‘Ragemoor’ – Jan Strnad, Richard Corben (Dark Horse)

A living castle, born of blood and eager to work its will on the people that it ensnares. A castle with plans that must come to fruition, no matter what the cost in human lives… Hang on, haven’t we heard this all before? Aren’t we just looking at yet another haunted house story and isn’t that all just a little bit old now…? Everything derives from something; I’m going to stick my head out and say that nothing is really original, there’s only stuff that you haven’t read yet. What really matters is how the writer treats his material, it’s the story that counts. ‘Ragemoor’ riffs on some long established themes but the resulting story is nothing short of superb. It’s an unsettling read that I personally had to finish off in one sitting (okay, ‘standing’, I was on the tube…)If you’re a fan of haunted houses, insect men and Lovecraft then I’d be very surprised if you haven’t given it a go already.

A large part of the impact that ‘Ragemoor’ has comes in the form of Richard Corben’s striking artwork. I am a big fan of Corbens contribution to the ‘Cimmeria’ storyline and he proves more than able to step up and deliver over the course of an entire book. Corben displays a real ability to capture love, loss and outright screaming fear in the faces of the cast; it becomes all too easy to feel that fear yourself once you see it in them and that does half the job of the plot all by itself. Corben also captures the hellish environs of Ragemoor beautifully. It’s bleak and desolate but with an air of danger that hits you hard when it comes to the fore. If that’s not enough, Corben also delivers in terms of the weird horror that lurks at Ragemoor’s heart. Worm men and insect men are only half of it… All of this is delivered in black and white, there is nothing to distract the reader from the horror and that’s as it should be.

This book isn’t all about Corben though. Jan Strnad gives us a plot that clearly wants to be free of the ‘four issue mini-series’ restriction but has a lot to say for itself in the meantime. It’s all credit to Strnad that he can have Herbert and his manservant, Bodrick, fight against Ragemoor and then for it in such a short space. It’s a transition that is tightly plotted and all too plausible. Sometimes the devil you know really is better than the horrors that lurk beneath… My only real criticism is that you can see how it will ultimately end as Strnad doesn’t really give himself room to do a lot more than tell what is ultimately a haunted house story with accompanying family curse. It’s the journey that really counts here though. Strnad really lays on the weird here and this means hints of a universe even more dark and horrifying than the castle itself. And the castle itself is pretty terrifying, just ask poor Anoria…Now there is a sub-plot worth following with the course of true love and human greed meaning nothing to a castle fighting an eternal battle of its own.

Everything devolves into madness, come the end, and this lends proceedings a real frantic air and a burst of energy just at the right time. To close the book with the same line that opened it was a masterful stroke as well; an unsettling way of demonstrating the grim implacability of Ragemoor.

I wouldn’t have minded seeing ‘Ragemoor’ developed a little further (ten issues maybe?) although you could just as easily say that it’s hearkening back to its pulp roots. I can’t really complain though given this intense dose of weird horror that doesn’t leave you after the book is closed and put down. I think I’m going to be a regular visitor to Ragemoor, I’m just glad that I don’t have to live there…

Nine and a Half out of Ten

'Sandkings' - George R.R. Martin

“Quiet,” said Wo. “Listen to me. This is your own doing. Keep your Sandkings well, and they are courtly ritual warriors. You turned yours into something else, with starvation and torture. You were their god. You made them what they are. That maw in your cellar is sick, still suffering from the wound that you gave it. It is probably insane. Its behaviour is… unusual. You have to get out of there quickly…”

‘Sandkings’ was one of those stories that I’d heard loads about (I think it was even made into a TV show or something?) but never got round to reading until the ‘Dreamsongs’ collection came out a few years ago. With the US paperback release of ‘Dreamsongs’ (I don’t know what the fascination is with trade paperbacks but that’s another post…) I thought it might be time to revisit this tale and see what I got out of it second time round.

The premise is simple. Simon Kress is an animal collector always looking for new pleasures in what his pets can do to each other,

‘The piranhas could always eat one another if he were detained longer than expected. They’d done it before. It amused him.'

Kress’ latest acquisition (a tank of insectile ‘Sandkings’) offers him new opportunities to visit cruelty on a species that literally worships him as a god. What will happen though when Kress’ actions clearly mark him as a devil…?

‘Sandkings’ is a science fiction/horror crossover that does more to showcase GRRM’s flair for the latter than it does the former. The story takes place on an alien world but we never find out much about it or its technology. Making up for this is a very detailed examination of specific xeno-biology that gives the reader a very thorough grounding for what is to come.

This is a tale of horror, first and foremost, both in Kress’ ability to torture his animal charges (and what this ultimately drives him to) along with just how the Sandkings eventually strike back. Martin ramps up the tension superbly with lots of unspoken warnings and the ‘faces’, in the Sandking castle letting us know that something horrible is looming on the horizon. Martin is very good at this, drawing the reader in and leaving them hanging until just the right moment. Just when you think you can’t hold your breath (metaphorically speaking) any longer, Martin not only hits you with a moment of violent terror but then lets you know that it wasn’t the climax at all. Things are going to get even worse…

‘Sandkings’ operates along these lines up until the end and that is the beauty of this tale. Martin spends so much time convincing you that things are going to get worse that the brief ray of hope that he offers is enough for you to grab it. That’s just what he was after, the ending was always inevitable but that slight change in pace means that you won’t see it coming until it hits you.

The only thing that slightly grated for me was that while Kress is portrayed as very intelligent (almost psychotically so) he does have a nasty habit of getting incredibly drunk at precisely the wrong times. You know, the times when he could just get out and leave the house far behind him. Or call for the one person who could help to come and help him. It felt like Martin had written a character who was far too clever for his own good and needed some way to keep him in the house until what needed to happen happened. A little bit contrived then.

Apart from that, ‘Sandkings’ was a gripping read that I had to finish, even though I’d read it before and knew what happened. GRRM isn’t just an excellent writer of fantasy; he’s a dab hand at the horror as well.

'Joe and Me' & 'Thin Men with Yellow Faces' (This is Horror)

Apologies for the break in posting! There has been an awful lot of other stuff going on these past few days; I wish I could say that I've built up a nice little backlog of 'read books' to review but I haven't had time for that either... Things might be like this for a little while, bear with me a little bit while I try and figure out how to fit the blog around a whole load of new things that may (or may not) be happening in the near future. Life eh? :o)

Anyway, I may not have not been able to get much reading done but I was able to polish off a couple of chapbooks from the 'This is Horror' line. I haven't read many chapbooks but there's something instantly appealing about a bite sized read that you don't have to invest a lot of time in but promises a great return. When the authors in question are David Moody ('Joe and Me'), Simon Bestwick and Gary McMahon ('Thin Men with Yellow Faces') then I was up for the read even more; regular readers will know that I have enjoyed their work before.
Chapbooks are, by their nature, very short affairs and I found that this meant that I had to combine the two titles to get a decent sized post. In some respects, it's more of a 'thoughts' post than the kind of review I'd normally write; the length of each chapbook didn't leave me with time for much else than thoughts really. They were both entertaining enough reads although...

It was 'Joe and Me' that left me feeling a little non-plussed when I finished it. On the face of it, Moody gives us a likeable protagonist who will do anything to save his son from... I'm not going to tell you exactly what, suffice it to say that Simon's dilemma is one that the reader can really get behind, what would you sacrifice to save a loved one? When you see what the outcome feeds into though... That's when it didn't quite work for me. The story is written well enough but it fleshes out another story that worked brilliantly precisely because the true reasons for the catastrophe were never really known (only hinted at as a possibility) They are now though and that mystery is no longer a mystery. 'Joe and Me' killed something off, in a story I really enjoyed, and I can't help but feel a little resentful about that...

'Thin Men with Yellow Faces' though, that was more like it. McMahon and Bestwick's tale of evil lurking beneath the streets of a run down council estate makes for compelling reading as their heroine is faced with a choice that will damn her whatever she decides to do. 'Thin Men' also has you asking questions of its villains, creatures who commit unspeakable acts but only do so because they truly believe that not acting would lead to far worse. What is the right thing to do when the life of a child is at stake? Add some utterly grotesque imagery, along with some chilling moonlit chases, and you have a chapbook that takes time to make you think while it's turning your stomach. You can't ask for a lot more than that.

 A bit of a mixed bag then, as a series opener, but there is enough here to suggest that 'This is Horror' are onto something that could be pretty special. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with next.

‘The Ward’ – S.L. Grey (Corvus)

Given my innate ability to damage myself in increasingly stupid ways (electrocuted myself on the Christmas lights, dislocated a shoulder getting up to answer the door) I’m a pretty big fan of hospitals and what they do. There’s always a hospital nearby that will patch me up and send me on my way without laughing at me too much :o) At the same time though, hospitals can be pretty scary places (for any number of reasons) and so become an ideal place for writers to base a tale of terror. Abandoned or run down hospitals are favourites here, it’s been years since I watched ‘Session 9’ and I still can’t get that film out of my head…

I was pretty pleased then to see that S.L. Grey was following up ‘The Mall’ (a deliciously weird horror that I thoroughly enjoyed, despite a slightly lacklustre ending) with a sequel set in a hospital. ‘The Mall’ was unsettling, to say the least, so I had high hopes for more of the same.

