Monsters of Horror Book Group (Hackensack) - 2015 Books Read Thread

[Phil]

This is the Thread for Books Read by the Monsters of Horror Book Group in 2015:


THE DEAD OF WINTER...................................Lee Collins.....................11/05/15
POD.............................................................Stephen Wallenfels.........10/01/15
YOU SUCK....................................................Christopher Moore...........09/03/15
THE DIRTY STREETS OF HEAVEN....................Tad Williams...................08/06/15
FROM A BUICK 8............................................Stephen King..................07/02/15
AM ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY..........Michael Chabon..............06/04/15
BLACKOUT....................................................Mira Grant......................05/07/15
VAMPIRE ACADEMY.......................................Richelle Mead.................04/02/15
BONE CROSSED.............................................Patricia Briggs.................02/15/15
DEAD EVER AFTER........................................Charlaine Harris...............01/01/15

[Phil]

The following accounts are reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2015 Philip J De Parto.


THE DEAD OF WINTER, Cora Oglesby 1
The novel is a weird Western featuring a monster-slaying female bounty hunter and her partner. The partner has a secret which none of us really bought, although how much it bothered us varied from reader to reader. Phil was able to enjoy the book for its unusual setting and its descriptions of the great outdoors. Others in the group were not as forgiving.

POD, Pod 1
This is a first novel and relates two tales of survival against an unusual alien invasion. One story is set in suburban Prosser, Washington and is related by Josh, who is trapped with his engineer father and dog, Dutch, in their house. The other is told by Megs, who is hiding with her cat, Cassie, in the parking garage connected to a Los Angeles hotel. Both narrators are teens.

The invasion begins when countless metallic spheres materialize in the atmosphere and vaporize every vehicle and every person who is outdoors when they arrive. Josh's tale is essentially a tale of man against nature as he and his father must husband their limited resources and maintain their sanity while trapped inside their home. Megs has a much larger area in which to operate, but hotel employees construct a Darwinian society which makes LORD OF THE FLIES look like a study in human compassion. The aliens hang around a month, perform some inexplicable activities, and then depart, having wiped out about 99% of the world's population. The book was okay, but the group showed no great eagerness to dive into the forthcoming sequel.

YOU SUCK, Love Story 2
The eclectic cast of characters from BLOODSUCKING FIENDS return, but most of them are not as interesting the second time around. Fortunately, Moore introduces some new ones like Chet the huge ("a crossbreed between a Persian, a dust mop, and possibly a water buffalo") cat and his pet human, William. The hit of the book was 16-year-old Goth, vampire wannabe, Abigail Normal, who steals the show every time she is on stage. The sometimes attendee of Allen Ginsberg High School ("Go, Fighting Beatniks!") keeps a journal with entries like:

.........THE CHRONICLES OF ABBY NORMAL
..........Tortured Victim of the Daylight Dwellers

So here I am again, to open my veins and spill my pain on your pages. My dark friend after sixteen years of totally boring existence, I come to you at last with a glimmer of hope to break through the gloomth that is my miserable life.... That's right, my Dark Lord has found me. A for-real vampyre. He is called the vampyre Flood, and he didn't say, but I think he is descended from European Royalty--a viscount or a discount or one of those. (Page 38)

Overall, the book is not as fresh as the first volume, but I will definitely read BITE ME, the final book in the series.

THE DIRTY STREETS OF HEAVEN, Bobby Dollar 1
Dollar is an angel, assigned to Advocate Duty on Earth. Like his fellow Advocates, Bobby knows he was a mortal before his death and incarnation as an angel, but has no memories of his previous life. When a human dies, an Advocate angel and a Prosecutor devil appear before a Judge to argue for custody of the deceased on behalf of heaven and hell. Advocates lead more-or-less normal lives in human bodies when not at a deposition.

The system has worked fine since Adam and Eve bit the apple. But now something is wrong. Souls are vanishing before the Advocate and Prosecutor arrive. The Prosecutor in Bobby's last case has been murdered and his soul taken. The evidence points to Bobby as the perp. Heaven and Hell are in an uproar and someone has sent a powerful demon after Bobby.

This is a decent fantasy noir which has some fun with the noir conventions. I enjoyed it enough tor read the second book, HAPPY HOUR IN HELL, which I enjoyed more. I'd give it a tepid recommendation.

FROM A BUICK 8
Although is was not as splashy as works like CARRIE or THE SHINING, the group enjoyed the book, particularly Phil. Unlike most of King's work, the book is not set in New England, but instead in Pennsylvania. The author does a convincing job in capturing the outlook and speech patterns of the characters. The book alternates between the past ("Then") and the present ("Now"), and different chapters have different narrators relating the story, depending on who was present for a particular incident.

