Jan 10 - Jan 13, 2012

Day By Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile
J. L. Bourne
Horror
Published July 2010
249 pages

6.5/10

  Our hero is back, with more responsibility than ever.

  THE FUCK.  The first book in this series was definitely badass; while it seemed male-centric, the protagonist was fuckin' SMART, and I respected that.  NOW?  This book?  Buddy's transformed from clever survivalist with a military background to total military robot.  Really, he doesn't even seem human anymore.  He's completely detached from everything going on around him; even though he's got a hot survivor woman who wants a piece, she's relegated to being mentioned a few times in a couple of paragraphs.  Like I said, our protagonist is a robot.  No fun.
  On top of that, this book is so liberally encrusted with military terms that, half the time, I had no idea what the fuck I was reading about.  I'm not an idiot; I know the difference between a pistol and a shotgun, but an MP4 and an MP5?  Why?  What can't the author just focus on one?  Why does the protagonist have to have both in this book?   Does it really matter that he has the first, gets the second, and then debates between the two without really giving any pertinent info on either one?  Totally unnecessary.  And then they go into experimental weaponry and technology... I was totally lost and just ended up feeling ambivalent about it after a while.  You want to throw dozens of technical terms at me without even a goddamn diagram to help me?  Fine.  See this?

Now I'm I'm just skimming, dude.
  I felt like there were some really rad plot lines that were going to be developed; we got the first little bit of them, I got all excited about some real action, and then... NADA.  Maybe the author is saving the good stuff for his next book, but I don't think I'll be running out to the bookstore to get it.  You know what this book gets from me?  One of these:

Because it got my hopes up for another badass book, turned the protagonist into a robot, started to get into some seriously interesting plot lines and then left me hanging, and didn't even bother to refer me to Future Weapons so I could grasp at least an IDEA of what the fuck the author kept going on and on about.

Nov 7 - Nov 9, 2011

Apeshit
Carlton Mellick III
Splatterpunk/Horror
Published October 2008
178 pages

6.5/10

  A group of sexy teens go on a camping trip.  Tame enough when explained like that, right?  But I should probably mention that these sexy teens are into threesomes, sex changes, fetishes I'm actually not comfortable describing on THIS blog so you KNOW they're fucked up, and one even suffers from vagina dentata AKA pussy teefs.  And this camping trip is in a section of the woods where nothing seems to die but EVERYTHING gets horrifically mutilated, and happens to be inhabited by psychotic mutant freaks.
  Yup, just some sexy camping teens.  
 
  You know, I don't even know where to begin.
  This was a WEIRD fuckin' book.  It was gross, too, and well written, But FUCKIN' WEIRD first and foremost. 
  I mean, the whole situation was completely preposterous and outlandish from the get go, which works so damn well that when you happen to pick the book up and start skimming the first page, you can't help but start reading.  Which is exactly what happened to me.  And because the story is divided up into neat little bite sized chunks (ew, visual) you just end up burning through the damn thing... except when you know something absolutely hideous is about to happen, and you have to take a breather to mentally prepare (Which I actually had to do.  Me - lover of all things gory.  That says something about this story, right there.) before you plunge on ahead.  Plus, it's written well enough that you just burn through the thing without realizing it.  Really, it was a super quick read.
  The characters were all total freaks.  Some more so than others.  I mean, the least freaky people were the cheerleader with a mohawk and multiple tattoos into threesomes with her two bisexual boyfriends, and the dude who's dad banged an underage male prostitute in front of him.  And then kindly offered him a turn.  To cure him of his fear of homosexuals.  Again, these were the two most NORMAL characters. 
  The situation they were all in was completely ridiculous - hunted by freaks in a forest where everything's been doused with a little Death Becomes Her juice.

  It's all so outlandish that you just can't look away.  Like scene hair, or Chatroulette.

  It was a read, all right.  Great ending, fucking weird as fuck, offended my senseless sensibilities, and I could most definitely wait on reading any more by this author.  I'm honestly afraid if I read too much, it might ruin regular gore for me.

Sep 5 - Sep 7, 2011

Snuff
Adam Huber and Eric Enck
Torture Porn/Horror
Published May 2008
168 pages

6.5/10

  A couple of sick fucks with a propensity for rapin' get into the business of snuff films for profit, but, surprisingly, they find themselves with an enemy or two along the way.

