Entries Tagged 'HR Exclusives' ↓
November 4th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Ray Garton, Reviews
Recently retired, Steven Benedetti is driving
from Oregon to
LA. En route, he passes a sign for a
carnival and, out of nostalgia, stops to visit. There he attempts to revisit several boyhood pleasures but discovers that time has colored his
perceptions. For a final lark, he
decides to visit the Serpent Girl's tent, to watch a scantily clad doll dance
with snakes. This is where he makes the
acquaintance of Carmen. The dancing is
forgettable, it's the girl he finds himself most interested in. After the show, while pondering just what he
has seen, he discovers that the girl is in a spot of trouble. When he helps her out, the two of them hit
the road together. What follows is a twisted journey south, in which the reader soon discovers that our
narrator has a mysterious past and this girl he is infatuated with might have
more going on in her heart than she lets on. They complement each other so well, one might go
so far as to call them a killer couple.
As this novel comes in under 150 pages,
it spends only a little time establishing the characters
while bouncing between the conventions of no less than four genres. One part crime story, one part mystery, one
part road story, and culminating in an outrageous finale and a
chilling denouement of purest horror. The
result is dark, nasty, and (regrettably) short.
Serpent Girl owes
a lot to the Fawcett Gold Medal thrillers that have inspired quite a few writers
of dark crime and horror (and are even being revisited by the Hard Case Crime line of reprints and
originals). It's the kind of twisty
story that feels right at home in the confines of a cheap paperback, and yet
this is no simple pastiche. It is a modern spin, a literary descendant, which features
plenty of graphic sex. Some readers might say it
does so in lieu of plot or characterization, but those readers are selling the story a bit
short.
There is character development here, but it seems oddly
circular and it is certainly subtle. The
characters seemingly grow in spite of themselves, and the work is less concerned with the
stuff of internal character development via thought/epiphany than it is with character as defined
by action. In fact, while the book
deals with some gruesome subject matter, it is ultimately interested in questions of character. Can a person who has performed dreadful deeds for a job
and a person who has performed those a similar sort of dreadful deeds for pleasure
can ever truly see eye to eye? Can they
ever get along? Can they ever leave
their past and build something else?
It is here that the meat of the work is revealed, and in
searching out these answers the book delves into some grim but fascinating
places. Serpent Girl, while certainly a quick read, is one worth consideration from lovers of dark crime fiction and human based horrors.
This reader certainly hopes that a reasonably priced edition
may become available down the line for those who either cannot shell out forty
dollars for a lovely enough (CD makes a great book, and artist Jill Bauman's
cover art is both enticing and gorgeous) though ultimately short, limited edition,
hardcover book.
Serpent Girl by
Ray Garton
144 pages
Cemetery Dance
May 2008
Buy This Book >>>>
Author's Website
Publisher's Website
October 14th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
The small town of Tower Hill, Maine is the site of a small
university and a dark secret. Three
students -- religious Liz, Detroit trailer park escapee Steve, and wild girl
Angela -- have arrived at the campus to
find they will be sharing student housing. The town is sleepy when they arrive, but in time it will become a very
different place, a change due to the arrivals of both a new priest and
professor. These two men are allies in
their goal to plumb the town's mysterious past and to take possession of an
ancient artifact secreted there. Horror portends
their arrival and follows it. First,
individual members of the town/school body fall victim to excessive, violent
acts; soon, the entire town seems to be falling under the sway of religious
zeal and sinister obsessions. Can our
protagonists piece together the situation and find a way to challenge the
darkness that is rising around them? While the answer to this question is telegraphed rather early on, the real concern involves simply length of time and the costs of victory...
Sarah Pinborough's fourth novel treads dangerously close to
familiar territory, and yet it finds ways to tell a very personal story through
its familiar tropes. Though the strange
little town has long been a staple of horror fiction (particularly strange
little towns located, as here, in Maine), the titular town of Tower Hill has a kind of uniqueness
to it. This is due in no small part to
the personalities inhabiting it, characters who read less like archetypes found
in other horror novels than actual, individual persons.
The supernatural evil does not appear like some speeding
juggernaut out of Hell, here. It is slow
and insidious, spreading through the town like oil across water, and while this
leads to a steadily building tension, readers who expect a high energy
wham-wham-wham-BOO! plot should be prepared for plenty of downtime before the
horror springs. This offers a chance to
get to know the characters, making the many gruesome things to come all the
more tragic and resonant.
If only the tense buildup were moving toward anything
remotely interesting. Unfortunately, Tower Hill is satisfied with taking to
hand an assemblage of Good characters and squaring off against eeeevil. While this is not inherently a bad thing, this novel's
heavy reliance upon those all too familiar tropes associated with religious based horror is a drawback for this reader. I do not particularly enjoy novels where characters act as agents of
God/The White/general goodness, unless it is done in a manner that is
fresh. Here, we find the good guys are
very good. The bad guys are exceedingly eeevil,
and any poor saps that even briefly fall under their sway end up equally as bad. Readers who go for this sort of schtick might find a fine read. Unfortunately, this dichotomy is a bit too simplistic for my
tastes, and the ending suffers from being exceptionally predictable.
This is a shame, since the novel offered up some delightfully rendered atmosphere, a
nice assemblage of characters, and several fine moments of dread. Sarah Pinborough has a talent for writing
eerie scenes. This reader was
rather taken with The Hidden, some
years ago. Alas, Tower Hill turns out not to be to my liking. A shame.
Tower Hill by Sarah Pinborough
368 pages
Released:
July, 2008
Leisure Books
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Book >>>
Author's
Website
Publisher's Website
September 20th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
When originally published in 1981, Richard Laymon's
second novel appeared heavily altered from the author's original conception. In his memoir of the craft, the author commented that the novel would never be recoverable, due to the many
rewrites and general publishing skulduggery performed during that novel's
release. Several years after his death,
Richard Laymon's daughter Kelly has managed to perform something of a miracle,
recovering the lost manuscript from a variety of sources and surgically stitching the thing back into what it once was. Now, readers can see
Richard Laymon's original intentions behind the novel.
When two groups of strangers arrive in Barlow, a small,
forested town, they expect simple rest and food, a stop off on a journey to
somewhere, anywhere else. They do not
anticipate being taken captive by some crazy folks and brought deep into the
surrounding woods, chained to trees and left for a mysterious race of savages,
called Krulls. What follows is a single
night and day of pursuit and horror, with fates such as murder, rape and
unspeakable depravity awaiting them...
The Woods Are Dark
is a curious presentation of some absolutely disgusting material, which amply
demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses found in just about all of Richard
Laymon's work. Plot is king here, and
this plot moves along with the expected bullet speed found in Laymon's better
works. A close second to plot is
imagery. The novel begins with a strange
and engaging image, a pair of lovely young ladies speeding along the roads are
forced to a stop when they encounter a curious shape crawling across the road,
who then throws a grisly offering to them.
The language is like the plot: clear of distractions and very straight
ahead, tackling only what is needed and then moving on. Scenes are described with a kind of
minimalist technique, and yet there is a quality of the vivid to the
situations. What details are given are
carefully chosen, leaving plenty of room for the imagination to fill in the
blanks.
Too bad some of the more cruel moments are not handled with
the same selectivity. Nope, the sexual
and bodily assaults are all presented right in the middle of the mind's eye
camera, little left to the imagination. The horror in this book is not of the supernatural variety, but of the
awful things that human beings do to one another. For purposes of survival as well as sadism. There seems little difference in the gut wrenching qualities between the two, as they all seem to elicit some measure of joy. That these deeds are oftentimes performed by characters that were originally
presented as "sympathetic," makes them still more disturbing.
