Daniel I. Russell's Blog, page 9

A Gathering of Crows by Brian Keene

More Keenedom. Getting through the Keene backlist is easy enough, with the pace being what they are. I was going for a weekend away to Busselton and just grabbed a book on the way out. In hindsight, I would have chosen another Keene book, perhaps Ghost Walk or Dead Hollow, as there is a chronological progression with one of the main characters of Gathering, which I would have liked to have followed.

But nothing I could have done about that, right?

A Gathering of Crows has a very simple premise. The town of Brinkley Springs is a down and out, one road town that is slowly dying as people head for more lucrative places to live. Returning there is Donny, an Iraq-vet who is all set to leave again following the death of his mother, his reason for coming back. A confrontation with his ex0girlfriend, who attempted suicide the first time he left, interferes with his plan to get out of Dodge. Alongside this, consider a giant soul cage that has descended on the town, meaning no one can get in or out. Plus, five crows, which are in fact shape shifting men in black with a murderous appetite, have descended on the town and intend to make mincemeat out of every resident. The town's only hope is Levi, an ex-Amish man who dabbles in the occult. Perhaps it was an act of God to have him in town at that moment. But with Levi unsure what these entities are, and as the bodies pile up, Brinkley Springs is fast running out of time before it dies for real.

Basically, Keene has this small group of killers having a night of fun in this deadend town, and manages to effortlessly fill a book of about 80, 000 words. Not a bad feat, as it never feels drawn out or forced.

I adore books where the population of a town is massacred in a million different ways. Gathering is no disappointment (and it broke a wry chuckle to see spliced version of mutual buds SD Hintz and Jerrod Balzer be killed off via frozen slabs of meat). While the deaths are varied and very, very often, the Keene nasty streak - as displayed in Castaways and Urban Gothic - seems to be restrained in Gathering. This would make it be the prefect starter book for new readers to Keene, or for those who like their horror, but not too much visceral details. Don't get me wrong, guts will hit the floor and hearts are ripped from chest cavities, but we have no torture or raping. It's a case of wham, bam thank you mam. Right. Who's next?

Levi, of course, is a stand out character and as Keene says in his afterword, has become a fan favourite. Imagine the Amish fella from Diary of the Dead...but not deaf and with occult powers! Okay, he isn't as fleshed out in indepth as you would want in a lead character, but as I said at the outset, I believe this ground work has been done in earlier books. Still, you fell for the guy and want him to succeed.

A Gathering of Crows is yet another Keene book with eclectic pace that whips by and reaches its conclusion before you know it. As for Levi, I do want to read more on him and am glad I have two other books that feature him on my shelf and ready to go. A great read.

The small press on the high street anyone?

We're back in good ol' Western Australia for the next stop on the Samhane blog tour. Nothing like coming home after a long trip around the world, right?

Perth is the scene for today. A wonderful, modern city with Asian influences. I love it. Very clean. Besides raging in a clothes shop (HULK SMASH!), my baby son making his first gay friend (cashier in said clothes shop), McDonald whores and a $25 Yoda Lightsaber - don't you wish you came shopping with me? - there was something more important to be taken care of: writing research.

I looked into high street stores and surveyed the state of horror small press. Big thank you to Australian horror God (and official ninja) Shane Jiraiya Cummings for having my rant on his page HERE!

DWELLER by Jeff Strand

Followers of my reviews will know that I have loved Jeff's previous books, Pressure and Benjamin's Parasite. Dweller, it seemed to me, had a lot more hype than the other books, perhaps by riding on the waves made by Pressure.

The books starts with a massacre: some holidaying soldiers during WW2 are attacked by large, hairy, fanged, clawed creatures. Skip to the 50s. Toby is a geeky kid who is being tormented by two particularly nasty bullies at school. Seeking comfort in the deep woods that surround his house, Toby stumbles across a large, hairy, fanged, clawed beast living in a small cage. His first reaction? To run screaming, of course. Years later, and as an even more bullied teenager, Toby finds the monster again. This time, in a more controlled confrontation, Toby learns that the monster isn't a feral, rabid beast after all…it can be his friend.

So starts a friendship that lasts decades between loner Toby and the creature he calls Owen.

