Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 28

Review: Savage Jungle by Hunter Shea

Savage Jungle: Lair Of The Orang Pendek



$11.95



By Hunter Shea






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Savage Jungle sees the return of Natalie and Austin McQueen, fresh off their hunt for revenge against the Loch Ness monster. In the course of Loch Ness Revenge, the twins made a promise to help Henrik, their uber-rich German benefactor with a van full of guns, track down the monsters responsible for his father's death. And so the trio set off for Sumatra, hot on the heels of the brutal Orang Pendek, a tribe of fabled simian-like creatures.

Hunter Shea does a fine job of delivering action-packed cryptid adventures, layering in dashes of horror and humor for lots of fresh, pulpy goodness. Given the atrocities the McQueens and Henrik have faced in their youth at the hands of wildly different monsters, and their shared adventure in the prior book, there's an automatic bit of camaraderie between the group.

But it's in the action department where Shea really excels here, and he tosses in a few welcome surprises along the way. While traipsing through the Sumatran rain forest, our league of adventurers manage to stumble across more dangers than they ever could have reasonably planned for, and the Orang Pendeks turn out to be a bit more than any of them had bargained for.

Shea is one of the most consistent writers that I follow, and he always manages to deliver fun, full-throttle reads that present fresh twists on the popular cryptids that have so clearly captured his imagination and interest.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the author and publisher via Hook of a Book Media and Publicity.]



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New Release: PRESERVATION (A DRMR Short Story)

OUT TODAY is Preservation: A DRMR Short Story, a stand-alone entry set in the DRMR series. Because this is a stand-alone, it means you do not have to have read either Convergence or Emergence to enjoy this story. Preservation features an all-new cast, in an all-new setting.

Here's what's it all about:

MEMORIES ARE THE MOST DANGEROUS BEAST

Kari Akagi is ex-British Special Forces, augmented by her government to be the prime soldier. In the wake of a devastating attack that cost her her legs, she has a new mission – protecting South Africa’s endangered species as a ranger for the Kruger National Park game reserve.

The number of animals within the reserve is rapidly dwindling as poachers mercilessly slaughter them for black market trade. Somebody is paying and equipping the poachers, and after her unit comes under assault, Akagi is determined to end this impossible war.

All she needs to do is capture one of the a poachers alive, hack into his brain, and find out who hired him. A lifetime of fighting, though, has taught Akagi that things are rarely ever that simple…

Preservation is a stand-alone short story set in the world of the DRMR series.

Buy Direct or purchase from the following:

Amazon | Nook | Kobo | iBooks

Google Play | Smashwords

Read A Sample

Preservation was originally published in Samuel Peralta's The Cyborg Chronicles (A Future Chronicles Anthology) back in Dec. 2015. Today marks it's first release as a stand-alone title, and it is available all major etailers (I'm still waiting for iBooks to catalog it, so if that's your preferred platform, please be patient. Preservation will be there soon!).

And coming in May...

Remember, Patreon supporters get all of my new releases in advance, before they are available for retail anywhere else, along with some bonus features like behind-the-scenes extras, exclusive teasers, and a Patreon-only blog. If you're interested in learning more and signing up for exclusive material unavailable anywhere else, head over to my Patreon page.

Review: Just Add Water by Hunter Shea

Just Add Water







By Hunter Shea






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When I'm in the mood for some fun, creature-feature horror, Hunter Shea has become my automatic go-to.

Just Add Water is the first in a series of novellas by Shea from Kensington Publishing revolving around the concept of those items for sale at the back of comic books from back in the day. Stuff like automatic muscles, space rockets, and X-Ray eyes. In the first of these Mail Order Massacres, Patrick and David, flush with pocket money, decide to ignore their parent's warnings of ordering rip-off junk from the funny pages and splurge on a set of Amazing Sea Serpents. What arrives in the mail is far cry from what they had expected.

This is a brief novella, and Shea rockets the reader through from beginning to end. He doesn't waste much time getting the monsters rampaging through a sleepy Manhattan suburb, and the crazy goes full tilt in short order. There's plenty of violence and mayhem as things ramp up, but the main focus here is on fun.

Set in 1980, Shea's story recalled for me a lot of those fun, youth-driven monster movies of the era, stuff like Gremlins and The Monster Squad. This sucker is just pure, smooth entertainment from start to finish.

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



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Review: Skitter (The Hatching, Book 2) by Ezekiel Boone

Skitter: A Novel (The Hatching Series)



$17.10



By Ezekiel Boone






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The mark of a good series for me is that I'm ready for the next book as soon as I finish the current one, and sometimes even before I've finished. As soon as I finished the last page of Skitter, I hopped onto Goodreads to see if book three had been listed yet (it's not), and if there were any information on Amazon (there's not).