Ultimately, there are very few sympathetic characters in the
book. Many of them are vacuous shills,
bodies whose only purpose is to be carved up or to do the carving (on a couple
of special occasions, some do both). The
men are a bit better drawn than the women (who often read like men with ample
bosoms, alas), and as might be expected, the narrative finds nothing quite so attractive
about its females but for the size of their breasts. While this reader finds beauty and delight in
the plentiful other curves and shapes of the human form, these find no place in this
book.
Some of the horror is intended to be found in the
disintegration of the civilized mind, as one of the protagonists finds a killer (and
worse) lurking inside himself. However,
this character's descent into the barbarous realm feels so fast as to be unbelievable. Then again, much of what
happens is a little bit fast... The
novel itself is about 210 pages, all told (with 5 pages of introduction about
the new edition, and a lengthy preview of the next Laymon novel due out from
Leisure), so there is little real room for such niceties as character
development. Instead, characters seem to
almost transform from one mindset to another, with very little rational reason.
Can an educated, civilized man (who considers himself a
pacifist) spontaneously transform into a murderous monster, who not only takes
delight in schatenfreud, but excels at killing other human beings? Why yes. Psychologically speaking, even the most stable personality type can
become unhinged, particularly in such trying circumstances as are presented in
this book. However, this reader would
expect such a development to come about over the course of more than one day,
not (possibly) two hours. This reader just does not buy the fast fall.
The Woods Are Dark is a gruesome story, much in the flavor
of the sort of "Don't Go In The Woods" slasher-type horror films that
are once again en vogue in horror cinema. It's long about time that director Tobe (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) Hooper directed one of Richard
Laymon's novels, they seem to stem from the same horror aesthetic and share
plenty of themes and motifs. This novel
in particular would make the basis of a fine Tobe Hooper picture. As a novel, however, it feels a bit light.
The Woods Are Dark by Richard Laymon
215 pages
July 2008
Leisure Books
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Book >>>>
Author's
Website
Publisher's Website
August 18th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
Joe R. Lansdale is no stranger to the horror scene. Though his "big press" material does not
often find its way to the horror fiction shelves these days (his small
press stuff unashamedly does), there is a dark vein ("black as the heart of Satan," some well read Lansdale readers might opine, quoting from the opening of his novel, The Nightrunners) even in his "mainstream" works that's decidedly welcoming to horror readers.
Case in point: the
author's latest suspense novel, Leather
Maiden.
The story opens with a simple and somewhat familiar, hardboiled
thriller setup. Gulf War veteran
turned Pulitzer Prize nominated reporter turned down-and-out drunk, Cason
Statler swallows his pride and returns to Camp Rapture, Texas,
where he takes the job of columnist with his hometown paper. There, he stumbles upon the six months cold case of a missing girl, gorgeous college coed Caroline Allison who seemingly vanished
without a trace. Smelling a story that
might get him back into the big time, he digs into the item. He soon finds himself immersed in more murder, blackmail and mystery than he had ever believed could exist in this
small town.
Of course, for Lansdale's regular readers, Camp Rapture
already has the echoes of mystery and the macabre, as it played principle locale
for the author's 2004 novel, Sunset and
Sawdust. This novel revisits the town, though about seventy years removed from that previous
work's Depression era time period.
A fine line exists between suspense novels and category horror,
anymore. If put to the spot and asked
what "identifies" a novel as "horror," different readers
will offer up a plethora of definitions. For this reader, the definition includes emotional honesty, an unflinching
attention to the consequences of actions, an intrusive situation (a particularly
notable crime, a supernatural presence, etc.) that irrefutably destroys "normality",
and an unmistakably dark tone to the subject matter. On these fronts, Lansdale's latest novel, though
marketed as a dark crime or suspense thriller, certainly fits the bill.
The author's voice is as approachable as ever. Writing with the easy style of a raconteur, Lansdale's
prose is as clean, crisp and evocative as a hardboiled Hemingway, and the author is no
stranger to apt and unique similes. As this reader enjoys a text with a good conversational quality, Lansdale's writing immediately captures my attention and immerses me in the tale he has to tell.
Cason Statler's first person narration makes for an intensely personal story. Sure, there are plenty of ribald laughs, but when
the tale ventures down its darkest avenues -- and there is plenty of darkness
to be found between this novel's covers -- the chills come undiluted.
This is due, in no small part, to the author's skill at drawing
characters. Though they might not be
pretty characters, these folks are all pretty interesting. Despicable or heartwarming, sociopaths or sympathetic, this novel offers a collection of exceptionally drawn characters, and the best creation of all is the protagonist.
In an intriguing choice, the relationship between Cason and
his closest male ally, Booger (Yes, I said "Booger") carries strong
echoes of that found between author Walter Mosley's series
characters "Easy" Rawlins and the sociopath called Mouse. Would I be reading too deeply if
I found these characters to be twin aspects of a
single psychology, one is civilized while the other is barely
constrained
barbaric? Well, they certainly bring out the best (and worst) in each
other...
At turns likable and infuriating, Cason has several
dimensions. A recovering drunk, obsessed
with the girl who dumped him (to creepy levels, he stalks
her for a while), emotionally damaged from his time serving in Sand World (Iraq),
Cason begins the novel just over the edge of spiritual and mental breakdowns, and the
novel finds him slowly pulling himself back together. At least, for a while. When the darkness finds its way into Cason's life, there are plenty of
opportunities for the character to backslide, and this jeopardy is only one
aspect of the many levels of evoked suspense.
In a nice turn, readers will find that the mystery experience
does not confine itself merely to the unfolding events of the story, it stretches
past the protagonist and the fictional world. Of course, I mean the book's title. Just what is this Leather Maiden? The novel and
its events certainly center around that title, but what is it?
Initially, this reader took the Leather
Maiden to be something kinky. As
I've read a large number of works from Clive Barker, Edward Lee and the modern
crop of hardcore horror authors, the title brought to mind some devilish,
dominatrix figure, an intriguing fusion of extreme sexuality (the leather part) and innocence
(the maiden aspect). In fact, the answer
turns out to be rather fetishistic, but not in the way this reader first
assumed. I was quite surprised, when I
discovered the incredibly chilling, non-supernatural, and unforgettable answer.
Unfortunately, the quest for answers offers up the novel's
few notable stumbles. Coincidence plays
a powerful role in the course of events. Cason's introduction to the Caroline Allison mystery comes about through
an organic coincidence (the reporter he is replacing had some
notes on the disappearance), some larger revelations near the end of the work
come about through what feel to be inorganic coincidences (a barely touched upon character uses google to find plenty of lucky hits). As well, an ally to the protagonist's cause shows
up at a mighty convenient moment. While there is something of an understated
philosophical underpinning running through much of the book, a silent war between Purpose or Chance, Significance
or Insignificance, sometimes my instinctive thought of "Well, wasn't that
conveeenient" interrupted the story's flow. Though the author's voice and craft
brought me back into the tale, these moments were still noticeable speed bumps to mostly smooth reading.
With a novel that confidently straddles the line between
suspense/thriller and horror novel, we see, yet again, that quality writing trumps
genre pigeonholing every time. Joe R. Lansdale
excels at crafting dark, suspenseful and humorous fiction, and Leather Maiden makes for yet another excellent
addition to his already impressive body of work.