I got what I was hoping for; not all of it but more than enough to make ‘The Ward’ a read that I couldn’t help but eye nervously, even when the book was closed and on the shelf… If you were a fan of ‘The Mall’ then I think you will find lots to enjoy here. Blurb copied and pasted because, well... It's late in the day and I just want to get this posted!

Lisa is a plastic surgery addict with severe self-esteem issues. The only hospital that will let her go under the knife is New Hope: a grimy, grey-walled facility dubbed 'No Hope' by its patients.
Farrell is a celebrity photographer. His last memory is a fight with his fashion-model girlfriend and now he's woken up in No Hope, alone. Needle marks criss-cross his arms. A sinister nurse keeps tampering with his drip. And he's woken up blind...

Panicked and disorientated, Farrell persuades Lisa to help him escape, but the hospital's dimly lit corridors only take them deeper underground - into a twisted mirror world staffed by dead-eyed nurses and doped-up orderlies. Down here, in the Modification Ward, Lisa can finally have the face she wants... but at a price that will haunt them both forever.

‘The Ward’ isn’t your typical horror novel. Sure, there is not only a hint of the grotesque but also images that are a whole lot more than hints. These include several moments that show the reader that life on the upside can be just as visceral as it is below (although ‘Downside’ adverts occupy a visceral niche all of their own). If I wasn’t exactly jumping at what lay down those dark hospital corridors, things were tense enough for me to silently implore Farrell and Lisa to turn round and go back the way they came. The payoff isn’t what you would expect from a typical horror story though. There isn’t that burst of adrenalin as a monster leaps out and tears someone’s face off. What ‘The Ward’ is all about is that creeping sense of dread you get when you know something is wrong but none of your questions are being answered (and all credit to S.L. Grey stretching this out over the whole novel). The eventual payoff can be seen coming a little too far away but this somehow adds to the dread. You can see what’s coming but, in the meantime, you must watch Farrell and Lisa’s struggles only ensnare them more deeply.

What ‘The Ward’ is also about is that sense of the weird you get when a familiar setting is spun ever so slightly off centre only to show us how weird our own lives can be. Half the reason ‘The Ward’ feels so sinister to the reader (well, this reader) is because we’ve all worked in a similar bureaucracy to that which oversees the Downside. You have no idea what’s going on half the time other than that management has approved it. The beauty of this approach is that the familiarity of these rules fool both the reader and Farrell and Lisa into thinking that it is possible to negotiate with the Downside ‘Administration Board’. This, of course, drives the plot in a terrifying new direction that forces both characters to make some tough decisions.

If the conclusion seems a little too inevitable (and it can do) then the sudden change in dynamic between Farrell and Lisa more than makes up for this. Interesting developments arise as one is forced to confront just what they will do to stay ‘upside’; the other will slowly realise that the place for them has always been below ‘No Hope’ Hospital. Passages veer between the harrowing and the crushing inevitability of what it means when your face literally doesn’t fit; a change in pace that succeeds in keeping you hooked just when it matters the most.

You can see the ending coming and that did take away some of ‘The Ward’s’ tension for me. This was balanced out though by a bleakly atmospheric that forces you down strange corridors and into a nightmarish world that is all too familiar. That and a new found respect for reading the small print before signing a contract…

Nine out of Ten

‘The Dead of Winter’ – Lee Collins (Angry Robot)

It was a bit of a fight (what with other stuff happening, like Hope wanting me to play ‘Daleks’ all the time…) but I managed to read ‘The Dead of Winter’ in time for a review this week. Go me :o) To be honest, it wasn’t long after I started reading that I knew I’d be jealously guarding every spare minute I had just to get a few more pages read. That approach, and at least one late night, did the trick. For the first time in a long while I’ve actually finished a book that I promised I’d read, it’s a good feeling.

I’ve been going on about getting out of a ‘reading rut’ and ‘The Dead of Winter’ seemed like a good place to do just that. The concept is well worn but the setting intrigued me enough to pick the book up and give it a go. What the book did after that kept me reading until I was done. ‘The Dead of Winter’ isn’t a perfect read by any means but it did more than enough to have me looking forward to the sequel, ‘She Returns From War’, whenever that it is published.

Cora Oglesby and her husband, Ben, hunt a different kind of bounty to what you would normally expect to find haunting the plains of the Old West. Their prey are the dark creatures of legend; creatures that shouldn’t exist but still delight in taking the blood of the innocent.
When the marshal of Leadville, Colorado, comes across a pair of mysterious bloody deaths, he turns to Cora to find the creature responsible, but if Cora is to overcome the unnatural tide threatening to consume the small town, she must first confront her own tragic past as well as her present.

We’ve all read Urban Fantasy tales of bounty hunters searching out vampires and so on. Some of us have probably read similar stories set in the Old West; I haven’t so it made for a refreshing change in setting for me. That was a chunk of the reason why I kept reading but the main reason was the hints I got at a tragic past for Cora. I thought I knew what this would be so kept reading, if only to say ‘oh no, not again…’ The twist in the tale turned out to be a real surprise though; mostly because Collins tells you what it is right from the start but keeps it so low key that you’ve got no real idea until it creeps up onto your shoulder and taps you on the head…

The moment where it all clicks is masterfully handled by Collins. One minute I was reading the book, the next minute I was flicking back through the pages thinking things like ‘how did I miss that?’ and ‘bloody hell…’ Cora’s character is cast in a whole new light (you now know where she got her nickname from) and this revelation provides fresh impetus just when the plot needs it. I was also left wondering if there is a question yet to be answered in the sequel… You can’t ask for a lot more than that and it’s all brilliantly handled.

The rest of the plot settles into the more familiar territory of unworldly creatures being hunted down before they can hunt down others. Collins does a fine job here with the whole ‘thrill of the hunt’ theme. There were several moments where I found myself holding my breath as Cora made her way through a mine tunnel and she could hear footsteps coming towards her. My favourite bit though had to be where Cora is sat by the trapdoor, waiting for something to come out… Collins really draws out the tension in these passages and I couldn’t help but carry on reading, even as I was yelling at the book for Cora to get the hell out. The only moments that top this are when various monsters find their way onto the streets of Leadville. Collins clearly knows that the best way to tell this kind of story is to make all your characters expendable, no matter how much you’ve already built them up. No-one is safe here and that just adds more adrenaline to the mix.

The only thing I’d quibble about is how much attention Collins pays to the landscape that the story is set against. On the whole, a bleak and hard picture of Colorado really complements the plot but, every now and then, Collins feels the need to really go to town with his descriptive prose. Unfortunately, I found that these moments sometimes clash with key moments in the plot and the flow is derailed abruptly (albeit briefly) as a result. I’d say that the background really needs to remain as background if the plot is going to shine in the way that it deserves.

On the whole though, I got a lot out of this brooding supernatural Western tale that turns in your grasp and bites you like a rattlesnake when you’re least expecting it. ‘The Dead of Winter’ (a title you’ll appreciate more once you’ve read the book) is a gripping read that has left me eager for the sequel.

Nine and a Quarter out of Ten

P.S. 'The Dead of Winter' gets its UK release on the 1st of November, US and Canadian readers will get it the day before.

'Friday Night in Beast House' - Richard Laymon (BCA)

This isn't the way that I normally start things off here but that title is really bugging me... It just feels like there's a word missing here, something like 'the' or even 'a'. Oh well... It's a good job then that the rest of the book made up for this.

The only other book of Laymon's that I've read, prior to now, is 'Savage' (and I didn't get on with that at all) so there's still a pretty big gap to be filled if I'm going to count myself as a fan of horror fiction; Laymon's work is a pretty big deal. Where better place to start then than 'Friday Night in Beast House', a book that was only 99p in my local 'Works' (always a great place to pick up cheap books). Not only that but the book was only a hundred and fifty one pages long. I'm all about quick reads at the moment :o)
'Friday Night in Beast House' was a surprisingly good read (although a little bit of a let down at the end, more on that in a bit), certainly good enough to have me keeping an eye open for any of Laymon's other books.

Alison has one condition for guys wanting to date her; that first date starts at midnight and is in the legendary Beast House (the site of several gruesome murders decades ago and now a major tourist attraction). Mark will do anything for a date with Alison and has managed to find a hiding place in the Beast House  waiting there until the tour guides have locked up and gone home. As he tries to settle his first dates nerves, Mark has no idea that things are about to get a lot worse...

I really didn't think I'd get into 'Friday Night in Beast House' as much as I did. I may not have jumped once (not such a good thing...) but it's a very tense read and one that I found myself having to stick around and finish. This is all down to Laymon really getting that a first date can be just as scary, for a teenager, as what might still lurk within the Beast House. There is a lot riding on Mark's attempts to stay hidden and the reader can't help but share in his anxiety as he works his way around the house, trying to find somewhere to hole up and stay hidden.

The tension continues after closing time as Mark slowly realises that he might not be alone in the house after all; especially after what he found on the roof earlier. My heart was pretty much in my mouth as he tries to get out of the door, thinking that something is behind him...

