Dark Screams Three

I just finished reading a review copy of Dark Screams: Volume Three, and I've got to say, this series just seems to keep going downhill.

The book starts off with "The Collected Short Stories of Freddie Prothero," by Peter Straub. This is a fake collection of short stories told as if written by a five-eight year old boy with no grasp of spelling. If reading a series of "stories" rendered into borderline gibberish is something you think you'll like then you might like this story, otherwise you're better off not wasting your time.

Next up come the utterly predictable and sadly disappointing "Group of Thirty" by Jack Ketchum. It's the story of a hardcore horror author who is asked to address a group of wannabe science fiction writers. When he finds the group meeting at a church , it becomes blindingly obvious that this is going to be about a writer who is forced to defend his writing to a bunch of religious nutbags, or face the consequences. The ending of the story borders on being deus ex machina, making it all even less appealing. The main character seems to be a stand in for Ketchum himself, as one of the stories he defends seems to be a thinly veiled version of his own extremely disturbing The Girl Next Door, which makes it not completely crappy, but far from Ketchum's best work.

Next up comes a tale of highschool angst called "Nancy," by Darynda Jones. It's about a teenaged girl who moves to a small town and tries to get to know a misfit girl named Nancy, who is haunted by a ghost. I found the story to be extremely tedious until we got to the twist ending, which actually surprised me.

Story four is "I Love You, Charlie Perason," by Jacquelyn Frank. It's about a disturbed teenage boy who is obsessed with a cheerleader. You can tell after the first paragraph that he's going to end up kidnapping her or something. As with the previous story, I just found it tedious and boring until it gets to a twist ending that I didn't see coming.

The final tale is the only one that I actually enjoyed, "The Lone One and Level Sands Stretch Far Away," by Brian Hodge. It's about a middle-aged married man who has a young woman move in next door. She introduces him to parkour, urban exploration, and thinking about the apocalypse. She also causes trouble between the man and his wife. Despite the horror elements not showing up until near the end of the story, this is my favorite of the lot.

So, this anthology consists of one story I think is terrible, one story I think isn't very good, two stories that are kind of boring but with good endings, and one story that is actually good. I can't help but think that passing on this anthology would be a wise move.

Dark Screams Two

The good folks at Cemetery Dance were nice enough to send me a review copy of Dark Screams: Volume Two for reviewing Dark Screams One. As much as I enjoyed the first volume, I thought number two wasn't anywhere near as good.

The first story in the volume is one of the reprints, "The Deep End," by Robert McCammon. Despite being a reprint, I had never read it, and I enjoyed this tale of a fathers quest for revenge against a terror lurking in a public swimming pool.

The Second story is "Interval," by Norman Prentiss. This one is a bit slower moving, and revolves around people at an airport waiting for word on a plane that is late.  It's a good enough story, especially the big reveal ending.

Next is "If These Walls Could Talk," by Shawntelle Madison. This is a creepy story about people getting a rural house ready for a TV crew, but something strange starts happening. I enjoyed this one, too.

Then we have "The Night Hider," by Graham Masterton. This was probably my favorite story. It revolves around a wardrobe that's haunted by the ghost a horribly burned man.

The final story is another reprint, and it stank so bad that it dragged the rest of the book down. The story in question is "Whatever," by Richard Christian Matheson. I have no idea what this story is even doing in this anthology, as it's not horror by any definition I'm familiar with. There are no ghosts, monsters, aliens, or serial killers. It's just the story of the rise and fall of a mega rock band in the 1970's told through song lyrics, letters, and excerpts of magazine articles. It's long and boring.

I think the ebook edition is worth it just for the first four stories, but you might as well skip the last one.

Doctor Who in Space and Time

I might as well start off by saying that I've been a fan of Doctor Who for about 30 years. It's been my favorite TV show for much of that time, so while you might think Doctor Who in Time and Space: Essays on Themes, Characters, History and Fandom, 1963-2012 (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy) would be a good match for me, you'd be wrong. Sure, a collection of essays about my favorite TV show sounds interesting, but the book isn't.

