Review of Monique Snyman’s “Charming Incantations: Enticed”
Not too long ago, I was approached by an author friend of mine with a request to help promote their new fantasy novel on my blog, which I did, happily. I tend to write reviews of horror novels, but I thought that since I am a big fan of fantasy as well I would also read her book, and not just promote it. So here is my review of her book, which I would say fits nicely in the realm of young adult fiction, with both fantasy elements as well as a bit of horror-with werewolves and vampires playing a prominent role.
Charming Incantations: Enticed tells the story of Lisa, a young woman whose parents were tragically killed in a fire, which thrusts her into a world she never knew existed: one with supernatural creatures that expect her to do her part as the surviving heir to the human representatives on a council that works to keep the world safe from darkness.
While the story provides a prolog explaining the alliance between the six races: human, werewolf, vampire, shape-shifter, witch, and banshee, the first chapter of this tale bypasses Lisa’s initial realization of what she must do or any revelations she has that there is an entire world that has been hidden from her. Instead, her tale begins with her knocking on the door of the meeting place of the six representatives of the six races. There she meets the five other generals, or leaders of the armies that hold back the evil known as goblins from taking over the world. One of them, Romulus, the leader of the werewolves, will take her in and protect her from danger until she can be trained to protect herself and take over her duties as a leader.
Lisa faces a great deal of challenges, not the least of which is the fact that she is falling hard for Romulus while she is trying to grasp this new world that surrounds her. She fears these supernatural races but must come to terms with them all so that she can insure that her status as protector of humanity comes to pass.
This tale is part romance and part fantasy adventure. There is magic here, and I am sure there will be passing comparisons to Twilight, but this is a tale on a far grander scale. Lisa is learning about this new world as we learn about it, and is forced into battle even though humans are deemed the weak link in the alliance. She cannot raise her own army of humans because the secrets of the other races must be kept, so the burden is even greater for her than for her counterparts. In some ways, this is a coming of age tale as well, with Lisa doing her best to find her place in a world that is scary, exciting, and quite dangerous.
This is the first book of what I believe will be a series, but this story can certainly stand on its own as a tale of a young woman coming into her own in a world filled with both dangers, delight, magic, and mayhem.
Charming Incantions: Enticed can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Charming-Incantations-Enticed-Monique-Snyman/dp/0987874721/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336631184&sr=1-1
Review of Jim LaVigne’s “Plaguesville, USA”
Plaguesville, USA tells a tale set in a world several years after much of the human population has been wiped out by a lethal virus. The timeframe is in the late 2070′s, and much of the United States has turned into a desecrated land filled with survies, as they are called: gangs, small fiefdoms, cannibals, mutants, and a few people trying to maintain some sense of civilization. We are introduced to Dr. Justin Kaes, an epidemiologist from the CDC in New Atlanta who has found himself in charge of a mission to prevent the “Sick,” as the plague has been dubbed, from reinventing itself and destroying what is left of the meager human population. He has been sent to collect the one man who has survived the original iteration of the plague and whose blood might help them create a vaccine for whatever new iterations may come about. He is Howard Lampert, a crusty, cranky old man of 102 who lives in Minnesota. The story picks up after Justin and his team have picked up Mr. Lampert and are on their way to San Francisco, where there are doctors waiting who have the resources to craft the potential vaccine. The doctor and his team’s massive RV has run out of fuel down in Oklahoma, where they are surrounded by gangs and religious zealots who also happen to be cannibals. We are introduced to Teresa, a member of one of the local gangs, who’s interested in hitting the bricks because she has grown weary of the Blood Claws (not to mention that more than one member of the gang has tried to rape her). She crosses paths with Justin as he and the others are trying to figure out what to do to keep moving west and the duo form an unlikely partnership. The story tells of their adventures, which include an onslaught of virtually every post-apocalyptic danger imaginable, except perhaps for zombies, as they try to complete an almost impossible mission.
Plaguesville gives the reader a thoroughly realized post-apocalyptic world that isn’t set in our time, but over a half a century in the future. Each chapter provides a nice little beginning blurb giving the reader a small taste of the world before the fall, with advertisements about the food, entertainment, and culture that adds additional flavor to the story. As readers will note, this tale has an interesting arrangement with the characters. Justin is the main character and we see the world through his eyes in many ways, but as Mr. Lampert comes from our day and age (he would be around 38 right now), it is easy to identify with him and his perspective on a bombed out, shell shocked world of plague and Mad Max sensibilities. Justin is a doctor on a mission who finds himself attracted to the barbaric and yet incredibly enticing Teresa, and Mr. Lampert brings an old fashion sensibility to the story that is entertaining and somewhat humorous in spots, while getting dark and gruesome in others. While Justin the voice of ethics and morality in a world with very little of such things, Lampert is the grumpy voice of reason and sanity in a world gone mad.