The last part of the book leaves the tension behind though and heads back into familiar horror territory; a move that ended things on a slightly sour note for me. Two horny teenagers in a haunted house? It wasn't hard to see what would happen next and... it did. The final scenes were harrowing, and ever so slightly implausible (Alison was ok after that...?), but completely expected and any tension just blew away...

Despite that ending though, I had a lot of fun reading 'Friday Night in Beast House' and can see myself searching out the other three books to see what they're like. A scary read that didn't quite live up to its early promise.

Eight out of Ten

'Jack's Magic Beans' - Brian Keene (Deadite Press)

If I'm being completely honest, the main reason I downloaded the Kindle App (to my phone) was that I was stupidly impressed at how easy downloading stuff is and couldn't stop myself. Since then though I've been discovering that there are a lot of benefits to having the app, one of which is being able to catch up with Brian Keene's back catalogue. I'm talking about all the little short stories and novellas that were snapped up and gone before I even realised that they were there to start off with... Thanks to Deadite Press that shouldn't be a problem for me any more, they're working hard to publish all the stuff where the rights have reverted to Keene, which can only be good news for a fan like me (especially when I can get it on my phone in under a minute...)

'Jack's Magic Beans' was the first one of Keene's books published by Deadite and one that I'd had my eye on for a long time (always eager to read new stuff by Brian Keene). It was a bit of a surprise then to see what felt like a whole new style employed in a collection of stories that were a lot shorter than any of his books that I'd read previously.

What you're looking at here are tales where time (and space) constraints mean that everything is stripped right back to the bare minimum so that as much energy, and gore, as possible can be fitted in to keep things moving along. Things move at a hellish pace because of this but I found myself missing the characterisation and scene setting that I always enjoy. That's not to say it isn't a fair trade off, these are different kinds of tales here that require a different approach to function effectively. Things just felt a little more shallow that in his longer books, this new side of Keene's work will take some getting used to...

I couldn't help but enjoy the book though with its combination of raw surging energy, over the top gore (which sometimes got in the way of the story but even so...) and clever little ideas that have it all making sense. 'Jack's Magic Beans' is the main event here and Keene operates very well within such tight parameters. It's a very 'in your face' piece, with graphic depictions of violence, but the questions Keene raises (at the same time) build up the tension very nicely. I particularly liked the way things are left very open ended at the finish. Anything could happen and Keene leaves you to draw your own conclusions.

'Without You' was paerhaps a little too short to really work for me; by the time you cotton on to what's going on the story has ended. A little change in focus could have worked wonders here (did we really need all that detail about the main character's life?) but the twist in the tale is worth the price of entry here. A pretty emphatic suicide rendered useless by four little words...

'I am an Exit' and 'This is not an Exit' are two tales, about a serial killer, that had me wanting to hear more about him (the afterword says there might be more as well). For my money these were the best two tales in the collection; really creepy with just enough given away to pique the interest of the reader. The violence and gore are also dialled right back and this makes the moments when something does happen all the more powerful.

Keene signs off with 'The King', In: Yellow', a tale of a play that will drive you insane if you ever see it. Keene really taps into the effect this play will have on you (you can feel the fear and Keene pulls the curtain right back on the insanity that follows) but there was nothing to the play itself that would suggest such a reaction. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not but it felt like the two elements of the plot just weren't gelling for me.

I had a lot of fun with this collection but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to someone reading Keene for the first time. There is a lot to recommend 'Jack's Magic Beans' but Keene does it all a lot better in his longer books. 'Dark Hollow', 'A Gathering of Crows' or 'Urban Gothic'; check them out first.

Eight and a Quarter out of Ten

‘Silent Voices’ – Gary McMahon (Solaris)

One of the things that I love most about blogging here is discovering great new books that I wouldn’t have come across otherwise. These days I am veering towards the familiar (toddler in the house, the daily commute, you’ve heard all the excuses before…) but there’s still a lot to be said for taking a chance on an author you’ve never heard and seeing where the journey takes you. What favourite authors have you discovered more or less on a whim? I discovered Gary McMahon and I haven’t looked back since, preferring to look forwards instead and see what slice of nastiness he comes up with next.

Every since a copy of ‘Hungry Hearts’ (still an innovative slice of zombie fiction, check it out) fell into my hands, Gary McMahon has become one of my ‘go to authors’ in terms of horror fiction. If you’re a fan of the genre then I reckon you’ve already read at least one of his books. If not, I guess you know what you need to do.

‘The Concrete Grove’ is my favourite book of McMahon’s although ‘Hungry Hearts’ does run it a close second. You can read my review Here if you like. If not, have a couple of quotes from the review…

It goes without saying that if you are squeamish at all then this is probably a book that you should avoid. McMahon doesn’t include anything without a very good reason but when he does he doesn’t pull his punches at all and this shows us all to well that perhaps the true horror in this piece lies in just what us humans can be capable of if we want something enough. It’s not pretty.

It’s a vicious read with a delicate beauty about it; if you like your horror fiction then I don’t see any reason why you won’t get a lot out of this.
With quotes like that, you won’t be too surprised to hear that I was really looking forward to getting my hands on the sequel ‘Silent Voices’. I was hoping for more of the same at the very least, a little more if possible. Either would have been good but it wasn’t to be on that score. McMahon went for something different entirely and it worked… only up to a point though.

Twenty years ago, three boys went missing for a whole weekend. No-one knew what had happened, least of all the boys who could remember nothing but vague memories of a shadowy woodland grove.
Twenty years on and Simon has returned to the Concrete Grove to see his old friends and finally bury the memories that have plagued him all these years. Those memories won’t be buried though, not when the darkness that created them is calling out once more. The hummingbirds are flying again and dark shadows stalk a run down council estate once more. Will three men finally be able to escape the memories of their childhood and banish the evil at the centre of the Concrete Grove?

‘Silent Voices’ is a worthy sequel to ‘The Concrete Grove’, a book that expands on the secrets within the Needle and gives us a slightly longer look at something dark that is awake once more. At the same time though, ‘Silent Voices’ fell (just a little) short of what McMahon achieved in ‘The Concrete Grove’. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, more a case of the story going in a slightly different direction, to before, and perhaps losing a little impact because of it.

‘Silent Voices’ is a chilling tale of urban fantasy and horror. Not ‘that’ kind of urban fantasy; I’m talking about something that heads into ‘Mythago Wood’ territory if anything. Gary McMahon isn’t Robert Holdstock but the ‘Concrete Grove’ trilogy has definite echoes of that tale within it. At its heart though, ‘Silent Voices’ is a tale of three damaged men confronting what damaged them as children. It’s quite raw in places because of this and McMahon captures that pain just as his characters are feeling it. It’s intense stuff, make no mistake about it.

Where this theme can work against the book though is that it can make ‘Silent Voices’ a ‘slow burner’ for all the wrong reasons as well as the right ones. McMahon is very good at slowing things down and building up to some really nasty shocks; I’m talking about trips into the darkness that ends up with the line…

‘Fucking hell… then whose fucking hand am I holding?’

When you’re talking about three guys though, guys who have to come to terms with what they have become before they can even begin to talk about it to each other… This really slowed things down for me, I felt like I had to wait for Simon, Brendan and Marty to get their heads together before the story could move on. Looking back, I know that’s the point of the story but perhaps it was done a little too well? I was also left wondering if there was only so much mileage a writer can get out of a situation where at least one (maybe two) of the three main characters really didn’t want to talk about things at all…

It’s a tough plot to stick with then, in that respect, but McMahon seeds it with little moments of terror that scare the reader (when they least expect it) and heightens the anticipation for the final climactic events under the Needle. I loved the almost Celtic feel of the fantasy elements and how this added a little more strangeness and horror to the grim northern setting. McMahon has created something stunning not only in its simplicity but also in its capacity to shock and what this promises for the final instalment. ‘The Concrete Grove’ was perhaps a little more visceral but this only goes to show that McMahon is just as good at messing with your head as well as messing with your stomach. A child’s nursery rhyme here, a rustling in the corner over there… It all builds up into something you cannot take your eyes away from when the payoff hits you.

‘Silent Voices’ sometimes felt like a bit of a tough nut to crack but I couldn’t put it down nonetheless. The ending was superb and bodes well for the final book in the trilogy, whether McMahon chooses to carry on in that direction or not…

Nine and a Quarter out of Ten

From My Bookshelf… ‘Desperation’ – Stephen King

Because now that the new bookshelves are up there’s even less of an excuse to go back and revisit some of the books that have been there for years (and subsequently been passed over for the ever growing ‘to be read’ pile). What’s the point of keeping them on the shelves otherwise?

Reading ‘Desperation’ got me thinking about a lot of things but it also got me thinking about books that live on my bookshelf but are very unlikely to ever be read again. Well maybe that’s a bit harsh; these books will be read but only very occasionally. It’s been a good five years since I read ‘Desperation’ and, after this read, it will probably be another five years at least before I feel the inclination to pick it up again (if I feel that way inclined at all). Do you have books like that on your shelves?

