Recent Reads From Hell Pt. III

 Here are some books I've read recently, some vintage paperbacks and others newer. If the book looks like something you might want to read, click the tile to buy a copy (some of the older books might be out of print).

The End of the World by Dan Henk

With The End of the World Dan Henk wrote a fairly epic sci-fi/military thriller that doesn't tread the usual territory of an end of the world as we know it type of story. Where as most if these stories focus on survival, this one weaves a tapestry detailing why the world is crumbling, and it's not zombies or a contagion as in so many other books of this nature.

Henk is a hell of a writer. The prose is rich and beautiful, though his attention to detail often goes a bit overboard for my taste. The characters are fully developed and believable as they deal with the reality that life as they know it has changed forever, which is refreshing. The focus is primarily on a young punk kid and what we're introduced to as a man who seems to have been absorbed into some strange suit and is losing his humanity. Two interesting characters who are on the run for very different reasons than mere survival.

Ultimately this was a fantastic read, particularly for fans of military sci-fi or apocalyptic yarns. Some of the better writing I've read in a while, though at times I felt the descriptions could have been dialed back a bit. The interior illustrations were an awesome bonus! 

 

 The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale

Here's a book that I've heard a lot about. It's regarded a seminal work in early bizarro, you know, before there was even a term for oddball fiction that bends the rules and tests the boundaries. Knowing that made me exited and a little bit hesitant to read this one since I've never been a big bizarro fan. Also, it's one of those Lansdale stories that everyone seems to love, right along with the short story "The Night They Missed the Horror Show" and the novel The Bottoms. I didn't care for that particular short story, and though I liked The Bottoms, it's far from Lansdale's best (of what I've read, that placeholder is Mucho Mojo).

I liked the first half of The Drive-In quite a bit. The set up was great, Lansdale's writing was just as off the wall, fun, and bonkers as I'd have expected for this type of story. Yeah, it's a weird story, but that's really all there is to it. By the end of the first half I was already done. I'd hoped the second half did something more, but it was pretty much more of what I'd already read. Ultimately it was a bit of a letdown. 

I've read a bunch of Lansdale's novels and this is the first one I didn't really like. No big deal. He's a brilliant writer, this one just wasn't for me. I'm not into the whole bizarro genre, so that might have had something to do with it, though I have read a few Lansdale shorts that walk bizzaro pavemtent that were fantastic ("Love Doll: A Fable" being one of them, where a guy's sex doll comes to life and becomes more than he bargained for).

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

Here's another one that came highly recommended. It's up for a Bram Stoker Award this year. I really liked the set-up, but the story went down a completely different avenue than I expected, and though I respect that from the standpoint of a writer (I mean, anytime a story veers away from the expected, that's a good thing, right?), I ultimately felt let down by this novella.

This is the first book I've read by Stephen Graham Jones. He's one of those names I see everywhere. I even saw one of his books prominently displayed at a Barnes and Noble a few years ago. The guy can write, no doubt. He has a voice that's very distinct, however I found it difficult to follow. being it was a first person narrative, I'm wondering if all of his books have the same style. That was the hardest part about reading it, just stringing the sentences together and figuring out what they meant. That sounds harsh, but I had to really get into the zone whenever I picked up the story. Once I got myself in the Night of the Mannequins mindset, I was okay.

I didn't hate this story, but I didn't love it either. Despite a writing style that I didn't really mesh with, I just would have liked to see the narrative go in a completely different direction. I won't say anything more since this one is still fairly new. It's definitely worth checking out. 

Nightmare by S. K. Epperson

This is one of those old books published by Leisure with a well used motif of embossed eyes and a spider's web gracing the cover. I love the cover art. Does it fit the story? Yeah, sure it does. Is this a horror story, as Leisure marketed it? No, not really. It's a mystery with horrific elements.

A small group of people are flown to a remote location where a clinic (more of an asylum-type facility) treats women suffering from multiple personality disorders. That's just plain out implausable, really, but I don't know. It was written in the late eighties. Maybe such a place could have existed. I'm thinking much further in the past, but maybe I'm clouded by modern times. Anyway, the setting is very typical for a mystery. Put a munch of people together in a remote location, someone dies. Whodunnit? Is it the different personalities of some of the patients? Is it the crazy 600 pound woman who sits up in her room watching everything through a series of invasive servalance cameras and and listening to gossip with speakers? And so on, and so on.

Not a bad story at all. I enjoyed it, but I saw it going in so many more interesting directions. I would have liked to have read the horror version of this story that Leisure promised me when they categorized this book as such.

Well, there you go. Not a great bunch this time, but that's how it is with fiction. I'll post another bunch in a month or so (I'm a terribly slow reader!). I hope I read something that wows me. Right now I'm reading Spawn From Hell by William Schoell and The Silent Enemy by, well, I'm not sure. That one is in my car (my lunch-time read), and I'm not familiar with the author. It's an old Zebra from 1980 about killer kelp...or you'd think that by reading the back cover copy? Misleading? Maybe. You'll have to wait and see.