Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Shatnerquest

It's been nearly a year since I reviewed Jeff Burk's Shatnerquake, and since he has a sequel out, it's time to review it. Shatnerquest isn't really a sequel in the sense that it continues the story of the previous book, and William Shatner isn't the main character in this as he was in Shatnerquake. This is a very odd sort of sequel that could almost not be a sequel if it wasn't for some passing references to the previous book in one of the scenes that Shatner appears in.

This book starts out at a Magic: The Gathering tournament at a media convention in Pennsylvania. Just as one of our heroes is about to lay some card-based smack down on a really obnoxious Klingon, the world ends. Giant flaming boulders rain down from the sky, and our three heroes and their cat are seemingly the only survivors. The heroes head home, only to discover that their hometown is being destroyed by Godzilla, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and various other giant monsters. With nothing better to do, they head across country to save William Shatner.

Along the way, the have some weird adventures. Their obnoxious Klingon enemy returns as the head of a Klingon white supremacist biker gang. They meet a cult of cannibalistic James Kirk worshipers. There are zombie Borg, a gas station-attendant Dalek, and a steampunk town. Also, as anyone who has seen the book's cover can guess, Shatner has grown to gigantic size and become Shatzilla.

This was a really fun and funny bizarro romp. I liked it even more than the first one. I just hope that Jeff Burk realizes that no one takes duologies seriously, so he must now write a third Shatner book to make it a trilogy.


Monday, April 08, 2013

Ex-Patiots

As a general rule, I've had just about enough of zombie fiction. There have been so many zombie novels published since the beginning of the current zombie craze that the overall quality has gone downhill. Luckily, Ex-Patriots, by Peter Clines, is an exception. This was actually a really entertaining book.

It's a sequel to his previous zombie novel, Ex-Heroes.The gist of that story is that shortly before the zombie apocalypse began, super heroes started to show up. Unfortunately, they weren't enough to stop the zombie hordes, so after the world ended, the heroes protected the surviving members of humanity in the remains of a Hollywood film studio. They are menaced by a street gang that seems to be able to control the zombies, or exes as they're referred to in the book.

Ex-Patriots takes place several months after the previous novel. The heroes are discovered by a nearby military base that was working on a secret super soldier project. Unfortunately, the zombie controlling villain from the previous novel turns out to still be around, along with a new foe.

This book has the required gore of any successful zombie novel.It also has a good bit of humor, and some generally likable (and hateable characters). This book--and the first one--are well worth the time of any zombie or superhero fan. Also, apparently there will be a third book, which I eagerly await.




Thursday, March 07, 2013

NOS4A2

OK, once again I have been slacking on the reviews here. I have read several bizarro novels that I could have been reviewing--and getting points for--but I just haven't gotten around to it. I have also received review copies of books, which I really should be reviewing, and I'm going to try to review them, at the very least.

I got a review copy of Joe Hill's NOS4A2.This was a really cool novel. It's about a girl (and later woman) who discovers that she has the ability to ride through a bridge that no longer exists to find things that have been lost, but who loses a bit of herself as the price for making this journey. It's also the story of a man who is over a century old, who takes children to a magical place called Christmas Land, where they'll stay young  and happy forever, but at the cost of their humanity. Naturally, these two eventually meet, and become enemies.

I don't want to spoil the story for you, so I won't go into any more detail, but I will say that this is a great book.  Anybody who likes horror should get this.