Leather Maiden by
Joe R. Lansdale
287 Pages
Knopf
Published August, 2008
Buy This Book >>>>>
Author's Website
Publisher's Website
June 10th, 2008 — From The Feeds, Gary Braunbeck, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
Gary A. Braunbeck’s latest
novel -- fourth in his Cedar Hill cycle from Leisure Books -- takes to task a
rather challenging subject (no surprise from this author, who has made a career
from fiction that asks difficult questions). The epigraph page reveals its themes, recounting passages on love,
madness, God and insight from such authors as Heinrich Hein, Christopher
Conlon, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Kahlil Gibran, and then concludes with a
quartet of names, locations that have found homes in the social consciousness
because they have all been sites of mass murder shootings. In Coffin County,
Braunbeck’s fictional Cedar Hill will become another of these names.
Now, regular readers of
Braunbeck’s fiction know that this author’s work is not content to merely
recount horrors. There is a very human
quality behind all the horrible happenings, and there is no lack of this human
factor in the equation to follow. The
supernatural does involve itself, but the real key elements are neither Powers-Man-Was-Not-Meant-To-Know
nor Horrors-Without-Meaning, but a more existential issue: Why do Americans have such an easy time
killing each other and why do we perform this deed so very often?
Now, regular readers of
Horror Reader’s reviews will note that I’m approaching this book from a
completely different direction than my typical review. Well, that’s because this reader found this
book deeply unsettling. In both aesthetically
pleasing (that whole Kafkaesque “one should read only books that bite and
stingâ€) and philosophically challenging ways. While the concept of mass shootings alone is rather horrifying, the story
takes several steps deeper into the realm of the disturbing by nearly sidelining
the tragedy and suggesting both that the victimized men, women, and children had
to die and that the monsters responsible for these deeds are not monsters at
all...
What is the book’s story?
Well, we begin with a series
of disjointed pieces. Following a single
sentence Chapter One, readers will discover scenes from the night that Cedar
Hill’s Old Towne East section adopted its current moniker of Coffin County (a
historical flashback, which builds to a somewhat surreal and literally
explosive, supernatural intersession of chaos), key passages from the fictional
travelogue A Visitor’s Guide to Cedar
Hill (including unpublished draft pages kept in CH’s Historical Society), a
return to and expansion of the first chapter’s sentence, and even a momentary flash
from the “presentâ€... The effect is a
relentless outpouring of imagery and stories, much of which has already
occurred, some of which is about to happen, and all of which have ramifications
that are yet to be understood. In the
span of 77 pages, readers will discover quite a bit of disparate material touching
upon events separated by about two hundred years. However, as Chaos Theory (a mathematical
modeling system integral to this book, which non-science savvy readers may
recall from Michael Crichton’s Jurassic
Park) tells us, what initially appears to be wildly disconnected
information might actually be part of a very complex order. This order comes through when the story then seamlessly
leaps to the present day to follow a procedural horror tale wherein the Cedar Hill
police department must cope with several seemingly random acts of mass violence.
Gary A. Braunbeck’s writing
is as controlled as ever, at turns evocative and beautiful and gruesome. Though this novel takes violence as its raison d’etre, it does not dwell so much
in the commission of the acts as it does in the aftermath of those acts. Here, we find an eye that is unwilling to
look away, a compassionate voice that delivers descriptions that are
discomforting but never gratuitous.
Much as in the beginning,
several viewpoints lead us through the story to come. Some of these are Cedar Hill citizenry, some
are momentary glimpses into the minds of the supernatural forces at play, but
the focal character for the story is Detective Ben Littlejohn, a man who
understands loss (his wife was a victim of a robbery turned deadly) and yet
does what he must to serve and protect Cedar Hill’s residents. While Ben is our protagonist character,
however, the story is not actually told from his point of view.
The choice of voice for this
work is interesting. In a technique seen
in such works as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The
House of Seven Gables and Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby, Coffin County
offers us a fictional character narrating other fictional characters. In itself, this is nothing spectacularly
new. However, this time around we
neither find the removed narrator (ala Tom in The Great Gatsby) or the impassioned participant (ala the hard as
nails protagonist of many a hardboiled fiction). Instead, “The Reverend†(a
familiar face from several Cedar Hill stories) is more of a participating
specter, a figure that flits through the characters, offering up deep views of
plentiful headspaces. As much as we
learn about the well drawn, three dimensional characters in this book, we also
(inadvertently) learn about the narrator. While little concrete information is actually blatantly told, much is
revealed through inference and a careful attention to both what is said as well as what is not. If this sounds like some cryptic puzzle, rest
assured it is nothing of the sort.
This narrative trickery
provides a rationale for some of the quirks in the text. At first, this reader was put off by the vast
number of characters who seemed well acquainted with the depths of their own
misery (Don’t any of these people
repress? Is no one happy in Cedar Hill?),
but this reader has since come to terms with the fact that many of these people
have been unaware of their own sorrows. At least until they became participants in this book and therefore
directly under the eye of this narrator.
While the book works on a
purely surface level as a disturbing tale of terror, this reviewer found plenty
happening beneath this successful, surface layer. Not only are allusions to other CH stories
present and aplenty (though not so thick as to either distract or render the
text indecipherable without a Cedar Hill concordance), but readers interested
in the craft of writing will find much to savor here.
And yet...
Coffin County bothers this reader. A part of this is due to religious overtones that
just don’t work for me, and a part is due to the vast amount of unbroken misery on
display, and a part is due to the climax dancing uncomfortably close to one of
The Worst Tricks In Storytelling, but ultimately it is the core ideological summation
of the book (this reviewer nearly wrote “the core message†of the book, though
that would incorrectly make this work seem little better than a platform for
propagandizing). This book considers its
material and formulates answers I strongly disagree with.
Great fiction does not
settle with satisfactory, pat solutions. It gets the mind going, and Coffin County
certainly got this reader’s mind a spinning. I don’t expect a book to necessarily agree with my (admittedly cracked)
world view, but the ones that present a rational argument in direct opposition... Bother me. Because I cannot debate with a book (short of writing a book of my own),
I do not enjoy going on message boards, and I would rather not distract an
author with a rambling, incoherent email (I’d rather read that author’s next
book). Instead, this reader is forced to
carry around the debate in heart and head, and that just bugs me.
Can I recommend this work? Hesitantly, yes.
I can certainly recommend
the author. Gary A. Braunbeck consistently writes
some of today’s most powerful popular fiction. This work is his most effective. I cannot say if I quite like
it, however. It’s got quite a few teeth,
and I respect it. Respect, however, does
not connote like. Any new Braunbeck novel is a cause for
celebration, but Coffin County (more than anything else he has yet written) has the distinction of completely
altering my outlook on what horror fiction can accomplish. I find myself unable to read the genre in quite
the way I did before cracking this paperback’s spine.
The fifth (and final?) book
for the author’s Cedar Hill cycle will be released by Leisure Books in 2009.
Coffin County
by Gary A. Braunbeck
333 pages
Leisure Books
Released June 2008
Buy This Book
>>>>>
Author’s Website
Publisher’s Website
May 28th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
A man and woman are
driving through the night. Billy Smith
and Angel are anything but amorous; she is his handcuffed prisoner. He is haunted by nightmares. Their path has taken them from Salt Lake City
to North Carolina by the time this novel opens, but it is far from over. That path will not end until after they have
reached the small town of White Falls, Maine..
Meanwhile, in WhiteFalls,
another young man (Jeboriah Taylor) is going to the prison where his
incarcerated father has died to retrieve the suitcase containing his dead
father's possessions. There is a legacy
behind him and a growing anger about him.
