by Shock Totem
But above all else, it’s fucking fun. Get it!
–John Boden
Pure, by Julianna Baggott; Grand Central Publishing, 2012; 431 pgs.
Pure is a lovely dystopian tale that is dark and sweet. It takes place several years after the Detonations, when bombs went off and burned everything to rubble, and centers around two teenagers: Pressia, who was a small child during the Detonations; and Partridge, a boy who was inside the safety of the Dome at that time.
Pressia’s world is harsh and gritty, where humans were fused to toys, bicycles, each other, and the elements during the searing heat of the Detonations. I was particularly intrigued by this aspect of the book. Pressia is constantly embarrassed by her doll-head hand, and we often tell certain characters apart by their abnormalities. Those inside the Dome, however, were protected during this time. Their bodies are pure. Unfused. Physically enhanced. They have plenty to eat and are indoctrinated with carefully chosen, altered versions of their history. One day Partridge manages to slip out of the Dome, where he runs into Pressia, and this is when things really get interesting.
Pure is a great book. The world building is at its best. The idea of people scrabbling in the street, each with their own deformity due to manmade detonations is deliciously chilling. Partridge is very likeable, and Pressia grew on me after a while. The book took a long time to get going, but it was worth the wait. Some of the Big Reveals were telegraphed early on, especially concerning character relationships, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from reading. The writing is beautiful and dark, albeit a little on the slow side.
Still, I eagerly await the sequel. I’m intrigued by this cruel world that the author has constructed.
–Mercedes M. Yardley
Ash Street, by Lee Thomas; Sinister Grin Press, 2012; 462 pgs.
The title of this novel refers to the address of diabolical deeds. Selma Baxter and Derek Thomason abducted and butchered their victims in a house on Ash Street. They were arrested and charged for their crimes and sent away to serve their time. That was a few years ago, and now the victims’ families are being visited by their long lost loved ones—but these are not nice visitations. They are not about passing on messages of hope from beyond, or extolling affections and loving sentiments. These are nasty, violent encounters with the angry dead, and they all lead back to Ash Street.
The novel begins as an elderly man, the grandfather of one of the victims, sleepwalks to the home where the murders occurred. Spurred on by the ghost of his granddaughter, he douses the dwelling with gasoline and burns it to the ground. His grandson is also visited by the ghost of his sister, and begins to realize something very wrong is at play. Similar incidents begin to plague the town.
A policeman with dark secrets of his own is haunted by another victim of the deadly duo, his wife. She visits him in sleep and accuses him of things and deeds. This character is a strong one, with more layers that an Egyptian mummy. Not entirely likeable, but so deftly portrayed as the flawed man he is, you can’t help but root for him.
One day there is a public appearance by an apparition, strolling down Main Street, in broad daylight. Recognized as one of the victims of Baxter and Thomason, it twitches and morphs and is captured by dozens of iPhones and cameras. Once it appears on the Internet, the footage draws the attention of a ghost-hunting squad, cable TV darlings who fight and squabble but whose star member seems to be the only one who really sees that something is very wrong here. They arrive in town ready to tackle ghosts, but come up against something much worse and far more vicious.
There is much more to this story than I have briefly sketched above, but I feel it would be a disservice to spill anymore. Thomas weaves a taught tale of loss and guilt, then pries open those familiar wounds to sprinkle in the salts of responsibility and blame. The fact that this is a ghost story is almost not the point. He uses that trope as a means of exposing the varying family dynamics and how tragedy strains, stains, and scars. I’d also like to mention that for some reason the murderers reminded me of Fred and Rose West and I can’t help but think that their horrific real-life crimes had to be of some inspiration here.
The writing is lean and the imagery is haunting and riveting. This was my first experience with Thomas’s writing and based on the enjoyment I got from it, I will be seeking out more of his work.
–John Boden
Chorus of Dust, by Justin Paul Walters; DarkFuse, 2012; 183 pgs.
