Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

October

A time of chilly weather and bone-chilling thrills. Whether you're looking for nightmare fuel, or just getting into the holiday spirit with light chills and recognizable characters, this is the time of year to do it.

Join me around the campfire, and maybe, as a group, we can fight back the night (or let it in?).

This thread will be archived in early November, and is being treated as a closed-bound Book Club / Challenge hybrid, similar to the Hugo Awards and Goodreads Awards threads we've started doing.

As the second year doing this, we've already been planning for months in the Plan-a-palooza thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Continue to plan your reads in the planning thread. Solo spooky reads and reads with 1 partner will be done in this thread, just make sure to mention what book you're reading in each post, for anyone popping in or discussing different books at the same time. Any BR with 3+ people is getting it's own thread for dicussion purposes (as it's more likely to have more discussion)...

Threads will be for a single book if reading 1 book a month for multiple months... if you're reading a whole series/trilogy in a short time period, it can have a shared series/book club thread that will be Archived in November/December...

Stay Safe!

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Scheduled Spooktober BR Plans

10/01 Bury Your Gays -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/01 Horrorstör -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/01 A Night in the Lonesome October -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/01 Lone Women -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/01 Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/01 The Fisherman -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/01 How to Sell a Haunted House -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/01 Carter & Lovecraft + After the End of the World -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/01 Maplecroft + Chapelwood -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/01 The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/08 Strange Practice + Dreadful Company + Grave Importance +Bitter Waters -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/20 World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
10/27 The End of October -- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

There are plenty of BRs with threads on October 1st, already...

Horrorstör
Bury Your Gays
How to Sell a Haunted House
etc...

For personal plans/schedules, I still need to make some threads for these, in the next few days:

Carter & Lovecraft + After the End of the World = shared thread, October reads, Ann-Marie + Felina
Maplecroft + Chapelwood = shared thread, October reads, Ann-Marie + Felina
Strange Practice + Dreadful Company + Grave Importance +Bitter Waters -- single book threads, October to December, Ann-Marie + RachelG
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires -- More Grady Hendrix with Felina

Currently reading in this thread:

My Best Friend's Exorcism -- solo, or next year, unless I get 2 others to read with me...
Finna + Defekt -- recommendation for better IKEA Horror story, in the Horrorstor thread -- short duology, available on Audible Plus...

Might have too much Grady Hendrix on the personal docket...

So is it a thing that you & Nirkatze cannot first/second a BR? I am still unsure why you need a third.....

I will third Southern Book Club so that makes a third and I am pretty sure I can fit in Best Friend as well. I kind of wanted to read more Stephen Graham Jones but I think I may put those off a bit. Or maybe I will have a scary December lol

Also don't sleep on Ankle Snatcher, I think they are developing a film. I read it last year, super short and creepy as hell, it was my favorite of this group and all were free to listen with KU.

*pokes head up* Did someone say Stephen Graham Jones?

Ann-Marie wrote: "So is it a thing that you & Nirkatze cannot first/second a BR? I am still unsure why you need a third.....

I will third Southern Book Club so that makes a third and I am pretty sure I can fit in B..."

Early on, I mostly said that to cut down on commitments, as I'm constantly having to curb my tendency to want to read everything under the sun...

Here, I meant the 3 people more for interaction purposes, and meant it more for everyone... I can't remember if it was always that way, but I swear the plan was always to only make threads for BRs with 3+ people and 1-2 people can just talk in the Spooktober thread... could be wrong, tho...

There's also a bunch of BRs that devolve down to just me and Nirkatze... we really ARE enablers... Kushiel, Black Jewels, etc etc etc... tomey BRs, too...

Felina wrote: "*pokes head up* Did someone say Stephen Graham Jones?"

I would love to plan some more from him, not sure about Spooktober so if you are up for some horror outside the season I will definitely be in, he is a very good author.

Yeah, I think my spooktober is full but I’d love to fit him in for a spooky jaunt maybe in March. When it’s still to cold to do anything.

Would it maybe easier to put the links of the threads here for the books that are being BR'ed for Spooktober to find them more efficiently?

Saar The Book owl wrote: "Would it maybe easier to put the links of the threads here for the books that are being BR'ed for Spooktober to find them more efficiently?"

Sounds like a plan...

