{"id":4193,"date":"2013-11-24T19:37:33","date_gmt":"2013-11-25T00:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=4193"},"modified":"2023-02-16T19:35:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T00:35:00","slug":"those-who-fight-monsters-tales-of-occult-detectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4193","title":{"rendered":"Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3jXU5Pb\">Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives<\/a><\/em> (2011) edited by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/gustainis_justin.php\">Justin Gustainis<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3jXU5Pb\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/those-who-hunt-monsters.jpg?resize=194%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"those-who-hunt-monsters\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4194\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/those-who-hunt-monsters.jpg?resize=194%2C300&amp;ssl=1 194w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/those-who-hunt-monsters.jpg?w=324&amp;ssl=1 324w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/><\/a>As the title says, this is a collection of supernatural mysteries. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Little Better than a Beast: A Marla Mason Story&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/prattta.php\">T. A. Pratt<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Dusted: A Cosa Nostradamus Story&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/gilmanl.php\">Laura Anne Gilman<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Demon You Know\u2026 A Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Story&#8221; by Julie Kenner<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Spirit of the Thing: A Nightside Story&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/greens.php\">Simon R. Green<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Holding the Line: A Jill Kismet Story&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/saintcrowl.php\">Lilith Saintcrow<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Defining Shadows: A Detective Jessi Hardin Story&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/vaughnc.php\">Carrie Vaughn<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Deal Breaker: A Quincey Morris Story&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/gustainis_justin.php\">Justin Gustainis<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;See Me: A Smoke and Shadows Story&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/hufft.php\">Tanya Huff<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Soul Stains: A Vampire Babylon Story&#8221; by Chris Marie Green<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Under the Hill and Far Away: A Black London Story&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/kitteredge_caitlin.php\">Caitlin Kittredge<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;An Ace in the Hole: A Sazi Story&#8221; by C. T. Adams &#038; Cathy Clamp<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Hell Bound: A Hell on Earth Story&#8221; by Jackie Kessler<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Impossible Love: A Piers Knight Story&#8221; by C. J. Henderson<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Running Wild: An Outcast Season Story&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/klishis.com\/Books\/authors\/cainer.php\">Rachel Caine<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This was, as sometimes happens, a mix of stories I liked and didn&#8217;t like, though there wasn&#8217;t any particular story I thought was terrible. Just stories that were more or less to my personal taste. There were also several stories I had previously read.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Little Better than a Beast: A Marla Mason Story&#8221; by T. A. Pratt is one I had not read, but I enjoy Marla Mason stories, so this was a fun one. Marla is warned only at the last minute that a monster is heading for her town&#8211;a monster from the past, as well as the first chief sorcerer of Felport (as we as an explanation as to how Felport got its name. I really liked how Marla dealt with the problems here.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Dusted: A Cosa Nostradamus Story&#8221; by Laura Anne Gilman. Daniel is a retired cop and private investigator who deals with&#8230; special cases. Cases that involve things that Nulls don&#8217;t see or know about. It wasn&#8217;t a bad story, but it didn&#8217;t do anything for me, either. Which happened previously with Laura Anne Gilman stories.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Demon You Know\u2026 A Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Story&#8221; by Julie Kenner. I&#8217;ve seen the Demon-Hunting Soccer mom stories before, and they didn&#8217;t pique my interest. With a pretty low bar to clear, I have to say I enjoyed the story. I&#8217;m still not sure I&#8217;d want to read a book, but I did like the story, and thought it was very well done.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Spirit of the Thing: A Nightside Story&#8221; by Simon R. Green. I&#8217;m a huge fan of the Nightside and John Bloody Taylor, and this was a Nightside story I had not read before, so of course I enjoyed it. As with most Nightside stories, you don&#8217;t need to have read a Nightside book to read one of the short stories. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Holding the Line: A Jill Kismet Story&#8221; by Lilith Saintcrow. I am unfamiliar with Jill Kismet&#8217;s world, and I can&#8217;t say I understand it much better following this story. There was a fair amount I didn&#8217;t understand, which got in the way of my enjoyment of the story.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Defining Shadows: A Detective Jessi Hardin Story&#8221; by Carrie Vaughn. I had JUST read this one in the anthology <a href=\"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3961\"><em>Weird Detectives<\/em><\/a>. It&#8217;s a very unusual vampire story.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Deal Breaker: A Quincey Morris Story&#8221; by Justin Gustainis. This story was also in <em>Weird Detectives<\/em>, about a deal with the devil.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;See Me: A Smoke and Shadows Story&#8221; by Tanya Huff. This was also in <em>Weird Detectives<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Soul Stains: A Vampire Babylon Story&#8221; by Chris Marie Green. This was another story I had trouble with, being unfamiliar with the universe in which the story was set. It&#8217;s a vampire story, but the vampire mythos is never quite clear to me.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Under the Hill and Far Away: A Black London Story&#8221; by Caitlin Kittredge. This is the second story I&#8217;ve read set in this world, and I liked this one better than the first, but it was nowhere near to my favorite story.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;An Ace in the Hole: A Sazi Story&#8221; by C. T. Adams &#038; Cathy Clamp. This was another unfamiliar world, but I didn&#8217;t have any problems diving into the story. And there were some fascinating world building bits here.