Ankerita

Ankerita: Seasons Out of Time is a 2013 Gothic horror young adult novel by Robert Wingfield. It was published by The Inca Project and released in November 2013. It is the first book in the The Seventh House series. The author’s website can be found here. I was provided with a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The novel follows Ankerita, later called Anna, a woman from the Tudor era who escapes the grave she’s been imprisoned in for over five hundred years after her resting place is unintentionally disturbed. She takes on the life of one of the vandals who released her and finds herself thrust into the modern world. She is able to see restless spirits and is forced to intervene in order to put them to rest. As a woman without identity, Anna must also dodge the attention of the authorities and prevent her return to the grave and succumbing to the plans of demons attempting to claim her soul.

Ankerita, or Anna as I will refer to her for the rest of this review, was my favorite character in this story. She’s incredibly complex and just when I’d start to think I knew everything about her character, there’d be a new facet to her revealed. I won’t lie, when I started reading, I thought Anna was going to be an antihero. Early on, the reader learns that she was imprisoned at an abbey, and later cursed with living death, because she killed her husband. Her first act in the story is to trick Tox, a graffiti artist, into taking her place at the abbey so that she can escape. Yet, Anna isn’t quite an antihero, but instead a young woman trying to recapture the life she was robbed of. in addition to that, when Anna gets into trouble, which happens quite a bit, she doesn’t wait around to be rescued, but in most cases, manages to get herself out of danger. She meets too many people on her journey to list, but there are a handful that left a big impression. Captain Slash, the ghost of a highwayman, she meets early on. He was the character I found to be the most entertaining, especially on the few occasions where he comes to her aid. She is also followed by a demon named Didiubas and its not clear whether he’s helping her or just getting Anna into more trouble. It depends on what exactly she’s doing at the time. While this book had some heavy and dark moments, the characters helped the story feel balanced.

This novel tells the story of a woman out of time, and one of the things that I enjoy about it is the author’s commitment to that idea. Anna is thrown five hundred years into the future and the alien-ness of the world around her shows. She retains some knowledge of the modern world from the body she’s inhabiting, but there are many moments where her actions or behavior shows that she’s brand new to this world. Many times, this takes the form of her wording things in a way that no one else understands, she sounds a bit like Shakespeare at times, but her inner monologue also reveals aspects of that. I enjoyed reading her struggles to understand and live in the modern world and adapt to things. Many stories where a character is thrown forward in time, or backwards in some cases, depict a short adjustment period and no longer-lasting implications beyond that which tends to annoy me because it glosses over how much things change over a few centuries. Ankerita’s depiction of a woman out of time is the most realistic one I’ve read, possibly ever.

The pacing of Ankerita isn’t as structured as some other novels, but that works in the novel’s favor. Rather than having a strict progression of events that lead from beginning to end, the novel is a series of adventures that Anna experiences as she moves throughout the United Kingdom, sometimes by her own volition, and sometimes because of the actions of others. She’s trapped between the real world and the afterlife, allowing her to see ghosts around her with unfinished business. As she moves through the country, and searches for her place in this strange new world, she’s slowly being nudged towards her destiny, which she doesn’t want to accept, but everything she does only pulls her closer to it. it’s a story as much about exploring the world as it is about self-discovery.

I tend to avoid spoiling things in my reviews as a rule. I’m going to abide by that rule in this review, but that makes it a bit difficult to discuss the end of the story, especially given that this is the first book in a series. I enjoyed the ending a lot, especially the twist that came in the last few pages to set up the sequel and make the reader reevaluate everything that had happened previously. Wingfield did an excellent job of bringing the story almost full circle, but not completely in order to deliver a great ending. I finished Ankerita and wanted to read the next book.

I enjoyed Ankerita overall, but unfortunately, no book is perfect. There are a few things I need to address that I wasn’t as thrilled about as most of the story. Wingfield was able to combine humor into the horror aspects of the story pretty well for the most part, but there were a few scenes where it didn’t quite fit in my opinion. The humor in those moments just felt a little off.  There were a few things that happened that were confusing and didn’t really make much sense or weren’t explained enough to make sense. I was able to understand most of the events in the story, but the few that confused me took me out of the story.

Ankerita was a book that surprised me. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. It starts with a great premise and uses that premise to tell an engaging and unique story. The author’s writing style is one that I enjoy and its an easy book to lose oneself in.  As this is the second book I’ve read and enjoyed by Robert Wingfield, the first being Countdown to Omega, its clear that he’s talented at writing in more than one genre. I’d recommend it to any Gothic literature fans out there and I can’t wait to read the sequel.

