Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 39

Review: The Con Season by Adam Cesare

Review:

Earlier this year, Adam Cesare was a guest on Brian Keene’s podcast, The Horror Show With Brian Keene, and he spoke a bit about his upcoming novel, The Con Season. Ever since I heard Cesare first discuss this work, I’d been eager to check it out and nominated it during the author’s recent Kindle Scout campaign. While I was disappointed for Mr. Cesare’s loss, I was also very pleased to see him release the book immediately, which meant I finally got to plunk down my three bucks and give this a read.

Sometimes when you get hyped up about a work, it’s almost inevitable to feel disappointment. How many movies trailers have you watched that convince you to buy in, only to be left cold by the final product, or worse, to find out that the movie completely sucked? It happens.

Thankfully, I came away from The Con Season a happy camper. Certainly much happier, at any rate, than Clarissa Lee, a washed-up and broke B-movie horror actress who, along with a handful of other horror actors and scream queens, agree to take part in the first annual Blood Camp Con. This convention promises to be unlike any other – part fan service, part performance art, it seeks to recreate the aesthetics of a slasher horror movie in real-life, with the celebrities unwittingly the victims.

Cesare uses The Con Season to cleverly deconstruct horror movies and fandom in Scream-like fashion, giving reader’s a birds-eye view into the conventioneer’s lifestyle, where they are both grateful and spiteful of their fans and their reliance on what is arguably a dark and parasitic relationship of who’s using who.

The genre, and its inhabitants as both creator and consumer, are viewed through a glass darkly, allowing for moments of wry satire and bleak, knowing laughter. And although the book has some pretty dark examinations, you can still sense the appreciation Cesare has for his topic. As a horror writer, it’s certainly his job to view things in, perhaps, a slightly skewed way, but it all comes from a place of deep affection and an examination of genre conventions (in both the literal conventions and in the tropes of horror works) without being overly reverential or nastily preachy. He’s not afraid to skewer those things that need a good stabbing, and he is certainly a well-studied student of the horror genre and its permutations in book and film.

Most importantly, as far as I’m concerned anyway, it’s just a fun, highly readable slasher story. Friday The 13th fans should feel right at home here, but it’s the commentary that really earns this book high marks.

 

Buy The Con Season At Amazon

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Review: Savages by Greg F. Gifune

Review:

It’s a rare thing, but sometimes you come across a book that feels like it was custom made for you, hitting all the right sweet spots, all the right fist-pumping beats, as it swallows you whole into its world. Savages by Greg F. Gifune was such a book for me. Naturally, your mileage may vary, but for me, this was a sweet, sweet read.

Opening with an epigraph quoting the 1920 film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you get a good idea of what’s in store for you. “A man cannot destroy the savage in him by denying its impulses. The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it…” It’s a powerful quote, and Gifune’s book has the darkness to match as the author tackles the themes suggested here.

Savages is a short novel, and a lot of its power is derived from the unknown. So I won’t say much about it. You can read the book’s synopsis, but the shorter gist of it is this: a small group of survivors wash up on the beach of a mysterious island. They think they’re alone, until gruesome evidence begins to say otherwise. Yes, there’s evil afoot, lurking in the jungles that surround them – but I will say no more.

The surprises these survivors uncover is simply too good to spoil, but know that Gifune’s epigraph works on multiple levels here. There’s plenty of savagery to be found, as well as heaping doses of primal needs for survival. This is, I think, survival horror at its finest.

As for those sweet spots it hit for me? You’ve got the deserted island trope, which I’m a bit of a sucker for, an awesome threat that relates directly to mankind’s own savageness, and a strong, fierce heroine. Plus, the group itself – there’s some good character work here, and despite most of them being friends, their personalities and traits allow for plenty of strain and tension, as well as worry over in-group violence that could boil over at any moment. This is simply a compulsively readable title, and once Gifune starts weaving in the background of the threat this group is facing, it’s a full-tilt boogie of mad-dash horror straight on through to a dark, beleaguering finale.

