Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 15

Review: Aliens: Dead Orbit by James Stokoe

Aliens: Dead Orbit

By James Stokoe






My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Given all the buzz that had surrounded its initial release, I was pretty jazzed to read Aliens: Dead Orbit, written and illustrated by James Stokoe. Unfortunately, this is a pretty disappointing exercise all around, and one that's utterly derivative of the source material it's licensed from.

Stokoe doesn't try to reinvent the wheel here, but nor does he try to do anything original or fresh. Dead Orbit is an utterly by-the-book Alien story that often times feels more like a game of swapsies. Trade in the Sulaco for a Weyland-Yutani space station with only six inhabitants responding to a passing ship's distress call, and you pretty well know where it's all headed from here. Our team of orbiters find three humans in cryo and, after nearly accidentally killing all of them in a coolant leak while reawakening them, transport the bodies back to their space station. It's all cut-and-paste Alien 101 stuff from there.

Besides being an Alien clone, Stokoe attempts to gives the story a bit of fresh polish by basing much of the story in flashback. This technique is a bit jolting and clumsily handled initially, with little in the way of segue to transition readers into what's happening, but as you grow accustomed to Stokoe's storytelling methods it does serve to keep reader's on their toes, oftentimes jarringly so. The grand finale gets a bit muddled and confusing, though, as you're dropped in and out dual climaxes in the story's recent past and lone survivor present. While it's not entirely disappointing, and Stokoe does create a few neat story beats, it's nothing that hasn't been done plenty of times before.

I also was not a fan of Stokoe's artwork, although plenty of other readers and reviewers seem to have found a lot to like on this front. I found it anime influences too garish and messy, with faces composed oddly enough to make many of the characters look unintentionally disfigured. I prefer a cleaner style, and Stokoe's lines just didn't work for me. His cover art for the individual four-issue run, however, did present some exciting concepts and beautiful artwork that I quite admired. He does do fine job in recreating the gritty industrial aspects of the Alien universe though, and while his artwork isn't pretty to look at it, it does lend a certain tension and unease to the proceedings.

Despite the critical raves surrounding Dead Orbit, it's ultimately not a work I would recommend. I just have too many reservations about the story, its execution, and presentation.



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Review: Apocalypse Nyx by Kameron Hurley

Apocalypse Nyx

By Kameron Hurley






My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Apocalypse Nyx is exactly the kind of science fiction I like - it's dark, violent, and has, at its core, a deeply flawed heroine who is hard as steel and has whiskey running through her veins. Nyx is a gal that sees few problems that can't be solved with her scattergun, and is always a hairsbreadth away from cutting off all ties with those that work for her and, if she were a more emotionally accessible and less war-wounded woman, people she might even call friends if she were drunk enough. Nyx is rugged and mean, and this collection from Kameron Hurley serves as a wonderful introduction to the former assassin turned ultra-violent problem solver, particularly if, like me, you haven't read the Bel Dame Apocrypha series proper.

I believe most, if not all, of the stories collected within Apocalypse Nyx were initially written and published for Hurley's Patreon supporters prior to their publication by Tachyon in this single volume. Gathered here are five stories set within the original Bel Dame Apocrypha, but which do not require any prior reading. You might get more out of these stories, or welcome a reintroduction to Nyx and her world, if you've been following this character previously but it's also highly accessible to newcomers.

The world Hurley has created here is as intense as it is interesting. The alien desert world Nyx inhabits is caught up in perpetual war, and Nasheenians like her are drafted to fight against their rival, darker-skinned Chenjans. The ruling body is highly matriarchal, but also heavily influenced by Muslim doctrine, with daily routine calls for prayer and a plethora of masques. On the technology front, bugs are king. Society has adapted to and grown reliant on insect-based tech - beetles are ground up to power vehicles, and form a communications network based on pheromones and body colors. Even the bullet casings and walls are rooted in creative uses of various bug life.

Story-wise, Apocalypse Nyx has a welcoming stand-alone episodic structure to it (quick, somebody call Netflix!). Although the various jobs and missions Nyx and her crew take in order to stay solvent are unrelated, taken as a whole there is a decent, if minor, character arc at play binding these stories together. I suspect there's a deeper arc to Nyx across the main trilogy, but I also kind of suspect that Nyx may be too violent, introverted, alcoholic, and deeply set in her ways to grow too much. Besides, she's more interesting without the happily ever after, at least in this volume, and Nyx is the type of character that it's hard to even imagine a happy ending for anyway.

I've been wanting to read about Nyx for quite a long while now, but somehow never made room for her. I happy to have finally corrected that with Apocalypse Nyx, and I now feel a greater urgency in exploring the trilogy of novels focusing on her. After this book and Hurley's prior release, The Stars Are Legion, if I've learned anything it's that from here on out all new releases from Kameron Hurley are to automatically move to the top of my mountain of TBRs. Count me among the number of faithful converts, because I am officially a fan of Nyx. This lady is one serious bad-ass.