The story runs its cast through several different adventures-they meet the good, the bad, and the ugly that remain in the world, and there are quite a few secondary characters’ stories told that intertwine with the main cast as the tale runs toward its completion. Again, the author has done a good job of laying out a detailed post-apocalyptic world and gives us a saga with plenty of action and adventure. Time and again, Justin’s mission is on the brink of oblivion, but he continues to maintain hope and believe that as long as Lampert remains alive they can resolve things. In some ways, it felt like there were almost too many near misses in the story, but it kept things moving at a fast clip. Overall, this was a fun read, with a few gentle messages that weren’t too heavy-handed about corruption, craving for power, and man’s undeniable lust to cause his own destruction. The growing attraction between Justin and Teresa is handled with a deft hand that made it feel believable and touching, despite the fact that these two people were worlds apart in so many ways. If I have a criticism of this book, it would perhaps be that the story does not feel complete. We are only introduced to the CDC team once they’ve broken down in Oklahoma and not when they set out from Atlanta, pick up Mr. Lampert, and make their way through so many other adventures leading up to that point. Granted, the book is already a healthy 350 pages, but I felt as if there were more stories to be told. Even with this minor complaint, this is an entertaining and robust post-apocalyptic tale with entertaining characters and a setting that was quite compelling.
Plaguesville, USA can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Plaguesville-USA-ebook/dp/B0078FN0RA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336273247&sr=8-1
Review of Sean Schubert’s “Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse”
Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse takes place mainly in Anchorage, and begins with a family of tourists from Minnesota who are traveling to Alaska on vacation. The younger boy, Martin, has brought along a friend, Danny, and the family plans on spending time out in the woods at a cabin near a glacier. Almost immediately upon arrival at the cabin, Martin, his sister Jules, and Danny discover what appears to be a dead body stuck in the melting glacier. Thinking it is a caveman, they pose next to it, taking pictures. When the caveman turns out to be a thawed zombie, and Martin gets bitten, the family races back to Anchorage to a hospital as Martin’s health rapidly deteriorates. All hell breaks loose when the boy ends up dying in the hospital, gets back up, and attacks everyone around him.
Things rapidly spin out of control from there, with a plague of undead spilling outside the walls of the hospital and onto the streets of Anchorage. Within a matter of hours, the entire city is under siege by a horde of fast moving undead devouring and infecting everyone in their path.
Throughout the course of this book, the first in a planned trilogy, we are introduced to the people that make up two main groups of survivors. One group is led by Dr. Caldwell, who was treating Martin at the hospital, and the other lead by Neil, an office worker who witnesses one of the first zombie attacks outside of the hospital (and the two surviving children-Jules and Danny-end up with him as well). The pages telling the story of these characters are intermingled with various graphic scenes of carnage as Anchorage is ripped to shreds and the police and military are unable to do much to stop the tide of death rushing over them.
Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse is a fun, fast-paced tale of zombie mayhem that barely gives you time to breath, and zombie fans who crave plenty of gore and undead action should enjoy it. The main characters are well developed and give the reader a few folks to root for as well as one in particular to loathe, which keeps things interesting from start to finish.
As I always try to do, I point out areas of concern with a story, and I have a couple of them with Infection.
The first is a minor point, but one that I feel deserves mentioning. Alaska appears in the title of the book, and as such, I expected this story to bring some unique elements to the table based on the locale. Unfortunately, while the author knows Anchorage like the back of his hand, the city felt no different than any other place on the map. Perhaps the sequels will insert more of the distinctive ‘flavor’ of Alaska in them that will make this story stand out more.
My second issue has to do with one particular character, a police officer. I felt that he would have been far more intriguing character if he wasn’t a cop, but I found it hard to buy into him being an officer of the law. From the beginning, he makes no effort to take a leadership role in a crisis situation, letting Dr. Caldwell handle that role in a non-medical crisis. All I know is that if I were trying to flee from the impending apocalypse and I was in a group with a police officer, I would be looking to him for direction, not a doctor (even as you are racing down the halls of a hospital). But strangely enough, no one calls him on this until well into the book, and by then, I was wondering how this guy ever passed whatever psychological test is required to become an Anchorage cop in the first place. Again, he would have been a far more interesting character were he not a cop.
Overall, I felt that this story has the potential to be a solid zombie trilogy. Infection doesn’t really bring anything new to the table-there are no big surprises to be had for zombie fans here-but my hope is that the author turns things up a notch in the sequels to give this story a flavor of the northlands that leaves a lasting impression.
Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Infection-Alaskan-Apocalypse-Sean-Schubert/dp/1618680161/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335667874&sr=1-1
Review of Matthew Warner’s “Blood Born”
Blood Born starts out as a horror mystery, where victims of rape in the Washington D.C. area are all impregnated and the gestation period is accelerated to the point where it is forty times faster than normal. In other words, these women will produce a full term baby within one week. The case is being handled by Detective Christina Randall and we are introduced to her and Margaret Connolly, the mother of one of the rape victims, who also happens to be a fertility specialist working for a local fertility clinic that also does genetic research.
As with any mystery, we are given hints and details as to the M.O. of the rapist as the due date on the first few victims draws near and it becomes clear fairly quickly that the rapist is not quite human. The pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together, but then the book took a dramatic change.
This tale becomes an entirely different type of horror novel somewhere between a third and halfway through, where monsters run rampant, annihilating everything in their path. The transition was jarring, to say the least, though I don’t necessarily mean that as a negative. But be forewarned that while the mystery continues to unravel all the way up until the end of this tale, it takes a backseat to the violent and graphic action that dominates the second half of this book.
This story has a flavor of a patient zero type apocalyptic tale, with a significant build-up to the point where all hell breaks loose. When it does break lose, the story turns on the afterburners and blasts ahead at a hundred miles an hour. The author does a solid job working to explain the science behind the beasts in the story, though I was left with plenty more questions about them and how they would co-exist with the rest of the world. That is the challenge with diving into the science of something like this-there are often a lot of questions that are difficult to answer vs. making the creatures in question a complete mystery.