I first read Justin Paul Walters when he submitted to Shock Totem a quirky prose poem called “Lobo.” We loved it and accepted it for our fourth issue. As great as that poem is, however, it’s too short for Walters’s skill as a writer to really shine through.
Thankfully, that isn’t the case with Chorus of Dust.
This novella begins in a correctional facility, where Ray, a hardened journalist, has come out of retirement to pen one more of his bestselling books told from the killer’s perspective. He sits before Adem Comeaux, convicted murderer who claims innocence, to get his side of the story...
Brother and sister Adem and Sam Comeaux lost their parents at a young age and were subsequently raised by their grandfather on his farm. As adulthood approached Adem found himself at extreme odds with his grandfather’s views on religion and Adem’s future, particularly when it came to responsibility of the family farm, which he wanted nothing to do with.
So he packed up, left it all behind, and for ten years lived in Atlanta, having no contact with his sister or grandfather, until one day a letter shows up calling him home.
What Adem finds when he returns is that he has inherited not only the farm he did not want, but a curse upon his family as well.
Strong characters, a great story line, atmosphere that felt real, and a quick pace made Chorus of Dust a pleasure to read. Was it perfect? No, not at all. But for a debut in long fiction, Justin Paul Walters and Chorus of Dust are quite impressive.
–K. Allen Wood
In Search Of and Others, by Will Ludwigsen; Lethe Press, 2013; 196 pgs.
One of the great things about reviewing is the opportunity to read new authors. You can tell if you’ve just discovered someone special to keep an eye on.
Will Ludwigsen is someone to watch. This collection of short stories is nothing short of riveting. Called In Search Of and Others because of the author’s fascination with the TV series of the same name that ran from 1976 to 1982, the stories themselves also feature people searching for answers to the questions in their mundane lives.
From the foreword to the story notes, this collection will keep you turning the pages. And don’t skip the introduction by Jeffrey Ford; it’s a great read in itself.
The first story, “In Search Of,” questions are answered—maybe some of your own—in a very satisfying way. I found it fascinating, and hoping some of the answers were true.
“The Speed of Dreams” has a little girl questioning if you can gain more time in your life through dreams. It was a really interesting premise with a breathtaking ending.
“We Were Wonder Scouts” reminded me a bit of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Surreal and creepy, the story will leave you wondering just what went on. But you are left to draw your own conclusions.
One of my favorite stories, “Remembrance is Something Like a House,” creeped me out in a great way. A house desperately needs to tell its story to a former owner, and searches for years until it finds him. It sounds out there, but after reading this, you will believe that this house did what it needed to do.
All of the stories in this collection are well-written and I enjoyed them all very much. If you like short stories, you will absolutely love In Search Of and Others. Definitely not your typical horror stories, there is a depth to these tales you don’t usually find in the genre.
If you’re looking for something that will grab your emotions, then this is what you are looking for.
–Sheri White
Video Night, by Adam Cesare; Samhain Publishing, 2013; 243 pgs.
Adam Cesare fi
rst kicked my ass with his Ravenous Shadows novella, Tribesmen. A gore-drenched love letter to those nasty Italian cannibal films of the late 70s and early 80s. A letter scrawled in blood, with the i’s dotted with little skulls. When Adam started telling us about his upcoming novel, Video Night, I got excited. When I finally got an advance copy at KillerCon, I could not wait to start on it.
Billy and Tom are mismatched friends: Billy being an upper middleclass nerd whose knowledge of horror films is unsurpassed; and his buddy Tom, a hood with razor wit and sarcasm to bludgeon with. These two kids are about to find themselves immersed in a story out of something they would have rented at the local video store, probably two summers ago.
Something is trying to take over their town, maybe the world. A clicking deadly insectoid evil that hides in people and turns them into inhuman things. Slipping into their friends and neighbors and infecting them—changing them into these new creatures. Billy and Tom and their respective female companions try to confront and conquer these invaders, and they’re giving up a cozy viewing of Re-Animator to do it.
