Nick Cato's Blog, page 19

FIRST Review for my Forthcoming Collection is in...

"Imagine Edgar Allan Poe fakes his own death, gets into a time machine and heads into the future. He discovers new inspiration in Gary Larson's classic Far Side comics. I can neither deny nor confirm that has happened, but if it did, Edgar would be writing under the pen name 'Nick Cato'"
~ Gregory Hall, author of 'At the End of Church Street' and host of The Funky Werepig

JUNE, 2012

Curse of the Queerwolf...

THE TROUBLE WITH HAIRY by Hal Bodner (2012 CreateSpace / 442 pp / eBook and tp)


In this sequel to Bodner's 2005 novel BITE CLUB, a series of pet deaths hits West Hollywood,  and while the police take notice, they don't take action until human corpses start piling up.  Coroner Becky O'Brien notices a similarity with each victim, and not only by how they died: they each happened to be gay men, which reminds her of the vampire attacks of a few years earlier.


When two old women discover a naked man eating one of their pets in their backyard, he is arrested--and when Becky catches wind of this, she contacts gay vampire Chris to once again come in and help the police identify the suspect.  Chris arrives with his boyfriend Troy (much of their dialogue is hysterical) and it doesn't take long for Chris to realize the naked man in police custody is actually a werewolf, one of many living in the area.


Once Bodner gets things going, the laughs come fast and furious, as do several suspense scenes that'll have you tearing through the pages.  One chapter featuring City Manager Pamela Burman who--while "babysitting" the werewolf suspect--takes him out to a fancy restaurant and things (of course) go haywire.  This whole segment had me laughing out loud, and was just a taste of things to come in the second half of the novel.


This is a smart, finely-crafted horror comedy, its only flaw being a bit TOO much character background given when things start to take off: these several areas slow the pace down, but it's worth sifting through the info. overload to get to the goods.


If horror comedies are your thing, this should be right up your alley.

And Yet Another Awesome Book Cover!

Cover art for my forthcoming novella, THE APOCALYPSE OF PETER, coming June, 2012 from Damnation Books.  Dawné Dominique is the artist.
Some early reviews:
"Unique, intense, and darkly funny. A book you won't be able to put down."
-Eric S Brown, Author of BIGFOOT WAR and A PACK OF WOLVES


"THE APOCALYPSE OF PETER succeeds on many levels because it not only defies conventional expectations of apocalyptic fiction and steers clear of tropes, but does so with tongue firmly planted in cheek."  -T.T. Zuma, Horror World

New Column at CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT

I'm thrilled to be part of a new column over at Cinema Knife Fight, titled THE DAVID LYNCH CHRONICLES.  Check out part one, written by me and my good friend (and Lynchian sister) Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel:
MULHOLLAND DRIVE: The David Lynch Chronicles Part One

3 Books in 2012...

In 2012, I'll have 3 books published all around the same time.  One is titled THE APOCALYPSE OF PETER, a bizarro/dark fantasy novella coming in June from DAMNATION BOOKS.  Another is a collection of my book reviews (more info when contracts are signed), and the third is a short story collection (also out in June) titled ANTIBACTERIAL POPE AND OTHER INCONGRUOUS STORIES, released through SQUID SALAD PRESS, which is the bizarro imprint of NOVELLO PUBLISHERS.  Here's the AMAZING cover art by Chuck Hodi:

Yet Another COMIC GEEK UPDATE...

 DARK HORSE kicks off yet another Conan series with CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1, the first in an adaptation of Robert E. Howard's classic story, 'Queen of the Black Coast.'  While Brian Wood does a fine job with the script, I'm still not sure if I like Becky Cloonan's cartoonish renderings of our favorite sword wielder.  While her artwork isn't as bad as Mike Hawthorne's hideous work on the ROAD OF KING series, I still find it a bit subpar for the quality we've come to expect from Dark Horse...which is why I'm thankful for...  ...the second issue of KING CONAN, where Tomas Giorello's gore-geous artwork enhances Timothy Truman's take on 'The Phoenix and the Sword.'  Thoth-Amon has never looked creepier and you can feel the mysticism dripping off each page.  THIS is how sword & sorcery--in comics form--is done right.
 Brian Keen's THE LAST ZOMBIE begins another chapter with NEVERLAND, where we find our small band of survivors traveling across Iowa and Dr. Ian beginning to show signs of infection.  Meanwhile, Doc Russo and Johnson stop in an abandoned building for a little shag session but are attacked by a horde of rats. Fun stuff, although it goes by so quickly it's easy to see why so many people wait for the trade editions.  Fred Perry's artwork leaves a lot to be desired, too.

The latest two issues of iZOMBIE (#'s 22 and 23) prove why it's one of the best comics on the market: Michael Allred's retro-looking artwork dazzles as Chris Roberson's script (consisting of ever-multiplying characters) continues to make this a completely engrossing series, now with a Lovecraftian/apocalyptic story line that, while it should feel played out, seems fresh.  In issue 22, Horatio finally admits his love for Gwen, while chaos erupts in all quarters as the ancient "Xitalu" gets closer to his earthly return in issue 23.  With all kinds of classic monsters given a fresh new take, iZOMBIE is must reading for horror fans as well as anyone who appreciates a top-notch comic book.

Buettner's 6th is One of His Best

OVERKILL by Robert Buettner (2010 Baen Books / 402 pp / mmp)


Fresh off his five-novel "Orphanage" series, Buettner returned in 2010 with a new series that takes place some time afterwards (there's mention here of a visit to a museum that commemortates the Psuedopod wars of those novels). I waited a while for this 2010 release to come to mass market paperback, and the wait was well worth it (in fact, I should've just sprung for the trade edition).