Don't get me wrong, Doctor Who in Time and Space isn't a bad book, though it does have it's flaws. The main problem I had is that the style of the essays is a bit too dry. The book seems more suited for a more academic class of Whovian. Don't get me wrong; the essays are interesting, but they're not really for the casual fan.

Plus, as I said, there are flaws. Firstly, the book spends far more time on the new series than on the classic version, despite there being more than three times as much classic Doctor Who as new Who.

Another problem is that the book is already dated. This isn't surprising since there is no possible way the book could include essays on the most recent season. However, the final essay "Chasing Amy," which is a study of companion Amy Pond, seems a bit odd as it only includes information from her first season.

If you're a Whovian who would like to read a collection of academic essays on the show, then pick this up, but if you're just a casual fan, you might as well pass on it.

Werewolves of Wisconsin

I got my latest LibraryThing early reviewer book yesterday, and since I finished it quickly, it's time to review Werewolves of Wisconsin and Other American Myths, Monsters and Ghosts by Andy Fish.

The first thing I have to point out is that, despite not being described as such in the product description at the time of this review, this book is a graphic novel. This doesn't bother me, but I've seen enough people complain about graphic novels they assumed were regular novels that I figure it's worth pointing out.

I would assume that you're familiar with the sort of stories from Tales from the Crypt and similar comics where some creepy guy narrates tales of horror. This is sort of like that, with Baron Samedi filling in for the Crypt Keeper. The main difference is that instead of narrating fictional tales, the Baron gives us bits of folklore and reported strange occurrences.

Normally I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, but I found most of the stories in this volume to be boring and generally unbelievable. Also, I really didn't care for the artwork. I suppose this might serve as a good introduction for people interested in Forteana, folklore, and "strange but true" stories, but those who are more familiar with the genre will find little that's new.

Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel by Greg Keyes

Since I haven't been updating this blog very much at all, I have decided to try to go back to my original formula of attempting to write a review of every book I read, though there will be a few exceptions this time. I will skip reviewing books when all I can think to say is something along the lines of "great book, just like the rest of the books in this series that I've reviewed."  To get back into the reviewing, I will sart with a book that I got from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program: Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel by Greg Keyes.

This was one ER book that I probably shouldn't have requested. It's a direct sequel to another book, which I haven't read, and it's set in the world of a video game franchise that I haven't played. This made in very hard for me to get into the book.

The prologue is basically a recap of the events of the previous book, so I wasn't too lost. The main problem came with all the Elder Scrolls terminology that I didn't know. I know what elves and orcs are, but I did not know what any of the other races were and could only infer some of them from the text. Despite it being rather important to the plot, I still have no idea what Oblivion actually is except that that's where the bad guys came from. This leads me to believe that this is the sort of book that is primarily designed to appeal to fans of the video game franchise.

This made it rather difficult for me to get into the story. Once I did get into it, it was a fairly exciting tale, but really, unless your a fan of the Elder Scrolls games, you probably shouldn't bother with this book.

Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist

I got a copy of Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Linqvust from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. I didn't really care much for this book for several reasons. It's not really a bad book. In fact I think it's pretty good, but it's really not for me.

First off, this is being marketed as a horror novel, but isn't really a horror novel at all. Yes there are reanimated corpses, but I tend to be of the opinion that, much like vampires, that doesn't make a horror novel. What horror needs is to be horrifying. This book is not horrifying in any way. The titular undead aren't standard flesh eaters. They don't kill people. They're figures of pity, not terror.

Secondly, I don't much care for the translation. This is an American edition of the book, but the publishers seem to have gone with a British translation. I know what the British words mean, but for an American audience, you'd be better off using a translation geared for Americans.