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



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Review: They Feed by Jason Parent

They Feed

By Jason Parent






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


While I enjoy and appreciate the outdoors, I am not what one might consider an outdoor enthusiast. I've been camping exactly once. Well, technically twice if you count the first attempt that was aborted about an hour into arriving at the camp site in favor of getting a hotel room instead. I enjoy air conditioning, clean bathrooms, and showers that are neither filthy nor coin operated far too much to ever consider roughing it again for an extended period of time. And while my single experience with camping wasn't exactly as bad as I had imagined (we didn't get eaten by bears or slaughtered by a Predator), it's not something I'm in a hurry to ever do again. Books like Edward Lorn's Fairy Lights and Jason Parent's They Feed only serve to reinforce my non-camping attitude and help justify why I think this whole mode of vacationing really isn't much of a vacation at all.

Fresh out of prison after six years, Tyler returns to the Kansas campground that turned his life upside down and inside out. When he was sixteen, Tyler accidentally shot and killed another boy. Now out of lock-up, Tyler can't help but return to the murder site. Following him is the dead boy's sister, Dakota, who has reasons of her own for being in the park...reasons that get interrupted by a pair of campers who come under attack by a swarm of mysterious, bloodthirsty creatures. Trapped in a cabin and surrounded, Tyler and Dakota, and a handful of other visitors, must endure the invading monstrosities and survive the night.

They Feed is a pretty straightforward creature feature that blends together a few familiar horror tropes. You've got the cabin in the woods, a siege invasion, a cast of human characters with few reasons to trust one another, and a whole heaping mess of monsters. It feels a bit like a slasher flick crossbred with The Blob, or the season one episode of The X-Files, "Darkness Falls." All this works together to make a pretty damn good read.

Parent's creatures are an interesting creation, a leech-like horror that packs plenty of terror in its singular form, but that can also work together and coordinate its attacks. They're viciously violent, and Parent gives us a number of grotesque scenes that work wonderfully well to illustrate just how screwed all these campers, hikers, and visitors are.

Thankfully, They Feed also has a good number of interesting characters to keep us invested. One couple finds themselves lost in the woods, in addition to living in the midst of a perpetual marital spat, and a group of frat boys help create a few unexpected alliances between survivors, particularly Dakota and Tyler. United by death, Dakota and Tyler are certainly the most intriguing pair of characters here, and their relationship yo-yos through a number of ups and downs as they attempt to live through the night.

The creatures in They Feed sure are hungry, and you don't want to accidentally find yourself on the menu. Action-packed and delightfully gory, Jason Parent delivers a solid reminder to stay out of the woods.

[Note: I received an advance reader's copy of The Feed from Sinister Grin Press via Hook of a Book Media and Publicity.]



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Review: The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne

The Naturalist (The Naturalist Series)

By Andrew Mayne






My rating: 2 of 5 stars


If Dan Brown wrote a CBS-style crime thriller, it'd probably look a lot like Andrew Mayne's The Naturalist. It's big dumb fun, quickly paced, and routinely threatened this reader's willing suspension of disbelief with a number of inanities, ridiculousness, and just flat-out stupid plot points. The Naturalist is a highly readable work of fluffy entertainment, one that is strangely compelling but also not very good.

Professor Theo Cray is a bioinformatics researcher, and when one of his former students is found dead in the woods, he's the prime suspect until forensics lead authorities to believe she was mauled to death by a bear. Thanks to a case of mistaken identity, Cray is inadvertently given blood samples of the victim, which allows him to engage in some lone-hero forensic shenanigans that lead to the discovery that the bear hairs belong a tagged animal that died more than a year previously. Unable to let the case go, Cray uses his specialized knowledge in bioinformatics and learns of a number of missing women. Soon enough, he's on the trail of a serial killer who has somehow stayed off the grid for thirty years and may have killed hundreds and hundreds of women.

If none of the above gives you pause, The Naturalist might be right up your alley. In order to discuss why The Naturalist didn't work for me, though, I need to point to some specifics, some truly bugfuck, batshit moments of high implausibility that really had me scratching my head. As such, I'm issuing a big SPOILER WARNING from here on out. Consider yourself warned.

Throughout The Naturalist, Mayne spares hardly a single thriller trope to get from point A to point B. We have the lone wolf hero who police refuse to even listen to, let alone believe, and who are perfectly content to ignore the discovery of all these butchered women. There's a hooker with a heart of gold, and the small ex-Army waitress hottie who, despite Cray's social ineptitude and naivete, still wants to bang our mousy, intrepid researcher. At some point in these types of thrillers it's a sure beg that our lone wolf hero will eventually be targeted by police as Prime Suspect #1. Well, Mayne begins the freaking book with that tired old trope, and then pulls it out of his butt a few more time throughout for good measure.

