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Alone Against Arcturus! (Adventure into Fear #23) (1974)

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HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2026 Writer: Steve Gerber Artist: Craig Russell Mad with hunger, Morbius attacks the first people he encounters in this strange new place. But he is in for a surprise. Fortunately for him, there is still a meal available. Sated, he explores, only to find more bizarre wonders. And some unwelcome news. The freaks of Arcturus are the survivors of a biological war who long for two things: their own destruction and to stop the Caretakers from causing another such disaster (though it seems that they are 10,000 years too late). A confrontation with the Caretakers has been set up, and I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense, but I’m here for it.  This is a weird, lonely, inter dimensional adventure that depends on cosmic strangeness rather than hoary horror tropes. Morbius’ essential conflict is compelling: hunger driving action, then conscience arriving a beat late, then Morbius trying to orient himself to a situation in which his moral crisis is irrelevant. The Last Stop A...
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The Shining (The Shining #1) (1977)

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HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2026 by Stephen King Jack Torrance takes a winter caretaker job at the isolated Overlook Hotel, bringing his wife Wendy and young son Danny with him in hopes of rebuilding his life and finishing his writing.  But Danny’s psychic sensitivity awakens a malevolent force, and the Overlook begins working on Jack’s anger, addiction, and resentment to turn him against his family, get access to his son’s gift, and manifest itself more fully in the world.  The setting is one of the book’s strengths, and Stephen King uses it effectively.  Stephen King Dread accumulates slowly as the supernatural elements exploit forces that already exist within the family.  The horror is grounded in real domestic fear, especially the fear of living with someone whose rage makes him unpredictable.  Jack Torrance is not simply a monster.  He is damaged, often sympathetic, and sometimes genuinely loving, but his alcoholism, self-pity, resentment, and lack of personal r...
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The Poison Belt (Professor Challenger #2) (1913)

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by Arthur Conan Doyle Professor Challenger, the aggressive, ego-driven bulldozer of The Lost World, comes back for another adventure, but this time he’s more of a protector than an explorer.  He and his companions barricade themselves in a sealed room with oxygen canisters after discovering that the Earth is passing through a lethal zone of "poisonous ether" in space.  They watch from their window as the entire world appears to fall into a death-like trance, forcing them to confront the potential end of the human race.  Very little actually happens in this story, which was serialized in The Strand magazine in 1913.  The protagonists are passive observers looking out a window while the world succumbs, and the drama comes less from action than from the possibility that this is the way the world ends.  The highlight of the story is the protagonists’ sojourn out of the house to investigate the effects on the world.  Arthur Conan Doyle has a neat idea but settle...
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