Alexandrian Archives / July 2009
Reviewed by: Michele Lee

If E.B. White and Roald Dahl wrote an adult novel together, it might end up looking something like Slaughter by Marcus F. Griffin.

It's 1941 and the rural farms of Indiana and Kentucky are abuzz with the story of Slaughter, the colt favored to win the Kentucky Derby — perhaps even the Triple Crown. But to down-on-his-luck farmer Harold, Slaughter's race is more. To begin with, it'll decide whether he keeps his farm or loses it to the bank. There's a lot more going on at the farm than Slaughter's race though. Two entwined tales of personal spirals into madness are linked into one novel about how the past – and lives around us we often don't even see – haunt us.

The first thing to be noted is that the animals in this book are at times point-of-view characters. While awkward at first, once Slaughter establishes that it's got better things to do than be a lesson on meat eating or a cutesy take off of Babe, the animals become some of the best – and most realistic – characters of the book hands down.

The peculiar feeling one gets while reading this story that the only actual main character is the bad guy is also worth noting. Everyone else seems to be merely a supporting character. There's also a feeling, which Griffin just barely touches on, of how deeply connected all these individual stories are. Parallels are drawn here between the coping skills of acting out on others to control one’s pain as a victim and acting out on oneself as well.

Slaughter is clumsy at moments, primarily before the players are all connected, and doesn't necessarily portray a convincing knowledge of horse racing culture, or even animal behavior. But these things are easy to forgive and forget as readers get swept up in Harold's visions and vicious lashing out and in the mystery of Homer, who is choreographing it all. From the start, Griffin expands the world we know, and then he intersects it with a world of violence and blood, death and murder.

Surprising and whimsically horrific, Slaughter proves Griffin has real potential in horror.

Purchase Slaughter by Marcus F. Griffin.

Cemetery Dance Publications / May 2010
Reviewed by: Blu Gilliand

Invisible Fences is a cautionary tale about, well, cautionary tales. You know the kind we’re talking about – after all, our parents were all storytellers, spinning sometimes outrageous yarns as part of their strategy to temper our behavior. Who among us hasn’t heard things like “Don’t cross your eyes, they’ll stick,” or “Don’t make faces, it’ll freeze like that.” Cautionary tales were told to keep us from crossing the street without first looking both ways, and to keep us from accepting candy (or, even worse, a ride) from strangers. They were stories passed down from generation to generation, sometimes modified according to situation and parental creativity, but always with the same core idea: to keep us safe from the big, bad world.

In most circumstances, these stories served their purpose and then fell away as we got older, coming back to us only when it was time to share them with our own children. But sometimes these tales go further, and have a more profound effect. Used recklessly, they can do more than make children cautious about the world around them – they can make them scared of it, prevent them from growing and exploring and coming into their own. Instead of viewing the world with a sense of curiosity and wonder, some kids may never be able to escape the suffocating blankets these stories can become. Such is the case in this, Norman Prentiss’s debut in book form. An accomplished author of short stories, Prentiss proves he has the chops for longer work in this new release from Cemetery Dance, part of their acclaimed Novella Series.

Invisible Fences revolves around a young boy named Nathan, whose parents wield cautionary tales like blunt tools. They talk of bloodthirsty cars roaming the streets, eager to run down children who dare to try and get to the other side, and of gangs of dope fiends prowling the woods, waiting for an opportunity to force drugs into the veins of the small and weak.

Nathan takes all of this in and, for the most part, stays within the boundaries these tales set for him. Until, that is, he and his sister join Nathan’s friend Aaron on an excursion into the woods one day. Instead of freeing Nathan, the consequences of that trip build fences around his life that continue to confine him even as he grows into an adult.

Prentiss writes with an assured voice, weaving a tale of building disquiet. The scares here don’t approach the kind of shock that Nathan’s parents strive for in their garish stories; instead, Prentiss works in the more quiet tradition of Charles L. Grant, filling each page with unsettling dread. Above all else, what Nathan learned from his over-protective parents is the art of lying to himself. He’s become bound by what could happen, what might happen, and, in the case of that fateful walk in the woods, what he has fooled himself into believing happened.  But the truth of that day, and of his whole life up to this point, is coming out, whether Nathan is ready or not.

Invisible Fences is dark and atmospheric, a quick read that lingers long after the final sentence is read. It marks another excellent entry in the Cemetery Dance library, and an impressive debut for its author.

Purchase Invisible Fences by Norman Prentiss.

Leucrota Press / March 2010
Reviewed by: Anthony J. Rapino

Shaun Jeffrey’s third novel, Deadfall, is a noticeable departure from his last effort. Where The Kult played out as a suspenseful murder mystery, Deadfall is an undeniable horror novel brimming with zombies and gore to prove it.

