F.R. Jameson's Blog
December 26, 2019
Hello. My name is F.R. Jameson.
And I write horror and noir thrillers. I also used to keep this blog fairly up to date, but at the moment – with life, a small child and a busy writing schedule – I’m finding it harder and harder to keep on top of it. So for now, with a certain amount of regret, I am putting it on hiatus.
If you would like to receive some fortnightly ramblings from me, then please do sign up to my newsletter which comes out every other Friday – where I talk about my writing and review a film/TV show in each edition. You’ll also receive a copy of my debut novel THE WANNABES, which is out of print from every other source.
As for the other stuff this blog normally contained: eventually I hope to get my backlog of book reviews onto my Goodreads page; while the new series of DOCTOR WHO will be reviewed on my Facebook page. I’m also on Twitter, Pinterest (and to a certain extent Instagram) @frjameson.
The blog itself isn’t going anywhere. There’ll be no new content until I get more time, but the old content isn’t going anywhere. Feel free to poke around.
If you are new here and are intrigued by my work, then please take a look around all the goodies on my Amazon page. Hopefully something there will take your fancy.
All the best and happy reading!
F.R. Jameson.
November 18, 2019
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
I realise that I’m
really late to the party here. That everybody has read this over the last few
years and digested it and seemingly come to love it. It’s a book du jour which
still rides high in the bestseller charts; one of those that will apparently
change the way you think about the world.
And for the most
part I’d agree. There is a lot of fascinating stuff here. I’m interested by the
dawn of man and this is great on the development of human culture; how our
hunter/gatherer ancestors started to coalesce into ever larger tribes and then
into towns and finally into cities. How our brains haven’t evolved at the same speed
and so we’re still the same primitive creature bumbling around these big cities
– but one which survives because we managed to bound from the middle to the top
of the food chain.
There’s also thought
provoking chapters about how a lot of this was achieved through our ability to
believe in myths. Not just religion – which is the obvious one – but money and nations
are all really conjured up through man’s imagination. From that point of view,
it did give me a lot to ponder.
But still, it’s a bit long, isn’t it? This isn’t a book that’s wonderfully fascinating on every page, it’s more one that could tighten up and easily lose a hundred and fifty pages. I wanted it to be compulsive, but there were long passages which bored me. (It’s also a dated book, suggesting that nationalism is dying away when the years since have proved the exact opposite), So whereas I wanted to love this book like others do, I found it a frustrating experience. A treatise with a lot of good, but – like the farmers we became – you have to sort the wheat from the chaff.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
November 11, 2019
Strange Weather by Joe Hill
There are four novellas in this rather impressive
collection. Here’s my reviews of each of them.
Snapshot
A strange story that starts out bright and
brilliantly and then fades away – almost as if it is itself an old polaroid
photo.
Back in the 1980s, a young boy encounters a now
senile woman of his acquaintance. Her mind is gone, but she claims it’s because
of a mysterious being she calls The Polaroid Man. Desperately, she urges the
boy to avoid him. But of course. it isn’t long before he encounters this awful
man and his terrible camera…
It has a lot of interesting things to say about how we treat old people and is a very compassionate piece of writing, but once the big crescendo happens there’s still a lot of story left and rather than build to something else, the momentum just collapses. A good novella, but one that needs more of a third act.
Loaded
I’ve never read King senior’s anti-gun manifesto, but it surely can’t
be as powerful a piece as the one Joe Hill has written here. Real, affecting,
bloody and as forceful as a smack in the face. It’s a truly brilliant diatribe.
Three characters who have all had experience with guns find their
fates intertwined in a terrible way.
I don’t want to say more as I don’t want to ruin anyone’s enjoyment, but suffice to say that this might not be straightforward horror, but it is absolutely terrifying.
Aloft
A young man attempts a parachute jump, but instead of reaching ground finds himself stuck on a strange alien cloud. This is a distinctly odd tale, one which seems like it might have started life in one of Joe Hill’s dream journals. There is character growth, but there’s not really much substance to it. In a few days I may feel that it is itself as ephemeral as a cloud. But fresh after reading it, I find it quite mesmerising. I liked the strange logic, the imagery and the way its quietly haunting. I don’t think it’s brilliant, but I know I’ve never read another story quite like it.
Rain
A shower
of sharp diamonds falls on Boulder, Colorado and kills thousands – including
our narrator’s beloved. Our narrator sets out to travel twenty miles to tell
her beloved’s father the news, and so begins a journey which has echoes of
Dorothy’s in THE WIZARD OF OZ.