The town itself is a haunted
place, home to a legacy of darkness dating back to the 1700s. As these three characters pursue their own
mysteries, they will discover that legacy to play a profound part in their
Fates. The dead do not rest easy in this
small town. However, the inhabitants of
this town are complicit because of their actions, their desires, their day to
day casual cruelties. Something stirs,
here, something bound to an ancient artifact called the Bloodstone, and should
that dark presence fully rouse, all Hell will break loose.
As with painting and
music, first novels often run the risk of hearkening too closely to the style
and themes and technique of those who have come before them. Imitation is the oldest way to learn an
artistic craft, and the sincerest flattery can be had in being the Master those
budding artists imitate. With enough
time, a writer's own voice should shine through. For an example in the field of horror
fiction, we need look no further than Ramsey Campbell, whose first collection (released
by Arkham House as Inhabitant of the Lake,
later titled Cold Print) offers up a
plethora of tales told very much in the H. P. Lovecraft vein. By Campbell's
second collection, Demons by Daylight,
his individual voice found its way free.
Here we find Nate Kenyon,
first time novelist, spinning a story that veers quite close to familiar
territory. Bloodstone, like hundreds of novels in the last thirty years or so,
is very much in keeping with the style, the interests, the tone, and the
technique of Stephen King. This is the novel's
single, leading shortcoming, and a mighty one it is.
While the town itself
feels more like Derry (from It) than Salem's Lot, the
townsfolk themselves and the scenes they are involved in are straight out of
King's second published novel. In one
scene, we find a cuckhold wielding a shotgun on the adulterous spouse and
lover. In another, we find evil taking a
life in the junkyard (though without rats, this time around). Geographically
speaking, we find the creepy old mansion acting as source of the town's dark
legacy and a beacon to its current situation. The comparisons go on and on...
I have read and loved King's
Salem's Lot. It was revolutionary when it came out over thirty
years ago. It is still a delightfully
eerie read nowadays (this reader just revisited that peculiar, doomed little
town, only a few months ago). However,
do we horror readers need yet another attempt to retell this same story? I offer an emphatic no.
However, this is not to
say that there is nothing of interest about Bloodstone. If all it had to say was "It's Salem's Lot, but with [INSERT DIFFERENT
MONSTER HERE]!", then I would be completely panning this book; it would be
an absolute waste of time. I am not,
however, because Bloodstone does have
something going for it. What might that
be? Why it offers an interesting
structure pertaining to the journey taken by its three main characters.
From the description
above, which is how they are introduced, certain roles are established, and a
formulaic genre weary reader will find ways to pigeon hole those characters
into expected slots: one character will
side with evil, one character will find inner strength to combat evil, and one
character will be the helper/guide (in Joseph Campbell speak) to inner
strength.
With the exception of the
prediction for helper/guide character (who really gets little to do in this
book), the other two follow very different, nonlinear paths. This reader found his expectations turned, if
not completely around than certainly enough to continue reading. I was curious to see how things played
out. Ultimately, the ending comes as no
surprise, the plot (like its cast of secondary characters) prefers to stay
within the realm of the familiar, but the players roles in the end sequence of
events were a surprise from my initial expectations.
Nate Kenyon's language is certainly
readable. Dialogue sounds natural, the
descriptions are just enough to paint a good picture and propel the events. The language is that of a storyteller, and
this author tells his tale of small town evil with quite a bit of energy and
emotion. Along with the nice characterization
and twists (at least around the three leads), he shows he has the talent to spin
a really good horror yarn.
Upon closing the covers of
this book and considering what I had read, I was reminded of Roger Ebert's comments
in his review of director Quentin Tarantino's first film, Reservoir Dogs. The film
critic said something to the effect of: Now that you've shown you can make a movie of this sort, show us that
you can do something different with it. Well, Mr. Kenyon, now that you've shown us that you can tell a classic horror
story (providing that "classic horror" only dates back to 1974), I
strongly urge you to break from the familiar.
I understand that Bloodstone (a reprint of Kenyon's
hardcover novel from 2006, published by Five Star) is the first of a multibook
deal with Leisure. This copy contains an
excerpt from his forthcoming novel (The
Reach) due out in 2009. Though the
name is also, coincidentally or not, also that of another Stephen King story, the
chapter excerpt shows plenty of promise. I am certainly curious to see what this author does and where he goes. For his next couple of books, at least.
Bloodstone
by Nate Kenyon
352 page
Leisure Books
May 2008
Buy This Book >>>
Author's Website
Publisher's Website
May 19th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Ramsey Campbell, Reviews
Simon Lester is a film minded fellow with some of the worst
luck imaginable. When the magazine he
writes for gets hit with libel suits, his career as a film writer takes a nose
dive; he finds himself working at a gas station, living in college student
housing (though he is not a student any longer), and on the serious outs with
his girlfriend's parents... Good fortune
finally comes his way when a former professor offers him the chance to expand his
thesis on forgotten film actors into a full book length work. During his exploration of the elusive history
behind one of these figures, silent comedian Tubby Thackery, Simon embarks on a
journey that will take him beyond the comforts of his London haunts. Manchester, Amsterdam, California
and more places await him, each offering another kernel of information that
will equally enlighten and disturb.
Ramsey Campbell is no stranger to the macabre. His unique brand of psychological horror has
long been one of this reader's preferred pleasures. Though he has taken some time away from out
and out horror to pen dark thrillers for a time, no matter what publishing
niche they might fall under, this reader has a special place in his heart for Campbell’s fiction.
The Grin of the Dark
finds the author once more visiting the subtle, eerie world straddling the line
between psychological breakdown and supernatural terror, a realm he has charted
quite well through his short fiction and previous novels. As well, The Grin
of the Dark presents a return (of sorts) to the world of forgotten
film. While 1989's Ancient Images previously ventured into this territory, telling a
chilling tale set around the pursuit of a lost Karloff/Lugosi film, this story
is no regurgitation of that novel’s constituent parts. Both books might make for a delightful double
feature in the Cineplex of the mind’s eye, but their essential interest and
storylines are rather different. Differences range from
the topical (the technology level is certainly different: DVDs, old videotape, and the Internet all play
quite a role as help/hindrance to protagonist Simon's search), to the nuts and
bolts of thematic semantics (The Grin of the Dark takes interest less in
the trappings of horror pictures, than it does in the secret history of those who
involve themselves in the horrific behind the scenes). As well as the divide between psychology and supernatural based frights, this novel makes a go at blurring the
line between humor and fear.
There are quite a few laughs to be found in these
pages. Much of these are of the black
humor variety, but there are several moments that are genuinely funny. That these typically lead into disturbing
situations should surprise no one. While
a familiar definition suggests "Tragedy is when I cut my thumb, comedy is
when you fall down a manhole," this novel dwells somewhere between the two
extremes, at the horrible juncture that might be defined as “when I fall down
after you because someone has moved the hole.â€
Many of the problems Simon faces are not themselves out of
the ordinary. The Grin of the Dark is replete with family disappointments,
misunderstandings, bank problems, anonymously posting twits on the internet,
fears of inadequacy, and other mundane issues. All of these, however, contribute to the pervasive, eerie
atmosphere.
Campbell’s horror often finds its way into even the most
innocuous sequence, dialogues veer into bizarre territory merely because of
inflection or word choice or curious moments to pause; settings become
disquieting because of a paranoid’s attention to details; quiet moments of
speculation turn disconcerting because of a simple misstep, a subtle
revelation, or a hop of logic (not so far as a full leap).
