TERRORTOME! By Garth Marenghi

Well, I was totally late to the Marenghi train. Terrortome came up on a random “suggested for you” list curated by the machine on some website, and honestly, it sat on that list for some time while I read other things. But given the dark seasons and wanting to try something new, I dipped into this and immediately fell in love. I emailed one of my writer friends whose career is built around horror, and quickly learned just how much I had been missing out on—including several other novels that spawned from an absolutely incredible television program.

The best satire is the kind that not only perfectly reflects its subject, but also makes fun of it. It is, in a sense, its best version. Marenghi is a fictional character created by comedian Matthew Holness, whom I was only slightly familiar with from his work on The Office and The Mighty Boosh. His interpretation of horror in this sense is the one from my childhood: a Channel 4 sendup of 1970s and 80s entertainment, similar to the series Look Around You. But rather than an educational reel, Holness presents Darkplace—a brooding, late-night, low-budget anthology series where his author is stuck in a variety of terrifying, strange non sequiturs.

Terrortome is a book that ticks all the boxes of great satire. It is everything Stephen King was doing, but with dramatic verbal flair, hilarious melodrama, and bizarre psychosexual human/occult relationships, all as the author struggles to write his newest novel on a haunted, secondhand typewriter. Sounds ridiculous? It is, and yet it is a wonderful sendup to a genre that is rife with laugh-out-loud moments—making it one of my favorite reading experiences. I’m looking forward to reading more of his work and checking out everything I can in this entire corner of entertainment I hadn’t known existed. Special thanks go to Matthew (Marenghi), Matthew M. Bartlett, and the algorithm gods for bestowing such a unique experience I would never have known about if not for a chance recommendation I finally paid attention to.