When a team member pulls out from a secret mission at the last minute, Amber Redgrave steps in to take his place. The operation proposed to the group of mercenaries is to retrieve two kidnapped children from a remote village. Amber’s partner and ex-lover, John Richmond, is not happy with her involvement, but with the wheels already in motion there is little he can do.

In Amber’s eyes, the entire mission – from its rushed conception to its questionable funding – was doomed. But being made team leader and offered an obscene amount of money, she couldn’t refuse. When an army of zombies pours from a mineshaft near the village, Amber’s reluctance to participate suddenly makes a whole lot of sense. It becomes painfully clear to the group that the kidnapping was a fabrication, and their new objective is simply to survive.

Meanwhile two activists, Lofty and Jill, discover a testing facility located within driving distance of their apartment and decide to explore. Unprepared and ill-equipped, the two bumble their way into the building, past cameras, security, and guard dogs. What they find inside is beyond their imagination, but they know they have to act quickly because it may mean saving the lives of the mercenaries.

Jeffrey hits all the right notes in Deadfall. Like The Kult before it, humor plays a large role in cutting through the tension he so perfectly creates. These moments of levity also build on the already fleshed out characters and create a bond between the reader and those on the page.

The descriptions of the zombies and their inevitable decimation are some of the most creative I’ve read in years and in a league all their own. Jeffrey moves far beyond mere headshots and evisceration, granting us access to great depths of depravity.

Perhaps most extraordinary is the significance given to the creation of the undead. Unlike so many other novels, it plays an integral roll in the story and is interwoven playfully throughout the leapfrogging plotlines. The reader can rest assured that not only will they discover the zombies’ origin, but why they were created and to what end.

The novel’s action dashes forward like a ravenous ghoul, building in tension and suspense until at last, with an adept hand, Jeffrey puts the bullet of a finale right between its eyes.

Purchase Deadfall by Shaun Jeffrey.

Leisure Books / December 2009
Reviewed by: Michele Lee

Gord Rollo's Strange Magic is a dark, twisted and only slightly supernatural tale of serial killers, magicians and revenge. Wilson Kemp is hiding a secret that starts with the fact that his name is an alias and deepens to the dark reason why he had to change his name in the first place. But all Kemp's secrets are about to come to light (again) as a mysterious Stranger arrives in town, determined to enact vengeance on the slobbering drunk Kemp has become. Kemp knows who the Stranger is — his old show partner, who has been dead for over 20 years.

Strange Magic is a vivid, twisting tale that centers on an evil terrorizing a small family, and cutting its way through their town, for personal reasons. The horror in this story is intimate, personal, but still vague enough for readers to relate to. Horror fans will find much to enjoy in this book.

Not just a fight against alcohol, Wilson finds himself in a fight against evil from the depths of hell, fueled by rage, and all trained on him. Rollo starts with a hapless loser, a complete failure of a man rather than an Everyman. While other characters are involved in Kemp's tale, they are incidental, supporting tools. Rollo's writing sets everything but the Stranger and Kemp up as accessories to the act, or misdirections for the effect of the story. The book itself is presented almost as a performance.

Wrapped up in carnival-like touches that never succeed in being jolly, but instead stay grotesquely skewed, Strange Magic is a solid, entertaining horror offering that’s quite simply hard to put down.

Purchase Strange Magic by Gord Rollo.

LL Publications / November 2009
Reviewed by: Rick R. Reed

Synopsis: 1949: A young girl is traumatized when she witnesses a grisly murder in the forest behind her home. 1999: A loving wife disappears in the middle of the night, leaving no trace of her whereabouts. 2009: Former detective David Alders rents an apartment at a typical complex; a quiet unassuming place nestled in the outskirts of Fort Worth called The Hollows.
 
David is at a dead end after ten maddening years searching for his vanished wife. With mounting bills and a daughter on the verge of college, he makes the only logical choice: sell the family home, get back to work, and take a cheap apartment. His daughter, Melanie, is secretly thrilled about the change hoping it means a fresh start for their withering family.

But The Hollows has other plans…

As a new community welcomes the Alders into its midst, elusive figures watch from the periphery, waiting for their moment. On the first night, a grotesque, burnt man seizes Melanie in her bed, spewing insane ramblings before disappearing into the darkness. She struggles to convince her father what happened was real, but David has his own problems.

Like the fact that he has just woke up in the wrong day.

Welcome to a tour through the dark underbelly of the last half-century where invisible hands take you by force to the demons of your past. Where you can find terror, time travel, and murder — all for one low monthly rent.

Review: One of the pleasures of this job is seeking out the little horror and suspense gems that are out there. You know, the ones you might not find on the front displays at Barnes and Noble or talked up in Publisher’s Weekly.

