David Dubrow's Blog, page 40
January 6, 2016
Sicario: A Brief Review
I can't remember when I saw the trailer for
Sicario
, but it definitely made me want to see the movie. The medieval brutality of Mexican drug gangs is particularly disturbing. Stories of Vlad Tepes and Tomás de Torquemada are horrific, but let's face it: they happened centuries ago and the violence is dimmed over time. When it happens today, it's somehow uniquely horrible (even though it's not unique).
Unfortunately, this movie didn't live up to the hype in any way, and I can't recommend it as worth your time or money.
My main criticism of the film is in its protagonist (a role that inexplicably shifts to a different character in the last several minutes of the film, putting its lack of narrative focus on full display), played by Emily Blunt. I have no problem with Emily Blunt as an actress, but as the leader of a tactical team doing drug interdiction for the FBI, she lacked a great deal to be desired. Everybody wants strong, confident women roles in movies, but nobody wants to acknowledge the gigantic suspension of disbelief that's required to maintain the polite fiction that a fit 5'7", 100 lb woman can be at least as physically competent as a fit, 6'1", 210 lb man. It's ludicrous and did the film no favors.
That aside, what made things worse was that she was a complete incompetent in addition to being a moral coward. At no point did she make a decision during the film's events that redounded positively to her character. When she wasn't whining about not knowing what was going on, she was defying orders, pulling guns on her colleagues, and getting herself in more trouble than she could handle on her own. Not since Inspector Clouseau has a law enforcement officer been so bumblingly portrayed, though at least Peter Sellers was hysterically funny and managed to solve the case on his own. As a cipher, lacking personality or judgment, she failed to give the viewer the chance to identify with her even a little bit.
Josh Brolin and his flip-flops wasn't as charming as he was supposed to be. Daniel Kaluuya had a horribly thankless role as the gay black friend/colleague who probably wasn't gay. And Benicio Del Toro was tragically wasted, relegated to occasional grunting and mumbling (which isn't unusual, but in this role, he did even fewer grunts and mumbles than normal).
The scenes with the corrupt cop did nothing to advance story or tension, and should have been left for a future Director's Cut.
I know everybody works very hard in the movie business, and I don't enjoy writing negative reviews, but I was not only disappointed in this film, but cheated out of a not-inconsiderable amount of money to see it. Avoid at all costs.
Unfortunately, this movie didn't live up to the hype in any way, and I can't recommend it as worth your time or money.
My main criticism of the film is in its protagonist (a role that inexplicably shifts to a different character in the last several minutes of the film, putting its lack of narrative focus on full display), played by Emily Blunt. I have no problem with Emily Blunt as an actress, but as the leader of a tactical team doing drug interdiction for the FBI, she lacked a great deal to be desired. Everybody wants strong, confident women roles in movies, but nobody wants to acknowledge the gigantic suspension of disbelief that's required to maintain the polite fiction that a fit 5'7", 100 lb woman can be at least as physically competent as a fit, 6'1", 210 lb man. It's ludicrous and did the film no favors.
That aside, what made things worse was that she was a complete incompetent in addition to being a moral coward. At no point did she make a decision during the film's events that redounded positively to her character. When she wasn't whining about not knowing what was going on, she was defying orders, pulling guns on her colleagues, and getting herself in more trouble than she could handle on her own. Not since Inspector Clouseau has a law enforcement officer been so bumblingly portrayed, though at least Peter Sellers was hysterically funny and managed to solve the case on his own. As a cipher, lacking personality or judgment, she failed to give the viewer the chance to identify with her even a little bit.
Josh Brolin and his flip-flops wasn't as charming as he was supposed to be. Daniel Kaluuya had a horribly thankless role as the gay black friend/colleague who probably wasn't gay. And Benicio Del Toro was tragically wasted, relegated to occasional grunting and mumbling (which isn't unusual, but in this role, he did even fewer grunts and mumbles than normal).
The scenes with the corrupt cop did nothing to advance story or tension, and should have been left for a future Director's Cut.
I know everybody works very hard in the movie business, and I don't enjoy writing negative reviews, but I was not only disappointed in this film, but cheated out of a not-inconsiderable amount of money to see it. Avoid at all costs.
January 4, 2016
He Knows You Know
You've got this social media thing all figured out. You're smart about it. You choose your friends carefully, you like the right things they do online (not everything, because you don't want to be That Guy, do you, the obvious ass-kisser?). You're cool. You're building that all-important network.