Overall, this is a fast paced book with a lot of surprising deaths and plenty of gruesome action. With rape being a key part of the story, it probably won’t appeal to certain chunk of audience out there, but it is a well written scientific tale of horror. While I was expecting it to be a more subtle mystery throughout, when the gears shifted and story changed from that to an adrenaline fueled nightmare, I was able to adapt my expectations. The author keeps things moving at a good clip throughout and this was an easy and entertaining novel to read. I do sense that there is a distinct possibility of a sequel based on the ending, though this book can definitely be considered a stand-alone tale.
Blood Born can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Born-Matthew-Warner/dp/0979234638/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335452721&sr=1-3
Review of the movie “The Divide”
The Divide is a bare bones apocalyptic tale that starts moments after the world dies. Nuclear bombs have been dropped on Manhattan and several people living in an apartment complex rush to the fallout shelter the super has created in the basement. The Super’s intention was to go it alone, but his tenant’s force their way in as everyone above is dying from the blasts. Almost the entire movie takes place in this shelter with the survivors initially planning on waiting until the radiation has died down before they check things out on the surface. They have food, water, and power, so things seem to be okay at first-the best they can be based on the circumstances-but things begin to erode and there are various struggles for power and control among the characters.
There is a nudge from the outside world as soldiers invade the shelter and disrupt the relative calm early on in the movie. The audience is given little information on these soldiers, what is going on up above, or why they end up doing what they do to the group. The movie’s focus is on the dynamics of the nine people in the shelter and injects external influence only in two small, somewhat confusing doses.
The name of the movie is apropos on several levels. There is the obvious divide between the world above and world within the shelter, the multiple divides that occur with the group as it changes and morphs over the course of the movie, and the divide among viewers of this film on whether it is a realistic portrayal of people trying to survive under nearly unthinkable circumstances or is gratuitous and over the top in many ways.
This movie is a grim, dark, and dank experiment where the characters are put in a box and the audience gets to watch their humanity dissolve. There are power struggles to control resources, trust issues, alliances formed and broken, and the continuous erosion of any sense of civility from start to finish of this film. This story revolves around choices-how far are you willing to go, what depths are you willing to sink to…what will you do not only to survive, but to maintain control over yourself and those around you? It pulls no punches, showing the dark, ugly side of what we all have the potential of becoming under nightmarish conditions.
The Divide is a mixed bag. I can’t say that I bought into the Roseanna Arquette character and her rapid transformation from loving mother to willing rape victim, and some of the other characters were a stretch as far as believability, especially as the tale progressed. I was somewhat confused by the soldiers and why it was necessary to bring them into the story-the influence they had could have been handled by the group, for the most part. I also felt that at two hours run time, the movie could have sliced out about twenty minutes or so and still presented the same tale-it seemed to drag in places. Even with these complaints, the movie drew me in and kept me interested as the characters warped from being normal people to survivors buried deep in a hole and knowing they will never break free of the prison they’re in. It’s not a film that I think I will ever have the urge to watch again, but I will remember it for a long time come.
The Divide can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Divide-Lauren-German/dp/B007549W62/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1335307402&sr=8-3
Review of Tonia Brown’s “Railroad!: The Three Volume Omnibus”
Railroad! is a hard book to categorize. Certainly, it would be easy to say that it is a steampunk tale of the old west, but that seems like a limiting description. I am the first to admit that I haven’t read a tremendous amount of steampunk literature, but I would venture to say that this book has elements that make it somewhat unique in that genre, combining fantastical elements along with the technological, turning this story into something utterly unique.
Tonia Brown, the author, wrote this tale as a serialized adventure, releasing a chapter at a time online, and then releasing each of the three different volumes separately. This book has all three volumes thus far: Rodger Dodger, The Dogs of War, and The Trouble with Waxford. The story is told from the viewpoint of Rodger Dodger, a man curious about an ad posted that is looking for a hired gun to work aboard a steam locomotive. The setting is the old west of the 1870s, and while Rodger has a mysterious past as a gunman, everything else about him seems rather normal. So when he meets up with Professor Dittmeyer, Ched, and the rest of the crew of the Sleipnir, a steam powered locomotive that requires no tracks to run on, he is as baffled as we are. And things just get stranger from there for the man with a mysterious past but a far more intriguing future as the hired gun for an wild band of adventurers.
Of course, the wondrous technology that the author describes with great delight is quite fascinating, and gave me pleasant reminders of my youth, when I used to watch repeats of ‘The Wild, Wild West.’ I do, of course, mean the classic television show starring Robert Conrad and not the atrocious movie starring Will Smith. You will find gadgets galore here, including guns that fire multiple rounds at the same time, horseless carriages that allow one to travel at speeds near a hundred miles per hour across the desert, and trains that need no tracks to make their way from place to place. But that is only the beginning. The author allows us, alongside Rodger Dodger, to enter a world filled with the fantastic-with ghosts, vampires, and genetic mutants filling its pages. As it is described within this tale, the strange, cursed, and fantastic seems to follow Professor Dittmeyer, owner and inventor of the Sleipnir Steam Locomotive, everywhere he goes. After all, he hasn’t been banned from 90 different countries for nothing.
The characters are colorful, detailed, and fun getting to know. And when it comes down to it, this story may be best described as a weird western steampunk story, but it is the characters that keep things interesting, and kept me glued to each page. A well-crafted, entertaining story that is a lot of fun, Railroad! is a trippy ride.