Cray's doctorate and research has allowed him to learn a whole lot about a very small subject, leaving him oblivious to pretty much everything else. As he confesses a number of times, he doesn't know a lot about people. He can't read social cues, doesn't pick up on innuendo, and can't even decipher a text message from a hooker that reads "1004BJ". This cluelessness is, perhaps, meant to give Cray an easy pass by readers so that once he starts digging up dead bodies all across Montana and texting photos of the corpses to police, even going so far at one point as to load a murder victim into his SUV and dump the body off at the local police station, we're supposed to just accept this level of idiocy as par for the course.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get over these hurdles, even as I watched with stony bemusement as Cray half-asses his way into stealing evidence, snatching a corpse from the morgue, and destroying crime scenes one right after another. And despite his reputation for these shenanigans eventually preceding him everywhere he goes, the police response is typically a bemusement equal to my own. After dumping a corpse off at the police station, Cray merely has to give a statement and is allowed on his merry way to go pilfer another body.

The amount of WTFery is nested like Russian dolls throughout the entirety of The Naturalist, right down to its over-to-top, laugh out loud, implausible finale. Look, Cray is decidedly not a tough guy. He's a bookish nerd who gets beat up multiple times by various people, and Mayne still would have us believe that this guy is able to single-handedly take on an apex predator of a serial killer, a killer who has gone all Terminator in the book's final moments. Somehow, despite being shot three times and having previously been beaten unconscious and having his jaw fractured, Mayne still expects us to believe it's plausible that Cray would think, in all-caps, "I'M GOING TO TEAR THIS GUY APART!" and go all Wolverine beserker rage on a massive, bloodthirsty murderer.

Did I mention I found this book utterly ridiculous? Because I did.

That said, The Naturalist is stupidly entertaining but also perversely fascinating, and the scientific backbone Mayne weaves throughout is really interesting stuff. The research and thought processes that Cray brings to the table helps bring a measure of seriousness to an otherwise inanely written story, and Cray's eye for detail in the natural world is well done, lending a surprising amount of credibility to his field work. Unfortunately, when Cray isn't in the field and Mayne isn't focused on wowing us with science, the story takes some pretty steep nosedives.

Readers expecting a serial killer thriller in the vein of Silence of the Lambs would do well to look elsewhere. If you don't mind a silly, check your brain at the door, beach read that's more comic book adventure than serious, well-studied suspense, you might do all right with this one if you keep expectations firmly in check. The Naturalist is ultimately pretty stupid, but at least it's entertainingly so. I didn't much care for it in the end, but I at least got my $3 worth of entertainment, and Mayne keeps the pacing cranked up to a high page-turning level. I found myself wanting to know how things were going to shake out, and morbidly curious as to just how much sillier it could get.



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Ten Spring Reads To Watch For

Yeah, the shift toward warmer weather and cool evenings sipping beer after some grueling lawncare is great and all, but for me the best part of spring is the blossoming of new books. From the looks of things, there's a boatload of promising intrigue, blood-curdling chills, and action-packed adventures ahead. While it's a sure bet I have plenty of other books in my TBR and review pile, here's the Top 10 spring reads I am most looking forward to.

One Way by S.J. Morden

April 10, 2018 | Orbit

When the small crew of ex cons working on Mars start getting murdered, everyone is a suspect in this terrifying science fiction thriller from bona fide rocket scientist and award winning-author S. J. Morden.

It's the dawn of a new era - and we're ready to colonize Mars. But the company that's been contracted to construct a new Mars base, has made promises they can't fulfill and is desperate enough to cut corners. The first thing to go is the automation . . . the next thing they'll have to deal with is the eight astronauts they'll send to Mars, when there aren't supposed to be any at all.

Frank - father, architect, murderer - is recruited for the mission to Mars with the promise of a better life, along with seven of his most notorious fellow inmates. But as his crew sets to work on the red wasteland of Mars, the accidents mount up, and Frank begins to suspect they might not be accidents at all. As the list of suspect grows shorter, it's up to Frank to uncover the terrible truth before it's too late.

Dr. S. J. Morden trained as a rocket scientist before becoming the author of razor-sharp, award-winning science fiction. Perfect for fans of Andy Weir's The Martian and Richard Morgan, One Way takes off like a rocket, pulling us along on a terrifying, epic ride with only one way out.

They Feed by Jason Parent

April 15, 2018 | Sinister Grin Press

The night uncovers all we wish not to see.

A troubled man enters a dusky park before sunset. A young woman follows, hidden in shadow. Both have returned to the park to take back something the past has stolen from them, to make right six long years of suffering, and to find justice or perhaps redemption—or maybe they'll settle for some old-fashioned revenge.

But something evil is alive and awake in those woods, creatures that care nothing for human motivations. They’re driven by their own insatiable need: a ravenous, bottomless hunger.

The campgrounds are full tonight, and the creatures are starving. Before the night is over, they will feed.

An unrelenting tale of terror from Jason Parent, acclaimed author of People of the Sun and What Hides Within.

