Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 11
June 30, 2018
BROKEN SHELLS: Reader Reactions
One of the coolest things as an author is hearing from readers about how much they've enjoyed your work. Being tagged in photos of your book out in the wild is not only awesome, but immensely rewarding. Now that we're half-way through 2018, people are starting to share some of their best reads of the year-so-far, and I've been shocked and delighted to see Broken Shells making the grade from some seriously voracious horror readers.
Sadie is a new reviewer for SCREAM Magazine and an incredibly prolific Bookstagrammer over on Instagram. If you're not following her, you should be! She's good people!
June 27, 2018
Review: Sick House by Jeff Strand [audiobook]
Sick House
By Jeff Strand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
My original SICK HOUSE audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.
Usually, the haunted house and the home invasion story are two separate tropes within the horror genre, although it could be argued the two certainly have a fair share of overlap, particularly in terms of how the terror is delivered. In Sick House, Jeff Strand tears down whatever walls were separating these particular types of stories to deliver a tale of a home invasion from beyond the grave, one that is, in typical Jeff Strand tradition, laced with plenty of humor in between buckets of blood and gore.
Few authors straddle the realms of comedy and horror as well as Strand, and it can be a difficult balancing act to simultaneously make a reader laugh and feel grossed out. For Strand, though, it’s a natural talent and his comedic chops are firmly on display here. Paige, the thirteen-year-old daughter of new homeowners Boyd and Adeline Gardner, is quintessentially Strand, constantly trying her parents with her outlandish, ribald commentary that leaves Boyd demanding to know, “Why are you so comfortable with me?!” The dialogue between each of Strand’s characters is witty and tack-sharp, and it’s always a pleasure to listen to the character’s conversations unfold.
This lightness, however, is offset by moments to makes you squirm and, eventually, sheer brutality. Shortly after moving into their new home, the Gardener’s begin to notice that their freshly bought groceries rot with incredible swiftness, and soon several of them become ill. Odd occurrences mark their days with increasing rapidity until the ghosts finally make their presence known and the terror sets in. Strand delivers a number of extremely well-executed and shockingly violent set pieces as the Gardener’s struggle to survive, but it comes with a minor caveat. Some of the metaphysical shenanigans got a little too cartoonish for me, but I still found Sick House to be solidly entertaining overall.
Joe Hempel’s narration is wonderfully straight-forward, which serves to help keep the material grounded. I think that a less capable narrator might be inclined to ham it up and lean hard into some of the book’s slapstick elements, but Hempel acts as the straight man to Strand’s comedic stylings. Hempel and Strand make for a great double act, and I can only imagine how hard it must have been for Joe to not crack up at some of the material he reads here. Thankfully, the narration is smooth and flawless, uninterrupted by gales of laughter and gasps of discomfort, which is left entirely up to the audience to supply.
[Note: Audiobook provided for review by the audiobookreviewer.com]
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June 25, 2018
Broken Shells Goodreads Group Read-Along, and From The Ashes Is About To Go Extinct
The Horror Aficionados on Goodreads have selected Broken Shells for their July read-along, and they've invited me to be their guest author for the month. I'll be on tap to answer reader's questions about the work all throughout July, so be sure to pop into the forums and check it out. Discuss Broken Shells with your fellow horror fans, ask me all your burning questions, and enjoy a fun, briskly paced novella chock full of creature-feature mayhem!
You can join the discussion in the Group Reads: Guest Author Invite section of the Horror Aficionados community.
If you haven't bought your copy of Broken Shells yet, I've got good news for you! I've marked the eBook edition down to 99c on all platforms. This sale is good for this whole week, Monday, June 25 through Saturday, June 30. After that, it goes back up to it's usual retail price of $2.99.
You can purchase Broken Shells right now from the following places:
Amazon | iBooks | Nook | KoboGoogle Play | SmashwordsIf you're not an eBook fan, you can buy the paperback copy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble and have it with plenty of time to spare to join me and the Horror Aficionados readers. You can also find Broken Shells in audiobook from Bleeding Ears Audio at Audible and iTunes.
