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This post written by Clint The Last Wish
by Andrzej Sapkowski
[cover name=thelastwish]
Geralt de Rivia is a witcher, a monster hunter who uses magic, alchemy, his sword, and his brain to deal with dangerous creatures. He works as a mercenary, and he has a quirky sense of right and wrong. He has no problem killing three guys who attack him in a bar, for example, but he won’t immediately try to kill every supernatural menace he encounters. In this world, humans are often more evil than monsters, so maybe the person who hired Geralt is the villain and the creature Geralt has been hired to kill isn’t.
The Last Wish is a series of connected short stories. Geralt is recovering from his wounds in a temple, and the stories are flashbacks or stories he shares with people there.
This isn’t traditional heroic fantasy. As I said before, Geralt has a strange code of ethics, and sometimes he is tricked by a bad person into doing the wrong thing. The setting is kind of dark and gritty. The old, magical world is dying, and the new world is dominated by humans. People come to the wilderness, start new towns, and drive the monsters away. There is no one big bad out to conquer or destroy the world. Instead, we have evil humans and monsters facing extinction and trying to fight back.
There are some sexual situations in the story (including some in the first two pages), but most of it is only alluded to.
This is part of a larger series, which includes the TV series The Hexer (forget about the movie), several novels, some graphic novels, and a video game called The Witcher. The stories were all originally written in Polish; most, but not all, of the stories have been translated into English.
You can read some of the book online at the publisher’s website.
Where to Find It
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This post written by Clint Skeleton Man
by Joseph Bruchac
[cover name=skeletonman]
One day Molly’s parents vanish, but she has trouble accepting this. She lives alone for a while and tries to act like nothing has happened, but people from Social Services eventually catch on. They place her with her uncle, but Mollly has never heard of this uncle before. This uncle makes Molly very nervous, and sort of reminds her of a story her father told her.
Molly’s father grew up on a Mohawk reservation, and he made sure Molly was aware of her Mohawk heritage. One story he told her was the story of Skeleton Man, who was a lazy, greedy, and evil man who got hungry while he was waiting for his family to come home with food. First he ate his finger. Then he ate the rest of his flesh until he was just a skeleton. When his family came home, he went after them, too.
Molly is in trouble. Her creepy uncle locks her in her room every night, and she is terrified of him. Then she starts having disturbing dreams that seem to be warning her about him. Molly has to do something to save herself and find her parents.
You can read some of it online at the publisher’s website.
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Where to Find It
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This post written by Clint Algernon Blackwood has been called the master of the English ghost story. He is often listed in the horror section, although he didn’t write what you probably consider horror. Blackwood’s stories are about the supernatural – ghosts, magic, and other strange creatures. Sometimes bad things happen, but some times they don’t. His stories aren’t terrifying in the blood and gore and monsters everywhere sense, but they are usually eerie or strange. He was a master of atmosphere and buildup,
Blackwood wrote a lot of short stories, and his themes ranged from reincarnation to romance to encounters with strange, unexplained creatures. However, almost every one of his stories has some weird element to it.
He also created John Silence, one of the earliest supernatural investigators.
Algernon Blackwood isn’t that famous among people who read modern horror, but he had a strong influence on H. P. Lovecraft and probably many modern horror writers, too.
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Where to Find His Books
You can read a lot of his books and stories online at the Penn State Online Books page.
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This post written by Clint The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray
by Chris Wooding
[cover name=thehauntingofalaizabelcray]
Alaizabel Cray isn’t exactly haunted. Ghosts don’t follow her around and cause trouble. She’s more possessed. Sometimes. Plus, monsters are drawn to her.
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray is set in London during the Victorian period, although they never say what year. The Victorian period feels right because houses and streets are still lit by gas lamps and horse-pulled carriages are still the main form of transportation. However, history doesn’t exactly match up. In this world, the United Kingdom lost a war with the Prussians and, not too long after that, monsters called wytch-kin started taking over part of London.
Two of our main characters, Thaniel and Cathaline, are professional wytch-hunters who run around London at night and do their best to kill wytch-kin. While hunting a Cradlejack, a wytch-kin that abducts babies, Thaniel stumbles across a dirty, crazy woman who doesn’t seem to mind hanging out near the Cradlejack. Feeling sorry for her, Thaniel takes her home and, much to his surprise, nurses her back to sanity. Not too long after that, Thaniel and Cathaline discover that they are all in the middle of a supernatural plot that threatens to destroy the entire world.
One thing I have always wanted to see in a book is a villain who says something like, “Yeah, I’m evil, but I don’t want to destroy the world. I live there!” We get one of those in this story. However, despite the fact that he sounded like he was off to save the world, I found his actual role kind of disappointing.
Some people put this book under horror. I don’t think that’s quite right. It’s more along the lines of supernatural investigation. It has monsters and a serial killer, and there a couple of slightly gruesome scenes, but nothing that bad.
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Where to Find It
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This post written by Clarissa Shrine of the Morning Mist
by Hiroki Ugawa
[cover name=shrineofthemorningmist]
This often comedic series, about schoolgirls who serve as shrine maidens and fight evil monsters, gently spoofs other series such as “Sailor Moon.” Several sisters and their school friends use divine magic to protect their shrine, their town, and a distant cousin who has the ability to see the other world. In the meantime, of course, their school gets smashed up by giant monsters and wacky hijinks ensue.
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Where to Find It
You’re going to have to check a bookstore for this one. Sorry about that.
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This post written by Clarissa Mushishi
by Yuki Urushibara
[cover name=mushishi]
This is a sometimes strange, beautiful, episodic story about “mushi,” supernatural creatures who are usually considered by humans to be ghosts or monsters, and a “mushishi,” a human who can see and interact with them. It’s the basis for the beautiful, watercolor-tinged Mushishi anime series and a recent live-action film. The mushishi, Ginko, has striking white hair and green eyes due to an incident with mushi when he was a child. He travels from town to town studying the mushi and helping people who have been bothered or “cursed” by them, so he’s somewhere between a scientist and an exorcist. It takes place sometime in the past (Ginko wears a shirt and pants, but everything else indicates the time period is somewhere from 1600-1900), but since the tone of the whole series is a bit dreamy, the particulars don’t really matter. Most of the stories stand alone and aren’t strongly connected to the other stories.
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Where to Find It
[linkplus title=Mushishi url=”http://csul.iii.com/search/X?SEARCH=t:(mushishi)&SORT=DX&l=eng”]
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