Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 16

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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You Can Still Be My Patron - Just Not On Patreon

A few weeks ago, after a months of contemplation, I finally decided to deactivate my Patreon account. So, in case you were wondering what happened to it, there you go. There was no drama, no maliciousness, none of that jazz. The reason I closed out my Patreon page was simply a lack of time to maintain it and a lot of personal guilt resulting from that lack of time.

When you start a Patreon, people donate money to your cause. They support you because they value your work as a creator, and that's certainly a wonderful, warm, fuzzy feeling to have. Each month, creators receive the hard-earned cash of their patrons, and it helps them create more things, put food on their table, keep the lights on, and in some remarkable cases provides them with a primary source of income to live off of. While plenty of patrons support artists simply because they value particular favorite creators, it's also with the expectation of rewards. I had defined various levels of support alongside various rewards, like an archive of all previously published works, exclusive behind the scenes stuff, excerpt, book cover reveals, that kind of stuff.

Toward the end of 2017, my wife and I welcomed our second child. Since then, time has been at a premium. Simply put, I don't have as much time for writing as I would like, and creating anything additional is simply out of the question. I also work full-time, which means I'm a part-time author...and nowadays that means really, really, really, really part-time. My writing schedule has withered down to about one day a week, and I'm lucky if I can count on having enough time to write a thousand words during that single session. This means it takes me forever to finish anything nowadays.

Having a Patreon account was simply one more avenue of maintenance. I had people paying me for goods I simply was not delivering. I was letting down my patrons, my supporters, those readers who liked my work well enough to pony up extra money each and every month for various additional rewards. I was failing them. Just logging into Patreon became a bit of a guilt-trip for me, knowing that I wasn't delivering for those on the higher end of the reward scale. I had no book cover reveals, because the big project I've been working on, for more than a year now, still isn't finished. The rough draft is almost there, and then it will be on to editing, and then cover design. That's a long way off. Even editing is a long time away, because that costs a significant amount of money to cover. 

All the rewards I had listed were easier to fulfill in 2017 when I only had one kid running wild and I had a bank of work to carry me through the year. In 2018, those same rewards are impossible for me to fulfill. I have no bank of work left, and no time to create additional new works to reward my patrons with. And yet they stuck with me, gave me their money...and I felt fucking terrible. I was taking money for nothing, and that's simply not in my work ethic. I was feeling guilty for not having enough time to follow through on my commitment to them. 

So, knowing that I was not going to be able to provide them with anything for the foreseeable future, and feeling pretty shitty about that, it was time to pull the plug on Patreon. While it's a wonderful resource, it was simply impossible for a part-time author like myself to maintain it. If ever I am fortunate enough to go full-time, I may consider rebooting my Patreon, but that's a long ways off.

If you were a Patreon supporter of mine, or are merely wondering the best ways to support my work these days, well here's how. Check out the Books link up above, follow the links, and go buy something. Read it, then post a review at the outlet you purchased from. Post that review on Goodreads. Blog about it. Share that review. Instagram the book. Spread it around. Share those links! Let people know what you thought about my work. If you liked it, tell a friend. If you hated it, recommend it to an enemy. These are the best ways to support me and my work as a creator. Buy, read, review. That's it. Nothing more is needed. 

Review: Walk the Sky by Robert Swartwood and David B. Silva [audiobook]

Walk the Sky

By Robert Swartwood, David B. Silva






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


My original WALK THE SKY audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

In its opening moments, George and Clay, a pair of men on the run from the law and fleeing through the desert, come across a small boy lying near-death beneath the hot sun. The boy is the sole survivor of a massacre that wiped out a nearby town and when they take it upon themselves to care for the boy and investigate, George and Clay find themselves captured by bandits and tied up in jail. The men are to be sacrifices for the inhuman evils roaming the desert, the nightmarish creatures that wiped out the town and demand blood, creatures that only come out at night.

Co-written by Robert Swartwood and David B. Silva, Walk the Sky is a very well-done work of western horror. It’s also Silva’s final piece of work, having passed away in 2013 mere weeks after the publication of this title as a limited edition hardcover by Thunderstorm Books. As such, Walk the Sky is dedicated to Silva, who, as an editor, author, and Bram Stoker Award winner, has a long, and very rich, legacy within the horror genre. Silva was not just a friend and mentor to Swartwood, but a co-author on one other title they penned together, At the Meade Bed & Breakfast. Listening to Walk the Sky in audio format, it’s hard for me to tell where Swartwood’s style separates from Silva’s, and their prose blends together seamlessly. The end result is a perfectly engaging story filled with terrific characters, some of them quite smarmy, and a rich supernatural spine binding them all together.