One such book is Ben Larken’s The Hollows, which breathes whole new life into the horror genre by taking the time-honored device of time travel and turning it on its head. Larken’s smart, compelling book was a real pleasure to read for a jaded old horror fan like myself, demonstrating to me that there is something new under the sun when it comes to terror. The Hollows was truly a book I didn’t want to put down the entire time I was reading it.

Larken, like Stephen King, to whom he’s been compared, shapes his horror out of the mundane: a poor, working farm, a Texas apartment complex, and characters in jobs that are anything but glamorous. When a writer combines these seemingly everyday people and places with something decidedly out of the ordinary, the horror and dread ratchet up.

Larken masterfully weaves a tale that moves seamlessly from 1949 to 1999 to 2009, effectively linking his characters and events along the way and spinning readers toward an almost apocalyptic climax. Larken knows that some of the best horror springs from not only having his characters’ very lives hang in the balance, but the whole worlds’ as well. And Larken also knows how to scare you, not by creating monsters that bear fangs and have yellow eyes, but by crafting them from the stuff we might encounter in our everyday lives. Never before have I been so frightened by a man in a black suit...or the sound of a ticking clock.

The Hollows takes us not only on a time-travel adventure, but is also smart enough to give us a look into the lives of his characters that’s deeply sympathetic and plays upon a universal chord: the wish to return to a former time, to either right past wrongs or find out the solution to a mystery plaguing us. His characters, good and bad, have flaws and they’re seldom presented in simple shades of black and white. I like that complexity and it makes his story, with its inherent danger and suspense, flow that much better.

If you’re looking for something fresh, original, and with an honest take on the human condition, you’ll find all of those things within the pages of The Hollows. I don’t want to spoil its carefully-arced storyline, its often gruesome and shocking details, or its ability to hold a reader in a grip of suspense by giving away too much of the plot. Suffice it to say that The Hollows is a good ticket into nightmare country.

Purchase The Hollows by Ben Larken.

Columnist Rick R. Reed is the author of twelve novels and has short fiction in more than twenty anthologies. He lives in Seattle, WA. Find out more about the author at his official author website.

Scribner / November 2009
Reviewed by: Blu Gilliand

Stephen King takes the epic route once again in Under the Dome, a novel he’s been trying to write in one form or another since 1978. It was called Under the Dome on that first attempt; when he picked it up a decade or so later he called it The Cannibals, but still couldn’t maintain the momentum to finish it. Last year he dug out the battered old manuscript, fought his way through the roadblocks that had halted earlier attempts, and delivered the finished book to his faithful Constant Readers. Many hailed it as a return to the form that brought early masterpieces like The Stand; some refused to mention it in the same sentence as that beloved title. Many, like this reviewer, found themselves somewhere in the middle.

As the book has now been out for several months and has likely been devoured by King fans, this review is going to be a spoiler-heavy one. If you haven’t read the book and don’t want to know what happens, read no further.

Still with me? Okay. You’ve been warned.

From what King has detailed in interviews, the main thrust of Dome has remained the same throughout its various incarnations — take a group of people, isolate them, and see what happens. This is not only the intent of the extraterrestrial “children” that we ultimately find are responsible for the plight of Chester’s Mill, but of the author himself. King is less concerned with the “how” and “why” of what happens to this small town – although he does offer an explanation for both in the end, however unsatisfactory it may be – than he is with the reaction of the town’s occupants. In this way, the book plays to both his strengths and weaknesses; his ability to create incredibly realistic, relatable characters and his sometimes inability to drive the story home to conclusion.

When a transparent dome seals Chester’s Mill off from the rest of the world on a bright October day, a lot of things happen. There are accidents, injuries, and death. Panic and disbelief. Acts of courage and acts of cowardice. In short, the kinds of things that always happen when disaster strikes are spelled out in the frantic opening quarter of King’s book.

Then, as often happens in real disasters, things begin to calm down, and the pace slows just a little as people begin to deal with what must be dealt with. A handful of people step forward and begin to take action — some with good intentions, others who are simply trying to parlay the situation into more power for themselves. The rest of the population seems content to sit back and be told what to do, convincing themselves that whatever is happening will end soon.

At this point a trio of characters emerge as focal points in King’s story: there’s Dale Barbara, a cook at the local diner who carries a lot of baggage, including a military background, wherever he goes; Jim Rennie, town selectman and the puppet master pulling the town’s strings; and “Scarecrow” Joe McClatchey, a precocious teenager who is instrumental in discovering the source of the town’s imprisonment. Dale and Joe are the good guys, working (with lots of help, of course) to free the town before things get worse. Jim is the bad guy, and he is as villainous as any creature King has stirred forth from the depths of his imagination; cold, calculating, merciless, relentless in his pursuit of power and money. Rennie takes no pleasure greater than that of manipulating the people around him into doing what he wants, when he wants, and to him the Dome is a godsend.

