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Showing posts with the label Survival Horror

After: An Anatomy of Fracture (2024) by Drew Starling

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The world as we know it has ceased to exist. It has been   over a decade since the visitors first appeared. Though nature still   flourishes, humankind has been crushed and placed under the merciless genocidal   campaign of alien intelligence. Technology   has been ravaged by electro-magnetic   pulses. Humans are forced to wear oxygen converters that conceal their exhaled   breath, by which they can be located and destroyed. They now exist either in isolated   solitude or in fortified communes. The   sky is filled is giant discs that emit   howls as they communicate with each other while on the earth’s surface giant creatures   constantly seek the remnants of humanity to rend and tear apart in the claws   and teeth. Our main character, only ever referred to as “the woman,”   has chosen the life of isolated solitude, serving as a motorcycle   courier,   carrying messages back and forth between the communes (Comms), whe...

Little Heaven (2017) by Nick Cutter

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Nick   Cutter first came to my attention when researching the sub-genres of  body   horror and survival horror within the context of modern horror literature   at   large. His book The Troop was my introduction to his work and I was blown away.   Its plot hurtles forward and embraces both body horror and survival   horror   while achieving an escalating sense of dread and terror that becomes uncomfortably   difficult to endure. I count it among the top 5 best horror   reads I’ve encountered. I recently was researching recommendations for folk horror (do others do this?) and found a list of the best examples that listed Little Heaven near the top. So, it was with both excitement and not a small amount of trepidation that I waded into this one. In simple terms, the book is seemingly a mash-up of Lovecraftian cosmic horror, mixed with a fanatical religious cult clearly inspired by Jim Jones and his People...