Chris Lee
When I saw that John Goblikon wrote a book—and a self-help parody book for that matter—I knew I had to check it out. I mean, who better to talk about life's eccentricities than a mythical being who is in the world's premier goblin metal band, Nekrogoblikon?
I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I really enjoyed this book. Like, I laughed quite a bit. Hard chuckled even. It actually reads sort of like crazed segments of one of my all-time favorite shows, Monty Python. It's off-kilter, a bit strange, slapstick, and can be, ahem, clever-ish at points.
First, let's cover the band. Necrogoblikon's metal music is cute. It has some decent synths here and there, but for the most part, and I even think the band would admit it, they are sort of like the “Weird Al” Yankovic of metal. It's wacky and emotionally charged. It's heir apparent to say a band like Limp Bizkit; all show and definitely no flow. Not hating I actually saw the band live once...
A few old friends embark on a hiking trip in the Scandinavian wilderness.
Once the troop goes off the beaten path and gets lost, tensions flair.
But this is not the real horror. The real terror awaits them in the woods.
The Ritual is filled with creepy homes in the woods, pagan rituals, creatures, piles of bones, and plenty of visceral moments.
The creature elements and exploratory narrative portions were my favorite parts of the book. I really do not have much to say about the book. It was just okay.
Unfortunately, the conversations between the unlikeable friends and drama really did not do anything for me. For every bit that was fun and exciting, it had bits that did not work for me.
Overall: creepy moments, but a bit bloated on story elements that were uninteresting, imo.
3/5
A desolate landscape. No, not completely devoid of life. What little ride on the dusty terrain outlined in this epic anti-western are those with a certain fate. A fate outlined in blood, doom, and destruction.
A 14-year-old from Tennessee, with a “a taste for mindless violence,” runs away from home and sets off to Texas in 1833. “The Kid” eventually joins a scalping gang who are paid well for completing contract massacres across the land.
The Kid meets up with the seemingly enigmatic character called The Judge. The judge is all but a puzzle. He is calamity. He is a blight on the world. He is catastrophe incarnate. An intelligent and omnipresent force that does not seek conformity. He is savage for sure, but he understands humanity. Not unlike the mercenaries who are only participating in the debauchery for money. The Judge teaches with parables, with art, and with ethics. Is he a monster in disguise, a traveled man of integrity who has given in to moral corruption, or something supernatural? All is explored and more!
Told from the perspective of The Kid mainly, this gritty portrayal of the old west reins in a wide variety of themes. Everything from warfare and rituals to partisanship and the nature of evil is covered in great detail.
Conventions are thrown out the window. The Kid is shaped by his encounters throughout the book, but very rarely gives the reader the opportunity to relate to the wholesale decimation of the land. It's highly impersonal. And that is by design.
Blood Meridian is a tough read. Brutal, even. Not for the light-hearted.
Cormac McCarthy's writing is masterful. The scene setups and ability to hold the reader's attention are second to none. Here is a passage I thought was simply incredible: “The shadows of the smallest stones lay like pencil lines across the sand, and the shapes of the men and their mounts advanced elongate before them like strands of the night from which they'd ridden, like tentacles to bind them to the darkness yet to come. They rode with their heads down, faceless under their hats, like an army asleep on the march.”
It's a novel I will most certainly never forget. A new favorite. One I shall have to read several times to take in the magnitude of the narrative.
An unlikely meeting, coupled with an unlikely attraction, makes this gothic romance a very likeable reading experience.
A young lady gets swept away to live with Maxim de Winter at his enormous ancestral home named Manderley. Maxim's previous wife, Rebecca, passed away, and the new shy, inexperienced, yet loving wife tries her best to fill Rebecca's shoes. But what happens when she tries to learn more about the family's past?
The answer to that question leads the reader down a rabbit hole filled with mystery, jealousy, scandal, and trepidation. Daphne du Maurier attacks all the senses and ratchets the tension of this ‘fish-out-water' story in many interesting ways.