Breaking the World by Jerry Gordon

April 17, 2018 | Apex Books

Cyrus doesn't believe in David's predictions, and he's not interested in being part of a cult. But after the sudden death of his brother, his parents split up and his mom drags him to Waco, Texas against his will. At least he's not alone. His friends, Marshal and Rachel, have equally sad stories that end with them being dumped at the Branch Davidian Church.

Together, they're the trinity of nonbelievers, atheist teens caught between a soon to be infamous cult leader, an erratic FBI, and an epidemic that may confirm the worst of the church's apocalyptic prophecies. With tanks surrounding the Branch Davidians and tear gas in the air, Cyrus and his friends know one thing for certain: They can't count on the adults to save them.

In his debut novel, Jerry Gordon takes readers deep inside the longest standoff in law enforcement history for an apocalyptic thriller that challenges the news media's reporting of the event, the wisdom of militarizing domestic law enforcement, and the blurry line between religion and cult.

The Atrocities by Jeremy C. Shipp

April 17, 2018 | Tor.com

Jeremy Shipp brings you THE ATROCITIES, a haunting gothic fantasy of a young ghost's education

When Isabella died, her parents were determined to ensure her education wouldn't suffer.

But Isabella's parents had not informed her new governess of Isabella's... condition, and when Ms Valdez arrives at the estate, having forced herself through a surreal nightmare maze of twisted human-like statues, she discovers that there is no girl to tutor.

Or is there...?

Forsaken (A Unit 51 Novel) by Michael McBride

April 24, 2018 | Pinnacle

IT HAS SURVIVED
At a research station in Antarctica, scientists discovered a strange and ancient organism. 
They thought they could study it, classify it, control it. They couldn’t.
 
IT HAS THRIVED
Six months ago, a secret paramilitary team called Unit 51 was sent to the station.
They thought the creature was dead, the nightmare was over. It wasn’t.
 
IT HAS EVOLVED
In a Mexican temple, archeologists uncover the remains of a half-human hybrid. They believe
it is related to the creature in Antarctica, a dark thing of legend that is still alive—and still evolving. They believe it needs a new host to feed, to mutate, to multiply. They’re right. And they’re next. And the human race might just be headed for extinction  . . .

Fury From the Tomb: The Institute for Singular Antiquities Book 1 by S.J. Morden

May 1, 2018 | Angry Robot Books

Mummies, grave-robbing ghouls, hopping vampires, and evil monks  beset a young archaeologist, in this fast-paced Indiana Jones-style adventure

Saqqara, Egypt, 1888, and in the booby-trapped tomb of an ancient sorcerer, Rom, a young Egyptologist, makes the discovery of a lifetime: five coffins and an eerie, oversized sarcophagus. But the expedition seems cursed, for after unearthing the mummies, all but Rom die horribly. He faithfully returns to America with his disturbing cargo, continuing by train to Los Angeles, home of his reclusive sponsor. When the train is hijacked by murderous banditos in the Arizona desert, who steal the mummies and flee over the border, Rom – with his benefactor’s rebellious daughter, an orphaned Chinese busboy, and a cold-blooded gunslinger – must ride into Mexico to bring the malevolent mummies back. If only mummies were their biggest problem…

Obscura by Joe Hart

May 8, 2018 | Thomas & Mercer

She’s felt it before... the fear of losing control. And it’s happening again.

In the near future, an aggressive and terrifying new form of dementia is affecting victims of all ages. The cause is unknown, and the symptoms are disturbing. Dr. Gillian Ryan is on the cutting edge of research and desperately determined to find a cure. She’s already lost her husband to the disease, and now her young daughter is slowly succumbing as well. After losing her funding, she is given the unique opportunity to expand her research. She will travel with a NASA team to a space station where the crew has been stricken with symptoms of a similar inexplicable psychosis—memory loss, trances, and violent, uncontrollable impulses.

Crippled by a secret addiction and suffering from creeping paranoia, Gillian finds her journey becoming a nightmare as unexplainable and violent events plague the mission. With her grip weakening on reality, she starts to doubt her own innocence. And she’s beginning to question so much more—like the true nature of the mission, the motivations of the crew, and every deadly new secret space has to offer.

Merging thrilling science-fiction adventure with mind-bending psychological suspense, Wall Street Journal bestselling author Joe Hart explores both the vast mysteries of outer space and the even darker unknown that lies within ourselves.

Hell Divers III: Deliverance by Nicholas Sansbury-Smith

May 15, 2018 | Blackstone Publishing

Left for dead on the nightmarish surface of the planet, Commander Michael Everhart and his team of Hell Divers barely escape with their lives aboard a new airship called Deliverance. After learning that Xavier “X” Rodriguez may still be alive, they mount a rescue mission for the long-lost hero.

In the skies, the Hive is falling apart, but Captain Jordan is more determined than ever to keep humanity in their outdated lifeboat. He will do whatever it takes to keep the ship in the air—even murder. But when he learns the Hell Divers he exiled have found Deliverance, he changes course for a new mission—find the divers, kill them, and make their new ship his own.