(Oh, don't get me started on that network thing, either. I mean, who gives a damn how many writer friends you have, especially if they're all unknowns like you? Do you want to have lots of writer friends or lots of reader fans? Fans are where the money's at. If all you hang out with is writers, how do you break out? What about all the writers recommending each others' books, isn't that a gigantic circle jerk? On the other hand, you have to start somewhere, right? But is this the best place to get started? And what about those fans, the ones who all the writers are friends with on social media? They like all the right things, too, and get free books out of it. Lots of free books. So yeah, that's your network.)
You're so smart, right? There was that one time working in retail and you caught that girl shoplifting years and years ago and when you caught her she said, "You think you smart, but you ain't," and it was funny at the time and it's become a thing you still laugh at now, decades later, but it's not so funny the more you think about it because it raises the all-important question, the question on everybody's mind every day: What did I miss?
Thing is, you see what the others are doing on social media and you don't want to duplicate their mistakes, so you do different things, but they see you, too, and that's something you really need to install into your personal hard drive: they see you, too. They do. Just as you're watching them, they're watching you, and they see what you do and what you don't and what you Share and Favorite and Like and Retweet and WooWoo and whatever else is out there.
It's a two-way street, all this stuff, this interacting with other frustrating humans, whether it's on social media or in meatspace, and you know that if you stroke you should get strokes back, and when you do it's great and when you don't it's not so great and nobody strokes you the way they should for the things you do. People like what they like and not what you think they should like, and it's funny when you think of writers like A. A. Milne, who hated that his most successful writing was the Winnie the Pooh material, but Jesus Christ, man, at least he got successful, and success in anything honorable isn't to be despised and beggars can't be choosers. If that's a frustrating roadblock in the path to success, you'd take it in a heartbeat.
The thing you can't forget is that your writer buddies know what you Like, but most importantly, they know what you don't Like. They know when you've put them on the Pay No Mind List, even when you don't announce it. Oh, you've got your reasons for not sharing their stuff, and they're good ones and not about jealousy (oh, there's so much jealousy), but about character: this one called you and your buddies fascists; that one called everyone who thinks like you a bigot (which means that he called you a bigot, let's be honest); the one over there's an ass-kisser who never reciprocates your strokes anyway so she's no loss except that you did spend some time boosting her books and giving her asked-for feedback some time ago and it'd only be fair to get a stroke in return.
So while you're watching them, they're watching you, and the bitchy, passive-aggressive nature of social media reinforces hostilities even as it bolsters friendships. And those red flags, the ones you ignored because you wanted to make friends with everybody? They're still there, and there're reasons why they're there, and those reasons never vanish: you just ignore them.
Just remember what limited good social media really does, and whatever happens, no matter what, cross your heart and hope to die, remember that they see you too. You know them, and they know you.
(Title taken from Marillion's song of the same name.)
(Oh, don't get me started on that network thing, either. I mean, who gives a damn how many writer friends you have, especially if they're all unknowns like you? Do you want to have lots of writer friends or lots of reader fans? Fans are where the money's at. If all you hang out with is writers, how do you break out? What about all the writers recommending each others' books, isn't that a gigantic circle jerk? On the other hand, you have to start somewhere, right? But is this the best place to get started? And what about those fans, the ones who all the writers are friends with on social media? They like all the right things, too, and get free books out of it. Lots of free books. So yeah, that's your network.)
You're so smart, right? There was that one time working in retail and you caught that girl shoplifting years and years ago and when you caught her she said, "You think you smart, but you ain't," and it was funny at the time and it's become a thing you still laugh at now, decades later, but it's not so funny the more you think about it because it raises the all-important question, the question on everybody's mind every day: What did I miss?
Thing is, you see what the others are doing on social media and you don't want to duplicate their mistakes, so you do different things, but they see you, too, and that's something you really need to install into your personal hard drive: they see you, too. They do. Just as you're watching them, they're watching you, and they see what you do and what you don't and what you Share and Favorite and Like and Retweet and WooWoo and whatever else is out there.
It's a two-way street, all this stuff, this interacting with other frustrating humans, whether it's on social media or in meatspace, and you know that if you stroke you should get strokes back, and when you do it's great and when you don't it's not so great and nobody strokes you the way they should for the things you do. People like what they like and not what you think they should like, and it's funny when you think of writers like A. A. Milne, who hated that his most successful writing was the Winnie the Pooh material, but Jesus Christ, man, at least he got successful, and success in anything honorable isn't to be despised and beggars can't be choosers. If that's a frustrating roadblock in the path to success, you'd take it in a heartbeat.
