Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 43
May 6, 2016
Review: Mayan Blue by Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason
Review: 
Dubbed The Sisters of Slaughter by the editor of Fireside Press, Michelle Garza and Melissa Larson make their novel-length debut with Mayan Blue. I think the Fireside folks were on to something with their proclamation, and the sisters earn their bloody stripes well here.
First off, let me just say how glad I am to read a horror book that is influenced by ancient continental American lore, rather then the johnny come lately Christian influences that predominate most modern works. Granted, those influences have produced some great stories, particularly in terms of my recent reads like Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts and Hunter Shea’s I Kill In Peace. But it’s fun to spice things up a bit by reaching into a deeper, richer history of the Americas.
Mayan Blue, as the title indicates, reaches back to the peak of the Mayan heyday, drawing on the occult beliefs of Mesoamerican and Central American people to craft a present-day horror story. Building off the debunked speculations of Mayan civilization reaching as far north as Georgia, the sisters craft a novel in which such speculations are on the verge of being validated. Unfortunately, the professor in possession of the evidence has gone missing, and his small team of university researchers are en route to recover him.
From the outset, Garza and Lason let the blood spill, plunging their small cast of characters into the depths of Mayan hell. There’s plenty of action to go around as the group is confronted with a number of horrors, from the labyrinthine and booby-trapped maze of the newly discovered Mayan temple to the angry gods and their owl-headed, sharp-clawed servants.
This is a fun and quick bit of adventure horror, with a number of well-drawn splatter scenes. Bodies are flayed and entrails spilled all over the place. My only real complaint about the book is that the characters are paper thin, with several of them never rising above a quickly drawn stereotype before being dispatched in some nicely grisly scenes. While their deaths are certainly interesting, it’s a shame that their demise is the most interesting thing to happen to them in the brief moments we spend with them. In order for horror to be truly effective, there needs to be characters to root for and against, people you can become attached to and sympathize for and with. I didn’t feel particularly attached to anybody in this book. While the gore and setting may be memorable, the characters, unfortunately, are not.
Aside from that, I had a fun time with Mayan Blue. I greatly appreciated the change of scenery it provided, and the way its influences in both the creature-feature and slasher genres merged to form a truly appropriate temple of doom.
[Note: this review is based an advanced, uncorrected proof copy supplied by the authors in exchange for an honest review.]
Original post:
MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1398022/review-mayan-blue-by-michelle-garza-and-melissa-lason
May 4, 2016
Review: A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Review:
While on a very superficial level, A Head Full of Ghosts is pretty straight-forward, I’m really not sure how to review or discuss this book without getting into some spoiler territory. So, I’m going to issue a SPOILER WARNING right here and now at the outset.
If you want my 100% spoiler-free review, here goes: A Head Full of Ghosts is a damn good book. Paul Tremblay crafts a terrific bit of psychological horror, with well-drawn and relateable characters that, even after finishing the book, has kept me guessing. Go read it!
With that out of the way, let’s dive a little bit deeper. But again, SPOILER WARNING from here on out.
Tremblay manages to write a novel that can be about at least three different stories depending on your takeaway. It could be a demonic possession story, or it could be about straight-up mental illness. It could be about a family’s inability to cope with their sick daughter and how the father’s religious zealotry absolutely destroys them, with multiple instances of mental illness fully consuming the household and impacting the lives of everyone in this strange and peculiar home. It could be about child abuse and manipulation by the Church. It could be about a psychotic daughter. It could be about two psychotic daughters. It could be all of these things, or none of these, or maybe a mix-and-match scenario. Or it could be exactly as it is presented to us.
There are no easy answers in A Head Full of Ghosts. Tremblay avoids the head-spinning trippiness of Danielewski’s House of Leaves, but with the story presented as a first-person narrative, we are forced to wonder just how accurate a story we’re getting.