This makes for a quiet sensibility, a slowly wrought chill,
an atmosphere evoked deliberately and slowly through a keen attention to
description and dialogue and internal monologue. Quiet as it is, there is nothing gentle about
this book, and yet the more brutal aspects might be obfuscated by this slow
build. For readers who liken “a good
horror story†to qualities such as breakneck speed, relentless to the point of mind numbing
plots, and none too subtle scares, such a carefully evoked work could seem rather
slow. The Grin of the Dark is not a book to be gulped down on a beach. It takes its time, it asks for a moment and
constructs a powerful tale well worth the time investment.
The spirit of the work is decidedly British and yet speaks to
the themes found in Japanese authors such as Koji Suzuki. The Grin of
the Dark thematically tackles such topics as the odd interplay between the
technological and the spiritual, the inescapable resonance of history, the
anarchic role of the Outsider in society, the shortage of nature and the lack
of emotional equilibrium to be found in non-urban settings, and more. Not riffs, homages or ripoffs of another
author’s book, these are lines of communication between The Grin of the Dark, Ringu,
and a host of other works, intriguing dialogues between books that well read
readers can appreciate.
One of Grin’s more
interesting stylistic choices is to present the story as first person, present
tense. This offers a you-are-there
feeling, and makes the reader complicit with Simon’s perspectives and decisions. Therefore, as the protagonist experiences
moments of confusion about the sequence of events he has already participated
in, the effect is experienced by the reader as well. Similar to the effect famously demonstrated
in the film Rashomon (where four
stories are presented, each conflicting with details offered by the others, and in which no Truth is made evident), the novel
breaks a contract with the reader, what is shown to us may not necessarily be the
truth. From this arise a plethora of
questions: Are Simon’s (and the
reader’s) recollections correct? Is the
world somehow changing, the past altering? The effect adds a quality of the unreliable to our narrator, which this
reader found delightfully disorienting.
Another interesting stylistic choice is found in the use of
reverses. The novel does not often
directly present its more unreal/supernatural/otherworldly elements. Instead, it alludes to them by defining what
they are not. Moist white objects (and
there are plenty of these to be found, from floating faces to snowmen to lumpy, other things) that cannot be
present, cannot be moving, and certainly cannot be all that threatening
ultimately end up doing one or more of those three things. The effect adds to the disorienting quality
of the work, and serves as the classic springboard, allowing the reader's imagination and experience to fill
in the blanks making for an even more unsettling scene.
Grin of the Dark really
got under this reader's skin in all the right ways, and I already long to
reread it.
Grin of the Dark
by Ramsey Campbell
404 pages
Virgin Books
Release: May 2008
Buy This Book >>>>>
Author’s Website
Publisher’s Website
April 8th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
Something strange is happening around London, and while no one person has a real
sense of the extent of these events, several individuals have inklings, clues
to the larger picture. Bo Mulvey is a
photographer who, as something of a lark, agrees to become possessor of a map
he cannot see, to a location (called the House of Flies) that cannot be real; he soon
comes to learn that there is more to the world that what he perceives, and more
to appetite that he has previously experienced. Sarah is on the run from the man responsible for the death of her
husband; however far she goes, she soon comes to discover that death has a way
of finding her. Sarah’s daughter Claire has
had an encounter that resulted in both a psychological breakdown and apparent
physical illness; is the cancerous growth appearing on her body something from
inhuman origins? Manser is a man drawn
to darkness, with a pastime that involves dismemberment and a mysterious mentor
that requires blood sacrifices; has he, in fact, been playing a role in a monstrous
plan even larger than he might have imagined? Over the course of the work, the city itself seems to be changing around
these characters, becoming something unfamiliar and incredibly disturbing. Its citizens are either vanishing or undergoing
a bizarre transformation into something other than human…
On the surface, Conrad Williams' novel, The Unblemished, seems to be yet another addition to the varied offerings
of apocalyptic horror. However, The Unblemished offers discerning
readers the distinction of being more impressive than the typical
tales currently filling this subgenre. This
is due to top notch writing skill. Williams possesses a poet’s appreciation for language, a talent for
painting Boschian nightmares with generous dabs of prose as beautiful as
anything by Keats. This prose is at turns
stark and hallucinogenic, building surrealistic and sadistic imagery upon the mundane
and familiar. The effect of such a conglomeration of sequences
is disorienting in all the right ways. At
turns witty, shocking, and (yes) actually horrifying, The Unblemished is
a triumph of the macabre. This novel
is nothing less than truly epic, though still nasty and thoughtful and meaty. In short, it's full of the things that actually
made this reader a fan of the horror genre, and has revitalized my somewhat
waning interest in apocalyptic fiction by offering up creative horrors of many splendors.
And yet... With so
many things going for it, the book is rather slow to get moving. A bit distancing. Oh, the Prologue is certainly eerie, and the
opening chapters read well enough. Yet
they are delivered in such a fashion as to woo the reader. They did not grab this reader by the ears and
race merrily off. As such, I found the book
a little too easy to set down for about the first third, but shortly after this
it becomes nothing less than compulsive reading.
If the book has a flaw, it may very well be found in the
sheer number of nightmarish sequences. A
few of these feel a tad extraneous, perhaps unnecessary. However, as a longtime fan of novels that include
moments of what others might deem authorial self-indulgence, this reader certainly did not mind the
imaginative bombardment of darkness.
This novel received quite a bit of acclaim (and the International
Horror Guild Award for best novel) upon its original, small press release. With luck, this new edition from Virgin Books
will garner even wider attention. I, for
one, am stunned by all this work accomplishes in its 300 pages.
The Unblemished by
Conrad Williams
288 pages
Virgin Books
April 2008
Buy This Book >>>>>
Author's Website
Publisher's Website
March 27th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
The title of Rob Roger’s novel, Devil’s Cape, refers to a fictional city in Louisiana,
a neighbor to New Orleans. Devil's Cape has earned its moniker of "Pirate Town"
by a long history of crime, violence and corruption dating from its founding
(by dread pirate St. Diable) to the present day. The story recounted is a complex one. The first quarter of the novel is dedicated
to presenting the character of the city as well as some of its colorful
characters, including the latest crime lord, the masked businessman who calls
himself the Robber Baron. In addition,
we meet a carnival of murderers and several other people bearing supernatural
abilities. Did I say supernatural? Perhaps superhuman is the more appropriate
word: these folks are budding
superheroes and villains.
All of the many years of build-up lead through “Today†and
the days following. “Today†is marked by
an event of enormous magnitude, a series of deaths that just about rock the entire world. Afterwards,
only a handful of people seem capable of finding justice for this momentous act. A woman whose father was murdered many years
ago finds herself with a yearning for revenge and enough knowledge of
superscience and technology to make her impossible goal a reality. A pair of twins, blessed or cursed with
strange abilities, find themselves at odds over their extended Greek family
member's business, which of course involve dealings with the infamous Robber
Baron.
A street tough turned psychiatrist
discovers that his whole world is not quite as orderly and logical as it seems,
when an old hallucination is revealed to have very real roots. These disparate characters soon unite (in
proper superhero fashion) to wage a sort of war against the darkest elements of
Devil's Cape. However, this world is no four colored place where people cannot die,
but tries to evoke the more gritty qualities of works by such comic
book/graphic novel luminaries as Alan Moore (Watchmen), Frank Miller (Dark
Knight Returns), J. Michael Straczynski (Rising Stars), et. al.
The writing is quite good. The characters are layered and intriguing, the setting is well defined,
the supernatural and the paranormal powers and their uses are imaginative, and
the language is of that "invisible" style, which communicates without
calling attention to itself. Rogers is a gifted
storyteller, and the tale he weaves is one that probes the darker corners of
its subject matter as well as the hopeful, inspirational ones.