The thing you can't forget is that your writer buddies know what you Like, but most importantly, they know what you don't Like. They know when you've put them on the Pay No Mind List, even when you don't announce it. Oh, you've got your reasons for not sharing their stuff, and they're good ones and not about jealousy (oh, there's so much jealousy), but about character: this one called you and your buddies fascists; that one called everyone who thinks like you a bigot (which means that he called you a bigot, let's be honest); the one over there's an ass-kisser who never reciprocates your strokes anyway so she's no loss except that you did spend some time boosting her books and giving her asked-for feedback some time ago and it'd only be fair to get a stroke in return.
So while you're watching them, they're watching you, and the bitchy, passive-aggressive nature of social media reinforces hostilities even as it bolsters friendships. And those red flags, the ones you ignored because you wanted to make friends with everybody? They're still there, and there're reasons why they're there, and those reasons never vanish: you just ignore them.
Just remember what limited good social media really does, and whatever happens, no matter what, cross your heart and hope to die, remember that they see you too. You know them, and they know you.
(Title taken from Marillion's song of the same name.)
December 23, 2015
End of Year Post
I'm going to take the rest of the year off to spend Christmas with my family.Yes, I'm Jewish, but my wife celebrates Christmas, and I don't feel like trying to make my little boy pick between Judah Maccabee and Santa Claus for holiday heroes, so we do both, and now's the time when things get busy: holiday meals to be cooked, Christmas cookies to be baked, house to be cleaned, presents to be wrapped.
(Though he should totally pick Judah Maccabee as his holiday hero; I mean, what's cooler: a guerrilla fighter or a fat old guy who slithers down chimneys?)
It's been an eventful year. Some of the highlights include:In March, I wrote my first review for the website Ginger Nuts of Horror.In April, my short story Hold On was published at Liberty Island.In June, Nev Murray reviewed The Blessed Man and the Witch .In August, Adam Howe gave me the honor of blurbing his story Gator Bait. In September, my short story How to Fix a Broken World was published at Liberty Island.In November, I released the second edition of The Blessed Man and the Witch .December was quite busy. Get the Greek, my Kindle Single, made it to #1 in a free category on Amazon; the Beyond Lovecraft Indiegogo campaign I supported made its funding goals (and then some); and I learned that I had been kicked off the website Ginger Nuts of Horror (more on that later).2016 is shaping up to be a good year, too. I'll release The Nephilim and the False Prophet in the first quarter of the new year, and I hope to be finished the entire Armageddon trilogy by early 2017 at the latest. I continue to meet new readers and writers, which is great fun, and it's a joy to watch my son become his own person every day.
Best to all of my readers, both new and familiar.
See you in 2016!
December 21, 2015
And There Was That One Time I Ate Roadkill Squirrel
Several years ago I produced an instructional video series on survival skills; we grouped these videos under the term "neo-tribal": taking modern, easily-scrounged materials and using primitive or less-modern skills to make them into tools.
We made the rebar knife in this video series, among many other useful things. I also learned shiv-making, weaving discarded plastic bags into rope at least as strong as nylon cord, how to knap and flake stone and glass to make cutting implements, and a lot more.
While we were finishing a scene on cooling a forged, red-hot knife in ash rather than oil, the author's wife came in, holding a dead squirrel in a handkerchief. Half of its head had been crushed, and its remaining eye stared at us like an onyx marble.
"A UPS truck ran over it right outside the house," she told us. "It's still warm!"
After some discussion, we decided to use the dead squirrel to show how our knapped pieces of glass could be used to dress a small animal. So, in the waning light of mid-afternoon, we went outside and filmed the author skinning the squirrel and removing its organs with flaked shards of glass. As I was not familiar with the process, never having watched or done it myself, I found it an interesting experience. There wasn't as much blood as you might expect, though I was a little bothered by the sight of the squirrel's guts sort of dangling from its esophagus and rectum when the author lifted the skinned corpse up.
Later that day, as we packed up for the evening, the author's wife came back to the workshop with a plate bearing a small pile of little gray pieces of meat, cooked and glistening.
It was the squirrel, you see. She had butchered and fried it in a pan.
"Try some," said the author, smiling.