  Remember how, in my previous review, I said, "If you're going to write torture porn, go all the way" ?  THIS book went all the way.  And then some.  The creators of this story  were definitely imaginative; murder after murder after murder, there was always some sort of new and interesting violence being inflicted upon the hapless victim. Yeah, I was mighty disturbed and disgusted, but I look upon that as a positive aspect in my reading experience. 
  Unfortunately, I found a lot of negative aspects in this book, too.  
  As a whole, the story was fairly unbelievable.  Every character was either a completely twisted psychopath of a human being, a drug-addled prostitution whore,  or a one-dimensional plot propellant (e.g. animal shelter employee, bereaved mom, abused sibling, etc).  Sure, a couple of our psychos had back stories, but they themselves didn't really develop.  We met them as twisted, damaged individuals, and so they stagnated.  
  I understand that people like this really do exist, but with no redeeming characters to feel for, there's really no saving grace, either.  Maybe I'm jaded, but when "Random Victim #2" gets disemboweled, I give it a big 'meh' and move on.  Kill someone whose death would be considered tragic, unexpected, heart breaking, and I might give a damn.
  As for the writing itself, it was over-complicated at the outset (too many cooks in the kitchen?) but settled into a nice flow as the book progressed.  Well, it would have been a nice flow, had I not come across at least A DOZEN editing errors throughout my perusing.  There is NO EXCUSE FOR 12+ EDITING ERRORS IN A PUBLISHED BOOK.  Give me a job as editor.  I'll keep that shit on lockdown.
  The final conclusion was a great touch, although I immediately expected it when one plot point was revealed halfway through, and a few pages from the end I did recall my sneaking suspicion.  But the writing was fast-paced enough that I forgot all about it for most of the pages between.  And it still packed a pretty mean punch.
  
  Final verdict?  While I enjoyed the gore, it was difficult to become emotionally invested in a story where the characters are all assholes.       

May 3 - May 12, 2011

A Discovery of Witches
Deborah Harkness
Paranormal Romance
Published 2011
579 pages

6.5/10

Despite the danger from opposing forces, a Vampire and a Witch fall in love.  OR  Two wieners make shit difficult for everyone because of conveniently ridiculous circumstances.

I've never really read paranormal romance; the paranormal is cool, but the romance is always too... mushy for me.  I mean, I have read the Twilight series, but in my defense, so have a billion other people.  And I'm totally willing to admit that I LOVED Twilight, but I assume that has something to do with Stephanie Meyers selling her soul to the Mormon Devil.
Now, after reading A Discovery of Witches, I've come to the conclusion that this book is pretty much Twilight, but with adult protagonists, and two swear words.  Does this sound familiar?  " 'There's a lot I don't understand about all this, Hamish, but there are three things I do know... I will not give into this craving for her blood.  I do not want to control her power.  And I certainly have no wish to make her a vampire.' "  That's kind of similar to Twilight's "About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him — and I didn’t know how potent that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."  Coincidence?  I think not.  Now throw in the fact that our overbearing vampire Matthew is waiting to go all the way with his beloved simpering Witch Diana, and you have some striking similarities.  I've already read Twilight; I don't need to do it again.
Another downfall is that the writing isn't that awesome.  I mean, it's generally written well enough, but there are some issues.  The pacing is brain-jarring.  The first half of the book is draggy as fuck, with little action or excitement.  The we read the second half, which is pretty much all action (and makes for way quicker reading) but it's all crammed in there with so many competing elements that it's hard to keep everything straight.  There has to be a happy medium between boring as hell and too much shit to comprehend properly!  Harkness also feels the need to go into every little friggin' detail about EVERYTHING.  Crusty old architecture (snooze) crusty old school history (snore) even the exacting process of putting on riding gear - "The vest was snug and hard - but it wasn't as bad as I expected.  The hat interfered with my ponytail, and I slid the elastic band lower to accommodate it before snapping the chin band together."  Really?  Is THAT how you put a hat on?  I had no idea!  I'm mesmerized!  Harkness also mentions Matthew's eyebrow "rising into the shape of a question mark" no less than three times, with nearly the same wording each time (and clearly Matthew has never had Botox, if he can do THAT with his face).
And when she describes Miriam's "flat black curls" I was totally confused.  How can a curl be flat?  Is Miriam made out of paper?  Is she the undead version of Flat Stanley?

