Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 13

Review: Terror Is Our Business: Dana Roberts' Casebook of Horrors by Joe R. Lansdale and Kasey Lansdale

Terror Is Our Business: Dana Roberts' Casebook of Horrors

By Joe R Lansdale, Kasey Lansdale






My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Terror is Our Business collects the Dana Roberts stories, previously published elsewhere, into a single volume, along with a new story, “The Case of the Ragman’s Anguish,” that is exclusive to this story. The book is split pretty evenly, with the first half devoted to stories written solely by Joe R. Lansdale, with the back-half featuring stories co-written by Joe and his daughter, Kasey Lansdale.

Inspired by works from Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, and the mid-1970s TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Lansdale presents a female investigator who specializes in the supernormal. An atheist (yay! Let's hear it for atheist representation in horror!), Dana does not believe in the supernatural, and believes that there is a scientific explanation for all those things that go bump in the night that we merely do not yet understand.

For the Joe Lansdale stories, the setup is simple - Dana is a guest at a men's club, invited to share a story as a paid speaker. Her stories are transcribed by one of the gentlemen, who includes an intro and outro that each of Dana's stories are couched between. I'm typically not a fan of such framed narratives, but it's a literary tradition Lansdale invokes here, along with a deliberate writing style, to pay homage to those earlier influences. While the stories are well-told, ultimately I found the narratives to be a bit stuffy and old fashioned for my tastes, in addition to formulaic. Each story follows a very episodic three-act format, with its introduction of the characters and the initial problem at hand, some examination of the supernormal conceit, typically a haunting of some sort, followed by a tidy resolution. None of the stories break this mold or shake up the story presentation, although the last three stories do carry a fresher sense of energy with the injection of Kasey Lansdale's sensibilities.

Following Kasey's introduction to this collection, we are introduced to a woman named Jana, initially in a stand-alone story focused solely on her encounter with the paranormal, before joining Dana's investigations for the final two casebooks. Jana is a bit more my style - she's fun, witty, has a bit of mouth on her, says things without thinking, and is pretty much always in way over her head. Dana, on the other hand, is very reserved and proper, an upper-class sort of personality. Jana is her Watson to Dana's Holmes, and becomes our window into the world of the supernormal for the collection's back-half. Once Kasey and Jana hit the pages, the stories become livelier and Dana finally has a counterpoint, a polar opposite, to act against. The burgeoning friendship between these personalities present an entertaining foil. The last two stories present supernormal threats that are also unabashedly Lovecraftian, which hit a particular sweet spot for me. While Jana presents an airier narrative voice than the stuffier gentleman author transcribing a moneyed ghost hunter's adventures, the introduction of cosmic threats really tickled me, even if the stories still follow the by-now well-established Dana Roberts' Casebook story formula.

All in all, Terror is Our Business: Dana Roberts' Casebook of Horrors is a largely delightful introduction to this investigator, but it took a while for me to connect with the work as a whole. It's not really until the last couple stories that everything began to click for me, and it's clear that Kasey Lansdale's influence was key to the development of Dana Roberts and helped give the series a fresher perspective. I do hope to see more of Dana and Jana, as well as Joe and Kasey as collaborators, in the future though.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, Cutting Block Books.]



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Review: Aetherchrist by Kirk Jones

Aetherchrist

By Kirk Jones






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Rey is a door-to-door knives salesman, meandering through life as much as the neighborhoods he wanders selling cheap cutlery, hoping to bed his boss and to get his coworker to stop showing him his penis. While attempting to make a sale in the backwoods of Vermont, he comes to a home filled with analog televisions. On the screens is Rey - Rey walking down the street, Rey standing before the television, Rey laying dead on channel 13. Initially he suspects the townspeople of recording him, but as strange occurrences, and murder victims, begin to stack up, Rey quickly finds himself in way over his head, caught up in a chain of events he could have never imagined.