The book is the tale of the Pennsylvania State Police and an artifact from another universe which has been disguised as a Buick 8. Distrustful of their experience with the Feds (NOT smarter than your average bear), they decide to keep an eye on it themselves, stashing it in an empty garage. Over the span of 25 years, a number of weird events happen in the garage: light shows, temperature drops, disappearances, appearances of life forms from somewhere else.

Unlike THE MIST, which is thematically similar to the work, BUICK is about intelligent people dealing with a dangerous unknown. Strengths of the book included the descriptions of the creatures from somewhere else and the theme that life is not like a book or movie, that you don't always get an explanation or learn the ending.

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY
The book won the Pulitzer Prize, but none of us thought it was as good as the author's THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION.

Teenaged cousins Samuel Klayman (aka Sammy Clay) and Joseph Kavalier meet for the first time on a hot Brooklyn night in 1939 and become players in the nw medium of comic books with their creation of the superhero, The Escapist. The years go by, their fortunes ebb and flow, and they go their separate ways after Clay is subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in April 1954.

Escape / escapism is one of the themes of the book. Joseph is an amateur magician escape artist in the tradition of Houdini. He escapes Nazi-occupied Prague by helping to smuggle the legendary Golem of Prague (the fig leaf of "Monster" to make it kosher reading for the group) and as mentioned earlier, he co-creates a superhero, The Escapist. One of the charges leveled against comic books is that they are escapist entertainment.

We thought the book was okay, but not much more than that.

BLACKOUT, Newsflesh 3
The series details the interplay of power, politics and the news media in a post-zombie apocalypse future. The Center for Disease Control became the nation's pride for its role in controlling the zombie attacks, but the agency became a destination for the power-hungry and has secretly been manipulating disease outbreaks to entrench their power. Celebrity news blogger Shaun Mason and his team are on the run after being branded as bio-terrorists when they began to unravel the conspiracy.

The story is told in chapters alternating between Shaun and his sister, Georgia. Georgia is back from the grave in a way. Actually, she is a clone of the original Geogia who has (handwavium follows) been imprinted with the memories and brain patterns of the original Georgia, making her a 99% faithful reproduction. The CDC has plans for the clone, but Georgia 2 has plans of her own.

While not as fresh and original as the opening volume, FEED, BLACKOUT is a satisfying conclusion to the series and I recommend the trilogy to fans of both science fiction (the social / technological adaptations made by society after its outbreak is the most interesting part of the series) and horror (Zombies! Run!).

VAMPIRE ACADEMY, Vampire Academy 1
The author has created a universe inhabited by three types of vampiric creatures. The first are the Strigoi, who are pretty much the traditional sort of Dracula vampires: evil, undead and extremely powerful. The second are the Moroi, who are long-lived (though not immortal), possess weaker versions of some Strigoi abilities like mind-control (compulsion) and have elemental powers of their own which the Strigoi lack. The third are the Dhampir, offspring of mortals and Moroi. Dhampir are swifter and stronger than either of their progenitors, but cannot perform magic and can only interbreed with Moroi.

Part Hogwarts, part high school angst, ACADEMY is focused on best friends Lissa Hathaway, Dhampir protector/bodyguard to Moroi princess Lissa Dragomir. Rose is our point-of-view character, who slowly unravels the secrets ad hidden agendas of the various people at the school.

I liked the book and particularly enjoyed the relationship between Rose and Lissa. I thought a number of minor characters like Natalie Dashov, Christian Ozera and Miss Karp were nicely done. Recommended.

BONE CROSSED, Mercy Thompson 4
Phil gave the background on the events of the previous books in the series before turning to the current title. There are two plotlines to the novel. One deals with the repercussions of Mercy's defiance of Marsalia, head of the local vampire seethe in the previous book. The other deals with vampire James Blackwood, the head vampire of another city who is so fearsome that the other vampires refer to his as "the Monster."

While not as strong as the first book in the series, the fourth installment has a number of virtues to recommend it. One is the elaborate plot orchestrated by Marsalia to rid herself of some unwanted vampire underlings without breaking any conditions set by vampires more powerful than herself. Another is the family of Corbin, Amber and Chad Wharton, unwilling pawns of "the Monster." People were divided on what they felt about the aftermath of Mercy's rape and subsequent execution of her assailant in the previous novel.

DEAD EVER AFTER, Sookie 13
Pam and Phil thought the book had the feel of the early Stackhouse novels, with a strong sense of place and filled with believable small-town characters. The three of us enjoyed the two new characters introduced in the work, waitress Andrea (An) Nur and vampire Karin Slaughter. Returning half-demons Mr Catlindes and Diantha were among the cast members singled out for praise.

A number of people in the fan community were unhappy that the vampire Eric was offstage throughout almost the entire novel, but I found it an understandable decision. The Viking vampire is a larger-than-life character, and his presence would likely have overshadowed scenes the author wanted to set aside to wrap up the stories of other characters,

While not the best Sookie novel the author has written, it is a satisfactory conclusion to the saga, except for those who wanted Sookie to wind up with one of her other suitors.