As with Pressure, Jeff takes us on the journey of a lifetime, and we see how events of the past can heavily change and warp the future for the poor protagonist. We have a very sympathetic lead character in Toby. You can see his inner torment, and as a reader, you get dragged into his decisions. Okay, at times things seemed a little forced to get to an action scene or bump up the tension, such as Toby making some truly awful and moronic decisions. At the time of reading, I was thinking about the level of believability. Seriously, I was asking the book what the fuck are you thinking, Tobes? However, the more you think about it, the more his ill-informed decisions fit the plot. He's socially inept, not overly bright, and going through a conflict of emotions. Is he really going to do the right thing? Seeing him make the wrong choice, and then watching his world collapse around him, rather than frustrating gets you invested in his fate.

Enough about Toby. What about Owen? I couldn't help but picture Owen as Wildmutt from Ben 10 as I was reading this novel. Don't know why. Anyway, Owen is a surprising character. He could have been treated like a big dog, but Strand gives him just above ape-like intelligence, granting him some basic communication. This cements the relationship between Toby and Owen further.

The side characters are adequately fleshed out and are a good support. But they aren't the key players here. It's all about Toby and his monster.

The gore is not excessive (well, as much as you'd expect with a monster eating people. Nom nom nom!) and just on the money. Pacing is great, and there's a few twists and turns.

I think that people who read this as their first taste of Strand's work will lap it up. Personally, while I enjoyed this book, I preferred Pressure…but that might be that I read it first. Strand has shocks a plenty, but after Pressure, I couldn't trust him, and was watching for these awful, awful shock scenes early. Pressure is the nastier novel, but Dweller focuses more on relationships and friendships. It depends how you like your horror served.

Hell, just buy both. And Benjamin's Parasite. And anything else of Jeff's. Period.

Samhane full wraparound cover revealed

"Russell's debut novel SAMHANE really packs a punch. A thrill ride of visceral horror and suspense that steadily builds to a very satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed the hell out of it!"

Gord Rollo, Author of Valley Of The Scarecrow and The Jigsaw Man



"My oh my does it get wet within these pages, dear friends." Shroud Magazine.



"Horror lovers rejoice--you're about to be scared...or scarred. Russell's well-crafted nightmares will haunt you long after you've closed the pages of Samhane!" Fran Friel, Bram Stoker Finalist-MAMA'S BOY AND OTHER DARK TALES



Samhane is available on pre-order from Stygian Publications . All copies sold in December places readers in a draw to win an ultra-rare signed copy of Festive Fear Global Edition or a signed Necrotic Tissue #12. See older posts for more details.



Now. wouldn't that look good on your shelf? ><

JOYRIDE by Jack Ketchum

I'm going to be honest in the reasoning in my reasons for buying Jack Ketchum's Joyride. My cheapness in pages per dollar came into my decision not to buy the very short novella, Weed Species. Looking at the cover and seeing these epically evil plants (and I love my plant based horror, apart from the horrendously frustrating Garden of Evil by Edmund Le Plante – which I hope is a pseudonym!) it was hard to resist.

But along comes Leisure who have released an impressive catalogue of Ketchum's work, and give us Weed Species as a bonus story with the novel Joyride. At the usual low low prices, I certainly couldn't resist this time! Let's look at the main novel first.

Carole is a nice enough, slightly posh woman who has been driven to hell and back by her abusive ex-husband. He really did a number on her with beatings, rape, etc. Now she's with Lee, and the two are moderately happy together…apart that the ex-husband still pops around now and then for threats, harassment and the odd rape. The police haven't done a thing, so the couple decide to indulge in some vigilante action, involving a seldom used hiking trail and a baseball bat.

Enter Wayne. Wayne is your town nutjob. In his twenties and working bar, he has a deep seeded resentment for basically everyone and a secret obsession with murder. After a failed romantic walk with his girlfriend, he takes a minute to rest, overlooking the trail.

This is where Wayne sees something he wasn't supposed to see.

Now Wayne wants to be their best friend and share in the thrill of murder. Carole and Lee aren't so keen, but how can you argue with a mad man?

Ketchum, as usual, hits the road running and never lets up. The novel slips by and you don't even feel it going in. Ketchum just has this pace and sharp edge to his words that few can compare with. He keeps the plot rooted in reality, with absolutely no supernatural element whatsoever. The subject of a man who finally gives into his bloodlust in such an explosive way, while some may see this as Ketchum simply ticking his own extreme violence box, is gritty and actually, close to real life events.

It was an interesting read, as at the time of finishing, I thought it was quite a shallow read. Ketchum in third gear, Ketchum providing the cheap thrills, but with a paler moral stance than say The Girl Next Door. Only a few days after it did I start to think about it. Yes, murdering random strangers is bad, but it raises questions such as is the murder of a bad person make it acceptable? Does an ignorant society breed psychopaths?