One of the more sadistic angles is the psychological turmoil inflicted by the infamous Mrs. Danvers. I actually quite liked her character from start to finish. Hopefully I am not alone on this.
Sequence of events: 1.) Murders in the Rue Morgue by Iron Maiden pops up on my playlist. 2.) Proceeded to Wikipedia for inspiration on which un-read Poe stories to add to my spooky season read list. 3.) Found out this was a sequel to the Rue Morgue story. 4.) Possibly did a ‘I cannot contain my excitement' lap around the room. 5.) Read the quick short in one sitting. Based on a true story, Dupin tries to solve the murder of a perfume saleswoman who is found floating in the Seine. Was it a group of no-good scoundrels, someone close to the victim, or just a random criminal act? Fear not! Dupin is on the case. An entertaining, albeit methodical detective story. Considered to be some of the first ever written. Poe wrote another Dupin short called: [b:The Purloined Letter 278854 The Purloined Letter (C. Auguste Dupin, #3) Edgar Allan Poe https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1338446224l/278854.SY75.jpg 270472]Check out the wiki article of C. Auguste Dupin to learn more about the character and Poe's contribution to the detective genre. It's fascinating.
“Commodore” by Philip Fracassi surprised me. The blurb suggests a Christine-like story, but in actuality, the horror is served up on more of a cosmic plate. The plot may be full of influences and nostalgic callbacks, but the terror and sense of space had a unique voice and captivating writing style.
Plot: The town of Sabbath is filled with unique folks who have a penchant for sticking around its borders. Why? I'm not sure. What I do know is that they have a gnarly junkyard with a black car settled within, and those who go and see the car might just not come back.
The book is short. 100 or so pages. I enjoyed the idea behind the car and the kids who travel to go see it. It has a certain discovery aspect that I think most can relate to. The first time you go out exploring the neighborhood on your own, for example. Without giving too much away, the kids experience some pretty crazy things while locked inside the car. Sight, sound, and gravity are used by the author to really amp up the suspense. Those squeamish reading about peril in small, confined spaces may be in trouble, but you'll be fine if you can handle say, the T-rex car scene from Jurassic Park.
There are some loose ends, but I think the Sabbath town is setup to be expanded upon. Do not expect grand explanations, and I think you might enjoy the story. I would be interested in checking out some of the authors full length books in the future.
The two men in “Strangers On A Train” are despicable people. One, a well-off psychopath who berates women, and the other is a brilliant yet insecure fella who lacks a few basic moral filters. Perhaps número dos is not too bad in the beginning, but time will tell as the novel chugs along. Does the dynamic fit a twisty murder plot? To me, the book has flashes of brilliance, but some of the melodrama and filler irked me quite a bit.
Guy and Bruno meet on a train. A few drinks are shared, and before long, Bruno lays out a perfect murder. Bruno will murder Guy's wife; he is on his way to divorce, and Guy will in turn murder Bruno's father. Does this sound like a foolproof idea to you?
If you can get past the ‘perfect' meetup and subsequent murder coercing, I think you might enjoy it a bit more than I did. The chapter describing the deed was an eerie look into the mind of a psychopath and included quite a bit of introspection. This, coupled with the extreme detail, really set the tone for the rest of the book. Sadly, it takes until about the last third to really ramp up again. The middle portion of the book is filled with too much melodrama and philosophical takes, which I usually enjoy, but it sort of plateaued for me. It is understandable that these characters would get caught up in these ramblings of crime, but it hits it over the head a bit too much. It all could have been compacted a bit more. The alcoholism, the blackouts, and the staunch remarks started to get pretty grating. Also, it never really hits that sense of Annie Wilkes type crazy, if you know what I mean. Maybe we are just a bit desensitized to these types of stories, but back when this was published, I'm sure it was eye-opening.