This morning, Broken Shells got a shoutout from the Ginger Nuts of Horror. Columnist Tony Jones named Broken Shells as one of his personal favorite underground-set horror titles in a list he compiled for "Going Underground: Horrors Which Lurk Below..." Besides my own work, Tony lists a number of excellent similarly-theme horror books, including Nick Cutter's The Deep.
Funnily enough, Tony's article is the second time this week Broken Shells has been mentioned alongside Nick Cutter's work, which I take as a high honor. Author Kyle Warner recently mentioned my novella alongside Cutter's The Troop in his article, The Expectations of Blood and Gore, for Scriptophobic.
Ginger Nuts of Horror contributor John Bender also recently reviewed Broken Shells, as well as Mass Hysteria and Revolver, at his personal blog for a massive review round-up of my recent works. Check it out!
As with all good news, there must come some bad news, I'm afraid. Amazon recently announced their termination of Kindle Worlds. If you're not familiar with Kindle Worlds, the gist of it is this: Amazon developed contracts with a host of popular, best-selling authors with successful brands and series, and allowed other authors to come in and play in those series by writing non-canonical stories under the KW banner. Some of these stories included properties from J.A. Konrath, Blake Crouch, Barry Eisler, Hugh Howey, and Nicholas Sansbury Smith, author of the Extinction Cycle series. In 2016, Nick invited to write a story for the launch of his Extinction Cycle Kindle Worlds line, and From The Ashes was released in October of that year.
Unfortunately, Kindle Worlds will be shutting down permanently very soon, and all Kindle Worlds titles will be going out of print effective July 16. From The Ashes will soon be unavailable, so if you haven't had a chance to read it yet, now is the time! You can still buy it exclusively at Amazon, but not for much longer. And if you do buy it, it will remain a part of your personal Kindle library despite no longer be available for sale on Amazon, and you'll be able to enjoy it for as long as you like and brag to your friends that you have something they may never be able to obtain again.
From The Ashes is set during the finale of Nick's first Extinction Cycle novel, Extinction Horizon. If you've read that book, you're all set to read and enjoy From the Ashes, although it's not necessary. I made an effort to make From The Ashes as much of a stand-alone work as possible, albeit one existing within the world created by Nick. If you haven't read Nick's series yet, the Extinction Cycle books revolve around an apocalyptic event and are military thrillers with plenty of cutting-edge science, ever-evolving monsters, and lots and lots of action. I enjoyed reading them even before I wrote From The Ashes, and I think you'll get a kick out of them too.
Review: Manifest Recall by Alan Baxter
Manifest Recall
By Alan Baxter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Eli Carver has a bit of a problem - he's a wanted man and there's a kidnapped woman sitting next to him in the car he's driving. That's not the real problem, though. The real problem is that he can't remember how or why he's gotten into this predicament. As an enforcer for a mob boss, Carver has killed his fair share of people, and a number of them are now sitting in the backseat of his car, rooting for his demise. To make things worse, Carver keeps experiencing lost time, blacking out just as he begins to recall the sequence of events that have put him on the run.
I haven't read Alan Baxter previously, but Manifest Recall was a solid enough introduction that I fully expect to cross paths with this author again in the future. Manifest Recall is satisfyingly violent, dark, and consistently engaging, even when you consider that not a whole lot actually happens in the first half of the book in terms of forward momentum. While there's plenty of information conveyed to the reader as Carver and Carly, the kidnapped woman, converse and Carver begins to recall certain details about himself and his past, the duo are mostly confined to the front seats of the car, driving to parts unknown and with no destination in mind. Baxter punches things up with some brief moments of violence, but much of the story is told in flashback until we hit the book's second half and the characters and readers alike are all caught up to speed. While part one of Manifest Recall is a smooth read, part two really kicks things into high gear as the story races swiftly to its big, action-packed, run-and-gun climax.
Although Manifest Recall is billed as a supernatural crime thriller, it can be read one of two ways. You either accept that the ghosts, each of them one of Carver's victims, are literally supernatural entities that only he can see and speak with, or you chalk up their presence as hallucinations belonging to a damaged man having a psychotic break with reality. Personally, I prefer the second path and while I choose to interpret Baxter's work here as more of a straight-up crime thriller, others may just as comfortably accept Carver being literally haunted. Given its billing, though, I was expecting much more spookiness and was a bit disappointed that Carver's ghosts was the be-all end-all to this story's supernatural element. However, if I approach this title as a straight-up crime story of a killer who is metaphorically haunted by his guilt and suffering an extreme mental break, Manifest Recall becomes supremely satisfying.