Also, when Matthew says, "I don't want you near me when I'm angry." all I can think of is this guy -

I could have lived with all that lameness, if so much of it hadn't been so friggin' slow and uninteresting and I could find nothing else focus on.  Maybe the author was just trying to build up our emotional investment in the characters?
BTW, the characters mostly sucked (with the exception of Juliette, the insane vampire assassin).  Diana started out nervous and standoffish, and suddenly (literally, in the space of a paragraph) she this simpering idiot who literally has to be carried through most of the rest of the book and acts like a huge cunt to her family, all because she realizes she's in love with a Vampire.  In fact, an exchange between Diana and her aunt sums my feelings up perfectly - " 'You've known Matthew for a few weeks.  Yet you follow his orders so easily, and you were willing to die for him.  Surely you can see why Sarah is so concerned.  The Diana we've known all these years is gone.'  'I love him,' I said fiercely.  'And he loves me.'  Matthew's many secrets - the Knights of Lazarus, Juliette, even Marcus - I pushed to the side, along with my knowledge of his ferocious temper and his need to control everything and everyone around him."  That sounds EXACTLY like something a battered woman would say.  If some broad said that to me, I'd be all:

On the other hand, Matthew is pretty static.  He skulks around, keeps secrets, stalks Diana, gets all moody over previous lovers, and treats Diana like a child.  He says he loves her hair because "It's imperfect, just like life.  It's not like vampire hair, all polished and flawless."  He KILLS and SUCKS THE BLOOD OUT OF A DEER, and Diana's all, "Shush deer, he needs to kill you to show me how dangerous he really is.  Just go quietly, because this is really romantic, and I'm totally turned on right now."  The she kisses his bloody mouth, and compares her eating an egg sandwich to what he just did.  Maybe it's just because I'm a vegetarian, but I think that's gross.
But in all fairness, I was able to breeze through the latter portion of the book because it was just a bunch of action packed fluff.  I was able to just accept the flaws and just go with it, and I even kind of got lost in it for a bit, until way too much stuff started going on and I started to auto-pilot.  But I know that it's the first in a trilogy, and Harkness wants us to want to find out what's going to happen next, so I can't really blame her for leaving so many loose ends.
Really, I know this book is an epic.  It's long and involved, and has multiple plots that could go in just about any direction.  If it was horror, I'd totally be into it.  But it's not.  To me, it's a Twilight ripoff paranormal romance.  And I generally don't enjoy that kind of stuff.  But I can see how other people totally could.

Feb 26 - Feb 27, 2011

Zombie
Joyce Carol Oates
General Friction (typo stays)
Published 1995
181 pages

6.5/10

    Q_ P_ is your average sex offender, who just can't seem to hop that "assault and murder" hurdle.  Well, I guess we've all got our crosses to bear.
    I'm torn about my feelings regarding this book.  I'm repulsed... by the writing style.  Not the graphic torture scenes, not the sick, twisted protagonist... no.  The writing style.  But I find the subject matter thrilling as hell.  There's action every which way, and dodging, and weaving, and do-it-yourself frontal lobotomies.  It gets your heart pounding.  But see, I'll be getting all worked up and agitated by a particularly engrossing scene, and then BAM - there's a mystery period.  And not the kind that embarrasses you in 8th grade music class the one time you wear white shorts.  No, there'll be this.  And then an ampersand.  & then some CAPITALIZED WORDS thrown IN all WILLY-NILLY.  & everything is the same monotone.  Also, I couldn't get myself emotionally invested in our protagonist.  But maybe I'm not meant to be?  I do suppose no one wants to find themselves feeling a lot of empathy for a NAMBLA devotee with a membership card to the Serial Killer Club (nowhere near as family friendly as The Breakfast Club).
    But the idea behind this novel, that an individual could go about their day-to-day lives, functioning by society's standards but abnormal as fuck and regularly torturing and killing people is totally macabre, and it got me thinking.  How many people out there are like that?  Is every guy that refuses to make eye contact planning on preforming radical surgery on your cranium?  Or is he just shy?  How many people do you pass on a regular basis that are considering the best way forcibly enter your out holes?  It makes you wonder...
    To make it that much worse, there's a scene that plays out early on in the story, where Q's dad pops by for a visit, and promptly notices a... disturbing odor.  And a creepy old footlocker.  That's PADLOCKED SHUT.  And while he asks a few questions (which are half-assedly answered) he gives up and says he really just doesn't even want to know.  Now, how many times do you think that happens in real life?  How many times has a wicked gross odor wafted down an apartment hallway and someone just busts out the Febreeze to cover it up?  Or passed a hobo lying on the sidewalk taking a nice nap while face down and bleeding and covered in excrement?  I guess it's one thing to catch your neighbor smoking a joint and getting in on it (that's what everyone else would do, right?) but another thing entirely to see a human arm sticking out of the local eccentric's wood chipper and assuming it's another one of those Film Noir pieces he's always filming.
    Also, when we were taken through all that sweet-ass lobotomy information, I had to wonder (and this might be a little harsh) why aren't we still doing that?  It seems like the better option when the death penalty is put on the table.  Or life in prison, making shanks out of spoons and being man-handled by a rough trick named Jim.  Not only would they be incapable of most heinous crimes, and not only could they be rehabilitated into somewhat functioning members of society (maybe), but it would certainly be a deterrent to a lot of would-be criminals.  I mean, look what it did for Frances Farmer!  She was productive as fuck after her (alleged) lobotomy!
    I suppose in the end, while the book was thought provoking as hell, and there were enough disgusting scenes to keep me flipping though the pages, the writing style itself left me cold and I had a tough time getting into it.  Wandering mind and all that.  Obviously.