However, it does not delve quite so deeply into the darkness
as this reader might have hoped. This
work does not fully explore the questions it raises. Yes, the novel plays with darkness, yet it
draws the classic hard line delineation between good and evil, right and
wrong. It does not present many shades
of gray, but hearkens back to the golden age of comics where the "good
guys" always act in a certain way. Why? Because they are heroic.
This resonates most clearly in the choice for the novel's
alternate universe to exclude the impact of Katrina. While this reviewer tries to remain impartial
to real world details while reading, the lack of even a single reference to
that hurricane and its profound effects on both the area and its people made things seem a little... off.
Certainly there is madness to be found in these pages, and
pain is no stranger here, but the story is ultimately a reassuring one. By the end of the book, a few of the major
questions are resolved, but there are enough loose threads to feed another book
or two (this reader suspects... wait for
it... trilogy!). While those books, if they are given half the
care of this, will undoubtedly be fine reads, thrilling stories of paranormal
powered people trying to find justice in an essentially corrupt city, they have
yet to venture down the darkest roads to which they aspire (see those authors
above).
Have I been jaded by reading too much Warren Ellis, Garth
Ennis, Frank Miller, Michael Millar, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison,
etc. etc.? This is a viable
question. However, to review a book for
a site like Horror Reader, I have to look at the material through a certain
kind of lens.
Make no mistake: Devil's Cape is a well told tale, a fine dark
fantasy. But horror, alas, it is
not. It shies away from consequences,
and this reader found its emotional resonance limited.
This is not to say I'm less than eager to see What Happens
Next (which, of course, is the driving question behind much of genre
fiction). Fans of intriguing takes on
superheroes will find much to savor in this work. Sure, it's not quite up to the aforementioned
seminal works by Moore, Miller, &cetera, but the author is still growing. Give him a few more books, and we'll see
where he takes us.
Devil's Cape by Rob Rogers
243 pages
Wizards of the Coast Discoveries
Release: April 2008
Buy This Book >>>>>
Author's Blog
Publisher's Website
March 7th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Reviews
A bank robbery goes terribly wrong. While the police mass outside, three crooks hole
up inside a tattoo parlor: Juice is
recently escaped from the pokey, a philosophical killer who abides by the old adage
of Pavillion Nomme Sansquartier
(roughly translated as the title of this work); Cuz is a maniac with two
submachine guns and no fear of death; Ace is out of his league, relying on Cuz
to call the plays. They have hostages,
and they have demands. Outside, the
police are champing at the bit to take these crooks down. Only the negotiator, James, is holding them
in line. He is willing to work with the
criminals to a degree, in order to guarantee the hostages' safety. However, before this tense standoff situation
is done, plenty of blood will be spilled.
With No Quarter,
Everette Bell has penned a page turner of a novella. That it pays homage to the best of Hong
Kong action cinema is probably no surprise. This is a story of mood and nerve, with tough
characters growling and blasting their way through the bleakest situations this
side of Hell. In the world of fiction,
this novella aspires to offer the same sort of gutwrenching thrills and nail
biting suspense as found in the solidly constructed, hard edged works of
writers like Stephen Hunter (e.g. the novel Dirty
White Boys) or David J. Schow (e.g. the short story "Bad Guy
Hats"). While this aspiration is
nice, the writing unfortunately falls short.
The errs in this novella are rather grave. Poor verb choice is augmented by unnecessary
modifiers (those dreaded Swifties, he winced painfully) and odd choices for
hyphenation (mother-fucker?) are only two of the more obvious lackluster
writing examples. These alone would be
enough to cause me to set the book down, if it were not so short.
That these characters are rather flat and familiar is not at
all surprising, since they are drawn from the same archetypes found in the
aforementioned Hong Kong cinema (think John Woo, circa
his The Killer/Hard Boiled days).
No Quarter is a
gory, dark crime story from a young writer still learning his craft. While there are certainly more lessons to be
had, there is undeniable energy to the prose. This novella has a brutal story to share, and while it does not get the
words quite right, it tries to make up for its shortcomings with
enthusiasm. Alas, for this reader,
enthusiasm does not make up for the language. Those with a higher tolerance for such things (or those in the mood for
a quick and dirty B-movie for your mind) may well enjoy this tale of
ultraviolence and the men who perform it.
No Quarter by
Everette Bell
52 pages
Creative Guy Publishing
Released 2006
Buy This Book >>>
Publisher's Website
February 28th, 2008 — Commentary, From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Nonfiction, Reviews, Short Stories
The names Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem should not be
unfamiliar to readers of dark fiction. For
those few for whom these names are strangers, this Horror Reader certainly
recommends immediate correction. Though I've long been more a fan of the Tems' short fiction than their longer works,
this latest book (an expansion upon their multiple award winning,
collaborative novella The Man on the Ceiling) has quickly rocketed to
the top of my list of Tem pieces. It is a marvel to read, insightful and
informative. However, one enormous question lingers for this
reviewer after finishing the work: just
what the hell is it?
The authors themselves dub it a biography of the
imagination, and this acts as a pretty good encapsulation. However, while evocative, it does not
really allow a beleaguered reviewer such as myself to find the proper box to check, the proper category to file this under. Pity the uninformed reader relying on this reviewer's words (I suppose there might be one such being in the world; leave me my dreams, will you?), who might remain clueless as to the many faceted treasure that lays between
this work's covers. Let me flounder for a spell, and perhaps my fellow Horror Readers might understand my difficulty.
While The
Man on the Ceiling features its titular character "in the flesh"
so to speak, and while he is something ghastly, this is not a horror
novel. And while the book attempts to
capture both the "authors" (for the narrators of this particular
story are Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem, but are these the real deal or fictional creations-- ala J.G. Ballard? While the phrase
"Everything we tell you is true" is repeated quite often here, this is by no means the literal truth. It's a truth of a completely different
sort, that of delicious verisimilitude) as individuals and as components of a
"nontraditional" family, the book is not quite a memoir (fact and fantasy
interweave without mercy, dropping the reader into a world far too
wonderful, far too awful, and far too honest
to be the everyday real world). While
there are plenty of snippets of short fiction, this is no collection. These short stories do not really stand as well
on their own as they do amongst the details in the rest of the work; less short
stories than parasitic anecdotes, perhaps. While advice to prospective writers abounds,
this is no mere "How To Git (sic) Published" volume. Where the narrators offer plentiful meditations upon the value and importance of story (again, as a
vessel of truth), this is by no means the sole of wit and thought on display. As with Whitman, this sucker is vast. It contains multitudes...
Has this reviewer made plain the difficulty? Just what am I supposed to file this under?
Why nothing and everything, of course, and that's what makes
a work like The Man on the Ceiling
truly excel. It is actually sui generis. It is beyond genre and yet built from genre. A curious puzzle, engaging in its emotional
honesty and clear voices. Indeed, there are two distinct voices to be found here. Alternating passages are written from Melanie
and Steve's perspectives and each manages to share levels of intimacy often reserved for good poetry.
Through the manifold aspects, we find several recurring themes. The
importance of accepting responsibility, enduring the worst hardships, and attempts to define what a family actually means. In this book, the family is composed of the
Tems and their several adopted children (as well as parents and, eventually, grandchildren). While many joys have visited this family, so has tragedy. One of their sons committed suicide (Or did
he? Was it some kind of convoluted
accident? Could it have been
prevented? These and other, deeper questions haunt the narrators, particularly since
those narrators have the sort of minds that come up with those worst case
scenarios called horror fiction). From
this starting place, the novel then explores truly fascinating avenues, plumbing
the depths of all those subjects I indicated above (and quite a few more) in a sometimes surreal, often hypnotic fashion (and bonus points for invoking that quirky mathematical term asymptotic!), but
always, always returning to the concept of family. If this sounds suddenly unappealing, let this reader assure you: The Man on the Ceiling deals with this
topic in a classy fashion, deftly avoiding the clichéd, saccharine idealizations dominating our culture. Perhaps you are
familiar with the sticky sweet model found somewhere between
the Hallmark Card aisle and the latest Hollywood/Lifetime Channel
tearjerker. My family shares little similarity to
the type those tearjerkers champion, and while my family is certainly not like the one presented in this book,
there are more elements from the Tems' account that I empathize with. As writer, as thinker, as son, as grandson, as husband.
