Disappearance at Devil's rock

Last year, Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts was viewed by many as the best horror novel of the year. While others may disagree, I don't think Disappearance at Devil's Rock is quite as good, but it's still a very good book.  I think this has to do with the subject matter, which is the disappearance of a child. This is something that parents will find extremely horrifying, but as a single guy, it doesn't really do as much for me.

The book is about a mother whose teenage son vanishes from a local park while he's on a late-night hike with some friends. Soon strange things start happening. The mother sees a shadowy vision of her son. His diary pages mysteriously appear in the living room. A dark figure  is spotted peeping into neighborhood windows.

My main gripe is that I thought the book started off a little slow, and didn't really pick up until about 1/4 of the way into the book when the mother discovered that her son and his friends had been secretly meeting a man called Arnold. At that point I had a hard time putting the book down. I don't know that this book will be my favorite of the year, but its certainly going to be in the top 10.

The Fireman

I was lucky enough to get a review copy of Joe Hill's next novel, The Fireman,  from the publisher. It's set in an apocalyptic world, where an infectious fungus causes people to spontaneously combust. The main character is an infected and pregnant nurse who is aided by a fireman with the ability to control fire. The nurse escapes from a psychotic husband to a campground full of infected people who have learned how to avoid combustion by group singalongs.

The the book drags quite bit. It's obvious that the camp is only going to be a temporary solution. The infected are surrounded by people who would kill them if they were discovered. The camp's leader seems to be turning into a religious fanatic. Anyone who doesn't fit is ostracized. It's blatantly obvious after a couple of chapters that things are going to fall apart there, but we still spend about half the book in the camp before the hero sets out on a quest to find a new refuge in Martha Quinn's Island.

Frankly I don't think this is Hill's best work. The novel suffers from a bit of bloat, and would have been much better if the camp scenes had been trimmed a bit. That said, it was still enjoyable if predictable read.

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.

A Head Full of Ghosts

A Head Full of Ghosts is not what I'd normally expect to see in a book where a character is said to be possessed. I mean that in a good way.

This book is told from the point of view of a woman who as a young girl who saw her older sister suffer from schizophrenia. Unfortunately, there father has recently lost his job and found religion. This combination causes him to become convinced that the elder girl is possessed and to get the family to take part in a reality show culminating in his elder daughter's exorcism.

There are no obvious supernatural elements. Instead of being a horror story about a girl's head doing 360° turns while projectile vomiting pea soup, it's about what happens when the horrors of mental illness, religious fanaticism, and the reality TV culture intersect.  This makes for the sort of book that is as likely to appeal to people who don't read horror as it will to those of us who do.

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.

Red Equinox

I have to say that Red Equinox, by Douglas Wynne, is probably one of the better Lovecraftian novels that I've read. It's not a particularly original one, but  Lovecraftian horror usually isn't.

It uses the standard plot about a secret society who is plotting to release the Great Old Ones and bring about the destruction of humanity. This is a plot that H. P. L. himself used, so it's not all that original. Even the addition of a secret government agency tasked with stopping  supernatural evil doesn't help, as that's been done so much it's rapidly becoming cliched.

I think what really set this story apart for me was the characterization. I don't know why, but I found myself genuinely caring about the characters, even to the point that when the protagonist was temporarily grabbed by the aforementioned secret government agency, I found myself getting angry on her behalf.

This is a book that I'd recommend to any fan of Lovecraftian horror.

Dead World Resurrection

It's odd, but despite how many zombie stories I've read over the years, the only Joe McKinney zombie story I'd read was the one in The Living Dead 2, until I got a review copy of Dead World Resurrection.This is obviously going to have to change, as I enjoyed the collection and will now have to get the novels in his Dead World series.

There are some really good stories in this anthology, but there were also some things I didn't care for all that much. There were a couple of short essay-ish pieces, namely "Zombies and Their Haunts" and "Suburbia of the Dead," which would have been better off excluded as they were kind of boring and were reused in the lengthy "A Reader's Guide to Dead World" at the end of the book.

The actual short stories were pretty good, and reasonably diverse for zombie stories. Many of the stories feature the viral zombies of the Dead World series, but despite the title, not all of the stories are do. "Sabbatical in the Ohio Methlands" has zombies that are zombies in a more metaphorical sense.The zombies of "Starvation Army" seem to be more like hungry ghosts. "Jimmy Finder" has zombie-fighting robots. There are even stories where people become zombies from ODing on psychedelic mushrooms or from cuts caused by strange clams.