Thirdly, this book is kind of slow moving. The dead come back. The government hauls them off. Their families fret a bit. Some try to hide the "reliving." Really, there's far to little action.

This is the sort of book that's supposed to make you think, and it does that, but fiction should also be entertaining, and this really wasn't very entertaining at all. I give it three yo-yos.

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 2: Moon Walker

For day 2 of Zombies vs. Unicorns Week, let's move on to zombies.  I might as well start by talking about a book I just read last week, Rick Hautala's Moon Walker, which (despite the title) has nothing to do with Michael Jackson. Since the author has two previous books with Moon in the title, I assume it was some lame publishing attempt to create some sort of name recognition or something.

While this is a zombie novel, it is not a zombie apocalypse novel. The zombies in this book are a strange cross between traditional Voodoo zombies and Romero-esque horror zombies. They are created through a magical Voodoo potion to do hard labor, like Voodoo zombies, but they also eat human flesh like the horror zombies.

While scary enough, this book tends to be a little slow moving.  It doesn't take the reader long to figure  out that the local mortician with the creepy eye is the evil mastermind who's reanimating the dead to work the potato fields, but it takes the characters forever to work it out.  The zombies don't become any sort of a real presence until the last third of the book, and even then they're fairly easy for the heroes to take care of.

While this sin't the best zombie novel I've ever read, it's not really bad--just mediocre. I give it 3 yo-yos.

The Black Tea Experiments, by Ray Atkinson

I love getting things for free. So, when a publicist offered too send me review copies of two books, I jumped at the chance. Once I got the books, there were some warning signs that the quality might not be too high. One of the books was obviously POD book, and the other (which I'm reviewing today) was published by a "publisher" who's on Writer Beware's "Two Thumbs Down" publisher's list and is strongly not recommended by Preditor's & Editors.

The Black Tea Experiments calls itself an "airplane book," by which the writer means it's intended to be picked up at an airport bookstore, and is short enough to be read during a single flight. If that's what your looking for, then I would recommend this book. It does have an original plot and interesting characters, which can make it a fun read.

The plot goes like this: there's a Russian mad scientist/mob boss who made a serum that turned some kids into super-geniuses and altered their blood. One of these kids gets murdered on a college campus and the hero's girlfriend is blamed. Somehow the hero's super-dooper telescope managed to catch pictures of the crime. It's fairly interesting.

Unfortunately the book has some major style problems. There is way too much extraneous information. It seems like every character (major & minor) gets his own little backstory or side story, which distracts from the main plot. Then there's the fact that the POV keeps shifting from one character to another with no warning. Hell, it shifts from one character in the main plot to another character's back- or side story with no warning. There are also quit a few typos and word misuses like this one:

Your Honor, the defendant has been discovered on a security camera leaving the library with the decendent...

I suspect the author meant deceased. Also, the dialog is pretty bad in spots.

I can only give The Black Tea Experiments three yo-yos. I hope the POD book is better, but I'm not holding my breath.

Flight of the Nighthawks, by Raymond E. Feist

I'm not terribly familiar with the works of Raymond E. Feist, which made Flight of the Nighthawks something of a pain to read. I do have one of his other novels in my library (though I can't recall if I actually read it or not) and one of his stories was in Legends II, but I really don't know much of the backstory that would have made Nighthawks more enjoyable. As far as I can make out, about 90% of the characters are from previous books, and the plot revolves around incidents from the previous books. Since I'm not familiar with any of this, the book was awfully confusing in parts, which is very annoying in a book that's part one of a series.

If it wasn't for this, I'd give the book a high rating. The characters were interesting, and the plot was action-packed--both of which are things I love in a book. Feist's writing style is pretty good, and the pacing in excellent. It's probably a good book if you're a fan of his writing.

Since I haven't read his other books, I can't give it a good recommendation. If you've read his other books, go for it. If you haven't, you should probably read his other ones first. Since this is the beginning of a new series, it's annoying that it begins in the middle of a greater story. Because of this, I can only give Flight of the Nighthawks three yo-yos.

