It feels pretty safe to say, in today's political climate and saturation of social media that has taught us to shoot first and ask questions later, thIt feels pretty safe to say, in today's political climate and saturation of social media that has taught us to shoot first and ask questions later, that cancel culture is a rather divisive topic, to put it mildly. For some, it's a useful tool to hold ne'er-do-wellers to task for their societal or cultural missteps or grievances. On the other side are those who posit their free speech should also include a freedom from consequence.
I'll admit, I'm certainly no saint. I've been a part of what grew into online mobs speaking out against, in one case, one small press horror publisher's blatantly racist ad copy for a book they not only canceled but closed up shop altogether in light of the outcry they generated. I've spoken out against bad actors in the horror community, not in an effort to see them "cancelled" but because I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. And, of course, I've also been the target of cancellation campaigns, such as the time a popular horror reviewer cum book seller and author manipulated an image I had posted in order to further their own clout and brand, and led a charge of death threats lobbed my way from their friends and fans.
Having been on the receiving end of some hairy online vitriol, I was interested in reading Josh Winning's take on the subject via summer camp slasher horror in Heads Will Roll. Social media and horror have grown into increasingly cozy bedfellows these last few decades, what with one former president turned convicted felon attempting to use his Twitter account to launch World War III, in addition to egging on the cancellation of whoever caught his ire at the moment, and the takeover of Twitter itself to churn an already harmful site into a full-throated white supremacist cesspool under the ownership of a puddingheaded man-child. Cancel culture lies at the heart of Heads Will Roll as Willow, an actress, finds herself under assault on- and offline after a mistimed tweet goes viral and costs her everything. With her life spiraling out of control and online death threats turning into real-life stalking, Willow is ushered into Camp Castaway. Her and the other attendees are anonymous from each other -- no real names allowed and, more importantly, no electronics. It's a complete and total detox from society and social media, and dear fucking god does that ever sound wonderful right about now.
Of course, what kind of slasher in the woods death camp promises would this book be if everything stayed hunky dory? As Willow further enmeshes herself in Camp Castaway and grows close to another camper, Dani, she also begins to make startling discoveries about the history of the camp itself, particularly the truths surrounding the urban legend of Knock-Knock Nancy. Nancy, or so the campfire storytelling goes, was beheaded hundreds of years ago and now haunts these here woods, knocking on the cabin doors and murdering whoever answers, lobbing off their dome with her killer axe to replace her own lost head! Of course, like any good urban legend, there's a grain of truth to the story, and that which happens in the past has a tendency of repeating in the present.
In between murders and camp conspiracies, Winning deepens the cancel culture allegory to reflect on LGBTQIA struggles and the ways in which they suffer under the cancel culture wars waged against them by the right-wing amidst the current onslaught of book bans targeting diverse authors and fictional characters who have two feet planted firmly in the real world, "Don't Say Gay" legislation, and "straight pride" campaigns spearheaded by congresswomen who give their boyfriends a handjob during children's musical stage show productions of Beetlejuice.
While these elements provide a nice spine for Heads Will Rolls, I do wish there was more meat on its bones. Winning doesn't delve as deeply into cancel culture as I would have liked, opting instead to stick to more superficial examinations in an effort to keep the book light and springy amidst the unraveling of secrets and an increasingly carnage-wrought climax. At times, this approach feels more like mere lip service owed to the topic, with a heady dose of both-sidesing the issue in order to provide a happy resolution that feels at odds with the events endured. I will give Winning props, though, for highlighting the granddaddy of all cancel culture and historically notorious antigay women-killer, Christianity, a malignant force that continues to push its own agenda at the expense of humanity in the pursuit of political power (something something Project 2025 something something yada yada yada).
As far as the slasher elements, it does take a while for Winning to get around to rolling all them heads around. For the most part, Heads Will Roll is a bit of a slow-burn, punctuated with some nice moments of violence that, eventually, give way to a big and bloody assault upon the camp and its castaways. The climax is suitably silver-screen big and gory, with the body count stacking nice and high by book's end. I dug the Knock-Knock Nancy mythos, and found the truth behind the camp legend suitably believable and relevant, but I did find myself wishing for more regular, and more extreme, beats of slasher mayhem. Like the topic of cancel culture, Winning just doesn't go far or deep enough to truly satisfy, giving the overall story a somewhat half-baked feel. Of course, it's all punctuated with familiar been there done that vibes and copious pop culture references that compel comparisons, particularly when Willow dons a Jade Daniels sleeping shirt. That brief aside was enough to make me wish I was once again reading about Stephen Graham Jones's final girl instead, and I'd heartily recommend his Indian Lake trilogy over Heads Will Roll if you're looking for some real slashery goodness. Now those were some damn good books!...more
Beautiful cover art and a compelling synopsis can't save the prose on this one. The Deading reads more like a dry academic textbook on DNF at page 42.
Beautiful cover art and a compelling synopsis can't save the prose on this one. The Deading reads more like a dry academic textbook on oyster farming and birding than a horror novel, and it didn't take long for boredom to outweigh my patience. Moving onto my next read......more
With the recent release of Yorgos Lanthimos's film, Poor Things, and two other Frankenstein movies slated for 2025 release - one from Guillermo Del ToWith the recent release of Yorgos Lanthimos's film, Poor Things, and two other Frankenstein movies slated for 2025 release - one from Guillermo Del Toro for Netflix, and another in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s theatrical The Bride - Mary Shelley's shadow continues to loom large as a source of inspiration for modern-day horror talents. Enter into this fray, Crypt of the Moon Spider, Nathan Ballingrud's latest novella and first in the Lunar Gothic trilogy for Tor Nightfire.
As with Ballingrud's previous release, The Strange, the author presents us with a fantastical alternate history and a voyage to the stars more in keeping with the imaginings of Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs than Neil deGrasse Tyson. In Crypt, it is 1923 and Veronica Brinkley has been entrusted by her husband into the care of Dr. Cull of Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy on Earth's moon. The clinic has been built upon a tomb that once housed the legendary moon spider, and although this species is no more its webs still cling to the treetops of the moon's forest surrounding Barrowfield Home.
