“Don’t interrupt me while I’m soliloquizing.”

176. Bride of Satan – William Schoell

Hoo boy did this take a long time to get going. I get that the whole idea is a demon appearing over time in different places and no one could put the pieces together until Brian met up with these plucky, determined journalists in the 1980s, but I really would have liked it if the very beginning and the very end were closer together. A lot closer. Also, maybe that origin story could have been longer and the middle stories shorter because the origins of said demon were a little more important to be explained than via a monologue close to the end. It had so much potential.

I love the cover of this one, it’s got a skeleton dressed as a nun with an axe and a very classic horror title, you can’t get more 1980s awesome horror than that. But, even with gruesome murders and poor New York theater people and Hollywood movie making intrigue and cool sounding makeup FX artistry, it was slow for hundreds of pages. If you are willing to wade through Hollywood sagas, it’s pretty cool at the end, but I can’t help thinking that the end could have been more of the book. Like way more. I’m sure the plucky journalists could have had something else to work on to get them to Brian, a haunted train car, and the evil nun castle next to the girls’ school. Like maybe they could have been local? I should not rewrite books from 1986.

 

Thorfinnur has listened to my editing suggestions in several contexts and he likes all of them. That’s my boar.