The gleam in his eye told me he was testing us to see if the citified boys from Colorado would actually chow down on roadkill squirrel. My production assistant and I shared a look. I shrugged, nodded, and picked one of the larger pieces. It was mostly bone, and a bit greasy, but not bad. The andouillette sausage I had eaten in Paris was much, much worse, consisting of stinking flaps of intestine and tripe. This was just little bits of rodent meat.
I didn't suffer any ill effects (that I know of), and the rest of the shoot went swimmingly. I would probably eat squirrel again if offered, though I have no plans to make it a frequent meal unless circumstances require it.
We made the rebar knife in this video series, among many other useful things. I also learned shiv-making, weaving discarded plastic bags into rope at least as strong as nylon cord, how to knap and flake stone and glass to make cutting implements, and a lot more.
While we were finishing a scene on cooling a forged, red-hot knife in ash rather than oil, the author's wife came in, holding a dead squirrel in a handkerchief. Half of its head had been crushed, and its remaining eye stared at us like an onyx marble.
"A UPS truck ran over it right outside the house," she told us. "It's still warm!"
After some discussion, we decided to use the dead squirrel to show how our knapped pieces of glass could be used to dress a small animal. So, in the waning light of mid-afternoon, we went outside and filmed the author skinning the squirrel and removing its organs with flaked shards of glass. As I was not familiar with the process, never having watched or done it myself, I found it an interesting experience. There wasn't as much blood as you might expect, though I was a little bothered by the sight of the squirrel's guts sort of dangling from its esophagus and rectum when the author lifted the skinned corpse up.Later that day, as we packed up for the evening, the author's wife came back to the workshop with a plate bearing a small pile of little gray pieces of meat, cooked and glistening.
It was the squirrel, you see. She had butchered and fried it in a pan.
"Try some," said the author, smiling.
The gleam in his eye told me he was testing us to see if the citified boys from Colorado would actually chow down on roadkill squirrel. My production assistant and I shared a look. I shrugged, nodded, and picked one of the larger pieces. It was mostly bone, and a bit greasy, but not bad. The andouillette sausage I had eaten in Paris was much, much worse, consisting of stinking flaps of intestine and tripe. This was just little bits of rodent meat.
I didn't suffer any ill effects (that I know of), and the rest of the shoot went swimmingly. I would probably eat squirrel again if offered, though I have no plans to make it a frequent meal unless circumstances require it.
December 18, 2015
Friday Links: Jeruzalem, Satan's Blade, and Yuletide Yog-Sothoth
The last Friday Links before Christmas! Yip yip yahoo! So, what's been happening in the world of the bizarre, the strange, and horrific?
A demonic apocalypse film called Jeruzalem released a trailer that's worth a look.At his Confessions of a Reviewer!! , Nev Murray has been thrilling us all week with his Top Five lists of best books he's read this year. Start at the bottom and get clicking. You might recognize a title or two, and if you don't, then you know what you should add to your reading list! Fascination With Fear told us about three Christmas monsters that aren't Krampus: "It isn’t surprising to see Japan at the top of the list, as their folktales are equal if not more terrifying than the Germans’. Namahage are demonic ogres that dwell high up in the mountains—how they have come to live there varies by region. All year long they watch each household in the village and monitor the children’s behavior, keeping notes in a little book."The 2006 remake of the movie Black Christmas came up From the Depths of DVD Hell : "Yet another remake while one which chooses to tackle Bob Clark’s 1974 original which as I covered in my review of the original was also one of the first slasher and one which would have a much more subtle tone than the slashers which followed in its wake."Monster Times Issue #30 from February 1974 fell out of Zombos' Closet : "Issue 30 of The Monster Times gives Long Island a bad rap by providing way too much coverage on The Horror of Party Beach, annoys comic book fans with an assessment of The World's Worst Comics, and goes ape over John Landis's Schlock."
Zombots
has a brilliant article on Jewish mythology in movie and television horror: "I didn't cover the golem in my rundown of Jewish "monsters," largely because it's the most well-known creature of Jewish myth. For that reason, the golem often appears in Jewish-inspired genre fictions. The X-Files, of course, has a golem episode (season 4, episode 15: Kaddish). The last name of the Jewish family who play a central role in this episode is Luria. It bears mentioning that Issac Luria, who was a 16th century Jewish mystic, features in a number of Jewish folktales in which the rebbe deals with the supernatural. The Luria family in the X-Files and their use of a golem suggest that someone at work on the show had at least a passing familiarity with Kabbalah."