This is a really good collection of zombies stories  that's far better than the formulaic crap that seems to have flooded the market in recent years.

Dark Screams

I was lucky enough to get a copy of the forthcoming horror anthology Dark Screams: Volume One. It's a really good (short) collection. It's only got five stories, but they're all from fairly well known authors, and they're all good.

The book starts off with its only reprint, "Weeds," by Stephen King. Even if, like me, you haven't read this story before, you still probably know it, because it was used in Creepshow as "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill."  Even if you're familiar with the story from the film, it's still a great read.

The second story is "The Price You Pay" by Kelley Armstrong. It seems to start off as a standard horror trope about two women who get kidnapped and tortured by a psychopath, but it quickly moves into a different direction. I think it might have been my favorite story in the collection.

Story number three is "Magic Eyes," by Bill Pronzini. It's about a man in a mental hospital who claims he's not insane, he didn't murder his wife, and some sort of magic eyes are really responsible. Once again this story starts off seeming like a standard horror trope, but eventually proves to be something different.

The fourth story is Simon Clark's "Murder in Chains," which is about a man who wakes up to find himself chained to a murderous lunatic. Wackiness ensues (and by wackiness, I mean lots of blood and gore).

The final story is Ramsey Campbell's "The Watched," which is about a policeman who seeks revenge against the drug dealers he holds responsible for his daughter's death. Not surprisingly, there is a supernatural twist.

This is a really good anthology, and since it's only available in ebook form, it's cheap, too.

Limbus Inc.: Book II

Limbus, Inc.: Book II has got a really great lineup of contributors. Joe Lansdale is one of my favorite writers. I've rnjoyed eyerything I've read by Jonathan Maberry. I've generally enjoyed Gary Braunbeck's Cedar Hill stories. I've only read a couple of Harry Shannon's books, but I thought they were pretty good. I haven't read anything else by Joe McKinney, but he seems to be reasonably popular.

With that lineup, this book must be good, right? Yes, it and no. As with the previous book, I really don't think it really hangs together very well as a shared world story collection. Limbus is supposed to be a sort of pandimensional employment agency. The problem I have is that in some of the stories Limbus seems to be fairly benevolent, but in others it is utterly malevolent. The stories themselves are mostly good though.

Maberry fan's will probably really enjoy his story, which is a crossover with Sam Hunter (from the previous Limbus book) going to Pine Deep (which Maberry wrote a trilogy about) and teaming up with Joe Ledger (who is the star of Maberry's most popular series).  Joe Lansdale tells a story about a shadow government, a dinosaur hunt, and the Hollow Earth, with Allan Quartermain making an appearance. Gary Braunbecks story, which I found disappointing, was about a librarian who is kidnapped by Limbus and turned into a slightly more psychotic version of James Bond. Harry Shannon's tale is about an alcoholic who gets a job involving time travel and a quest for redemption. Joe McKinney's story is also about an alcoholic on a quest for redemption, only with a ghost instead of time travel.

Realistically, I think most people would be less bothered by Limbus's ambiguous nature than I am, and the stories are really good, so I'd say that you should read this book.

Halfway House

I haven't read a lot of Weston Ochse's books, but I thought all the ones I've read are great, including Halfway House. An orphan who may be the son of the king of rock and roll is searching for his birthright. A local gang leader is fighting to save San Pedro, California from a violent invasion by MS-13. An elderly surf bum is reconnecting with his estranged daughter. There's also a dead bruja who is devouring the souls of anyone who dies in San Pedro so she can sustain the curse she cast on a group of Japanese soldiers who murdered her daughter.

I thought the characters were well done, except for the villains who were a bit two dimensional. The plot did, perhaps take a bit too long to get to the titular Halfway House, but the events leading up to that part were still interesting. This is a great book for any horror fan.

Biters/The Reborn

I like books like Biters - The Reborn, which have two stories with one on each end of the book. I don't like reviewing them so much, because when I like one story and not the other I have a hard time coming up with an overall rating. This was the case with this book, and unlike most of the other reviews I've seen for this book, the story I liked was "Biters."

"Biters," by Harry Shannon, is a zombie story. Normally this would be a strike against it, because, as much as I like zombie stories, the trope is pretty much played out. Unless there's some new twist to the story, we really don't need any more books or movies about small bands of survivors trying to get by in a zombie filled world.

Luckily, this isn't that sort of book. "Biters" is essentially a crime story which uses the post-apocalyptic,  zombie-filled world as a backdrop. It's a tale of love, betrayal, and revenge. It's not one of the great classics of world literature, but it was entertaining.