[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, Grey Matter Press.]
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June 22, 2018
Review: Cockblock by C.V. Hunt
Cockblock
By C.V. Hunt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Heading out for a posh date night, Sonya and her girlfriend Callie find themselves harassed by groups of men as they walk from their apartment to a nearby Italian restaurant. The men quickly escalate from shitty pick-up lines and cat-calling to more sexually aggressive attacks. Sonya and Callie find that escaping into the restaurant has only brought them deeper into a realm of eye-opening depravity. Everywhere, men are transforming into violent sex-crazed zombies, all thanks to a message originating from a radio broadcast being delivered by the President of the United States. If the women of America have any hope of surviving, they have to terminate the message directly at its source. But will they be able to make it to DC and survive the sea of fully-erect men standing in their way?
Cockblockby C.V. Hunt is a work of extreme horror, and an original, wildly interesting, and often-times painful, riff on the zombie apocalypse. Yes, it's violent and angry and sexually-charged and filled with depictions of rape, but never callously or needlessly so. This is a work of extreme horror borne straight from the depths of the Trump administration, and it's necessarily grizzly.
What do you do when the supreme figurehead of your country is a repulsive, pussy-grabbing, racist, morally bankrupt, bigoted egomaniac whose daily existence is a dog-whistle for the absolute worst in American society? What happens when your friends and neighbors, even members of your own family, are suddenly rallied, energized, and transformed into savage, mindless, lunatic zombies by that man's messages of hate? You resist. You fight back. You try to fix your country anyway you can.
Cockblock is a smart and swift slice of Resistance fiction, one that is by its very nature ugly and sickening but with a core filled with enough rabble-rousing girl-power to give readers hope. I have little doubt that men will ultimately destroy this world, and that women will be the ones responsible and smart enough to fix our ineptitude and misdeeds. Sonya and Callie are forced to contend with a world that has changed overnight, in the blink of an eye, and has rolled over to expose its vile, cancerous, dark underbelly. Giving up isn't in their nature, though, and despite all the overwhelming sexual violence levied against them they never surrender - they keep fighting, and I kept rooting for them, living vicariously through them as they kicked every pair of diseased, low-hanging balls that got in their way.
Hunt filters Cockblock through a grindhouse aesthetic (appropriate, as the publisher of Cockblock is Grindhouse Press), drawing upon not only traditional zombie fare but various exploitative film genres as rape and revenge, women in prison, and sexploitation flicks. It's a bit of Caligula, a bit of I Spit On Your Grave, a bit of Roger Corman, and way too fucking much of Trump's America. Hunt's protagonists take their fight straight to the streets and all the way to the top with an angry, energetic fervor that makes Cockblock one of the most surprisingly patriotic splatterpunk reads I've come across, with one of the most satisfying finales I've read in some time. This book is a drop-kick straight to Trump's nutsack, and I fucking loved it. This book gets all the stars, and a few extra stripes of red, white, and blue to go with them.
[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher.]
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Interview: Hunter Shea, author of Jurassic Florida
Hunter Shea has been a favorite of mine for a few years now, earning my attention rather quickly with his weird western novel Hell Hole [review]. The fact that Hunter is one of the most reviewed authors on this site speaks both to my love for the man's work and also just how damn prolific he is. I haven't read all of Hunter's books just yet, but it's pretty damn close. Over the last few years, Mr. Shea has become inextricably entwined with creature features, oftentimes of the cryptozoological nature, and his particular brand of horror is all about fun. While the monsters are certainly important, the human element is equally well-crafted and vital to the success of Hunter's works.
This summer and fall, Kensington Books is releasing Hunter's One Size Eats All trilogy. Like last year's Mail Order Massacres, each title will be a stand-alone novella tied to one another by a common theme. First up is Jurassic Florida, which released this past Tuesday (you can read my review here). To mark this new release, Hunter was kind enough to join the High Fever Books blog for a few questions. Welcome to the blog, Hunter!
