The Giant Jam Sandwich.
Story and illustration by John Vernon Lord, verse by Janet Burroway LUNA: This is a wonderful children’s book. I remember, when my humans were small, I read them this and they loved it. It had the capacity to both sooth and entertain. The rhyming is alluring, addictive, and alliterative. The pace is quick, the humour…
The Vengeful Dead by John James Minster
With a dedication to Edgar Allen Poe, The Vengeful Dead knocks politely on the door of classic horror, but once open a fraction, it comes bursting in and wipes its muddy hobnails in places you wish it wouldn’t. There are eleven stories in this horror anthology, all by the author. Like Poe, there are some…
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
“When a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment…
Beware of Darkness
At my grandmother’s funeral, my father’s eulogy spoke about her love and kindness, and how she showed it by heaping upon him ladles after ladles of food. Now that my father himself is slipping away, I realise that it’s the same with him, only his ladles are books and stories. Each of his published works…
The Undertaker’s Daughter by John James Minster
A monster story Mary Shelly would be proud of. The Undertaker’s Daughter is a chilling horror novel that follows the story of Anna Dingel, a socially awkward teenager who is raised in a family funeral home. The author does an excellent job of setting the right atmosphere from the beginning and keeps the tension high…
Happy new year? Here’s to a Happy Ending.
They say there is only a finite number of stories in the world. They say that as few as seven, or six, or three narratives exist and that these are simply told again and again, with the names and places changed to protect the storyteller from overly observant readers. They will tell you that the…
What would your dog tell you if it had the chance?
My faithful canine makes herself clear on a large variety of matters. She tells me if she is happy or sad (easy – just a wag of the tail, or not), when she is tired (impossible not to catch the yawn), and when she is scared (jumps into my lap, winding me, or worse). She…
I Think My Spaceship Knows Which Way to Go
I was with my father when he once asked Ian (M) Banks wether his preference was to write novels set in the real world, or to write his very much loved space operas. The cherished, but late, author replied that it was a constant effort for him not to land a spacecraft in the middle…
Birdspotting
Last weekend Mrs H and I participated in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch and having recently joined the organisation, we expected to make a big splash. We’ve been conscientiously feeding them for many years, and now have their trust. On any given day, we see charms of greenfinch, clouds of blackbirds, troublings of goldfinch. Gatlings…
In for a penny
I wanted to explore what can be done with just one penny. These days, a penny doesn’t go very far. It would probably only get you a single lick of a Magnum, half a snort from a Flying Saucer, or perhaps one toe of a Monster Munch, but there’s more to this subject, and there’s…
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David J Harrison 