Ketchum also has the stereotypical cop hot on the trail, but with a few atypical character flaws. A decent subplot.

Onto Weed Species. Now, the mistake I'd made (as I believe others had in the past) was that this was a story about plants. How very wrong.

A very different couple from Joyride, Sherry and Owen are serial rapists, and murderers when the situation demands it. Weed Species follows them over many years, revealing their exploits, the repercussions and how their presence affects the community (like a weed species. No plants).

This is the most rape-tastic story I have ever read. It reminded me of that famous scene from Dusk til Dawn. We got rape! We got date rape! We got anal rape! You like oral rape? We got oral rape! How about some anal rape followed by oral rape? We got lesbian rape! We got incest rape! We kinky rape! We got torturous rape!

Lots of raping. Be interesting to see what percentage of the page count doesn't have any raping.

Ketchum really lets his hair down here on the pure gross out and explicit details. Funnily enough, just before reading this, I discussed in interviews how the first draft of Samhane was more extreme. However, Weed Species certainly would have aced it in the full-on rape stakes. Seriously, I cannot warn you enough, if you have a nervous disposition regarding rape, do not read this story. I've seen readers say they're ashamed to own this book.

Is it any good? It was okay, I guess.

I prefer other Ketchum titles, but this was still a good, fast read, but definitely not for everyone.

Tomorrow comes the review for Jeff Strand's DWELLER.

Win a rare antho featuring Piccirilli, Kane, Curran, Burke...

Been a very busy week, especially with the academic year coming to an end. We also got stuck in Busselton last weekend. Now, I've had my car break down in worse places. It was hot and sunny, there was MOTORFEST 2010 over the road, and at the 'fest was a cheap bar. We certainly made the most of these things while waiting to be rescued.

So what's happened since? Samhane promotion has continued, and my contributor copies of Festive Fear Global Edition arrived. Have to say, I was very, very impressed by the quality of these books. Stephen Clarke at Tasmaniac Publications once again shows how good he is, and the pride he takes in his products.

So, I thought, why not combine this week's events?

CHRISTMAS DRAW

Festive Fear Global Edition has been released. This festive favourite features stories by Tom Piccirilli, Paul Kane, Tim Curran, Kealan Patrick Burke, me and others. Unfortunately, this was a pre-release sell out, so the anthology is hard to get hold of. Should be a worthy addition to any horror collection.

For a chance to win a limited edition, numbered and signed (just by me) read on...

As this is the festive season, and Christmas is all about mass consumerism, every copy of Samhane bought from Stygian Publications or if you're a German reader, Voodoo Press puts you in the running to win an ultra rare Festive Fear Global Edition. That's one for both...erm...languages. A runner up for each will also win a signed copy of Necrotic Tissue #12. All you have to do is buy a copy from the above places to enter the draw.

"My oh my does it get wet within these pages, dear friends." Shroud Magazine.

"Horror lovers rejoice--you're about to be scared...or scarred. Russell's well-crafted nightmares will haunt you long after you've closed the pages of Samhane!" Fran Friel, Bram Stoker Finalist-MAMA'S BOY AND OTHER DARK TALES

Winners will be selected at random by the head editors at each publisher. Winners drawn on January 1st 2011.

Gewinnspiel:
Jeder, der von jetzt an bis zum 31. Dezember 2010 Samhane bei uns im
Onlineshop bestellt, hat die Chance eine von Daniel I. Russell signierte
Anthologie Festive Fear Global Edition (limitiert auf 200 Exemplare !)
zu gewinnen. Der zweite Platz erhält eine original von Daniel I. Russell
... signierte Ausgabe von Necrotic Tissue... #12. Anmerkung: Beide Ausgaben sind in Englisch.Viel Glück!


BLOG TOUR CONTINUES

Yes, the trips are slower now, but I aim to press on and arrive back in Australia next week. In the meantime, I'm still in Canada, at the humble abode of Louise Bohmer, author of The Black Act.

Jesus, Bohmer! How many rats you got? At first I thought your carpet was moving! (Might be an affect of those berries the satyr had me eat on the walk over here)

Anyway, Louise asked my opinion on what writers (especially those just starting out) should look for - or avoid, as the case may be - in a publisher. So check out the article here . Don't I sound all pessimistic?

Work calleth. Be sure to order your copy of Samhane, and I'll see you next week.

Samhane, Festive Fear and Ghost Writer Publications

*Author note: I must apologise to those with bad eye sight. No matter what I do to change the font size, blogger is making it small when I publish. You might have to use your inbuilt zoom function (ie, move closer to the screen).

