Books I Read in November 2024

Two books this month.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (Orb Books, 1997. Originally published in 1954)

An interesting mix of horror and science fiction. It does a good job of presenting the inner thoughts of a man consumed by loneliness after having survived a plague that’s turned people into vampires. The edition I have includes some short stories, but I haven't read those yet. I have fond memories of watching the first two film adaptations of the book when I was in school, and I decided to re-watch the first one right away. 

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

A low budget but well-done film adaptation of Matheson’s I Am Legend. Matheson also wrote the screenplay but was so dissatisfied with the film that he had his name taken off. Even with some awkward dubbing, I think Vincent Price and the script capture the story and tone of the book pretty well.

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland Books, 2022) 

This one had been on my radar for a while. It won Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards and I’ve been following the author on social media. He’s positive and very encouraging to new authors. After seeing this in Half Price Books a few times I finally decided to grab it. 

It took a few chapters, but I liked the prose and once it got going and I was drawn into this slow burn mix of bario noir and cosmic horror. Unfortunately, I kept getting pulled out of the book. While I love languages and I can appreciate the use of Spanish throughout, the number of untranslated conversations and passages eventually became frustrating and took away from my enjoyment of the story. Still. if you like dark, dark stories you'll like this, and I'm interested in reading more of this author's work.

December Plans

I've been reading ghost stories every December for the last for years and I'll be reading more this year. Currently I'm reading Blood Standard by Laird Barron and loving it.

 

NaNoWriMo Blues

 “Finish things.” - Neil Gaiman 

I’ve been participating in National Novel Writing Month since 2018. I have yet to complete a novel, but the challenge has helped me to finish first drafts of short stories. The only times that I’ve “won” is with July and April’s Camp NaNoWriMo which lets you set your own word count. 

With all the controversy surrounding NaNoWriMo recently and the fact that none of my writing buddies are participating this time, I debated whether to participate this year. 

One of the things I struggle with is finishing things. I have too many partially completed stories. When I looked at my previous NaNoWriMo projects, I saw that my total word count was around 78,000. So, after some reflection I decided to jump in with the following goals:

• Get into the habit of writing regularly again. 

• Increase my total word count to over 80,000 words.

• Title my project “Short Story Roundup” and work on completing some stories.

So naturally I started a new short story. Sigh. 

Even without writing buddies for motivation, I’ve been enjoying working on the story though. I’ve also gotten back into the habit of writing regularly, even when I’m not in the mood and even if the word count is low. Progress is progress. I’ve also broken 80,000 words, so there’s that. 

There are still a few days left in the month, so my goal now is to finish the story. After that my goals are to keep up the habit of writing regularly past November as well as working harder to follow Neil Gaiman's advice to beginner writers, which I quoted above.