As a child, Jazen Parker was born on a planet where births have been outlawed.  Raised by a go-between woman, she raises him and eventually enlists him as a soldier.  Now at 23 years of age, he's a hero veteran of a brutal tank war, and is now in hiding over his illegal birth.  Enter Cutler, a sleazy capitalist who hires Parker and a sexy but lethal earthling named Kit to help him track down and capture a grezzen, one of the deadliest animals in the universe.  They live on a desloate planet where humans have built two small cities, and the chances of them capturing a grezzen (and not being eaten by some of the other wildlife) is slim to none.


After they manage to capture a female grezzen, Cutler double crosses Parker, Kit, and Zhondro, a one-time enemy of Parker who now works with them.  Cutler manages to get the grezzen back to base, figuring his human helpers will be killed.  But the son of the captured grezzen (who can communicate with the humans) discovers what's going on, and latently helps them get back to base so he can find his mother and take revenge on Cutler.


While I was expecting a military sci-fi story here, OVERKILL turned out to be a KING KONG-like monster story set in deep space, and ending back on earth.  There's some scenes of Parker's time in the tank war, but most of the novel deals with the grezzen's psychic interacting with the humans and Cutler attempting to exploit this power.  I can't remember the last time an author made readers care so much for a hideous beast (a grezzen is a huge creature weighing 11 tons, has 3 eyes, 6 legs, and is covered in muscle and hair) and I'm hoping we see more of him in UNDERCURRENTS, the second novel in the series that will be out in mass market this July (although I'm tempted to grab a trade edition right now).


I'm looking forward to the next titles in this series as Buettner has again created a group of characters that are every bit as engrossing as those in his Jason Wander ORPHANGE saga...the creatures here even more so.  The 99 short chapters and tight prose make the pages fly by.  Great stuff and must reading for monster fans.

Good...But WAY Too Routine...

PITCH by William Ollie (2012 Dark Regions Press / 252 pp / tp)


In 1903, the Devil himself supernaturally saved William Pitch from an angry mob, bent on hanging him for an act of adultry.  The catch?  Every 13 years, Pitch must sacrifice a group of young boys to his Dark Master at an isolated mansion in a small West Virginian mining town.


Flash forward to 1968: Sheriff Nathan Hayes is still dealing with the death of his twin brother, as well as his dwindling police force.  A group of junior high students are dealing with a nasty old teacher, and the town is once again dealing with a new outbreak of murders, kidnappings, and other strange happenings.


And we, the readers, are asked to deal with a by-the-numbers, cliched horror novel that offers nothing new to the "ancient-evil-returns / deal-with-the-devil" thing.  Ollie (who is no slouch when it comes to occultic horror) pens his latest offering with gusto, passion, and at a quick pace, but seasoned genre fans have read this a thousand times already.


Recommended ONLY for those who can't get enough of Old Scratch...

And Yet ANOTHER Solid Collection...

LORE edited by Rod Heather and Sean O'Leary (2011 The Lore Firm, LLC / 199 pp / tp)
As a brief history of this "quaint and curious volume of selected stories," LORE was a NJ-based horror fiction magazine that ran for 9 issues in the late 1990s. The editors have decided to re-launch the magazine in 2011, and as a preview have released this 15-story "best-of" from LORE's initial run to whet readers' appetites. 

Among the best here are Harlan Ellison's 'Chatting With Anubis,' a Bram Stoker AND Deathtrealm Award-winner about two explorers who discover deep cosmic secrets underneath the sands of the Sahara; 'The Mandala' by Kendall Evans, where a doctor is reunited with a most unusual young woman in Amsterdam; Brian Lumley's 'The Vehicle,' where tiny aliens use a brutal escaped convict to help them out of a sticky predicament, and 'The Challenge From Below,' a four-author collaboration that shares the history of an Indian Shaman that turns into a dark lesson on the ancient gods. 

LORE is a high-quality collection, despite several familiar-feeling tales. Whether this helps LORE magazine 2.0 succeed is yet to be seen, but if its offerings are anything like those on display here, it should do fine.

A KILLER Collection...

HOW TO RECOGNIZE A DEMON HAS BECOME YOUR FRIEND by Linda Addison (2011 Necon eBooks / 112 pp / eBook and tp)


Addison's collection of poetry and short stories leans on the dark fantasy/horror side and is sprinkled generously with some nifty (and at times funny) sci-fi.


Among my favorite stories were 'The Power,' about two young girls learning how to use witchcraft via their grandmother in the wake of an attack from granny's old nemesis; 'Excerpts from the Unabridged Traveler's Guide as UFOs in Galaxy A.G.2' is a short but hysterical piece that gives light to some popular UFO myths; 'Just Passing Through' is a cleverly-written short that features a human communicating with a supernatural life form; 'Artificial Unintelligence,' another funny sci-fi romp told in humorous e-mails, and finally 'Boo,' a genuinely terrifying look at paranoia on Halloween night.


My favorite poems include 'Land Sharks,' an inventive and fun urban fantasy of sorts (and originally appeared in an issue of the famous Asimov's SF Magazine), 'Comic Cannibals,' 'Demon Dance,' and the title piece also display the author's skill at dark verse.


 There are many more tales and poems here, and not a slow one in the bunch.  This is a fine introduction to Addison's world and a trip well worth taking.