Jan 26 - Feb 4, 2011

The Donor
Frank M. Robinson
Medical Thriller
Published September 2005
371 pages

6.5/10

    Our friend Dennis has the unfortunate fortune of awakening from mysterious surgeries sans organs.  Like most people, he prefers to keep said organs.  And so, he is... on the run!  DUN DUN DUH.
    This book reads like it was banged out for the paycheck - for the most part, it's flat and uninspired.  I barely cared at all what was going on, and I kept falling asleep after a few chapters.
    The plot itself is hardly original (although not much is these days).  To be fair, I enjoyed the whole genetics plot device, and the bit in there with black lounge singers having white babies... I honestly had no idea what the who-diddley was going on with that, and therefore kept me somewhat stimulated.  Because otherwise, all the other "twists" were hardly wavy they were so callable.  I had everything else nailed from the get go.  It pisses me off to no end when a writer keeps dropping hints at a big reveal that's supposed to be this explosive EARTH-SHATTERING conclusion that rock me to my very book adoring core - and I've already got it pegged.  Talk about a friggin' let down; so anti-climatic.
   Basically the story was based on the whole "chase-near miss-chase-near miss-ad infinitum" formula, which gets ridiculously pedantic after the first couple of escapes.  It's almost akin to R.L. Stine's "buildup-scare-buildup-scare-ad infinitum" Goosebumps formula, except the one I'm reading now is supposed to be for grownups, with (I'm assuming) have a slightly more sophisticated palate.  See, once you know something is coming, you're not scared anymore, you're just waiting to get it over with because you're hoping for something really shocking.
    I found the characters to be pretty one-dimensional as well.  I mean, there were enough of them (a butt-load, really) with a rough three or four adjective/anecdote background, but otherwise, they just seemed to be there to... say and do stuff.  Obviously, that's what characters do, but they're also supposed to think and feel, and, in turn, make you feel for them.  Not here.  They're just... blank vehicles for the protagonists to move from action point to action point, if that makes any sense.
    And the twist (while still being the most interesting part of the entire book) wasn't even made entirely clear!  What the hell!  I still don't quite understand the whole genetic lab/surrogacy thing.  Maybe it's too subtle for my coarse intellect, for maybe it just wasn't well thought out or even logical, but I didn't quite get it.
    Also, did anyone else notice the author's weird aversion to semi-colons?  So many commas that would have been a tremendous amount better had they been punctuated with that little dot on top.  
    So I'd say The Donor started out decent enough, immediately descended into formula, and attempted redemption with a not very well executed ending.
    Another filler book.

Jan 17 - Jan 25, 2011

Forced Entry
Stephen Solomita
Crime Fiction
Published October 1991
369 pages

6.5/10

    A retired cop hunts down bad-guy types, vigilante style... and still manages to find love with a no-nonsense lawyer-type!  Outstanding!
    CRIME!  DRAMA!  ROMANCE!  HOOKERS!  This story has it all!  Even a misplaced set of quotations marks!  But with a title like Forced Entry (and a cover like that) this book is bound to satisfy.
    Literally, I chose this book based on the title/cover combo.  Totally looks like a dude trying to pry into/escape out of a gaping butthole (more on that in the new "Literary Hilarity" section).  The story itself is a lot more meh.  In fact, it's hardly remarkable.
    It appears as though I stepped into a series of some sort (again, this shows how little research I did on this book before buying it... I just needed the double entendre in my life) and middle books are never that great.  The retired cop, Moodrow,  wants to help some upper-middle-class types because one of them is related to a chick he's banging.  Reasonable.  But Moodrow, he's pretty... dull.  Like, in the way that he's only described as "big" and "a retired cop".  That's it.  The author spends more time on the bit player junkies and whores, whom which make up the majority of the only remarkable bits.  There was excess amounts of New York landmark name-dropping which I couldn't care less about, and weirdly cheesy bits, like the romance between Moodrow and Betty and the last scene between the Jackson Arms resident and the Super.  Lame-O.  And once I realized it was a series, there was no doubt that our protagonist was going to live to fight crime another day.  The preview for the next book in the back kind of queered the deal on that guessing game.  
    It wasn't terribly written, and it was graphic enough often enough to keep me superficially entertained, but all in all, it amounted to just a filler book.