Aetherchrist is my first trip through the surreal mind of Kirk Jones, an author of weird fiction whose bibliography includes titles such as Uncle Sam’s Carnival of Copulating Inanimals and Masturbatory Entropy. If you ever wondered how The Matrix might have turned out if written and directed by David Cronenberg and David Lynch, with maybe a touch or two of uncredited, off-screen Act I consultation from Chuck Palahniuk, Aetherchrist may be the answer. Filled with surrealism, hints of conspiracy and secret worlds, moments of science fiction-fueled body horror, and the power of analog signals, this one's a bit of a head trip.

Jones plunges readers straight into his weird little world filled with oddball characters. For being less than 150 pages, Aetherchrist feels quite a bit denser thanks the big and bizarre ideas taking center stage following America's move from analog broadcasts to digital television. We're given hints and peeks into hidden subcultures and rogue movements who possess startling power, but much of it is a sideways glance, filtered through Rey's own ignorance and paranoia - he's an Everyman narrator who knows about as much as we do and is oftentimes just as lost and confused. Although the narrative is straightforward, the topics of discussion and peculiar details of the story itself are strangely oblique and mysterious nonetheless. To his credit, Rey at least seems to understand this on one level, noting that not only does everything in his life go wrong, it goes wrong in the most absurd ways possible.

Aetherchrist is a high-concept read, with philosophical questions of fate and destiny and how much control we really have over the events in our lives kind of lurking around the margins, touched upon but never deeply explored. In between the strange happenings occurring from page to page, there's plenty of ancillary fodder left to mentally chew on, like collectivism versus individuality. Readers who need a strong, definitive finale may be a bit disappointed at the abrupt conclusion and the niggling threads of story left unanswered (threads that are perhaps, more accurately, unanswerable), but Jones's narrative is more about the trip itself and not the destination. This is the story of a journey, a wandering through some strange, dark, and abruptly violent corners, and it isn't really important where Rey ends up, but how he gets there.

Aetherchrist is a bizarre work, but also bizarrely engaging. It's one of those books that I'm pretty sure I understood, even if I can't properly and sanely articulate all the ins and outs about it. What I do know for sure, though, is that it completely captivated me, held my interest, and made me feel completely invested in my brief journey alongside Rey and his briefcase of knives. I'm also pretty sure Kirk Jones just earned himself a new reader with this book, one who is curious what other oddities he's put to the page.



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Review: Hell Divers III: Deliverance by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Hell Divers III: Deliverance (Hell Divers Series, Book 3)

By Nicholas Sansbury Smith






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Picking up on the heels of Hell Divers II: Ghosts finale, Michael Everheart and his small crew of Hell Divers set out to find the missing Xavier "X" Rodriguez after being abandoned by the traitorous Captain Jordan.

Nicholas Sansbury Smith stretches his narrative wings a bit in Deliverance, giving readers insight into X's decade-long stint on Earth's hellscape through prolonged flashbacks, in between tackling the story's present-day timeline from the perspectives of Everheart and Jordan, and a few other Hell Divers along the way. Readers who were disappointed at the lack of X in the prior novel, particularly after Smith's nasty cliff-hanger ending back in Book 1, will certainly get their fill of Rodriguez this time around as Smith brings X back to the narrative's center.

While I was certainly happy to get more of X, now accompanied by a thawed-from-cryo husky named Miles, the real delight for me was seeing Smith's post-apocalyptic world building. While X travels the hellish landscape of an irradiated America to reach the ocean, Smith gives us a delightful tour of this new nuclear-adapted ecosystem. In prior novels, the Sirens were the clearly the biggest threat facing the remnants of mankind, but life outside the airship Hive is more expansive and far-reaching in Deliverance than the Hell Divers had imagined. As Ian Malcolm famously reminded us in Jurassic Park, "Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously... Life, uh, finds a way." Smith takes Malcolm's words to heart, presenting a number of thrilling encounters that reminds humans they may no longer be at the top of the food chain in this wildly mutated environment.

Not that life aboard the airship Hive is much better. Without mincing too many words, let me just say that Captain Jordan is a piece of crap. I hated this guy in Book 2, and Book 3 didn't do much to swing me around to his iron-fist mentality of rule as the top dog. Every chapter he showed up in only solidified his narcissism and I kept waiting for him to get his comeuppance. Life aboard the airships, though, does make for a fun bit of compare and contrast to life on the ground. No matter what dangers lurk in the ruins of America, Jordan and his cronies serve to remind us that humans are, typically, the biggest threat to everything around.