On the other hand, the writing is pretty great. I read that the movie iteration was directed by Hitchcock, and this makes perfect sense. The stalking chapter in particular had a Hitchcockian feel to it, so I can see why he would gravitate toward it. Oh! One more point. The murder in and of itself was pretty clever. Back then, it would have been almost impossible for authorities to catch on to how it was committed. There is some detective work that shows up in the last third or so, but the ‘gotcha' moments are pretty far-fetched and frankly uninteresting in my opinion. I can definitely see other writers being influenced by the interrogation scenes as well. Karen Slaughter comes to mind.
All in all, it had some amazing moments, but I feel like it could be trimmed up a bit. My advice would be to go into it not expecting a cat-and-mouse chase or an in-depth character story, just some tension surrounding a few blokes who devise a creative act of evil. A more sinister version of My Dinner with Andre, for example.
According to the dictionary, aesthetics is “the philosophical theory or set of principles governing the idea of beauty at a given time and place.” Couple that definition with the blurb of the book, and you will have your very short introduction. I was hoping this entry in the book series would be as educational as some of the others, but sadly, it's fairly bland.
It's a primer for understanding the concept, and it might help build confidence in explaining an experience you had with nature, art, or whatever strikes the fancy, but I was hoping for a more linear history lesson than a few modern examples or fairly obvious conclusions one would arrive at after visiting a museum for the first time or participating in a critique.
Do not take my word for it, though. The book covers the objective (colors, shapes, designs, etc.) and the subjective (individual sensations and how what we see evokes these sensations within us). There might be some tibits to take away.
The author does have a challenge with such a short book. How does one explain a sustained “feeling” or sensory perception that a bit of art (or anything for that matter) conveys on whatever level a person deems pertinent at that moment in time? All of our backgrounds are completely different, and our tastes are wildly different. This is just a personal preference, but choosing sex, drugs, and rock and roll to convey these sustained experiences did not do anything for me. It's just one chapter, but it's fairly basic information. It's not a knock in any shape or form. I know it's an introductory book, but I feel like most would fill in the aesthetic blanks without even having to read the chapter. :D
Okay, enough rambling.
This book surprised me. It's far from being a cheesy look at ray guns, flying saucers, and beings who say lines like, “Take me to your leader.” No, The War of the Worlds reads like, dare I say, realistic fiction. There is an aura of believability throughout its pages. An academic or elevated take on the genre, so as it was in 1898.
The story? Well, it's pretty straight-forward. Martians crash land on Earth and destroy everything and everyone in their wake. But it's much more than that. The narrator deals in speculative philosophy, so it reads like a bloke questioning what he is seeing and inferring what he knows about science and the world to arrive at logical conclusions. Now, if this sounds sort of drab, I understand. Some readers might want more bits of action or survival sequences, and although this has them, they are not the focus of the story. The focus is on the overarching reason why the Martians are here and what their goals are, rather than just trying our best to obliterate them and move on.
I really appreciate the focus on using street names and locations around England to paint the picture. The words are detailed and succinct, but they also have a bit of literary whimsy to make the writing not feel overtly wooden. The Martian description is fairly unique as well. Again, everything is more or less driven by technical details, so that may be a turn-off for some seeking something a bit more sensational or dramatic. The characters are pretty sparse as well. I enjoyed the framing on the theme of human vulnerability, survival, and the limits of knowledge at the time, even if the singular relationships suffer a bit.
|| “The chances of anything manlike on Mars are a million to one.””
Save it for a rainy day, in-between an X-Files sesh, or when you get a hankering for a classic. It will surely not disappoint.
Emotion is a fairly modern word. Philosophers such as Plato and Hume used defining sets of words to categorize a range of human feels in their early writings. They did their best to describe the complexities of our deepest sentiments, which are incredibly interesting to read. Nowadays, I feel like they would have been confused, baffled, or uninterested in putting such a complex range under a wide umbrella as emotion. I can envision them even scoffing at me with the comparison. This got me thinking. How do you describe emotion? Well, this book takes an interesting look at when the word was first used, how the term butts heads with a number of vastly different states of mind, and even covers those who champion emotional intelligence over the more positive and negative connotations of the term. Hello, Vulcans!