Savages is a horror book that’s perfectly crafted, from it’s beautiful, vintage cover, straight on through to the story’s last page, and a new instant-favorite for me. Read it!

[Note: This review is based on an advanced copy provided by Sinister Grin Press via Hook of a Book Media and Publicity.]

 

Buy Savages At Amazon

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Review: The Jersey Devil by Hunter Shea

Review:

I’ve switched over to reading e-books almost exclusively, but back when I was making obsessively compulsive trips to our local Big Chain bookstores I would see paperbacks the publisher had labeled as a Guaranteed Good Read. I don’t know if this marketing practice is still in use, but I think it’s a label that should be slapped onto the covers of Hunter Shea’s books. I’ve read half a dozen Shea books so far, and not a single one has been a disappointment. If anything, the dude just keeps getting better and I’d say The Jersey Devil is certainly a high-water mark.

As the title indicates, this book is about – wait for it! – the Jersey Devil, a rather infamous cryptid lurking deep in the Pine Barrens. Shea knows his cryptid mythology, and unravels it in entertaining fashion here, giving it a fun bit of horrific depth and adds a few new wrinkles of his own devising. This Jersey Devil is a big, mean, old son of a gun, and hungrier than Chris Christie at a football stadium’s concession stand!

While the monster element is certainly a load of fun, it’s the human element that really makes the story shine. The Willet clan are a family of farmers, with their eldest patriarch, Sam “Boompa” Willet, having once previously squared off against the Devil and managed to survive. When people begin to go missing in the woods, and rumors of Jersey Devil sightings crop up again, Sam knows it’s down to he and his family to finish the job he started decades prior.

Let me just say, first and foremost, the Willet clan are a fun bunch to hang around with for a few hundred pages. Sam is an easy favorite, but his grandchildren certainly aren’t any slouches, either. They’ve all got enough meat on their bones to give you reason to care about their fates, which is of the utmost importance in a story like this, and in horror in general. Shea knows perfectly well that the monster is merely a lure to hook readers in, but it’s the characters that truly count at the end of the day.

Of course, you also need some guts and gore because it is, ultimately, horror. And jeez, does Shea deliver in that regard, too. The body count here is ridiculously high, and the amount of blood spilled in the Big Finale could be counted by the bucket-load. There’s a wonderfully delicious bit of spectacle throughout the whole book. Clearly, the author had tremendous fun writing this one, as well as a big appreciation for the Jersey Devil mythos, and that enthusiasm shows throughout.

Plain and simple – this book is just pure bloody fun. High-octane action, guts galore (in terms of both gutsy characters and actual guts dropping onto the forest floor), and enjoyable characters make this a stand-out creature feature. If you’re looking for some violent, fast-paced action horror, this, fellow readers, will do you nicely.

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

 

Buy The Jersey Devil At Amazon

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Review: The Approach by Chris Holm

Review:

I was a big fan of last year’s The Killing Kind (my review), and have been waiting on Chris Holm’s follow-up pretty much since hitting that book’s final page. Red Right Hand is due out next month, and to whet our appetites a bit, Holm and his publisher, Mulholland Books, have released this digital-exclusive short story, The Approach.

Coming in at around 20 pages, this is a quick, brisk, no-frills kind of read. It’s a short teaser to get readers interested in the character of Michael Hendricks, a hitman who targets hitmen. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a premise worthy of reading all by itself, and Holm certainly proved me right with the prior outing.

Here, Hendricks finds himself in Las Vegas to save the life of a stripper with a sadly meager bounty on her head. Needless to say, things quickly get complicated and turned upside down. There’s a fun twist, and a good bit of rapid-fire action and Hendricks having to quickly think on his feet to protect his mark.

The Approach is a fun story, and at only 99c it provides a solid few minutes worth of diversion. It also has me even more eager to soon meet up with Hendricks again in Red Right Hand.