If you've enjoyed the previous two Hell Divers books, you'll feel right at home with Deliverance. Smith delivers plenty of action and suspense, and even a few dashes of socio-political intrigue along the way. Its final moments even kick the door wide open for a fourth installment, taking this series in a direction that good and truly excites me. I can't wait to see what comes next!

[Note: I received an advance copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley.]



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MASS HYSTERIA Summer Sale - Only 99c in eBook!

Amazon 
iBooks  |  Nook  |  Kobo 
Google Play | Smashwords

Audiobook available at:
Audible  |  iTunes

Summer is right around the corner and now is the perfect time to start stocking up on your summer beach reads! I wrote Mass Hysteria as a pulpy, gory, splatterpunk horror summertime blast, the kind of big Hollywood-style spectacle that screams warm weather fun...and maybe makes a few readers scream along with it. If you're a fan of extreme When Animals Attack-style horror, like Piranha, The Birds, Jaws, or The Rats, this one should be right up your alley. Mass Hysteria is currently on sale for only 99c for a limited time, so get your copy quick!

If you're not an eBook fan, there is a paperback edition also available, as well an audiobook! If you're an Amazon customer, you can even bundle all three formats together for maximum savings. Buy the paperback and get the Kindle edition for free. Get the Kindle copy, and add Audible narration for cheap. You can enjoy Mass Hysteria all kinds of way!

The audiobook is even up for an award! Mass Hysteria is a finalist in this year's Audiobook Listeners Choice Awards, and if you like the book and Joe Hempel's reading, you can even vote for Mass Hysteria to win. Polls close May 31, so if you get a copy of my book and can check it out before the month is over, be sure to cast a vote, too.

About Mass HysteriaIT CAME FROM SPACE...

Something virulent. Something evil. Something new. And it is infecting the town of Falls Breath.

Carried to Earth in a freak meteor shower, an alien virus has infected the animals. Pets and wildlife have turned rabid, attacking without warning. Dogs and cats terrorize their owners, while deer and wolves from the neighboring woods hunt in packs, stalking and killing their human prey without mercy.

As the town comes under siege, Lauren searches for her boyfriend, while her policeman father fights to restore some semblance of order against a threat unlike anything he has seen before. The Natural Order has been upended completely, and nowhere is safe.

...AND IT IS SPREADING.

Soon, the city will find itself in the grips of mass hysteria.

To survive, humanity will have to fight tooth and nail.

This edition includes a bonus short story, Consumption!

What Readers Are Saying

"Brutal horror. Raw. Animalistic. I couldn't put it down!" - Armand Rosamilia, author of the Dying Days series

"Mass Hysteria is a hell of a brutal, end of the world free for all. A terrifying vision of a future gone mad with bloodlust, Mass Hysteria will haunt your nightmares." - Hunter Shea, author of Just Add Water and We Are Always Watching

"Fun, horrible fun, from start to finish." - Horror Novel Reviews

"It's fast paced, action-packed, and bloody. Really, almost everything a horror gore-hound could want. ... Undeniably talented, Michael Patrick Hicks shows evidence of a rather deliciously depraved mind..." - SciFi & Scary

"Mass Hysteria was a brutal horror novel, which reminded me of the horror being written in the late 70's and, (all of the), 80's. Books like James Herbert's The Rats or Guy N. Smith's The Night of the Crabs. There are a lot of similarities to those classics here-the fast paced action going from scene to scene-with many gory deaths and other sick events. In fact, I think Mass Hysteria beats out those books in its sheer horrific brutality." - Char's Horror Corner

"If you like your horror bloody and strange, you are in the right place. Mass Hysteria is a unique twist in a crowded field. ... For horror fans looking for something different, well worth a listen." - Audiobook Reviewer

"I'm telling you now, this book isn't for readers with weak stomachs. It is brutal in all the right ways." - Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews

"If you are an aficionado of author Richard Laymon, you undoubtedly will like this book. This is horror at its bloodiest, guttiest and most shocking." - Cheryl Stout, Amazon Top 500 Reviewer and Amazon Vine Voice

"Brutal and well-written. Throw in narration by Joe Hempel and you’ve got gold. ... I don’t think I’ll forget Mass Hysteria for some time." - Brian's Book Blog

Buy the ebook edition of Mass Hysteria for only 99 cents! (Also available in paperback and audiobook formats.)