Favorite beer and favorite scream queen or Final Girl?
Oh man, favorite beer? It’s like asking me to pick my favorite child. For many, many moons, it was Sapporo, but lately I’m digging 914 by Yonkers Brewing. Love their place on the Hudson River, too. As for my favorite Final Girl, if we’re going old school, it’s Julie Adams from Creature From The Black Lagoon for damn sure. In more modern times, I would have to say Sharni Vinson as Erin in You’re Next. That little waif of a woman was a total bad ass.
It looks like your first published book was 2011’s Forest of Shadows, and over the last seven years you’ve built up a hell of a catalog of titles. How long were you writing prior to becoming a published author and tell us a bit about your writing process. What allows you to pump out so many consistently good and entertaining books so quickly?I got bitten by the writing bug in the mid-90s. I spent years working on short stories, tried my hand at a couple of novellas, then dove into the deep end and wrote a romantic comedy as my first novel. I just wanted to see if I could sustain that passion and momentum for a whole book. Once I proved to myself I could, I wrote another, this one a pretty dark comedy. All of it was prep work to write my true love, horror. I didn’t want to do it until I felt I was ready. Forest of Shadows took years to write because my kids were babies at the time, and years sitting in one editor’s hands (Don D’Auria) before it got accepted. But it was worth the wait. When I’m working on a book, I try to write at least 1,000 words every day, trying to double the output on weekends. That way, I know I can get a book done and edited in 4-5 months. Novellas I attack like a sprinter. They key is to just sit my ass down and write. There are so many distractions out there, but if you want to be a working writer, you have to learn to ignore them. There’s no shortage of ideas, just time to get them all out of my head.
You don’t just write about the paranormal and cryptozoological, but you actively seek it out. In your Monster Men YouTube series, you’ve discussed all things supernatural and have taken the occasional visit to a haunted cemetery or two. Where did this fascination come from, and have you had any encounters with the supernatural? Tell us about your monster hunting!Growing up, one of my grandmother’s was a psychic. Not the kind that had people pay her money to read their palms or tell their future. My grandfather said she would hold séances and he’d seen their table levitate a couple of times. By the time she was just grandma to me, she looked a lot like Mrs. Butterworth. She was an amazingly sweet lady who never talked about her gift. Cut to my getting married and my wife and I moved into what we now know is a haunted house. We see a boy walking around from time to time. Not like a pale ghost, but an actual boy. You get this very calming feeling when he’s around. It’s hard to describe. I’ve had several other odd experiences, including one the night my father passed, that make it impossible for me not to believe there’s more to death than just THE END. I haven’t done much monster hunting simply because there aren’t many monster sightings in lower New York. LOL But, I have gone on many, many UFO hunts in Orange County, NY.
Jurassic, Florida just came out earlier this week and revolves around the sleepy little town of Polo Springs coming under attack by enormous prehistoric iguanas. What do you have against iguanas? What made them the perfect monstrosity to base a story around in your latest creature feature?
I hate reptiles. I love animals, just not snakes and lizards. My kids have been asking for a pet iguana since they could talk. I tell them they are free to get as many iguanas as they want when they move out. My editor and I wanted to do this big, Bert I. Gordon inspired novella with giant reptiles. Watching Floridians get eaten by them just seemed like a lot of fun (no offense to Floridians – I get joy out of all people being terrorized by prehistoric beasts). Now I can tick killer giant iguanas off my writing bucket list.
Jurassic, Florida is also notable for being the first in a series of novellas for Kensington Books that are united under the One Size Eats All banner. Last summer you wrote the Mail Order Massacres novella series for them. How did these trilogies develop? What’s the creative processes like in bringing these works to life?I have a great editor there, Gary Goldstein, who, like me, is just a big kid warped by comic books, B movies and bad television. We had so much success with the Mail Order Massacres series that we wanted to tackle a new one, but shift it from comics to nature gone wild. The original series title was Hunter Shea’s Don’t Fuck With Nature, but naturally we were turned down on that one. Gary and I trolled for stories on the Internet for inspiration. Living in NY, we read a news article about how rats were becoming resistant to rodenticide, so in comes Rattus New Yorkus. Another story about swarms of tiny iguanas got us to Jurassic Florida. The Devil’s Fingers came from I think Gary seeing a horrid picture of what they look like. Once I saw it, I ran with it. Those things look like they’re either from outer space or hell.