Breakfast in the Ruins
picked up another striking novel: Gideon's Ride by John Creasey.At Sean Eaton's always-brilliant
R'lyeh Tribune
, guest blogger John L. Steadman talked about The Dunwich Horror and the Christmas season: "The Christian mythographers, for various reasons, have shown interest in Yog-Sothoth. The most prominent of these myth makers and the most representative, Robert M. Price, in Biblical Bits in Lovecraft (2013), imposes a Christian interpretation on Lovecraft’s great tale, The Dunwich Horror (1928). This tale develops the interesting idea of sexual congress between the Great Old Ones and human consorts. In the story, Wilbur Whateley’s grandfather evokes Yog-Sothoth on the top of Sentinel Hill on Candlemas evening, 1913, and afterwards, Yog-Sothoth couples with Lavinia Whateley, a deformed albino woman."Of course, no self-respecting horror fan would do Christmas without another look at Silent Night, Deadly Night.
The Dwrayger Dungeon
does it right.The 1984 slasher flick Satan's Blade was the subject of an interesting post at
Chuck Norris Ate My Baby
: "On the surface, Satan’s Blade is a terrible slasher film. It’s not particularly well made, sharing more in common with a public access show than something like Halloween or Black Christmas. The performances, while being consistent, are amateurish and best comparable to that of an eighth-grade school play. And even the story – which focuses on two groups of vacationers being stalked and slashed by a guy who, as it turns out, is possessed by the spirit of a killer mountain man wielding the titular blade – is somehow convoluted, despite being so simple."
Here
, I celebrated my brief status as #1 and told you about my five favorite horror books of 2015.Illustration by Nick Smith for Call of Cthulhu's Cthulhu Casebook supplement.
A demonic apocalypse film called Jeruzalem released a trailer that's worth a look.At his Confessions of a Reviewer!! , Nev Murray has been thrilling us all week with his Top Five lists of best books he's read this year. Start at the bottom and get clicking. You might recognize a title or two, and if you don't, then you know what you should add to your reading list! Fascination With Fear told us about three Christmas monsters that aren't Krampus: "It isn’t surprising to see Japan at the top of the list, as their folktales are equal if not more terrifying than the Germans’. Namahage are demonic ogres that dwell high up in the mountains—how they have come to live there varies by region. All year long they watch each household in the village and monitor the children’s behavior, keeping notes in a little book."The 2006 remake of the movie Black Christmas came up From the Depths of DVD Hell : "Yet another remake while one which chooses to tackle Bob Clark’s 1974 original which as I covered in my review of the original was also one of the first slasher and one which would have a much more subtle tone than the slashers which followed in its wake."Monster Times Issue #30 from February 1974 fell out of Zombos' Closet : "Issue 30 of The Monster Times gives Long Island a bad rap by providing way too much coverage on The Horror of Party Beach, annoys comic book fans with an assessment of The World's Worst Comics, and goes ape over John Landis's Schlock."
Zombots
has a brilliant article on Jewish mythology in movie and television horror: "I didn't cover the golem in my rundown of Jewish "monsters," largely because it's the most well-known creature of Jewish myth. For that reason, the golem often appears in Jewish-inspired genre fictions. The X-Files, of course, has a golem episode (season 4, episode 15: Kaddish). The last name of the Jewish family who play a central role in this episode is Luria. It bears mentioning that Issac Luria, who was a 16th century Jewish mystic, features in a number of Jewish folktales in which the rebbe deals with the supernatural. The Luria family in the X-Files and their use of a golem suggest that someone at work on the show had at least a passing familiarity with Kabbalah."
Breakfast in the Ruins
picked up another striking novel: Gideon's Ride by John Creasey.At Sean Eaton's always-brilliant
R'lyeh Tribune
, guest blogger John L. Steadman talked about The Dunwich Horror and the Christmas season: "The Christian mythographers, for various reasons, have shown interest in Yog-Sothoth. The most prominent of these myth makers and the most representative, Robert M. Price, in Biblical Bits in Lovecraft (2013), imposes a Christian interpretation on Lovecraft’s great tale, The Dunwich Horror (1928). This tale develops the interesting idea of sexual congress between the Great Old Ones and human consorts. In the story, Wilbur Whateley’s grandfather evokes Yog-Sothoth on the top of Sentinel Hill on Candlemas evening, 1913, and afterwards, Yog-Sothoth couples with Lavinia Whateley, a deformed albino woman."Of course, no self-respecting horror fan would do Christmas without another look at Silent Night, Deadly Night.
