Reviews
Reviews of Dragonfly
“A wonderfully original, superbly written,
totally engaging, action-adventure fantasy epic.”
--Midwest Book Review
“Children’s fears become real in this
intriguingly odd, old-fashioned dark fantasy of a world beneath ours. . . . At
heart this is an old-fashioned tale of good vs. evil made distinctive by its
roots in childhood fears and its gothic scenery, like a quirky campfire story
made large or a warped celebration of Hallowe’en.”
--Locus
“Fans of Lovecraft and other horror writers
will quickly learn to relish the name of Durbin, whose story . . . makes for
hours of enjoyable reading. . . . An outstanding story packed with many
unexpected twists and turns.”
--The Bookwatch
“This is the perfect book for the Halloween
season . . . worth a try for something different and for those delightful
chills up the spine you get from a great suspense yarn.”
--Rambles
“As a horror-fantasy amalgam, Dragonfly
is a marked success. Durbin is gifted with a prodigious fantastic imagination.
. . . The verve, panache, and assurance with which Dragonfly is written
make us marvel that it could be a first novel; Durbin is a ‘find’ in whom
Arkham House can rightly be proud.”
--Weird Tales
Reviews of “The Place of Roots”
“Again, more invention in seven pages of
short fantasy in this story than in a shelf of Big Fantasy Novels.”
--Mark Watson, www.bestsf.net/reviews/fsf0102.html
“Frederic S. Durbin’s ‘The Place of Roots’
immediately calls to mind the central part of Sherri S. Tepper’s
trilogy-of-trilogies about the Land of the True Game, “The Flight of Mavin
Many-Shaped.” Durbin’s take on life in the megatrees is dark, sad, and in the
end, mysterious. The hero takes a journey, as all great heroes do, into the
underworld, climbing down the trunk in search of lost love only to find
disturbing and puzzling truths at the literal roots of his world. The sense of
journey in the vertical is always unusual for a reader, depth being so often an
accessory of breadth in the traditions of fiction. Durbin takes the reader to
the end of the world and back, teaching his viewpoint character the limits of
his existence. . . . This story is . . . lovely, dense and engaging.”
--Jay Lake
“Frederic S. Durbin’s ‘The Place of Roots’
somewhat resembles Emshwiller’s story in its indirection and refusal to spell
things out. / The story is effective and complex, both as an SF depiction of an
alien setting the reader comes to understand more than do its inhabitants, and
as a parable for the way cultures mythologize their surroundings, focusing on
dreams at the expense of reality.”
--Mark R. Kelly, from the column Distillations
by Mark R. Kelly, LOCUS, April 2001
“This story had a great sense of the alien,
but let us understand this strange world.”
--Michael Samerdyke
Reviews of "The Bone Man"
“Another descriptive tour de force . . .
Durbin delivers in full. . . .”
--Locus Looks at Short Fiction: Nick
Gevers
“Atmospheric and well written, this is an
enjoyable read. The character of the Bone Man is a clever creation, and the
anticipation built up throughout the story is great. The narrative ranges from
the comical to the macabre to the grotesque, which takes skill to achieve.”
--The Fix http://thefix-online.com/reviews/fantasy-and-science-fiction-december-2007/
“‘The Bone Man’ by Frederic S. Durbin was a
perfect spooky story after Day of the Dead. Pacing is everything in suspense,
and it ratcheted up the tension line by line, word by word.”
--John W. S. Marvin
“Excellent. The atmosphere of an American
rural town is well sketched (I like stories set in rural America. So different
from France. . . .) . . . Durbin’s craft is impressive.”
--Fabrice Doublet
“A marvelously told Halloween story.”
--Michael Samerdyke
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