"The Reborn" by Brett J. Talley wasn't as good. I can see why other people enjoyed it. It had all the elements of a god post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller. Even the idea that reincarnation has been proven and the government is using that knowledge to weed out the reincarnations of murderers and rapists in utero is a pretty cool idea.

The first problem I have though is that the way this idea is presented sounds like so much technobabble BS (though I could be wrong on this as I am not a biologist). Apparently reincarnation was discovered after a murderer was convicted by hair strand from which only a single strand of junk DNA was recoverable. A scientist was found who testified that that single strand was as unique as a fingerprint (unless my I'm wrong that strand would have been present in one of the man's parents, so right off the bat this sounds like BS). Then decades after the guy was executed, another murderer is found with the same strand of junk DNA. instead of assuming that the scientist was lying or mistaken, the courts throw out every conviction based on DNA evidence (despite the fact that only cases in which conviction rested on a single strand of junk DNA would have been called into question by this). Then someone discovers that after a criminal dies another criminal is born with junk DNA that matches the strand of that criminal's DNA (which would seem to invalidate the whole "this strand is as unique as a fingerprint" theory). Somehow, instead of interpreting this as evidence that this theory is BS, this becomes proof of reincarnation.

On top of the fairly crappy sounding science, the protagonist goes through some fairly unbelievable personality changes for no apparent reason.  Also the story relies far too heavily on the backstory of the DNA business and the rise of a man called Khan, which effectively makes this feel like two stories mushed together.

If I could, I'd give "Biters" four yo-yos and "The Reborn" three, but since they're one book the thing gets an overall 3.5.

Frankenstorm

Have you ever seen the movie 28 Days Later? It's the one where an environmental group frees some chimps that are infected with a rage virus and soon everybody's turned into crazy killers. Ray Garton's Frankenstorm is kind of like that, but there are differences.

For one thing the book takes place during the release of the infected instead of 28 days later. For another thing, the test subjects are homeless people instead of chimps. On top of that, the story is set in California during a hurricane.

This means that instead of being a zombie-esque horror tale, Frankenstorm is more of a horror/sci-fi/thriller. It's a good story with a great deal of conflict involving infected people, a militia, a mad scientist, a secret government black-ops organization, drug dealers, and a sheriff's deputy who's insane before being exposed to the virus.

The book also includes a bonus short story called "The Guy Down the Street." It's a disturbing little tale that I didn't find as enjoyable as the novel.

This book is just good fun, if you idea of fun involves lots of gore and violence.

Chaos

When you find out that your new apartment building was built on the site of an old mental hospital, you might be a bit worried. You'd be right to be worried if that mental hospital closed down when that patients and staff slaughtered each other after an administrator accidentally opened a portal to the realm of chaos, as  happened in Mary SanGiovanni's Chaos.

Mary SanGiovanni is a very talented writer, and I think this is one of her best works. It's fast paced. It's weird. It has creepy monsters. There's a fair amount of blood and gore, but not as much as you'd find in the works of many writers. Like many SanGiovanni's books, the plot reminds me of some of the more otherworldly horror of Lovecraft.

The only real problem I have with this book is that it (or my edition anyway) has quite a few formatting issues. The headers, which contain the title and author name, vanish after page 12. The footers, with the page numbers, only appear on pages 1-16, 56-128,  146-148, 160-23, and 249-255. On pages 16 and 147, the text suddenly switches from being double spaced to single spaced for no apparent reason. On one of the unnumbered pages, an entire paragraph is bolded when (as far as I can tell) only the (nonexistent) website HauntedAsylumsofAmerica.com is supposed to be bolded.

Even with those mistakes, which should be fairly easy to correct as this is a self-published, POD book, this is a good read for horror fans.

Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Abberant

I really want to try to update this blog more often, so I'm going to do something I normally wouldn't--review a book that will probably get me into trouble. No, I don't think reviewing Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Aberrant is going to cause NSA thugs to kick my door down, but there is a strong chance that it will lead to my being harassed.

I'm not going to mention this person by name, because he may be an odious, little troll, but he does know how to find mentions of his name on the Internet.  I will mention that he runs "Lake Fossil Press"--hence the title of this anthology.  You can find his name by googling his press, and you can find anything you want about him by googling his name.

If you've done that, you've probably discovered that this"writer" and "editor" can't write or edit worth shit. He also likes to harass people. In this anthology, a lot of the people he harasses have gotten together to show that they can write better than him, put together a better anthology than he can, and sell more copies of their book than he's sold of all his books put together.

