3.5 stars. A mixed bag for me!

"Where I'm from, pain is a fact of life."3.5⭐Sefira & Other Betrayals is a collection of 8 stories from John Langan, and this was my introduction to his work. I really liked the concepts of these stories, and it was fun to see the author's creativity. I buddy read this one with my friends Mindi and Sadie. Although I liked the concepts of the stories, I had trouble connecting to the execution. John Langan writes so well, but at time, it feels like things are overly detailed. His style is very lit...

3.5. This began really strong though sometimes I found the writing a little convoluted. The first story, a novella really, about a wronged woman chasing down a succubus was very good, although the writing a little hard to follow. But once I got used to the writing style the story was a real page-turner. That can’t be said for all of the stories though. Perhaps, it’s the short story format that I struggle with ( which is totally on me and not the author) but ultimately this was just ok for me. Wh...

I had the honor of writing the intro to SEFIRA. Stories of betrayal and stories featuring monsters of all types, and featuring beautiful, Langanian writing, of course.

John Langan’s newest collection, Sefira & Other Betrayals (published by Hippocampus Press) intertwines literary fiction with mythological gods and demonic deities, with a dabble of weird, providing readers with a fantastic collection.Sefira & Other Betrayals is Langan’s third book released in the last six years, following his critically acclaimed and well received novel, The Fisherman in 2016, and his previously published collection The Wide, Carnivorous Sky (also well loved and received) in 201...

3.25/5. Some of these stories were not great, but when John Langan writes a good story, it always subverts and exceeds my expectations greatly.Betrayal is the name of the game in Sefira, and as you'd probably expect, most of the betrayals have to do with some type of infidelity in a romantic relationship. Not all did, but I was somewhat disappointed with the lack of variety. I expected more of the inventiveness I got in The Wide, Carnivorous Sky, and I was kind of disappointed with the lack of i...

This is for readers who prefer their short fiction a bit on the longer side, as this hefty volume contains a novella and a stack of novelettes, with only one story coming in under 7500 words. “Sefira” is the eponymous novella and does a tense exploration of body horror and betrayal. “In Paris, In the Mouth of Kronos” is a moody piece that wrestles with “enhanced interrogation techniques” and captures a moment in amber that society would prefer forgotten. “Bor Urus” was my favorite of the collect...

4/5I've been reading each short story in between longer reads and have continued chasing the dragon with John Langan to regain that feeling I had when I first read Langan's The Fisherman. The tough thing about these collections is the variance in my enjoyment...don't get me wrong, all of the stories are expertly written and entertaining, it's just that I want every one of them to be of the quality of The Fisherman dammit! haha That is unfair, of course. Few novels will reach that height for me a...

Sefira and Other Betrayals is another John Langan short story collection, for all the great and lamentable things that implies. He's one of the few greatest writers of cosmic horror ever, and to get new work from him is always a blessing. As always, there are some real gems in this collection, including especially the title novella. And all of the entries are exquisitely written, with careful and sensitively crafted characters moving through their strange scenarios with a sense of measured emoti...

4.5 stars! (rounded up for Goodreads)Friends, my favorite part of reviewing books is expressing to you, the person reading this review, how I felt as I read this book. I think it's so much more intimate and interesting to track with the reader through their experience, rather than have the reviewer explain plot details.That's just my opinion, so that's what I emphasize in my book reviews.SEFIRA & OTHER BETRAYALS. First, the cover. It's one of the more memorable ones I've seen so far in 2019-ther...

I love a John Langan story. They are often complex, using multiple narrative layers to construct a puzzle box of terror and emotion. His characters are not thin-paper cutouts that exist to be tortured like in some genre tales. And by extension, a Langan monster is not your standard horror creature. His bizarre creations make for exciting reading. And, equally important, they serve a larger purpose in his stories. Horror author John Langan has chosen betrayal as the theme for his third collection...

Langan’s first tale Sefira, tragedy with betrayal in the narrative.Wife and husband, Lisa and Gary, moved to Hudson Valley, Newburgh, marriage split apart due to a mans falling to lust, forbidden desires, and wildest fun promised by Sefira.There becomes more at stake in this tale.Lisa Martinez is on the road driving to something, farther afield, a fate, with monstrous transformations, a psychological suspense metamorphosing into a real horror.Lisa can kick ass and will not succumb and give up ea...

Sefira is the second of Langan's collections I have read after Children of the Fang, whose heights I don't think this as a whole can quite reach. Nonetheless, Sefira is a great collection that only further proves GRs need for half star ratings. The stories here are Langan in full literary horror mode with all the positives and negatives that entails. While I found that some of the stories skirted the edge of being overly long or the writing to teeter on overindulgence, Langan inevitably pulls th...

Finally, finally catching up on reviews, and this book definitely deserves one. This month has been bananas, but I'm going into May (how is it already May??) with all of my reviews finished and a nice tidy TBR to work through. I'm getting back into my groove. Hippocampus Press provided me with a copy of SEFIRA AND OTHER BETRAYALS in exchange for an honest review. My pals Sadie and Emily buddy read this one with me, and we had a blast. I loved THE FISHERMAN by Langan so much that I would happily

9 Wow, what to say about this fenomenal collection of horror and weird fiction by John Langan, who has fast become my favorite author in the darker corners of the genre. It opens with a short novel (132 pages), titled 'Sefira'. I was amazed at the structure Langan uses to tell his story, coming back to the same few days, all the times from a different perspective, interspersed with what happened before, revelations adding up to create a huge cosmology, while the story remained quite intimate and...

John Langan is one of my favorite contemporary writers, so when I say that this isn't my favorite from among his books, that is only to say that it isn't my most favorite from among my favorites. Collected here are eight stories of betrayal, two of them new, one of which is probably in fact a short novel or long novelette, the eponymous "Sefira."My favorite tales in this cabinet of wonders included the other new story, "At Home in the House of the Devil," as well as "In Paris, in the Mouth of Kr...

This hard cover is one of 500 produced.Introduction by Paul Tremblay.Cover art by Santiago Caruso.Contents:009 - Introduction by Paul Trembly015 - Sefira133 - In Paris, In the Month Of Kronos165 -The Third Always Beside You193 - The Unbearable Proximity of Mr. Dunn's Balloons217 - Bloom245 - Renfrew's Course263 - Bor Urus289 - At Home in the House of the Devil331 - Story Notes349 - Acknowledgements351 - Publication History

Finally finished it! As hinted at by the title of the collection, the stories within all orbited around a betrayal of one sort or another. In the hands of a more cliche-prone writer, I could see myself hating something like that. But John Langan? I'd read his accounts of reading instructions on how to boil an egg, confident he'd make it interesting reading. As usual, he wrote some fantastic weird and/or literary fiction here. I'd read one of the stories before (Bor Urus, in I believe Year's Best...

Spooktober read #4!It sounds inadequate to describe Langan’s short stories as wonderful. They are, don’t get me wrong. But the word doesn’t quite capture the enthralling weirdness you are about to experience when reading his stuff. I read one of his collections last year (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and his novel “The Fisherman” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) earlier this year, and both times, I was simply fascinated. He writes stories that are as carefully constructed

I liked a lot the novella of this volume, Sefira, and some two other stories, but the rest weren`t so great, so, overall, it felt like a three stars volume....