🧛‍♀️BR's for 3+ members: 🧛‍♀️

🧛‍♀️ Horrorstör:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
🧛‍♀️A Night in the Lonesome October:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
🧛‍♀️Bury Your Gays:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
🧛‍♀️Lone Women:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
🧛‍♀️World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
🧛‍♀️The End of October:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
🧛‍♀️Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
🧛‍♀️The Fisherman:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
🧛‍♀️How to Sell a Haunted House:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

If there are any that I forgot, give me a shout and I'll add them to the message.

I added most of that to the first comment earlier... just missed anything not scheduled for October 1st...

The Audible Daily is How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive, sounds good!

It seemed very in-line with the month... meant to mention...

All the BR threads I was waiting for Yanique to create were created yesterday, so everything in my first post has thread links now... if I'm missing anything, I'll need someone to tell me, as Saar said...

Right now, it's perfect, tho, with 13 entries ;)

I finished Meddling Kids and I liked it a lot! Definitely nostalgia for Scooby-Doo but besides that a decent mystery as well. Very fun read, can definitely see revisiting this again :)

We read Meddling Kids last year... and later This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us... Meddling Kids was the better story...

Hopefully he eventually finishes the time travel book he's working on... he showed an epigraph about Time Cops being ACAB too, etched into a wall in Pompeii, 77AD, sometime last year...

I think the first draft is finished, and it's in editing/selling phase... and called 8048?... best guess, anyway... he's posted a bit, including last June... 80% of his blog posts are in spanish, and about spanish content and awards, I think...

Yeah I forget why I didn't read it last year but better late than never :)

I live Meddling Kids. Glad you liked it Ann-Marie.

I'm alternating between the second Gobbelino book and Predator X. If anyone wants to read the last book with me, feel free!

For this one, shining moment, my average pagecount for the month is 666 pgs/day...

The chances of maintaining that at any other point are pretty slim, given the division changes by the day and I'm at the whims of the books I read/finish each day...

7321 pages in 11 days... 665.545454

Hahaha, are you sure you didn't plan this page count? Sorry, just joking ;)

i finished The Book of Accidents but never posted. This was just okay for me, my least favorite Wendig by far. I felt like it started strong then fell apart and was kind of all over the place at the end. It also wasn't anywhere near as scary as Black River Orchard was last year sadly. I am behind on the normal BRs now which is not surprising but I am lacking the motivation in this area. Oathbringer was a monster for me last week as much as I enjoyed it.

I very much do my own thing, as the mood strikes... even watching TV sometimes... even if it's hard to believe, as much reading as I do...

Any time I look at my spreadsheet, I see my respectable/stellar pages per day stat for the month, then I highlight all the books still to go, and find out how behind I am, when I compare to how many pages/day I'd need to read to be finished by the 30th/31st (depending on the month)...

I've finished Predator X:
This was a bit a dissapointement to read. I expected a bit more of the story. It could've worked great as a movie scenario, but as a book, it wasn't worked out enough. The storyline was interesting and you could visualize a lot what was happening. There was also a lot of tension building.
The title missed it's purpose: Predator X was first about the pliosaur in the lake. The expedition team named him Predator X, but the name could also fit easily the Colony that was inhabiting the cave. By the look at the cover you expect the story to be about the pliosaur, but it's role was small in it. The story was told from a first person narative, named Megan, but she lacked a bit of character. Megan's team were scientists, but there wasn't much science to see, only scientists that argued a lot and suffered from excessive emotions: rage and then suddenly fear and then changing again. Maybe it was the atmosphere that caused that, but that wasn't explained.
And then there were the spelling mistakes and there were a lot of them.
It could've been a great movie and with a bit of more, serious writing, a great book.

Started Bioshifter: Volume 1 last night... this was a BR scheduled because of Spooktober, but not affiliated with thread planning...

It's definitely nailing the author's signature body horror with alot of anxiety surrounding body turning monstrous... also very analogous to real world puberty, with MC being a high schooler...

There was talk, in the Horrorstor thread, of trying Finna & Defekt... nothing ever quite coalesced, tho, and Defekt is leaving Audible Plus next week, so I started...

The idea that a corporation has supplemental material, in the case of a wormhole opening in your store, just seems so depressingly accurate, lol... altho, you'd think they'd reserve entering for members of management...