Part horror, part sci-fi and containing more than a few swipes of political satire (it shouldn’t be surprising that Donald Trump gets a kicking from the King family). The protagonist takes a journey with plenty of scares, and discovers that home might be the most terrifying place of all.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
November 4, 2019
Artemis by Andy Weir
Having raced through Andy Weir’s THE MARTIAN and loved it, there had
to be some reason why I just let the follow-up linger on my Kindle for so long.
(It’s been there since not long after publication, getting mouldy, or whatever
it is neglected digital files do.) If I had to guess I would say that the elevator
pitch just isn’t as compulsive. Whereas THE MARTIAN is “man trapped alone on
Mars”, this is “there’s a city on the moon and various stuff happens”. It
doesn’t quite have the nice sleek straight lines.
The straight lines are missing from the actual book as well. If I
had to categorise it, I’d say it was a heist thriller in space. But there’s
more to it than that, stuff about society and family and corruption. That sounds
quite exciting, but the tone of it is throughout quite downbeat. Without a
doubt, it’s an enjoyable read, but harder to get a handle on.
I know that some people found all the scientific stuff in THE
MARTIAN a little wearing. I didn’t, I found it all incredibly accessible. But
if you are of that mindset, then this book isn’t for you. The science is still there,
but feels even more jarring this time around. For an astronaut trying to save
his life, it fitted into the character and the scenario; for a lunar drop-out
(even one who everyone thinks is wasting her potential) it seems a bit strange.
End verdict – good, but not as compulsive as THE MARTIAN.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
October 28, 2019
Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster by Harold Schechter
I
can remember reading about Earle Nelson in one of those Mammoth Book of Serial
Killer volumes so beloved of macabre teenage boys of my generation. It stuck in
my mind because of how violent the crime spree was and how prolonged and inexplicable
it was to the world around him. To be fair, either I’ve misremembered details
of the story (a possibility), or the version I read as a teen exaggerated greatly
so it didn’t really match what’s recorded in a more sober and studied version.
One of those books twisting things for lurid effect? Surely not.
Earle
Nelson was dubbed the gorilla killer. He started his murders in the 1920s in San
Francisco before tearing off around numerous states and ending up in Canada.
His choice of victim was normally little old ladies with a room to rent, who
he’d strangle with his bare hands.
The
book makes an interesting, if grizzly, read. Trying to tell the tale with
scientific rigour and an understanding of serial killers, when all
contemporaneous reports dismissed him as simply a monster. It’s a bit dry at
times, but always informative and not salacious.
Mrs Jameson and I were watching MINDHUNTER the same time I read this. I was struck that in 1927 an editorial in a Canadian paper stated that Nelson shouldn’t be executed, he should be studied. That finding out what made him tick would help understand similar men in the future. Even fifty years later, in the 1977 of MINDHUNTER, that would be forward thinking.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
October 24, 2019
The Widow Ravens
“She was the interview from hell…
Emilia Ravens, elusive widow of a once famous author, was beautiful and mysterious. Ever since her husband’s hotel room suicide, she had avoided publicity, but finally a dogged young journalist had tracked her down. He was determined to hear her story.
Now, in a sweltering hotel room in Athens, the two of them face each other.
< span=””> She was the interview from hell…
Emilia Ravens, elusive widow of a once famous author, was beautiful and mysterious. Ever since her husband’s hotel room suicide, she had avoided publicity, but finally a dogged young journalist had tracked her down. He was determined to hear her story.
Now, in a sweltering hotel room in Athens, the two of them face each other.
He wants her to spill the dreadful secrets of her husband’s life, but what she’s going to give him is a scoop too terrifying for…
View original post 319 more words
October 21, 2019
Doctor Who Reviews (Extra) – Molten Heart by Una McCormack
THE KING’S DRAGON by Una McCormack might be my favourite
nu-who book. It’s an incredible high fantasy DOCTOR WHO novel where Rory, Amy
and The Doctor essentially enter a PG friendly GAME OF THRONES. This one
doesn’t quite reach the heights of brilliance, but there’s still a great sense
of wonder to it.
The Tardis finds itself landing under the crust of the planet,
where most of the inhabitants, who are basically walking rocks, greet them with
fear and trepidation. However, the more forward thinking react with something
like joy, as it proves their theories about other life forms are correct. So
already our heroes arrival has created a tense situation, but there’s also an
environmental disaster coming and The Doctor thinks she can help. If only the
powers that be will let her before it’s too late…
All these books seem to have mastered the art of capturing the
Tardis crew, and over the length of a novel they are all given enough to do –
something which was badly missing from the television version. (In the next
series there needs to be at least four Yaz focused episodes to make up for the
last series). There’s political intrigue, potential world ending disaster,
mining (that old perennial DOCTOR WHO favourite) and a society which doesn’t want
or appreciate change – and nothing is going to change your worldview more than
aliens arriving.