Bed Bed Bed by They Might Be Giants

After spending a few months being lazy, I've decided to go back to writing reviews. I'll start off with a book by my favorite musical group, They Might Be Giants. Sadly, while their music is great, their book ain't.

It's not a bad book. It's just okay. It's basically just an illustrated version of four songs (also included on a CD). The illustrations are alright (though I have seen better). The problem is that while these songs work well as songs, they don't make great poetry. Shel Silverstein (for instance) is way better. I didn't like the book part that much.

Of course, there is also a CD. That was pretty good, even if it is only four songs. "Impossible" was the only song I didn't like. I loved "Happy Doesn't Have to Have an Ending." "Idlewild" was good but short. "Bed Bed Bed Bed" is a new, more lullaby-ish version of "Bed Bed Bed" from their No! album. So the CD would rate as a bit above average, but not much.

I give Bed Bed Bed a mediocre three yo-yos.

Singer of Souls, by Adam Stemple

I tjought Singer of Souls was a decent book. I had some problems with it--especially the ending--but I thought that overall it was ok.

It's an urban fantasy that is certainly reminiscent of de Lint's work. The protagonist is an underdog--in this case a busker and a recovering drug addict. He moves in with his grandmother in Scotland to get cleaned up. He ends up gaining the Sight, and gets into all sorts of trouble with fairies and a crazy priest. It makes for an exciting plot, and interesting characters.

Unfortunately, I didn't like the ending (and if you want to avoid spoilers, you should skip this paragraph). The protagonist goes insane and turns into a villain. That's annoying, unexpected, and entirely unjustified. Then there's the "epilogue," it makes for one of those god damned annoying, cliffhanger-type endings that serve no purpose except to make the reader want to read any possible sequel. In this case it didn't work, because I ain't gonna read any sequel.

Because of the ending, I can only view Singer of Souls as mediocre, so it only gets three yo-yos.

I Am a Dalek, by Gareth Roberts

I've been a fan of Doctor Who since I was in elementary school. It's probably been about twenty years now since I first watched the series. I loved the Tom Baker episodes. I started watching the new series as soon as it was downloadable via bit torrent (once it was broadcast in the US, I started watching on SciFi).

I was always a fan of the Doctor Who books too. I have a largish selection of the novelizations. I have (what I believe is) a complete set of the Virgin Missing Adventures. I have a few of the Virgin New Adventures too, but I never liked that series as much. When the BBC started publishing the books themselves, I picked up one novel, didn't like it very much, and stopped reading the books.

Flash forward to January, 2007. I got about $80 worth of Borders gift cards for Christmas, and was having some trouble finding $80 worth of books. So, when I saw I Am A Dalek for only $5.99, I decided to give it a chance. I thought the author's name was familiar, and after a quick search through my collection, I found that he wrote three of the Virgin Missing Adventures.

The book is pretty well written, though I thought the opening was a bit off. The plot is original, but true to the series. The characters seem like their TV counterparts. Style-wise, it's everything I'd expect from a Doctor Who novel, and it's a good book.

Sadly, I have to give it a mediocre rating because of the price. $5.99 is cheap for a book, but I think it's a bit much for a hundred-page book that I read in about an hour. I couldn't recommend a book of this size unless it was at least a dollar cheaper in price. So, with it being no reflection on Mr. Roberts' writing, I can only give I Am a Dalek three yo-yos.

Horrorween, by Al Sarrantonio

The main reason I picked up Horrorween was because I thought the idea of a town where Samhain "the Lord of the Dead" lived, was occasionally sighted, and is about to start killing people sounded silly. Sadly, this book isn't silly and it's not really all that good either.

First off, I'd like to point out that Samhain isn't the Lord of the Dead, it's the name of the holiday Halloween is copied off of. Sheesh. I know it often turns up as the name of a god in fiction, my first though was of the Real Ghostbusters episodes featuring him.