My only complaint about Finna is how short it is... so many cool things are happening/touched on... bit like Alice Down the Rabbithole... (view spoiler)[Venus Flytrap Chair, Hivemind Planet, Pirate Grandma & battle with chasing Hive Queen...

Potentially fixing the relationship between Ava/Eva and Jules in a single work shift feels very 24, where one season Jack Bauer cures an undercover mission drug addiction in 24hrs... (hide spoiler)]

Near the end now... (view spoiler)[didn't see Jules staying in the multiverse coming...

But management's comments about 10 minute work break and maybe using PTO to leave early?... totally saw that coming :D

Corporate Dystopia... the true horror story.... (hide spoiler)]

And finished... loved it... it definitely wasn't focused on the horror aspects the same way as Horrorstor, but the horror of corporate humdrum lingered anyway :D

I really liked how it all ended, in the end...

Only thing missing is the airports, which are a popular source of multiverse/wormhole theory...

https://www.travelandleisure.com/airl...

Not 100% connected, but there's theories I've seen in books that all airport hallways are connected/multiversal... the idea seems to link kinda with that ability to go into a fugue state while driving for awhile, and just mindlessly follow road rules/pathways, and all airport corriders basically look the same... I think it came up in Any Minor World

I read Finna and I enjoyed it quite a lot, even the ending, so does the second have a satisfying ending?

Emily will have to chime in...

I just started, tho, and should know in an hour... at first I assumed we were in an alternate universe, when Jules showed up at the start of Defekt, then I realized a bit in (when the plot told me), that Derek is the same character that called in sick in Finna that caused Eva/Ava to have to work on her day off with Jules... so this is the same store/boss/etc...

The plot seems to take place a bit the day before Finna, and then mostly the day or 2 after Finna... looks like the plot involves (view spoiler)[some secret store plot to manufacture employees?... Derek seems to be lab grown or a robot or something... he has a special work manual, is called an Exceptional Employee, and lives in a container on the store property, furnished with displays and damaged / returned merchandise... and coughed up some weird thing from his throat?... (hide spoiler)]

Basically, I dunno what's going on yet, only 1hr into the plot... but I read the blurb, so I know SOME of what's to come...

Please advise so I know if reading the second will spoil the first for me, I started another Grady Hendrix in the meantime :)

Been laying down alot, since my knee hurts from stress/strain/sprain, and I'm trying to let it heal... leads to less reading and more TV watching / sleeping...

Finishing Defekt today... so far, seems like (view spoiler)[Corporate Toy Story... possibly defective Dereks from across the multiverse are assigned to a special overnight inventory team that hunts down and neutralizes defective merchandise from across the multiverse of stores, that wakes up and moves around and is possibly malicious when nobody is looking/paying attention... so far there's been an end table that likes baskets, and a ravenous toilet that can turn invisible... and a half dozen Dereks... Dirk, Delilah, Darkness, etc... at least with all these slightly different names I'm not gonna have to keep track of multiple characters just being called Derek... (hide spoiler)]

I finished Defekt and liked it alot… as other reviewers noted, this is a tighter story with less completely random things happening (since they’re not exploring the multiverse as much)… I really liked it and was satisfied with the ending… plenty of room for more stories…

I read Defekt and I liked it a lot. I didn't realize it was a new POV character related but not really to those in the first book. The demands at the end were awesome lol I really enjoyed both books actually, thanks for suggesting them :)

I've read , a short story.
"Have you ever caught a cat staring at you?"
"What about it?"
"They say that when they do, it's because they know what's gonna happen to you. Like they know your fate."

Well, there were a lot of cats staring and it didn't end well. This was a fun and a bit weird short story to read. The flash backs weren't needed or maybe not well written, but it was okay. Were the cats murderous? No, not entirally, but watch your back, because there's some feline monstrousity wandering the woods.

A creepy, short and a bit bloody story. The writing was okay and the build up felt tense, when wandering in the woods and seeing the cats, up to no good.

So I have been terrible with posting but I did read Clown in a Cornfield AND Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives and I cannot stress how much I loved these books. The third recently released and I definitely plan on reading that. These were absolutely slasher movies in book format, so much fun, gory and ridiculous, love, love, LOVE them <3

I finished Manhunt and I was completely disappointed, my hopes were sky high and this was not for me, definitely not the target audience. This was just awful, bad, do not recommend, terrible.