I’ll admit it, my problem is that I’m a completist as far as books are concerned. If I enjoy a book and there’s another book that ties into it then I’ll buy it, no question about it. And if that’s not bad enough, I’ll keep both books no matter what I thought of the second one. After all, just having the one book wouldn’t look right on the shelves. I managed to beat my ‘completist urge’ with the ‘Wheel of Time’ books (I’ve got the last two on the shelves but have got rid of the rest) but it’s still very much a problem on the shelves. It’s very much the case with ‘Desperation’, a book that I ended up having to have because I’d already bought a copy of ‘The Regulators’ (reviewed Here). It may ‘complete the set’ but it’s not in the same league at all.

Desperation. Population: One cop who prowls the highways and dispenses justice that is decided by the creature that has taken him over. If you’re pulled over then the best you can hope for is a quick death at the roadside; what lies in the town of Desperation itself is far worse as Johnny Marinville, David Carver and Steve Ames are about to discover. A battle is about to be fought in Desperation and neither side cares whom falls along the way…

I remember when I first read ‘The Regulators’ and ‘Desperation’ I spent hours trying to tease out the connection that I heard linked the two books as well as looking for the link to the ‘Dark Tower’ series that I’d also heard existed.
Well, I’m still looking for that link to the ‘Dark Tower’ series (and suspect that I will be for a while to come) but have finally come to the conclusion that the solid connection I was looking for just isn’t there. Desperation essentially has the same characters as ‘The Regulators’ but they’re all slightly different and are all doing slightly different things. If anything, it’s another way of looking at the monster Tak and how it affects the landscape at the source of it’s infestation. That’s about the size of it really and I’m pretty much done looking for any deeper connection than that.

It’s a good thing really as I’ve got no real inclination to pick the book up again after this re-read, not for a long time. ‘Desperation’ is Stephen King at his best and at his worst but this time round it’s the ‘worst’ that colours things and taints the book as a whole.

There is a lot of good stuff going on in ‘Desperation’; stuff that will shock and frighten you as well as really get you involved in the lives of everyone on the page. Stuff like this,

‘You have the right to remain silent,’ the big cop said in his robot’s voice. ‘If you do not choose to remain silent, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. I’m going to kill you. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you?’

Five words cleverly hidden in something you hear almost every day on TV shows, and so on, five words that will shock you out of normality and throw you straight into this dark world that King is bringing to life. The book is full of moments like these and the characters journey through Desperation can be just as chilling with nasty surprises lurking around every corner.
The characterisation is there as well with another cast of well defined characters where King’s easy going prose lets you get to know them all without even realising it. You root for them and you can’t help but grieve with them when things go wrong (and they do, they really do).
Tak is just as vicious and evil as it was in ‘The Regulators’; you get more of a sense of its origins this time round but it’s motivations are as alien as they were before which is brilliant in terms of the sense of weirdness that it conveys for the book.

The scene is set then for a brilliant book then. Well, it would have been if it wasn’t for King’s habit of excessive verbosity coming to the fore…

Everything is overanalysed or gone into in far too much detail. Tension is dragged out and then lost by the end of that third unnecessary paragraph. Character’s memories are gone into at such length that I found myself wishing that the story would hurry the hell up and get going again. And there is only so much detail about a deserted mining town that a story can take…
At the very best, ‘Desperation’ is a book where the pacing is severely disrupted by this approach. At the very worst… ‘Desperation’ is a long and rambling affair where the effect of the aforementioned nasty surprises is very much muted by the time that it takes to reach them. I’m half tempted to go into this at greater length but that would be falling into the same trap as King does.

‘Desperation’ then is a novel with potential that sadly goes unfulfilled. King may ramble in his other books but it all seems to have a lot more purpose than it does here. You know what though? If I was to give it another five years (or even ten maybe) I’ll bet that ‘Desperation’ is still sat next to ‘The Regulators’ on the bookshelf. Damn me and my completist ways…

Seven out of Ten

From My Bookshelf… ‘The Regulators’ – Stephen King

Because sometimes it’s nice to put all the new stuff to one side and read books that have been on my shelves for years. What’s the point of having them on the shelf otherwise…?

Lets take things back to the late nineties when I had just left college and was getting my first proper taste of the world of work at the local psychiatric hospital where I was working the night shift. It was quite a nice job actually, apart from the odd bout of nastiness from the patients. Most of the patients slept straight through the night, leaving me to either have a quiet smoke (when no-one was looking) or cram my face full of sugary goodness in an (often vain) attempt to stay awake for the whole shift. I also read a whole load of books, there really wasn’t an awful lot else to do (apart from when I found myself working on the elderly wards, that’s another story though). At the time, I was working my way through a large chunk of Stephen King’s back catalogue; all the horror stuff anyway, I still haven’t read ‘The Eyes of the Dragon’ nor the books that he wrote with Peter Straub. A lot of these books had been out for a long time and ‘The Regulators’, along with its companion novel ‘Desperation’, was the first time that I’d actually picked up a work by King (it says Bachman on the cover but we all know by now don’t we?) that had only just been published. I lost the two books when I moved to Northampton (‘book purges’, the time of many an ill thought out decision…) but a trip to New York, years later, saw me leave with a new copy of ‘The Regulators’ and a copy of ‘Desperation’ followed not long after.

Years on from that and a chance browse across the shelves reminded me that it had been ages since I last read either book. ‘The Regulators’ and ‘Desperation’ share many similarities but none of these points to the best book to read first (probably intentional). I figured that I’d start my re-read off with the book that originally kicked it off for me all those years ago…

It’s high summer in Wentworth, Ohio and nowhere more so than on Poplar Street where the sun is out, Frisbee’s are flying and the local paperboy is about to be the first to die in a drive by shooting unlike any other. The idling red van on the corner is only the start of the horror to come and, unbeknownst to the residents of Poplar Street, it is a horror that was born right in the midst of their quiet street. Will any of them survive the horror that lurks in Audrey Wyler’s house or will they perish at the nightmarish guns of the Regulators…?

The abiding thought that has stayed with me since I first read ‘The Regulators’, all those years ago, was that it was ok but King had written books that were one hell of a lot scarier. That was pretty much the thought I had upon finishing the re-read this time around. Having said that though, ‘The Regulators’ has stayed on my shelf while books such as ‘Christine’ and ‘The Shining’ went to ‘Charity Shop Heaven’ many years ago. It definitely has a staying power that the other books don’t and, having thought about it, I’m going to say that it’s very much down to the cast; I find myself engaging with them just that little bit more than I have done with the casts of King’s earlier books. There’s something about Johnny Marinville (author who is just looking for a quiet life) and Steve Ames (the guy who happens to take a wrong turn at the wrong time) that made me want to keep turning the pages to spend time with them, even though I’ve read the book before. Thinking about it, these characters (as well as some of the others) are just so open and honest about whom they are, no pretension at all. The first time I read the book I felt like I’d known Johnny, Steve, Cynthia and Collie Entragian for years already and, this time round, I felt like I was catching up with old friends (old friends in a fight for their lives but you know what I mean).

It’s a good job the characters appealed to me so strongly though because, like I said, the actual story wasn’t anywhere near as scary and chilling as King is so obviously capable of. It starts off well enough with a picture of glorious American ordinariness slowly corrupted by something unexplainable and just plain evil. The tension is ramped up smoothly yet inexorably and you’re sucked in just about the time the first gunshot is fired.

And then you find out what is causing it all…

This is where the book falls down for me as you don’t really find out enough about Tak to get a feel for why it is putting Poplar Street through hell. Doing it for food and fun will only get you so far and things proceed to degenerate into a repetitive cycle that forces the plot onwards but at the cost of some of the earlier sparkle. The moments inside Seth Garin’s head make up for this (as does the 'gradual possession' side plot) but only a little bit. The ending has to be experienced though, you can see what’s coming (and how it has to happen) but the sheer power of it will knock you sideways.

‘The Regulators’ is a great tale of survival against supernatural odds that is spoilt, sadly enough, by the supernatural elements set against the residents of Poplar Street. I stay for the characterisation though and that’s why I’m sure I’ll be reading it again and again.

Eight out of Ten

‘The Faceless’ – Simon Bestwick (Solaris)

In what is certain to be an ongoing theme this year, I am temporarily ditching my vow to read lots of fantasy in order to pick up some horror instead. It’s not like I haven’t done this before so shall we just pretend that the vow never happened? No, I still intend to read a lot more fantasy, than I have done, this year but I’m sure you’ll understand if other books come along that catch my eye and beg to be read (I know I’m not the only person that this happens to...) Books like Simon Bestwick’s ‘The Faceless’ for example.

‘The Faceless’ was a book that I’d earmarked, at the back of my mind, for future reading a long time ago. I’ve mentioned it elsewhere already but Bestwick’s ‘Tide of Souls’ wasn’t just a great spin on regular zombie tales but it was also a gripping and chilling read in its own right. After putting that book down I promised myself I’d be reading whatever novel he wrote next.

When ‘The Faceless’ came through my door I had to make good on that promise and get reading more or less straight away. It was worth getting stuck into as well. You’ll need a word a lot stronger than ‘chilling’ to describe what’s going on here...