Veronica is a waifish sort, the type of person upon whom events occur to and are heaped upon with little care or who lack any awareness of their own power for agency. Her victimhood is learned, instilled upon her by her own mother as a child in their Nebraska farmhouse who taught her that her life is not her own and that women exist only in the wake of men. Mother's is an old-fashioned viewpoint in lockstep with the times -- the suffrage movement, if it existed at all in this askew historical, would not yet have led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which itself would only be a couple of years old in Veronica's adulthood. Women are second-class citizen, and Veronica's institutionalization has little to do with her own wants or desires so much as her husband's, who has consigned her away off-planet in an effort to wash his hands of her entirely. She's passed from one man to another in a series of victimizations that culminate, but do not end, in an unorthodox medical procedure involving moon spider silk and intracranial surgery.
With both Crypt of the Moon Spidery and The Strange, I've found an awful lot to love about Ballingrud's alternate histories and star-flung exploits. What they lack in scientific rigor they make up for with fun and spectacle. He clearly has a vision with these tales, and he does a fantastic job realizing them. The modern technologies and antiquated world views of the 1920s setting provide intriguing dichotomies against the fantastical lore, and its impact on the sciences, upon which these worlds are built. Ballingrud presents us with imagery that alternates between the marvelous and the terrifying in equal measure, granting us visions that are both awe-inspiring and chill inducing in their terrestrial and extraterrestrial horrors, and the mishmash of ideas and concepts he weaves together are keenly unlike anything else you're likely to read. Or, as Tyson might more eloquently put it, with Ballingrud, we got a bad-ass over here....more
Steve Stred ventures into the realm of the unreliable narrator in When I Look At The Sky, All I See Are Stars. Psychiatrist Dr. Rachel Hoggendorf is aSteve Stred ventures into the realm of the unreliable narrator in When I Look At The Sky, All I See Are Stars. Psychiatrist Dr. Rachel Hoggendorf is assigned a new patient when David is remanded to a mental health care facility following the gruesome murder of a priest. Told in alternating points of view, Stred keeps us, as well as Rachel and her colleagues, guessing about David's true nature. Is he schizophrenic, a sufferer of multiple personality disorder, or is this an actual case of demonic possession?
For starters, David knows things he absolutely shouldn't, like the sexual assault Rachel has buried deeply in her past. Beyond knowing the secrets of total strangers, he also speaks confidently of cosmic gods and the false natures of mankind's more prominent beliefs. There seems to be something lurking in his eyes, too, and in the way he carries himself. The hospital's surveillance cameras record instances the doctors either failed to observe or have no recollection of... or maybe it's just digital noise on DVD playback?
In some respects, When I Look At The Sky almost feels like an ode to Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, particularly in regards to the doctor-patient relationship between Rachel and David as she works to suss out the true nature of his mental affliction, only to fall deeper into the rabbit hole. What she is forced to confront is a madness beyond all reason, and certainly well beyond the scope of her training and education as a mental health advocate.
Of course, given Stred's pedigree as a two-time nominee of the Splatterpunk Awards, this Lovecraftian concoction is far more explicit in its cosmic horrors and (in)human violence than the now-antiquarian quaintness of early-to-mid-20th Century weird fiction efforts. Stred has no difficulties shoving his characters toward extremes and inflicting upon them shockingly violent grotesqueries and sexually explicit revelries. What is a modern-day cosmic horror story involving cults and ancient uncaring gods without its massively ripe orgies and voluminous bloodletting, after all? When I Look At The Sky may owe plenty to the realm of Lovecraftian horrors, but Stred's approach to the material would no doubt have old H.P. himself struck with a curious case of the vapours, cursing and decrying this Canadian author as loudly as if Stred were an Italian....more
Claudia Gray reopens The X-Files with Perihelion, very clearly establishing a de facto season 12 in print that builds on the mythology of eleven televClaudia Gray reopens The X-Files with Perihelion, very clearly establishing a de facto season 12 in print that builds on the mythology of eleven televised seasons and two movies that came beforehand. Set soon after the eleventh season series finale, Perihelion quickly brings readers up to speed with the current status quo. FBI Agent Dana Scully is pregnant, presumably with conspiracy-minded Fox Mulder's child, and Walter Skinner, one of their last remaining allies within the Bureau, is left comatose in a care facility following a car accident. Mulder and Scully are brought back into the FBI's questionably good graces following an eruption of unexplained phenomena, while Gray works on giving this novelized reboot of the series a reason for existing.
Along the way, Gray draws from the usual tropes that kept series creator Chris Carter's clunky, convoluted conspiracy running. The shadowy Syndicate of the show, and its villainous front man, Cancer Man, have been replaced by their 2.0 versions in The Inheritors and Robin Vane, a merciless killer who can, at will, teleport in a burst of smoke. Mulder, meanwhile, is given a new mysterious informant in Avatar, a spunky woman with her finger firmly on the pulse of pulp culture and who may be as obsessed with geekdom as Mulder is with little green men.
Meanwhile, a serial killer is stalking the streets of D.C. and murdering pregnant women. At each scene is an unexplained electrical disturbance that causes lights to flash and explode, and melt cell phones. Needless to say, Scully is quickly drawn into the crosshairs of this killer's obsessions.
The A- and B-stories driving Perihelion are, unfortunately, the book's biggest weaknesses. The two cases never intersect in a satisfying way, particularly the B-story involving the killer Mulder dubs "Bright Eyes." This latter involves some very spurious revelations that never satisfactorily align with what has been presented and raise more questions than it answers. That, I suppose, is at least in keeping with typical X-Files investigations, but the loose threads Gray leaves dangling feel too inauthentic and incredulous. Some of the narrative gets bogged down a bit too much in comic book-like gimmicks, with Gray drawing parallels to our current Marvel-obsessed Hollywood machinations in a misguided effort to keep The X-Files relevant amidst the dominant pop culture of present-day America.