Although Marjorie is, for all intents and purposes, the “possessed” teenager, the story is constructed by her little sister, Merry. The entire book is filtered through Merry’s first-person viewpoint, as she discusses her family history with a non-fiction author writing about the family’s encounter with the supernatural. After their father becomes convinced that Marjorie is possessed by a demon, the family becomes the focal point of a supernatural “reality” show called The Possessed, and we get some critical examinations of these episodes in the way of intermittent blog posts. But the crux of the story is Merry and her singular accounts. We are in her head completely, and I wonder how much more of her story — her true story — would stand revealed in multiple readings. Can she be trusted, or is she manipulating everybody, including the reader, and to what degree?
Tremblay is clearly inspired by, and clearly rather knowledgeable of the history of, possession stories in popular media, ranging from the big, bad granddaddy of them all, The Exorcist, up to Danielewski’s novel, and the recent boom in exorcisms following Pope Francis’ public exorcism last year. I’m very impressed in how Tremblay synthesizes and parlays it all into such a wonderful addition to the genre. He hits all the familiar beats, yet still crafts a novel that keeps you guessing even after that last page turns over.
While it’s difficult to embrace all of the supernatural going-ons in A Head Full of Ghosts, it’s also difficult to fully dismiss them given just how successfully layered and interwoven they are in this story and with its characters. In the end, I think this book is sort of a litmus test for whatever the reader wants it to be. If you want a straight-up demonic possession story, you’ve got it. If you want something richer and more complicated, you can certainly find that here. Is A Head Full of Ghosts deceptively simple, or is it a Lemarchand’s box of moving pieces that you could spend a good long while trying to open? That, fellow readers, may be entirely up to you.
Buy A Head Full of Ghosts At Amazon
Original post:
MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1396751/review-a-head-full-of-ghosts-by-paul-tremblay
May 3, 2016
Review: Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon and Dirk Maggs (Audiobook)
My original Alien: Out of the Shadows audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.
In 2014, Titan Books released the first in a new series of books set in the Alien film franchise under the supervision of the movie studio 20th Century Fox. These novels are considered part of the film canon and help expand and flesh out the movie universe, and they launched with Tim Lebbon’s Alien: Out of the Shadows, set between the first two movies and featuring the series’ heroine, Lt. Ellen Ripley.
Following the destruction of the Nostromo in the first Alien movie, Ripley put herself into hypersleep and drifted through space. Movie buffs know that 57 years passed between Alien and Aliens, but Lebbon has crafted a nicely fitting story that slots itself directly into the middle of this time gap. In Out of the Shadows, the damaged mining vessel Marion picks up a distress call from Ripley’s lifeboat, while the crew contends with the discovery of a vicious life-form on the planet LV-178. It’s not long before Ripley is pressed back into action, haunted by the events aboard the Nostromo, and hellbent on saving the crew of the Marion.
Rather than taking Lebbon’s novel and producing a straight-up audiobook, Audible Studios and director Dirk Maggs have turned Out of the Shadows into a brilliant audio drama, crafting a production that may well be the best Alien production since James Cameron’s own Aliens. Using an ensemble cast of voice actors, including actor Rutger Hauer in his first audio performance as the now-disembodied ghost in the machine of the android Ash, and an array of sound effects and musical score, the production quality on display here is downright phenomenal.Actor Corey Johnson brings to life Chief Engineering Hooper, while Laurel Lefkow voices Ripley. The chemistry between these two is terrific and you get a great sense of camaraderie as they form a fast friendship under the threat of the alien menace. Lefkow in particular wowed the heck out of me, and a few times I could have positively sworn that Maggs had gotten Sigourney Weaver to reprise her role. Lefkow absolutely nails the tone, inflection, and speech patterns of Weaver’s Ellen Ripley and it’s mighty damn impressive to listen to.
Rounding out the voice talent is the full-fledged sonic experience of the work itself. From the familiar not-quite dot matrix noises of the computers as they display text, to the ferocious grunts, hisses, and screams of the aliens, and the attendant instrumental score, Out of the Shadows is a frighteningly immersive experience, and one that is very audibly an Alien story. Dirk Maggs has been credited with turning the audio drama into an audio movie for his BBC productions, and that particular knack is on full display here. Lebbon’s prose work has been stripped away, although the story and dialogue, with a bit of finessing for this dramatization, remain intact and is lovingly crafted in a highly cinematic experience for the mind. With the accompanying audio you can really let your imagination run wild and set the scene in your mind’s eye on this one. This is as much an audio movie as it as a movie of the mind, and it’s scarily effective. Be sure to listen to this one with a good set of headphones to fully appreciate the layers and depth that went into constructing this audio drama, but be careful not to fall off the edge of your seat.
