Ryan Sean O'Reilly's Blog

Densely wrapped satire cleverly tucked in around a holiday plot loaf of good cheer, and baked with a robust premise which is both refreshingly poignant and wildly genius—it’s an important Hogswatch on the Disc this season—mind the bells—Glingleglingleglingle!!!

Do you believe in the Hogfather?! It’s rather important. Belief is the foundation of this carefully woven satire with an in-world holiday that closely resembles a common tradition on our own world. Pratchett pulls out all the stops in...

A future-perfect scientific adventure through the solar system which bears all the hazards of an early and epic exploration toward evolutionary destiny.

Clarke’s prophetic knowledge of science and resourceful research coupled with his straightforward sentence style and short chapters make swallowing this far future/present-day hard science tale a joy to undertake. This is a journey primarily concerned with a man versus nature narrative that is kept to in a profound way. The descriptions and suppositi...

A place of nuanced genius where psychological suspense meets the supernatural highlighting the lulls of reality in which we deceive ourselves while we all slowly tilt toward an inevitable yet unpredictable whizz-bang ending!

The story told by Jackson gives a loose account of the protagonist’s experiences at an alleged haunted house. The premise feels droll and full of artifice and the author paces the narrative in even fashion as we literally drive with the main character, Eleanor, to the sto...

Magical prose that flows in lyrical quality and somber notes in deft creation of a profound myth that is familiar and yet completely unique. Hope and regret and joy and sadness–a complete and wondrous tale!

The Last Unicorn is a quest story. With all the dire implications that its title bears the protagonist is indeed the last unicorn left in the world. She lives in joyful ignorance of this fact until cruel riddles from the sibyl whisperings of a magical creature hint at her true plight. She...

A post-apocalyptic cold war style tale early in this author’s career that contains entertaining edges and hints, emblematic of future efforts in plot ideation and explorations into uncertainties for which this author is known.

The world in which this story lies is bleak and barren, seemingly hopeless. Machines have been given a new genesis of artificial intelligence. Enter the minor “claw” universe of Philip K. Dick where Soviet forces decimated the planet in a preemptive nuclear strike and t...

A romanticized class struggle colored by religious and occult mythology, with implacable villains full of old world venom and heroes in glorious melodrama – all set in the vast mechanized metropolis, a city dug as deep in the ground as it towers in the skies.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

This story has it all: star-crossed lovers, a tyrannical despot, a jilted mad scientist, a Frankenstein-esque robot, proletariat upheaval, noble-peasant wardrobe exchanges, chase scenes, and a natural disaster cause...

Imagine getting punched in the gut by some rogue lunatic underworld gladiator who promptly collapses into your kitchen chair and chomps down on a bowl of cheerios with his oversized mitts as you crouch on the floor stunned and drooling blood…there’s a knock on the door and you pick up your corpse of a body to stare through the peephole at a knife-wielding leather-clad dame grimacing while rare classic cars skid onto the scene followed by screaming cop sirens tolling in debauchery and corrupti...

An epistolary narrative unraveled with increasing tension as terror reigns abomination with insect horror.

Our protagonist is concerned. She’s worried for her scientist husband who is conducting important research in the southern hemisphere. Her words reveal more than just the feelings of affection she has for him. She also makes mention of strange doings happening back home and around the world. Terrible things concerning strangers and family alike. The world, it would seem, has lost its mar...

An interplanetary philosophical oceanic alien acid trip—to funk your mind with.

Psychological depths are plumbed in this novel from a deeply philosophical conviction. The result is a fresh narrative that neither disintegrates into a rote thriller nor loses itself in esoteric meanderings. The concept explored seems simple at first: alien contact. Humans have at long last discovered an organic living life form on another planet. However, after years of theories and failed experiments mankind ha...

Even though I know there’s going to be a twist, I still wonder how the author is going to flip things at the end.

Beaumont was one of the main writers contributing stories to Rod Serling’s scifi/horror anthology television series “The Twilight Zone.” In this select collection there are a number of short stories that were originally published in various magazines and then later adapted for the television series. There are also other non-twilight-zone stories, which reflect the author’s other i...