Archive for horror book review
The Awakening – Book Review
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The Awakening
Kelley Armstrong
HarperCollins
Hardcover, 368 pages, $17.99
Review by Sheila Merritt
Reviewing the second novel in a series, without having read the first, is rather like cutting in during a dance. The music has started, there’s an engagement between the dancers, and then the interloper must pick up the steps and movement where they were interrupted. In the case of the young adult novel, The Awakening, it’s not hard to get into the rhythm and flow of the story line. A reading of the first book in the Darkest Powers series, The Summoning, is not a prerequisite. There is recapitulation of what occurred in the earlier work, and because this is a rather formulaic young adult novel, it is easy just to go with the flow and follow along.
The main character, fifteen year old Chloe Saunders, possesses pubescent problems beyond the norm. She is a novice necromancer; has the ability to raise the spirits of the dead. In the company of other “supernaturals” she finds that they have been part of an experiment which modified their genes. Chloe, and some other teenagers who have been used in this unholy testing, are on the run from The Edison Group. That organization not only engaged in genetic tampering; it also murdered some of its young subjects who didn’t perform to standards. Chloe’s name is on the expendable list, so she flees with a moody (is there any other kind?) werewolf, his sorcerer brother, and a bitchy/witchy girl.
Adolescent anxieties and attractions ensue during the flight from the despicable elders, who also possess some degree of supernatural powers. This is a generation gap of huge proportions.
Chloe is an arresting character; self aware, and fond of using movie images to convey a thought: “In a good drama, the protagonist never takes the straight line to the prize. She must set out, hit an obstacle, detour around it, hit another, take a longer detour, another obstacle, another detour … Only when she had built up the strength of character to deserve the prize does she finally succeed.”
The teens on the lam are intellectually accessible, and it is easy to care about what will happen to them in the next volume. This second book is a cliffhanger, so it also has a built in lure to the third novel. Chloe’s standoff with some zombie bats is outstanding in its “ick” factor, and prompts her to have to have “a Disneyfied dream of prancing through the forest, leading a singing trail of undead critters.”
In The Awakening, Kelley Armstrong takes her experience as a writer of adult horror fiction and tailors it to the burgeoning young adult market. She does a good job with the difficulties inherent in a second novel in a series: There is no sense of reader “whiplash” in having to go the first book for reference. Wisely, she’s also insured that this story will prompt the reading of the next installment; by not providing a resolution in this book.
The Awakening can please the Twilight romance crowd, and some of the Harry Potter fans, in its look at growing up with arcane abilities.
Chloe may be too good to be true, but that’s part of the escapist, albeit predictable, charm.
Orgy of Souls – Book Review
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Orgy of Souls
Wrath James White and Maurice Broaddus
Apex Publications
Trade Paperback, $13.95
Review by Nickolas Cook
With Apex Publications’ release of Orgy of Souls, we have the dream pairing of Wrath James White and Maurice Broaddus, two authors that have consistently excited the small press world with their individual and collaborative efforts. Putting these two together just seems like common (good marketing) sense. What makes this such a thrill for horror readers is that we have two utterly divergent authors. One works in almost a completely faith based, spiritual arena of horror; the other, writes visceral horror of a physical and sexual nature. Not to say that either hasn’t transgressed from time to time to the other’s territory, but for the most part, these two writers couldn’t be more different from one another in style and aesthetic.
Orgy of Souls finds them melding their worlds into one nearly seamless tale of two brothers. Samuel, an AIDS riddled priest, is having a crisis of faith as his death approaches. The other, Samson, is a jetsetting model playboy who lives for the earthly delights of the flesh. But when he discovers his brother is dying, he decides to buy souls from the living to extend his brother’s life. Of course, things aren’t quite so simple when Samson’s told by a demon that it’s a ‘twenty for one’ deal and the souls have to be taken from the living in a violent manner to count towards the deal. Samson soon finds that he likes killing, especially people that make him angry. Soon, it’s a bloodbath of a novel, leavened by scenes of Samuel trying to save his brother from eternal damnation, while coming to grips with his own inevitable end.
It’s pretty easy to tell which character goes with which writer, but in their collaborative strength they manage to transcend the expected, and deliver a tale rife with violence and love. By story’s end, it feels as if one hand is writing with two minds.
I enjoyed Orgy of Souls, but like many joint fans of White and Broaddus, I think it would be great to see these two power houses take on their respective spiritual and moral stances and really go for the throat in another book.
Miranda – Book Review
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Miranda
John R. Little
Bad Moon Books
Trade Paperback, Signed, $15.00
Review by David B. Silva
As you get a step or two beyond the mid-life crisis years, you start looking back over your life with a mix of fondness for the good times and regret for the not-so-good times. There’s also a curiosity about how your life might have been if you had made different choices along the way.
But what if you began your life at the time of your death and lived it backwards to the time of your conception? Would your life make sense? Would you still have regrets? Would living backwards prove there are no choices in life, that life is pre-determined?
These are the fundamental questions and the basic premise behind John R. Little’s short novel, Miranda.
On the surface, it’s a gimmicky idea, but don’t let that fool you. Miranda is a sad, moving tale of a man who finds himself largely estranged from the world around him. It’s a story of isolation, as his life moves in one direction while everyone around him moves in the opposite direction. Relationships begin by ending, blossom in reverse, then abruptly disappear. There always seems to be a disconnect.
Miranda begins with Michael, the lead character, awakening in a hospital at the age of 65. There’s activity around him, though it seems foreign to him, as does the language that’s spoken (because it’s spoken backwards). The story ends with Michael as a four year old, having a better understanding of the world than most four year olds, yet not really able to express that understanding in words. What goes on in between is a backwards love story.
I can’t imagine that this was an easy book to write. In fact, in his Afterword, Little talks a bit about how originally it was just a concept, until he was finally able to turn it into a story. And that’s where he ultimately succeeds. He took what could easily have been a gimmicky piece of writing and made it into an honest, moving story with two primary characters you ultimately learn to care about.
It’s a quick read. And it’s a satisfying read.
Check it out for yourself: Miranda
