Recent Reads From HELL!

It's been a while since I wrote about the recent books I've read. In this post I will focus on the horror boom books I've recently read. The first two I actually read earlier this year. I started this post and never finished it.

Ever since reading Pin by Andrew Neiderman, I have been trying to include his books in a somewhat regular rotation (there really is no regular rotation--I read many different authors). At the end of last year I read his book The Immortals (Pocket Books, 1991). I have a theory about Neiderman's work. He was published by about every mass market publisher in the 80s, namely Pocket Books, Berkley and Zebra. So far the Zebra books I've read by him are terrible. I mean, they're so bad I feel like he hired a sixth grader to write them. The Pocket Books novels are written and edited well. Maybe he had a shit editor at Zebra. Maybe those are first drafts and his Pocket Books editor worked magic. Who knows.

The Immortals (Pocket Books, 1991) is a story about vanity and the greed, plain and simple. How far will a man go for riches, and to what ends will vain people go for looks. Seems timely, doesn't it. I won't get into the nitty gritty of the story or plot. Basically a salesman takes a job selling miracle cream that works almost instantaneously...but to what end? People become addicted to the stuff, the salesman becomes addicted to the money, and shit goes downhill quickly from there.

It was a fun read. Nowhere near as good as Pin, but probably a runner up for me. The themes are just as relevant today as when he wrote the book, which I found interesting. The best scene has to do with a dolly that the man's employer gives to his daughter. I won't give it away, but I gotta say that was some gruesome shit. It's a fun read, but nothing groundbreaking.

I also read Ronald Kelly's Something Out There (Zebra, 1991) earlier this year. Above I mentioned that it seemed as if Neiderman had a crummy editor at Zebra. This is certainly not the case with Ronald Kelly. That or Ronald is just a far superior writer. This is my second Kelly book, the first being Fear, which is a stand-out coming of age story. Something Out There aka The Dark'Un, is about A family secret on Pale Dove Mountain concerning a race of beings that have lived in concert with humans for many years, but are being pushed to their breaking point by greedy developers. Again, a timely theme, or perhaps a theme that never loses its potency. I live very close to where the story takes place and I see the destruction greedy developers wreck on once beautiful hills, and it's heartbreaking.

I don't want to get into the plot too much. I enjoyed this book, though in the third act it sort of became a men's adventure novel. I'm not a fan of action movies or books, so that part didn't appeal to me. Otherwise, the story is well crafted from beginning to end, with and array of interesting and memorable characters. After reading a couple of Ronald Kelly novels I'm truly shocked that he wasn't rubbing elbows with King and McCammon on the New York Times bestseller list with his work coming out in shiny hardback editions. If you are a fan of those authors, you absolutely have to give Ronald Kelly's books a try. You won't be disappointed.

My most recent Paperback From Hell read was Child of Darkness by David B. Silva (Leisure, 1986). What en excellent story this was. A coming of age story about two young brothers taken in by their aunt and uncle after their parents are torched in the family barn. One of the brothers is suffering from some darkness within, a darkness that is responsible for the fire. Now that they are under a new roof with auntie and uncle, the darkness wants out.

 I liked this one a lot. It was dark and moody, fueled by rich atmosphere. A slow burn that really gets under your skin. There is a small cast of characters, namely the two brothers and their aunt and uncle, which I really like. Too many characters can be hard to focus on (although Ronald Kelly does that with expertise in the aforementioned Something Out There). I really like books that get into the characters' psyche, and Silva worked wonders with a kid who has a few psyches in him. Though Silva's books aren't easy to find (I'm really not sure if they're in print or not, but this old Leisure paperback I have is the only one I've ever seen), but this one is well worth keeping your eye out for.

Thoughts on The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is a classic. It has been adapted into at least two films, one in the 60s that is pretty good and the other in the 90s that is a steaming pile of crap. I always site Jackson's story "The Lottery" as the piece of fiction that opened my mind to the written word (this is after reading King, Lumley, and whatever schools taught at the time, but getting no inspiration), and though that story had such a profound affect on me, I have never gone back to read any of Shirley Jackson's novels...until now.