The Devil's Fingers mushroom looks like the love child of Giger's facehugger and Hellboy's Ogdru JahadOver the course of your career so far, we’ve had books about Loch Ness, Orang Pendek, a megalodon, the Montauk Monster, chimera fish, and so, so much more. How do you decide what creature to feature from book to book? When you set out to write, does the creature come first, or do you develop a story around the creature first and plug in a threat? Do you have a list of cryptids you’re working your way through?
It’s crazy how I’ve fallen down this cryptid hole. And I love it. I’m a huge fan of cryptozoology, so yes, I do have a list. I always start with the monster and flesh the story out from there. Even though they’re creature features, getting the humans just right is most important to me. People don’t walk away from Loch Ness Revenge wanting more Nessie. They want more Nat and Austin and Henrik. That makes me happy. Plus, I’m just having a ball writing about all the beasties that have fascinated me since I was a kid.
What’s your personal favorite cryptid (and why)? Is there a creature you haven’t written about yet, but that you’re dying to tackle in the future?Growing up, I was a huge Nessie lover. I wanted to move to Scotland and just live on the Loch. Back then, I loved any aquatic creature. My fascination went from sharks to whales to Nessie. Now, to me, the most fascinating cryptid and backstory belongs to the Mothman, hands down. Everyone should read John Keel’s book, The Mothman Prophecies. We are talking some wild, weird stuff. It wasn’t just about a winged creature terrorizing people. We’re talking ghosts, UFOs, men in black and so much more. I really have to get my butt to the annual festival this year.
You’re perhaps best known for writing really fun, humorous, off-the-wall works of horror that are high on action and adventure. But you’ve also got a few works that are more serious in tone, like We Are Always Watching. In the fall, Flame Tree Press will be releasing its first wave of horror titles, including your novel Creature, which sounds like it’s one of your more serious works with its heroine, Kate, suffering from an autoimmune disease. What can you tell us about Creature and how your own life inspired this book?I love character driven stories, and Flame Tree gave me a golden opportunity to explore some dark and scary issues. It was very difficult to write because so much of it is drawn from my own life. My wife has a series of autoimmune diseases that have nearly taken her life more times than we can count. I took all that fear we’ve experienced and laid it out on the page. Sure, it’s set in a cottage in the Maine woods, but it’s not a teen slasher romp. I want readers not just to be scared by the antagonist, but to also understand how tenuous their own health and lives are. Nothing is more frightening than that. People who loved We Are Always Watching I think- I hope - will devour this one.
Creature also sees you working again with famed horror editor, Don D’Auria. You worked with him previously when you both were with the now defunct Samhain Publishing. How was it working with Don again?I love Don. He was the only editor I sent my very first book to because I only wanted to work with him. And by some magical twist of fate, here we are years later, not just editor and writer, but friends. Don is great because he values the writer’s vision. If he’s chosen to work with you, it’s because he loves your work and trusts your instincts. He’s just there to tighten things up for you. It’s incredible creative freedom. With Don, I can try my hand at just about anything, so long as it hits certain marks and has characters people give a crap about. Without that, you have nothing.
Do you prefer writing the pulpy creature features, or the more serious horror novels like We Are Always Watching? Do you find one style to be more rewarding?The more serious toned books are much, much harder to write and like all things in life, more fulfilling. It’s just a different experience. I almost feel like when I write the creature features, I’m a kid who can’t believe I get to do this for a living. When I step into a book like Creature, I have to put my big boy pants on and be an adult. Both are extremely satisfying in their own ways.
What comes next for you? Pimp away!After Jurassic Florida, the next in the series, Rattus New Yorkus will come out in August, followed by the series ender, The Devil’s Fingers in October (just in time for Halloween!!!). Right now, I’m working on a ghost writing project that is a whole new world for me. Once that’s complete, I have a new novella for Severed Press to work on that people who dig The Thing will salivate over. Then it’s on to my next book with Don and Flame Tree. Speaking of that, I have to get the synopsis over to him!
