A sleeper hit drifting out of the ether, Slow Gods by Claire North was phenomenal (and made our best of 2025 list). I had never read North before, which is somewhat surprising given her enormous body of work under multiple names. I believe she is mostly known for her historically inspired fantasy, which is why…
I didn’t grow up with Manga.. I was attracted to the flashy animation and colors of anime, but the black and white panels of its literary counterpart held no interest despite their promise of story. My main experience with Manga up until recently was a single volume of Neon Genesis Evangelion I purchased as a…
It’s your first day on the job. The building has a familiar feeling to it, despite its incongruity. Your co-workers defer to you on all matters, though you are completely new to the scene. A crisis has erupted, and though everyone seems to know what they are doing, you are the last puzzle piece that…
Continue reading ➞ There Is No Antimemetics Division – You Never Read This Review
*Checks watch* yep, it’s still October, so I can’t help myself, it’s still spooky time, and there is nothing spookier than finishing a long anticipated trilogy. Well, there definitely are spookier things, but we’re talking books here. It’s hard to leave characters you’ve grown to love behind and see where their journeys end up. And…
Do you like rollercoasters? Do you like feeling the grim reaper’s breath on your neck as you hurtle through time and space at speeds that the human mind wasn’t meant to comprehend? Does being super incredibly stressed for uncomfortably long periods of time turn you on? If you answered yes to any of these questions…
I have always been enticed by cosmic horror and other Lovecraft adjacent stories, but I never really dove into the genre. It’s always lurking in the background, taunting me with its perceptions of madness. Luckily for me, Premee Mohamed’s Beneath The Rising is a Lovecraftian story filled to the brim with horror, adventure, a dash…
I bought a jacket this past spring and have been looking at it occasionally with a longing that can only be matched by temporarily separated lovers. As such, you can only imagine my joy when the temperature here in Chicago finally dropped to numbers starting with “4,” and I could put it on. Because this…
Winter Tide, by Ruthanna Emrys, is a book I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time. Essentially a subversive take on Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, the book is told from the perspective of one of his “monsters”, and I’d always been intrigued by the description. Now that I’ve wrapped up this story, I’m incredibly disappointed…
Continue reading ➞ Winter Tide – Cooler than the Other Side of the Salt Water
Boy howdy it’s mid-August and you know what that means: horror review time! There’s nothing scarier to me than 90 degree days with 90% humidity, and the electric bill that will be coming from me running my AC on the highest possible setting for months on end. In honor of the true terror brought on…
Continue reading ➞ Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute – It’s A Frighteningly Good Time
I was having a conversation with the other QTL staff the other day about how hard it can be to sort out the proper cosmic horror from the remainder of the “weird fiction”, and how frustrating that can be for someone who likes cosmic horror so much more than weird fiction. We came to the…