A mist has fallen over the Lancashire town of Kempforth, all the better to hide the dark deeds happening in it’s streets and homes. People are disappearing and the locals are blaming the Spindly Men, masked figures out of legend that might not be so mythical after all...
When a two year old girl goes missing, Detective Chief Inspector Renwick vows to stop at nothing until she finds her. It’s a journey that will bring her into contact with TV psychic Allen Cowell and his sister Vera, visions summoning them back to a town that they thought they’d never see again. It’s a journey that will also bring Renwick into contact with Anna Mason, a local historian who is just beginning to realise the true scale of the dark secret that the town hides. It’s a journey that will end in the depths of a long abandoned hospital; something terrible waits for them there and only a few will make it out alive. However, they might just come to wish that they had died inside with their friends...

A good horror novel will leave you shocked or scared at what you find on each page and secretly glad that you can put the book down, at its end, and return to your normal everyday life. An excellent horror novel though, well... An excellent horror novel will leave you feeling strangely hollow to begin with as what you read demands all your mental space and will swiftly vacate any pretence you had of getting back to normality. That done, the excellent horror novel will move in; making you feel horribly uncomfortable while it settles in. It might be days, or even weeks, before it moves on and you won’t be able to get those deeply unsettling images out of your mind in the meantime. ‘The Faceless’ is an excellent horror novel and this is exactly what it has been doing to me since I read it. It will happen to you as well and that’s why you should give it a go.

The premise is very simple yet rendered through Bestwick’s ability to tread that fine line between delivering the horror while paying the utmost respect to the subject matter. The soldiers of the Great War sacrificed a lot for their country, some of them made that sacrifice for years afterwards. What if they could see what was bought through their sacrifice and felt cheated? Some might want to lash out in anger, others might want to come back and remake the world to fit in with their own ideals and dreams... Bestwick doesn’t sensationalise anything here and that’s what makes the book work so well. He leaves you in no doubt as to the sacrifice these men made and how they were exploited on more than one level. There’s true horror here and while you will recoil from what these men will eventually do you won’t be able to help but feel sympathy for them at the same time.

At the same time, we have a living cast who are trying to get to the bottom of a mystery in the mist filled streets of Kempforth. They have no idea what is going on and it’s all credit to Bestwick that he manages to keep the reader in the dark as well, even while he is slowly telling us about what is really going on. Thanks to this approach there are some nasty surprises in store and it only gets worse, and even bleaker, as the plot progresses. This isn’t a tale of redemption as no-one really deserves any here.

What you get here then is a cast of damaged characters feeling their way through mist filled streets that are gloriously atmospheric. They don’t know what lies in the fog and neither do you, the reader gets to find out at exactly the same time as the characters and this makes for some heart stopping moments. All the while, we’re being shown just exactly what makes these characters tick. You may not like all of them (I didn’t) but you can totally empathise with them as they make decisions that are questionable to say the least.

‘The Faceless’ is primarily a psychological horror but this doesn’t stop Bestwick from laying on the gore at exactly the right moments and at just the right level. It will shock but it’s never cartoonish. Perhaps the real horror lies in the serious consideration paid to a certain course of action right at the very end of the book. That was an image that stayed with me for a long time afterwards.

‘The Faceless’ is a relentless spiral into the dark side of humanity and readers will get to see some truly horrifying things, headed in the opposite direction, as they make that journey downwards. Absolutely essential reading for anyone after a scary read that carries on it’s work long after you’ve put the book down.

Nine and a Half out of Ten

‘Neonomicon’ – Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows (Avatar Press)

I’m still working my way through the H.P. Lovecraft collection, slowly but surely, but seem to have come to a bit of a halt right now. Not sure why exactly... At a guess I’d say it’s partly down to a baby who is completely indifferent to the aims of the Elder Gods and whose nappies bring new meaning to the word ‘eldritch’ (possibly ‘squamous’ as well)... I hate to admit it but it’s also down to me reading the book on my own, one night, and being scared rigid when my wife whispered my name from the next room. What? I was reading a reading a really scary story.

I need to get back into the Lovecraft collection (all the more so because it’s quite frankly brilliant in its weirdness) but reading it in the first place has made me all the more aware of the influence that Lovecraft has had on a number of present day writers. It’s definitely there if you look hard enough and it all makes for gripping tales of the darker side of a universe that we only think we know. I want more of this and when Alan Moore’s ‘Neonomicon’ came through the door, the other day, I had a chance to explore the mythos a little bit further; perhaps even use the book as a way of getting back into the original source material that had stumped me first time round.

‘Neonomicon’ has certainly got me interested in picking up the Lovecraft book again; it’s also the most unsettling book I’ve read in a long time...

Just what happened to top FBI agent Aldo Sax while he was investigating a wave of serial killings (and a possible connection to a certain drug)? All anyone knows is that Sax went on to kill a couple of people himself before being locked up in a maximum security facility? He’ll happily talk but it’s in a language that no-one can understand. The killings have begun again and it’s now the job of two younger agents to not only get to the bottom of Sax’ condition but pick up his case from where it went cold. Who is Johnny Carcosa and just what is he peddling? What lurks beneath the waters of Innsmouth and will it ever let Agent Merrill Brears go? What will be left of her if it does...? Cthulhu is stirring from his dreams and R’lyeh is in the last place you would ever expect to look...

After reading ‘Neonomicon’ I can’t believe that there was ever a time when I seriously thought that comics were just about superheroes doing what superheroes do (for the record there was such a time, long ago now). ‘Neonomicon’ is about as far from all that as it’s possible to get. This tale of terror pulls no punches and spares no sensibilities; it’s all the better for this approach and I’d say that ‘Neonomicon’ borders on essential reading for fans of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos...

My edition (a lovely looking hardback collection) collects ‘The Courtyard’ as well as ‘Neonomicon’ and we get to see just how the mystery unfolds without any inconvenient breaks in between. Maybe we find out a little too much too soon, we’re certainly in on the secret a long time before Lamper and Brears get there and maybe that spoils things a bit. One of the dangers of bringing two separate stories (albeit with a connection between them) into one collection I guess; ‘The Courtyard’ would have had a lot more impact to it if I’d read it on it’s own. The ending to ‘Neonomicon’ more than made up for this though; I don’t want to give too much away but you really feel Sax’ horror as things suddenly become very clear.

Both ‘The Courtyard’ and ‘Neonomicon’ are jammed full of references not only to Lovecraft but also other ‘weird’ writers of the time. You get the feeling that Moore is a bit of a fan and is revelling in the chance to namedrop a little with other likeminded readers. This ‘overflow’ of references was starting to verge on the annoying until I realised that this approach had a greater significance to the plot than was at first apparent. What Moore is actually doing is sowing seeds, very early on, for a mystery that incorporates police procedural themes with a case that no human law enforcement agency could ever be prepared for. As the story unfolds you get a real sense of the confusion, and underlying terror, experienced by the agents as they realise that they are way in over their heads.

As I said before, Moore doesn’t pull any punches when the endgame kicks in and Merrill learns to her cost what she has become involved in. ‘Graphic’ doesn’t begin to cover what’s on these pages but I would say fair play to Moore for letting the story take the path it was best suited for, deeply unsettling as it is. I originally thought that Jacen Burrows’ art would be too ‘clean’ and cartoonish for what is a very dark tale. I was surprised though at how well the art dovetailed with Moore’s plot. Burrows’ style is still clean and straightforward but it also shows the darker side of human nature (just cast your eye over the nightclub crowd...) as well as the full weirdness of Cthulhu and his cohorts.

The ending is not only a real punch to the gut but also somehow manages to tell an extra four or five pages of story that you will only see in your minds eye. I can’t stop thinking about that ending and what it means...
It may not be by Lovecraft himself but ‘Neonomicon’ can sit proudly amongst the rest of the mythos that sprang from Lovecraft’s writing. It’s a deeply unnerving read that grips you while it puts the fear of the Elder Gods up you...

Nine out of Ten

‘Cradlegrave’ – John Smith & Edmund Bagwell (Rebellion)

On the whole, we’ve been very lucky with the places where we’ve lived. There was that one place in Gloucester (that was pretty nightmarish, I'm still trying to forget that place) but everywhere else seems to have worked out well for the most part. I feel even luckier when I see certain areas and estates on the news. You know the ones I mean, I’m talking about real urban deprivation that the local residents are never going to be able to escape from. Yeah, I really don’t have much to complain about at all...


Is there anything worse than this grinding level of poverty? I don’t know about real life but you can always rely on a writer somewhere to at least try by adding a fictional spin (usually horror based). Gary McMahon did it with ‘The Concrete Grove’ but, if I’ve got it right, John Smith and Edmund Bagwell had a go before that (within the pages of 2000AD) with their ‘Cradlegrave’ story. I’m not so hot at keeping up with the stories in 2000AD but I do get round to reading the trades eventually and that’s how I caught up with ‘Cradlegrave’. It’s an unsettling read (that I really should have picked up over Halloween) but I couldn’t help feeling that it could have been a little more...

Shane Holt has just served eight months time, in a young offenders institution, and all he wants to do is go home and start his life all over again. Life on the Ravenglade estate has its own share of problems though with a lack of opportunities leaving the youth of the area with nothing to do apart from indulge in drugs and petty crime. Shane is going to really have his work cut out to avoid the temptations that landed him in the institute in the first place but the danger of drink and drugs cannot compare to the horror that is growing within Ted and Mary’s old council house. Shane will be very lucky indeed if he can escape what lurks within those walls, no-one else will...