Where can readers find you? Share you links!It’s all at www.huntershea.com. On Instagram, you can find me @huntershea2017. Feel free to visit me any time! I actually respond to folks when they reach out to me. :)
FLORIDA. IT’S WHERE YOU GO TO DIE.
Welcome to Polo Springs, a sleepy little town on Florida’s Gulf Coast. It’s a great place to live—if you don’t mind the hurricanes. Or the flooding. Or the unusual wildlife . . .
IGUANAS. THEY’RE EVERYWHERE.
Maybe it’s the weather. But the whole town is overrun with the little green bastards this year. They’re causing a lot of damage. They’re eating everything in sight. And they’re just the babies . . .
HUMANS. THEY’RE WHAT’S FOR DINNER.
The mayor wants to address the iguana problem. But when Hurricane Ramona slams the coast, the town has a bigger problem on their hands. Bigger iguanas. Bigger than a double-wide. Unleashed by the storm, this razor-toothed horde of prehistoric predators rises up from the depths—and descends on the town like retirees at an early bird special. Except humans are on the menu. And it’s all you can eat . . .
June 21, 2018
Review: Devil Sharks by Chris Jameson
Devil Sharks: A Novel
By Chris Jameson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Just when you thought it was safe to go for a swim, Chris James returns with another shark themed horror standalone following last year's release of Shark Island. Packed with plenty of summertime thrills, Devil Sharks would be a perfect beach-read if only Jameson didn't make you deathly afraid of being so close to the water.
Here, a group of now-distant college buddies meet up in Hawaii for a reunion. Invited by their former classmate Harry, now an uber-rich businessman, the group and their spouses expect to enjoy a few days of sun and surf aboard a luxury sailing yacht. After visiting the abandoned Coast Guard station where Harry's father once served, the group find themselves adrift off an atoll and at the mercy of drug runners using the old building as a base. Surrounding the atoll are sharks - sharks the pirates have been routinely feeding humans to, and who have since developed a lust for the taste of landlubbers.
Devil Sharks is, first and foremost, a work of survival horror. Things get off to a bit of a slow start as Jameson lays the groundwork on who his characters are and explores their relationships to one another, but once this book kicks into high gear, good lord this sucker is frenetic.
Jameson takes our cast, a wonderfully diverse group fronted by Alex and his wife Sammi, and puts them into one deathly encounter after another. As I said, this is a book about survival, and Jameson puts a ton of obstacles in the cast's way. Much like the pirates, Jameson is a take-no-prisoners type of author, and Devil Sharks takes some shockingly bleak turns. I will say, though, that I was a tiny bit disappointed by the somewhat ancillary nature of the pirates, but I get what the author was going for with them. They're certainly capable and loathsome antagonists, but ones that exist largely as a plot device to kick the story's central hook into focus.
Devil Sharks is not a Die Hard riff of Alex versus hardcore killers - although I thought for a moment that's where Jameson was headed - but a story of your common Everyman characters against the impossible odds of hungry, man-eating sharks. We're here for the sharks, first and foremost, and the pirates are a way of getting us there, even if their presence makes the story feel slightly unbalanced as a whole. While some of the story threads are left unresolved (but hey, c'est la vie!), their purpose in serving the plot is largely secondary; they're an appetizer to the main course. Devil Sharks is, naturally, all about the sharks - that's what we're here for! We want the threatening promise of fins in the water and lots of toothy shark carnage! And hoo boy, Jameson doesn't play any games on that front. In fact, Jameson proves to be just as bloodthirsty and merciless as his oceanic apex predators. Things get brutal quick.
The last half of Devil Sharks is absolutely fraught with tension and horrifying encounters. Once the action gets going, this book is impossible to set aside and I spent much of this book with my stomach churning like the frothy blood-red waters Jameson continually chummed. If you're looking for some wonderfully grisly and violent encounters with killer chondrichthyes, Devil Sharks viciously and unrelentingly delivers. Grab a beer and a blanket and hit up the beach with this one, but maybe take a moment to consider how badly you want to go for a swim and wonder, if only for a second or two, if you might become fish food.
[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, St. Martin's, via NetGalley.]