I was a fan of the first novel in this spider apocalypse trilogy, The Hatching, and although Skitter is very much a middle child it kept my attention all the way through and had me turning pages with keen interest.

This is a fun read, and a good, solid summer blockbuster. But, it's not without some problems. As I said, Skitter is the middle book of a trilogy. It's primary function is to tease book three and to set the stage for the big finale. Boone's large cast starts to show some payoff and reason for being, as some of their individual plot threads begin to finally merge. There's also some serious game changers to the overall narrative with the enacting of the Spanish Protocol. I won't spoil what this protocol is, but it's suitably drastic and horrifying in its purpose given the threat of man-eating spiders.

The fact of the matter, though, is that this book is largely set dressing for the third act. Aside from a few plot points, like the Spanish Protocol, it doesn't feel like there's a whole lot happening given the page count. Boone has a very large cast of characters, and he jumps all around the globe to spin a big, ol' spider's web of a narrative. Some characters stay pretty static and there's not a lot of forward progression from where they were in The Hatching, while others manage to make it from one end of the country to the other. At the end of the prior book, Boone hit a bit of a pause button, and Skitter has settled into a lull as a result. This book is the calm before the storm, and there's lot of promise of threats to come. Everyone gets warned at some point or another that things are only going to get worse, and to batten down the hatches. Needless to say, the threat begins to emerge just in time for...book three.

It's hard to say just how important Skitter will be to the overall narrative Boone is crafting. Certainly he takes some steps that cannot be easily undone, and there's no magical reset button to hit. It's just that a lot of the book feels like it's treading water, getting people from place to place, and gearing up for the big finish. This book is not the crazy ride The Hatching had prepared me for, and there's not really a whole lot of that spidery apocalypse action I craved. And if I never hear "chicken biscuits" again in my whole life, I'll be OK. Skitter is not a bad book, though, and in fact I was pretty darned entertained the whole way through. Fans of The Hatching should enjoy it, and it left me wanting/demanding the third and final volume in this series immediately.

Final verdict: 3.5 stars/5.

And seriously. Where the hell is book three?

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



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Review: Trackers 2: The Hunted by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Trackers 2: The Hunted



$13.29



By Nicolas Sansbury Smith






My rating: 5 of 5 stars


As much as I love Nicholas Sansbury Smith's Extinction Cycle books, his new Trackers series feels like a breath of fresh air with its lack of sci-fi horror creatures (and, mind you, I do love me some sci-fi horror creatures an awful lot). The drama and action in these books are spurred 100 percent by human actors and motivators, keeping the plot completely grounded in reality. With his other series, there's a certain element of the fantastic that helps provide a friendly buffer for escapist thrills, but Trackers carries with it a measure of authenticity that's all the more chilling.

Five days ago, North Korea launched an attack against the United States (in the book, I mean. But depending on when you're reading this, it could be true), collapsing much of American society with a massive electromagnetic pulse blast and nuking Washington, D.C. While the Korean threat continues to lurk in the background of The Hunted, the main narrative thrust concerns the dangers of homegrown American threats, specifically an Aryan splinter-ground calling themselves the Sons of Liberty. As with Trackers, Estes Park is Ground Zero for all the bad news, and Sioux tracker Raven Spears and Major Nathan Sardetti are again on the front lines and trying to hold together what's left of their society.

Smith's storytelling skills are front and center with this book, and he's crafted one heck of a page-turner. I had to force myself to slowdown at times, but the pacing of this book is so rapid-fire all you can do is try to keep up. It's like this sucker runs on rocket fuel, and boy does it ever burn hot.

I liked the first Trackers book a lot, but this one is even better. I attribute a lot of this to Nazi punching. There's a lot of skinheads in this book, and it's a real treat to read them getting their just deserts. I was whopping with joy as they got the snot kicked out of them, or met the business end of a rifle or axe blade. It's just such good stuff, and a perfect remedy for our current American climate where some people are actually questioning whether or not it's OK to punch Nazis. Pro-tip: It is ALWAYS OK to punch Nazis. In fact, there are few things more patriotic than Nazi sleaze getting the crap kicked out them by Real American Heroes, and Smith writes those scenes with his usual action flair. It's great!

This book gets all 5 Nazi-punching stars. And if you liked the first Trackers book, you're going to be in for a real treat with this seriously gripping second installment.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the author.]