You can find Railroad! here: http://www.amazon.com/Railroad-The-Three-Volume-Omnibus/dp/1468185543/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335136282&sr=1-9
“Read The End First” now available over at Amazon!
Another project I worked on and am very excited about has come to fruition and is now available over on Amazon. Read The End First has the unique premise of showcasing 24 different tales of the end of the world, each based in a different time zone. Because of the nature of the project, this was an invite only anthology, and each author had to pick a particular time zone and write a story that would make sense given their location on the globe. My particular story takes place in Bethlehem and is entitled “What Rough Beast.” You’ll just have to guess at what the story is all about.
So check this one out, there is a great list of authors involved, including Stephen North, Suzanne Robb (who edited it), Michael S. Gardner, Rebecca Snow, A.J. French, Craig Saunders, John McCuaig, David Dunwoody, Wayne Goodchild, Adrian Chamberlain, D.A. Chaney, Hollie Snider, William Todd Rose, and many more that I apologize I can’t remember right off the top of my head.
So click on the cover and head on over to Amazon to check out your very own copy of Read The End First.
Review of “Rise” by Gareth Wood
Rise was written as a blog online originally and as the author mentions in the prolog, he wrote it as the days passed in 2004-2005 when the story takes place. He paid attention to the weather patterns, studied the environments he was leading his characters through, etc. So essentially, this book was fairly early to the zombie writing party-before the onslaught of books started showing up in places like Amazon and on bookshelves at bookstores. Of course, with its introduction via Permuted Press to a wider audience in 2012, it comes during the thick of things-when journal type tales of the apocalypse have been done on a regular basis over the past six or so years, along with a wide array of other first person and third person zombie sagas. Credit to the author for crafting this piece before so many others had taken a swipe at the genre-I wish I had read it when it had originally come out because I am sure it would have felt truly fresh and new at that time.
Like other journal format tales, this story goes through the daily struggles of a survivor (this time a man named Brian who lives in western Canada) from just before until almost a year after the dead have risen. The journey we are treated to takes us on a wandering path where Brian and his sister meet up with other survivors, avoid the undead, try to gather supplies, avoid other desperate humans, interact with the military, go on rescue missions, and just try to cope with a world turned upside down. Journal writing gives an author an opportunity to detail out all the minor details that many other tales would leave out simply because they tend to focus on the elements that move the story forward at every step of the way. Journals do this too, but the whole idea seems to more or less be focused on giving you a real flavor of how people cope, which requires getting down to the nitty gritty.
Most of my criticisms of this tale would stem from the journal format and not the author’s writing, which is solid and keeps things moving. One of the things that seem almost impossible to do with this format is allowing the reader to get into the moment with the characters on the page. This happens because there is virtually no dialogue-nothing that anchors the action and relationships in the present moment. Almost always, the story is being written a day, or even several days, after the events being chronicled have occurred. This author, like others, tends to announce critical details in the first sentence of every new entry, which allows you to know, in vague terms, what is about to happen on the next few pages of the story, and in the next few days of the lives of the characters. Journal entries lack tension, though they provide you with a detailed picture of events. This is the blessing and the curse of this writing format.
If there was a genuine criticism that I have for this tale, unrelated to the journal format, is the fact that the story seems to carry on beyond its natural ending point through several more adventures of the main character. My guess is that in the original writing of the blog, the author was trying to determine a stopping point and picked one at a place where there is a relative lull in action and perhaps when he grew tired with relating the saga. With that said, the story could have stopped much earlier, or could have carried on for months and even years beyond the point where things are concluded-through the course of the apocalypse. I suppose that is another challenge related to journaling; the days of your life are not set up in neat, tidy condensed tales that will fit perfectly into a book-like story. Instead, it moves on, with different story lines always happening and intertwining at all times. In essence, this story could have gone on for another hundred pages or more, and could have ended fifty plus pages earlier, with the same result.
I don’t intend for my criticism of the journal format to speak as a negative about the authors writing capability-he has written an entertaining story in a format that is challenging, to say the least. It kept me reading from start to finish and I was definitely entertained. Rise is a solid entry into the zombie genre, and I hope to see more (perhaps in another format) from this author.
Rise can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Gareth-Wood/dp/1618680102/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332714817&sr=1-2
Zombie: The Other Fright Meat is now on Amazon!
Well, it didn’t take long for this one to make its way over from Createspace over to Amazon. Since Amazon is easier to deal with as far as ordering is concerned, please check this book out there. As I have mentioned before, it contains one of my favorite short stories I have ever written, Cicada. It is a story about generations that live before, during, and after the zombie apocalypse, told in relation to the appearance of Cicadas-a particular species that comes about every 17 years. It is a tale that speaks of generations-fathers to sons, and how life begins anew, even when there is death all around you.
So please check out Zombie: The Other Fright Meat, which also contains stories from a great list of other authors who love to write traditional tales of zombies, when so many other monsters are “selling out” and going out and doing teen romances and such. Just click on the cover image to head on over to Amazon. Thanks!
Zombie: The Other Fright Meat-An anthology of zombie tales, has been released on Createspace
Norgus Press has released an anthology that I have been anticipating for quite some time now, because it contains one of my favorite tales of the undead that I’ve ever written. Zombie: The Other Fright Meat contains a wide assortment of tradition zombie tales…mainly in response to other well known monster types going all Hollywood.
Here is the description:
Zombies.
