Illinois State Library

General Information

Name:  Joseph R. Grych  

Genre: Fanatsy Horror Science Fiction

Audience: Adult; Young Adult;

Born: 1960 in Berwyn, Illinois

AuthorHouse. 2006

A portal led mankind to a new world which they named Pangea. While what remained of the demon-like natives were forced to retreat underground, the men from Earth proliferated. People lived simply in rustic villages resembling a blend of the medieval and the old west. In contrast, there is an advanced city using subliminal training to ready its army for an unknown cause. The original natives from the depths of Pangea violently seek to reclaim their world. Puritanical superstitions in the villages result in intense discrimination against what could be and mdash or not be and mdash the descendants of man and angel. The issue of what it means to be different in an intolerant society has been woven into a futuristic tale of horror and new age. Characters spun from a simple quote from Genesis struggle for their lives on a world with four moons, only to find themselves face to face with diabolical evil in a startling conclusion. A young man seeks shelter from the rain and finds himself on the doorstep of kind individuals. He is Lyle Rhodes, a messenger and a guide in Eastern Gondwanaland, Pangea and mdash and he finds himself on the strangest journey of his life.

AuthorHouse. 2005

A collection of six macabre short stories set in apartments, each separated by a brief, haunting poem . In the first story the apartment building is a malevolent, hungry entity that preys upon the human soul. Jamie's friend told him that the town was bad--the Native Americans knew about it and avoided lit. A dancer casts spells on those who obstruct her goals an encounter with a sinister psychic telephone network insanity, ghostly faces that appear on everyday objects an incubus, and a mysterious intense stranger who is very popular with the widows . Toxic places draw toxic personalities and threaten the well-being of the innocent. All the while, cold neighbors either look away or are as wicked as the ground they live on. Reviewed by Todd MercerForeWord CLARION ReviewsThree stars ...gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into thee. - Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil (1886) In the older, declining Midwestern community of Littlefall, an apartment building performs the same end function as a hospice program, without the gentle compassion. Tenants move in under their own power and end their residencies on sheet-covered stretchers. Neighbors with manicured lawns and settled lives are malicious, or at least unconcerned. Neither they nor local EMTs expect anything less than a continuing string of sudden vacancies. They refrain from issuing warnings to those in peril, instead treating them as objects of morbid curiosity. "She'll read your mail, spy on you, and count the beer bottles in your trash. But when there is something truly wrong, she won't be there." Indeed, carnage as a by-product of disappearing industry underlies much of what is symbolically presented as supernatural. Character foibles and failures travel between stories, but the sources of doom are a jukebox of variety. The apartment building and the vicinity under its sway function as a clearinghouse for cruel human beings, tormented spirits and maybe even Ol' Scratch himself. Rotating antagon