Amazon 
iBooks  |  Nook  |  Kobo 
Google Play | Smashwords

Audiobook available at:
Audible  |  iTunes

Review: Bone Saw by Patrick Lacey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Liam is a horror movie aficionado, particularly of those titles from Bone Saw Studios and director Clive Sherman. Liam is also a bit of a down-on-his-luck loser - a film student dropout pining over his ex-girlfriend, recently fired from his job as a video store clerk, and bullied by his pot-dealing best friend's girlfriend. His luck may be on the upswing though after meeting the pierced and dreadlocked beauty, Michelle, waiting tables at the local diner and learning that his Hollywood idol, Clive, is directing a new film in town. Yep, things are looking up...except...How does Clive get those special effects to look so real? And what's up with that giant, insane pigman creature roaming around Bass Falls killing and eating people?

If you follow Patrick Lacey on social media, you'll know immediately this dude is a horror fan. His affectation for the genre bleeds through Bone Saw, and this story is a pulpy work of 1980s-styled, B-grade, gorehound fun. The story of Pigfoot, in both his cinematic and present-day Bass Falls murdering machine incarnation, is entertaining and properly gory. Lacey sets the stage, as it were, right in Bone Saw's opening chapter, and keeps the pace smooth and steady the rest of the way through. He sprightly maneuvers his way through various points of view, letting us spend plenty of time with Liam, Clive, Michelle, and Briggs, a private eye working on tracking down Michelle while perpetually chugging down Robitussin, as well as plenty of Pigfoot kills. Lots and lots of Pigfoot kills.

Given Bone Saw's story of a horror movie turned real, there's a particular focus on gore. Lacey wracks up quite a bloody body count in this one, and the last half of the book generates some grand, large scale moments of mayhem fit for the big-screen. With all the bodies getting chomped on and ripped apart, the chaos descending upon Bass Falls certainly helps redefine the term tourist trap. The good news is, Amity Island should be seeing a resurgence in out of town visitors after all this is over...

Bone Saw is not high-brow horror, nor is it an overly serious work intent on studying the state of mankind through the reflective mirror of themes and social commentary. Nor need it; after all, aren't we all, to some degree or another, a Pigfoot of our making? What Bone Saw is, however, is a tremendous amount of gory, splattery fun, and Liam and Michelle, and their burgeoning romance amidst all the carnage, as well as Lacey's own infectious enthusiasm for horror as filtered through Liam, give the book an extra bit of charm. Lacey's latest arrives just in time for beach-reading season, perfectly timed for you chill out with, maybe in a small-town coastal tourist trap, with a cooler full of icy beers beside you.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing.]



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Review: Obscura by Joe Hart

Obscura

By Joe Hart






My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Joe Hart takes us into the near-future in Obscura, to a time when the Earth is severely polluted and global warming is set to pay a disastrous toll. A deadly new virus, Losian, has emerged, cursing the afflicted with an Alzheimer's-like memory loss on the way to fatality. Although science hasn't had much luck curbing mankind's deadly carbon footprint, it has made some headway into developing a new, cutting-edge method of travel currently being tested in space. Inexplicably, though, the human test subjects are developing violent psychoses and memory loss - symptoms that bear remarkable similarities to Losian. After losing her research funding, Dr. Gillian Ryan is recruited by NASA to continue her work and develop a cure for those afflicted aboard the space station. Easy, right?

Hart does a tremendous job building up the story of Obscura, giving Gillian plenty of personal reasons to be involved in the search for Losian's cure, while also making her an important and striking character in her own right. Smart, tough, and resourceful, Gillian is a terrific heroine, but one who also has an important weak spot in her addiction to pills. On the science front, Hart's fresh mode of travel will be old-hat to plenty of sci-fi fans, but the technology is given a shiny new coat of paint here thanks to some refreshing plot elements and unintended consequences.