‘Cradlegrave’ was an odd read for me. It was a compelling read because of its undoubted ability to unsettle, on more than one level, but it felt like it had a lot more to say, for itself, than it eventually did. It almost felt that Smith reckoned that three quarters of his story would be enough. You can’t deny that the story we’re left with is a strong one but I couldn’t help but think that the whole story would have been even more powerful...

The dual approach to the horror of life on the Ravenglade estate is explored in some depth and certain moments become even more horrifying when you realise that the monstrous presence, in Ted and Mary’s house, is inciting people to violent acts that they were quite capable of committing anyway. The estate is a nasty place to live and just the act of even being there opens up the story in lots of ways for Shane. All Shane wants is to keep his probation officer happy but the Ravenglade estate isn’t the place for a quiet life at the best of times and a simple trip to the off licence can have tragic consequences...

“It’s foraging again...”

You never find out just what is lurking in Mary’s bedroom but what artist Edmund Bagwell is able to show is horrifying to say the least (he does great work, in general, showing the estate off in all its squalid glory). Other than that, all we know is that it’s hungry and will feed its prey before feeding from them (a nice parallel is drawn with Shane’s dog and her newborn puppies)... It’s nasty stuff and all the more so because it lies right at the heart of what is a seemingly normal housing estate (well, apart from all the drugs and violence but you know what I mean...) That contrast is what makes ‘Cradlegrave’ so unsettling but it’s also where things fell down for me. These two contrasting themes are so different that the ‘horror plot’ really needs a little more grounding, than it actually gets, in order for the overall plot to be more cohesive. What we ultimately end up with are two plot threads almost working against each other because the whole story hasn’t been told. Of course there’s an argument that deliberate omissions like this are there to make the story even more unworldly and scary. While that may be true though, I don’t think it worked here; a little more grounding could have made all the difference...

‘Cradlegrave’ is an unnerving read, which I’m sure I’ll revisit in the future, but it’s also a read where I couldn’t help but wonder what might have been. The story that it tells is solid enough but I think the whole story would have been even better; I guess there was only a certain amount of room in the comic...

Eight and a Half out of Ten

‘The Damned Highway’ – Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas (Dark Horse Books)

Regular visitors to the blog already know that I’m a big fan of Brian Keene and will do whatever I can to get hold of his books as they’re published (a little more difficult for me these days, over here in the UK, thanks for nothing Dorchester...) If you’re not a regular visitor to the blog... I’m a big fan of Brian Keene and will do whatever I can to get hold of his books as they’re published (and also, welcome to the blog!) I’ve never a read anything by Nick Mamatas though, the closest I’ve come being a copy of the ‘Haunted Legends’ anthology that somehow never made it off the reading pile. I wonder if it’s still there...

Anyway... ‘The Damned Highway’ presented itself as the ideal way of topping up my dose of Brian Keene along with the chance to find out just what Nick Mamatas is all about. I’m not sure how I made out as far as those two things go but I had one hell of a lot of fun reading ‘The Damned Highway’ in the meantime. I wouldn’t have thought that a book involving Cthulhu would have me laughing out loud. Shows how wrong I was...

It’s January 1972 and America’s premier ‘gonzo’ journalist (yes, him) finds himself resenting his unexpected fame as well suffering from a severe case of writer’s block. It’s time for some reinvention! One name change and a scheme to reinvigorate both his patriotism and his writing later, ‘Uncle Lono’ finds himself on a strange journey to Arkham, Massachusetts, and the presidential primary. All is not well though, Lono gradually uncovers evidence that the forces of Cthulhu are working behind the scenes and their most prominent member is one Richard Nixon! Can Richard Nixon gain the number of states needed to usher in the apocalypse? Can Lono find another supply of those really good mushrooms...? All will be revealed...

I said that I wasn’t sure how well ‘The Damned Highway’ worked in terms of getting my ‘Brian Keene fix’ and being introduced to Nick Mamatas’ work for the first time. The bottom line here is that Mamatas and Keene work together so well that there’s no real of telling who wrote what. It’s like they combined into one uber-writer (Brian Mamatas? MamataKeene?) for the duration of the book and I’m all for that approach. When I read a book written by two (or more) writers I’m always looking to see if I can see the ‘joins’ in the writing. I couldn’t see any here and it made for a very smooth reading experience.

And what a read it was! Two hundred and five pages of sheer adrenaline with a main character living off various illegal substances as well as his frayed nerves. Add a sinister conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of American politics, along with that most dangerous of Elder Gods, and I found that I had myself a book that took a firm hold of my eyeballs and steadfastly refused to let go until the bitter end.

It goes without saying that a working knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson and ‘Gonzo Journalism’ is going to mean that the reader gets a lot more out of the proceedings than someone who doesn’t have that knowledge. Someone like me for instance, a reader who should have paid a lot more attention to his studies (or even studied at all) in the course of gaining a degree in... American Studies. Yep, I know...
Luckily for readers like me, ‘The Damned Highway’ didn’t let too much go over my head. Lono’s acerbic wit and observations carry the book along just as quickly as the underlying threat does. Like I said, that little extra knowledge helps but you don’t necessarily need it to know that Lono loves his country but doesn’t think much of the shape that parts of it are in right now. I couldn’t help but chuckle at some of the stuff that Lono came up with (as well as get a little thoughtful about some of the points being made about modern day America) and that was before the forces of Cthulhu made their appearance.

‘The Damned Highway’ is a read that will bring a grin to your face but it’s also a read that will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck if my experience was anything to go by. Keene and Mamatas display a handy knack of being able to hide the weird and downright evil in open sight and lull you into a false sense of security just before you run into it. Cthulhu lurks in the most unexpected places and it’s that mix of the normal and weird that makes for a very unsettling read at times. The machinations of Richard Nixon, in particular, are cartoonish and somehow all the more evil for it. The most unsettling thing of all though is when Lono gets a glimpse of the future and lives to see it all come to pass. Keene and Mamatas know that the darkest evil doesn’t live on the page and they use that to great affect here.

What really impressed me though was how a book that flies along, literally at breakneck speed, can be so controlled and tight in its prose. Lono is prone to ramble but the plot doesn’t and everything is tied up by the end of the book, an ending that keeps in tradition with all the best horror by suggesting that a more final ending is looming on the horizon.

‘The Damned Highway’ is a playful homage to Lovecraft, and Hunter S. Thompson, that never fails to make you shiver while you’re busy thinking about some of the more serious satire lurking on its edges. I’d recommend you pick it up, ‘superb’ doesn’t even come close.

Ten out of Ten

‘Pigeons from Hell’ – Joe Lansdale, Nathan Fox & Dave Stewart (Dark Horse Books)

Don’t worry; I haven’t picked up the habit of recycling old reviews, especially when they were only posted on Saturday ;o) What we’re looking at here is the updated and modernised version of Robert E. Howard’s ‘Pigeons from Hell’, originally published as a four issue comic book mini-series by Dark Horse. I didn’t pay this series much attention at the time, mostly because the title sounded a bit... well... soft. I’ve never been there but I’m pretty sure that Hell has creatures far more fearsome and demonic, than pigeons, that it could lend to a comic book title! It was only recently though (by which I mean this Saturday just gone) that I realised that the title isn’t an attention grabber so much as it is something that dovetails perfectly with the atmosphere that’s set up in the book.
I gave the original text a shot and enjoyed it a lot so I figured that now was the time to go and give the comic book a go. Having finished it, and as much as I enjoyed the read, I couldn’t help but wonder how I’d have felt if I’d read the comic book before reading the original. I’ve got real mixed feelings about this one...

The old Blassenville Mansion has stood deserted for years now, passed down through the generations but shunned by its heirs. Until now that is. Claire and Janet Blassenville have brought some friends on a road trip to see just what they’ve inherited, maybe see if they can restore the mansion to its former glory. What they’re about to find though... Well, they’ll be lucky if they make it through the night alive; home decorating will be the last thing on their mind.

Visually, ‘Pigeons from Hell’ is a very easy book to get caught up in and this is all thanks to a very effective partnership between Nathan Fox’s artwork and Dave Stewart’s colours. That’s not to say it’s perfect the whole way through. Sometimes I found myself having to do a little more work than perhaps I’d want to normally in order to work out just what was going on in certain panels. The panels where the twins see something coming towards them for example, I’ve read the book twice now (and spent time really going over the panels in question) and I still can’t see anything. On the whole though, Nathan Fox does a superb job of showing us just how eerie and forbidding the Louisiana swamps are as well as providing some real shocks when you see what is lurking in the mansion. Dave Stewart’s colours do an amazing job of bringing everything to life and I liked the little touches he gave the piece such as the contrast between dark mansion and bright characters and the sepia affect that he gave the ‘flashback’ sequences. Like I said, it’s not perfect but it’s near enough perfect that you won’t mind too much.