Secondly, I'd like to point out that this "novel" has been previously published as "Hornets," "The Pumpkin Boy," and Orangefield. Unfortunately, these stories don't seem to have a Hell of a lot to do with one another. Samhain appears in the first and last ones but doesn't seem to have anything to do with the second. Even the first and last stories only seem peripherally connected.

"Hornets", aka Part I: Something's Coming, is about a writer of children's horror. He's trying to write a story about the god Samhain but has writer's block because Samhain is so vast and evil. Then he decides to write about a cute creature called Sam Hain instead. This seems to piss off Samhain, who promptly kills the writer's wife with some hornets, and then does the writer in the same way. If that's all it takes to get Samhain to kill you, I hope J. Michael Straczynski is watching his ass (he wrote the Real Ghostbusters episode featuring Sam Hain).

"Pumpkin Boy," aka Part II: False Leads, is about a crazy roboticist who kidnaps a couple of boys and uses their brains as remote control units for a pumpkin-headed robot. I swear, I'm not making it up. It doesn't seem to relate to the main plot at all, except that a police detective is in this one and "hornets," and he apparently must be gotten out of the way or he'll foil Samhain's evil schemes.

Orangefield, aka the rest of the book, is about Samhain's evil plot to get three people to commit suicide on Halloween. This will apparently bring about the end of the world or something. The book is never really clear on this. It's also never clear on who Samhain is working for. We know he has a boss, because we get their dialogue every couple of chapters, but we're never told who the boss is. Really, who the heck could be more powerful that "the Lord of Death?"

Anyway, this isn't a very good book. It's not a very bad book, either. It's just plain confusing in parts, but has some genuine excitement. It doesn't hang together all that well, but it doesn't feel totally random. I can't see my way to giving Horrorween anything but three yo-yos.

A (not very worthy) Tribute

For a tribute album like Hello Radio: The Songs of They Might Be Giants, I think the best way to review it is to compare the songs to the originals, so here goes:

1 Ana Ng performed by Self—I really didn't like this one at all. I mean cutting out the “I don't want the world, I just want your half” line sucked. Not anywhere near as good as the original.

2 Pet Name performed by The Long Winters—“Pet Name” isn't my favorite TMBG song, but this cover isn't half bad. Not all that great either, though. Not quite as good as the original.

3 Narrow Your Eyes performed by David Miller—I liked this one a lot. I think it's the vocal or maybe the way the music was done. I don't know. Nearly as good as the original.

4 She's An Angel performed by Charles Douglas—I love this song, but God this cover blew. Terrible.

5 Road Movie To Berlin performed by Frank Black—This was a pretty good cover. I like what was done with the tune. Nearly as good as the original.

6 They'll Need A Crane performed by The Wrens—The original version of this song has incredibly sad lyrics and a bouncy upbeat kind of tune. This version has sad lyrics and a depressing tune. It still works. I like this one. Different but almost as good as the original.

7 Dead performed by Steve Burns—I like the vocals on this one. I seem to recall seeing a video of this one on YouTube. I like this cover. Nearly as good as the original.

8 Letterbox performed by OK Go—Ugh! They use some weird distortion that makes the lyrics hard to understand. Sure, TMBG uses that sort of thing occasionally, but not anything as bad as this. Nowhere near as good as the original.

9 Boat of Car performed by Recepter—This song is taken in a very odd direction. The lyrics are virtually incomprehensible, and the whole thing is very strange. It's not half bad. Not quite as good as the original.

10 Don't Let's Start performed by This Radiant Boy—The lyrics seemed to be changed subtly in a few spots. The vocals are terrible. Nowhere near as good as the original.

11 Doctor Worm performed by Jason Tratchenburg—Mr. Tratchenburg, learn to pronounce criticism! And learn to sing and how to play the guitar better This just sucks. Not even close to the other in terms of goodness.