You can’t live with ‘em…
At least not without getting a chunk bitten out of ya.
But we here at NorGus can’t live without ‘em!
And who’d want to?
In a world where vampires sparkle in the sun instead of roasting like pigs at a barbeque
and werewolves run around with capri pants and washboard abs,
It’s nice that we can fall back on zombies to actually be monsters!
I am happy that my story, Cicada, has found a home in this anthology. I wrote this tale with no plans for it to get published originally. It was one I wrote as one of my first short stories about zombies that stood separate from my novels, and it was one I felt compelled to write. The basic gist of my tale is that the world-and life-runs in cycles, and cicadas, as insects that come up out of the ground on a specific schedule with numerous years between each visit, would serve as a way to ‘check in’ on the world alongside them. The particular Cicada’s that I write about are the ones that appear where I live, in Southwest Ohio, and they appear once very seventeen years. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to show how the human race goes from living in normal times to living at the very dawn of the zombie apocalypse, to years later, when much of the human race has been wiped out, and then again, when the human race is fighting its way back to dominance over the dead. The story shows brief moments in time, and tracks different generations of the same family, fathers to sons, and how they cope with death, life, and rebirth, just as the cicadas do, time after time.
Again, this story has always been one I have been very fond of, and am proud that it resides in this anthology. So please check it out…either over on Createspace or when it hits Amazon here in the next couple of weeks. Just click on the cover art to head on over to Createspace to order your copy. Thanks!
Before Plan 9: Plans 1-8 From Outer Space is now available on Amazon!
I’m proud to announce that Before Plan 9: Plans 1-8 From Outer Space has been released and is available over on Amazon. This book details those first plans where the aliens tried to prevent humanity from destroying the universe before their infamous raising of the dead experiment documented in the movie from Ed Wood Jr., Plan 9 From Outer Space. Tony Schaab has brought together a bunch of fantastic authors to tell the tales that record our interactions with the alien beings who are fearful we will invent the substance that has the power to ignite the sun and destroy us all. Certainly, their efforts with Plan 9 were a miserable failure, but what came before? What attempts did they make in our past to try and curb our lust for violence and destruction?
Check out Before Plan 9, which includes my retelling of the Odyssey, aka Plan 1. Just click on the book cover to be directed over to Amazon to get your copy today. Oh, and make sure you keep watching the skies, because the aliens are sure to return!
Here is the table of contents of this very fun and exciting new book:
Plan Zero from the Mesozoic Era by Tony Schaab
Plan 1 from the Lesser-Heralded Parts of The Odyssey by Patrick D’Orazio
Plan 2 from Ancient Egypt by D.A. Chaney
Plan 3 from the Middle Ages of Hamelin by Greg Carter
Plan 4 from the Clockwork Country by Tonia Brown
Plan 5 from the Depressing Depression by David Dunwoody
Plan 6 from the Nazi Regime by Rob Silvera
Plan 7 from Sin City by Jonathan Maberry
Plan 8 from the Fantastic Fifties, Phase 1 by Craig DiLouie
Plan 8 from the Fantastic Fifties, Phase 2 by Joe McKinney and Michael McCarty
Dark Dispatches is now available on Amazon!
I’m pretty excited about a newly release anthology that one of my short stories appears in. I had the opportunity to write a story that was a bit different for me, though at the same time, still shared a bit of DNA with many of the other stories I’ve written over the years. This particular one was originally intended for another anthology, and fit the it to a T. Unfortunately, before that particular anthology got very far, it was cancelled by the publisher. I was ‘stuck’ with this story at that point, which was unfortunate, because I thought it was one of my better tales. It was my effort at writing a war story set in the future, but having some very traditional horror elements to it-a particular menace that I had never written a story about before, and was a new challenge for me. So when I heard about Static Movement producing an anthology entitled Dark Dispatches, which wanted tales of war, real or imagined, here on Earth or elsewhere, in any time period–past, present or future, I knew my story might have a second life. So I submitted my tale, entitled “One Shot, One Kill”, and George Wilhite, the editor, responded within a couple of days, snatching it up.
And now this tale has been released to Amazon, and I am asking you to check it out. I’m not sure how Static Movement works on ebooks, but the paperback version is now available. Keep an eye on the link for further information on the kindle release, and probably over on smashwords for other ebook releases.
I would ask that you consider getting a copy of this book in paperback-a slew of war stories that contain supernatural, alien, and plain old human warriors-all with compelling story lines. I have had the privilege of reading one of the other tales in this book already, by Richard Marsden, and I can tell you that it is excellent. Well worth the price of admission for these two tales alone…but there are many, many more!
So go ahead: click the picture, and head on over to Amazon to pick up your copy of Dark Dispatches. Thanks!
Review of the movie: “The Dead”
The Dead is a zombie movie made with the traditional fan of George A. Romero’s work in mind. This story offers nothing new to the zombie genre from the standpoint of the undead. In fact, it goes old school, with slow moving ghouls that require damage to the brain to put them down. For those fans who prefer their zombies fast moving, like you find in movies like Resident Evil, 28 Days Later, and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, this tale might seem agonizingly slow. For those who love the older Romero flicks or who consider themselves equal opportunity zombie fans who love all rotters no matter what speed they move at, this one is worth checking out.
