‘Legends’ Warm Enough to Melt Any Heart

Nothing about Legends & Lattes is going to change the world, but it’s comforting and uplifting. It made me smile. Apparently, it makes a lot of people smile, and that’s plenty valuable all by itself. Then again, maybe it can change the world, just a little.

‘My Murder’ A Critique of Lurid Interest

True crime may be alluring, but Williams doesn’t mince words when it comes to who makes the most alluring victim, even in the future. The victims are all fair, fairly young, and fairly attractive, and everyone is fully aware of how narrow a demographic the victims here represent.

‘Crane Husband’ a Critical Look at Love, Art

The Crane Husband is a meditation on responsibility and art and what love actually means, and so beautifully written that even with material like this you may still feel that you could fly away when you reach the end.

‘Salt’ a ‘Heavy’ Horror Novella with Unexpected Lightness

If you can get through those scenes, there’s something tender waiting at the end. Khaw could have sent us into a tailspin of blood of gore, and it wouldn’t feel out of place. Instead, we get a far more gentle adieu to this kingdom of blood and ash.

‘Rose House’ Chilling in its Plausibility

This is not a horror novel, but its premise manages to be spine-tingling for the picture it paints—not bleak, exactly, but pragmatic to the point of irrationality, yet difficult to argue with.

‘The Facemaker’ Revives a Forgotten History

Reading The Facemaker also feels like an act of witnessing something that shouldn’t have ever been forgotten. We did this to ourselves, from the standpoint of humanity, and over a hundred years later, we haven’t stopped.