What she does get right, though, are the characters of Mulder and Scully themselves. With Perihelion's alternating viewpoints, we get to spend a lot of time in both agents' heads and their thoughts and words ring true to the characters we've spent many years obsessing over on television. In some segments, you can very clearly hear David Duchovny's off-screen narration, or picture Scully writing in her jounal while Gillian Anderson's voice reads off the words to us. Gray does a fine job capturing Mulder's wry sarcasm and Scully's incredulous indifference to his more oddball theories. These two characters have always been the most engaging aspect of The X-Files, keeping us glued to our screens even through less-than-spectacular investigations, and Gray understands this wholly, even if at times it feels like she's trying to shoehorn them into something that feels more like X-Men than X-Files.
It's a shame that Perihelion leans so far into comic book-like showiness given the very real-world actors and events that would allow for a deeper exploration of what makes The X-Files tick and why such government conspiracy-driven shenanigans are still relevant. We're living in an age of deep state, deep fakes, fakes news, and constant surveillance. Right-wing conspiracy theories have moved from the fringe and into the mainstream of American zeitgeist with its MAGA and QAnon whackadoo, PizzaGate, and Epstein lists. The distrust and paranoia surrounding the US government and its various actors is at an all-time high, and a clownish orange buffoon is headmaster of a parade of disinformation and outright lies. If ever there was a time for the resurgence of The X-Files, then the time is now, right now.
Unfortunately, Gray sidesteps a lot of these issues to focus on the well-worn and creaky mythology that all reads like a lot of been there, done that. It's not entirely dissatisfying, though, and Gray helps to reinvent the alien-government conspiracy in a more streamlined fashion than Carter's unnecessarily and increasingly complex mythology that continually defies resolution. It even posits an interesting and systemic reason for the continued existence of The X-Files, showing that Mulder and Scully's work isn't quite finished yet, and may never be. One thing she does get right to the heart of is the motivation of The Inheritors that parallels real-world groups of this nature, particularly in an era of climate change and rising Christofascism -- a shadowy group of rich people looking to bring about the end of the world in order to profit off civilizations collapse for little reason beyond money, money, money.
Gray also goes a long way to attempt some measure of course correction in Carter's regressive, tired old man-style plotting that caused so much uproar amongst X-philes during the eleventh broadcast season. She spends much of Perihelion walking back the continual victimization of poor, embattled Scully following the late-stage reveal that her previous pregnancy was the result of insemination from Cancer Man, who had drugged and knocked her up. It's clear that Gray intends for subsequent novels in this (presumably) newly established series to go a very different route than Carter's storyline for Scully, Mulder, and their son, William, and that's all for the better, in my estimation.
Perihelion makes for an interesting and intriguing set-up for The X-Files as a whole as this franchise moves from television to canon novelizations, but it's not without its rough patches. Gray takes some liberties with the property, introducing some flashier, showier aspects in print that would likely be beyond a television budget, but the story isn't any better for it, in my opinion. That said, I am eager to see what comes next and am hopeful we get a return to some classic Monster of the Week installments that are lighter on the, arguably weaker, mythology aspects. I, for one, welcome the return of The X-Files and still want to believe that the truth is, indeed, out there somewhere, even if it does feel farther away than ever....more
The entire solar system is watching as Asphodel Station conducts its first official use of the WarpLine gun (think the transporter array from Star TreThe entire solar system is watching as Asphodel Station conducts its first official use of the WarpLine gun (think the transporter array from Star Trek but not) ... and then disappears. Flung far away, to the other side of the cosmos, the personnel aboard the station find themselves caught up in an ancient war against Lovecraftian monstrosities that serve the destructive Outer Gods. And their only hope of surviving is an alien technology that resurrects the dead and harvests their souls.
So, maybe it goes without saying that Jonathan Maberry's NecroTek is kind of dark, and at times feels stiflingly oppressive, with even those slim shards of hope offered with a seriously aching catch. This all fits in wonderfully, of course, with the ethos of cosmic horror, wherein the universe and the immortal deities as old as time itself (if not older) that are dwelling amongst the stars are cold and uncaring, and oftentimes violently so.
Maberry certainly doesn't skimp on the violence. Asphodel Station's reappearance amidst an impossible stellar constellation is shockingly horrific as the space station and its denizens reestablish their dimensional bearings. Maberry's descriptions of the effects of the WarpLine gun recall the urban legends of the Philadelphia Experiment, with bodies becoming fused to the bulkheads, or skeletons and internal organs being transported away from beneath skin and muscle to leave the tragic victim little more than a puddle of collapsed, oozing flesh. To say that this first use of the WarpLine gun goes awry is to seriously undersell the negative effects suffered by the unfortunates aboard Asphodel. Maberry takes the transporter accident from Star Trek: The Motion Picture and magnifies it, thinking, "OK, now, how can I make it a thousand times worse?" Take, for instance, the young couple skipping the celebrations of the WarpLine gun's ribbon cutting for a romp in the metaphorical hay, only to find themselves coitus interruptus by way of vivisection and parts of their bodies shot into space. Even Asphodel's AI is not immune to the tragic malfunction of the WarpLine gun and begins suffering from schizophrenic breakdowns, at times sounding like it's transmitting straight from Matthew Bartlett's nightmarish version of Leeds, MA. You know you're in a bad way when the computer starts reciting funereal prayers unprompted.
Faster than you can say conflict escalation, the station and its military contingent find themselves under assault by a fleet of Shoggoths, the erstwhile amorphous, protoplasmic monsters from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. They've already destroyed all sentient life in the system Asphodel Station has materialized in, and they'll be damned if they're gonna allow the puny humans that now find themselves stuck there a chance to catch their breath. Maberry feels much the same about his readers, driving the plot forward with countless action beats both aboard the station and amongst the aerial hot-dogs taking the fight to the stars, pushing the crew of the Lost Souls naval contingent to the titular alien NecroTek technology that will either save them or damn them, or a little bit of both.