In the third installment of the USA Today bestselling Hell Divers series, Michael and his fellow divers fight across the mutated landscape in search of X. But what they find will change everything.

Blood Standard by Laird Barron

May 29, 2018 | G.P. Putnman's Sons

Award-winning author Laird Barron makes his crime fiction debut with a novel set in the underbelly of upstate New York that's as hardboiled and punchy as a swift right hook to the jaw--a classic noir for fans of James Ellroy and John D. Macdonald.

Isaiah Coleridge is a mob enforcer in Alaska--he's tough, seen a lot, and dished out more. But when he forcibly ends the moneymaking scheme of a made man, he gets in the kind of trouble that can lead to a bullet behind the ear. Saved by the grace of his boss and exiled to upstate New York, Isaiah begins a new life, a quiet life without gunshots or explosions. Except a teenage girl disappears, and Isaiah isn't one to let that slip by. And delving into the underworld to track this missing girl will get him exactly the kind of notice he was warned to avoid.

The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly

June 12, 2018 | Atria/Emily Bestler Boks

From internationally bestselling author and “creative genius who has few equals in either horror fiction or the mystery genre” (New York Journal of Books) comes a gripping thriller starring Private Investigator Charlie Parker. When the body of a woman—who apparently died in childbirth—is discovered, Parker is hired to track down both her identity and her missing child.

In the beautiful Maine woods, a partly preserved body is discovered. Investigators realize that the dead young woman gave birth shortly before her death. But there is no sign of a baby.

Private detective Charlie Parker is hired by a lawyer to shadow the police investigation and find the infant but Parker is not the only searcher. Someone else is following the trail left by the woman, someone with an interest in much more than a missing child…someone prepared to leave bodies in his wake.

And in a house by the woods, a toy telephone begins to ring and a young boy is about to receive a call from a dead woman.

I'm also planning on digging into several titles that have been lingering in my review pile for quite a while, including the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Kill Creek by Scott Thomas. What's on your reading list for the next couple months ahead?

Interview: Chris Sorensen, author of The Nightmare Room

Chris Sorensen's debut horror novel, The Nightmare Room, released Jan. 25, 2018 in paperback and ebook, and has gone on to receive a number of positive reviews from readers and critics alike.

Chris Sorensen is an award-winning narrator of more than 200 audiobooks and author of the middle-grade book, The Mad Scientists of New Jersey. In January, he made his adult horror debut with the release of The Nightmare Room, book one of The Messy Man series. 

The Nightmare Room is one hell of a debut, too. Hunter Shea, author of Mail Order Massacres and a favorite of High Fever Books, said of The Nightmare Room, "This is one haunted house that had me running for the door! Blood frozen. Spine chilled. A must read." Shea is far from alone in this assessment, and since its release The Nightmare Room has racked up more than a score of highly positive reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and has earned its share of critical acclaim from sites like Horror After Dark and Horror Maiden's Book Reviews, as well as a 5-star review from this very site right here. If you haven't already read my thoughts on Sorensen's latest, go check it out!

Sorensen was kind enough to take some time out of his writing and narrating duties to briefly step into a different kind of nightmare room, speaking with High Fever Books about his latest release. 

Looking at your background, you’ve narrated a number of children’s and non-fiction titles, and previously published a middle-grade book, The Mad Scientists of New Jersey. Tell us a bit about your background with horror – what made you want to dive straight into the deep end with The Nightmare Room?

Horror is my first love. As a child, I would set my alarm for midnight and sneak out to the den to watch our local creature feature broadcast, Pyewacket Presents. I was a college faculty brat, so I had full access to the school’s library. I spent my summers poring over books about horror films, mythology and Bigfoot (books our public library didn’t have). I made zombie films with my friends and built haunted houses in my basement. So, I come by it naturally. I’ve written a number of horror screenplays (one currently in development) and have come to learn that the road between the page and the screen is very, very long. There’s an immediacy about self-publishing that’s very exciting to me. Plus, I get to have control over layout, cover and (when I finally find time for it) the audiobook. And why wouldn’t I dive into the deep end? That’s where the dark things lurk.

Pete Larson, the everyman caught up in the terrors of The Nightmare Room is an audiobook narrator. Clearly, you drew on a lot of personal experience in crafting this character’s profession. There’s also a deeply personal, heartbreaking loss fueling Pete and his wife. I apologize if this is too sensitive a topic, but did you also experience a similar tragedy that you drew upon? We horror authors have a tendency to bleed onto the page – how deep did you cut yourself?

The grief and loss are real while the actual situation is not. I started writing this story during a time when my wife and I were caring for an elderly relative of hers while at the same time shuttling back and forth to see my father, who was battling cancer. There was a period of weeks where death visited up close and personal—it permeated my life. Yeah…but rather than cutting, I think it was like letting certain feelings go. Honoring them and then moving on. Until the next book, at least.

The Nightmare Room is billed as the first book in The Messy Man series. Generally speaking, what’s your plan for this series moving ahead? What do readers have to look forward to and when can we expect book two?