The premise is almost painfully simple. Air Force Lieutenant Brian Murphy is a survivor of an airplane crash that was supposed to be the last plane out of undead-plagued Africa. After a narrow escape on the beach where the crash occurred from numerous zombies closing in, he makes his way inland in an effort to find safety and perhaps an airfield with a plane that he might be able to fix up to escape. His journey is filled with an endless supply of the undead-for the most part they are spread apart enough that there are no hoards to deal with. Individually, these slow moving monsters are easy to handle or avoid, but when Brian is forced to stop for any reason, they begin to methodically swarm his position and rapidly become a major menace. After he manages to get an old, beat up truck running, it becomes clear that the dead are popping up everywhere, which makes it virtually impossible to stay in one place for very long. It’s at one of these times when Brian is forced to stop and almost gets torn to pieces by a steadily growing pack of the undead that he is saved by Daniel, a soldier who is looking for his son who managed to escape the massacre of their village by the undead. The two men agree to join forces to find Brian a plane and to get Daniel closer to where he believes his son might be-with other soldiers in an encampment to the north.
The Dead is a moody, atmospheric piece that uses the rural African environment to full advantage. For what seemed like a relatively low budget film the cinematography was well done and the special effects were more than adequate. There is no complicated plot or massive character development here, but for the most part, less is more in this tale. Except for a couple of scenes filled with hordes of the undead destroying everything in their path, even the zombies were sparse, showing up as they do in dribs and drabs, until there are more of them closing in than someone can handle, when just seconds before they thought everything was under control. This is one of the most low-keyed, subtle zombie flicks I’ve seen; definitely worth checking out for most zombie fans out there.
The Dead can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Rob-Freeman/dp/B006BZ8NXY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1330155218&sr=8-3
A slight divergence from horror into fantasy
Most folks don’t know it, but I am just as much a science fiction and fantasy fan as I am a horror aficionado. Up to this point, my attempts at writing most fantasy were well in my past, and while I plan on giving it a genuine shot down the road, I am dedicated to writing mostly horror stuff for the moment.
With that said, a friend of mine who has more of a talent for writing fantasy, and in particular, YA fantasy, is having her first book released through Knightwatch Press. But it is definitely worth noting that this YA Fantasy has horror elements as well, with vampires and werewolves playing a role in this tale. So for you horror fans who are looking for something that might be something you and your kids can read, I would check this out. I know I will be, and will hopefully have the chance to review it here soon.
Who is this friend, you ask? It is none other than Monique Snyman. Monique is a South African writer and reviewer of books, movies, and games, who runs her own website over at http://www.killeraphrodite.com/. The book, the first in a series, is entitled Charming Incantations: Enticed. Here is a description of the story:
When Lisa Richards’ parents die in a horrible accident, she never thought her life would change as drastically as it did. Not only does she have to take over the family business as being the Human Representative in a supernatural council, bound to protect the world from the common threat, but she also has to deal with falling in love with a werewolf that has a vampire best friend and try to keep herself alive long enough to defeat the goblin army.
Not sure about you, but to me that sounds like the start of a pretty wild ride! And I know that plenty of horror fans out there dig all sorts of speculative tales, so keep your eyes open for this one. Monique was kind enough to get me a copy of the cover for your viewing pleasure below. I’m sure it’ll be popping up on Amazon quite soon, among other locales, so check it out!
Review of Jacqueline Druga-Johnson’s “The Flu”
The Flu tells the tale of a pandemic flu attack on the world, tracing its origin at a remote Alaskan scientific outpost to where it rapidly spreads across the globe, though the story more specifically zeroes in on the United States, and even more particularly on a small town in northeast Ohio, Lodi, which is not tremendously far from Cleveland. The story focuses on Mick, the Sheriff in town and his surrogate family, which consists of the woman he is secretly dating, Dylan, and her three sons. Sam, Dylan’s husband, who she is divorcing, is attempting to reconcile with her at the same time. The lives of this family come into focus as Lodi goes under the magnifying glass because of the return of one of the world’s most renowned virologists, Lars Rayburn, who lives in Lodi one month out of the year, spending the rest of his time studying strains of the flu and other plagues in Madagascar. As this flu, which has a death rate up around 90%, plows across the country and the globe, Lars decides that with the help of the government that he will shut off Lodi and attempt to create a safe haven away from the flu, one where he will be prepared to deal with it when it comes, and will do his best to block it off from ever hitting the town.
The book devotes a goodly amount of early pages on the spread of the flu, and as is the case throughout this tale, we are given the personal stories of those who are exposed to it and are dealing with the pain and anguish it brings. The Flu seems like a tidal wave, smashing into everything, giving it a sense of inevitability. Some survive, though most do not-at least not until it surrounds Lodi. The harsh reality is that the best that seems can be done is to wait until this plague dies out on its own-it spreads, it infects, it kills, and then the flu dissipates, leaving behind approximately 5% of the former population. The author does do a good job of crafting characters that you grow attached to, and can appreciate-the normal, everyday people of the town of Lodi, including the main characters who are just trying to survive and keep the town safe. I think the strongest, most potent parts of this story were when these people were interacting with each other and trying to go on with their lives despite everything happening around them. These two main components of this tale-the inevitability of the flu and the development of characters we care about-bring things to a head in the homestretch of the book.