***If you are wondering, there are quite a few Star Trek references. It's uber fascinating!
Scythe is a tale of two halves. On one hand, it's a thrilling YA novel full of intrigue and exciting world-building. On the other hand, it's a tale that shines a creative light on concerns we all have here in the real world. A YA reader and an adult would probably have a completely different experience reading this, and that's what makes it so great.It's a simple story. The world has moved past diseases, murder, and accidental deaths, and people are potentially living forever. To keep somewhat of an order of things, Scythes pick people to glean. These unfortunate people cannot be brought back to life with revivals. Oh! There is also somewhat of a worldly overseer called the Thunderhead, but let's leave that element a surprise.Enter two young adults who are chosen to join the Scythedom and become the next bringers of doom. How do they fit in? How are they trained to accomplish these dastardly deeds, and what do they do about these feelings towards one another?I like how it fuses dystopian perspectives with actual historical references. Also, the winks to politics, freedom, and the pitfalls of being impetuous in this world were tops. While reading it, I was reminded of some of my favorite writers, such as Bradbury, Sterling, and Roddenberry.It's easy to read, fun, a bit dark, and has a great writing style. It's brilliant!⭐ Rating ⭐❖ 4.5 out of 5 ❖
Whew! I finally got around to finishing the Grant County series. This last entry had much less Sara than I wanted, but it makes sense that Lena and Jeffery get more of the shine. If I could describe the book in two words, I would choose panic-inducing. It's not so much the mystery aspect that is pretty easy to figure out from the get-go; it's the classic Karen Slaughter downtrodden character arcs. Just when you think someone cannot suffer enough, more terse and unrelenting catastrophes are thrown their way.
The story is simple. A car is found engulfed in flames on the 50-yard line at the local high school. Lena, our tortured police detective, is involved, but she is not talking about the victim, who was trapped inside the vehicle. Jeffery and Sara come to the rescue. From here, we follow the investigation to the thrilling end. The pages flew by, and it touches on all the necessary small town happenings to the thrilling conclusion. It's not complex, but it's not supposed to be. We get to be a fly on the wall as certain character arcs end. Saying more would be a spoiler.
Overall, the series was exciting. It's incredibly dark and unsettling, but that's sort of Karen's brand of writing. I'd probably recommend starting with some of her stand alone novels (looking at you, The Good Daughter), but if you are in the mood for a police procedural with tortured characters that are injected into uncouth situations, this series is for you.
Question to anyone who has read the Will Trent series: Does it pick up after this and carry on? I feel like if I Google the information, it will spoil things.
Quick thoughts: What can I say. A collection of some of the finest horror shorts I have read. The wide range of genres and excellent story telling will have you devouring each one.
Here are all the individual updates:
Story 1 of 20: “Jerusalem's Lot” - What a fun, brooding, spooky tale featuring a family home and a town with a dark past. LOVED the letter writing perspective and the church sequences. (⭐⭐⭐⭐)
Story 2 of 20: “Graveyard Shift” - A deceptively fun story that quite literally creeps up on you at the end. Stay out of the basement!
What happens when nature employs a young woman as a vessel to get retribution from the local population for clearing its overgrowth?
Well, we get a lovecraftian tale full of blood, dark themes, atmospheric imagery, and a whole lot of sex.
That's right, not to get too far out in the weeds (pun intended), but nobody in town is safe from Gwen extracting a pound of flesh—in more ways than one.
We have had plenty of warnings about gargoyles over the years. Tales From The Darkside, Gremlins 2, and even The Hunchback of Notre Dame, to name a few. While these gothic-style architectural elements might speak to your personal design aesthetic, just make sure they were placed on the building to ward off the right folks. The second these stoic water spewing stone creatures were seen by Ana and Reid (a young family who moved into a historical Manhattan apartment that adorned them.) I knew something sinister was on the horizon.
First things first. The book's selling point mentions similarities between Salem's Lot and Rosemary's Baby. I'd caution anyone using the blurb to pick this one up. With that being said, it does offer a more “modern” take on the sensibilities found in the inspired books, but IMHO, I'd recommend reading those two masterpieces before tackling this one.