On narrating duties is Matt Godfrey, whose soft, natural reading style is one I’m quickly becoming a fan of after listening previously to his smooth delivery of The Happy Man from Valancourt Books. His subdued Southern twang lends a certain richness and authenticity to this particular work, and his use of a rougher, gravelly voice for Clay lends to that character an air of American Western classicism that I quite enjoyed. All in all, this a polished and professional production.

Walk the Sky takes a number of Western genre tropes – outlaws on the run, gun-toting bandits, a town ruled by an iron fist – and twists them in a number of satisfying ways, with particular motives being wrenched in response to an ancient, mysterious force. Of the handful of supernatural historical horrors I’ve read thus far in 2018, Walk the Sky is easily my favorite, sitting tall in the saddle as the best of the bunch.

[Note: Audiobook provided for review by the audiobookreviewer.com]



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Interview: Jason Parent, author of They Feed

Jason Parent is an author who wears many different genre hats, having written horror, sci-fi, mysteries, and thrillers. A New England native, his debut novel, What Hides Within, a genre-bending dark comedy, was an EPIC and eFestival Independent Book Award finalist, and his work has earned acclaim from such outlets as Cemetery Dance and Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews. His short stories have appeared in the Halloween-themed Bad Apples anthologies, as well as Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 1. His latest novel, They Feed from Sinister Grin Press, is hot off the presses and available now. (You can read our review of They Feed here.)

Welcome to the High Fever Books blog, Jason! Tell us a bit about yourself and your background as an author. You studied at Barry University School of Law and were an attorney for several years. How did you discover you’d been bitten by the writing bug?

Still working as an attorney… sort of. It’s a skill that comes in handy sometimes. But writing is my passion. I tried it long ago as a tool to cope with something and didn’t really know what I was doing. But even as I moved on, my desire to write never did.

One of my favorites of your work is the short story DIA DE LOS MUERTOS, which appeared in Bad Apples 2. You’ve written a number of short stories, including a piece for the recently released Wrestle Maniacs, and novels, like you’re latest title, They Feed. Do you have a preference in terms of format? Are you more comfortable with short stories or novel-length work, and does your approach in writing differ between the two? Tell us a bit about your approach to the craft.

I come up with a story idea first, and the size of the idea will dictate the number of pages needed to represent it. I don’t have a preference—I enjoy writing short stories and novels, but I do find completing a novel much more rewarding. Lately, I’ve been typing up my first drafts of short stories, but for novels, I hand write them.

They Feed has all the earmarks of a classic creature feature in the making. A densely populated campground, a woman seeking revenge, and creatures who see it all as an all-you-can eat buffet for their bottomless stomachs. Where did this idea come from? What inspired this and what was your elevator pitch?

Two of my favorite movies are Night of the Creeps and Slither. This is, in part, an homage to those, but obviously I wanted to make my creatures my own. And I just wanted to write a fun story—fast-paced, action-packed, compelling characters, easy plot with a bit of a surprise to it. They Feed won’t win awards from the highbrow literary types, but it is a well-written wild ride through horror-filled fun.

Oh, it's definitely fun! I had a blast reading They Feed. That sucker kept me glued to my Kindle. What can you tell us about these creatures? Are they something you invented whole cloth or are they based or inspired by something in mythology or literature or, worse, reality?

Well they most closely resemble slugs or leeches, but what really interested me in their creation was their amorphous character. If I do more with the story, I will do more with that. So though Night of the Creeps and Slither have somewhat similar villains, Gloop and Gleep from the old Hanna Barbara cartoons might be more analogous.

I did love Gloop and Gleep.

Over the course of your writing career thus far, you’ve written horror, mysteries, and sci-fi. Horror blog The Haunted Reading Room said of you, “Jason Parent has a vast imagination, demonstrated in everything he writes.” What’s helped influence that imagination? What are some of the touchstones in books and/or film that inspire you?