NecroTek is both captivating and exhausting in equal measure, but it's exhausting in a good way. Maberry has crafted here a marathon read, one that keeps the adrenaline pumping rapidly as both his characters and readers are thrust into one high-octane confrontation after another. At times it does feel a bit much, and I found myself wishing there were a quicker way through, but that, I suppose, is war. And make no mistake, NecroTek is first and foremost a war story, albeit one with monsters, ghosts, and gigantic, loud, boisterous alien technology that wouldn't be out of place in a Transformers movie, if only the Autobots found themselves fighting tentacled kaiju on a dead alien world. In short, it's a Jonathan Maberry book -- whatever delineations exist between genres are broken down in a brash everything including the kitchen sink approach, and then pureed in a blender until smooth and yummy. I mean, where the hell else are you going to find giant robots fighting even bigger monstrosities in a galaxy far, far away, all wrapped up in a horrifyingly bloody cocoon of cosmic horror? And this is just book one, for Cthulhu's sake! I can't even imagine what might be coming our way in the sequel. ...more
In 2019, Daniel Kraus discovered a half-finished manuscript for Pay the Piper amongst the numerous boxes of the University of Pittsburgh's collection In 2019, Daniel Kraus discovered a half-finished manuscript for Pay the Piper amongst the numerous boxes of the University of Pittsburgh's collection of George A. Romero's archives. No notes were left by Romero on where the story was intended to go or how it might conclude, leaving Kraus free to tie up the loose ends based on the clues and subtext present in the manuscript left orphaned by the famous film director's death in 2017. In Kraus's afterword, he writes that it was likely that Romero's partial draft was written somewhere between 1998 and 2004, well before his passing.
Reading this final co-written copy, I couldn't help but wonder if Romero had set aside Pay the Piper because he simply lost interest in it and perhaps never intended on finishing it. Even with Kraus stepping forward to salvage Romero's once-secret project, the end product feels largely aimless and shallow, and I'm not convinced that the world of horror literature would have lost much if this book had stayed buried.
Riddled with shades of Stephen King's IT, an ancient entity, the titular folkloric Piper, is luring away the youth of a Louisiana Bayou shantytown to devour them. Pontiac has lost her best friend, Billy May, to the monster, but this tragedy feels more like a minor footnote in her life. At one point she finds an old, beat-up baseball in the swamp she names Billy May Part Two, and that's about the extent of any care or empathy she shows toward her dead buddy.
If Pay the Piper is notable for anything it is its complete lack of depth and superficial approach to every topic its authors attempt to touch throughout. Instead of complex characters we get cardboard archetypes. Pontiac is The Rebellious Kid. Her dad is The Town Drunk. Pete is The Sheriff. Eventually, they gather to square off against the Piper because the narrative demands they do so, not because they have any great compelling reason to, although revenge does figure into for some of these, of course. The Piper's motivations are hidden in centuries of buried history that ultimately have little to do with anybody, providing yet another layer of disconnect between plot demands and the character surrounding it.
Kraus, and by default Romero, present a skosh of compelling eco-horror late in the narrative, which would have been more compelling if it had played a more significant role in the overarching story. The history of the region and its role in piracy and the slave trade provide some truly interesting background and inform the motivations of the Piper, but it never really goes anywhere, nor does it seem like a compelling enough reason for this monstrosity to unleash hell on swamp-rat kids circa 2024. Instead, it feels more like the authors forcibly reaching for a meaningful explanation, or any explanation at all, and becomes yet another disconnected element that never fully enmeshes itself with the rest of the narrative.
Pay the Piper has plenty of nifty ideas, but they never come together when they need to and lack any depth to make them interesting narrative devices. Why did Romero shelve this unfinished manuscript and keep it hidden away? I'm sure there's plenty of compelling reasons and theories, and Kraus shares a few of his. But the answer simply may be, it's just not that good. ...more
The premise and execution of Skeeters are as thin as the page its printed on. A backwoods town is under assault by alien mosquitos and the only thing The premise and execution of Skeeters are as thin as the page its printed on. A backwoods town is under assault by alien mosquitos and the only thing standing in their way of global domination is the 27-year-old sheriff, a pair of delivery boys, and a government agent studying the alien creatures. It's a goopy, gory, straight to video B-movie stoner horror book that posits a question I'm sure very few have ever asked with 'what if Jay from Jay and Silent Bob fame was the only thing standing between us and the end of the world?'
Co-writers Bob Frantz and Kevin Cuffe waste no time escalating the threat levels, spends even less time than that on character development, and even less time on meaningful or memorable dialogue. I'm guessing it took about five minutes to write each of the four issues collected here and am admittedly stupefied it took two people to write this thing. Kelly Williams's art is mostly enjoyable in a suitably nasty looking sort of way. His monster designs manage to be both familiar and suitably alien-esque even if the creatures mostly end up looking a lot like Jeff Goldblum's The Fly but with an enormous proboscis to suck and skewer all manner of Earth life.
Skeeters isn't good, but I imagine there are worse ways to kill a half-hour. I did read this sober and realize in hindsight that's probably not the best way to consume this particular melange. It probably wouldn't hurt to light up before, during, and after, and might even make this whole thing better. Smoke 'em if you got 'em....more
Just as Talitha Velkwood ventures back to her childhood home, Gwendolyn Kiste returns to familiar topics from her past works, exploring the traumas anJust as Talitha Velkwood ventures back to her childhood home, Gwendolyn Kiste returns to familiar topics from her past works, exploring the traumas and abuses of youth, female friendships, and the ways in which our own personal histories continue to haunt, all set against the backdrop of an all too-familiar suburban gothic.
Talitha hasn't been home in twenty years. She spent her entire childhood seeking a way to escape, and was finally gifted that chance when her entire neighborhood was swallowed by a supernatural event. Only Talitha and her two closest (and now estranged) friends, Brett and Grace, made it out. When a researcher contacts her with the promise of money, Talitha is forced by circumstance to return. Her mother and sister still haunt their home, along with the other unfortunate families trapped within the timeless veil of the Velkwood Vicinity, and Talitha sees this an opportunity to not only fix things but to finally save her sister.
After passing through the veil and stepping into her own past, Talitha herself becomes the ghost haunting the homes she grew up and played in as her past and present begin to converge. Forced to deal with the violence and secrets of her and her friends' past, Kiste explores the thin line -- if such a line even exists -- separating past and present, and the ways in which one can influence the other.
