The Ricochet Reviewer: Books, Movies, and Comics

HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2025 by Wile E. Young Six years after the conclusion of the previous novel, haunted gunslinger Salem Covington learns from a former mentor on her deathbed that his own days are numbered.  Wile E. Young Soon after, he encounters a young female outlaw who is on the run from an undead posse sent by a man from Salem's past. The lengthy pursuit that follows leavens Salem’s dark history and impending doom with a glimmer of hope as he protects a young woman who represents the last glimmer of good he might leave behind. I thought this book was superior to the previous one, with gore that was better integrated into the narrative rather than feeling like obligatory sides trips to splatterville. The cruel world depicted here is more the wild west of Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry than that of Louis L’Amour or Zane Gray. In one memorable scene, Covington devises a torture for a man who cannot die that occupied my mind during spare moments for several days.

  HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2025 by Gail Carriger In an alternate version of Victorian England, beings such as vampires, werewolves, and ghosts have been accepted into civil society.  No longer relegated to the shadows, they have integrated into the class-conscious British system.  In author Gail Carriger’s world, these supernaturals, who derive their nature from an excess of soul, exist in contrast to a much rarer type of being that has no soul at all, the preternatural, who are actually able to neutralize their special abilities through physical contact.  Gail Carriger Enter Alexia Tarabotti, a preternatural who gets caught up in the investigation of certain disruptions in the status quo of supernatural society.  She also makes the acquaintance of Lord Maccon, the alpha of the local werewolf clan, with whom she becomes increasingly close. "Alexia Fights Vampires in London" (Japanese)  This book has a very good story. "Glowing Darkness" (German)  My enjoyment...

 HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2025 by John Shirley Vlad Horescu, an employee at a computer company, is contacted by his long-lost father, who happens to be none other than Count Dracula.  John Shirley’s Dracula is kind of like a Bond villain.  John Shirley He wants his son to exploit his position in and knowledge of the tech industry to help him secure a foothold in Brazil, from which he can extend his influence over the world.  Things become even more complicated when a supernatural being known as Lucifer—but you can call him Bill—also enlists Vlad’s aid in a cosmic struggle against the vampire.  This book is weird and messy and rapey, but it’s certainly not boring. Despite his geopolitical ambitions, Shirley’s Dracula is a horrific and powerful figure. Other distinguishing features include a penchant for dressing in military garb and wielding a machine gun, not to mention his unique manly member, which gives new meaning to the term “trouser snake”—you have been warned. M...

HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2025 by Fred Saberhagen The matriarch of the wealthy Southerland family performs a ritual left by her grandmother, none other than Mina Harker, to summon an old friend of the family, Count Dracula, to protect the clan after the murder of her granddaughter and the abduction of her grandson.  There is more going on here than is at first apparent.  Fred Saberhagen’s version of the famous vampire continues to be a moral, honorable character, taking on the responsibility of protecting the descendants of his great love, but one who is fully capable of brutality and cruelty once he decides his target is deserving of such treatment.  Fred Saberhagen Early on, Saberhagen presents a compelling and plausible imagining of what it might be like to die but not really die and then be resurrected as a vampire.  The mythology of the series is further developed, with some tantalizing hints about the vampire world that Dracula inhabits that bode well for the remaining...