While Obscura is a thrilling read, Hart infuses plenty of creepiness throughout, injecting some welcome elements of horror that will keep readers guessing. There are a few memorable scenes, and characters, etched into my mind thanks to Hart's vivid descriptions and scenarios that packed a lovely bit of wow factor. The story itself is what truly grabbed me, though - murders aboard a space station, drug addiction, and whole lotta paranoia - all perfectly paced and flawlessly executed. I absolutely had to know what was happening, and what was going to happen next.

Obscura is the kind of read you need to clear your calendar for because this is one hell of a page-turner from start to finish. Fans of Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter and Pines should feel right at home with this cutting-edge thriller.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from publisher Thomas & Mercer via NetGalley.]



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Review: Star Wars: Last Shot by Daniel José Older [audiobook]

Last Shot (Star Wars): A Han and Lando Novel

By Daniel José Older






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Set in the month's following Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, Daniel José Older explores the rise of a singular threat in a post-Imperial galaxy. In the book's opening moments, Lando Calrissian is attacked in his home on Cloud City by a mysterious hooded figure demanding the Phylanx Redux Transmitter, a mouthful of a galaxy-changing MacGuffin if ever there was one. While Lando doesn't possess this transmitter, he learns that its last known whereabouts were aboard the Millennium Falcon, leading him straight to his ol' buddy Han. Soon enough, the two scoundrels have assembled a new team to help them as they rocket across the galaxy in search of this mysterious device and a rouge evil scientist, Fyzen Gor, who Han encountered ten years previously.

The big draw behind Star Wars: Last Shot, of course, is Han and Lando themselves. Older does a remarkable job bringing Lando to life here, capturing the sleek, cool style of Billy Dee Williams, with a particular eye towards the character's penchant for fashion. Knowing that the clothes make the man, Lando's always been the best-dressed smuggler in the galaxy, and Older pays particular attention to that, as well, describing the man's careful deliberation when it comes to selecting his clothing for events and encounters, as well as a closet full of stylish and colorful capes.

Lando, of course, is off-set by his partner in crime, and Han is as rumpled and grumpy as ever as he tries to cope with fatherhood. With the Imperial Empire run off to the Outer Rim, Han is struggling with his place in life and the oftentimes stationary requirements of being a husband and father. He wants to roam free among the stars, and instead finds himself dealing with a screaming two-year-old whose sleep has been interrupted by noisome droids and urgent late-night calls for Leia. Of course, once free of familial commitments, Han longs to return. As a father of a two-year-old myself, I could sympathize with Han and his emotional and psychological state pretty well here, particularly as he attempts to soothe his distraught son and steps on a bunch of Lucasfilm's Lego-equivalent blocks.

While Older gives us plenty of insight into Han and Lando, and injects a handful of new diverse characters into the Star Wars universe (an Ewok hacker, an agender pilot [as with Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, you can expect lots and lots and lots of pearl-clutching from the anti-diversity, cultural homogeneity-only crowd for this book, too!], a Twi'lek love interest for Lando), he's also sure to pack in plenty of action that help wrinkle the plot and stymie the search for the transmitter. There's also some intriguing looks at the results of Gor's Frankensteinian experiments and the cult that has formed around them. The story itself is unraveled across three time-lines, with the events of the present-day story informed by Lando's and Han's individual, and unwitting, encounters with Fyzen Gor and Phylanx Redux Transmitter in the previous decades.

