The Naturre of Balance by Tim Lebbon

I picked up the (now unavailable) Leisure edition of The Nature of Balance in a discount bin a few years ago. For some reason, I read the first couple of chapters,  got distracted by some other book, and never finished it, until now. Mostly I decided to finish it because I'm going to Horrorfind Weekend tomorrow, and Tim Lebbon is a guest there.

It's easy for me to see why I let myself get distracted from finishing this book; while it's not a bad book, it's also not exactly what I'd call gripping. Sure  it does have an interesting premise, but  the characters tended to be kind of stupid.

The story is that one day almost everyone dies in their sleep. I'm not talking about passing peacefully either; it's more of a Freddy Krueger kind of thing. there's an evil being called Fay and group of six survivors, half of who are very odd people. One is a man with no memory who seems to have a history with Fay. Another is a young woman who Fay wants to kill for reasons that are unexplained until nearly the end. Then there's the psycho who is really working for Fay.

 Really it's not a bad book. I just prefer my horror with  more monsters.

Midnight Sun by Ramsey Campbell

Midnight Sun is a book that I picked up from my local used bookstore. Overall, I would say that it was a decent horror novel. It did seem to be a bit slow to get going, but otherwise it was pretty good.

This is the story of Ben Sterling. As boy his family dies in a mysterious car crash and he is raised by his aunt. The book begins with him running away so he can visit his old home town of Stargrave, and when he gets there something strange happens involving a cold being. After he is returned to his aunt, he promises to be a good boy and we get several chapters of his childhood. Then he's an adult who is a struggling children's book writer. His aunt dies and he inherits her house, and the house of his parents.  He eventually moves back into his parents' old house and we finally get to the part where weird stuff starts to happen.

As you can guess, it takes quite a while to get to the good stuff, though there are a few killings by the cold monster before then. Even the not-particularly-scary portions of the book aren't boring, but in some ways it almost feels like there are two novels fighting against one another. One is the  non-genre story of a family trying to break into the publishing world, and the other is the story of a boy/man and his encounters with a familial frost monster thing. Separately, either one would make a good story, and while they still work well together, I think they would have been better separate.

In the Pits with Piper, by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper & Robert Picarello

Back in the 80s when I was a kid, I used to watch wrestling a lot. Back then my hero was Hulk Hogan, though Mr. T came a close second. Naturally, the most evil man in the world was Hogan's archnemisis, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Man, I hated that guy's guts.

Now it's been more than 20 years since I last watched wrestling. These day's the only time I see the Hulkster is when he's trying to get me to rent overpriced furniture and computers. I haven't really seen Roddy Piper in years, except for the occasional guest spot on TV, but I do have fond memories of his antics in the ring and on Piper's Pit, so when I heard that Roddy was going to be at this year's Horrorfind Weekend, I knew I'd have to get him to sign something.

I've never really been one for signed photos. I considered bringing along my copy of The Wrestling Album, but quite frankly his singing was terrible on that thing. I decide to check and see if he'd written a book, and I found his autobiography, In the Pit with Piper: Roddy Gets Rowdy.

I found it to be a very entertaining book. It has lots of funny anecdotes about Piper's interactions with wrestlers, promoters, and fans both in and before the WWF, or WWE as they now like to be called. There are also some not so funny stories of Piper being blackballed, stabbed, using drugs, and nearly dieing. There's also his very serious chapter on what he calls "The Sickness," which is his explanation as to why wrestlers engage in so much self-destructive behavior.

This book gives us a glimpse into who Roddy Piper really is, and if like me you remember him from your childhood, you  should get yourself a copy.