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Review: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood [audiobook]

The Handmaid's Tale: Special Edition



$25.95 $25.95



By Margaret Atwood, Valerie Martin - essay






My rating: 2 of 5 stars


By all accounts, I really should have liked this book more. Picture a dystopian near-future America where Christofascists have taken over, turned the country into a monotheocracy, and enslaved women into a life of servitude and procreation. It's certainly a timely read in the Age of Trump and Republican desires to set the country's clock back a couple hundred years (best-case scenario), that's for sure. There's rebellions, an underground railroad helping women escape, mysterious colonies where the "impure" women are banished, brainwashing camps, might makes right mentalities, etc.

It sounds great, right? Only problem is, all the things that are most interesting about this world are swept under the rug and largely ignored. Atwood hints at them, but never dives any deeper than that. All the suspense and drama is forsaken for a narrative about dull, servile domesticity. And while that may be the point, it makes for one hell of a slog to get through.

My only previous experience with Atwood was 2015's The Heart Goes Last, which I also didn't care for. She may be a hell of a writer, but unfortunately it seems she is just not for me. Conceptually, she crafts some mighty fine ideas, but the execution is sorely lacking. I need more suspense, drama, and action to keep me interested.

The Handmaid's Tale is just too slow, too plodding, and too mundane to do much for me. Perhaps I simply expected too much, given the acclaim, awards, and fannish devotion this book has inspired in so many other readers? Now that we're getting close to 100 days in Trump's America, a dystopia come to life if I've ever seen one, there's really very little that's quiet about it. We've got neo-Nazi's running rampant both within and outside the White House, daily threats of war and a serial sex offender President who, during his campaign, kept asking why we don't just use our nukes, in between demanding protesters be beaten and mocking the disabled, religious crazies stockpiled to the rafters of Congress, and women's rights being threatened on a daily basis. There's nothing quiet and mundane about any of this, and yet Offred's future enslavement is so very, very prosaic and quaint. I wanted something that would rile me up and make me shake my hands in fury. I wanted heroes to rise up against the tyranny and fight back. I wanted a rebellion to root for!

Instead, there's none of that. We witness the occasional hanging, we get a few sentences to illuminate how this world came to be, and we get to accompany Offred on some of her regular shopping trips to buy chicken and soap. There's even a nice scene where she eats a piece of toast. Meanwhile, any opportunity for struggle or strength or triumph is strangled in the crib.

Claire Danes narrates the audiobook and does a fine job of it, given that the narrative itself is pretty milquetoast. This new Audible edition has some bonus material, which I skipped because I'd already gotten my fill on the material with the book itself.



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Review: The Blade This Time by Jon Bassoff

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The Blade This Time opens with our Narrator waking in the tunnels beneath New York's subways. After escaping back to the surface, he wanders the streets until he comes across a wig shop with notice of an apartment for rent. The apartment was previously rented by a painter, Max Leider, who has fled the scene and left behind his clothes and paintings of the tenement across the street. The Narrator quickly becomes fascinated with these paintings, and the woman, garbed in funeral clothes, across the way.

I enjoyed what Jon Bassoff did in his previous books, The Incurables and Factory Town, the latter especially with its incongruous puzzle-box nature of storytelling. Unfortunately, I just didn't find myself all that interested in his latest effort.

The Blade This Time is too straightforward and linear, especially in comparison to the surreal, dreamscape narrative of Factory Town, and it was disappointing to have Bassoff spill all his secrets so early in the narrative. The book opens with a definition of a particular psychological disorder, which sets up the narrative nicely, but there's not many shocks or surprises to follow. This is a slow, psychological work of dark fiction, but it never really picks up or leads to any particular revelations, or at least none that aren't clearly, and disappointingly, telegraphed within the book's first few chapters.

Bassoff does a particularly fine job of writing those darker psychological compulsions that plague his characters, though. The Narrator's descent into madness is well-drawn, and there's a few terrific parallels drawn between him and the various characters he crosses paths with. But, for me, it's a lesser work in Bassoff's growing body of novels, and I kept wishing the plot would get more wrinkly and complicated than it does.

[Note: As a member of the DarkFuse Reader's Group, I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.]



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Review: Fairy Lights by Edward Lorn

Fairy Lights







By Edward Lorn






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've only read a couple of Edward Lorn's short stories previously, but I'm a fan of the dude on a personal level. So, full disclosure time - I follow and occasionally interact with Ed on a variety of social media platforms, including Goodreads (his honest and candid book reviews is how I happened upon him in the first place), and I was thrilled to hear he had signed with DarkFuse for this release. This, however, has not impacted my view of the work, and the following is my honest review of the material.