The Dwrayger Dungeon
does it right.The 1984 slasher flick Satan's Blade was the subject of an interesting post at
Chuck Norris Ate My Baby
: "On the surface, Satan’s Blade is a terrible slasher film. It’s not particularly well made, sharing more in common with a public access show than something like Halloween or Black Christmas. The performances, while being consistent, are amateurish and best comparable to that of an eighth-grade school play. And even the story – which focuses on two groups of vacationers being stalked and slashed by a guy who, as it turns out, is possessed by the spirit of a killer mountain man wielding the titular blade – is somehow convoluted, despite being so simple."
Here
, I celebrated my brief status as #1 and told you about my five favorite horror books of 2015.Illustration by Nick Smith for Call of Cthulhu's Cthulhu Casebook supplement.
December 16, 2015
My Top Five Horror Books of the Year
I had sent my list of top five favorite horror books of 2015 to Ginger Nuts of Horror before learning that the site's owner had kicked me out, so rather than let it languish unpublished, I am presenting this list here.
I read a lot, and not just in the horror genre. History, literary fiction, science fiction, politics, current events: they all go into my brain's mill to be ground into thought-flour, and...um...
Well, maybe that metaphor doesn't work so well. Anyhow, here are my top five horror books of the year:
5)
My Early Crimes
by Paolo Di Orazio: This anthology of stories about children and murder was uniquely horrifying, both for the subject matter and the skill the author displayed at telling each tale. Every story worked on some level, making the reading experience a long, agonizing squirm. As the father of a little boy, I found the author’s ability to put the reader into the minds of disturbed and victimized children particularly disquieting.4)
Joe Coffin: Season One
by Ken Preston: If you think you’re vampired out after reading the classics, Joe Coffin is a breath of fresh, coppery air. Each character had depth, making you care about even the most worthless ones (Tom in particular): they read as real as you or me. Everything everyone did had an effect on the plot and the other characters, adding complexity to a story about a vampire outbreak in Birmingham, England.3)
The Scarlet Gospels
by Clive Barker: While I wrote long paragraphs of criticism about this novel, I still very much enjoyed it; a notion that might have gotten lost in the flurry of mediocre reviews it received. Barker took a movie figure we all knew and loved, reclaimed him, and gave him a history and homeland all his own. The Hell of The Scarlet Gospels really wasHell, and not just some nightmarish dimension. I hope and pray we’ll see more stories about Harry D’Amour, the dead, and the vastly changed world Barker created in future works.2)
Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet
by Adam Howe: Three novellas, three visions of hard-boiled horror. The less said about the title story the better: read it with a fresh eye and you’ll thank me later…once you stop ralphing. Gator Baitreally puts you into the setting, making you dirty and sweaty and hoping against hope everything will turn out all right. Damn Dirty Apes is absolutely hysterical, with lines you’ll repeat to yourself later and laugh about when nobody’s around. Howe knows his pacing, keeping you on the edge of your seat the whole read through.1)
Stuck on You and Other Prime Cuts
by Jasper Bark: Not since reading Clive Barker’s Books of Blood in the late 1980’s have I found a short story collection that’s as fresh, horrifying, and consistently imaginative as Jasper Bark’s work. They say that the greatest torturers are the most empathetic, and Bark proves this: he knows people inside and out, and is able to describe humanity’s pathos and absurdity with equal expertise. These are stories that will stay with you for a long time...perhaps forever.I'm looking forward to 2016's crop of books!
I read a lot, and not just in the horror genre. History, literary fiction, science fiction, politics, current events: they all go into my brain's mill to be ground into thought-flour, and...um...