The Haunting of Velkwood is a tender gothic focused on the exploration of Talitha and her history. Even outside the veil of the Velkwood Vicinity she's practically a ghost, perpetually in limbo as she floats from job to job, house to house, never building her own life or consecrating her present as she attempts to escape the past. By returning home, Talitha has no choice but to face the consequences of her past actions, exploring her old life, prior loves, and suburban secrets of sexual abuse and murder. There's no escaping the ghosts of our past, but the real question here is whether or not they can be conquered before they destroy us and those we hold dear....more
Stephen Graham Jones concludes his Indian Lake Trilogy with The Angel of Indian Lake, a gory slasher story that picks up a few years after the conclusStephen Graham Jones concludes his Indian Lake Trilogy with The Angel of Indian Lake, a gory slasher story that picks up a few years after the conclusion of Don't Fear the Reaper and almost a decade after My Heart is a Chainsaw. Jade Daniels, the survivor of two previous horror movie-styled massacres, has returned to Proofrock, Idaho fresh from a stint in prison and has found work at the high school as a history instructor, despite objections from the schoolboard and thanks to her wealthy best friend and benefactor, Letha Mondragon. Of course, it's Halloween, and coupled with Jade's return and this being Proofrock, murder capital of the world, it's not long before another wave of killings begin.
As Randy Meeks explained once upon a time, "You are dealing with the concluding chapter of a trilogy. That’s right. It’s a rarity in the horror field but it does exist, and it is a force to be reckoned with. Because true trilogies are about going back to the beginning and discovering something that wasn’t true from the get-go," and that "The past will come back to bite you in the ass." And this being the third installment in a slasher series, that means, according to slasher genre law, the killings have to be bigger, badder, and bolder. The Angel of Indian Lake gets almost downright apocalyptic in its concluding act as Jones draws together various elements of his narrative.
That narrative itself is pretty expansive, bringing those brief glimpses of supernatural oddities from the prior two books front and center here, with a strong focus on the titular Angel and the sunken dead of Drown Town in Indian Lake. In the Angel's wake, the dead now have a hard time staying dead and drowned as they seek retribution for past injustices. And the body count just grows and grows with a killer on the loose and a wildfire threatening the sanctity of Proofrock itself.
A lot is happening in The Angel of Indian Lake, and it requires patience and attention to piece it all together as Jones works through the confluences of supernatural and man-made horrors, some of which reach far back into Proofrock's haunted history, like the mythology of Ezekiel's Cold Box and his sunken church where the choir of the dead still sing, as well as Jade's own past, and the injustices suffered by Indigenous peoples following the white man's arrival (an act spiritually recreated by the arrival of fresh, rich, white modern-day settlers who want to turn the community into their new playground throughout this series). I suspect that this is a work that will yield even more rewards upon a reread, and in closer conjunction with the preceding two books, but on first-pass it's certainly compelling, not to mention absorbing, and leaves readers with a few details to puzzle over in the end to test how well it all hangs together and form new connections that might have been overlooked initially...and maybe a theory or two about it all ends here.
The real strength, though, is Jade herself, who narrates the entirely of this grand finale. This is her story, one thousand percent, even when she tries to center it around other characters she comes into contact with. Jones's writing style is very conversational, a technique that has proved controversial with other readers, but which I enjoy very much. It's also a style that is very much Jones himself laying out on the page -- if you've ever listened to some of the podcasts he's been a guest on, you'll see right from the outset what I mean here. His thoughts, and Jade's by default, can ramble and twist and turn and grow distracted before circling back around to the main point, dropping all kinds of nuggets about slasher movie lore, history, trivia and its various rules built up over decades and decades of movie magic. There's a certain charm to all this, and it's made Jade -- always the last girl standing but never the real Final Girl, at least in her own eyes -- one of the most compelling Final Girls in horror literature, at least for my money. ...more
A bit over a year ago, I called David Wellington's Paradise-1 "a fine example of just how fresh and enjoyable sci-fi horror can be when an author fullA bit over a year ago, I called David Wellington's Paradise-1 "a fine example of just how fresh and enjoyable sci-fi horror can be when an author fully commits to an original premise." I wish I could say the same of its sequel, Revenant-X, which is largely content to play it safe as an overly familiar and overstuffed zombie book on an alien planet.
Picking up right where Paradise-1 left off, Petrova and her small group of companions and formidable survivors are stranded on the empty world. She has a psychic alien monstrosity, which she calls a basilisk, living in her head. Her lover, Sam Parker, is essentially a computerized ghost given shape and form by hard light. Zhang, the group's doctor, is kept habitually medicated by the device on his wrist lest he spiral out of control and kill himself. And then there's the appropriately named, anti-human robot, Rapscallion, who has deliberately built himself out of the most offensive toxic green-colored plastic a 3-D printer can produce.
The colony that once kept Paradise thrumming is a ghost town, as is the secret mining town that never made it ways into the official reports Petrova had access to when launched on this journey in the prior book. The entire settlement is dead. Or, more accurately, undead, thanks to all the colonists having been turned into ravenous hordes of monsters that exist only to kill. Lucky for them, they have four new candidates on the chopping block!
As the second in a trilogy, Revenant-X suffers from middle book syndrome. Whereas Paradise-1 felt fresh and exciting, with Wellington setting up a number of unique and horrifying set-pieces as if it were a haunted corn maze in outer space, Revenant-X is simply tiresome. Wellington wears out his welcome quickly with an over-reliance on rinse-and-repeat scenarios and lack of meaningful consequences (save for one instance particularly, but with Book 3 still on the docket, we'll just have to file that one under TBD). For a book about being stuck on a massive, dead world, this second Red Space title feels just as large and empty.
Petrova and company explore a facility and get attacked by revenants. They manage to escape and run elsewhere, where they get attacked by revenants. Rapscallion gets damaged and has to print off new body parts. They try to get to a communications tower to reestablish contact with Petrova's higher-ups at Firewatch and get attacked by revenants. Rapscallion gets damaged and has to print off new body parts. They craft a makeshift boat to sail down a river to get to the mining town, where they, of course, are attacked by revenants. Rapscallion gets damaged and has to print off new body parts. There's only a few small ideas tucked away within these 5oo-plus pages, and Wellington returns to them over and over and over with too little new to say about any of them. By the time we get some nuggets of fresh information to move the overarching plot of this series along, the book is just about over, with little in the way of either closure or fanfare because there's still a whole other book to wait for. We, along with Wellington, have simply been spinning our wheels this whole time.