Adam delivers another goo-smeared letter of deep, tongue-kissing love to the genre, this time directed at those cheesy 80s video classics. Films like Night of the Creeps, The Being, The Deadly Spawn, Alien...and countless other Z-grade spacely turds. And Adam knows his shit. No pun intended. His style is tight and, while the setup is a little corny, it’s done in a knowing way, almost campily. The dialogue is rich with teenage goofiness and snark. Wonderfully fun.
The only negative I could think of was the lack of backstory in regards to the invading creatures. We are left to assume them from space or some other plane, and while it detracted only slightly for me, I must admit that there were a million more—and bigger—plot holes in the B, C and D movies Video Night was inspired by.
So far Adam Cesare is two for two in my stat book, and I have a feeling we will be hearing a lot more from and about him in the coming years. He has the chops and the smarts, I know that.
–John Boden
Sequel, by Mark Allan Gunnells; Gallows Press, 2012; 204 pgs.
All throughout the eighties and early nineties, slasher movies were all sorts of awesome, the guilty pleasures of guilty pleasures, thanks in no small part because of their inherent silliness. Unstoppable killers tormenting groups of unsuspecting teens, the body count rising exponentially with each passing moment until an absurd reveal/final battle come the end. Most were made horribly and acted with a stiffness that would make George Lucas proud, which only added to the kitsch factor. There was a weird sort of morality at play in most of these flicks as well, tropes created that have in the years since been the subject of many a meta-fictional project, from the Scream movies to Tucker and Dale vs. Evil to The Cabin in the Woods.
Into this growing meta-society steps Sequel, by Mark Allan Gunnells. It’s a novel about a famous director deciding to create a sequel (hence the title) to a poorly-received slasher film called The Class of ’93. Only there end up being many problems during production, and the cast begins to die off, one by one.
On the surface, this is a great idea, and the novel is constructed in such a way as to harken back to those films of old. The dialogue is stilted and incongruous, the evil characters are cartoonishly evil, and one can’t imagine, when reading a description of the new movie the director is planning to make, why in the world it would be considered in any way a “great” film, as the plot suggests.
This is all well and good when creating a farce film, but in literature, it doesn’t quite work. While you can look at images flashing across the screen and laugh at their horribleness, that is often because it takes no effort to watch a movie. Not so with a book. The written word is an active experience, with the reader fully invested in each word they read, their minds working over the meaning of the phrases they ingest. The best satire is still done in a way that makes one think.
That, in a nutshell, is the main problem I had with Sequel. For a large portion of the story, since it is constructed in such a way as to be just like those slasher movies, it is just...well, uninteresting. In fact, this particular novel becomes all the more frustrating because the author actually creates a couple of truly fascinating characters. This is one of the few books I’ve read meant for mainstream consumption that actually stars a pair of homosexuals, and makes them real people we can connect with rather than caricatures or stereotypes. The problem? They’re stuck in a book that doesn’t mean anything, which makes their collective strengths pretty much irrelevant.
However, it’s not all bad. The mystery Gunnells creates—who is killing off the cast?—works. He hides the true villain quite well, and does a fine job of making the big reveal seem obvious in hindsight. And the conclusion is satisfactory as well, playing off on the clichéd slasher formula in a way that actually works.
So there’s that.
I won’t go so far as to say this book isn’t worth checking out. It is, if only to experience the two characters I mentioned earlier. It was just dissatisfying, because it feels like a copout. If the author had gone further in either direction—more serious, or more absurd, stretching the tropes beyond their stereotypical limits—then Sequel could have been something special. The author shows he has the potential to make just that happen. Here’s hoping that in the future, he does.
–Robert J. Duperre
Bugger All Backwards, by Liam Davies; Gallows Press, 2012; 116 pgs.
Upon meeting English author Liam Davies over the summer, a friend informed me I had to read his “crazy shit.” So when Gallows Press sent me a box of books to review and Bugger All Backwards was included, I dug into it first.