Well, maybe that metaphor doesn't work so well. Anyhow, here are my top five horror books of the year:
5)
My Early Crimes
by Paolo Di Orazio: This anthology of stories about children and murder was uniquely horrifying, both for the subject matter and the skill the author displayed at telling each tale. Every story worked on some level, making the reading experience a long, agonizing squirm. As the father of a little boy, I found the author’s ability to put the reader into the minds of disturbed and victimized children particularly disquieting.4)
Joe Coffin: Season One
by Ken Preston: If you think you’re vampired out after reading the classics, Joe Coffin is a breath of fresh, coppery air. Each character had depth, making you care about even the most worthless ones (Tom in particular): they read as real as you or me. Everything everyone did had an effect on the plot and the other characters, adding complexity to a story about a vampire outbreak in Birmingham, England.3)
The Scarlet Gospels
by Clive Barker: While I wrote long paragraphs of criticism about this novel, I still very much enjoyed it; a notion that might have gotten lost in the flurry of mediocre reviews it received. Barker took a movie figure we all knew and loved, reclaimed him, and gave him a history and homeland all his own. The Hell of The Scarlet Gospels really wasHell, and not just some nightmarish dimension. I hope and pray we’ll see more stories about Harry D’Amour, the dead, and the vastly changed world Barker created in future works.2)
Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet
by Adam Howe: Three novellas, three visions of hard-boiled horror. The less said about the title story the better: read it with a fresh eye and you’ll thank me later…once you stop ralphing. Gator Baitreally puts you into the setting, making you dirty and sweaty and hoping against hope everything will turn out all right. Damn Dirty Apes is absolutely hysterical, with lines you’ll repeat to yourself later and laugh about when nobody’s around. Howe knows his pacing, keeping you on the edge of your seat the whole read through.1)
Stuck on You and Other Prime Cuts
by Jasper Bark: Not since reading Clive Barker’s Books of Blood in the late 1980’s have I found a short story collection that’s as fresh, horrifying, and consistently imaginative as Jasper Bark’s work. They say that the greatest torturers are the most empathetic, and Bark proves this: he knows people inside and out, and is able to describe humanity’s pathos and absurdity with equal expertise. These are stories that will stay with you for a long time...perhaps forever.I'm looking forward to 2016's crop of books!
December 14, 2015
WE'RE NUMBER ONE!
I spent part of last week and the weekend up north visiting family. Travel, especially with a small child, can be exhausting, so Sunday night after my son went to bed and we were able to relax for a bit, I thought to check how the
Get the Greek
Hanukkah giveaway did.
Getting to #1 in Kindle Short Reads for the Humor and Entertainment category isn't so bad, even if it was in the Free section. And #7 in the Religion and Spirituality category! I'll take lucky seven.
Here's another photo:
Yes, it's a free book, and there's nothing easier than giving away free e-books. People often collect free e-books and never read them. Still, I'm pleased with how well the giveaway did, especially for the money I put into marketing it ($0.00).
So yay me, and thanks to everyone who liked, shared, plus oned, tweeted, re-tweeted, Instagrammed, MySpaced, Tindered, and generally word-of-mouthed my humble effort. It's very much appreciated.
Getting to #1 in Kindle Short Reads for the Humor and Entertainment category isn't so bad, even if it was in the Free section. And #7 in the Religion and Spirituality category! I'll take lucky seven.Here's another photo:
Yes, it's a free book, and there's nothing easier than giving away free e-books. People often collect free e-books and never read them. Still, I'm pleased with how well the giveaway did, especially for the money I put into marketing it ($0.00). So yay me, and thanks to everyone who liked, shared, plus oned, tweeted, re-tweeted, Instagrammed, MySpaced, Tindered, and generally word-of-mouthed my humble effort. It's very much appreciated.
December 9, 2015
Free Kindle Single!
It's Hanukkah, and to celebrate, I'm offering my Kindle Single
Get the Greek: A Chrismukkah Tale
free until Sunday!
A comic mashup of Christmas, Hanukkah, and the commercialization of the holiday season, it's the perfect tale to get you in the spirit of...of whatever winter holiday you celebrate!
Pick up your copy today, and tell a friend!
A comic mashup of Christmas, Hanukkah, and the commercialization of the holiday season, it's the perfect tale to get you in the spirit of...of whatever winter holiday you celebrate!
Pick up your copy today, and tell a friend!
December 7, 2015
Great News!
The Beyond Lovecraft Indiegogo campaign has reached its funding goals!
It was touch and go for a while there, but we did it. Thanks to everyone who invested, shared, linked, and liked the campaign's efforts.
In other news, it turns out that I'm no longer associated with the website Ginger Nuts of Horror.
If the construction of that sentence seems awkward, it's because I learned about my ouster from the site in an awkward fashion. Without communicating with me in any way, the site's owner, Jim Mcleod, unfriended me on Facebook, removed me from the Ginger Nuts Reviewer's Group, and deleted my account on the Ginger Nuts forums. I haven't exchanged a cross word with him or anyone on the Ginger Nuts team and have worked hard to promote the site in my free time, in addition to spending many, many unpaid hours reading and reviewing books for Ginger Nuts of Horror. Hence, this quiet "unpersoning" is baffling.
