That said, I have been doing a lot of reading. All the time I spent waiting for various flights and connections gave me time to finish a few books.
First up is Nocturnes by John Connolly.
Connolly primarily writes crime thrillers, but has been branching out a bit. Nocturnes is a collection of horror stories, but Connolly avoids most of the offensive and annoying stereotypes that plague the genre. Many of the stories are supernatural, but the tone is more M. R. James and Edgar Allen Poe than Stephen King. Most of his monsters are genuinely creepy, and his characters seem authentic. Even when he does write about things that are old hat in the genre - witches, ghosts, werewolves, evil clowns, etc. - there's enough of a twist to it to avoid being tiresome.
But something I noticed, and found irritating to no end, is that Connolly's stories are pretty androcentric. The women in his stories are few and far between, and are always one of three things:
1.) Wife
2.) Martyr/Victim
3.) Monster
Or some combination thereof. And while Connolly's female characters are given strength and personality, they seemed doomed to never be granted full admission into the boys' club of the Connolly's plots.
If I was going to give this a score, it would probably be a 7/10. Connolly's writing is gold, and I do love classic horror (and homages to it). But where are the women? We're capable of doing more than marrying, dying, or snaring unwary men and EATING THEM.
