Fortean Book Corner
My reviews of Fortean-themed books, some new, some classic, all comfortably at your fingertips
-
Nightmareland Review: An Overview of Where We Go in our Sleep
Speaking as someone who reads a lot of nonfiction, I love that singular moment in a book that ties everything together, and cements its status as a coherent unit rather than a series of related essays put together by the author. That moment in Lex Nover’s 2019 tome Nightmareland: Travels at the Borders of Sleep, Dreams, and Wakefulness arrives in the first sentence of the Afterword: “Perhaps one of the great questions of life is whether we decide to plumb the depths of the unknown—the worlds beyond worlds within us—or stay in the confines of our mental comfort zone.” To bring us to that moment, Nover guides us through several…
-
The Ultimate Lifestyle Shopping Experience: Horrorstor
Have you ever discovered a new author, gotten really into their book, praise them as a new find to anyone who’ll listen, puffing out your chest because no one else knew about them? You can go on for weeks about your discovery, and how they should be praised from the mountaintops and given movie deals and so on. Well, that’s my story with Grady Hendrix. (‘No one else’ in these stories usually means ‘tons of people, just not you’). Awhile ago I came across his amazing history of 70s and 80s horror, Paperbacks from Hell, and was instantly hooked on his writing style. Then, last year, I received My Best…
-
‘Every Heart a Doorway’ Takes Us Beyond the End
Most of us, at some point, wished we could open a magic door and find ourselves in a wonderful Elsewhere, our own Narnia, or Where the Wild Things Are, or the 13th Reality, or Oz, or Wonderland. These and many other worlds, accessible to us through books, create rich, vibrant worlds that so many of us would like to visit, to become part of, to adventure through. Countless authors have shown us these doors, and we travel with the protagonists, sharing their struggles, their wonder, and their joy. However, there’s one thing that nearly never gets explored in these tales—what happens when they come back? When they return to our…
-
The Contactees–A Strange Chapter of the UFO Age
For better or for worse, the American UFO Contactee phenomenon that began in the 1950s has colored many people’s perceptions of UFOs for the past seven decades. The movement itself has been ridiculed for the contact with Space Brothers, and the contactees have become infamous when discussed among modern researchers. However, it’s important to remember that the average person, when pressed, will remember just three contact-related events (if they remember anything at all). These are the Betty and Barney Hill abduction, Whitley Streiber’s Communion, and the Contactee movement, regardless of whether they know any specific names. (The 1953 film The Day the Earth Stood Still lends itself to the Contactee…
-
You Got Some Murder in my Pop Culture! Here’s How It Happened.
Murder, of course, could be thought of as an infamous human institution—in Judeo-Christian culture, its importance goes all the way back to Cain. In ancient history, it goes back to the Egyptians and Mesopotamians. In practice, it probably goes back to that fateful dinner when Og wanted the hunk of wooly mammoth Ug was still chewing on, and Og was really, really hungry. However, in more recent times, murder has become an industry. There are murderabilia shops, biopics and documentaries, and any number of true crime tomes in circulation at any given time. Volumes upon volumes have been penned about Jack the Ripper, Jeffery Dahmer, Charles Manson, and more. The…
-
The Five–A Long-Overdue Recognition of Jack the Ripper’s Victims
Picture this—it’s night in the city. Fog rolls off the Thames, its tendrils penetrating the deepest alley, the darkest corridor, shrouding the dark and creating halos around the gas lamps that line the dingy, cobblestone streets. Revelry can be heard from a nearby pub—singing, shouting, laughing…a glass breaks. Framed against this backdrop, a woozy woman steps from the pub and wanders alone, down the street, singing softly to herself. A male figure, shrouded in mist and darkness, approaches her, his coat billowing behind him, top hat perched on his head…we see a glint of sharp metal in his hand… What comes to mind? Jack the Ripper has become a major…
-
Understanding the Community: MJ Banias’ The UFO People
At first glance, you could be forgiven for assuming that MJ Banias’ book The UFO People: A Curious Culture is a light, breezy look at the UFO community and how it’s changed over the years. After all, there are chapters entitled “Haunted Manitoba” and “The Ghost of Richard Doty.” The cover sports a photo of J. Allen Hynek standing in front of a hotel sign with the message “Welcome UFO People.” However, as Willie Dixon memorably sang, “You can’t judge a book by looking at its cover.” While Banias does look at some historical aspects of the UFO community, this book isn’t made for the light reader. Rather, this is…
-
Collecting the Paranormal–Beyond Strange Review
Rob and Trish MacGregor have been researching the paranormal for a long, long time. In recent years, they’ve collected both their own experiences and those of their friends, acquaintances, and readers into a series of books, the latest of which is Beyond Strange (Crossroads Press, 2017). At first glance, a new reader could be forgiven for thinking that this book is simply a collection of stories, given chapter titles like “Spying on Aliens” and “Haunting Experiences.” Most of the tales included in Beyond Strange are new, leaving out the interesting-but-now-tired stories that usually account for a large portion of volumes like these. Tomes full of unsubstantiated stories with no analysis…
-
Evil Archaeology–Attempting to Connect Science to the Supernatural
Dr. Heather Lynn, PhD, views herself as a ‘renegade archaeologist.’ As an armchair student of archaeology, I ordered her book Evil Archaeology—Demons, Possessions, and Sinister Relics (Disinformation Books, 2019) with a great deal of anticipation. I was looking forward to in-depth descriptions of archaeological finds and how they fit into Forteana…or just those things mentioned in the title. What I got, however, was an in-depth look at folklore and history surrounding the topics in the title, with little actual archaeology. Needless to say, it was a little disappointing. However, once I accepted the book for what it was, I truly began enjoying Lynn’s writing. There are chapters on demonology, witchcraft,…
-
Government Secrecy (In Space!)–Richard Dolan Lecture Series #1
Richard Dolan is, without a doubt, one of the most precise and reliable UFO researchers in the field. His books on the US government’s history with UFOs, his advocacy for disclosure, and his television, conference, and radio appearances are routinely filled with thoughtful, well-sourced insights into the UFO phenomenon, as well as its outlying/connected subjects, such as the idea that the US government has been running a secret space program since the very beginnings of NASA. The Secret Space Program and Breakaway Civilization is the first volume in the “Richard Dolan Lecture Series”(there are currently two), published by his own imprint, and is a lightly rewritten transcript of a talk…