Revenant-X didn't excite me the way Paradise-1 did, and although Paradise-1 was significantly longer than its follow-up, Revenant-X feels bulkier and longer by far. The repetition of ideas and scenarios make this book feel more cumbersome than it is, giving it a sluggish and tiresome pace. Instead of varied, threatening encounters, we're left feeling little more than, "Oh, this again?" Little of consequence occurs within these pages, despite the frequency of all its happenings. To his credit, Wellington does keep the action coming, even if it feels more like being beat over the head than anything approaching suspense or tension in the narrative.
With a bit more authorial self-control or firmer editorial oversight, Revenant-X could easily lose a few hundred pages and remain largely unchanged. As it stands now, it's more like the literary equivalent of those "this meeting could have been an e-mail" memes....more
In the Arctic's Hawkshead Island, a group of illegal miners discover an ancient cavern hidden beneath the now-receding ice and a deadly horror that haIn the Arctic's Hawkshead Island, a group of illegal miners discover an ancient cavern hidden beneath the now-receding ice and a deadly horror that has been lying in wait. Inside are a group of bodies, one of which has been deformed by a disease that has reawakened in the presence of these miners and has but one singular goal -- to spread. All that may be able to contain this hideous infection is a small band of eco-warriors intent on halting these rogue miners, but they may already be too late.
Given the recent surge in COVID-19 infections and other assorted headlines, it feels utterly impossible to separate Among the Living from the current social and political issues of our times, but such is the nature of art, which is inherently political and borne out of contemporaneous issues. Tim Lebbon's latest feels strikingly familiar, not only because we've been facing similar concerns these last four years, but is also a bellwether of what may potentially come given societal trends toward apathy.
Like his last few novels, Among the Living is intensely ecologically minded, with the plot and the terrors that are unleashed fueled by the horrors of climate change. Set only a few decades ahead of us (one character reminisces about seeing Metallica on tour for James Hetfield's 70th birthday back when she was in high school), the frozen wastelands of the Arctic have further receded and temperatures have risen. Earth's ancient history is slowly thawing and being revealed, as are the threats that have lurked dormant in the ice. It's a land ripe for exploitation by capitalistic concerns, like rogue miners looking to get rich quick off rare earth mineral deposits, that will only cause the land and those that inhabit it further harm. Timely, given recent news about billionaires exploiting the shrinking ice in Greenland in a mining rush and, no joke, shipping glacier ice to the desert for their cocktails.
Lebbon's latest also reminds one of the rampant wave of denialism that fueled so much of the COVID-19 pandemic, fractioning those who attempted to halt the spread against those who sought to ratchet up infection rates through ignorance and/or sheer stupidity, as well as the belief that infecting others rather than taking precautions against it was their god given right and that taking preventative measures was an infringement against their civil liberties. Like any other disease, the horrifying contagion at the heart of Among the Living wants to spread, has a biological -- and perhaps even intellectual -- imperative to spread, and once infected its human hosts become little more than quislings intent on helping the disease reach further. Kind of like COVID-19 deniers.
Among the Living grabbed my attention right from the outset. Lebbon wastes no time getting down to brass tacks with the illegal miners discovery of ancient subterranean horrors and ratcheting up the suspense and scares in the pages that follow. And while the disease in question bears some similarities to the now over-used fungal threat of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, the zombie fungus that has become the go-to favorite of tired horror writers the world over, Lebbon smartly gives us something older, wiser, and far scarier and more threatening. On the character front, I greatly appreciated the strained relationship between our just-reunited protagonists of Bethan and Dean, which eschews the romantic in favor of the platonic. Lesser works would have left us wondering how long until they jump into bed with one another, but Lebbon tackles the more interesting route of a headstrong friendship broken by the consequence of action and lapsed time, and whether or not it can be reforged at the end of the world. ...more
It's a rare series indeed that, twenty-plus entries in, I still feel invested in the characters and author enough to not only continue on but to eagerIt's a rare series indeed that, twenty-plus entries in, I still feel invested in the characters and author enough to not only continue on but to eagerly anticipate additional offerings. The Charlie Parker series is among these few current on-going series I consistently make the effort to not only keep up to date with but actively seek out and jump at the opportunity to read advance copies for review (Jonathan Maberry's Joe Ledger series is another).
The Instruments of Darkness finds Charlie Parker working a case for lawyer Moxie Castin. His newest client, Colleen Clark, has been accused of murdering her infant son, but between her story and the prosecution's evidence, things aren't adding up. Neither Parker nor Castin think she's guilty and believe the state is overlooking a few key particulars in a reckless rush toward a slam-dunk conviction. The deeper Parker digs, the more irregularities he uncovers, particularly those of Colleen's husband and the woman he was having an affair with. It's an investigation that will eventually lead Parker into the woods of Gretton, and an old abandoned home that stinks of the dead...and an ancient force hidden in its darkness.
Connolly's writing is as tack-sharp as its ever been, as are the keen wit, snappy dialogue, and pointed barbs of his characters. It's always a joy to sit in on the various back-and-forths between Parker and his allies, particularly Angel and Louis, and doubly-so when they're squaring off against some particularly unsavory sorts. There's plenty of the latter, to be sure, as Parker's investigation draws him toward a group of white supremacists seeking to turn the Gretton woods into a paramilitary base where they can stand back and stand by.
I admire Connolly's open willingness to use these fascist villains of late, harkening back to 2018's The Woman in the Woods. As I wrote then, "Sadly, the normalizing of these repugnant attitudes by the right-wing is now common place and hate crimes have been on the rise ever since Trump took office, so it's quite refreshing to see characters like Charlie Parker and Luis taking a stand against this all-too human evil. Their actions and reactions toward the Stonehursts had me smiling rather happily along the way, and I suspect this family of rich racists will be playing a larger role in the books to come." What I said then still stands today in 2024, plus bonus points to me for pegging the recurring role of the Stonehurts. Trump hasn't gone away, and neither have these jackals, but at least we still have Parker and Louis to act as a much needed release valve to live vicariously through. They make sure these baskets of racist deplorables get everything they deserve, even if I do wish we got to read even more. Maybe next book!