Fairy Lights is a simple wrong place/wrong time horror in the woods story. Something dangerous is lurking in the forest, and a mother, her son, and his friend inadvertently stumble into the thick of things while on what should have been a fun weekend camping getaway.

This novella is a fun read, and it kept me engaged and entertained during my brief moments of lucidity as I battled to the near-death with the stomach bug from hell. It's also yet one more reason to add to the pile for why I won't ever go camping.

Lorn creates some pretty chilling monsters here, in both human form and otherwise. The violence is visceral and left me squirming a few times (one scene involving an arm and a machete is unlikely to leave my mind anytime soon). And the characters, thankfully, and for the most part, are pretty entertaining. The central leads are two teenage boys, and their snarky camaraderie reminded me of some of the circles I ran in during my youth.

My only real criticism is that the book feels a bit lopsided, and that's chalked up to the way plot is executed. There's a lot of sex and sexuality running through the book's first half, with hardly a chapter gone by without some reflection on penis size, pornography, or sex acts (consensual or otherwise). Some of this material felt a bit too extraneous in the grander scheme of things, particularly with its near-total absence in the second-half (granted, there is a reason, story-wise, for this, but I'm not going to spoil it). The second-half of the book, in general, is a lighter, almost breezier affair, as the characters deal with the fallout of the book's previous half and the nature of the threat becomes almost existential for a few of the survivors.

Despite a little bit of imbalance to the story as a whole, Fairy Lights is a fast-paced and entertaining horror romp.



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Review: Beneath by Kristi DeMeester

Beneath







By Kristi DeMeester






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Beneath is one heck of a book, for the most part. I'll state up front that the ending didn't quite work for me, and it felt as if DeMeester wasn't sure how to wrap up the events of her story in a satisfying way. This is a slow-burn horror book, but where there should have been a big finale, the story disappointingly fizzles out and slowly fades away. I would also advise that this very much a "me" issues, and might not be a "you" issue, so please don't let that deter you. Read it and judge for yourself!

The first 3/4+ of Beneath are absolutely terrific. I really dug the atmosphere DeMeester conjures with her cult of Appalachian snake handlers and the investigative reporter, Cora, sent on assignment to dig up some dirt on these backwoods folks and their sincerely held religious belief that poisonous snakes should bite small children to see if God will deem them worthy of saving. Cora is a dogged journalist, but also deeply scarred by her mother's religiosity and her youth. In the opening pages, DeMeester lays out a history of Cora's victimization at the hands of a pedophile priest. This history first compels her to stay far, far away from the assignment, until she's finally goaded into taking the story from her editor. Once in the small mountain town, she notices hints that Father Michael is not the charismatic preacher he plays at, and recognizes in him similar pedophiliac traits as the abuser of her youth. When he stares a little too longingly at one of his parishioners, a young girl named Laura, Cora promises to ruin Michael and expose his cult for what it is.

All of this is merely prologue, though, for a dark and squirming horror story that pushes Beneath into some very different material than what I had expected at the outlay. While the war of wills between Cora and Michael could have been compelling on its own, the author ups the ante even further with the inclusion of a supernatural menace, an evil that lurks buried in the earth itself. The plots takes a wonderfully realized twist that good and truly sank its fangs into me, and I was totally captivated.

DeMeester hit some absolutely terrific highs, even as she takes a quiet approach to unraveling the frights. There's plenty of action, but the story itself is never bombastic. The subdued approach is what makes Beneath so effective and infecting. At least, for me, right up until the end.

Beneath ultimately falls into a familiar trap. You know the one. You've probably seen it a thousand times in any given James Bond movie. The bad guys have the heroes cornered, and it wouldn't take hardly anything at all to kill them and win the day. And yet, inexplicably, for no good reason at all, the good guys get a pass and are allowed to just walk away.

Something similar happens here in the push toward the grand finale, and I kept scratching my head as to why it was allowed. It's an easy out, and I can't think of one good reason why it should have happened the way it did. Still, the story continues to chug along for a few chapters more, mostly so the bad guys can continue to play their mind games for a little while longer. But instead of giving us a satisfying closure, DeMeester again goes for those quiet somber tones, which has worked so well for the rest of the book but suddenly falls flat in its final pages.

While the story kept ramping up and up and up, I kept wondering how the heck it was all going to resolve. And well, frankly, it doesn't. There is a resolution, yes, but the book mostly just ends, with the story itself very much an ouroborus. I get the metaphors and character arcs that DeMeester was aiming for, but it just didn't satisfy me. Granted, as far as ending go, it works, but it isn't satisfying.