As I list all those elements it feels like there’s a lot going on in this book, but in reality, it’s like there’s something missing. It’s as if – for all of the above – the narrative still feels like it needs another strand, another threat to make this more than just a good read but into a great one.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
October 14, 2019
The Night Stalker by Chris Carter
I do enjoy the occasional trashy serial thriller. I
don’t want to say that they’re a guilty pleasure, as why should you feel guilty
about a piece of entertainment you enjoy? But, when reading one, I can certainly
turn my mind off a little. I just leap in, don’t try and second guess where the
plot is going or what will happen to the characters. Instead I gleefully follow
the twists and turns and the gore and peril and cling on until the good guys
catch the bad guys.
A young woman is found dead in a rundown building in
LA. When she gets to the mortuary though, the pathologist finds a bomb inside
her. The finest investigators in the city, are soon on the case.
All the chapters are short as if waiting to be
individual scenes in a shiny cinema adaptation, the victims pile up, there are
red headings and – even though the killer appears earlier in the book – it’s
impossible to guess who did it. I had a great time reading it and next time I
want a book that’s similar won’t hesitate to hit this author again.
A man named Chris Carter created THE X FILES, while THE NIGHT STALKER was the name of a very similar themed TV show from the 1970s. So, just out of curiosity, this book has been on my radar for some time. There’s nothing paranormal here though, just good serial killer fun.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
October 10, 2019
Foliage
“They can run, but they can’t hide….
The end of the world has come. A horrific new disease has appeared and swiftly wiped out nearly the whole of mankind. Now four survivors – possibly the last four people alive – seek sanctuary in the remote countryside, hoping against hope that they can flee this terrible contagion which has destroyed everything in their lives.”
![Foliage (Ghostly Shadows Shorts Book 1) by [Jameson, F.R.]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1570710867i/28272964.jpg)
I got an ARC of this book.
This was a quick read, but it didn’t skimp on the horror. This is yet another great read from Jameson. This one told of an illness that seemed just downright disgusting and horrifying to endure. This is not a zombie tale, instead maybe it is a plant tale?
On page there are two graphic deaths. The deaths are gruesome in a way that I never expected. I was really grossed out. I loved it. The scream sealed the horror in…
View original post 192 more words
October 7, 2019
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind
It stunned me to realise that it’s over twenty years
since this was published. I have the original hardback, which means it’s over
twenty years since I read it. That makes me feel old. As if I should already be
staggering around the garden, entertaining grandchildren with pieces of orange
in my mouth.
This charge through the world of New Hollywood of the 1970s remains a compulsive read. Starting with bad behaviour on the set of EASY RIDER (well, actually a bit before that, with the suggestion that WHAT’S UP PUSSYCAT is inadvertently one of the most influential films of the era), before proceeding to coked out gloom by the time we get to RAGING BULL.
The reputations of these men had declined in the
years before the book was published – and many of them are has-beens now (only
Scorsese and Spielberg still have active careers). The book does it best to
puff up the reputations of then still jobbing directors, William Friedken and
Francis Ford Coppola. But more importantly, does sterling work in trying to
rebuild the reputation of Hal Ashby – director of HAROLD & MAUDE, COMING
HOME, SHAMPOO and BEING THERE – who isn’t often referenced in this company –
but the book is right, that is one hell of a run of films.
However – if you didn’t know that the author later
became his biographer – you’d find it hard to believe that there’s so much
Warren Beatty in this. Yes, he helps kick it all off and was winning an Oscar for
Best Director at the start of the Eighties, but for him to be such a prominent,
uncriticised voice feels somewhat unbalanced. Throughout the author writes
about how charming Beatty is, and it does feel like he got charmed.
It’s a very male book (and filled with male
sociopaths) and reading it again, in light of Me Too did makes me wonder how it
would be written now. To be fair, a lot of male bad behaviour to women – be it
adultery or outright abuse – is called out. But written again, one can’t help but
feel that the perceived unhinged, aggressive sexuality of Margot Kidder, or the
manipulativeness of Amy Irving would have been treated a differently.
Ultimately though, the best tribute I can give to this book is that like a lot of the films it covers, this is epic, frequently brilliant, if flawed, and crammed full of fascinated characters.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
