Lucci's List: Halloween Roundup

Get your flashlights out! It's time for ghost stories from Lucci's List. From gory to murderous; witchy and ghostly; mind boggling or soul-screeching: this collection of frightful fiction will satiate all your horrifying desires. Happy Halloween!

"Fairy Tale Ending" is a chilling take on classic fairy tales. The deviant characters and alternate story lines mix with blood, gore, horror, and thrilling nastiness. If you prefer your bedtime stories to lull you into sweet nightmares, this book is for you.

"Saturday Night Dead" is a chilling tale about murder in 80s era Massachusetts. Local readers will get a kick out of the recognizable settings and landmarks. The author's grasp on the area allowed for one fun reminiscing within the tale of horror.

Calliope by Katrina Fiorella is a perfect book for Halloween. Witches, wizards, knights, royalty, battles between good and evil, and potions. Add in burning at the stake and beheading, and now it is gruesome as well as magical! A touch of romance, a sprinkle of family secrets, and some beer guzzling: now it is ready to devour!

"Behind the Fan" is a multi-faceted story that reveals a mysterious family history, sensual romance, and startling realizations.

A pair of sisters and their young-adult daughters move in to the old family house to help take care of an ailing grandmother. They discover a hidden treasure, which shocks them and then intrigues them. When they investigate further, they learn new truths about their relationships, and themselves.

While the younger generations struggle with the inner turmoil brought on by their discovery, the grandmother lapses into what the medical experts classify as dementia. In an alternate timeline, she travels to the past in her memory, where the ghostly love of her life awaits her.

Experiencing the past in these flashbacks allows the grandmother to reconnect with her lost love, and inspires her to share the heritage of her life story with her family. The more the younger women learn, the closer their relationships become, bridging gaps between generations and viewpoints. The author Caroline Walken has created a tale within a tale that intertwines the threads of romance, mystery, and drama with paranormal worlds and glorious flourishes. The reader is taken back in time to the glittery world of on-stage entertainment with naked girls, jazz singers, and gritty mobsters in Chicago's mob-run heyday. This book is an invitation to see our older relatives through newer eyes, and a sense of awe and fascination as the past creeps in to modern reality.

The epic theme of man versus machine takes a provocative turn in this tale when the machine's man creates create philosophical chaos simply by operating as programmed.

This sci-fi story is poignant now as IT and robotics in our modern era have progressed beyond the pages of imagination.

Whether you are raising a child, attempting to reprogram your brain, or contemplating smart-homes and robotic assistance, you may be inspired to think deeper about the effects of language and communication within humanity and technology.

"For the Win" by Cory Doctorow showcases an alternate reality that is not too far from the truth. Gamers, mostly teens, are obsessed with playing video games, and there is a world-wide market for it. The teen gamers play for enjoyment, and also for work. What? Get paid for playing video games? If it sounds too good to be true... The kids were not getting paid so much as forced into winning prizes on games, which the boss would then sell off to gamers. Think of Super Mario Brothers: in the world of "For the Win," Mario's cache of coins would be earned by a gamer in forced labour, then the boss would sell the game coins for other players to use. If you have ever paid to play, you have purchased non-existent power-ups, houses, ponies, pets, pancakes; whatever the game required that you just could not accomplish without pulling out the ol credit card. The kids are tired of being used and attempt to unionize to protect their future assets.

I found it to be an interesting story of revolution and the power of the people. There were a lot of characters, though, which were hard for me to keep track of. The explanations about economics were helpful, and I think I learned a little bit, but finances in general bore me. That does not mean the book was not worth reading though.

I have read short stories and compilations by Stephen King, and novels more adventure than horror, yet I am probably the only New Englander who never read Salem’s Lot. Until now.

Reading from a variety of genres is important to me. I do not consider myself a horror fan, however. H.P. Lovecraft? Yes. Please. More. I cannot get enough of the phantasmic worlds created by that dark legend. I have watched my share of Stephen King movies and television series. But I close my eyes and cover my ears during 2/3 of “The Walking Dead.” I like the adventure and characters, but not the gore.

Instead of borrowing this book from the library, I decided to try it out on audiobook. During the first several chapters, I laughed out loud a few times with my earbuds in. All was well and good.

Until I fell asleep.

And woke up yelling along with the main character.

At 3AM.

From there on I opted to continue it as a DAYTIME book.

I appreciate Stephen King’s brand of vampire: creepy, ghoulish, eerily calm, violent, floating and fading in a mysterious mist. Their thirst is horrifying. The tangled relationships between characters become laced with blood.

In true New England fashion, King managed to insert comical exchanges and pure Maine dialogue. This book had everything a good vampire story needs: fangs, screams, crucifixes (anytime the Church is involved in a horror story, it is a hundred times more scary for me), and absolutely no sparkly teenagers driving sports cars.