Hell Ship by Michael Veitch (history/family memoir)
The author is a descendant of two of the survivors of the "plague ship" Ticonderoga that transported 800 Scottish, Irish and English free settlers / immigrants from England to Australia in the mid-1850s. Veitch manages to convey the awfulness of the crowded, cramped, claustrophobic conditions that the ship's passengers had to endure. The eventual stench of 800 bodies is also elucidated, probably more than anyone would want. Apparently people sick with Typhus exude a horrible rotting-meat smell, giving the disease one of it's many names - "putrid fever". That certainly didn't help the olfactory aspect of the voyage. The ships surgeons also didn't know that typhus is a bacterial infection transmitted by the body louse. That discovery was still waiting to happen. Passengers start getting sick and dying. Maintaining normal ship function and hygiene becomes impossible. Sea burials become more common, eventually so common families are just quietly dumping their dead overboard without fuss. Veitch paints a horrifying and depressing picture of life at sea for these 800 poor, unfortunate souls.
However, the book feels somewhat padded out, with too many repetitive sections and chapters dedicated to side tangents and historical information that could have summarised into a few pages at most. The author also states that there are no records left from the voyage itself, but a large portion of the ship chapters read like a historical fiction novel with description of how the passengers were feeling and what they were thinking. To be fair, he does use first-hand accounts of people sailing the same route but on other ships. I was left frustrated and annoyed because I couldn't tell for certain what was fact, what was an educated guess by the author, and what was downright fabrication. I did find the logistical aspects of organising, feeding and lodging and providing health care for 800 people (single men, single women, and families from different and often conflicting cultures) on one ship to be particularly informative. The book was interesting and provides a horrifying view of this small portion of history, but it really could have used an editor.
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes (SF/horror)
A beacon repair crew on their last repair mission comes across an old distress signal somewhere near the Kuiper Belt, where no one should be. So, of course they investigate... and stumble upon a luxury passenger space ship that mysteriously vanished several decades ago. Since there is money to be made in salvaging the high-profile luxury cruiser, they beacon repair crew board the cruiser... and things quickly go sideways. It doesn't help that team leader Claire Kovalik sees ghosts (maybe? or maybe it's just in her head?) on the best of days. The cast of characters is interesting. I particularly liked the concept behind the disaster. It's certainly different from the usual alien or space microbe. An entertaining, but not too terrifying, horror science fiction novel.
Mysteries of the Werewolf: Shapeshifting, Magic and Protection by Claude Lecouteux
A collection of lycanthrope tales, legends and trial testimonials from Europe, China and Japan from Classical Antiquity to the post-medieval period. Interesting, but could have used a more indepth analysis of all the were-beast tales.
