JAMES GRAINGER
THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD By Paul Tremblay William Morrow, 270 pages, $33.50 I know it’s early, but I’m giving the ( just invented) 2018 Most Kickass Premise award to Paul Tremblay’s latest novel, The Cabin at the End of the World. Wen, the 7-yearold adopted daughter of Andrew and Eric, is approached outside the family’s rented cabin by a young man named Leonard and his three friends, all bearing gruesome homemade weapons. The four strangers, along with Wen’s family, have been singled out to save the world from an apocalypse. But one member of Wen’s family must agree to murder another. If they refuse, the first of a series of world-ending catastrophes will commence.
THE OUTSIDER By Stephen King Simon and Schuster, 576 pages, $39.99 A boy in the typical Middle American community of Flint City is brutally raped and murdered. Armed with what they believe to be incontrovertible evidence — the suspect, little-league coach Terry Maitland, was seen with the boy the day of the murder and his DNA and fingerprints are all over the crime scene — the local police proceed to arrest Maitland. But because this is a Stephen King novel, the case soon falls apart. Maitland, it seems, was out of town when the boy was murdered, and he has eyewitnesses and video evidence to prove it. King keeps readers guessing as he weaves a hybrid police procedural/horror story that doesn’t feel overly long at nearly 600 pages.
BLACK HELICOPTERS By Caitlin R. Kiernan Tor, 200 pages, $19.50 Caitlin Kiernan’s Black Helicopters explores the same fictional universe as her 2017 novella Agents of Dreamland, which, among other dizzying sleights of hand, riffed on the cosmic horrors of H.P. Lovecraft’s best tales (especially “The Whisperer in Darkness”). The new novel’s short, opaque chapters — which are more l i ke puzzle pieces than units of a linear narrative — are set between 1966 and 2152, and draw on a well of cosmic horror, noir and spy tropes. Kiernan wields her shifting landscapes, time periods and character viewpoints with seeming ease. Demanding reading, but worth the effort.
FIGURES UNSEEN: SELECTED STORIES By Steve Rasnic Tem Valancourt Books, 340 pages, $23 Steve Rasnic Tem’s all but unclassifiable stories and novels have attracted a devoted following. In this edition of more than 30 of Tem’s best stories, readers can explore the depth of feeling in this underappreciated author’s work. Plot synopses don’t do justice to the stories. There are ghosts, phantoms and spectres, surreal images and haunted landscapes. Most of all there are flawed individuals negotiating the unspeakable mysteries of family and memory. An incredible collection.