I enjoyed this tale, and feel that the author did a bang up job crafting a plausible pandemic scenario and also created characters that you care about and are hoping manage to survive, though you suspect from the beginning that it is unlikely that all of them will survive, and there will be plenty of heartbreak. As far as issues I had with the story, I would say a minor one was some of the typos and editing issues, though they were ones I could certainly live with. If I were to state that I had a real issue with things, it wouldn’t be something that I could exactly pinpoint in the story itself. I think it would be more along the lines of the pacing. As I said, the flu moves with a certain amount of inevitability-which means that it seemed that the surprises in this story were few and far between for me-things happen because the flu is going to bulldoze everything in its pathway, and it does so at a relatively slow pace. The story, in turn, moves at that pace as well, taking about half its pages to really move it along to where it started to get really interesting for me. I can understand and appreciate all that came in the first half of the book, but again, I would have been happier with a faster pace up to that point. Even with that said, I give credit where credit is due, and the author deserves a lot for crafting a realistic and intriguing pandemic tale that had characters inhabiting the story that felt real and compelling, which, in the end, made the build up well worth it.
The Flu can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Flu-Jacqueline-Druga-Johnston/dp/1885093489/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329959697&sr=8-1
Review of “MonsterMatt’s Bad Monster Jokes, Volume 1″
What can I really say about this book? It is well over a hundred pages of some of the most groan-inducing jokes about monsters and monster related topics I have ever seen. Not just jokes, but rhymes, raps, and song parodies. MonsterMatt does his best to make you want to stick a fork in your eye, and then, after you’ve gotten over the pain from such an agonizing injury, use your remaining good eye to read more of his jokes. I’m not really sure what kept dragging me back in for more, but I suppose part of it has to be the fact that there is no deception used here-no attempt to convince you, the reader, that any of these jokes will do any more or less than make you cringe at how pun-ishingly bad they are. Of course, if you are like me, and don’t try to take the world we live in too seriously all the time, there is a place for a book like this one. One that you can share with your kids and get them to moan and roll their eyes at you for telling them such bad jokes…ones that they might just tell their friends and not let you know that they did so.
You get everything from the classics: jokes about Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, Wolfman…and jokes about some of the newer stuff out there, like True Blood, The Walking Dead, and movies like Dead Snow. Given that this book is entitled Volume 1, I fear that MonsterMatt is not finished, so be warned. The bad jokes apparently shall return to induce even more headaches and heartburn!
MonsterMatt’s Bad Monster Jokes, Volume 1 can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/MonsterMatts-Bad-Monster-Jokes-1/dp/1617060941/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329709231&sr=1-1
Review of Craig Jones’ “Outbreak: The Zombie Apocalypse”
Outbreak is a zombie outbreak tale told from the first person perspective of Matt, a young man living on a gated estate with his younger brother, Danny. Their parents died a few years earlier, leaving them independently wealthy and living close to a fairly small, remote village in south Whales. They don’t have jobs and no other reason to venture out from behind their walls-especially with the government telling everyone to remain hidden while the undead roam the land. But there are other people begging for help in their little village like Nick, his wife, and three children. So the two brothers, watching as the undead slowly creep into their lives, try to do what they can to help those around them.
Outbreak is, in many ways, a pretty routine tale of an undead uprising. The zombies here are slow, stupid, and until they see blood they tend to be fairly limited in their reactions to humans (at least from a distance- the living who get near them are brutalized, naturally). This is a story of two brothers’ relationship and how they cope, and in ways, grow into something more than the leisurely slackers they’ve been most of their lives before this crisis consumes them and everyone around them. They find it hard to react to what is happening at first, as does everyone else, but before long it changes them from carefree lay bouts into desperate souls willing to risk their lives for people they barely know.
In other ways, this story is different than the majority of zombie tales out there. The outbreak is contained to Great Britain, which is sealed off from the rest of the world while the inhabitants either eradicate the undead or humanity is wiped off the island completely. Another aspect of the tale that is different is that living actually manage to turn the tide here, but not before the brothers and their new found friends face tremendous perils, witness the gruesome demise of several people they are trying to save, and are forced to cope with heart wrenching loss.
But the story does not stop when the undead are defeated…
The story carries forward from there, and this simple story of the zombie apocalypse takes a couple of interesting turns. Without revealing too much (or any spoilers), I can say that this book has three very different parts to it, and what I have described above only encompasses the first of the three.
I’m not sure how to react to the book in its entirety. It is written well, and I did grow somewhat attached to Matt, despite his self-absorption and inability, at times, to see things beyond his own misery. He grows and changes through the tale, but not necessarily matures, and not all of his changes are positive or smart. This leads to the intriguing, if somewhat slow moving second part of the book, and the shocking third and final act.
At times, I was wondering why the story was continuing on long past the putting down of the undead, and in retrospect, I think the author could have condensed things a bit in part two of the tale, just to move things along and get us to the adrenaline-drenched conclusion of the story.
Suspension of disbelief is always a key part of enjoying a good zombie tale. There are a couple of instances in this story that might stretch that suspension of disbelief for some folks out there who like their zombies to be of the traditional variety. I am not talking about the slow vs. fast debate, but what capabilities zombies have beyond being mindless eating machines. For me, this wasn’t an issue, because I believe the creative liberties the author took here with the undead were intriguing, but it is fair to point out that if you tend to dislike seeing zombies doing more than acting like thoughtless predators, you might take issue with this story as it progresses.
Overall, this was an interesting and fun undead story. The characters felt genuine and real to me, even if Matt and Danny were foolish, arrogant, and rash at times. They were also likable and in their own way, quite noble. Again, there are really three distinct acts here, and each one moves at a different pace. While the first act could stand alone, the second, more plodding act allows the story to move to the final portion of this tale, which flies by at a blistering pace and had my heart racing before all was said and done.