New readers need not fear, though, as no prior background is required before diving into this short story. The Approach takes place prior to The Killing Kind, and Holm gives you all the info you need to enjoy this small chapter. I think, once finished, you’ll want to get more familiar with Hendricks and his background, and now’s the best time to do so!

Buy The Approach At Amazon

 

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Too Little Or Too Much

A short while ago, maybe a month or two, I publicly shamed myself on Twitter for not having a large enough output this year. In 2015, I had published a novel and appeared in three anthologies, and released one of those stories as a stand-alone title. Halfway through 2016, I was feeling the pinch of having hardly any releases at all this year. So far, I’ve released only one short story, Let Go, and a short story titled “Black Site” was published in CLONES: The Anthology. Although I was busy writing, not much of it was making its way out into the market and it was making me a feel bit depressed. I felt like I either wasn’t doing enough or wasn’t getting stuff done (partially true, but mildly inaccurate), and the weight of it was like a vise around my neck.

The big pro-tip to being a writer is one simple rule: Finish Your Shit.

I was not finishing my shit, or at least not the one big shit I had in me, but not necessarily for lack of trying. I’ve been working on a novel since March and it’s become my own personal Moby Dick. Not because it’s a wild, untamed beast that I have sworn revenge against, but because it’s been such a long, arduous journey in trying to finish it off. I know the rough shape of it, and when I’m working on it, it feels good and (mostly) right. And it’s not even a lack of focus or desire to continue plugging away at it.

Mostly, it’s because I allow myself to keep getting interrupted with other projects. This is by no means a bad thing, nor is it a complaint. If anything, it is perhaps a very good problem to have. I’ve put this novel on hold several times, and have done so once again, in order to tackle a story and an invitation that is simply too good to pass up. Back near the start of writing said novel, a lonely old man named Everett Hart told me a story and his voice demanded that I write Let Go. So I did. And then I got invited to contribute to CLONES: The Anthology. I had a killer idea for that one, so, again, the novel got put on the back burner. Ultimately, it was certainly worth it. This book became an Amazon Best Seller in their sci-fi anthology category, and, for a very brief time, I was a Top 100 science fiction author over there. Pretty cool!

I’ve gone back and forth with this novel-in-progress a few times now, interrupting the process once more very recently in order to write a novella that captured my fancy. It’s called Broken Shells and it needs lots of editing, but the story itself is largely finished. I began writing this shortly before my mother passed away, and in the weeks following her death it provided a much-needed retreat for me, and even a little bit of therapy. All that remains now are the finishing touches. That, too, is now on hold, thanks to an invitation that was extended my way late last week.

At the moment, I am roughly 3,000 words into REDACTED. I’m not sure what I can or cannot discuss about this work yet, so it’s perhaps best to say nothing. It’s the kind of deal though, that when you’re invited in, you do not turn it down. And since a dude at Amazon called me to discuss this work specifically goes a long way in telling me it could maybe possibly be a big deal. The kind of project that you simply do not say No to and walk away from. If anything, you drop whatever you’re doing and get to work. Of course, it’s entirely possible I’m blowing smoke up my own ass. I get the impression though that this is at least important to Amazon, and it could certainly have the potential for more readers to discover my work, which is a fantastic reward all by itself. So, yeah, I dropped everything and got to work! REDACTED will be novella length, and while it’s in my wheelhouse of both science fiction and horror, it’s of a particular sub-genre I haven’t written in previously. There are a few hurdles to overcome, and plenty of research to do. Thus far, it’s been a lot of fun, though, and I’m excited to see where it goes. I’ll have plenty more to say about this in the coming months, so be sure to stay tuned, or sign-up for my newsletter to get the big scoop straight to your inbox.