For the audio edition, Random House has brought in three narrators to tackle the various story threads. Marc Thompson handles the bulk of the novel, with Older narrating Han's story from ten years ago, and January LaVoy reading Lando's segments set twenty years prior. While Last Story probably didn't need three narrators to get the job done, the various performances help shake things up a bit. Thompson, a Star Wars audiobook staple, does a fantastic job as expected. His performances are consistently excellent, and Last Shot is no exception. His performance of Lando is exceptional, and he does a solidly gruff Han Solo, too. If I have any quibble at all, it's in his performance as Taka Jamoreesa, a twenty-something hotshot pilot, who Thompson reads with an annoyingly Jack Black-esque inflection. LaVoy taps into Lando's vocal mannerisms with a cool, entertaining reading. Older does a solid job, although his presentation is not as professionally refined as his co-narrators. Rounding it all out is the usual high-level production quality of a Star Wars audiobook, with the narration enhanced with sound effects, music, and voice digitization for droid characters. All in all, Last Shot makes for an easy, captivating listen that's a heck of a lot of fun.

Readers looking for a solid bit of entertainment fueled by two of the most popular characters in Star Wars should find a lot to enjoy in Last Shot. I'm always game for more Han and Lando adventures, though, so I'm hoping Older is able to return to this galaxy far, far away for at least one more outing. It'd be a shame if this were his last and only shot with these characters.



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Review: Ghost Virus by Graham Masterton

Ghost Virus

By Graham Masterton






My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I hadn't previously read anything by Graham Masterton, but had heard his name pop up in horror circles often enough that I knew I'd have to give him a go. That said, I'm not entirely convinced Ghost Virus is the best place to start, given its odd balance as a work that is both flat-out silly and a serious procedural with a whole lot of deliciously descriptive violence and carnage betwixt it all.

The fact is, the central premise behind Ghost Story is absolutely ludicrous. That premise? Killer clothes. And I don't mean in the sense of keen fashion and sharp ensembles, but literally clothes that murder - jackets that slaughter, sweaters hungry for blood, windbreakers that would snap your neck and dismember you in the street. Killer. Clothes. It's the sort of schlocky mass-market 80s pulp, or straight to SyFy Channel by way of The Asylum films, that is deliriously, eye-rollingly bad...but also perversely entertaining in its own charmingly idiotic way. It helps, some, that Masterton's own characters cannot believe the threat terrorizing their London suburb of Tooting Bec either, oftentimes rolling their own eyes right alongside readers. One almost has to wonder just how much expert-level trolling Masterton is conducting upon readers with this one. The police, at regular intervals, speak the reader's mind as they confusedly stammer, "None of this makes any sense."

Granted, Masterton makes a basic attempt at trying to square this ultimately nonsensical work against the rough framework of Tooting's diverse neighborhood, drawing on Pakistani and Lithuanian lore, with talk of djinns and ghosts and various other regional folklore. No matter what kind of hodgepodge justifications Masterton knits together to explain the inexplicable, the threat at the core of Ghost Virus is still utterly preposterous.

However, if you can either accept, or better still, look past the harebrained idea of demonic second-hand clothes, Ghost Virus is actually a pretty fun, pulpy romp that fans of the crazier 80s horror paperbacks should enjoy. The central premise is outlandish, but it's at least entertaining and Masterton's writing is smooth enough to keep the pages turning. And the violence. Dear lord, the violence! Masterton doesn't shy away from details, and there's a number of well-done, graphically depicted shock scenes as the owners of these possessed clothes wreak havoc on themselves, their lovers, and neighbors. There's moments of awful violence throughout, and if you revel in gore, Masterton will blanket you in buckets of blood and piles of innards.

My advice? Ignore the goofy premise, and read this one for the shock scenes. If you're a fan of silly horror, you ought to eat this one right up.

[Note: I received an advance copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley.]



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BROKEN SHELLS In Audio!

Great news, gang - the audiobook edition of Broken Shells is now available for your listening pleasure on Audible and iTunes! 

Earlier this year, Joe Hempel, who you may recall as the narrator of my 2018 Audiobook Listeners Choice Award Horror Finalist title Mass Hysteria, contacted me about obtaining the audio rights to Broken Shells for his new audio imprint. In addition to his duties as a full-time audiobook narrator, Joe has decided to branch out and launch his own audiobook publishing imprint called Bleeding Ear Audio! Broken Shells is the debut title for Bleeding Ear, and to handle the narration, Joe hired Justin Thomas James.