Some may argue that by placing this story between the first two Alien films that it’s not an entirely necessary work. To this, and with a shoulder shrug, I can only say, “meh.” I, for one, don’t care a whit about this works “necessity” because it’s just too damn good to ignore. This is a fun listening experience, and one of the best Alien productions we’ve gotten in a long, long while. It’s great to see, or rather, hear, Ellen Ripley back in action and kicking butt on land and in space.
If I have to post one complaint, it’s that the inclusion of Ash serves mostly as story recaps. While Hauer is a great choice to voice this iconic character, a lot of the information Ash relays, in the form of status update reports to the Weyland-Yutani corporation, is redundant to the unfolding plot, and given the frequency at which this is done over the course of the production’s 4 hours and 28 minutes it often times feel highly repetitive. If you’re spreading this listen out over multiple days or longer, these updates may serve as helpful story recaps, but if you’re digesting the story in large chunks they ultimately add little. Like a television show’s “previously on” segment, these recaps don’t eat up a lot of time, so this is ultimately a very minor complaint in the grander scheme of things.
As they did with last year’s adaptation of Joe Hill’s Locke & Key, Audible Studios has delivered a knock-out win of an audio drama – and for a work set in one of my favorite film series, no less! I had read and enjoyed Lebbon’s novel of this work when it came out a few years ago, but I absolutely loved listening to this adaptation. Dirk Maggs and his cast and crew have created a very special production for Alien fans with this dramatization, released on Alien Day (4-26, as in LV-426), and it’s a work that I highly recommend. Now go give it a listen!
Buy Alien: Out of the Shadows At Amazon
Send in the CLONES!
Coming May 24 – CLONES: The Anthology
First, the really big news – I will have a brand new short story appearing in the upcoming book, CLONES: The Anthology. “Black Site” is a wicked little bit of cosmic horror, in which a group of researchers attempt to unravel the origins of life itself. Needless to say, things go a bit haywire. If you’re a fan of Alien or Lovecraftian stories, this should suit you nicely, I think. I had a ton of fun writing this one, and, quite frankly, it might be my new personal favorite work to date.
Here’s the synopsis:
CLONES: The Anthology – available May 24th
Human cloning.
Technology evolves faster than we do.
The law shields us from our worst temptations.
But the opportunity is there, dangling just out of reach—perfection and ascension… or delusion and destruction.
In this collection of clone-themed stories, ten of today’s top speculative fiction writers explore our morality, our built-in societal restraints, and reflect upon our state of grace.
Similar is not necessarily the same.
“CLONES: The Anthology” features stories from Amazon bestselling authors Rysa Walker (the Chronos series), R.D. Brady (the Belial series), Susan Kaye Quinn (the Singularity saga), Best American Science Fiction notable Samuel Peralta (Faith), and USA Today Bestselling and Multi-Award Winner P.K. Tyler, plus five more of today’s top authors in speculative and science fiction.
“The Replacement Husband” by Nathan Beauchamp
“Like No Other” by Daniel Smith
“Awakening” by Susan Kaye Quinn
“Eve’s Children” by Hank Garner
“Black Site” by Michael Hicks
“Fahrenheit 1451” by Samuel Peralta
“All These Bodies” by Pavarti K Tyler
“B.E.G.I.N.” by R.D. Brady
“Splinter” by Rysa Walker
“The Vandal” by Joshua Ingle
CLONES: The Anthology is listed on Goodreads, so go add it to your TBR!
Advanced Reviewer Copies are making their way into circulation, so keep an eye out for reviews in the coming days and weeks as we prepare for the big release day. (I may have one or two to spare for interested reviewers who can post their honest review to Amazon between May 24 – 30. Feel free to contact me.)