Ratings-wise, I'm really very torn on how to score this one (damn you, Goodreads, for not allowing 1/2 stars!). This book was very much a 4-star title for me, right up until the end, which knocked it down a bit. Taken on a whole, though, I can't stomach giving this book only 3 stars, because I liked it quite a great deal more than that. Call it 3.75, rounded up to 4 then. Beneath is definitely recommended, even if I have some reservations, and I'll certainly be on the lookout for more of Kristi DeMeester's work in the future.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, Word Horde.]



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Why I'm Nuking My Facebook Account

I've been on Facebook since 2008. In nearly a decade, I've "liked" an awful lots of pages, groups, authors, books, movies, TV shows, creatives, news outlets, and on and on and on. As Facebook updates its newsfeeds to determine what content you see, and places a larger priority on advertising and sponsored posts and tracking your online trail to better determine your interests in order to advertise more stuff to you, it's become an Orwellian leviathan. 

None of this should be news to you.

For me, the impact was to slowly, but surely negate any and all reasons that I use Facebook. I got sucked in far too deeply, to the point that so much of my newsfeed was little more than postings from groups that were paying to capture my eyeballs. Actual human-interest content from those I follow was sparse, because Facebook made them sparse. I was seeing sponsored content more frequently than I was seeing posts from my own wife, or people I've been friends with (in either meatspace or just on Facebook) for years. Even those individuals I had marked as "see first" were still being bottomed out in favor of Facebook's advertisers and "suggestions" about whatever little bit bullshit they thought I would "like," or, better still, spend money on. If I wanted to see one of my Facebook friend's actual account, I had to search for it via the menu bar, otherwise I wasn't seeing it at all.

Last year, I attempted to go completely Facebook free. The site is an enormous time-suck, and part of that, obviously, was my own fault. Being an author, connected to other authors and the occasional anthology collaboration, though, made leaving Facebook difficult. I was kind of dragged back in due to secret groups for projects that were taking off at that time (and still am, in point of fact, so keep an eye out later in the year for news on a seeekrit! project), and ended up reactivating my account after a few months hiatus.

Things are going to be different this time! (he said, waving his hand in the air with defiant expectation.)

This time, I have a baseline for what I want to accomplish and how to do that. I'm not even going to try and quit cold-turkey since I know that's not really an option. What I will do, though, is acknowledge that change is necessary. Change in my own behaviors and interactions with the site, and a reasonable plan for moving forward.

The first step was to create a new account, something that could act as a blank slate, and one that I intend to keep reasonably blank for as long as I am able. This means cutting out "likes" on pages and groups that aren't completely necessary to my daily operations as an author. 

A lot of the stuff that I had liked on Facebook was redundant information, and served only to clutter whatever information the Facebook Gods deigned me to see. So, I will not be liking any sort of news agencies on Facebook. First of all, I think having Facebook as a primary news source is just a fucking awful rabbit hole to go down. Although I have a subscription to The New York Times and Washington Post, I will not be "liking" them on Facebook. It provides Facebook with too much information, and causes too many other third parties to rear their ugly heads in my direction. I have primary news sources already to rely on, and there's no need for me to utilize them on Facebook. And when I need real news, I can always YouTube John Oliver and Samantha Bee. (By the way, did you see this video from Vox? Pretty telling stuff, I think. And yes, I know, off-topic, but whatever. It's my blog, so deal.)

Nuking my previous Facebook account also serves as a bit of social culling. Honestly, there wasn't a heck of a lot of interaction from the vast majority of my Facebook friends. On the flip-side, I have made a few wonderful friends online and we talk or post on each others comments fairly routinely, or chat in Messenger, and are the type of people I'd get a beer with. I know there's plenty of users on there who wanted to friend me simply to boost their own numbers. I'm not a people collector, though. I have given my followers notice and put up a message on my prior account about the change. Those that want to follow me over to the new account are free to do so. Those that don't need not apply. The loss of ephemeral followers is no big loss at all, really, and only serves to further help streamline my new Facebook set-up.

So, fewer friends, no cluttering of liked pages or groups, and very little willful exchange of data between me and Facebook. I'm giving the site as little personal information as I can. A side aspect of this, one that I had not originally intended but have quickly adopted after doing some research last night, was reclaiming my data. 

And you know what? So far, it's working out pretty well. This project began yesterday, and I'm already noticing its impact. My newsfeed, for the first time in years probably, is actually showing me updates posted by friends. That's pretty novel.