And let me just tell you, crazy doesn’t begin to cover it.
Young Jimmy Finch goes to the local pub to drink away his troubles. He’s lost his job, his girl, and his writing career has stalled. After too much of the hard stuff, Jimmy hits the loo, to do what is done in such places. While sitting upon the toilet, he looks down and, reflected in the water, sees the ghostly image of Dylan Thomas, the long dead poet...
Then, as the back-cover copy perfectly states, Jimmy is “sucked into the toilet and through the dead poet’s reflected anus.”
He awakens on the shores of a coastal town called Llareggub. He is latched onto by the smitten Myfanwy, and all the townsfolk have a keen and unsettling interest in this young man. Seems there is an inbreeding—and deformity—problem in Llareggub, and this handsome young lad may be the key to healthy spawn—if he agrees to impregnate all the lovely ladies in town.
Add to this scenario unlikely cameos by Mickey Mouse, Dracula, and Cthulhu himself, and you have the makings of a literary bizarro classic. Oh, and did I mention there are alien abductions with ass-probing?
Yeah, there’s that.
The kicker is that, as ridiculous as this premise reads, it really works. The characters are strong and believable and the moral of the tale is quite strong. I’m almost thinking Davies may be some evil genius.
–John Boden
NO ONE BUT US MONSTERS
by Hubert Dade
In the dream, he was not in a basement but a barn. Perhaps his mind only made a barn of it because of the things around him. They were big and many and they shifted in the dark, huffing, shuffling their feet like commuters. But they were trapped, corralled, and he in with them. This was the dead of night. No beams of light, broken by the shadows of flies’ aerial scrawls, shot through the gaps between boards. There was no sweet smell of hay or the green earthen odor of manure. The filth he smelled was rich and greasy—ground-up bone and digested flesh. The shapes bumped him with their shoulders. They snuffled. Their hooves or feet or paws scraped the floorboards. He stood quietly and let them nudge him as they did one another. Oh, those terrible seconds. How did that song go? The waiting is the hardest part. If he moved to the outer boundary, they would know. None tried to escape. They walked brute circles, aimless and constant.
At any moment, they would discover a food source in their
midst and riot. His limbs would be rent, gouts of blood arcing at the rafters, the sound of tearing fabric and orgiastic squeals as the things devoured him. There would be yowls as they bickered over shin or love handle (a rich cut to be sure) before the meat of him disappeared irretrievably down another’s gullet. There would be bleats and bellows from this monstrous hairy livestock, with their woolen shoulders, their calloused knuckles. Bits of rotten meat wedged between their teeth. Curt would wake before he died but not before that first furred muzzle pressed him as if wanting to suckle. And that intimacy as their teeth punctured him. As they lapped his blood. As they fed on him in the dark, nosing his truncated torso around, tearing pieces where they could find purchase. This nightmare dogged him across the country.
Curt had spent his twenties in Bolinas. He moved there from Virginia because of a girl. They had made cheese from the milk of goats they raised themselves. She was Welsh—black haired with feline eyes and features. She didn’t shave her armpits or her legs and he loved that odd maleness in her. Their congruity in this gratified him when they mingled. And she was voracious. Once, he bent her over in the shed, the goats bumbling and grousing around them. She clutched the edge of the trough. They wore knee-high rubber boots, her stiff duck pants bunched at their tops. She rammed back against him and screamed when she climaxed, ripping him with her dirty fingernails. She swiped a hand between her thighs and tasted his leavings.
Bolinas was the asshole of America as far as Curt was concerned—craggy shoreline, wild grass, rutted roads, horrific gales, inhospitable sea, fog, and desolation so profound it was narcotizing. The salt wind had practically dissolved his Datsun pickup. But the Marin headlands were a paradise for the lunatic fringe. And great white sharks. Every so often, a surfer or bather was clipped in half by a two-ton rocket from the black bottom of the Pacific.