Below, you’ll find the cover art designed by Ben Adams. Ben’s work has appeared in a few places, and you may recognize his work from the art prints he did for Hugh Howey’s Beacon 23. Needless to say, he did a phenomenal job on this title.
In other news, I was recently interviewed by fellow author and podcaster Nadine Matheson (who I was lucky enough to appear alongside with in the No Way Home anthology, curated by Lucas Bale, at the start of 2015) for the Spectrum Books podcast. You can listen to the interview on iTunes today!
This is my second podcast appearance – my first was last year on Hank Garner’s terrific Author Stories podcast. If you’re a glutton for punishment, you can listen to even more of me right over here. You’ll note that Hank is also a contributor to the CLONES antho. We’re working on setting up a round-table podcast so that all of us writers can get together and drink heavily discuss our work. Look for more info on that as we get closer to release.
Now for the really awesome part – here’s the cover for CLONES: The Anthology!
May 2, 2016
April Read & Reviewed Round-Up
May’s off to a good start so far. I’m currently reading Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts and have an ARC of the upcoming Sinister Grin title, Mayan Blue, by Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason, aka The Sisters of Slaughter. Mayan Blue comes out later this month, so expect a review in the coming weeks. You can pre-order it now though!
In the meantime, here’s a round-up of the books read and audiobooks listened to in the month of April.
Pieces of Hate by Tim Lebbon
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
WEBCAM by Jack Kilborn
Kill Baxter by Charlie Human
Pressure by Brian Keene
Extinction End by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Now, Dark Matter doesn’t come out until the end of July, but this was easily, hands-down, not only my favorite read of April, but one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. You can, and should, pre-order it right now. I fully expect you to see this book popping up again on this site at year’s end when I list my annual favorites. I can say with a fair amount of confidence that Dark Matter and Jonathan Janz’s Children of the Dark are this year’s front-runners for Best Of. They are just that god damned good.
Speaking of Children of the Dark, the ebook is currently on sale for only $2.99 – it’s normally six or seven bucks if I recall correctly. It’s completely worth it even at the higher price tag, but for $3, this is a no-brainer must-buy. Please go check it out at Amazon today! (You can read my review here.)
April 29, 2016
Review: Extinction End (Extinction Cycle Book 5) by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Review:
You’d think after five books, the Extinction Cycle might start to get a bit stale. Somehow, though, Nicholas Sansbury Smith has managed to keep this series rocking and rolling, presenting a cross-genre affair that continues to impress and excite.
I’ve really appreciated the way Smith continues to up the ante, transforming the Variant threat into a global crises that only grows more and more complicated. The elements involved in crafting an Extinction book work wonderfully well, and Smith ties up action, science, horror, and military thriller into a tight, impossible to put down read. Even after five books, I’m still on the edge of my seat.
Here, Team Ghost, led as always by Reed Beckham, are making their last-ditch push toward ending the threat of the monstrous Variants, whose offspring have evolved some particularly nasty new elements that allow Smith to craft several wonderfully gruesome scenes. Packed with a ton of action and a lot of heart, we’re taken across multiple front lines on land and at sea as Team Ghost contends with monsters and monstrous humans. The fighting is intense and masterfully crafted (a staple of this series), right on up through an excellent climax that blends the suspense and action of Aliens and Die Hard (or maybe Under Siege is a better example), with a lot of heart-string tugging and plenty more “oh sh–” moments.
For all intents and purposes, this is supposedly the last book in the series, although there’s plenty of wiggle room left for another book if the author so chooses. And if it is, in fact, the last book, rest assured that Smith is not resting on his laurels here.
I’ve been a big fan of this series, and this might be the best entry of the lot. Smith gets full-on cinematic in his epicness here. As far as I’m concerned, this is a fitting conclusion for Sgt. Reed Beckham, Dr. Kate Lovato, and the other members of Team Ghost. If we do get a sixth book down the line, I’ll definitely be reading it (especially if Smith presents some of the catastrophe and struggle in Europe or Asia. This series has been focused on the US front-lines of the war, but I’m itching to see a more global examination of the story.). If we don’t, then it’s been a fantastic run for Smith, his characters, and this reader in particular.