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There were three emotion scents in the room right now \u2014 determination, which smells similar to a heated cast iron pan; and anger, which reminds me of hot peppers roasting. The final scent was frustration; which is a weird mix of scents, including boiling water, black pepper and other stuff.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In other books with weres, they talk about heightened sense of scent, but this is the first time I remember those scents being described in such a way. I quite liked it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hell Bound: A Hell on Earth Story&#8221; by Jackie Kessler. This was a story about a succubus, and wasn&#8217;t my thing at all. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Impossible Love: A Piers Knight Story&#8221; by C. J. Henderson. This was a very interesting story, and one I can&#8217;t say I felt entirely comfortable with. For some reason, the idea that Down&#8217;s Syndrome could be caused by demonic possession bothered me. I&#8217;ll have to think more about why that is.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Running Wild: An Outcast Season Story&#8221; by Rachel Caine. I&#8217;ve read Rachel Caine&#8217;s Weather Warden books, and although they weren&#8217;t bad, they also weren&#8217;t my thing. I believe this story falls into the same category.<\/p>\n<p>All an all, an interesting anthology, and would I can easily recommend&#8211;especially if it&#8217;s still only $3.<br \/>\n<strong>Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives (2011) edited by Justin Gustainis As the title says, this is a collection of supernatural mysteries. &#8220;Little Better than a Beast: A Marla Mason Story&#8221; by T. A. Pratt &#8220;Dusted: A Cosa Nostradamus Story&#8221; by Laura Anne Gilman &#8220;The Demon You Know\u2026 A Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Story&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,30,2,8,291,43,16],"tags":[83,132,79,78,311,313],"class_list":["post-4193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthology","category-british","category-fantasy","category-mystery","category-paper","category-private-eye","category-supernatural","tag-carrie-vaughn","tag-justin-gustainis","tag-nightside","tag-simon-r-green","tag-tanya-huff","tag-vampires"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-15D","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3961,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3961","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":0},"title":"Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations","author":"Michelle","date":"August 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations (2013) edited by Paula Guran This is a collection of short stories previously published elsewhere, so I'd already read several of these stories. But there were several I had not, and several of the ones I'd read before were well worth reading again. This book has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;8\/10&quot;","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"weird-detectives-recent-investigations","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/weird-detectives-recent-investigations-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4385,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4385","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":1},"title":"Midnight Blue-Light Special","author":"Michelle","date":"February 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Midnight Blue-Light Special (2013) Seanan McGuire So... I had pre-ordered this, and then it sat, unread, for... ten months. I think, first and foremost, it's a sign that I've become predominately an eBook reader. (Further evidence? The last Cat and Bones book is sitting on my coffee table, staring at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Fantasy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"midnight-blue-light-special","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/midnight-blue-light-special.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":22213,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/22213","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":2},"title":"Evil Dark","author":"Michelle","date":"September 17, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Evil Dark (2012) Justin Gustainis (Occult Crimes Unit Investigation) There's just something about an over-the-top supernatural police procedural. Pretend that there's a file folder somewhere, a big, thick one, labeled Real Bad Ideas. There's at least three things I can think of that belong in there \u2013 inviting a werewolf\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;8\/10&quot;","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Evil Dark","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/EvilDark-e1511017362369.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1966,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1966","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":3},"title":"Ghost of a Chance","author":"Michelle","date":"September 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Ghost of a Chance (2010) Simon R. Green I can't help myself. I know it isn't good for me, but I have this addiction to Simon R. Green's Nightside. I've read the Eddie Drood novels, and they're OK, but they just aren't the same. But I keep ordering them, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Fantasy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/ghost_of_a_chance.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3957,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3957","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":4},"title":"Evil Dark","author":"Michelle","date":"January 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Evil Dark (2012) Justin Gustainis Stan Markowski is still on the supe squad in Scranton, still looking into crime committed by and\/or against supernatural creatures, and this time a series of murders looks to be tied together, but the answer to cui bono is nowhere to be found. Like the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bad Cover&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bad Cover","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/bad"},"img":{"alt_text":"EvilDark","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/EvilDark-197x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":889,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/889","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":5},"title":"Unnatural Inquirer","author":"Michelle","date":"January 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Unnatural Inquirer (2007) Simon R. Green We return once again to Nightside, where John Taylor is once again on the case. On several cases actually. As he finishes a case at the HP Lovecraft Memorial Library, he's asked by Walker, who has the Voice of Authority in Nightside, to retrieve\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Fantasy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/Unnatural_Inquirer.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}