King mixes these three and their respective companions with the touch of a master chef, blending the ingredients together and playing them off of each other as only he can. As readers, we can almost understand the satisfaction the alien children that have constructed the Dome as a kind of science experiment must feel as they watch the interactions of the people trapped inside. This is Dome’s great strength — watching the townspeople act their best, or their worst, as they try and cope with a situation they have no control over. In that respect, this truly is one of King’s finest hours, right up there with The Stand and Needful Things as examples of how to use large casts in expert fashion.

As things began to really heat up in the last two hundred pages, when a number of explosive situations were racing toward zero, I remember really hoping that King didn’t pull an It and muck up the ending. Alas, it was not to be — at least not in this reviewer’s opinion. While the idea that the Dome was placed there by extraterrestrial kids doing nothing more than the equivalent of human children burning ants with a magnifying glass is an okay one, it just wasn’t worth the buildup. And in the end, when the Dome goes up and our characters, the ones we’ve spent hours and hours and hundreds of pages with at this point, breathe in some fresh air and walk out of our lives, it just felt anti-climactic. King had done such a good job of setting up the destruction and redemption of this small town, I was hoping for a good bit more after the Dome went up.

That ending is what keeps me from loving this book. That being said, I really liked it. No one builds lives out of ink and air like Stephen King, and that command over characterization is on full display here. Jim Rennie, his son Junior, poor, doomed Phil Bushey, “Scarecrow” Joe — these are characters that I’ll think of fondly whenever I think of King’s work. And while the ending (and, yes, the explanation) actually serve the story just fine, they didn’t serve me.

Do I recommend this to those who haven’t read it yet? Wholeheartedly. Opinions are subjective, and what turns me off may be another’s perfect cup of joe. Reading this book isn’t an experience I’d deny anyone, even if I think they may find themselves, like me, looking around at the end and saying, “I was hoping for so much more.”

Purchase Under the Dome by Stephen King.

St. Martin’s Griffin / November 2009
Reviewed by: Beth Harrington

Upon skimming the first few pages of K.R. Moorhead’s debut novel in which the unnamed protagonist swears like a sailor and stumbles in and out of coke parties, it would be easy to dismiss it as another novel either preaching against or rhapsodizing about a hedonistic, lawless existence of excess etched in destruction. However, this would be a mistake as The First Law of Motion succeeds on a number of levels both as a page-turner and as a surprisingly poignant case study of a seemingly ordinary twenty-something woman whose life is slowly shattering due to her recklessness and lack of self-control.

A young woman, grief-stricken after a breakup with a boyfriend who had the potential to be The One, takes up the sex-and-drugs party lifestyle full-force in order to numb her pain and avoid having to choose direction for her life. Living in Philadelphia with her best friend, the master flirt, Kat, she shoots up to New York in the middle of the night to party with her best friend Jason, and then down to New Jersey to visit her mother-cum-weed dealer. When she notices an older man on a train reading a novel that she enjoyed in a college course she took with her ex, she is convinced that he will become her savior and concocts a series of explicit fantasies about him. She even goes so far as to break into his apartment while he is at work. In a particularly vivid scene, she discovers drafts of stories on his laptop and saves them onto her portable flash memory drive:

“[I] take the pen drive … off its key ring and insert it into the side of his computer. It feels like an intimate act. A coming together. I consider whether I should feel as though I’m violating a boundary of some kind.”

It is one of the most uniquely erotic images – at least for anyone who takes writing seriously – to pop up in a book.

What saves The First Law of Motion from lapsing into any number of the clichés that can be drawn from the synopsis above is the presence of several factors — first and foremost, the narrator herself. Her dry, sardonic nature reflects a frank awareness of her life that is devoid of self-pity. She doesn’t try to sell us with a sob story about mental illness or parents who didn’t love her enough; rather, she bluntly acknowledges that the failure of her relationship was her own fault. Simultaneously, Moorhead scores points for originality: delineating a relationship between the narrator and her mother, which is surprisingly warm and concerned, despite – or perhaps because of – her mother’s permissive tendencies. She also includes a harrowing scene in which the narrator confronts the consequences of her irresponsible behavior on someone besides herself in the death of her cat.

The First Law of Motion may throw a few stray curveballs that don’t quite resolve at its conclusion, but its brevity and its market appearance as a straightforward thriller work to its advantage. Readers will be pleasantly surprised by the amount of thoughtfulness, originality, and sensitivity – along with unsettling images – that this suspense novel contains.

Purchase The First Law of Motion by K.R. Moorhead