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.

The Fungus ... Some Thoughts Mushrooming in My Brain

I just read Harry Adam Knight's The Fungus, and I have to say, there wasn't one mention of the phrase "there's a fungus among us" in the entire book (unless it was in that part I skimmed...), and that kind of bums me out a bit.

So, The Fungus. What can I say? The beginning was great, engaging, creepy. The kind of horror I like. Maybe a little light on the character development, but we're talking about a book called The Fungus here. About mushrooms taking over the world. Well, the UK.

The second act turned into a goddamned military thriller, a watered down men's adventure book. That bored me silly. I'm not a fan of military fiction, so I skimmed and eventually just skipped ahead to act three. Honestly, those pages weren't missed. Act two, for the most part, was a giant unnecessary intermission. A way to take the plot from point A to point Z that could have been covered in a chapter at most. Could be my unfavorable look at military fiction, though, I suppose.

The third act was okay, but at this point I realized how weak the plot was. Basically there's an epidemic of mutating fungus that is rapidly taking over the population of England. A small group of people are set out in an armored vehicle to find the scientist responsible for the outbreak. The dynamic between the small group of people could have been dynamite, but turned out to be a missed opportunity. For me, less action in act two and more drama between the group would have worked better for a horror story, but then the characters would have had to be fleshed out a bit more. Most of them were unlikable, which means they would have had to be fleshed out even more so that we could at least relate to them in some way.

The end was meh. The reveals were kind of predictable, and I was left hoping my next read knocks my socks off. Books of this nature (I'm looking at Hutson's Slugs and Herbert's Rats) are often idea stories that would work a lot better were they very short novellas rather than full-on novels. But it was the 80s. Bloated doorstops were in order, and though The Fungus is slender in comparison to many of the tomes that were published at the time, it's still needs the fat trimmed. Not every story is a novel idea. Some of them are shorts.

This was published as Death Spore in the States. I was lucky enough to score the Star edition, pictured above (one of my favorite covers!). The only other Knight book I have is Slimer. I will eventually get to that one. It has something to do with Ghostbusters, right?

Up next will be either In Darkness Waiting by John Shirley or Something Out There by Ronald Kelley. Unless I start reading yet another book and finish it first. Both of these are very good so far.

Exciting News!

I have a lot of exciting news to share, so let's dig right in. First off, my novel Stronger Than Hate was just released by Death's Head Press.

This is a book about Francine Mosely, retired high school teacher, who slips into a sinkhole in her backyard. Fearing that no one saw her and no one can hear her pleas for help, she is relieved when she sees her neighbor Gregory Palmer - ex-student who wasn't the most popular kid in school - has come to her rescue.

Only when Gregory comes back he doesn't bring the police or maybe the fire department to rescue poor Mrs. Mosley. He brings two of the most rotten, sadistic individuals she ever had the displeasure of teaching. She watched the deal from withing the pit, and now she is at the mercy of deviants.

Can Francine stick it out as they torment her? Will help arrive in time? Is she...Stronger Than Hate?

Available HERE in the US, and HERE in the UK, as well as Amazon outlets across the world.


Another big announcement is my novel Mojave Mud Caves that was published by Thunderstorm Books, signed and limited to 40 hardcovers and 60 paperbacks. I'm pleased to announce that the hardcover SOLD OUT in under twenty-four hours!

This is my first signed/limited edition and I am overwhelmed and humbled by the response and support. For those of you who snagged one of those hardcovers, you rock! They will be shipping soon. There are still some paperbacks left. You can get them directly from Thunderstorm Books HERE.


In other news, I've been invited to a few anthologies that are really cool. One is a King Diamond tribute anthology that will be published by Death's Head Press next year. I have a pretty solid idea that I've started working on. Should be a lot of fun. Another invite has me pretty damn excited as well, but I cannot say anything about it. Let's just say the writers attached to it are BIG. I also have two short stories coming out as a part of a series a certain publisher does that, again, I cannot reveal.