Rating: 4.3 Stars

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Blogtober Day 28: The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018

The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2018 is an anthology of dark fantasy and horror stories. It was edited by Paula Guran and contains more than twenty stories, each by a different author. This is the ninth edition of the yearly anthology that Guran has edited and released.

Since The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2018 is a collection of stories, and contains so many, this review is going to be a little different than my other reviews. With around 30 stories, there's no way I could review every single one of them without making this review unbearably long. At the same time, I can't give a review of the book as a whole, since each story is so different. Instead, I'm going to talk about five stories: three that were my most favorite, and the two I disliked the most.

The Crow Palace by Priya Sharma is the story of a woman named Julie who returns home following the death of her father. She left him and her sister, with cerebral palsy, years ago and has only returned to bury her father and take care of a few last minute things. While she's visiting, she uncovers a dark family secret. I think the reason why I enjoyed this story so much was because it subverted my expectations. Julie's family has a very strange connection with birds, which is apparent on the first page. What the connection is, and how deep it goes, is revealed much later. The thing that made this story stick in my mind, though, was the final revelation regarding the birds.  I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say, Julie's assumption about what the birds did, and who they did it to, is wrong.

The Little Mermaid in Passing by Angela Slatter can best be described as telling the story of the Little Mermaid from the Sea Witch's perspective. In the original fairytale, the reader doesn't ever learn why the Sea Witch would help the Little Mermaid. In the Disney film, Ursula obviously has a masterplan to take over the ocean, but the original story never reveals that. I liked this story because it took a story I already knew, and showed it from a different angle. Much like other stories such as Wicked, it made me rethink how I viewed the "villain". I found the writing style and the direction the story went in to be unique and unexpected as well.

Secret Keeper by Bonnie Jo Stuffelbeam I would categorize as halfway between psychological horror and teen drama. The story takes place almost entirely in a high school. It tells the story of a Ghost Girl, who isn't dead and lives in the bowels of the school, who begins training Chrissie, an actress in the school musical, to sing better.  If this set-up sounds like Phantom of the Opera, but with the Phantom having a different gender, that's because it kind of is. While the set-ups are similar, the plots are different. The Ghost Girl wants something different from what the Phantom wanted. The ending was unexpected as well, since it's ambiguous regarding what was and wasn't reality.


Moon, and Memory, and Muchness by Katherine Vaz tells the story of a woman grieving the loss of her child who encounters a little girl that reminds her of her deceased daughter. She owns a tea shop and the girl and her mother become regular customers. The story is chock full of Alice in Wonderland references as well.It's somewhat of a thriller, but I wasn't a huge fan. It's not a bad story, just one with weird pacing. The story goes from 0 to 100 very suddenly, then back to 0, and I don't feel there was enough build-up beforehand.

Survival Strategies by Helen Marshall is the story of a British scholar going to New York to do a piece of a famous horror author, who's supposed to be Stephen King, but isn't. This was my least favorite story, mostly because not a lot happens. She does some research, talks to the author's ex-editor and that's pretty much it. Scenes of the narrator talking about the author's career are interspersed with her mentioning how bleak and tense things are in the world due to politics. Perhaps some might find the story suspenseful, but I didn't. The only way this story is connected to horror is that the author she's researching, who never appears, writes horror.

The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror series, for a lack of a better term, is one of my favorite releases, because its one of the ways I find new authors. It's also where I find some of the most interesting and creative stories. I feel like authors of short stories are more willing to take risks and try new things than with full length novels.

Rating: 3.5 stars. I didn't love every story, but I liked the collection as a whole.

Blogtober Day 27: What type of horror movie villain would you be?

Hello everybody. We're officially 4 days away from Halloween and its time to get extra-spooky. I read a lot of horror novels. I watch a lot of horror movies and that got me thinking: if I was the villain of a horror movie, what kind would I be?

Part of me wants to say a slasher/chainsaw wielding maniac, only because I can't think of a single horror movie off the top of my head, that has a female slasher villain. Except for the original Friday the 13th but since every later film had Jason as the killer, the fact that he's not the killer in the original has been forgotten by most. I don't think I would do very well, either, mostly because 1) I'm clumsy and would most likely cut myself in half, not my intended victims and 2) I don't do well with blood.

I wouldn't want to be a demon or a ghost, because that would mean I was either dead or had just escaped from Hell. So, I'd already be in a sucky situation from the start. Being dead doesn't seem like fun. As for being a demon, I could do it, I just wouldn't love it. Monster-horror is also out, due to the fact that most monster-horror isn't scary any more. It consists of jump-scares and a lot of gore but very little suspense or tension.