Props, too, to Connolly for the character of Sabine Drew, a disgraced psychic now haunted by the crying of Clark's deceased child. Her backstory is tragic, but the way in which she wends her way into Parker's investigation presents a nicely redemptive arc, albeit one that I hope is not entirely finished just yet. I hope we see more of her in the future, as her gifts make an interesting foil for Parker's own supernatural insights and ingrained skepticism.
Speaking of gifts, it's Connolly's own that I already find myself eager for Charlie Parker's next case. I don't even have to be psychic to know that it will be worth the wait....more
Boston natives, Tommy and Kate, have transplanted their lives to Becchina, Italy on an offer that sounds too good to be true and impossible to pass upBoston natives, Tommy and Kate, have transplanted their lives to Becchina, Italy on an offer that sounds too good to be true and impossible to pass up. The dying town has begun selling homes for one euro in the hopes of rebuilding its populace with fresh blood, provided the buyers commit to living there for a minimum of five years and spend at least fifty thousand euros on renovations. For Kate and Tommy, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity and one that also allows them to reconnect with the little bit of family Tommy has still living there. Not all is bella fortuna for the happy young couple, though, for the house they have purchased has a dark and sinister history. Known to the locals as la casa dell'ultima risorsa, the house of last resort was previously owned by the Vatican and lies above the small town's bone-filled catacombs.
Christopher Golden's The House of Last Resort is a slow-burn horror, with the bulk of the narrative centered around the mundane. We spend plenty of time with Tommy and Kate as they begin righting their house and getting their affairs in order as they settle in, reconnect with his grandparents and cousin, Marcello, and meet the other recent immigrants to Becchina who jokingly refer to themselves as the imports.
Sprinkled throughout are moments of the uncanny -- Kate and Tommy are greeted by an earthquake upon their arrival at the front door of their new home, doors that are locked or stuck seemingly open on their own, mysterious power failures dog their nights, and the house is infested with rats. These initially minor happenings are enough to sustain interest, but only just, and it's not until the last third of the book, as we're thrust into a diabolical climax, that the narrative finally gains momentum and intrigue. The catacomb-centered finale is rife with wonderfully descriptive flair that recalls some of Golden's macabre scripting alongside Mike Mignola's comics, to the point that I couldn't help but wish for some Mignola illustrations to go alongside the climax. Once he digs into the horrors only previously hinted at, Golden conjures up some fantastic, evocative, and highly effective and memorable imagery.
Getting there takes a heck of a lot of patience, and the first three-fourths of the book is a slog saved only by those brief flashes of eeriness as the secrets surrounding the house are slowly and meticulously doled out. The resolution isn't particularly impactful, either, due to its expectedness, and where The House of Last Resort really suffers is in its predictability. While Kate and Tommy are hoping for the adventure of their life, Golden seems oddly content to play it safe. There is a neat reveal behind how and, more importantly, why Kate and Tommy wound up with this particular house, but all others feel like foregone conclusions. I do appreciate Golden's lack of pandering toward Christianity, though, with the Church getting a bit of a shellacking here and there (and rightfully so, given their less than stellar history toward human rights since its inception) and the hokey "God saves" messaging of so many other Christian-focused stories of similar vein, like The Conuring films, in an attempt to appeal to the masses. The rest, unfortunately, feels like paint-by-numbers horror that has been finely tuned for maximum mainstream appeal....more
I never did get around to checking out The Expanse series, in either book or television form, but that certainly didn't stop me from becominDNF at 39%
I never did get around to checking out The Expanse series, in either book or television form, but that certainly didn't stop me from becoming very familiar with James S.A. Corey, pen name for the writing duo of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, thanks to word of mouth and a whole lot of publicity. I thought this first installment of their new The Captive's War series, The Mercy of Gods, would be the perfect jumping on point, and all I can say now is, "This is what I've been missing?!.
Leaden prose. Shallow characters that are so unmemorable and paper-thin that to even call them one-dimensional is giving these authors too much credit. Absolutely glacial pacing. The astounding ability to turn what should be momentous events, like an alien invasion and the absolute annihilation of a civilization, into mundane, forgettable, dull instances that occur with nary a shrug. At least the authors almost try to make central protagonist Dafyd somewhat interesting by making him a complete asshole whose sole reason for existing is to manipulate others as he tries to bed fellow research scientist Else. The latter is smart and beautiful, or so we're told, repeatedly, which about all Corey can muster up in an attempt to define her, and is more depth than they can be bothered to give any of the other women in this book's largely interchangeable cast of Man 1, Man 2, Woman 1, Woman 2, etc. etc. etc. Yes, these other characters do indeed have names, but that's about the only sort of differentiation Corey can muster. Readers will be hard-pressed to tell one apart from another, though.
The Mercy of Gods has to be among the most lackluster "big-budget" sci-fi efforts I've read in a while, and even after the destruction of their world and their abduction by a mysterious alien race the greatest threat these characters face is the reader's ability to bother turning from one page to the next our of sheer boredom. Everything about this book positively reeks of "been there, done that," and has been done better virtually everywhere else. Either this fiasco is a complete misfire from the authors Corey or my tastes have once again deviated greatly from the mainstream tastemakers. Dropping this book nearly halfway through may be an act of preserving what little sanity and patience I have left, but skipping it altogether would have been a far greater mercy. ...more
While the marketing copy makes Out of the Dark sound something like Independence Day by way of The Walking Dead — and god, how I wish that had been soWhile the marketing copy makes Out of the Dark sound something like Independence Day by way of The Walking Dead — and god, how I wish that had been so — David Weber’s novel offers little more than gun porn musings, few and far between thrills, and an enormous cast of cardboard cutouts.
Mankind learns it is not alone in this great big universe when an alien race of dog-like bipedal warmongers called the Shongairi launch a surprise invasion and obliterate the Earth in a swift and shocking invasion that leaves billions dead in a matter of minutes. The Shongairi’s aim is to enslave the rest of the populace, but as one might expect things do not go according to plan and the shambles of humanity violently resist.