Ann-Marie wrote: "So I have been terrible with posting but I did read Clown in a Cornfield AND Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives and I cannot stress how much I loved these books. T..."

For shame... it has been sad and quiet around here, with you and Nirkatze in Silent Mode...

I'll definitely consider these for next year... I'm about horror'd out for the year... just need to read How to Sell a Haunted House, and Stephen King, not to mention a few other tomes I'm behind on... not too far behind, for the end of the month... 6-7 books and 3500-4000 pages... about normal for me...

Found this the other day, and adding it to my 2025 plans:

A Decade of Death and Decisions... no idea what the plot looks like, but I'm a big fan of the author... some reviews indicate it's a mix of spooky and funny?...

Recap for this year, highlights for me were:

Grady Hendrix has become one of my favorite horror authors:
Horrorstör: Thriller
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
How to Sell a Haunted House

I adore Chuck Tingle more and more, Bury Your Gays was wonderful.

I really enjoyed Lone Women and will be looking into reading more by the author.

Clown in a Cornfield and Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives were so much fun to read and I will definitely be reading book 3 at some point.

I failed at the chapter a day for A Night in the Lonesome October but will give it a go again next year. I managed like 2/3 of the month though so I didn't epically fail!

Overall this was a very enjoyable Spooktober, lots of Lovecraftian stories many of which were not what i consider horror but I still enjoyed. I kind of want to read a horror book a month in 2025, there are a lot of horror books that interest me and one month is not long enough to get to them all!

For Spooktober BR with @Saar--

I read The Only Good Indians a week or two ago and thought it was very thought provoking. (view spoiler)[I thought it was a very fresh perspective, that the MC immediately thought that all of the weird things happening to him were the result of his hunting-trip-gone-wrong, even to the extent of murdering someone he knew because he suspected her of being the Elk in disguise.

That level of base belief is rare in stories that aren't set in a fantasy world... usually you'd have a character going through phases of doubt before they get to that level, but the MC was 100% on board with supernatural presences in the world from the start. I wonder how much of that is due to the Blackfeet culture of the MC or the Native culture of the author?

That the horror, his fear and belief, is rooted deeply in guilt from a positive cultural value--to waste nothing, to treat nature with respect--is fascinating. The whole story was a really interesting investigation of these concepts.

I also found it interesting that the MC wasn't particularly likeable... drinking, smoking, cheating on his wife... he was shown in a more positive light primarily in comparison to the friends with whom he went hunting... the other victims of the poor Elk... and his attempt to save and protect them, and protect his daughter.

One scene that remains in my mind--one when the Elk plays basketball with the MCs daughter... seeing the guilt/responsibility/blame transfer down into the next generation... He took her child, so she targets his... And the end, when the Elk realizes that hurting these people won't bring her or her baby back... making the ending more sad than scary. (hide spoiler)]

For Spooktober, I read:
・Bury Your Gays
・How to Sell a Haunted House
・Lone Women
・The Only Good Indians
・The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
・World War Z
・The End of October
・Carter & Lovecraft & After the End of the World
・Strange Practice
・Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre
・Finna & Defekt
・Horrorstör
・Maplecroft & Chapelwood
・The Fisherman

That's the order of my enjoyment... Bury Your Gays hands down was my favorite, with the Hendrix being a lot of fun, and Lone Women, the Only Good Indians, WWZ and End of October being very thought provoking... Still need to comment on some... the pop-ups were fun too, if lighter.

Nirkatze wrote: "For Spooktober BR with @Saar--

I read The Only Good Indians a week or two ago and thought it was very thought provoking...."

This was the first horror book I had read in years and I was taken aback by the violence! I loved it though so I guess it worked but man, there were a few times I remember cringing! Regarding the MC and what he thought was causing the mess (view spoiler)[I absolutely think it was based on him being Native American and how that culture and the beliefs/faith that is typical in those cultures. (hide spoiler)]

Nirkatze wrote: "For Spooktober, I read:
・Bury Your Gays
・How to Sell a Haunted House
・Lone Women
・The Only Good Indians
・[book:The Southern Book Cl..."

Bury Your Gays was so good! <3

Bury Your Gays and Sell Haunted House are easy top 2 for me as well… maybe shuffle the rest a bit for my list…