The school reports have been written (but I could've tried harder and shown more determination) and after I spend this weekend marking chemistry coursework, I'm pretty much done for the year. Two weeks of fun projects and a couple of days on the dvd wagon and I'm finished.

Might be able to consider myself a writer again.

On the writing front, SAMHANE is now on preorder. Thank you to those who have got in early and already ordered their copies.

We received a very nice review from SHROUD MAGAZINE :

Samhane: the Gaelic festival celebrating the end of summer and the harvest, most often associated in modern times with Halloween. Or an unnoticed little burb that has been slowly descending into total batshitville for the past couple centuries.

We are gifted here with the twin tales of Donald, a fledgling writer whose new-used laptop holds a file that drags him off the grid into an underground organization specializing in torture for the amusement of paid subscribers, and Brian, a professional monster hunter who has found that the simple ghoul squishing he has been hired to do is a bit more…complicated. Now, Donald's wife and best friend have been brutally murdered and Brian's son, his only real reason for living, has been carried off by the world's filthiest clown.

Most people are satisfied with sticking to one type of monster, be it vampire, werewolf or centuries old mummified cucumber, but Daniel I. Russell is definitely not most people. Within the first quarter of the book, you see a serial killer, a forest ghoul, what may be a were-blob and a giant centipede, and that is before you get to meet the evils of a corporation, genetic engineering, biomechanics and a bad ass iridescent god of chaos. This variety works against the story as much as for it early on, with a first half that feels too fractured to be part of a coherent whole. But, if you stick it out, Danny boy brings it all together into a neatly sutured beast that satisfies quite nicely.

I'm particularly impressed with his ability and willingness to walk the line of acceptability. Without diving face first into full Hardcore mode, Russell does away with the usual expected sense of safety. No character, no matter how nice or seemingly important is completely safe, but the bleeding isn't egregious. Also, as much as he does love the ultraviolence and gore (my, oh my does it get wet within these pages, dear friends), he also shows a remarkable amount of restraint and willingness to allow implication to work on its own. It's a tricky balancing act that he pulls off with panache.

Speaking of implications, there is something in the ending that goes completely unspoken but carries marvelously chilling possibilities. I can't say it. Musn't say it. To speak such things would ruin…

I'll shut up right now before I do.

The original review can be found here .

If the review has tickled your fancy, feel free to click here for purchasing information.

In other book news, Festive Fear Global Edition is currently in the mail, ready to provide some...well, festive fear ready for Christmas! Again, if you snoozed you losed (appalling word use for a writer, yes?) as these babies are now very hard to come by and have sold out.

The world blog tour has me stuck in Canada. The itinerary seems to have gone out the window, probably due to my current teacher workload. But it shall continue! This weekend shall be spent writing up a blog to help writers choose a publisher. You don't want to pick a dodgy set up, and there's ways to spot an arsehole.

And speaking of arseholes, it's good to see that more and more writers are leaving the doomed Ghost Writer Publications.

For those who don't know my brief stint with NJ and his publishing house, I followed a few good writers and submitted to Ghost Writer Publications in the very early days (hell, I was even still living in the UK). GWP was due to rerelease my thriller-novella Shutterbug in print, and they also wanted a monster themed story at around 12k words. A cover for Shutterbug was drawn up, including a blurb from horror legend Guy N. Smith, which was, of course, made up by Mr. Jackson. I then saw more and more writer's books being pushed ahead of mine. While incredibly frustrating, I had to agree with the logic (and that was very, very wrong). I also saw release dates being missed by months and other writers leaving.

GWP had my short story, which had now reached 14K. I was asked to cut it down to around 2K and still keep everything in, as 14K was 'unpublishable'. This would be like packing the entire plot of a 2 hour movie into a few minutes. I obviously said that no, this couldn't be done. A few more short stories of mine were read and another selected. Again the request came to chop it down to 2K. Reasoning was that readers don't want characterisation, just action. We met halfway and the story, Belvedere's House, appeared in the anthology Creature Feature.

Or did it? I have no idea as I have never seen a copy. Nor a penny in royalties. Thankfully the story was a sneaky reprint that I'd already been paid for as it had appeared in Afterburn SF several years ago.

As for the unpublishable 14K story? Click here and check out issue 43. Yes, it IS the cover story!

So to those writers who have left GWP, join the club of disgruntled, yet relieved writers. If you haven't...

Blog tour date 5: Blame Canada!

After spending the day in temperatures of the high 90s, and once again regretting that I live on a steep hill during the walk home from work, it will be nice to visit some cooler climates.