Justin is a strong up-and-comer, and he absolutely nails the voice and attitude of Antoine DeWitt, a down-on-his-luck man caught up in some pretty unbelievable, and awfully gory, circumstances. Check out the Audible sample and I think you'll agree with me that Justin positively delivers the goods. If reading Broken Shells made you squirm, listening to it will give you nightmares! Or at least, I hope it does!

Broken Shells is available in audiobook now, as well as print and ebook. If you're a Kindle reader who still loves print copies of their books, you can buy the paperback and get the Kindle edition for free! And if you're one of those readers who love to have their books in all the formats, you're certainly in luck now! 

Broken Shells is available at the following retailers:

Amazon | iBooks  | Nook | Kobo

Google Play | Smashwords

Audiobook available at:

Audible | iTunes

About Broken Shells

Antoine DeWitt is a man down on his luck. Broke and recently fired, he knows the winning Money Carlo ticket that has landed in his mailbox from a car dealership is nothing more than a scam. The promise of five thousand dollars, though, is too tantalizing to ignore.

Jon Dangle is a keeper of secrets, many of which are buried deep beneath his dealership. He works hard to keep them hidden, but occasionally sacrifices are required, sacrifices who are penniless, desperate, and who will not be missed. Sacrifices exactly like DeWitt.

When Antoine steps foot on Dangle's car lot, it is with the hope of easy money. Instead, he finds himself trapped in a deep, dark hole, buried alive. If he is going to survive the nightmare ahead of him, if he has any chance of seeing his wife and child again, Antoine will have to do more than merely hope. He will have to fight his way back to the surface, and pray that Jon Dangle's secrets do not kill him first.

What Readers Are Saying

"A fun and nasty little novella...If you’re a big creature-feature fan (digging on works like Adam Cesare’s VIDEO NIGHT or Hunter Shea’s THEY RISE) you’re going to love this book." - Glenn Rolfe, author of Becoming and Blood and Rain

"An adrenaline-fueled, no punches pulled, onslaught of gruesome action! Highly recommended!" - Horror After Dark

"Lightning fast...high octane fun." - Unnerving Magazine

"Broken Shells is a blood-soaked, tense novella that is sure to appeal to a wide variety of horror fans, especially those that dig an old-school feel in their novels." - The Horror Bookshelf

"Broken Shells, the latest release from Michael Patrick Hicks... is another fine piece of...pulpy horror which moves along at eye-watering speed... You’ll have fun rolling with the punches. I found myself cheering on hard-as-nails Antoine in his brutal fight for survival." - HorrorTalk

"A dark and nasty...novella I won't soon forget, mostly thanks to the nightmares I've already had." - Frank Michaels Errington

"The very definition of a page-turner. Michael Patrick Hicks delivers right-between-the-eyes terror." - The Haunted Reading Room

"Unnerving! ... It truly is the perfect blend of gore, horror and action." - PopHorror.com

"Horror fans will have much to gnaw on here... Fun, wild, and bursting with energy, Broken Shells is perfect for a rainy afternoon of monster mayhem." - Morbidly Beautiful

"Ghastly fun ... Broken Shells is an exceptional horror novella." - Dangerous Dan's Book Blog

"Broken Shells is a visceral experience, with oodles of ooze, gore galore, dry heaves and vomit, and some Alien worthy introductions to razor sharp creepy crawlies. ... This, my friends, is horror done right!" - Schizanthus, Goodreads review

"Michael Patrick Hicks has out done himself this time! When I didn't think his work could get any better, he goes and surpasses my expectations. From start to finish, you will get your money's worth." - Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews

"Michael Patrick Hicks has managed, in only 120 pages, to craft a terrifying, steamroller of a story. ... The author makes you immediately connect with the main character Antoine, who is down on his luck and just looking for a possible break. When Antoine is thrust into the dark, you are along for the ride, whether you like it or not. And in the dark is where this story shines. Hicks makes you feel dread, like the walls are closing in as you read." - One-Legged Reviews

"Hicks does a fine job of emotionally grasping the reader with his character creation. You'll come for the story of survival, and stay for the darkness and gore. If you enjoy extremely gruesome creature horror and pitch black underground tunnels, then Broken Shells is right up your alley." - FanFiAddict

Broken Shells is available at the following retailers:

Amazon | iBooks  | Nook | Kobo

Google Play | Smashwords

Audiobook available at:

Audible | iTunes

Review: Alien: The Cold Forge by Alex White

Alien: The Cold Forge

By Alex White






My rating: 5 of 5 stars


While I've enjoyed my share of Alien tie-in works across comics and prose novels, The Cold Forge by Alex White might be the first to truly impress me beyond being a few days worth of solid entertainment.

