Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Steven Sidor

Steven Sidor is the author of the critically-acclaimed dark thrillers Skin River, Bone Factory, and The Mirror’s Edge. His new novel of terror is Pitch Dark.

Not so long ago I asked him what he was reading. His reply:
I’m a person who reads multiple books at once, usually four or five. I rotate them throughout the day.

Right now I’m reading Robert Beattie’s Nightmare in Wichita: The Hunt for the BTK Strangler. Along with the Zodiac Killer and the Original Night Stalker, BTK was the scariest of the unknown killers out there. Beattie’s book may have spurred BTK to resurface in 2004 and led to his eventual capture.

Karl Taro Greenfeld’s China Syndrome: The True Story of the 21st Century’s First Great Epidemic is a gripping and truly frightening account of the 2003 SARS outbreak in China. The story is as much about an emerging China as it is about a mysterious virus. This one’s my bedtime book.

I’m rereading Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides, which is the basis for the latest installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise. Nobody writes like Powers. His inventiveness, energy, and great prose make him a must-read author for me.

Haunted Legends, edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas, is a great collection of horror stories based on local legends. I’ve particularly enjoyed “Down Atsion Road” by Jeffery Ford, “The Redfield Girls” by Laird Barron, “As Red as Red” by Caitlin Kiernan, and “The Folding Man” by Joe R. Lansdale.

Dan Simmons’ historical horror masterpiece, The Terror, about the doomed Franklin Expedition to the Arctic Circle shows just how far genre barriers can be stretched and how fine a writer Simmons is. I’m reading it slowly ... and savoring it.
Visit Steven Sidor's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Steven Sidor's The Mirror’s Edge.

--Marshal Zeringue