Yet there is real horror to be found here. Not the safely removed sort, but the kind that crawls
down your throat and sets to breeding inside your belly. The sort
that all the best dark fiction authors regularly strive to evoke. These successes come not from producing simple entertainment, but from
tapping into something far deeper in the subconscious, those
uncomfortable levels of unflinching emotional honesty. In the murky depths of this honest place, fiction can
become truly disturbing, striking a chord in the reader and transforming empathy into something altogether undesirable. There are several moments of purest nightmare in The Man on the Ceiling, more than I
expected to find from the rather casual tone, in fact. Much to my
delighted (and disturbed) surprise. Open this book if you dare, and find something truly unique.
The Man on the Ceiling by Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem
384 pages
Wizards of the Coast Discoveries
Release: March 2008
Buy This Book >>>>
Authors' Website
Publisher's Website
February 25th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Nonfiction, Reviews
The full title for this nonfiction volume reveals much of
its intent. With Infernal
Device: the machinery of torture and
execution, we have a volume dedicated to depicting something of a history
of man's cruelty to man. There is little
more horrifying than the lengths one human being is willing to go to do harm to
another, except perhaps the tools devised to perform this harm.
Between these covers readers will discover thirty such items ranging in
levels of lethality from merely torturous (e.g. the maddening Bell Collar, worn
about the neck of a bound human being the bell, which hangs overhead, chimes
with every motion) to the body and soul crushing (e.g. the Scavenger's Daughter, the portable
version of the rack -- that devices "sister" after a fashion), to the
mutilating (e.g. Mouth Opener and Tongue Tearer, which certainly need little
additional definition from this reviewer) to the life ending (e.g. the Brass Bull,
into which a human being was squeezed and then cooked). In addition to a thorough description of the
device's use, origin, and alternate names, each of the tools features a rather
sterile photograph (the device placed against a neutral colored background; similar to the images presented in a catalog, oddly enough),
which certainly brought shivers to this reader.
The prose is quite approachable and informative, if minimal. Plenty of quotations from literary
sources fill out the text, along with a scattering of diverse, fascinating
historical details about tangential topics (such as the origin of the phrase sacre
bleu, found in the section on the Mouth Opener and Tongue Tearer).
While a book of this nature is bound to garner quite a few detrimental declarations of its material as "depraved" or similar (mostly from people who have not even bothered to crack its spine), this
reader certainly found himself both enthralled and repulsed by the devices it
displayed. If horror readers are ready
for a brush with fearsomeness born of the real world, they need look no further
than this slender, eloquent text. A compact bibliography offers additional avenues for those whose
curiosity is stoked for more.
Infernal Device: the machinery of torture and execution by Erik Rühling
92 pages
Disinformation Press
Released 2007
Buy This Book: >>>>
Author's Website
Publisher's Website
February 24th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
Zhan Immur left home to begin
the arduous training to become an elite warrior dedicated to battling their people's cannibal
enemies. However, this is not to be her
fate. A horrifying situation prematurely removes her from this training: her grandfather has fled accusations of murdering a village. Uncle Seth is to pursue him, and Zhan is to
accompany him; their goal is to kill this murderer. Their journey will take
them far from their snowy and isolated homes, immersing them in wholly
different cultures rife with xenophobic hatreds but also delivering them a company of unforgettable
allies, including Adel (a paladin who served at the side of the last dragon), Fest
(a mercenary looking to somehow redeem the damnation of a life of slavery), and
Korinyes (a gypsy woman who houses many secrets).
Oftentimes, fiction approaches memory in a linear fashion: one sequence of events follows another, as
though the act of recollection were an act of following a timeline, reciting
historical events. Last Dragon is
not at all satisfied with this approach. Instead, it pushes the boundaries of the familiar, giving us a much more
nonlinear approach. Under the guise of Zhan's
letters, written as meditations upon events from the past (taking to heart the
advice proposed by William Wordsworth), we get sixteen chapters comprised of dozens
of what initially appear to be disjointed sequences (running in length from a
sentence to several pages). While the
narrator recalls whole scenes with clarity and emotion delivered in a lyrical fashion
reminiscent of the Romantic era authors, these sequences are not placed
chronologically but in the manner of a wandering mind's recollections. While ultimately they dovetail into a singular story, this comes about only after a mix of tangents, poignant repetitions, and the occasional dead
stop of a complete non-sequiteur. The
effect is nothing less than kaleidoscopic. Several different story lines are
related in only a few short pages; however, the author here demonstrates a talent by handling this gimmick in
such a fashion as to minimize reader's confusion. Initially, of course, it is disorienting
(particularly since quotation marks are absent; the author uses italics instead), but a close reading reveals the delicate threads
between what might initially appear to be disparate topics.
The imagery is quite moving and poignant, reveling equally
in both the light and dark. In this
regard, a high fantasy novel like Last Dragon is of more than passing interest
to this reader, and I recommend it to my fellow Horror Readers. There is a dirty quality to things as well as
events. From the grand, to the small,
the darkness is evident. From the cities
visited (not pristine jewels shining across a bright world but older dirtier
places strewn about a land with a bloody history) to the human body (this
horror reader has not seen such a poetic and terrifying use for ants outside of
a Clive Barker fantasy) to the difficult situations and choices forced upon
our protagonist and her band, there is much to recommend to fans of the dark. Best of all, the novel is not afraid to take
chances with its cast of characters, and through a sensitive attention to
language, the painful situations these characters endure make for affecting
reading.
Unfortunately, these gifted qualities do not carry the novel
through the more lackluster moments. While
Last Dragon features a strong opening
and first two thirds, the story eventually spirals back into far too familiar
territory: epic conflict must somehow be averted by our protagonist and her ragtag band of allies. Not even the creative evocation of nonlinear
memory saves the story from this reader's "been there, read that"
response. This ultimate descent into predictability
is disappointing after such a strong, original opening.
Readers might also be surprised to discover that the choice
of perspective character is as unstable as the method of narration. Instead of giving the reader a reliable
unreliable narrator (or at least a singular one), sometime after the halfway
point of the book, the protagonist we have grown accustomed to steps out,
allowing another to take over (if only temporarily). This steers a little too far beyond the line
between an innovative twist on a unique narrative tool and a frustrating one. For approximately two chapters,
this reader found himself wondering which of the two possible characters (as all of these
passages are first person) was speaking. While
contextual clues often offer definitive answers, a couple of occasions I was
left floundering for what seemed inordinately long before a definitive answer was given (and sometimes this answer was: well, both characters were speaking). While this reader is not averse to difficult,
challenging prose, I do like to have a sporting chance...
Yet, when I finally closed the covers and set the book
aside, I found myself longing to revisit this strange world and its
characters. Passages linger in the
imagination, burbling up in my own nonlinear memory tract, bringing with them a shudder or a smirk or a frown or a
longing sigh.
In Last Dragon, J.M. McDermott successfully accomplishes
what many first time authors only aspire to: he reveals himself to be an incredibly gifted
writer. This reader is curious to see what literary avenues this author will travel in the future.
