DLS Reviews is a labour of love. It took many years of hard work and late nights; of reworking and updating reviews and getting them onto the site, until it was finally ready for public consumption. It is the result of countless hours of reading, reviewing and uploading. It comes out of one person’s passion for reading and then reviewing horror and dark fiction.First and foremost, the reviews contained on this site are written in the style and nature that I, the site’s creator, particularly like in reviews. I am the first to admit that this style of reviewing is not for everyone. Some people like short, straight-to-the-point reviews. Others don’t like reviews to disclose too much about the plot. Personally, I like to read reviews that dissect novels. I like long and involved reviews that contrast and compare them with other similar titles. Furthermore, after finishing a novel, I love to read-up on what others thought about the book. To see how it affected others. To see if my experience mirrored that of the other readers. And so this, in essence, is what DLS Reviews is all about. It provides long and in-depth reviews that hopefully get to the beating heart of the novels. It holds them up to their peers, exposing their potential shortfalls as well as their gleaming strengths.
Hopefully, DLS Reviews forms both a place of reference, as well as a site where horror fiction fans can find out about authors and titles of interest for which they may not be aware of. I certainly don’t claim that it’s a website for all horror fiction fans. Many within the thriving horror community will undoubtedly dislike the verbose nature of the reviews. However, it was never meant to be a website to suit everyone.
Across the website I have stuck with a standard format for the presentation of all the reviews. Firstly this provides an obvious consistency. However, perhaps more importantly, it allows readers to quickly home in on what they want from the reviews, should they not want to read the entirety of them. This means that, should you not wish to find out too much about a book before reading it, then you can just skip the in-depth ‘DLS Synopsis’ and instead go straight to the review itself.
Many of the reviews contained on DLS Reviews were originally written many years ago. However, unlike most other reviewing website, the reviews on here are always open to updates, corrections or other such reworking. Should a film adaptation be made, or an expanded and uncut rerelease of a particular book be published, a mistake be noticed that needs correcting, or an important influence / similar themed title be unearthed that would further enhance the review by making reference to it; then these changes will be applied to the original review.
As such, no review is cast in stone. Admittedly, the vast majority of the reviews on the site will more than likely not require any further updates. However, having the possibility of modifying reviews as and when required gives DLS Reviews the first of its unique angles.
Alongside the numerous reviews within the website, DLS Reviews also offers a number of other pages that will hopefully be of some interest to horror and dark fiction fans. The site offers up interviews with authors and other such key individuals within the horror fiction community. It offers up free short stories for downloading, that are exclusive to the website. It provides extensive (but not necessarily exhaustive) lists of titles within certain subgenres. It details the contents and reviews the short stories within the much-missed FEAR and Skeleton Crew magazines. And it provides a forum where authors and readers can interact and talk about the genre and the novels.
DLS Reviews has become a home for me. Furthermore, it has become a large part of my life. And I hope there is something in its numerous pages for you too…
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ VARIOUS NON-FICTION