Unfortunately, eager to hop on my trans-Pacific flight, I forgot to change. I attracted a wary glance from many lumberjacks, mounties and mooses (Meese? Moosi?) as I disembarked in thongs, a wifebeater and a hat with corks on it.

Having successfully stereotyped and insulted two nations in one small paragraph, I headed deeper into Canada (in my opinion the greatest US state). Things are to be expected here. The long cold. Rugged men. The French. It's a melting pot for the weird and violent.

So, on the verge of unconsciousness, exhausted, trudging though the snow with my penis trying to burrow back inside my body like a purple-headed tick, I stumbled to the door of the Man Eating Bookworm. Hmm. Giant worms? Sounds familiar...

The man Eating Bookworm, called Andrew, thankfully was a gallant chap, who invited me in to his warm abode. He had dvds by the million, all horror and (thank Christ) the right region. So we shoved in a copy of JAWS and had a chat over a can of Molston.

See what happened HERE!

Friday Night in Beast House by Richard Laymon

This book has been a bit of a bugbear for me in recent years. I ADORE the Beast House trilogy of The Cellar, The Beast House and the Midnight Tour. Friday Night in Beast House, rather than be the forth book in the series, can be considered as a bonus: a long short story that sits in with the ethos of the series.

My bugbear was that this was so overly priced for a book that was about 140 pages. As I've discussed with fellow avid reader Jim McLeod over at The Ginger Nuts of Horror, a certain dollar/page ratio needs to be considered when purchasing a book. Why spend the same money on a short novella that might last you a few hours when you can buy long, long novel for the same price? This was my issue with this book for a long time. As much as I wanted to buy it, the price could not justify a purchase.

I'm glad I held back, as Leisure have rereleased the book, and with a lower cover price and additional novella, this makes it a much more reasonable purchase. Am I cheap? No. I buy too many books to squander money on expensive editions!

We have Mark, a randy (this is Laymon) yet studious boy who wants to score a date with Alison. Alison readily agrees, but on one condition: he has to get them inside the Beast House at Midnight on Friday night. As readers will know, The Beast House is a chamber of horrors type attraction in Malcasa Point. Three books have added to the horror there of albino beasts that rip men apart and rape every female they come across. Will Mark rise to the occasion?

It has been many years since my last trip into the Beast House. I think I was still a teenager in fact. Dipping into this novella was like visiting a place you'd been to on holiday a long time ago. It was great to revisit the wax work exhibits, go into the cellar and even the Beast tunnels. However, you do not have to be a follower to enjoy this book. It stands on its own quite nicely.

The horror is surprisingly light. This is more a story of lucky breaks, chances taken and a boy trying to pass the time. It is a good, fast read, but most of the novella is concerned with Mark getting into, and staying inside, the Beast House undetected by the staff. The Metal Gear Solid of the Beast House books, if you will. Will there be beasts? It could go either way. They haven't been spotted since the 70s. But maybe...just maybe...

For those that read my reviews on a regular basis, you know how much I have mentioned Laymon's obsession with camping and the mountains. With the bonus novella, The Wilds, we follow a chap who is...camping in the mountains! A first person POV piece, told via diary entries, this is a nice change from Laymon's usual style, but still covers the traditional areas. It again is a super fast read. In fact, I read the entire book, cover to cover, in a single day. And that was on my 30th Birthday. Something to tell the grand kids.

So there we have it. A quick review for a quick book. Not his best book, but a nice addition.

Blog World Tour date 4: Ohio

After Shaun Jeffrey's warm hearth and cold beer, I've hopped on a rickety plane, crossed the pond and ended up in Ohio.

So what's the deal with Ohio? Here's some facts:

The first ambulance service was established in Cincinnati in 1865.
Cleveland boasts America's first traffic light. It began on Aug. 5, 1914.
Ermal Fraze invented the pop-top can in Kettering.
James J. Ritty, of Dayton, invented the cash register in 1879 to stop his patrons from pilfering house profits.

5. Ohio is the only state that has four letters and starts and ends with an O.

6. Ohio is blue and has a big face.


So, the fiendish will of Zandathru has spread to the States. Lots more people there, of course. While I'm here I will be staying with a delightful girl by the name of Rebecca Besser, who, while seems sweet and innocent on the outside, just wanted to talk about flying brains, preferred weapon choice and how I would want to die! I think something's wrong. Maybe the God of Chaos has already started to change people here? Send help HERE . I mean, look at some of the things she demanded!