Funnily enough, it was the story itself that ended up giving me trouble. On the face of it, Lansdale gives his readers a scary piece with bursts of adrenaline inducing fear in all the right places. I haven’t read much of Lansdale’s but he’s been writing for a long time and this comes through in the assured way in which he drives the plot to a possibly predictable but definitely exciting conclusion. Here is a guy who knows what he is doing and does it very well.

What got me though was that I wasn’t sure what the story itself wanted to be and the time I spent pondering this was time where I was taken away from the story. Lansdale does a lot of work to make his adaptation a smooth read but this ‘identity crisis’ derails things and undoes all that good work.
I get the rationale behind updating the original ‘Pigeons from Hell’ for a modern audience and I also got it when Lansdale said, in the afterword, that a lot of him ended up in the writing. Of course it would, that’s the way it goes and it makes for something fresh if you have one authors spin on the work of another.
What I didn’t get though was the way the book set itself up as an alternative ‘modern take’ on the original and then went on to connect these present goings on with the Blassenville Mansion of Howard’s original. At least that’s what it felt like to me. I might be mistaken and certain panels were in fact homage paid to the original but the way it read felt like a connection was being made that just wasn’t going to work. The two histories don’t match and Howard’s original will always come out on top. Like I said right at the beginning, I wonder if I’d have felt the same way if I’d read the comic book first? Maybe...

Lansdale’s ‘Pigeons from Hell’ ended up being a lot of fun to read but a lot harder going than perhaps it needed to be. I’m glad I picked it up though.

Eight out of Ten 

‘Pigeons from Hell’ – Robert E. Howard (Taken from 'The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard)

I’ve got to admit that the first time I saw this title (on a comic in Forbidden Planet, years ago) I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself. Pigeons have to be the dumbest birds I’ve ever come across so to be asked to imagine that there’s anything even slightly demonic about these dopey birds... well, I just couldn’t. I didn’t pick it up but, funnily enough, I’ll be reviewing the trade paperback (Joe Lansdale’s sequel to Howard’s original) early next week and more than likely revising my opinion of it.
I didn’t realise that ‘Pigeons from Hell’ was a Robert E. Howard short story until I came across it again in the ‘Mammoth Book of Zombie Comics’. I wasn’t able to get the most out of it there though as I found myself saying, ‘Pigeons from Hell’ is a classic Robert E. Howard horror story and the artwork here is brooding and chilling at the same time. It’s a shame then that the publisher forgot to include the words…’ Life took over (as it does) after that and I never got round to reading ‘Pigeons’, until now.

My ‘Robert E. Howard’ month’ seemed like the ideal time to dig out my copy of ‘The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard’ and finally get to grips with ‘Pigeons from Hell’. It’s a tale of horror that has all the right ingredients in abundance, all cooked to near perfection...

Two New Englanders (the main character Griswell and his friend John Branner) are travelling in the Deep South and decide to spend the night in a deserted plantation. Only one of them makes it out alive though, Griswell being chased by the axe bearing and bloody corpse of his friend...
What killed John Branner? The Sheriff that Griswell runs into wonders if it was Griswell himself but the truth is far more horrifying. To uncover this truth, the two men must return to the manor that has seen more than its fair share of sadistic cruelty and revenge...

‘Pigeons from Hell’ is a gloomily atmospheric piece that cunningly conceals its moments of horror until they’re right up in your face and you can’t get away from them. You know that they’re coming though and I for one had to keep reading and find them. There’s a tantalising mystery lurking within the old Blassenville Manor, a place that the locals won’t go near after dark and where the sight of pigeons around the rooftop is an omen of the grimmest sort.

If you ever thought that Howard was just all about mighty heroes doing mighty deeds then read ‘Pigeons from Hell’ and have your mind changed. This slice of ‘Southern Horror’ will quite happily lead you down all manner of blind alleys and leave you expecting and ending that you won’t get. You may think that the ending doesn’t offer much that is new but I guarantee that you won’t see it coming until its right there in front of you. Talk about ‘out of the blue’!

Howard approaches his horror with the same energy that he would a battle scene in a Conan story; the result being moments in the story that are genuinely terrifying. Howard lets the reader right into Griswell’s head and you get a ringside seat for everything that happens to him. There are chilling moments of suspense and there are moments that are just nasty; Howard doesn’t pull any punches at all and ‘Pigeons’ flows all the more smoothly for it, each scene pushing things forward at just the right speed.

All of these moments are set against a stark backdrop of ‘Deep Southern Decay’ where the grim and foreboding backdrop either hides a secret or just looks like it does. Either way, the background combines perfectly with the plot to form a story that does exactly what it sets out to do and in some style.

‘Pigeons from Hell’ is a gloriously unsettling slice of horror that showcases Howard’s talent for writing stories that you can’t help but read until the bitter end. Those final scenes will remain in my head for a long time to come.

Ten out of Ten

‘The Concrete Grove’ – Gary McMahon (Solaris)

So, there’s me going on about how this week is all about ‘comfort reads’ (and that side of things is going well thanks very much) and all of a sudden horror is rearing its head on the blog once more... What’s going on there? If you’re looking for a comfort read then horror should be the absolute last place that you would look. I’d even go so far as to say that if you’re reading horror as a comfort read then it’s very likely that you’re not reading horror at all. Okay, maybe I’ll let you have Stephen King as I will go back and read ‘The Stand’ every once in a while, nothing else though! ;o)

How did ‘The Concrete Grove’ find its way onto the blog, at this particular time, then? There’s a really simple answer, I haven’t read a lot of Gary McMahon’s work (one novel and maybe a couple of short stories, scared the you know what out of me) but he has still managed to swiftly become an author who has my ears pricking up in anticipation whenever I hear that something new of his is on the horizon. I wasn’t going to hang around with ‘The Concrete Grove’ so here it is, a book that maybe didn’t know quite what it was but still managed to push all the right buttons and left me facing at least one night’s disturbed sleep...

Could there be anything worse than living in a run down council estate where your neighbours are all drug pushers and associated other small time criminals? When the estate is home to something older than recorded history, and just now beginning to wake up (and it is hungry), then the answer is a resounding yes. Schoolgirl Hailey is the only person who can contact this strange entity and she will attempt to use it to help her mother’s struggles with vicious loan shark Monty Bright.
Bright has plans of his own though, along these lines, and his pursuit of Hailey could well solve two of his most pressing problems. When Hailey uncovers what lies at the centre of the estate though... all bets are off.

From what I’ve read of Gary McMahon’s work, he displays a happy knack of being able to set his twisted creations to burrowing into your psyche in no time at all. Not only do you have to finish the book but you then find yourself with the prospect of all that fear and disquiet (and many other, sometimes sickening, things) staying firmly rooted in your head for a long time to come. That’s the deal with ‘The Concrete Grove’, a book that wastes no time in getting its claws into the unsuspecting reader. You’ll be caught before you know it but the plot is so intriguing that you won’t really mind at all. And that’s the point where it’s too late to back out. Prepare yourself for an extended period of thinking, ‘did that really happen to him?’ and ‘he was covered in what...?’

It’s a slight shame then that ‘The Concrete Grove’ can come across as not knowing what it really wants to be. There are strong elements of both fantasy and horror running through the plot and McMahon throws himself into each of these elements with equal fervour. The result is a very intense read (more on that in a bit) but it can also feel like these two themes are fighting against each other when they could really do with working together a little more and giving the reader a book that feels more streamlined. Maybe it’s just me but sometimes I do like to know what I’m reading...

Like I said though, McMahon does throw himself into each of these themes with a real passion and the end result has one hell of a lot going for it.
McMahon mixes two worlds together (the real and the fantastic) to come up with something that is truly haunting and compels you to get more and more into it. Rich and well thought out world building lays firm foundations and McMahon lets the two worlds bleed into each other in such a way that you can’t help but pay real close attention to what’s happening on the page. If you don’t then it’s very likely that you’ll miss something very important going on. The stakes are high for all concerned and you’ll find yourself buying into that very easily indeed. There are two more books planned and I can’t wait to see where McMahon takes things next.

It’s the horror element though where McMahon really comes into his own and shines. I guess I would say that as, like I said, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed McMahon’s horror in the past. It’s no less the case here though.
Here is a book with horror oozing out of its very pores and McMahon lumps it all altogether to give his readers something that is deeply unsettling. McMahon combines the soul destroying horror of living in near poverty, the capacity for evil that lives in the heart of men and the supernatural horror of the Grove itself and gives his readers an unrelenting dose of horror that attacks you from all sides. Just when you think you’ve got your head round one of these three themes then McMahon hits you with something else entirely. You are constantly left unbalanced and that’s just how McMahon wants it. The only time you might get that balance back is when you finish the book.

It goes without saying that if you are squeamish at all then this is probably a book that you should avoid. McMahon doesn’t include anything without a very good reason but when he does he doesn’t pull his punches at all and this shows us all to well that perhaps the true horror in this piece lies in just what us humans can be capable of if we want something enough. It’s not pretty.

‘The Concrete Grove’ is a book that fights against itself when it really shouldn’t have to. More than balancing that out though is the delicious edge of horror that will leave you thinking ‘what the...?’ It’s a vicious read with a delicate beauty about it; if you like your horror fiction then I don’t see any reason why you won’t get a lot out of this.