Hoorah!
Original post:
MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1394635/review-extinction-end-extinction-cycle-book-5-by-nicholas-sansbury-smith
April 23, 2016
Review: Pressure by Brian Keene
Review: 
Pressure is a far cry from Brian Keene’s previous release, The Complex, earlier this year. Whereas the latter was a tight horror-action romp that hardly slowed down, let alone paused to catch a breath, Pressure is a more leisurely and tepid thriller. Here, Keene delivers a twist on the sea monster creature-feature, with a sort of Crichton-esque flavor, or perhaps a bit of Lincoln & Child reminiscence.
The sea floor of the Mauritius is falling into “The Mouth of Hell,” and strange stirrings are afoot with the discovery of a new, massive predator. World-class free diver, Carrie Anderson, is working on behalf of a biotech firm to learn about the collapsing sea-floor but business takes a personal turn after her diving partner’s demise and a close encounter with an unclassified underwater monster.
Pressure is filled with several great ideas that could have been truly terrific if given a little more room to build and develop. It’s a short book, and it feels like some elements could have used more time to bake. Since the book was pitched as “Jaws meets Alien,” two of my favorite films, and written by Keene, whose work in The Complex I enjoyed tremendously, I had ridiculously high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, my expectations were not quite met, although I would say Pressure is nonetheless a good and certainly enjoyable read. But, it’s also a read that I think needs to be approached with any preconceived notions firmly in check, especially if you’re expecting a gory horror fest that Keene is typically known for.
Pressure is at its best when the characters are on the high sea, dealing with the mysterious and massive threat lurking below the water. The flip-side, however, is that this particular element is nearly a C-plot to the book. I had expected, and indeed hoped for, it to be the primary focus of the novel. I wanted to see lots of aquatic horror, and I didn’t really get it. What was there was all kinds of salty and violent fun, but entirely too short-lived.
I kept expecting the characters to make their way back to the water, but Keene was more focused on driving this toward a land-based thriller where the real villains are an evil corporation and their gun-toting thugs. I suspect this book will appeal to a lot of readers looking for a disposable beach read – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Personally, I was looking for more horror, more action, more scares, and definitely way more in the way of monster mayhem. This particular book was built to be just a little too mainstream for my tastes, and didn’t quite deliver what I wanted-slash-expected.
I will give it a few extra points for some Clickers Easter eggs, as well a number of Alpinus Bio security guys whose names are borrowed from a number of well-known horror authors. I just dig stuff like that. I also hope that Pressure helps lead new readers into Keene’s other works.
[Note: I received an advanced reader’s copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley for review.]
Original post:
MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1390721/review-pressure-by-brian-keene
April 20, 2016
eBook Sale – But Buy Quick!
To celebrate the release of my latest story, Let Go, I’m running a limited-time sale on my other works. My two novel length sci-fi works are on sale for only 99c as part of a Kindle Countdown Deal, and my short stories, Revolver and Consumption, are free! Let Go is available for only 99c, as well. These deals will be in effect for two days only – today and tomorrow – so act fast.
Click the links below to buy!
Convergence (A DRMR Novel Book 1) – 99c
Emergence (A DRMR Novel Book 2) – 99c
Review: Kill Baxter by Charlie Human (Audiobook)
Review:
My original KILL BAXTER audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.
—
After saving the world in Apocalypse Now Now, sixteen-year-old Baxter Zevcenko is off to school at Hexpoort to begin his training in magical abilities for recruitment into the ultra-secretive MK6. Unfortunately for Baxter, it’s not going to be a very easy semester… MK6 agents are winding up dead, and rebellion is fermenting within the community of The Hidden thanks to the work of the mysterious Muti Man. Oh, and Baxter has to endure the bullying of The Chosen One who thinks Baxter may have stolen his thunder by doing battle with an interdemensional villain last time around. Hexpoort is, after all, high school, even with a militaristic boot camp bent.