Gearing up for my sophomore slump! No, I’m making a bit of a perspective shift in Book 2. Same storyline, different POV. Also, diving deeper into the heart of the mystery. Uncovering more answers, more questions, more ghosts. Looking at summer release of Book 2, The Hungry Ones, and shooting for a Halloween release of Book 3, The Messy Man.

The Larson's get some unexpected visitors after moving into their new home. Do you have any first-hand accounts of hauntings or encounters with the supernatural you’d like to share?

I thought I saw the ghost of a king when I was little. Told the neighborhood kids and got in trouble for scaring them. I once woke up behind myself (I guess I was the ghost). And in Colorado, my friends owned an 1890’s hospital that they turned into a hotel. Staying there one night (all alone in massive hotel – yeah, what was I thinking), I saw a shadow peer up at me over the end of the bed. That’s it. That’s all I got.

I would say that's more than enough! You’re a member of the Horror Writer’s Association, and you mentioned you have a horror screenplay currently in development. You also have a number of other screenplay and playwright credits to your name, works that are either firmly in the horror genre or at least horror-adjacent. Upon reading The Nightmare Room it was immediately apparent that you’re well-versed in the genre and you certainly know how to craft a good scare. What works of horror are your big touchstones and what’s influenced your work leading up to The Nightmare Room?

The Shining will always be the book I point to—the relationships, the danger, the amorphous quality to the evil. The audiobook version is quite good. Ray Bradbury’s work taught me that there could be poetry in the unusual. Something Wicked This Way Comes is a marvel. I love the old Universal monster movies, can’t pass up a B movie (some of my favs: Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, Blood on Satan’s Claw, Prophecy) and am an avid collector of books and videos on Bigfoot. Eager to find new influences in the wealth of today’s horror writers. Like you!

Flattery will get you everywhere, Chris! Thanks for that. :D Now, where can readers find out more about you and your work? Plug away!

The website is up: casorensenwrite.com.

Figure I’d better get Book 2 and a couple novellas under my belt before I start hitting people up for follows. (That doesn't mean you have to wait, though! You can follow Chris on Twitter right now. - Ed.) I'm itching to have more to plug! This has been a great way to start. So glad people are responding to my first book for adults. I have about thirty others lined up, tapping their feet, waiting for me to ‘get to it’. Once it’s ‘got’ I’ll let you know.

I do hope you'll keep me posted! I'll definitely be on the look out for The Hungry Ones this summer, and I suspect so will a number of other readers, as well. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I would like to give a special shout out to Hunter Shea who took the time to meet with me, offer up some contacts and give me my first review. He helped me make it real.

Hunter's a terrific guy! Chris, thank you so much for your time and agreeing to the interview. It's been a pleasure!

Thanks again for giving my ghosts a chance!

New York audiobook narrator Peter Larson and his wife Hannah head to his hometown of Maple City to help Peter's ailing father and to put a recent tragedy behind them. Though the small, Midwestern town seems the idyllic place to start afresh, Peter and Hannah will soon learn that evil currents flow beneath its surface.

They move into an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town—a house purchased by Peter's father at auction and kept secret until now—and start to settle into their new life.

But as Peter sets up his recording studio in a small basement room, disturbing things begin to occur—mysterious voices haunt audio tracks, malevolent shadows creep about the house. And when an insidious presence emerges from the woodwork, Peter must face old demons in order to save his family and himself.

Buy The Nightmare Room At Amazon

Review: The Nightmare Room (The Messy Man Book 1) by Chris Sorensen

The Nightmare Room (The Messy Man Series) (Volume 1)

By Chris Sorensen






My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A narrator of more than 200 audiobooks and author of the middle-grade book, The Mad Scientists of New Jersey, Chris Sorensen make his horror novel debut with Book 1 in The Messy Man series, The Nightmare Room.

After moving back to his hometown to care for his sick father, Pete and Hannah Larson move into an old farmhouse with more than its fair share of problems. The stairs going to the second floor are slightly crooked, the third step to the basement poses a hazard, and rowdy teenagers have been using the abandoned homestead for raucous parties. It's also inhabited by an unwelcome occupant Pete comes to know as The Grey Man, a malevolent spirit with a sinister past.

Sorensen draws from his own experiences as a narrator with Pete, who assembles his recording booth in his new home's basement and begins to notice strange artifacts in the audiobook files he's working on. Having a horror author as the everyman at the center of a horror novel is a common, well-worn trope, and I have to admit that having a children's audiobook narrator as our main protagonist is a nice change of pace, and a timely one at that given the rise in popularity of services like Audible. Sorensen gives us a nice insider's glimpse at narration without getting bogged down in the details.

The heart of The Nightmare Room, though, is one of tragedy and loss. On top of dealing with a sick father and a mother stricken with dementia, the Larson's are struggling to cope with the recent loss of their son. Sorensen weaves various strands of familial grief throughout his narrative, tackling each of its different permutations with an honesty that is sometimes raw but never saccharine.