Last Dragon by
J.M. McDermott
400 pages
Wizards of the Coast Discoveries
Published February 2008
Buy This Book >>>>
Author's Blog
Publisher's Website
February 13th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Reviews, Short Stories
An unexpected presence disrupts a beauty pageant, a teddy
bear comes to realize (and hate) that his boy has grown up and apart, the dead walk several times (first to march against a clerk and his store, then again to take over the West,
and once more to shamble into a modern representation of a classic love story),
a faerie assassin takes on the job that just might kill him, and the four fuzzy
hosts of a children's television show prove to be truly nightmarish... These and more await readers in the
pages of Adam P. Knave's first collection of short fiction, Crazy Little
Things.
The preface (from Laszlo Xalieri) starts the collection off
with the tongue planted firmly in cheek, and this is continued through the
Travis Ingram Introduction (which wittily ventures from a manufactured 'Nam recollection to The A-Team on acid). This double dose of edgy humor should prove no surprise to those familiar with this
author's writing, which works best when it evokes a sense of playful lunacy.
Adam P. Knave has made regular appearances in the small
press, including such anthologies as Bad Ass Faeries, Dark Furies
(also from Die Monster Die), and Cthulhu Sex magazine (unfortunately,
now deceased). Here readers will
discover some of his highlights from his many appearances as well as a trio of previously
unpublished pieces. Essentially, this collection
offers is a sort of photo album of the "young" writer in development,
with all the ambitions, successes and shortcomings on display.
Reading straight through reveals quite a few of the author's
literary obsessions as the fiction continually returns to themes of
objectification, sanity, the sin of selfishness, and the virtue of loyalty, without sacrificing an entertaining story. For example, while "Pretty Little Dead Girls"
is, ostensibly a ghost story set in the cutthroat world of young girl beauty pageants,
the real horror comes not from the supernatural presence (which is presented,
to the contrary, as something quite poignant and beautiful), but through the
activities of the parental figures and the adults involved. Every decision made by the figures of
authority are as damning as the best of Tales From the Crypt. Events build to a truly savage climax and disturbing denouement,
which are made palatable through the author's use of understatement. This theme of the mishandling of authority by
adults is then revisited in "After These Messages..." While certainly effective as a satiric jab at children's
entertainment, this tale also presents a different side to the view of children
as tools/victims of our consumer culture, this time in the form of both corporate
interests and the monstrous beings serving those interests (and their own
depraved appetites).
This reader found himself responding quite positively to the levels of
ambition in this collection. Even the tales
revolving around (that inescapable horror staple) the living dead ("Meat," "High Noon
of the Living Dead," "Flesh Wounds" and "Dead Side Story")
are not content to tell simple gut chomping anecdotes. They pose questions about friendship,
identity, love, and other topics. Two of
these combine the classic form of the horror tale with another genre altogether
(western/tall tales for one, and tragic romance/Shakespearian drama for the
other). Reading the stories, one cannot
help but notice the author attempting to shove his literary elbows out of the "traditional
horror yarn" box. While this is accomplished
with varying degrees of success, the ambition is nice to behold in a genre that
suffers from the criticism of relative stasis over the last ninety years.
This is not to suggest that each of these stories is a gem for
the ages. The author is developing his
craft, and that improvement can be witnessed over the course of these stories. However, the literary warts (so the speak) are
still on display. Dialogue sometimes
suffers from either a clunky quality or from an overuse of vulgarity. Not to suggest that this reader is somehow beyond
profanity in either life or writing. However,
the short story needs to make every word count. Therefore, should an author use (in one story) levels of profanity comparable
to about half a season of Deadwood, then that author should do so in a
way that contributes to character, theme, story, etc. This seemed not always to be the case. In fact, that observation leads to the most often
recurring mistake perpetrated in this collection: there is an overabundance of fat amongst these
tales. A few of the tales start early,
offering unnecessary exposition, while others seem overly burdened in the
middle stretches. A more judicious use
of word sanding would serve to tighten this prose.
That said, the stories in Crazy Little Things find budding
author Adam P. Knave at his best, offering readers a taste of literary cyanide
served with a grin, much in keeping with the spirit of the late, great Robert
Bloch. This reader is curious to see
what the author will offer up next.
Crazy Little Things by Adam P. Knave
265 pages
Die Monster Die Books
Projected Released Date: March 2008
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February 1st, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
Albert is a young man who
likes women, particularly watching them bleed. Ian is a teacher and a novelist, who is recovering from loss. Helen and Lester are a married couple whose relationship has dulled to cold
company; each seeks the heat of passion via alternative avenues. Emily Jean is a lonely,
single mom; her daughter, Mary Beth, is an actress looking for an out. Janet is a young substitute teacher, who only
recently discovered her pregnancy and wants to get away from her boyfriend. Dave,
the father of Janet's child, is an abusive guy who does not want to be
shut out of Janet's life. Meg is Janet's
supporting, single girlfriend, with a curious fixation on Dave... Over
the course of this novel's 300+ pages, the lives of all of these characters
(and more) will intersect on a path of bloodshed and misery.
In some ways, Richard Laymon's fiction is
really ahead of the horror culture curve. Much of his
output maintains that same gleeful energy and adherence to seventies horror flicks as the current crop of horror filmmakers. In fact, filmmakers like Rob Zombie, Eli
Roth, Quentin Tarantino, etc. could probably make quite the entertaining film
out of Laymon's novels. Possibly even from the ensemble piece that is Cuts, the latest Laymon re-release from
Leisure Books. Until now, this book has
only seen wide publication in the UK and a hardcover limited edition release from
Cemetery Dance Books in the US.
While several of his books demonstrate Laymon's mastery of challenging, gruesome and horrifying subject
matter, while making entertaining thrill rides of the material, unfortunately, this reader found the novel Cuts
impossible to enjoy. Some might ascribe
this reluctance to the relentlessly grim subject matter -- reading this novel
makes me glad I do not live in its world, as simple decency, happiness and
human compassion seem to be devoid in such a place -- the actual problem lies
in a rapidly escalating number of novelistic stumbles.
Often, the characters
sound too much alike; telling them apart is for the most part a chore, a riddle
that only context clues and patience allowed this reader to muddle through. I did not believe in the female characters for
a second; because of the way they "sound" or the topics they talk about, they come across to this
reader no different than the men in the book (well, men with ample bosoms, to
be sure). These are only a few of the many
nitpick worthy bits, which also include generally unbelievable dialogue, a plot of clichés which
mount to an unlikely climax and more...
Certainly, there are quite a few
fine examples of Laymon's brand of gruesome horror set pieces. The Albert
character, who is the main villain of the piece, is a truly despicable creation --
though not quite as loathsome as the child rapist character from The Cellar
-- and the fact that he gets the most screen time is rather disturbing (which, I suppose, is to the novel's credit; this is horror, after all). His misogynistic, homophobic, homicidal
lunacy is so far over the top, that this reader felt ill spending so much time
in his head. Since every other character
in this work is prone to casual cruelty, this reader found none of them to be
all that sympathetic. There is no island
from the cavalcade of awful events. By attempting to
maintain a constantly intensifying atmosphere of horror and suspense but failing to give even one likable character, the novel
falls prey to that worst of all possible outcomes: it becomes laughable (at best) and insulting (at worst).
While Cuts might please
Laymon's less demanding fan base (apparently, a category that does not include me),
I doubt it will win any new converts to the author's works.
Cuts by Richard Laymon
320 pages
Leisure Books
Published March 2008
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