My main problem though has been reconciling the disparity in my work versus my output. I’ve been busy, even if I don’t yet have a lot to show for it. I will eventually, and there’s plenty of stuff on the horizon. So, I made a list of stuff in progress to give me a sort of visual reminder and a much-needed kick in the ass that I actually am doing something! Here’s where things stand at the moment for 2016:

A short novel is under review with a small press publisher for publication. The sample was apparently good enough that the editor recently asked for the full manuscript. If the story is not a good fit for this publisher, there are other avenues I can explore, so we’ll see what happens there.
LET GO – Published
Black Site – Published in CLONES: The Anthology, pending solo publication
Broken Shells – pending publication
Novel – in progress
The Marque – pending solo publication (originally published in Crime & Punishment)
Preservation – pending solo publication (originally published in The Cyborg Chronicles)
REDACTED – in progress, expected publication late 2016/Q1 2017
Audiobook edition of Revolver – in progress, release TBA

To top it all off, while doing yard work yesterday inspiration struck. I came up with a cool idea for a post-apocalyptic natural horror short story, which I’ll probably work on once Secret Project is finished and then leap back into the novel.

None of this even takes into account the advance copies of books I need to read and review. Or the fact that all of this must be balanced against working full-time and having a family.

And yet, yeah, somehow, for whatever reason, I honestly felt like I wasn’t doing enough.

Ultimately, I’ve decided I’m OK with where things are at presently. If my output for 2016 is a bit diminished, then I have to be fine with it. I may still be able to get one or two of these projects out by year’s end. If not, then 2017 will be a banner year for me in terms of published stories!

Read and Reviewed Roundup: July 2016

For those that are just joining the blog (welcome, new followers!), I’ve been starting off each month with a summary of the books I’ve read and reviewed over the course of the previous month. Today is August 1, 2016, so here’s a look back at my books from July. Just click on the link to check out my thoughts on that particular title.

The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone
Hell Divers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Wolf Hunt (audiobook) by Jeff Strand
A Time of Torment by John Connolly
Young Slasher by S. Elliot Brandis
Invasive by Chuck Wendig
Chasing Ghosts by Glen Rolfe

So, that’s six novels, plus one audiobook, which I originally reviewed for Audio Book Reviewer. All in all, this was a pretty strong month of reading in terms of quality; I don’t think there was a bad book in the bunch. Let’s face it, though – anytime I can read a new book from Chuck Wendig and John Connolly, let alone nearly back to back, is a darn good month.

What did you read last month? Any particular stand-outs for you?

Review: Chasing Ghosts by Glenn Rolfe

Review:

Chasing Ghosts, the latest horror novella from Glenn Rolfe, is a perfectly good read to while away a few hours with. I suspect, though, that I would have enjoyed it even more if had been expanded into a full-length novel.

The gist of this story is simple, and a common enough trope in horror stories – people getting mauled and killed by backwoods cannibal killers. It’s familiar and doesn’t exactly break new ground, and is essentially a cabin in the woods slasher movie in print form. I can generally accept derivative storytelling as long as it entertains and is at least well written. Thankfully, Chasing Ghosts succeeds in these two elements and provided me with several hours of enjoyment over a Saturday afternoon.

Novellas can be tricky things, though. They’re longer than short stories, but not as long as novels. In my opinion, they work best when the focus is tight and centered on only a few characters in a small setting. There’s an intimacy to novellas in the way they pack a powerful punch in a small package.

Chasing Ghosts, however, often feels like a much larger story struggling to fit into its confines. There’s a lot of characters that we never really get to become deeply familiar with, and we’re told all we’re allowed to know about them almost as soon as they arrive on the page – Derek is a cheating husband, Mike’s a good guy, Walt is the aging sheriff with a bad back, and there’s a trio of punk rockers performing at a backwoods cabin party who are all pretty much interchangeable from one another. We don’t get to know much about what makes these characters tick beyond these brief descriptors, which makes them easy, bland fodder once the killing begins. Unfortunately, we’re given little reason to care. Some of these victims get particularly grisly treatment, and imagining the violence inflicted upon them is hair-raising enough, but I couldn’t quite latch onto anybody in particular to root for or identify with. This book is all about the squirm factor. Characters are dispatched with frightening enough regularity to make George R.R. Martin proud, and the cannibal killers are a potent, if one-dimensional, force.

