Welcome to the Lair!
Exploring dark alleys. Discovering new nightmares.
Revisiting the masters.
When Daniel Miller wakes up one morning, something has gone terribly wrong. The power is out. The phones are dead. The house is silent. The street is shrouded in fog. Both his partner and their adopted daughter are missing. So are their neighbors. And so is everyone else in the world. Daniel Miller is the last person left on Earth... or is he?
Alone by Brian Keene is not the usual style of writing I've come to expect from the author, but, man, he nailed it. Keene kept me guessing. I had my suspicions, but the odd detail here and there continued to throw me off.
Even when Keene drops the bomb on readers, I still didn't know what to expect in the end. I felt Daniel's fear throughout the story. Nothing like uncertainty to to turn alone time into a nightmare.
As always,
AstraDaemon
Eight-year-old Alan doesn’t like going to school, but when a global pandemic leaves him orphaned, cold, starving, and lonely, he has no choice but to set out on a dangerous quest to return to his third-grade classroom.
SCHOOL’S OUT, an all-new post-apocalyptic novella by Grandmaster Award winning author Brian Keene, was suggested to him by his son, marking their first official collaboration, and is suitable for all ages.
School's Out by Brian Keene is a horror novella that I can recommend to my friends AND their kids. The focus of the story is all about Alan's level of critical thinking during a pandemic, which has taken his parents away from him. He often references YouTube videos and his parents to make decisions.
During his time alone, Alan faces everything from caring for himself and his cat to stranger danger and feral dogs. Not to mention that Alan is also on the autism spectrum. Throughout the story, I felt the boy's feelings, thoughts, and actions were believable behavior from a grade-schooler facing multiple hardships.
My own son, at age 8, had grown up with a mom writing for horror websites, and a dad performing stunt choreography in dozens of horror movies. My son also acted in a zombie movie (his character even survives to the end), so the topic of "what if" in an apocalyptic situation is something my son grew up with.
It sounds extreme, as well as morbid, but planning for a worst-case scenario prepared my son for common emergencies. Additionally, the "what if" discussions made it easier to address the serious topics in the news headlines. I highly recommend this story as a way to have your own "what if" discussion with your kids. Their responses might delight and surprise you.
As always,
AstraDaemon
5...4...3...2...1.
Mira McNair always counts it down.
It takes twelve seconds to descend in the space elevator to reach the base station anchored to the ocean floor.
Regimented, daily order keeps Mira's thoughts in line, and she has taught herself how to build androids. She hopes to use them to learn how to read human facial expressions and the proper sequence to social interactions.
However, when the I.S.S. collides with her atmospheric home, Mira must save her creations from a fiery explosion.
What happens next surprises them all.
Twelve seconds is long enough to prove that compassion isn't limited to the human.
Three by Bokerah Bromley is a science fiction short about Mira's ability to adapt to different situations and the special creativity she shows. Brumley's use of misdirection is so smooth, I didn't even realize what I had read until the very end of the story.
I highly recommend this story to anyone who knows someone who struggles with social interactions.
As always,
AstraDaemon
When objects begin to disappear from porches, Lydia Strichter suspects the neighborhood hoarder, Dale Kreplick. He's a strange man with an even stranger habit of digging through people's trash. But when she sets out to prove the "Trash Collector" is behind these thefts, she discovers more than the culprit. She discovers some things can't easily be discarded.
The Trash Collector by Monica Shaughnessy begins with a disgusting example of human behavior, in the form of Lydia. The woman appears to have a bitter cruel streak, and I felt sorry for her neighbors. The hoarder Dale isn't as much the center of the story as Lydia's crap attitude. When Dale reveals his true motives, I almost cried.
Sometimes looking at things from someone else's view is a beautiful and much-needed experience.
As always,
AstraDaemon
