#Daryl Gregory

[lottiesoka]

Revelator by Daryl Gregory

[ohwhatagloomyshow]

not a full endorsement yet cause I’m only about 25% through, but other cousins might like Daryl Gregory’s novel Revelator. Main character named Stella! Lovecraftian creatures in the hollers! at the very least I’m really digging it so far.

would also recommend Christina Henry’s The Ghost Tree, which is also about a cursed town. (I also recommend Christina Henry more broadly, her novel Alice is incredible.)

And because I’m tagging those authors/books - if you’re browsing the tags for these authors/books, 100% check out the visual novel point & click game Scarlet Hollow by Black Tabby Games on Steam! It’s phenomenal.

[rhetoricandlogic]

REVELATOR by Daryl Gregory

RELEASE DATE: Aug. 31, 2021

A bootlegger tries to kill her family's god in this gripping horror novel.

As a teenager during the Great Depression, Stella Wallace couldn’t wait to escape the Smoky Mountain valley where she was raised by her grandmother, Motty. Her fantasy of escaping is understandable—she comes from a family that worships their own god, a ghostly apparition called Ghostdaddy who lives in a mountain. Stella meets the god for the first time when she’s 9 and is struck with a sense of “wonder so deep it was almost adoration”—but the charm of the god wears off as she realizes it’s more sinister than she first thought. Fifteen years later, Stella, now a brash bootlegger working in nearby Alcoa, Tennessee, gets word that Motty has died, and her thoughts immediately turn to Sunny, her 10-year-old cousin. Stella’s scared that Sunny will be adopted by Motty’s scheming brother, Hendrick, and that he’ll try to get the young girl to commune with the god the way that Stella once did, all in service of his Church of the God in the Mountain. Stella wants to rescue Sunny and kill the sinister god, but Hendrick will stop at nothing to gain control of the girl. Gregory’s novel is packed to the gills with action and suspense, and he has an enviable skill for characterization—the reader feels a connection with Stella, a complex woman who “had learned to do a passable impersonation of a normal person,” and even, at times, with the irascible Motty. The Smoky Mountains of Tennessee become a character as well, and Gregory writes about them beautifully. This is an excellent work of horror, perfectly structured and dark as a Tennessee night.

Smart, original, and scary as hell.

[pithia]

Something like an idea rose up in the back of his mind, gathered weight, and then crashed upon the beach of his consciousness: complete, beautiful, loud.

from "Even the Crumbs Were Delicious" by Daryl Gregory (The Starlit Wood)

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Seven Covers in Seven Days: THE ALBUM OF DR. MOREAU by Daryl Gregory.

tagged by @asexualbookbird

Every day post the cover of a book you love and tag someone to do the same!

tagging: @tinynavajoreads

[ninawolv3rina]

Stella Wallace, love of my life, my whiskey wife in my heart.

[chainsawcorazon]

trying not to cry about this story about a single mom and her daughters raising a zombie baby, but failing fast

[leahisevil]

[lottiesoka]

I stan one (1) eldritch magic wielding moonshiner

[athinasaurus]

Need to be Daddy!Daddy!Daddy!-ing on it so badly

[rhetoricandlogic]

Gary K. Wolfe and Adrienne Martini Review The Album of Dr. Moreau by Daryl Gregory

July 15, 2021Adrienne Martini, Gary K. Wolfe

Already in the public domain for years, H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau has practi­cally spawned a microgenre all its own, with Brian Aldiss, Gwyneth Jones (as Ann Halam), Gene Wolfe, Theodora Goss, the Simpsons, and even Marlon Brando having a whack at the story or its characters and themes. I’m pretty sure, though, that Daryl Gregory is the first to come up with the notion that those human/beast hybrids would make a dandy boy band. It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise; Gregory has been fasci­nated with the plasticity of the body and altered humans throughout his career: the grotesquely transformed residents of a small town in The Devil’s Alphabet, a zombie somehow raised from infancy in Raising Stony Mayhall, the victims of mutilations, cannibals, and cults in We Are All Completely Fine. The idea of mashing up the closest thing Wells wrote to a pure horror story with KPop-style media stardom might sound fatally whimsical, except for two things: the compassion with which Gregory customar­ily treats his most damaged characters, and his decision to cast the whole tale as a locked-room murder mystery with all its formal conventions, even to the point of quoting T.S. Eliot’s “five rules of detective fiction” (which, for the most part, Gregory cheerfully ignores).

Calling themselves the WyldBoyZ, the band members are all genetic human-animal hybrids, victims of a heinous Moreau-like program on a mysterious barge, which we eventually learn about as their backstory unfolds. Rescued by an Ecuadoran fishing boat after they escape, they become an international tabloid sensation, and then a musical sensation once they come under the management of a sleazy promoter who calls himself Dr. M – who has been ripping them off royally, mostly by taking advantage of their legal status (technically, they entered the country as livestock). As they gain fame, they inevitably adopt the de rigueur roles of boy band members – the romantic one (part bonobo), the shy one (part pangolin), the funny one (a giant bat), the smart one (part elephant), and the cute one (part ocelot). The mystery opens when Bobby O – the cute one – wakes up in his hotel room covered in blood, the butchered corpse of their manager in bed next to him. He has no memory of what happened after a wild party the night before, but he’s not the only suspect: another band member has been sleeping with the manager’s opportu­nistic wife. The detective assigned to the case, Lucia Delgado, also happens to be the mother of a nine-year-old WyldBoyZ superfan, setting up some tension as well as some rather sweet sitcom moments for later in the story.