Which is exactly why I'd want to be the villain in a psychological horror movie. Those are the ones I find the most interesting. It's not about the blood and guts and creative kills in that subgenre, it's about the mind. Messing with people's minds. In some psychological horror films, there's no clearly defined villain. Sometimes, its a cult or some unseen force orchestrating events, other times it's the protagonist's own mind creating the suspense. In others, there's a clear bad guy or group of bad guys directly causing trouble. Regardless of which "type" of psychological horror villain, I'd want to be one, since it fits my flair for the dramatic. I think I'd do particularly well as part of a creep cult when I think about it.

What type of horror movie villain would you be?

Blogtober Day 25: Zombies

So, zombies. For the last few years, they've appeared in pretty much every form of media. I think we've reached zombie overload, much like we did with vampires about ten years ago and like we did with ghosts forever ago. I like zombies, sometimes, in fiction. It really depends how they're being used and what purpose they serve.

I know, you might be thinking, zombies have a purpose? Well, kind of. Zombies are normally just the massive horde of beings that the protagonists need to avoid. Usually, the zombies are chasing, slowly, after the humans because they're hungry. Unlike other monsters, they aren't trying to create more of their kind, they just want to eat. Usually, the zombies exist because of an outbreak, or in Zombieland's case, an infected burger. When I say "purpose" I mean how they're used, as the villain, in the story. What's the theme or message the film is trying to portray?

For example, George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead is viewed by many to be a reflection of the tensions in the United States during that period in history. Others see is as a criticism of government ineptitude, domestic racism and the politics of the Cold War. The zombies in Night of the Living Dead were so terrifying because, to paraphrase film historian Linda Badley, the monsters weren't aliens or creatures from some unknown land, they're us. Ben, the African-American protagonist, isn't killed by zombies at the end of the film, but by a posse of rednecks who mistake him for being one of the infected.

Other times, zombies exist just to create a post-apocalyptic world. A war, or illness, or some form of nuclear catastrophe could substitute for the zombie outbreak in the story, and the plot wouldn't change that much. These zombies tend to exist in media where a large aspect of the story isn't about trying to cure the infected, or finding some safe haven or even how the world got to this. They're a threat, but the real threat, the real tension comes from some other group of survivors posing a threat to the group the protagonist is in. Later seasons of The Walking Dead fit into this category. People such as the Governor and Negan pose more of a threat to anyone than the zombies. This is also where all the films putting forth the idea of "humans are the real monsters" exists. I don't hate this type of story, but I feel like zombies are used too often as "here's how the world ended" explanation and I'd like to see a more creative reason.

Sometimes, zombies are just zombies and the entire film is about people thrown together randomly trying to get to safety. The 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead is about a group of people trapped in a shopping mall during a zombie outbreak. These are the movies I like the most, because I watch zombie movies for zombies, not to see people do horrible things to others because they can. For as bad as the Resident Evil film series is, and how unfaithful it is to the games, the first two weren't completely awful because the plot was about the zombies, not about weird things with the Umbrella Corporation.

There are, of course, some variations in zombie media. Sometimes the zombies are fast. Sometimes characters don't need to get bitten to become a zombie. Other times, the humans are able to find a cure. There are a few movies out there where, despite being zombies, they still have thoughts and higher brain function. And sometimes, a zombie falls in love with a human and falling love makes them not be a zombie anymore (looking at you, Warm Bodies). 

So, in conclusion, I like zombies. They're cool. I think we need to take a break from them being everywhere for a while, but on the while, I can't complain.

Blogtober Day 20: Things About Horror That Don't Make Sense

Horror has a lot of tropes, and like any trope, how effective or "good" it is, depends on how well its implemented. Some tropes though, they make no sense. I read it, or I watch it happen, and I wonder why this trope exists. Or I convince myself this must take place in an alternate dimension where no one has common sense. Today, I'd like to talk about some things in horror that just don't make sense.

Why Would You Buy This House?

This shows up a lot in movies or books that involved haunted houses. A new family moves into the house and weird things start happening. And, they don't notice. Or they find a way to justify how all of the freaky, supernatural stuff isn't ghosts or demons or the like. Now, that's a staple of the genre, and I love a good haunted house.

What annoys me are the people who know the house's history and move in anyway. They know some lady drowned all of her kids in this house, or that a man sacrificed his entire family to Satan, but they move in anyway, because it has a lovely kitchen backsplash or something. And they don't move away, although occasionally, this aspect is explained in the text/film.