Most Alien stories seem to involve beleaguered colonists or Colonial Space Marines getting more than they bargained for, with the authors content for their stories to exist as little more than a redux of one of the first two films. While this approach has certainly worked well and given this franchise's reading audience exactly what it expects, Alex White's approach is to raise the bar, and for that I'm grateful.

There are no colonists in (un)surprising peril, no marines battling for their lives. There are in fact no good guys or good gals at all. The Cold Forge is a secret research base for Weyland-Yutani, the megalithic corporation seeking to exploit and weaponize the infamous alien Xenomorphs. While there are various other research projects in progress aboard the space station, the aliens are the big money maker and the reason Cold Forge exists at all. Unfortunately, the researchers aren't delivering on their contracts and auditor Dorian Sudler is tasked with cutting the fat. He pinpoints as the primary loss leader Dr. Blue Marsalis, a bed-ridden geneticists cursed with a rare, incurable disease. Blue's mind is cutting-edge, but her frail body means she has to operate via a cybernetic interface with the station's android, Marcus. How these three personalities interact and cope, particularly once the inevitable excrement hits the proverbial fans, is the crux of Alien: The Cold Forge.

Although White delivers a bevy of Xenomorphic action, it's the human characters that really sold me on this particular novel. There's not a single likable individual in this whole book's cast, and I good and truly dug that. Dorian Sudler is a freaking psychopath, and I was absolutely delighted by the depths of his at-times shocking depravity. Once he learns about Blue's research into the alien lifeforms, his fetishization of the creatures is marvelous to behold. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Blue, whose discovery of a protein injected into victims during the face-hugger stage of impregnation leads her to exploit the Xenomorphs for medical advancement - primarily her own. Ostensibly, Blue is the closest character we have to a heroine in The Cold Forge, and it's mostly by default simply because of how evil and manipulative Sudler is. While she is certainly one tough cookie when push comes to shove, her utter lack of altruism makes her a pretty far cry from Ellen Ripley.

If you're looking brave souls doing heroic and adventurous derring-do in the name of all that's good and holy, you might want to look elsewhere. For me, it's flat-out intriguing to see two monstrous humans stuck in the middle of an alien outbreak and fighting for survival, working to one-up the other in their cat-and-mouse games to not only escape the doomed station but to seek out and destroy one another. Sudler and Blue are both Alphas in their respective fields, and putting them together is like throwing water on super hot oil. Their instant dislike of one another is palpable, and White does a great job keeping us on our toes as to who will eventually make it out on top, and how, given that Blue is so heavily dependent on cybernetic aid. While the Alien property has never been high in humor and upbeat chipperness, there's moments to The Cold Forge that are wonderfully nihilistic, carving out a new level of darkness for such a long-lived property.

In The Cold Forge, Alex White embraces the crossroads of sci-fi horror genres that the Alien property has lived in for so long. There's plenty of medical science, some of which even ties into how the Xenomorphs take on characteristics of the face-hugged hosts they're birthed from (in this case, chimps are the victim du jour), some sci-fi wizardry between Blue and Marcus (as well as a past romances between Blue and Anne, a security officer, whose dalliances with each other were furthered through the use of Marcus's android body, which raises all kinds of other intriguing questions), and a whole lot of horror and gore once things click into high gear. White gives this particular Alien story a score of various and compelling layers that help set it apart from the more traditional franchise fare, and it's all the stronger because of it. He stays true to the spirit of the franchise, but isn't afraid to cut loose and get daring where it truly counts, giving us characters defined by their determination at the expense of everyone else. Bravo, sir!

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from Titan Books.]



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