As usual, Gregory writes with empathy and in­sight about the plight of damaged outsiders, as the unique problems and resentments of each of the band members emerge during the investigation. His neatest trick is keeping the grim backstory balanced with the sort of wacky good humor that teen superstars are expected to display, and with the formal demands of the locked-room proce­dural. The whole thing is structured as an album, with 14 tracks, an introduction, and a “bonus track,” and framed as a letter sent years later to the detective’s grown daughter, now a superstar herself. As with much of Gregory’s fiction, there’s a sentimental edge to the grotesquerie, and a grotesque edge to the comedy (which sometimes edges into James Morrow territory), but it all somehow works, thanks to Gregory’s essentially optimistic humanism and his apparent total lack of concern about recriminations from Wells’s vengeful ghost.

-Gary K. Wolfe

Daryl Gregory’s novella The Album of Dr. Moreau is a wink to the H.G. Wells novel but wholly its own detective story about a murder, an intrepid investigator, and genetic engineering. It’s about a million times more entertaining than both the Wells novel and the Val Kilmer-vehicle that was made from it.

It’s 2001 in Gregory’s Las Vegas. Last night, the WyldBoyZ, a boy band, played their last show. This morning, the band’s Svengali-esque Dr. M is discovered dead, shredded to death by someone or something with big claws. Band member Bobby woke up in the same bed as the dead doctor and, given that he’s part ocelot, happens to have very big claws. Detective Luce Delgado, who has her own very Vegas backstory, is called in to figure out whodunnit. The result is a straight-up detective tale with science fictional tropes about gene splic­ing underpinning the whole world. There are puns a’plenty and colorful characters to keep the tone brisk and engaging. Underneath, however, there are questions about what makes a human human, and that makes Gregory’s sleight-of-hand more meaningful than it first appears.

-Adrienne Martini

[jesuschristt-thatsaprettyface]

the best thing a character can be is pathetic.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

oh, no: the new book i started reading after midnight on a work night is Delightful

[bked0n-lorazepam]

My Requests are open!

Hi guys, I know it's been a while, but I'm back, and with new people who I'll be happy to write for you; here's my list!

The Walking Dead:

Rick Grimes, Carl Grimes, Daryl Dixon, Negan Smith, Glenn Rhee, Maggie Rhee, Enid Rhee, Michonne, Rosita, Simon, Abraham, Carol, Jesus "Paul", Shane, Sasha, Dwight, Beth

House MD:

Gregory House, Lisa Cuddy, James Wilson, Allison Cameron, Robert Chase, Eric Foreman, "Thirteen"

CreepyPasta:

Jeff The Killer, Toby Rogers, BEN Drowned, Eyeless Jack, Laughing Jack, Jane The Killer, Nina The Killer, Hoodie, Masky, Liu, Sally

Slashers/Creepos:

Billy Loomis, Stu Macher, Chucky/Charles Lee Ray, Brahms Heelshire, Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, BeetleJuice

Criminal Minds:

Aaron Hotchner, Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, Elle Greenaway, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Penelope Garcia, Tara Lewis, Cat Adams, George Foyet

White Collar:

Peter Burke, Elizabeth Burke, Neal Caffrey, Alex Hunter, Diana Berrigan, Lauren Cruz, Clinton Jones

Hannibal NBC:

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Alana Bloom, Beverly Katz, Freddie Lounds

Marvel Universe:

Loki Laufeyson, Mobius Mobius, Thor Odinson, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfied, and Tom Holland), MJ Watson, Sam Wilson, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton, Prince T'Challa, Princess Shuri, Okoye, Carol Danvers, Gamora, Peter Quill, Nebula

IT (2017 and 2019):

Patrick Hockstetter, Henry Bowers, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Bill Denbrough, Ben Hanscom, Mike Hanlon, Beverly Marsh, Stanley Uris, Pennywise

Stranger Things:

Eleven, Mike Wheeler, Steve Harrington, Joyce Byers, Jonathon Byers, Jim Hopper, Max Mayfield, Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley, Karen Wheeler, Dr. Brenner, Argyle, Billy Hargrove

Once Upon a Time:

Rumplestiltskin, Emma Swan, Prince Charming, Snow White, Regina Mills, Henry Mills, Killian Jones, Baelfire, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Belle, August/Pinocchio, Ruby/Red, Zelena

Good Omens:

Crowley, Aziraphale, Gabriel, Anathema Device, Newton "Newt" Pulsifer, Beelzebub, Muriel

Avatar:

Jake Sully, Neytiri, Kiri (No smut), Lo'ak (No smut), Neteyam (No smut)

The Boys:

Homelander, Billy Butcher, Becca Butcher, Frenchie, Hughie Campbell, Mothers Milk, Queen Maeve, Starlight, A-Train, Deep, Black Noir, Firecracker, Kimiko "The Female", Ashley Barret, Ryan Butcher (No smut), Victoria Neuman, Soldier Boy

And that's it so far! I'll add more as I go, I swear <3