Kill Baxter is seriously entertaining stuff, with a number of laugh-out-loud moments. There’s a passing similarity to the Harry Potter series, as Baxter is a smart and gifted young man, but imminently more foul-mouthed, manipulative, aggressive, and sarcastic than that Hogwart’s fellow. And his best friend is a violent alcoholic. So, yeah, there’s that. Although Baxter is making a conscious effort at being a better man and attending a pornography addiction anonymous group, it’s his battles against the Muti Man that will prove to be the most challenging aspect of his journey toward self-discovery.
Returning to narrate is David Atlas, whose performance I enjoyed quite a bit. He brings a terrific amount of effort to the production, and voices Baxter exceedingly well. He also gives the secondary characters their own unique voices and inflections without hitting any false notes. My only complaint is that there were often some strangely long pauses throughout the narrative, section breaks not withstanding. I often thought Atlas was giving us breathing room between section breaks within a chapter, only to discover he was taking a break between paragraphs. It was a bit jarring, but thankfully this didn’t occur too often during dialogue exchanges. Still, it was enough to make me speed up the play-through, and I found that listening to this audiobook at 1.25X was preferable.
As far as the writing goes, Charlie Human has a terrific voice and puts some interesting spins on his passages. I couldn’t help but smile when one character finally admitted that positive thinking just wasn’t his thing, and a particular sewer monster that figures into the book’s climax was well and nastily rendered. The Baxter books are clearly becoming a series that I’ll be sticking with for the long-haul, and Human introduces a few story threads in Kill Baxter that are clearly setting up a much larger story for the next book. The hints we’re given here have me itching for quite a lot more, and I can only hope that the wait isn’t too long.
[Audiobook provided for review by the audiobookreviewer.com]
Original post:
MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1388355/review-kill-baxter-by-charlie-human-audiobook
April 19, 2016
Review: WEBCAM by Jack Kilborn (JA Konrath)
Review:
Let me get this out of the way first – I liked WEBCAM, even if I did find myself ultimately disappointed. It’s a far from perfect read for me, but I don’t feel like my time was completely wasted. Hence, the three-star rating. To explain why I was disappointed will take some doing, so here goes.
Jack Kilborn is JA Konrath’s go-to pseudonym for horror books, and they’re usually billed as “A Novel Of Terror.” Such books have included Afraid, Trapped, Endurance, Haunted House, and (I think) a few others. For me, Afraid has stood at the top of these offerings and is the pinnacle of Kilborn’s efforts. The sequence listed above also carries with it a certain staple that I expect in a Kilborn book – primarily intense, squirm-inducing violence that is graphically rendered, and a whole bucketfuls of spilled blood, guts, and gore. The villains are bat-shit crazy psychotics, occasionally of the inbred variety, and the good guys are normal people caught up in unexpected horrors that are way, way, way over their heads.
In WEBCAM, a nutjob is killing webcam models. Given the endless stream of horror that pretty much is the Internet these days, this seems like perfect fodder for some Kilborn scares. Unfortunately, much of what I dug in previous Kilborn books are sorely lacking here. I didn’t find myself squirming uncomfortably as I did back in the days when Afraid and Trapped hit my Kindle, and it seems like more than a little stretch of the imagination to call this a Novel Of Terror since there’s not actually much real terror in it. At least not for my tastes.
What WEBCAM is, though, is a fairly standard but mostly well-delivered serial killer police procedural that feels more like a high-tech, watered-down retread of the movie Seven than a straight-up fright fest. Things run smoothly for the most part, although I found the relationship between lead character Detective Tom Mankowski and his visiting long-distance girlfriend grew weary rather quickly. And the finale is more concerned with shoehorning in Konrath’s long-running series staple, Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels, and adding in a few unnecessary layers to the story’s end all in the name of developing a cross-over with a few other newly released Konrath titles. The climax is rushed to an abrupt and unsatisfying finish, as if the author grew bored with the material or was running up against a hard, self-imposed deadline.
On the bright side, WEBCAM is certainly a decent time-killer, and it does have a few cat-and-mouse thrills in it, along with a few chuckles here and there. And that cover design is absolutely brilliant!
Original post:
MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1387287/review-webcam-by-jack-kilborn-ja-konrath
