the way she tilts and twists her stories to find unexpected edges and shadows in both people and settings. Ghostroots brings together a treasure trove of her stories. Aguda’s tales are set in Lagos, Nigeria, and beneath the surface of everyday life, reality seems to twist and shift with both purpose and menace.
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Apr 12, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
“Although exploration of Norrath is encouraged, you need to keep in mind that it can be quite deadly.”– from Everquest’s Official Player’s GuideOn March 16, 1999, a Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO for short) called EverQuest was released into the world. Like thousands of people around the globe, I logged into the fantasy world of Norrath on that day and did not leave for several years.
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Apr 3, 2024 | 
psychopomp.com | Maria Haskins
There is something about the supernatural crime/mystery genre that appeals to me on a profound level. It’s like mixing two of my favorite ingredients (chocolate and raspberries, say) and ending up with something even more sublime in the process. Sam Kyung Yoo’s Small Gods of Calamity is a prime example of a story where this blend of genres works to perfection.