What's it about? Well, a young family wins a placement lottery for an old, historic apartment on the upper west side of New York. The couple has a newborn and must juggle creative jobs, friends, strange inhabitants, and other things that go bump in the night. It basically follows the plot of Ghostbusters 2. Replace Vigo with a similar antagonist, replace the ghost in the window with a different kind of baby snatcher, replace bathtub monsters with other similar entities, and replace Yanoish with another creepy “human” type helper, etc.
The book delves into themes such as postpartum depression, identity crisis, anxiety, recovering from a disability, relationship woes, and being overworked.
The characterizations grafted onto these themes, while traumatic, never really picked up steam for me. They were sort of used as fade-to-black moments at the end of each chapter. The problem is, those curtain closing moments, if explored, would have been much more fun and engaging. The flow just seemed a bit off to me. Also, it's really hard to root for either of the MC's. They both have personalities that go from zero to a hundred in a split second and neither of them have any meaningful conversations, which left me scratching my head quite a bit. When the going gets tough, and certain elements are revealed, it's just sort of accepted and the chapters fade. I wish more care would have been put into the characters and not steam rolled ahead with the plot. Clarity is not needed, but a little bit of heart goes a long way.
I guess this sounds like I did not enjoy it, but I did like some elements. It's just getting harder for “modern” horror tales to appease my inner horror spirit these days. I enjoy a good nature vs. nurture story just like the next person, but this tale just does not add much to the convo. However, even though some elements may be plucked from your favorite horror stories or movies, it still manages to send a shiver or two down the spine. I'm looking at you, relator.
The last third is sort of “info-dumpy” and pretty much aligns with your preconceived notions. It's not a stretch to say the ending was inspired by The Shining.
Over the years, books have told us not to mention things like Fight Club and He Who Shall Not Be Named, while movies have graciously reminded us not to cross the streams and to never create time machines that feed on plutonium.
Well, add Dead Inside to that never-remind or mention list because it is just about the most depraved thing I have ever set my eyes on.
You might be asking yourself what this is about, and well, I would usually write some sort of synopsis, but it's quite literally impossible without possibly being banned from the platform. So instead, I'll just dance around some themes.
Let's begin by talking about art for a second. Remember the scene in Tim Burton's Batman where the Joker looks through Vale's photography portfolio and says it's crap until he sees some of her more disturbing pictures of war? Jokers eyes light up, and he is drawn to her, even though his perception of reality and Vales could not be more different. Well, what if they were the same? What if Vale was into the Jokers homicidal art and the person behind the makeup? Not only that, but what if she wanted to participate? More omelets would be made, and many more eggs would be broken.
This is all a roundabout way of saying I get what the author was going for. It's sick and twisted, but there is a semblance of a crazed love story wrapped up in an extreme tapestry of vile unconformity. The characters do not suppress their impulses; they embrace them. I took it in as humor/dark satire (almost like an extended Onion article) and was actually laughing quite a bit. It reminds us that not everyone in this world is the same or has similar tastes, outlooks on life, or desires. For every prominently framed Van Gogh Starry Night in a house, there is someone out there with a Saturn by Goya. Tomayto, tomahto.
The writing was quite good and there are literary references that wink at the reader, music selections that were just down-right funny used in their context, and a few ideas plucked from a few modern French horror movies, albeit taken to a whole different stratosphere.
Overall, you know how boxers say they left a piece of themselves in the ring after a tough fight? Well, I had a similar thought when I made it to the last page. Just trade out the loss of brain cells for the loss of sanity.
Ooh La La. This novella is transgressive, morally bankrupt, and takes a long, cyber-punky dive into the world of outward-facing beauty and body influence. From one extreme to the next, we follow P. Burke, a non-attractive teen who attempts to end it all but is halted by a bureaucracy and offered a job.
This job consists of transforming her body, showing off products, driving around in “sun-cars”, living large, and disappearing from everyone she knows.