The human component of The Nightmare Room is strong, and it's because of this that the elements of horror work so well. Sorensen fleshes out the Larson's so well, Pete in particular, that we can't help but feel for his plight when the surprises start coming and the farmhouse begins to awaken. Simply put, The Nightmare Room is a surprisingly strong haunted house story and a heck of a horror debut for Sorensen. This is an author with some serious chops, and he paints a number of vivid scare scenes. It's safe to say I won't be able to look at a child's drawings quite the same way after some of this book's segments.

The Nightmare Room was a gripping read, one that kept me glued to my Kindle, Kindle app, and Kindle Cloud Reader the whole way through. I finished this book in two days, a genuine rarity for me these days given all the constraints on my time and limited hours I have for reading anymore. Once I sank into this book, though, I made the time and got sucked into it rather deeply. It's one of my favorite reads of the year thus far, and Sorensen is officially on my list of authors to watch out for. I'm not sure how much elasticity the central conceit of The Messy Man series ultimately has or how many books are planned, but I'm definitely game to find out.

Filled with a number of well-drawn characters and several terrific fright scenes, The Nightmare Room impressed the hell out of me. This is a lock all the doors, keep all the lights on creepfest that will keep you reading late into the night.



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Review: Jimbo Yojimbo by David W. Barbee

Jimbo Yojimbo

By David W Barbee






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Imagine Fallout as written by Anthony Bourdain drunk off his ass on Saki while communing with the ghost of Kurosawa and you'll have a pretty good idea of the vibe and flavor David W. Barbee is aiming for with Jimbo Yojimbo.

A thousand years ago, the world was decimated by a plague of frogs. Bushido Budnick, an immortal master chef and insane scientist, saved the human race and rules the planet through his famous fast-food Buddha Gump Shrimp Company. Five years ago, Jimbo Yojimbo and his father waged war against Budnick and his army of mutant crawdad warriors. They failed, and Jimbo lost his freedom while his father lost his head. Rotting in Budnick's prison, Jimbo is spurred on by the ghost of his father to escape and declare revenge. Oh, and Jimbo has also been surgically altered by Budnick and has had his face replaced with a cephalopod.

Jimbo Yojimbo is a surprisingly straight-forward post-apocalyptic, hillbilly samurai actioneer. Once free of Budnick's prison, Jimbo goes on a sword-swinging killing spree to take down the man who took everything from him. Barbee delivers plenty of mayhem and bloodshed against a number of varied mutant creations, all set against a weird world overpopulated with frog and frog-like creatures. There's plenty of inanities and strangeness in Barbee's violent, southern-fried story, but to his credit he plays it all straight, which works well and helps keep the more whackadoo stuff grounded.

While the samurai elements were certainly engaging, one of my favorite parts of the book was Barbee's creativity in crafting a number of Southern-Asian fusion dishes, like egg-drop gumbo, jambalaya rolls, and various unnatural sushi concoctions washed down by Buddhaweiser beer. They're fun, if minor, elements to the story, but they help illustrate Budnick's constant tinkering. When he's not rejiggering a little girl's skull with cybernetics, he's scouring his pantry and cobbling together fresh, innovative recipes to keep his fast food chain hopping.

Budnick has created an entire world around his peculiarities and strangeness, and Barbee does a great job populating the landscape with various factions of redneck pirates, sell-swords, and bookish cultists, giving us a rich, diverse region that's both odd and insanely dangerous and as familiar and comforting as country gravy. It's a weird, heady, highly unique combination. It's also entertaining as all get-out. Jimbo Yojimbo was my first experience with David Barbee's work, and with Bizarro fiction in general, and I can tell you right now I'll be searching out more of what he has to offer.



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Review: The Hunger by Alma Katsu

The Hunger

By Alma Katsu






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


With The Hunger, Alma Katsu does for the doomed Donner party what Dan Simmons did for the Franklin Expedition in his massive work, The Terror, giving the ill-fated cross-country voyage a supernatural twist while maintaining historical authenticity (well, to a degree anyway).

In May 1846, a group of American pioneers set out for California in a wagon train led by George Donner and James Reed. Their journey was beset by a number of problems and delays, which ultimately caused them to be stuck in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada during the start of an early and very harsh winter, and with barely any supplies left. Starving and stranded, the travelers wee forced to resort to cannibalism in order to survive.

Or did they?

Katsu gives the historical record a slight twerk, and while she works tightly within the confines of what we know of the Donner party she still manages to deliver an interesting alternative, threading in a fine line of horror that weaves its way through the expedition and culminates in a savage finale. The Hunger is a slow-burn work of quiet horror, one that draws on Native American folklore to deliver moments of hearty suspense in several well-depicted scenes of terror.