The Buddy-System is for Kindergarten

Now, I know, this one pops up a lot. Why would you split up to search the house? Why wouldn't everyone stick together as they try to escape the chainsaw-wielding maniac? Slasher movies can't be slashers if no one's getting slashed, and that happens easiest when people split up. What I don't understand is when this trend is called out, in the film, show or movie, but they do it anyway. A character specifically mentions how splitting up, in a horror movie, is a bad idea, but it ends up happening anyway.

It's the Book Written on Human Skin

First of all, how did someone even make a book out of human skin? Second, why would anyone go anywhere near it? How did you not notice the "ink" is actually blood. It's one thing for a cursed doll to be behind every death, its another when the whole plot could be avoided by staying away from the item clearly created by a serial kill and/or Satan worshipper.

The Tone-Deaf Depiction of Mental Illness

I'm just going to come out and say it. Why are people with mental illness always the bad guys? You can have a homicidal murderer without needing to make them schizophrenic, or bipolar, or have dissociative identity disorder. The villain can be the villain without needing to give a reason "why" to make the reader or audience feel better. Even if that explanation is a must, mental illness isn't always the answer. You do realize the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violent crimes rather than the perpetrators, right?

Those are a few things about horror that don't make any sense to me. What aspects of horror don't make sense to you?

Blogtober Day 13: Top 5 Horror Movie Villains

Yesterday, I discussed my favorite horror movies. Today, I'd like to talk about my five favorite horror movie villains. Because, while not every great horror movie needs a great villain, they tend to go hand in hand. And a good villain in an otherwise mediocre movie can elevate it to being good. Anyway, here are my top five horror movie villains.



5) Annie Wilkes Misery

Misery isn't the scariest movie I've ever seen by a longshot, but it does have a very memorable villain. Annie Wilkes is just a little bit of a huge fan of author Paul Sheldon's works, so when she finds him unconcious and wounded in the snow, of course she helps him. Then, he wakes up and starts to wish she'd left him to die of frostbite. Annie's villainy comes not from any one act that she does, but from the situation as a whole. Paul is completely at her mercy and his "number one" fan knows exactly how the story for his next book is supposed to go. Annie is just downright creepy and the scene with the sledgehammer is one I can't watch, even to this day. Bravo to Kathy Bates for such an amazingly creepy portrayal in the film.



4) The Xenomoprh Alien

The Xenomorph is the perfect sci-fi horror monster. It has no grand scheme beyond wreaking havoc and finding a way to wreak more havoc. With no apparent weakness and a level of intellect that rivals, and in most cases exceeds, those of the human character, its downright terrifying. Not to mention the pure creepiness in how more Xenomorphs are created. From the facehugger to lay eggs inside of humans, to the chest buster killings its human host, and finally, the fully grown alien ready to cause some chaos. Every part of the lifecycle is disturbing and perfect for horror.



3) Pennywise IT

Is anyone not terrified of clowns these days? Clowns in general are creepy. Clowns that are actually shape-shifting aliens trying to feast on the fear of local children are even worse. Kudos to Stephen King,and the actors and directors of IT, because they took an already creepy concept, clowns, and found a way to make it even scarier and make me hate clowns even more.



2) Chucky The Child's Play Series

As you might've guessed from the above entry, clowns freak me out. You know what freaks me out even more? Dolls. Especially dolls that are possessed by a serial killer's soul and enjoy killing people. Now, while "creepy murderous doll" sounds bad enough, its the humor in the Child's Play series that puts Chucky on this list. He's a creative killer, and unpredictable. Most movies with creepy dolls stop at the "there's an evil entity possessing it" stage, but not Chucky. He's killing, and he's having fun, but the films are also surprisingly entertaining and enjoyable. Most of them, anyway.



1) Leatherface Texas Chainsaw Massacre

He isn't just a serial killer, he's also a cannibal. He doesn't have a larger goal or bigger plans beyond finding more victims, and thus more meat to eat. His victims are random and he doesn't care who he's carving up. He sees his victims not as people, but as livestock and he can't be reasoned with, can't be talked down. He's the archetype of the unrelenting, seemingly unstoppable terror that slasher films rely on.

Blogtober Day 12: Favorite Scary Movies

As I once told a friend, a good horror movie is hard to find. With today's oversaturation of the horror film genre, there are plenty of "horror" movies that come out each year, but only a few that are actually good or actually scary. I feel like some of this was due to horror moving away from suspense-driven scares and more towards just making a gore-fest and not trying to build a sense of dread among the viewer. Movies attempt suspense, but few modern horror films manage to pull it off. Today, I'd like to discuss my favorite horror movies. To make this easier, I'm selecting my favorite in each category of horror film.