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June 18, 2018
Review: The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel
By Paul Tremblay
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The Cabin at the End of the World has a fantastic premise at its core, and if this story had been a novella or a 90-minute movie, I likely would have enjoyed it a whole lot more. Instead, Tremblay stuffs and stretches a simple yet awesome idea into a full-length novel that's both padded and repetitive to a frustrating degree.
Without spoiling things, The Cabin at the End of the World is a home invasion novel with apocalyptic overtones. Andrew and Eric, and their adopted Chinese daughter, Wen, are trapped inside their cabin, surrounded by four individuals who may or may not be totally insane.
To kick things off, we're first introduced to Wen in a much too long opening chapter that sees her collecting grasshoppers before meeting the strange and large Leonard, the leader of the group of intruders. The second chapter involves a very protracted round of "Let us in" "No, we won't let you in!" round-robin between the intruders and Andrew and Eric. You discover pretty quickly that Tremblay only has a couple ideas with which to prop up The Cabin at the End of the World, and a whole lot of pages are spent with repetitive dialogue as the characters go back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth some more, arguing the same freaking points over and over and over and over and over in laborious fashion. These back and forths exhausting - not for the characters, oh no, not at all, but for the readers. These characters spend nearly three hundred pages arguing endlessly around a "You must do this!" "No, we will never do that!" premise. It's fucking tiring. That it's further padded with excruciating details about every freaking bit of furniture and blanket in the house helps not a whit.
Thankfully, these pointless circular exchanges are punctuated with some truly well drawn moments of violence and sequences of events that call into question the nature of this book's scenario as a whole. Unfortunately, Tremblay refuses to take a stand in regards to how much of his scenario is legitimate versus some of these characters simply being bugfuck crazy. You never know if the demands being placed upon Andrew and Eric have any sort of real meaning or not, and Tremblay argues both sides effectively but ultimately waffles on the credibility of the premise in order to be uber mysterioso. He wants his story to be both incredible and incredulous simultaneously, refusing to pick a side. Ultimately, this book comes off more like a Choose Your Own Adventure as told by a high school debate club, albeit one armed with some wicked home-made weaponry.
In terms of home invasion horrors, The Cabin at the End of the World has an excellent killer premise. In terms of execution, home invasion horror has been done far better in books like Jack Ketchum's Off Season and Brett McBean's The Invasion. Or you could just save a few days entirely, read something else, and pop in a Blu-ray copy of The Strangers.
[Note: I received an advance copy of this title from the publisher, William Morrow, via Edelweiss.]
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June 15, 2018
Review: Kill Creek by Scott Thomas [audiobook]
Kill Creek
By Scott Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Scott Thomas makes one hell of a horror debut with his Stoker Award-nominated haunted house novel, Kill Creek - so strong a debut that I found it hard to believe he's a first-time author. Turns out, Thomas has a bit of a pedigree in television and was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the R.L. Stine TV series, The Haunting Hour. While Kill Creek is his first novel, Thomas definitely knows his way around a horror story, and his work here carries a nicely cinematic style with more than a few movie-ready scenes and set pieces.
After being duped into agreeing to an interview by an Internet website mogul, four authors find themselves unwittingly gathered together for an overnight stay at the abandoned and decrepit Finch House. For the wealthy Wainwright, this is a chance to speak to his idols, the modern masters of horror, and rake in lots of lucrative web-clicks. For the authors, it's a gimmicky way to promote their work, score some quick cash, and waste a night in a supposedly haunted house before returning to their lives, check in hand. If you know your way around a haunted house story, I don't have to tell you that things don't go quite according to plan...
Thankfully, Thomas throws in a few juicy curveballs here and there, slowly inching his narrative toward a finale of all-consuming madness that chills in all the best and brutal ways. Thomas, however, knows that he has to earn the premise's payoff, and he spends a lot of time building up his central cast. While the focus is on Sam McGarver, the most Everyman horror author of the bunch, characters like TC Moore, Sebastian Cole, and Daniel Slaughter - a horror-ready name if ever there was one - carry enough personality and intrigue to keep this slow-burn narrative hustling along. Moore, in fact, was my favorite character in this story - a brash, take-no-prisoners attitude, whiskey swilling, tough gal are always right up my alley narratively-speaking, and her introduction immediately captivated me.