Weber’s story unravels along four major fronts of the war — we get the Shongairi perspective, the resistance effort along the Carolinas, a team of Marines stranded in Romania, and a Ukranian resistance fighter. On the human front, there’s little to distinguish these characters aside from their nationalities. Each are paper-thin, one-dimensional representations of human beings with equally fibrous dialogue to match. The leader of the US Marines in Romania and the Ukranian fighter are both husbands and fathers who have lost everything in the invasion. One is Black, the other Caucasian, and that’s about as much depth as Weber attributes to either of them. The North Carolina good ‘ol boy is a gun-nut prepper — lucky for him and his family — who Weber describes as “politically somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, although possibly still to the left of Genghis Khan.” He also blames Carl Sagan for the invasion. Yes, really. Thankfully, Weber spares us any of this guy’s twisted political views since we’re supposed to be rooting for this guy, dreadful as one might suppose him to be. You can tell this is fiction, because only in fiction is this type of person the good guy despite all of reality informing us otherwise.
Rather than give any of these characters any kind of development, dimensionality, or personality, Weber instead focuses on weapons and tactics. Although the Shongairi possess the technical know-how to traverse interstellar space enslaving weaker races and can reduce the vast majority of Earth’s city centers and military installations to rubble through a series of kinetic energy weapons attacks, they’re largely clueless and inept. Weber tries to draw a parallel to Vietnam with a militarily superior force losing out to more primitive guerrilla tactics, but it never quite rises beyond one-note American jingoism given the focus on mostly US characters saving the day with America in the Vietnam role. Even then, they don’t really save the day because of their cunning or savvy, but because the Shongairi are woefully unprepared and so accustomed to destroying races much weaker than themselves that they never bothered to develop things like radar or durable armor (I’m sure that helps make navigating space so much easier). And although they can destroy whole cities with the flick of a switch, humanity never really feels like it’s on been caught wrong-footed because of how easy it is to fight back against this extraterrestrial threat. And then there’s the late-game supernatural angle that Weber shoehorns into the plot, which the less said about the better. I won’t spoil the surprise here, but plenty of other reviewers have spoken out about it and I can assure you it’s just as silly and nonsensical as they say.
Speaking of that which the less said about the better, I suspect that if one were to carve out all the unnecessary words Weber spends on guns, ammo, bullet grains, pounds per foot of stopping power, and comparisons between US armaments and Russian armaments and one gun manufacturer from another, Out of the Dark would lose at least a third of its page count. At least. Weber never turns down a chance to wax philosophical about guns or to write an impromptu essay about the weapons employed herein regardless of how badly it drags the story down. And good lord does it ever drag things down. Explorations of gun and gun culture are also used as a substitute for anything resembling character development or relationships. Take for instance one would-be touching moment between a husband and wife sharing what could very well be their last goodbye. What might have been a touching moment is instead derailed by the man reminiscing not for his wife, but for her gun! Weber spends four whole pages (on my Kindle Fire, at least) on what amounts to a gratuitous advertisement for a firearm in lieu of any actual human emotion. Between this kind of nonsense and all the technical jargon and gun-nut acronyms, I’m sure the ammosexuals may find a lot to get off on here, but for me so much of it was just gobbledygook that hampered any forward momentum of an already foolish and threadbare story.
And nonsense is ultimately the kindest way to describe Out of the Dark. Weber’s story requires an inordinate amount of willful suspension of disbelief that it never quite earns or rewards, all of which is balanced by the inevitable question of whether or not Weber is getting paid by weapons manufacturers for all his various endorsements and advertisements herein. Because if he’s not, this is really kind of embarrassing....more
Gary Whitta's Gundog offered a lot of promise, but failed to deliver. It revolves around an alien invasion, and in the book's opener we getDNF at 30%.
Gary Whitta's Gundog offered a lot of promise, but failed to deliver. It revolves around an alien invasion, and in the book's opener we get a two page infodump that catches us up on future history, which - in the 85 pages I read - is about as interesting as this book gets. A machine race known as the Mek (get it? Mek because they're mechanical beings? I'm not sure if they named themselves that or if it was meant as a derogatory hardy har har name invented by the humans they subjugated.) came to Earth in peace, seeking to trade their advanced technology for our natural resources, which their dying home world was in desperate need of. But, since humanity is the shitshow that it is, we decided we could just take their technology in lieu of nothing at all, and declared war, because we're a cynical, barbaric species and such is our way. Of course, the Mek's peaceful ways hid a hugely advanced military might that they used to wipe the Earth's ass with us and claim our planet for themselves. Humanity was rounded up into labor camps, which is where Gundog actually begins and any excitement that may have existed in this story goes to die.
Mechs are a hugely important part of this book. The alien race is wholly mechanical and Gundog arrives in timely fashion given current events regarding the threats posed by artificial intelligence to humanity, employment, and the arts (see the Writer's Guild of America's strike, for instance, and their demands to regulate AI in Hollywood productions). There are giant mechanized war machines the humans piloted in the war called Gundogs, and one long lost, fabled Gundog left standing as a monument by the Meks to humanity's utter failure supposedly still standing outside Bismark, ND, or so rumor has it. Whitta's writing is mechanical, too -- stiff, dull, and completely lifeless, there's no joy, urgency, or amusement to be found in these words. The book itself may as well have been outlined by AI with the prompt "The Hunger Games meets Robot Jox" it's so trope-ridden.
If you've read virtually any post-apocalyptic dystopian book with a YA woman destined for greatness thanks to her unknown especially to her legacy on a Joseph Campbell hero's journey, aided by a boy she knowns nothing about but who knows more than her about basically everything including her familial legacy, you've read far less robotic versions of Gundog already....more
In his cover blurb for Maeve Fly, Grady Hendrix riffs on Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 serial killer book American Psycho, referring to Leede’s work as AnaIn his cover blurb for Maeve Fly, Grady Hendrix riffs on Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 serial killer book American Psycho, referring to Leede’s work as Anaheim Psycho. Readers, I’m not sure I can say it much better or nearly as succinctly.
I was only a few pages into Maeve Fly when I started wondering “Who the hell is CJ Leede and where did she come from? Why hadn’t I heard of her before?”, followed up with “How is this fucking book her debut?!” and “When’s the next one?” The LA-based author has two more books coming from Tor Nightfire and it’s not hard to see why the publisher was so eager to sign her to a three-book deal.