What makes the horror truly effective, though, is the cast of characters Katsu focuses on. The supernatural threat is well depicted, but the Donner party itself is a microcosm of horrors and threats all its own. Taking a group of people and thrusting them into a situation, in this case a months-long journey, that slowly breaks down and decays their trust in one another is fraught with its own perils. Tacking on a mysterious horror lurking in the dark, stalking them across the plains and the Great Salt Lake Desert and up into the snowy, impassable mountains of the Sierra Nevada only serves to amplify the frayed nerves of both the Donner party and readers alike.

While I dug the heck out of The Hunger and appreciate its gentle reminder that I really do need to read more works of historical horror in this vein, I do wish Katsu had spent more time on the grislier affairs this expedition is best known for. An awful lot of anticipation is built toward these travelers' final months, and while it's all very necessary and quite well-told, we're short shrifted by the time December and January 1847 roll around. I will admit, though, that I am a bit of a gore hound, and one that has perhaps been spoiled by small press horror titles that aren't afraid to dive headlong into the darkness. I found myself wondering what Jack Ketchum would do with this book's climax, and I wish Katsu would have been more willing to deliver on the depravity she'd spent so long building toward. I really wanted to see her dig into the blood and guts of it all and get her hands filthy. After nearly 300+ pages, the finale is too much telling and not enough showing, and feels practically weightless in light of all that came before.

This reservation aside, though, The Hunger was ultimately satisfying despite a climax that didn't forcefully enough deliver on the promise of Alma Katsu's premise. Had there been more pages devoted to exploring and fleshing out the last few grisly months of the Donner party, this could have easily been a five-star read for me. In the end, it feels like too much was glossed over for the sake of playing it safe, which is unfortunate to say the least. Still, the characters are superb and have engaging histories, and there are some worthwhile shocks along the way that give The Hunger plenty of intrigue to keep the pages turning.

[Note: I received an ARC of this title from the publisher.]



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Review: The Rising: Author's Preferred Edition by Brian Keene [audiobook]

The Rising: Author's Preferred Edition

By Brian Keene






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When I first read The Rising five years ago, I didn't much care for it. Here's why: early on in Brian Keene's zombie adventure, we discover that it's not just humans that can become reanimated. Animals are fair game for zombification, too, and the demonic Siquissim that possess Earth's corpses give all these zombies the ability to talk. This means that in addition to talking zombie humans, we also get talking zombie fish and talking zombie lions. My first encounter with these creatures seriously disrupted my suspension of disbelief. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a talking fish was enough to take me right out of this zombie novel.

Over the last few years, though, as the book marinated in my psyche and I've become a regular listener of Keene's podcast and privy to the stories and behind-the-scenes discussions he's given us about his books and influences, I grew tempted to give The Rising another shot. Joe Hempel's narration of the audiobook edition sealed the deal. I love Joe (necessary disclaimer: I like Joe so much that I hired him to narrate my own novel, Mass Hysteria), and given the fandom and devotion surrounding The Rising, it was time to give it a second chance.

Boy am I glad I did! In fact, knowing what to expect out of this book helped me enjoy it a heck of a lot more. My prior reading gave me the inside track on what's what here, and without any jarring surprises, like a talking fish, to snap me out of the reading I was able to really sink into the narrative and accept it for what it is. And what it is is a heck of a lot of dark, occasionally silly, pulpy fun.

Keene's conceit for the zombie apocalypse is a nifty one. A Large Hadron Collider-like bit of science opens up a portal between this world and The Void, allowing the evil Siquissim entry into our dimension where they take up residence in our recently dearly departed. When a person shuffles off their mortal coil and their soul escapes the confines of the flesh and blood, a Siquissim takes its place. This is a zombie apocalypse by way of demonic possession and cosmic horror, and it's an interesting, original take on the end of the world as we know it.

At the core of all this is our every-man hero, Jim, who just wants to make it to New Jersey to save his son. He's joined along the way by other survivors, but when a rogue platoon of National Guardsmen begin rounding up and enslaving folks, it's only a matter of time before everybody is set on a collision course. There's an urgency to Jim's situation, and the perils he faces on his road-trip serve to heighten the tension. Keene makes you feel his desperation as the clock ticks down, right from the opening chapter. I was surprised at just how emotionally resonant and earnest our introduction to Jim was, and Keene is sure to pull on our heartstrings every now and then, reminding us of the humanity of our small band of survivors even as he grips us in moments of true despair and shocking violence.

Joe Hempel's narration is strong throughout, and I particularly liked the affectations he gave to the zombies, particularly Ob, the malevolent leader of the Siquissim. He voices each character well, providing enough subtle distinction and occasional accents or tones that each line of dialogue is unique to each speaker. Hempel's narration is top-notch, and his reading makes for a truly compelling listen. He's a great fit to Keene's sensibilities, and I'm looking forward to listening to his reading of City of the Dead next.

While the text is the Author's Preferred Edition, I think it's safe to say the audiobook is my own preferred edition. Listening to Joe Hempel's reading of Brian Keene's Bram Stoker Award-winning debut horror novel was a terrific amount of fun, and it gave me a new appreciation for the work as a whole.



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