80s horror and camp definitely influence my humor, and I do like to interject some dark humor where I can. Films like Evil Dead 2 and Fright Night, and also Tales from the Crypt, have definitely influenced my style. I’m not sure you can do anything today without someone saying it’s similar to something else. I know my writing style has been compared to some authors I’ve never read.

What can you do? Certainly not please them all. So I just try to write what I want to write, and if the idea is similar to something else, I give it my own spin and voice.

Give us all your links! Where can readers stalk you?

I am on Facebook and Twitter, and one could always sign up for my mailing list at my website, http://authorjasonparent.com/.

And of course I’m on Amazon and BookBub and… well you get the point. Readers can stalk me all they like, but they can also strike up a conversation if they don’t like lurking in the shadows.

Available Now

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.

Buy They Feed on Amazon

Review: Stirring the Sheets by Chad Lutzke

Stirring the Sheets

By Chad Lutzke






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Grief does strange things. It changes people, and can sometimes ensnare them at their worst. When my mother died, my wife and I attempted to help my dad through that initial day of loss by picking out a set of clothes for her to be buried in. This act was not well received, and my dad set about berating my wife, calling her a grave-robber for rummaging through my mother's belonging, and reducing her to tears. My father was at his lowest point and lashed out at us in anger, and that's now how I remember my mother's passing.

For Emmett, he remembers the his wife by the final impression she left on their bedsheets, unchanged in the year since her passing and occasionally freshened by a spray of her perfume, and a shrine of photographs he's made of her around the couch where he now sleeps. Emmett, a mortician, is mostly biding his time, waiting for his own passing and unable to escape the loss of his partner of 50 years. When the funeral home he works for receives the body of a 30-year-old woman who completed suicide, he is shocked to see a beautiful young face that is the spitting image of his wife in her heyday. Locked in grief and yearning to reconnect with his wife, Emmett steals the corpse and takes her home. Grief does strange things to people, and it can compel them to act in ways they would not normally consider.

Stirring the Sheets is a short, poignant novella about loss and grief and the way in which the bereaved struggle to cope or, in some cases, fail to cope. It's about finding some outlet for that loss, regardless of the consequences.

Chad Lutzke's writing is strong, his authorial voice powerful. For so short a work, Emmett looms large, so well depicted is he in his state of self-imposed exile and sadness. We get an immediate sense for who he is as a man, and just how deep his love ran, and continues to run, for his wife. He's an intimately relatable Everyman. Through Emmett, Lutzke is able to exhibit a well-researched looked at the art of mortuary science and the roles of various staff within a family-owned funeral parlor. Throughout the work as a whole, grief is explored in sympathetic and understanding tones, and even when Emmett impulsively acts out, it's a behavior rooted firmly within the character and in response to his own struggles with the world around him.

Stirring the Sheets is an incredibly well-written and authentic portrayal of a man who believes he's lost everything, and yearns for one last chance. His singular act of desperation is not about sex (and for those who may be leery, Stirring the Sheets is not about necrophilia and in fact presents no real objectionable content at all), but about loss and the torment he carries with each waking day. This is an emotionally raw work, one that wears its heart on its sleeve, highly honest and earnest, and utterly relatable.



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Review: The Listener by Robert McCammon [audiobook]

The Listener

By Robert McCammon






My rating: 5 of 5 stars


You ever finish a wonderful book, but aren't quite sure how to encapsulate your thoughts on it in a review, or what may be left to say after so many others have eloquently tread this same ground and said all the things already? This is the place I find myself in now, having just this morning finished listening to The Listener. This sucker's gotten a lot of positive press and plenty of wonderful reviews already, and I feel like I don't have much else to add. Still, I suppose I must try.

Simply put, Robert McCammon knocks it out of the park with this one. Set in post-Depression Louisiana, The Listener revolves around a kidnapping plot hatched by a pair of grifters who fancy themselves a Bonnie & Clyde duo. Their plan is to abduct the two children of a wealthy industrialist and hold them for ransom. Caught up in it all is Curtis Mayhew, a young black man with a supernatural gift. Curtis is a listener, and can communicate telepathically with others who share this special gift. He's been communicating with a ten-year-old girl, Nilla, and when she sends an urgent cry for help about a man with a gun, Curtis knows he has to help, damn the consequences.