This review is perhaps overly critical and negative-sounding, although I actually did enjoy the time I spent with Rolfe’s story. There are good ideas here, and glimmers of a larger story that really needed more time and space to develop into something stronger. As far as quick reads with a high body count goes, this fits the bill well enough. Chasing Ghosts is a fun, dirty piece of work that makes for a few hours worth of enjoyable escapism, despite lacking a tight narrative focus or rich enough characters to make a long-lasting impression. Rolfe clearly has talent, though, and he’s an author I’ll be keeping an eye on to see how he develops.

[Note: This review is based on an advanced copy provided by Sinister Grin Press via Hook of a Book Media and Publicity.]

Buy Chasing Ghosts At Amazon

 

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Review: Invasive by Chuck Wendig

Review:

Between Ezekiel Boone’s The Hatching (my review) and, now, Chuck Wendig’s Invasive, this has been a pretty good summer for bug books! While the former concerned itself with the reemergence of an ancient spider species violently troubling mankind, Wending brings us a brand new strain of genetically modified ultra-violent ants.

Invasive opens with a brief definition of the word ‘formication,’ which is a sensation that feels like insects crawling over or under your skin. This is a good word to know because you’ll be feeling plenty of formication throughout the book, likely by chapter two.

Set in the world of Wendig’s prior novel, Zer0es (which, if you haven’t read, now is a good time to buy. It’s not completely necessary to this title’s narrative, but it is a damn fun read and worth checking out. Minor references are made to Zer0es, but this series seems to be building on a theme of hacking – first cyber hacking in the previous entry, and now bio-hacking with Invasive), Hollis Copper returns and recruits FBI futurist consultant, Hannah Stander, to investigate an unusual case: a cabin housing ten thousand dead bodies. One of them is human; the rest are ant corpses, but are the apparent cause of death for the victim in question.

What follows is a horrific technothriller that feels like the spiritual lovechild of Michael Crichton and The X-Files. While there are streaks of humor, Invasive is a fairly dark read, but it carries all the hallmarks of a big summer blockbuster, right down a gloriously large-scale action set-piece for the book’s second half. Hannah Stander is a terrific female heroine, and shines wonderfully as the book’s strong, central protagonist. I will admit, though, that I was more than a bit captivated by Ez Choi, an entomologist and friend of Stander brought in as a consult. She’s a fun, spunky, punky bug geek and I hope we get to see more of her in future books.

I’ve never been particularly phobic of ants before (I can’t say the same about spiders), and I find them to be rather intriguing little creatures. Wendig has me second-guessing myself just a bit now, though… He does capture their intriguing nature with some nicely done sciencey bits (it seems clear he did plenty of homework, and the book’s layman explanations of the more technical aspects of ant-life and genetic mucking about ring true enough to me), and the more graphic depictions of what these vicious colonies are capable of left with me more than a few uncomfortable sensations. Yes, it’s true – this book made me formicate.

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

 

Buy Invasive At Amazon

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Review: Young Slasher by S. Elliot Brandis

Review:

Young Slasher, the latest from S. Elliot Brandis, is a slasher horror story that owes an awful lot to comic books, particularly Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass and uber-scribe Grant Morrison. This is a story that wears its influences proudly on its sleeve and name-drops them with regularity, not necessarily to be cute to show off a measure of pop culture awareness, but because these are the things that shape and inform our titular killer, who goes by the very comic book-ish name of Mia Sanguine.