The Shining- Favorite Psychological Horror

The Shining is a great suspense film. What I mean by that is this: from almost the very beginning, the viewer gets the feeling that there's something off about the Overlook Hotel. As Jack unravels, the question isn't what's going to happen, but when. It's a great psychological horror film and the intensity of the final confrontation sticks with you. The film is also the reason why I can't watch Jack Nicholson do comedic roles.



Alien- Favorite Sci-Fi Horror

Despite the dip in quality for the series as a whole, the original Alien film, and its immediate sequel Aliens were both entertaining and scary. The original film gives almost nothing away. The viewer only sees what the characters themselves witness, as they witness it. When they find the room filled with eggs, they are clueless as to what it is. The same is true for the face-huggers. We don't see the alien until it bursts out of Kane's chest. It isn't until far into the movie that we see the fully grown Xenomorph. The film did an excellent job of balancing the sci-fi aspects with the horror elements, keeping the suspense for both.



The Conjuring- Favorite Supernatural Horror

While I enjoy classics such as The Exorcist and Poltergest, they aren't my favorite. Genre-defining, yes, but I don't find them particularly scary. This may be because when I saw them, they were a few decades old and horror had become a lot bloodier and scarier. In fact, my enjoyment of The Conjuring comes in part from how it uses a number of tricks and traits from the two other films. The film relies on old school scares rather than having a jump scare every few minutes. There are truly tense scenes that build towards a scare rather than having a ghost pop out of nowhere, scare the character and race off. I keep mentioning film building tension, and that's because suspense is the key to horror, not monsters or gallons of fake blood.



28 Days Later- Favorite Zombie Horror

I'm pretty sure this was the first zombie movie I ever saw. If it wasn't, it was definitely one of the first few ones I saw. I love a good zombie movie, and this one brought something new to the table: fast zombies. Until 28 Days Later, zombies normally shuffled around and it was a little hard to believe the characters couldn't stop them or escape. (Yes, I know I'm trying to apply real world logic to zombie movies and how ridiculous that sounds). Fast zombies though, they open up a whole new world of story-telling and I like it. The film's a little gory, but that comes with the territory. They are dealing with zombies after all.



Scream Favorite Slasher Horror

I won't lie. The meta-ness of Scream is part of why I enjoy it so much. It's a slasher movie that is aware of, and comments on, the tropes slasher movies. Any time a film has a character explain how to survive the film, without it seeming ham-fisted in, that's a yes in my book. It's a slasher film that's aware of it being a slasher film, while at the same time subverting only some of the tropes it pokes fun at. I like it when films are self-aware. I like it even more when the narrative doesn't seem to brag about how smart it is about being self-aware. Scream strikes the perfect balance between being meta and patting itself on the back for being meta. The kills are also interesting  and entertaining to watch.

Those are a few of my favorite horror films. What are yours?

Blogtober Day 8: The Scariest Book I've Ever Read

Halloween is the time of year when everyone thinks the most about fear and horror. It's when most horror movies are released in theaters. We watch scary movies, we read scary stories and inevitably, Halloween season is when we start comparing horror stories. I've never had a conversation about the scariest book I've ever read, or the scariest movie I've ever seen that hasn't taken place in the fall. Halloween is on everyone's mind, and with it comes thoughts about fear and horror.

In keeping with the season, today I'm going to discuss the scariest book I've ever read. That honor goes to a not-so-little book by Stephen King called IT. Some of you might've heard of it, there's this murderous clown named Pennywise and there were two movies made about the book in the last few years. I know IT being the scariest book I've ever read probably isn't surprising. Many people rate it pretty high on the scare-scale. However, unlike most horror novels, IT stuck with me for a while. 

Since the novel is 1,000 pages long, it wasn't something I could read in a single sitting. This meant that it took me several days to read it in its entirety. As a result, there were some nights, while reading it, where I had difficulty sleeping. Even after I finished the book, it still took me a few days to return to my normal sleep schedule. Some of this is probably because I read IT a little younger than I should have, being around 14 when I picked it up. King doesn't hold back on the gore and the violence, and given his literary skills, the picture he paints is vivid. The rest of why the book effected me so much has to do with the premise itself. IT can take any form in order to become what you fear the most. For obvious reasons, thinking about a monster that could appear looking like the thing I'm most afraid of, is troubling and makes it difficult to sleep.

IT is an excellent book. I'd recommend it to any horror fan that hasn't read it, if any exist. However, it's also the scariest story I've ever read.

What is the scariest book you've ever read?