After a brief mind-to-body transfer, the new job teaches her how to walk, talk, interact, and sell her personality. Here is a fascinating quote about how it all works:
|| “When you wash your hands, do you feel the water is running on your brain? Of course not. You feel the water on your hand, although the “feeling” is actually a potential-pattern flickering over the electrochemical jelly between your ears.” ||
** If Mona Awad partnered with William Gibson and took on a pseudo-cyber tech novel, I can see it being something similar to this story. **
There is something artful about how the author blends concepts like transference with complex issues like body image. My experience with it was sort of like viewing an experimental art installation. The visual language might be leading you to feel a certain way or take interpretations and graft them onto your personal worldview / experiences. This books sporadic narrative and themes of cognitive dissonance might make you
Hondo by Louis l'Amour revolves around a soldier set in the 1870s who must come to terms with his place in the dusty, violent, and sun-soaked Wild West.
If your idea of a good time involves spurs, bar-brawls, high-noon fights, Apache politics, and taming bucking mustangs, this book is for you.
But wait! It's not just a testosterone-filled Stetson tipping, six-gun flinging tumble on the frontier. It has a genuine love-at-first-sight sideline. Hondo stumbles across a prairie owner named Angie. Can a young widow and her son warm the heart of the stoic, half white man, half Apache?
It's a rootin' tootin' good time!
You're probably wondering if Hon-do or Hon-don't stay with Angie and Johnny. Well, not at first; she might be married and waiting for her husband to return. Plus, he has some unfinished business to attend to.
So, while Hondo is away, the Apaches want to set up an arranged marriage or pairing because they believe Johnny should not grow up without the requisite “man” skills. I.e. Horse taming, fighting, scalping, etc.
Will Hondo find out what happened to Angie's husband? Will Hondo return to help Angie? Will the battle for land be resolved?
Thoughts: Howdy! If you made it this far, welcome, friend.
“How It Unfolds” by James S.A. Corey gravitated towards my radar from my bookish friend, Rosh. As a fan of The Expanse series (well, the first four at least), I knew I had to check this quick short out. Deep down, the book is about hope, fate, destiny, and the permutations that may happen with the choices we make.
A team of interplanetary engineers is taking trip(s) to different galaxies looking for inhabitable plants for the future of mankind. The catch? The team does these ‘folding' excursions over different lifetimes. Stay with me here. It sounds sort of complex, but the rules are fairly easy to follow. The characters are rich; there is a bit of exploration, a tiny bit of humor, and a whole lot of heart.
|| “ We can live a billion different ways from here, but there's only one path behind us. That was never going to change.” ||
It is refreshing to get so much story in something so short, and I had exploration vibes similar to those of Christopher Columbus. Replace the sailing with teleportation, a spice trade with hydroponics, and a light sprinkling of new world/old world concepts.
If you are in the mood for a fun little sci-fi story, this would fit nicely.
**Side note: I just have to comment on the food in the book and the conundrum I pondered after I finished it: “the food was always the same: dense cakes with all the nutrients, fiber, and microbiota to sustain life in a puck the size of a pack of cards.” I was trying to decide if this would be better than the ‘protein-rich porridge' from the Matrix.
‘I warn you that what you're starting to read is full of loose ends and unanswered questions,' writes Jack Finney in the opening paragraph of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” It's a statement that sets expectations but also starts to elevate the anxiety level.
What if you were a respected doctor in the community and one of your patients pulled you aside and told you that they think their family members are not who they appear to be? You take them for their word, and after closer inspection and interviews, you find that the suspected family members look and act just like the genuine article. I think you might tell your upstanding patient that they just need to get some rest. What about, days later, you come across a formless body that has no apparent fingerprints? You might decide that the patient may have not been ‘off their rocker.'
|| “The men, women, and children in the street and stores below me were something else now, every last one of them.” ||
Doctor Bennell is recently divorced, and while he searches for the answers to his alien encounters, he also finds love in the process. I know this sounds cheesy, and some of the more ‘lovey dovey' moments are, but it is done in a particularly realistic fashion. Well, as much as one can while being closely monitored by pod people.