I hadn’t heard of Russell until I saw this Penguin edition somewhere.  I love castles with ghosts in them, or at least I love reading about them and visiting them in the daylight.  Not sure, if I would like to spend a night in one.  So of course, I had to get it and eventually read it.

                The fact that Russell worked for Playboy does show in a few of the stories – one or two stories have a link with sex and violence.  The objectification of Playboy isn’t present though.

                The first three stories – the S stories of “Sardonicus”, “Sagittarius”, and “Sanguinis” are apparently the three stories he is most widely known for.  It was “Sardonicus”, a story about a physician who tracks to castle to deal with a man who makes an offer he can’t refuse.  The ending of this story is particularly good.  The other two S stories make use of Jekyll and Hyde as well as Elizabeth Bathory.  The stories are good examples of why writers like Stephen King enjoy Russell.  In fact, Russell’s Bathory is well done not only in terms of historical accuracy but also in terms of a believable reason.

                But honesty, the best story in the collection is “The Runaway Lovers”.  The title couple is pretty much what the story is about, but how Russell uses it is just so wonderfully twisted. The ending is just so great.  Forget any upcoming superhero movie – I want this movie.

                Most of the stories present wonderfully twisted and subtle endings, especially “The Cage” which closes the collection.  Several stories have interlinked characters.

I think I remember someone on my friends list who read this. I want to use it for Halloween Bingo, was wondering if it would fit for either of these two squares:

Cryptozoologist: any supernatural creature, from Ammit to Ziz;

Is the creature supernatural or did the scientists make him in the book?

Or

Fear the Drowning Deep: mystery, suspense, supernatural or horror books with sea-related elements: sea creatures, ships, shipwrecks, and/or sharks.

Was the creature found and captured from the ocean or rivers?

Any help with knowledge so I can find the square it would fit in is greatly appreciated!

Thanks :)

This is due in four days. I could probably push really hard and get through it, but I'm not sure I want to. Parts of it are definitely better than the movie, while other parts are...not. It fleshes out a lot of the characters more and makes them more sympathetic, which is nice, except not always necessary.

For example, if the plot stays the same as in the movie, there isn't much of a reason to flesh out Lainie, Strickland's wife, the way this book is doing. At best, it reassures readers that she'll somehow manage to be fine after the events at the end. As far as the attempts to make Strickland more sympathetic go, he's supposed to be one of the book's horrible villains. I don't need him to be more sympathetic.

Zelda is a stronger character here than in the movie, where the only thing that saved her was Octavia Spencer's acting skills. Unfortunately, Elisa is somehow less sympathetic in the book than in the movie. She's the main character so this isn't good.

Zelda's a better, more fleshed out character here than in the movie. In the book she actually has a dream for her future: she wants to own her own cleaning business. Lainie, Strickland's wife, is also a much better character here than in the movie, although in her case it feels unnecessary - unless the story is tweaked so that she has a larger part, she really doesn't have anything to do with the River God storyline.

And yay, the whole "I only wash my hands before using the urinal, not after" conversation doesn't exist here. Will the rotting fingers be edited out too? I doubt it, but I can always hope.

"Giles mazes into the queue. It's a weekday midafternoon, a peculiar time for pie, and he's second in line. He likes being here, he tells himself. It's cozy and warm and smells of cinnamon and sugar. He doesn't look at the cashier, not yet; he's too old to feel this nervous. Instead, he studies a five-foot glass tower, each level presenting a different dessert. Double-decker pies like department-store hat boxes. Sculpted pies like the bout of a cello. Pie puffs like a woman's breast. There is room for all kinds, all kinds."

The writing style isn't working for me. Also, I seriously doubt that Giles would mentally be comparing pies to a woman's breast. And this whole book is present tense, OMG.