My favorite haunted house stories are Richard Matheson's Hell House, Douglas Clegg's Harrow House series, and The Elementals by Michael McDowell. Reading The Haunting of Hill House doesn't change my adoration of those books, but falls somewhere in the top ten. I loved the book, but there was something about the ambiguity that eventually lost me. More than a haunted house story, this was the story of a woman losing her mind. Now, perhaps it was the haunts that edged her mind into the realms of insanity, but she appeared to be going down that road right from the beginning. In the end, I wasn't even sure there was a haunting at all. I do understand that this was intentional, and it sure did have my mind running overtime after finishing the book. For a book to leave a lasting impression is something any author strives to achieve (well, most authors--some just pump out the pulp and cash in the checks). For the lingering affects, Jackson succeeded, and I am always pleased and interested in downbeat endings. At the time when this book was originally published it must have been quite a shock, much like the end of "The Lottery". All these years later the shock is dulled by so many books that have come since, and especially by the film industry. Consider the end to Night of the Living Dead. To this day, after watching that movie time and time again, it still gets to me. It's not so much a twist ending as it is a nihilistic mindbend, just a straight out glass of half-full fuck you. I can appreciate that.

A great book, no doubt. Up next is Stirring the Sheets by Chad Luzke, The Hell-Bound Heart by Clive Barker and several others. I'm falling behind on these, having been so focused on my forthcoming novel Death Obsessed, which is up for pre-order. Only .99 cents until June 19th when the price goes up to $3.99. The print book will be available around June 9th for $11.99 until release day when the price goes up. Pre-order HERE.

Thoughts on Pin by Andrew Neiderman

Book three of 2018 is Pin by Andrew Neiderman. Here are my thoughts:

This was my first Andrew Neiderman read. I had heard a lot about this book, always with some half-joking comment about incestuous themes, which, quite honestly, was off-putting.Though the cover is eye-catching, this book has sat on my shelf solely because of the whole incest thing. I just didn't wasn't to read something like that. Once I realized how deeply I was judging the book without even giving it a chance, I decided to dig in. I'm glad I did.

In a nutshell, Pin is about a brother and sister who were raised in a unique environment where their mother was a crazed clean freak and their father a emotionless family physician who they referred to as The Doctor rather than Dad. The Doctor had a life-sized figure that displayed the human anatomy very similar to the clear pages you would find in an old encyclopedia under the human anatomy section, muscles, veins, tendons and all. The kids became obsessed with this figure and name him Pin. For Leon, the obsession never ended, even after both of their parents died in a car wreck, however when his sister Ursula begins to grow up and becomes interested in a young man, Leon becomes jealous and filters his own frustrations through Pin, an inanimate thing he has quite fully convinced himself is a living, breathing human being. A human he talks to. A human who talks back.

Pretty big nutshell there. I never was good at one sentence pitches.

So, I loved the book. I read it rather quickly, engrossed with this bizarre tale and not once put off by the incestuous stuff people seem to immediately associate with the story (believe me, it sounds far worse than it is). The relationship between Leon and Ursula is unusual and creepy, however the first act of the story convincingly develops this unhealthy relationship in a way that gives the reader a sense of sympathy, though that wanes as our Narrator, Leon, becomes more and more unreasonable and crazed. He and his sister went through a lot with The Doctor, things no children should ever have to face. They were raised like little experiments for their sick father, which ends up disturbing them quite severely, making it difficult for them to function in the real world.

This was an unusual story. Kind of a slow burn, I suppose. In many ways I could see what was happening and how things would transpire. I think that certain themes have probably been ripped off and used in horror films. I didn't see the ending coming, though I feel like I should have. Really, I was so engrossed in the story that I wasn't looking to figure out what was going to happen. The epilogue, however, should have been . . . Hold on a minute. I'm going to go check something. Never mind. I was about to write about dropping the epilogue, but as I was typing I suddenly understood it. I'd forgotten how Leon names Pin early on in the story, and that tidbit has everything to do with those final three pages.

In closing, I loved the book. I'm going to read more Andrew Neiderman, sooner than later (I still have no interest in V. C. Andrews). Up next will be either Pete Khale's Specimen, Robert Bloch's American Gothic, or Paperbacks From Hell (I'm reading all three at the moment). See you then!

If Pin sounds good, buy it HERE.


If you liked Pin, consider Brothers in Blood, my own bizarre tale of homicidal twin brothers.

"Like Texas Chainsaw Massacre with twins!" - Jack Bantry, author of The Lucky Ones Died First