Nine and a Quarter out of Ten

‘The Mall’ – S.L. Grey (Corvus)

Way back in September last year I highlighted this title as one that I would be keeping an eye open for and would love to get my hands on. As seems to be the way with my reading pile at the moment, my copy of ‘The Mall’ was eagerly received and then promptly disappeared into the mass of printed paper that is once again creeping across the bedroom floor (I wouldn’t have it any other way!) I have a horrible feeling that the reading pile is where the mice have made their nest...

I rescued ‘The Mall’ in the end though. I wouldn’t say that life has been particularly hard just recently but it has stopped me getting into all the books that I really want to be into right now. The best cure for this is to go for something completely different and see where it takes you; I can’t get into any fantasy right now so maybe reading some horror is the way forward... It turned out to be a move that worked very well.
‘The Mall’ really drew me into its dark and twisted pages to the extent that I was probably a little anti-social around guests over the last couple of days. It did leave me feeling a little let down in places though...

Rhoda’s trip to the mall, to score some coke, has backfired in the worst possible way. The little boy Rhoda was babysitting has gone missing in the mall and Rhoda has no idea where he is. Dan’s job in the bookstore is full of angst and petty anger (which is pretty much his life as a whole) but things are about to get a lot more interesting as he is the only person who might know where Rhoda’s charge actually went...
Rhoda and Dan’s search takes them into parts of the mall that they have never seen before, pursued by something terrifying and facing a series of twisted tasks (sent via disturbing text messages) that they must complete if they want to survive. They manage to pass these tests but the worst is yet to come. The mall that they make their way to is not the mall that they left...

‘The Mall’ is one of those books that almost effortlessly sucks you in and gets you reading straight away. The urgency of Rhoda’s entrance into the book uncovers a hook that you can’t help but bite on; after all, who’s not going to want to know what happened to a poor little lost boy? From there on in, Grey peppers the plot with lots of tiny yet biting questions that draw you in further. There’s no way out other than to keep reading through to the end and that’s the best way for a book to do things.

Grey also gives us a couple of very engaging characters to take us on this journey. Rhoda’s spiky attitude powers the plot forward in directions that you won’t see coming until you’re well down the path. As you get to know her a little more, Rhoda also becomes a surprisingly sympathetic character that you can’t help but root for.

Grey perhaps doesn’t do quite as well with Dan whose angst ridden persona grated after a while; I was there for Rhoda not him. Again though, Dan’s journey yields insights into his character that won’t necessarily make you like him more but will help you to understand him a little more.

Where Grey really excels though is in the atmosphere of surreal terror that permeates the novel and left me feeling more than a little disturbed every time I put the book down for a breather. The flight through the tunnels underneath the mall is an exercise in classic terror that got my heart thumping. You don’t know what is pursuing Rhoda and Dan but you can see all too well the effect that this looming presence has on them and the fast pacing of these passages makes it all too easy to get caught up in the rush. There’s also an element of surreal terror that makes for a nice counterpoint to the regular stuff. Grey hints at what ultimately awaits Rhoda and Dan with brief respites from the pursuit that highlight the growing weirdness of their situation. It’s scarily odd and the worst is yet to come.

The ‘alternative’ mall where Rhoda and Dan find themselves is perhaps drawn a little too strongly to be an effective satire of consumer culture (if that is what Grey intended, I think I can see that intent) but still makes for some terrifying reading. Rhoda and Dan must learn to deal with stuff that seems merely weird at first but then proves to have nasty repercussions that they must fight to avoid. Grey injects these elements of realisation at just the right points to give the plot fresh impetus and carry the reader along.

Rhoda and Dan’s stay in the mall makes for some occasionally harrowing reading (poor Dan...) and I had to be around for the ending. This is where things fell a little flat for me however...

The ending is signposted a little too clearly for my liking but I can let that one go. After all, any good horror novel has that sense of crushing inevitability about its ending, just to make the reader want to hang around and see characters get what’s coming to them.
The problem I found though (and without giving too much away) was that this ending dragged out a little too long and wasn’t so punchy as a result. The last place you want to let the pace drop is right at the end of a horror novel...
What I also found (and this was the only place in the book that this happened) was that events towards the end of the book felt like they were there specifically to push the plot towards a particular conclusion. The organic and smooth nature of the plot just vanished at this point. I found it hard to accept that Dan would do what he did and it was more or less the same with Rhoda. The actual ending worked but I didn’t like how the plot was aimed at this ending.

That to one side, ‘The Mall’ makes for some tense and unnerving reading that any horror fan will get a lot out of. I certainly did. Just beware of that ending...

Eight and a Half out of Ten

’13 Bullets’ – David Wellington (Piatkus)

Vampires these days just aren’t what they used to be. I don’t know, maybe I’m reading the wrong books but it seems like the bloodthirsty killing machines of old have been replaced with a softer ‘vampire lite’ version that exists merely to bemoan its own existence in a series of angst ridden conversations with the girl it loves but can never have (unless you’re a vampire written by either Meyer or Hamilton in which case anything goes). It’s kind of sad to see the once proud ‘apex predator’ of the undead brought so low, isn’t it? As a result, you won’t see an awful lot about vampires here; only if they’re the truly evil kind.

There are books out there that give us the ‘real deal’ in terms of vampires and it’s my job here to showcase these books and show you guys what vampires are really all about. I’d read David Wellington’s ‘Monster Island’ (way back in the days when the blog was practically brand new) and the style he employed there gave me a pretty clear indication that his take on vampires needed to be picked up and read.
Wellington’s vampires are as bloody and animalistic as all good vampires should be and give us one wild ride of a story. It’s just a shame that the plot itself doesn’t live up to what his vampiric creation initially promises ...

All the official reports say that vampires have been extinct since the late eighties when Federal Agent Arkeley took out the last one in a fight that nearly killed him. Arkeley knows better though; there is one vampire left, imprisoned but none the less deadly as she plots and bides her time in an abandoned asylum.
State Trooper Laura Caxton has a case on her hands, that hints at vampire involvement, and only Arkeley can help her (even though she quickly comes to want nothing to do with him. Caxton is out of her league here and woefully unprepared for the rigours of a case involving vampires and their undead thralls. What Caxton is even less prepared for though is the feeling that the vampires want more from her than merely her corpse standing between them and the law. It was just chance that led to things originally happening when Caxton was on patrol... wasn’t it?

Go to your drinks cabinet, grab a bottle of whisky and take a big old gulp from the bottle and see what happens next. If you don’t have a bottle of whisky to hand go to your local supermarket and ask for the hottest chilli that they sell. Once you’ve paid for it, take a massive bite...
Either of these things is the equivalent of reading ’13 Bullets’; a book that will quite literally blow the top of your head off from the very first pages and then proceed to merrily tap dance on what’s left of your skull.

There is no doubt that ’13 Bullets’ is one hell of a ride with Wellington throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Arkeley and Caxton and seeing what happens next. Caxton is out of her depth and totally new to this situation while Arkeley carries deep scars from years of fighting vampires. Arkeley is too set in his ways to develop much if at all; it’s only at the very end that we get to see a chink in his armour and get the briefest glimpse of what he’s really all about. Caxton is the more interesting of the two to follow as everything happening is brand new to her and she can’t help but react to it. With this character you get a real sense of the journey that she makes from start to finish.

Wellington’s vampires are vicious animals eager for that next hit of blood and with enough cunning to make it happen on an all too regular basis. Wellington captures the essence of these creatures with clever use of drawn moments of tension quickly followed by a short and intense burst of action. Everything flows smoothly and there are more than a few moments that make you jump (even though you know what’s coming, just like any good horror film). Wellington also shows a keen eye for spectacle and how to make the best use of it. Whether it’s a vampire being taken down by the Feds, breaking a siege or a manic chase through woods into a cemetery; Wellington has it all covered and has no trouble getting his readers right into the heart of what’s happening. This high octane read packs an awesome punch as a result and I wouldn’t be surprised if Wellington had one eye on the film version as he was writing this. I could see it working very well indeed.

So what’s the problem then? I mentioned right at the start that I didn’t think the plot lived up to the spectacle and this creates a discord that the novel can’t really shake off. Sometimes the pace of what’s happening is literally so fast that I don’t think the plot is able to keep up and gets lost as a result. There’s so much going on (and it’s all good) that it eventually degenerates into one set piece following another with the plot taking a back seat as an afterthought. This left me wondering just exactly how the revelation at the end actually tied together and I also wouldn’t have minded slowing things down a bit and taking a look at some of the other characters that make up this world (I’m thinking about the guy who skins ghosts). Maybe in another book...

When the plot does kick in things are signposted a little too clearly for anyone who wants to take some time and guess what is going to happen next. Maybe ’13 Bullets’ is just that kind of book but certain events were signposted too clearly for me. I like action but I also like to think about what’s coming up and there was no need for that here. The energy of the book carries you past this but it does leave you feeling a little hollow by the end.

’13 Bullets’ scores highly here for its sheer exuberance and willingness to smack its reader in the face with a strong dose of brutal action. This comes at the expense of the plot though and while ’13 Bullets’ makes for a thoroughly entertaining commuter read, it’s not going to be any more than that.

Eight and a Half out of Ten