12 It's Not My Birthday performed by Fluid Ounces—This one's not half bad. The vocals are good. The tune is close to the original. I like it. Almost as good as the original.

13 Another First Kiss performed by Brett Kull—I like the original “First Kiss” better than this version. That said, this cover is pretty good too. I like the vocals, and there don't seem to be any major changes to the lyrics or music. Nearly as good as the original.

14 The End Of The Tour performed by Hotel Lights—I'm not entirely happy with the vocals on this one. They're not bad, but they're not all that great either. Really, I think this is a rather mediocre cover. Not as good as the original.
This CD is a very mixed bag. Some of the covers are great, some suck, and some are mediocre. I can't see my way to recommending it. I can only give Hello Radio: The Songs of They Might Be Giants three yo-yos.

Worst Book Ever

No, I'm not reviewing The Eye of Argon. I'm reviewing the worst book by my favorite writer: P. G. Wodehouse's Not George Washington. Of course, Wodehouse can't take all the blame for this one; it was coauthored by Herbert Westbrook.

Wodehouse's books are usually very funny. They're full of clever wordplay, convoluted plots, and and lovable characters. Not George Washington doesn't have any of that. I only laughed once while reading the thing, and that was in the next-to-last chapter. The wordplay is not even remotely clever, in fact it's almost non-existent. The plot is slightly convoluted, but nowhere up to the usual Wodehouse standards. Quite frankly, I almost hated the main character, James Cloyster, because he's boring and a scoundrel. Trying to marry one woman when you're engaged to another is not the sort of behavior one expects from a Wodehousian hero.

This really isn't a good book at all. At best it's painfully mediocre. I can only recommend it to Wodehouse enthusiasts who want to collect copies of all of his works. Everyone else should steer clear. I can only give Not George Washington 3 yo-yos, and that's being generous.

Almost Painfully Mediocre

Today's book is The Charmed Sphere, by Catherine Asaro. This isn't the sort of book I'd normally read. I picked it up because I knew I'd be going to the laundromat, and I wanted something to read while I was doing laundry. The back cover made the book sound moderately interesting, though I did wonder why I'd never heard of the publisher--Luna Books. Once I got home, I discovered that Luna Books was an imprint of Harlequin Romance. I'd picked up a Romance Novel!

As a man, I normally stay away from romance novels. If this is a typical example of how romance novels are written, I can see that I made a wise choice in doing so; this book was very mediocre. The characters were mostly two dimensional, and the villains could have walked out of an old-fashioned melodrama. The pacing was extremely slow, and I found the plot to lack any real conflict. Okay, there was a battle or two, but really, two almost evenly sized armies with six powerful mages on the heroes' side and only one on the villain's, isn't much of a fight.

The book wasn't totally worthless, however. I found the idea of mages who work magic using shapes and colors to be interesting. The characters of Chime, Muller, and King Jarid were actually fairly well drawn (unfortunately they were the only characters who were).

I'd give this book a mediocre, 3 yo-yos.




I recently managed to get my hands on a bunch of "new" books. I bought three books at Borders, then I went to visit my dad at the rehabilitation center where he's recovering from a stroke, and they were having a used book sale, so I bought nine more. My next book is most likely going to be Italo Calvino's The Nonexistant Knight & The Cloven Viscount, which so far is excellent! After that I'm not so sure. Here's my list (in no particular order), and if any readers have suggestions on what to read next, please leave a comment:

Stephen King's Danse Macabre
David Brin's Startide Rising
Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End
Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Bloody Sun
Scott McGough's Outlaw: Champions of Kamigawa (Magic: The Gathering: Kamigawa Cycle)
Orson Scott Card's Lost Boys
Dennis McCarty's Flight to Thlassa Mey
Castle Fantastic
Brian Lumley's Vamphyri!
Peter Morwood's Book of Years Volume #1
Richard M. Dorson's American Negro Folktales