Although it's become rather cliche to have a horror author as the protagonist of a horror novel, it works surprisingly well here. Usually the protag's occupation is ancillary, but in Kill Creek it's a primary focus and a linchpin for the work itself. Thomas is clearly well-versed in horror and genre tropes, as well as the career of writing and some of its more self-depreciating aspects. At one point, McGarver jokes that he's a writer, which means he spends most of his time procrastinating on the Internet. But it's his introduction as a college lecturer, wherein he delivers a presentation on gothic literature to his students, that makes a solid argument toward the credibility of not only McGarver's skill as an author, but Thomas's as well. The fact that Thomas creates this band of authors is one thing; the fact that he created them with such attention toward their pedigree and bibliographies is another. It's common to see horror authors experiencing a real-life horror event in fiction, but this is probably the first time I've wanted to actually read these fictional author's works. I wish I could buy a TC Moore book for my Kindle right now, or dig into a Sebastian Cole book next, and that alone should speak volumes to how much I appreciated Thomas's character work here.
Narrating Kill Creek is Bernard Setaro Clark, and hot damn, he's a fine reader. While much of his delivery is direct, Clark has a few aural tricks up his sleeve that really impressed me. Clark knows when to act up the material a bit, changing tones and pitch, and sometimes flat-out shouting, when needed. He also pulls this nifty trick of creating spatial distance between characters by turning away from the microphone at certain points. Say a character is shouting from across the room - rather than speaking directly into the mike as he would for our POV character, Clark turns away slightly, giving a sense of depth to sell the impression that there really is a character yelling from across the rom. It's such a simple thing, but so well executed, and not something I've often heard in other audiobooks. Of course, it's also possible I'm easily impressed, but I appreciated these moments a heck of a lot when they occurred. Clark's narrative skills certainly get a workout in the book's climax, as McGarver and company are forced to contend with the threats lurking within the Finch House once and for all.
Kill Creek isn't just a mighty fine haunted house novel, but a wickedly impressive debut for its author, who manages to wring the story for all its worth and deliver some pleasantly shocking twists along the way. This sucker builds like a roller coaster, slowly ratcheting its way to the top, and then violently dropping readers down a twisting thrill-ride that pulls their stomach up their throats. To put it mildly and succinctly, Kill Creek fucking rocks.
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June 13, 2018
Review: The Beast of Brenton Woods by Jackson R. Thomas
The Beast of Brenton Woods
By Jackson Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
There's something in the woods - white furred and enormous, with an insatiable appetite for violence...and revenge. The beast of Brenton Woods has a score to settle, and lots of blood to spill. Standing in its way, though, is an adolescent boy, his mother, and a local deputy, each of whom are ensnared in the search for this monster, and who are intent on uncovering its secrets, and possibly hiding a few of their own.
Jackson R. Thomas has crafted a really fun debut with The Beast of Brenton Woods, one with enough mystery to leave a few lingering questions that lead me to suspect we'll be seeing a sequel soon enough. Frankly, I wouldn't mind a return trip to Brenton Woods and seeing how the threads of this particular story can continue to unravel.
I quite enjoyed Ben, the thirteen-year-old at the heart of this book, and Deputy Kathy Wilcox, a tough gal who has little trouble asserting her dominance when needed. Equally enjoyable was Thomas's attention to carnage. Once The Beast of Brenton Woods gets going, this book becomes down right unputdownable, and blood splashes across the page. If you like your werewolves violent, and with not a whiff of paranormal shapeshifter romance to be found, Thomas should satisfy nicely. This is authentic werewolf horror, chockablock with mutilated corpses, and plenty of silver bullet-driven action.
The Beast of Brenton Woods is a blistering read of werewolf horror, one that chugs along at lightning speed and will leave you howling at the moon for more.
Note: The Beast of Brenton Woods is published by Alien Agenda Publishing, the publishing imprint of horror author Glenn Rolfe, which, as it turns out, makes for pretty companionable bedfellows. There's a certain aspect to Thomas's writing and storytelling that reminded me quite a lot of Rolfe's own work, and Glenn's readers should feel quite at home with this new author's debut. Glenn provided me with an advanced, uncorrected copy of this book, so many thanks to him.
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