A Quasi-Scrooge Enjoys Holiday Horror 2025

 

I donʻt hate Christmas. I really donʻt. But I wouldnʻt say I love it, either.

For several years, Iʻve been watching holiday horror movies. Does this make me a "quasi-Scrooge" as I referred to myself a few years ago?

Iʻm all for peace on Earth and goodwill toward humanity (at least more than the people who run the world these days). But I find myself ambivalent this time of year. And since horror is a genre that allows me to deal with the fact that life isnʻt all puppy dogs and rainbows, it makes sense to me that one way to face my ambivalence about the holidays is to watch movies about homicidal Santas and eldritch elves. 

Holiday Review of Reviews 2025

 

Dear reader, I haven't been posting book reviews here on the blog as much as I would like the last few months. I've still been writing some reviews over on Goodreads, but I haven't even been keeping up over there. It has been a busy few months, and the energy for blogging has often been elusive.

I could keep castigating myself, or I could just post the reviews! 

After I post this, I have two more reviews to finish of Death's End by Cixin Liu and Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King. I may also return to a holiday tradition from my past: reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings! I may even read A Christmas Carol, which I've been thinking about the last few years in line with my tradition of watching holiday horror movies.

Anyway, here are my reviews of The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, Books of Blood, Vol. 3 by Clive Barker, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, Speculative Whiteness by Jordan S. Carroll, The Witching Hour by Anne Rice, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, The Fall of Gilead (graphic novel inspired by Stephen King's Dark Tower), and The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.

Happy Holidays to you and all sentient beings! May all beings be jolly!