My courteous request for an explanation has gone unanswered.
At the time of this writing, my name and biography are still on the team page.
Here are some sample objections to this news, to get them out of the way:
"Jim kicked you out because you're a ___________." Fair enough, though it would have been brave and professional for him to have told me so."Jim kicked you out because you did ___________." Fair enough, though it would have been brave and professional for him to have told me so."Jim kicked you out because you didn't ___________." Fair enough, though it would have been brave and professional for him to have told me so."Jim's a man of great integrity!" Good for you; you've had a different experience from me. It's these experiences that make us individuals."It's Jim's site; he can do whatever he wants with it." Absolutely. Barring any significant updates on this front, it's the last I'll discuss it here.
It was touch and go for a while there, but we did it. Thanks to everyone who invested, shared, linked, and liked the campaign's efforts.
In other news, it turns out that I'm no longer associated with the website Ginger Nuts of Horror.
If the construction of that sentence seems awkward, it's because I learned about my ouster from the site in an awkward fashion. Without communicating with me in any way, the site's owner, Jim Mcleod, unfriended me on Facebook, removed me from the Ginger Nuts Reviewer's Group, and deleted my account on the Ginger Nuts forums. I haven't exchanged a cross word with him or anyone on the Ginger Nuts team and have worked hard to promote the site in my free time, in addition to spending many, many unpaid hours reading and reviewing books for Ginger Nuts of Horror. Hence, this quiet "unpersoning" is baffling.
My courteous request for an explanation has gone unanswered.
At the time of this writing, my name and biography are still on the team page.
Here are some sample objections to this news, to get them out of the way:
"Jim kicked you out because you're a ___________." Fair enough, though it would have been brave and professional for him to have told me so."Jim kicked you out because you did ___________." Fair enough, though it would have been brave and professional for him to have told me so."Jim kicked you out because you didn't ___________." Fair enough, though it would have been brave and professional for him to have told me so."Jim's a man of great integrity!" Good for you; you've had a different experience from me. It's these experiences that make us individuals."It's Jim's site; he can do whatever he wants with it." Absolutely. Barring any significant updates on this front, it's the last I'll discuss it here.
December 4, 2015
Beyond Lovecraft: Less Than One Day Left!
The picture says it all, folks:
This is it: the last push. It's not too late to invest in the Beyond Lovecraft Indiegogo campaign and become part of something extraordinary, something original, something made just for you that will have your name on it.
I've talked before about my experience with author Jasper Bark and artist Rob Moran: see for yourself why I'm such a fan of both of these skilled men. Beyond Lovecraft, a love letter to the Cthulhu Mythos, promises to be a true work of art, a book you'll look through again and again.
Art, true art, doesn't come cheap. Remember when the special effects company behind the film Life of Pi went bankrupt despite winning an Academy Award? Our convenience-based culture is moving away from appreciating the skill and work and agony behind every piece of treasured artwork, whether it's a book, a painting, a vase, or even a graphic novel, and when we lose that, we lose artists. Artistic success is becoming a crapshoot, a function of blind luck leading to viral popularity. We can and should push back against that, and one way is by supporting independent content creators and their projects. Here is a great place to start.
Give yourself or a friend an early Christmas (or Hanukkah) present and invest in Beyond Lovecraft .
This is it: the last push. It's not too late to invest in the Beyond Lovecraft Indiegogo campaign and become part of something extraordinary, something original, something made just for you that will have your name on it.
I've talked before about my experience with author Jasper Bark and artist Rob Moran: see for yourself why I'm such a fan of both of these skilled men. Beyond Lovecraft, a love letter to the Cthulhu Mythos, promises to be a true work of art, a book you'll look through again and again.
Art, true art, doesn't come cheap. Remember when the special effects company behind the film Life of Pi went bankrupt despite winning an Academy Award? Our convenience-based culture is moving away from appreciating the skill and work and agony behind every piece of treasured artwork, whether it's a book, a painting, a vase, or even a graphic novel, and when we lose that, we lose artists. Artistic success is becoming a crapshoot, a function of blind luck leading to viral popularity. We can and should push back against that, and one way is by supporting independent content creators and their projects. Here is a great place to start.
Give yourself or a friend an early Christmas (or Hanukkah) present and invest in Beyond Lovecraft .