Mia is a real-life movie slasher for the twenty-first century. Inspired by comic books and horror movies, her psychopathy even comes with its own Spotify playlist so that she can kill with a punk soundtrack. Her origin story is rooted in modern-day Big Topics of our time, as her and her best friend are ridiculed and bullied by their high school peers. Mia was a late transfer to a private school filled with spoiled, rotten rich kids and her taste in fashion and music made her an outcast. Her friend Casey is struggling to define his sexuality and is routinely harassed by his bigoted, homophobic classmates. And so, they hatch a plot, inspired quite knowingly by Kick-Ass. They want to become real-life horror movie killers.

And although I stated above that this is a horror story, that’s not entirely correct. It has all the benchmarks of a horror narrative – that sleek, cool looking cover; a terrific bit of the old ultraviolence; a fantastic slasher villain with an impressive array of cutlery and scorn – but Young Slasher is more accurately a fun work of metafiction. As Mia might say, this book is “meta as fuck!” and the meta narrative run multiple layers deep, reaching quite a bit beyond merely the fictional, fourth-wall breaking killer that fans of Deadpool will recognize.

Aside from being an interesting thought experiment and clever literary construct, this book would not work without a reason to care beyond picking out points of reference and trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not. That’s where the characters come in. Mia is simply a fun girl to hang out with for the couple hundred-some pages that she exists in. She’s brutal, but also empathetic, and, perhaps troublingly, somebody I could relate to.

As a victim of bullying during my own school years (being the only kid with a gnarly scar running the length of my chest from open heart surgery and unable to engage in the more rough-and-tumble aspects of gym class made me both an outcast and, since I couldn’t run, easy pickings. When I eventually found comfort in junk food and became overweight, I was then the fat, scarred outcast), I found myself fully sympathetic to Mia and Casey. I could understand their urge to find primal satisfaction in waging war against their tormentors, even if, even at my lowest, I wouldn’t have gone so far as to take an axe to somebody’s head (although I’ll admit to fancying some pretty dark daydreams about how to handle the idiot jock who liked to leave an empty seat between us so he could kick that empty desk over the seatback of my chair and into my spine over and over and over during high school Geometry).

Mia and Casey may want to be villains, but, like most fictional anarchists, there’s a certain measure of joyful escapism to be had in their exploits. It’s fun to watch them turn the tables on their bullies, even as they go far beyond the pale in their brutality, taking a beeline right away from justice and straight on to revenge.

[Note: I received an advance copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.]

 

Buy Young Slasher At Amazon

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The Infection Is Spreading: LET GO – Now Available on Nook and Kobo!

Amazon Kindle readers have been enjoying my latest release, a short story called Let Go, for the last few months. Now, more readers will be able to check it out as the infection my story spreads onto other platforms.

Let Go is now available on Nook and Kobo. I’m still waiting for the book to go live on iTunes and will update once a link to that store is available. If you’re a Kindle reader, well, you can still find Let Go at Amazon, as always.

Here’s the synopsis:

Widowed and with retirement drawing near, Everett Hart believes he has already lost everything – until the dead begin to rise.

Trapped in a cheap restaurant with a small band of other elderly survivors, Everett is forced to decide if he’ll fight for whatever scraps of a future remain, or if he will simply… let go.

LET GO is a short story of approximately 10,000 words.

Hunter Shea, author of I Kill In Peace, The Montauk Monster, and the forthcoming Jersey Devil, called Let Go “poignant,” and “an excellent addition to the zombie genre, a study not in bloodthirsty hordes but the internal struggles of one lonely, old man.”

It’s Everett’s struggle that many reviewers have been most attracted to. In her review, Teri Polen said, “I wasn’t expecting such an emotional read.  Powerful imagery with outstanding characterization.”

Amazon customer, Deb Robbins, wrote, “It’s about Everett’s emotional turmoil, so well described that it’s profoundly sad to read… There’s a great deal of emotion packed into this short story, and the ending made me teary-eyed. Excellent reading.”

Amazon reader, Bill, succinctly states, “this is how short stories should be done.”

Let Go is only 99c. My other books and short stories will soon be making their way onto more non-Amazon platforms soon, as well, so be sure to keep an eye out for updates on those releases, too!