Outbreak: The Zombie Apocalypse can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-the-zombie-apocalypse-ebook/dp/B006T3IRD4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329434397&sr=1-1
Review of Ryan C. Thomas’s “Hissers”
Hissers starts out giving the reader a hint as to what to expect with the rest of the story when we are introduced in the prologue to a General and a scientist in a government financed lab. They are working on ways to help soldiers in war with healing and regeneration of limbs and have come across some significant success, though there is still work to be done. But they need to sell what they’re doing to the higher ups to get more of the financing they need. So they plan on flying across country and demonstrating what they have so far. Fast forward to the start the actual story and we are introduced to a quartet of soon to be high school students-Connor, Seth, Nicole, and Amanita-who are preparing for the last weekend before school starts and their lives change dramatically as they move closer to adulthood in their little town. There is a huge party that night, and some of them plan on attending. But any plans they have come to a screeching to a halt when a plane crashes, plowing down the very street they were headed to for the party. Rushing to see if they can help any survivors, they quickly discover that those that were killed in the crash are getting back up and have turned into ravenous undead monsters. And these aren’t just your typical sprinter zombies, these are ones that have gained the ability to absorb replacement limbs that they themselves might end up tearing off their victims. Not only replacements, but additional limbs. This new race of the undead make an eerie hissing noise as they move and attack that gives the book its name.
The rest of the tale takes place over the course of the night and next day, with our four main characters racing for their lives and coping with tons of teenage angst and drama that comes with them normally. They get to witness the demise of loved ones and just about everyone in their town. No one is safe from these crazed monsters or the author’s willingness to hand over victims to the cause. Parents are struck down, but so are children and even babies. There is plenty of gore, action, and fast paced adrenaline drenched terror to go around for all. Hissers was a lot of fun in that regard-the action is intense and the monsters are creative and scary-they aren’t quite zombies, but still have some of the same qualities we all know with the undead-you have to hit them in the head, their bites turn others into what they are, and they can be tricked and fooled because they aren’t too bright.
For the most part, the four main characters are fairly believable, though the author stretched that believe-ability for me on occasion with some of their dialog and inner-monologues. It seemed somewhat forced on occasion, and a little overwrought. I get that these kids are dealing with incredibly harrowing situations, but it seemed that they were becoming a bit too profound with their analysis of not only what was going on, but life in general and their beliefs (or lack of belief) in God. This wasn’t something that distracted too much from my overall enjoyment of the tale, but something that definitely merits being brought up in this review.
Overall, Hissers is a fast paced, adrenaline charged zombie variation with some new and intriguing twists that occasionally bogs down with a few bits of overwrought dialog from its young cast, but nothing that should take away too much of your overall enjoyment of this creative, fun horror tale.
Hissers can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Hissers-Ryan-C-Thomas/dp/193486160X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328673114&sr=1-1
Review of the movie “Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption”
Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption is a bare bones, low budget movie made by folks who appear to be having fun with what was clearly a labor of love. The basic synopsis of the plot is that John Knox, the main character, is condemned to death by the group of Apocalyptic Raiders he fell in with after the dead have risen and the world is overrun by zombies. The reason for his sentence is that he no longer wants to follow the leader Rome, who like Knox is ex-military, but is a psychopath that slaughters for fun and for no other discernible reason. Knox is allowed to escape by one of the other members of the group who apparently also doesn’t like Rome much either (and gets executed for his troubles). The escape isn’t without hardships, since Knox is left handcuffed and is sent out into the desert. He manages to avoid getting devoured by a zombie and gets rescued by a band that roams the wastelands doing their best to fend for themselves. They are led by a man named Moses (Fred Williamson) who is likely the only member of the cast that the vast majority of the audience might know. Knox does his best to help his new found friends, even though trust is hard to come by given the fact that they know of his raider past. At the same time, his old nemesis, Rome, wants Knox found and executed, and so the hunt is on. Of course, the two groups end up clashing and in the end this tale becomes a battle between good and evil, with a horde of the undead smack dab in the middle of it all.
I was provided this movie for review because I am essentially a zombie-fiend. I review mainly zombie and other horror-type novels, but now and then I will review a movie. Yes, this is a very low budget movie and is very much a b-grade flick. Some of the dialog was a bit rough and every now and then unintentionally amusing. Jerry Lynch, who plays the head bad guy, appears to be fond enough of chewing scenery that he probably got indigestion after he was done here. Nope, this one won’t win any major awards, but for me, it was a fun post apocalyptic zombie flick. You sort of have to just go with it-accept the limitations of having minimal budget, no real known actors, and a simple apocalyptic premise. If you can do that, this movie is fun to watch. The concept is workable, with a bit of a Road Warrior type feel to the bad guys with their mishmash of armor and a deluded leader who craves power. Fred Williamson might be a bit too old to be doing fight scenes (he is over 70, after all), but even watching him do that after having seen him in plenty of classic B-Grade action flicks of the past brought a smile to my face. This is a simple, rock ‘em, sock ‘em zombie flick with a high body count and no hidden meanings. Pick your side, grab a weapon, and kill both the undead as well as the living that would kill you first if they had the chance. Go in knowing what to expect here and you will probably have some fun with this one.
Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Apocalypse-Redemption-Johnny-Gel/dp/B0055CP9S6/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1328389092&sr=1-1