In doing so, they have put together a pretty good anthology. There are quite a few stories with thinly veiled versions of the troll in them.  My absolute favorite of those stories, and probably the anthology in general, was “Apartment B,” by Stinky Cat, which had me laughing out loud the whole time I was reading it. Jerrod Balzer's “Nat Poopcone vs. the Beast of Fossil Lake” was also very funny and weird. “What’s Your Beef?” by Mark Orr was also a good story of this type, though less of a humor story and more a tale of a gruesome demise.

Besides the stories with parodies of the troll, there are also quite a few regular works as well. There are two extracts from longer Ramsey Campbell works, which I now want to read. There is a cool weird fiction piece called “The Ziggurat of Skulls” by Joshua Dobson. There's a good fantasy story called “The Dank” by Doug Blakeslee. There are quite a few horror stores--too many to mention, really.

Overall, this is a good, diverse collection. It's well worth shelling out $2.99 to get this on your ereader.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite writers, so when I was given the opportunity to get a review copy of The Ocean at the End of the Lane,I jumped at the chance. This book is awesome. In fact, I think it might be my new favorite Gaiman novel.

This is a story that manages to be both creepy and magical. It's about a young boy who discovers that one his parents' lodgers has committed suicide in the family car. This leads to a strange series of events involving the decidedly peculiar Hempstock family, a strange otherworldly being that tries to give people what they want, and some really nasty varmints.

I don't want to go into any specific details, because I want to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible. This book was very disturbing, especially some of the scenes between the young protagonist and his father. The villain was scary. The Hempstocks were wonderful.

This is a book that you shouldn't miss.

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.

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.

Zombies and Shit

After reading Carlton Mellick III's Zombies and Shit, I think it's safe to say that I have a new favorite zombie novel. The book describes itself as "Battle Royale meets Return of the Living Dead," and unlike most comparisons on the back covers of books, this one is accurate.

A group of twenty people wake up to find that they've been dumped in the middle of a zombie-infested city and are now the unwilling contestants on a reality show called Zombie Survival. Each contestant is given a weapon and told that the only way out is to make it to a helicopter on the other side of the city. Unfortunately, there's only one seat on the helicopter, so only one person gets to return to civilization.

There are quite a lot of interesting characters. As with much of bizarro, there is a strong punk influence, and several of the characters are punks including the members of a punk street gang and a squad of "merc punks," who are professional zombie killers. Then there's a washed-up writer and his back-stabbing wife, an inventor, an underage prostitute, the former host of the  show, a Nazi, a genetically engineered killing machine, and a cybernetic Mr. T.

That's right, Mr. T is a character in this book, and I pity the fool who doesn't read it.

Shadow Show

I always find that I have a little trouble when writing reviews of anthologies. If I write about each story, the review ends up being way too long. If I only talk about the stories that stood out the most to me, then I feel like I've slighted the writers I don't mention. If I don't go into detail on any of the stories, then I feel like I'm not doing my job, even if it is a job that I'm not getting paid for. In the case of Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, I think I'm going to fall somewhere between option 2 and option 3.

I suppose I should start off by saying that this is a really great collection. Usually when I read an anthology, there's at least one story where I wonder what the editors where thinking when they included it. Not this time, though. I enjoyed all the stories in this anthology.

Ray Bradbury was a genius. He was one of the best writers of the 20th century. I think that this book isn't great just because it's a collection of great stories inspired by Bradbury. It's also great because it shows how much Bradbury influenced the great writers who came after him, (and Harlan Ellison® who was a contemporary). It's also great to see that while Bradbury is most often thought of a science fiction writer, this book also includes stories by fantasy, horror, and more mainstream writers.


This book is a fitting to one of our best writers. Anyone who is a fan of Ray Bradbury should give it a try. Anyone who isn't a fan of Ray Bradbury, should pick up some of his books and become a fan.

Gargoyle Girls of Spider Island

I've read several of Cameron Pierce's other books so far, and Gargoyle Girls of Spider Island is my least favorite of the bunch. It's not a bad book, it's just different from the other ones I've read.

This book is very much bizarro horror. A bunch of college students get stranded on an island that's inhabited by beautiful looking, green women. Unfortunately, these women turn into horrible monsters that get their sustenance by raping men. As you can imagine, this leads to a book that is bloody and full of disturbing sexual imagery.


Basically, ths book isn't for the faint of heart. It's still a good read.