The Listener is a slow-burn potboiler that places particular emphasis on its characters first and foremost. McCammon is meticulous and deliberate in his pacing, introducing us to each of the major players and their places in the world as they work to either scheme or merely eek out a living before becoming embroiled in this kidnapping. Each of these character's stories are paid off in beautiful and sometimes surprising ways as The Listener reaches it final denouement. This historical narrative is so perfectly constructed that nothing ever feels unnatural or out of place. Readers are eased into Curtis's life and his gift in such a way that, once his telepathy is used to full effect, it's every bit a natural part of the character as the air he breathes.

McCammon's writing is equally effective, his prose rife with lingo of the era, and he captures moments of human drama perfectly. There's humor and moments of sadness, as well as turns of violence that are both shocking and cinematic, and sequences of abuse that will have you ready to lunge out of your seat to restrain the psychopathic Donnie before he can inflict more harm on whoever dares to step near him.

Marc Vietor's voice captures the proceedings perfectly, hitting all the right pitches and tones of McCammon's literary style. His talents as a narrator are well-suited to the 1930s era of The Listener, with its hard-edged con-men and crazed women, as well as the softer, more rounded subtleties of gentle men like Curtis, who prize their brains far more than their fists. Vietor and McCammon make for a perfect pair here, and the audio edition of The Listener is a wonderful, and engrossing, production all around.

McCammon delivers a story that feels wholly authentic from start to finish, and The Listener just might be on the best books of the year. Highly recommended.



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Review: At the Mercy of Beasts by Ed Kurtz

At the Mercy of Beasts

By Ed Kurtz






My rating: 5 of 5 stars


At the Mercy of Beasts, the latest from Ed Kurtz, collects three historical horror novellas that run the gamut of early to late 1900s. While each of the stories are unrelated, this temporal aspect binds them together along with heady doses of monstrous weirdness and crisp writing throughout.

"Black's Red Gold" kicks things off as Kurtz takes us to an early 1900s oil drilling platform situated on a prospected bit of land that promises to make a pair of Texas oilmen rich. What they find instead could prove to be far more lucrative, and far more limited, a natural resource than mere oil. This curious discovery inflames the men's natural greed and drives this novella into a gruesome work of body horror and creature feature fun. Fans of Kurtz's previous novel Bleed should find lots to enjoy here, particularly as the gore kicks into high gear and the blood starts flowing. "Black's Red Gold" is also the most thematically rich of the three stories, providing a bit of subtle commentary on mankind's abuse of the Earth in order to exploit resources, and it's a mighty fine start to the collection. It's also my favorite of the three stories here.

"Kennon Road" takes us to post-war Philippines where a pair of grisly murders drives a disillusioned soldier to seek out the inhuman killer. Kurtz turns toward local lore in this one, probing the legend of Manananggal - a vampire-like creature that appears human in the day, but at night separates from its torso to fly in search of its prey. I was first introduced to the legend of the Manananggal in a short story by Rio Youers in the Seize the Night Anthology and immediately fell in love with this peculiar take on vampire lore, so I was quite pleased to see Kurtz tackle it as well.

"Deadheader" is the most contemporary of the three, set in 1977 as truck driver Pearlie takes on a cargo shipment filled with far more than she had bargained for, and picks up hitchhiker Ernie. As the two hit the road to make her delivery, they find themselves almost immediately under siege by flying terrors chasing them through the desert roads on the way to Mexico. "Deadheader" is easily the pulpiest of the three, and reading like a B-movie grindhouse carsploitation feature with its focus on car chases and on-the-road mayhem. What really sells it, though, is the human element, particularly in the case of Ernie, a veteran suffering from post-war trauma who is reluctantly forced into action while trying to escape the ghosts of his recent past. "Deadheader" isn't quite as thematically rich as "Black's Red Gold" but it sure is a lot of fun, and Kurtz packs in plenty of action for the short page count to keep things humming.

At the Mercy of Beasts is brimming with a rich sense of time and place for each of the three novellas gathered here, overflowing with all kinds of monsters, human and otherwise, and plenty of gore to satisfy horror fans. This one will have you at Kurtz's mercy the whole way through, and probably for a long time after with a lot of his other books. Trust me, though, there's worse fates to have than that.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from Journalstone for review.]



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