I'm hard at work reading submissions for my Blood Bound Books anthology Chew on This! Nothing new to report here, as much as I'd like to tell everyone about certain stories that have me very excited about this project. Then there are the stories that should be used as cautionary examples of what not to do while submitting to a publisher...

That's all for now. Remember to support your favorite writers (or even the OK ones) by leaving them reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and, of course, by buying their books. I will do the same.

In my attempt as resurrecting this blog I am going to review some, if not all, of the books I read. Nothing too in depth, because I'm no critic. Just my thoughts. I hope to have some thoughts on Charles L. Grant's The Orchard up soon. Currently I'm reading The Nest by Gregory A. Douglas and The Store by Bentley Little (struggling a bit with this one...but I'll get into that when I share my thoughts). I'll be reading Out Behind the Barn by John Boden and Chad Lutzke soon.

Take care, horror fiends!

Thoughts on The Specimen by Pete Kahle

Right off the bat I've got to say that for a debut novel, Pete Kahle has shown us that he knows what the hell he's doing. I haven't read a debut this strong in years. It's astonishing what he managed to do in this tome with character development and a plot that is told in a nonlinear format that most authors take years of novel writing to develop. Bravo, Pete!

So, The Specimen is a story about parasitic entities called Riders that, throughout human history, have been latching onto various people, living within them, and causing a great deal of bloodshed. There is a secret agency out to destroy the alien race of Riders, and have been doing so for many years, but their collective has corruption of its own. There's so much in this story that I can't even begin a good synopsis without spoilers, so I'll leave it at that.

The character development in this story is as rich and detailed as a Stephen King or Robert McCammon novel with visceral violence and gore that leans to the extreme in its vivid detail. Blood and body fluids abound! I found it interesting early in the story when a couple of guys were called "your typical goon", which I thought was a bad descriptor, until I realized that was a way of saying, hey, there are so many richly detailed characters in this book that these guys, who are only in the story for a few pages, are just a couple of red shirts. believe me, there's no lack of detail concerning the characters who matter to the story. They live. They breathe.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of massive tomes. They tend to feel padded and under-edited. I think this book could have been dialed down just a bit. There are a ton of sub-plots going on and the time-line jumps around a lot. It all makes sense and wasn't confusing at all, but I found the present day material to be the most interesting, and really the heart of the story. I think a lot of the story that was told through reports from the Graylock Institute (I may have flubbed the name there) could have been weaved into the narrative and completely eliminated, but that's just probably just me trying to slim down a novel that gives a great pleasure to people who like to sit down with that huge six-hundred-pager and commit for a while. I also think the intermissions (read the book to find out what I'm talking about), which gives the story nice historical context, were ultimately unnecessary. In fact, during the climax it is all summarized in a few paragraphs. The intermission chapters were well written, but I think they could have been pulled from the manuscript and used as promotional tools on a website or Patreon page or something. But who am I to suggest such a thing? Pete Kahle has done very well with this book, getting a shout-out recently from Brian Keene and earning almost 200 reviews on Amazon (that's fucking astonishing for both a debut novel and a small press author).

lastly, I listened to the audiobook version of the book, so I would be remiss to not mention a bit about that experience. First off, the narrator did a fantastic job. There were a number of accents that he nailed with convincing accuracy, which is so important. That gives the narrative movement and theater. No one wants to slog through an otherwise good book that feels like a sluggish monologue. Also, there were sound effects here and there that really added to the experience. They were used sparingly and were quite effective, making for a fun and entertaining experience.

Look, I know what Pete is doing with Bloodshot Books is important, but he needs to get another novel out there. I absolutely love reading new authors that are the real deal, and Kahle has got the goods. I highly recommend reading The Specimen, or better yet, listening to the audiobook (yes, the highlighted words are links).

Next up is Catacombs by Andrew Laurance, originally published under the title The Hiss. See ya then!

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