Read This!: Ghoul

Posted on February 7, 2007

Ghoul
By Brian Keene

Where do monsters come from?  Are they terrible creatures that haunt the night, feasting on the dead and the dying with their talons and fangs?  Or are they closer to home?  Are they the angry, drunken father?  The abusive mother?  Brian Keene explores these questions in his latest novel, Ghoul.

The hero of Ghoul is young Timmy Graco, a kid who just wants to spend his summer vacation with his best friends–Doug and Barry–and possibly hold hands with the preacher’s daughter.  At the age of twelve, Timmy’s world shouldn’t involve more than dirt bikes and the long boxes of comics he keeps under his bed, but the real world comes crashing down on him via the parents of his best friends and a series of disappearances that seem to center around the local cemetery.  Before the end of summer, Timmy’s world will never be the same, and he’ll have a whole new idea of what makes a monster.
Keene writes a gripping tale of lost innocence and the coming of age.  Unlike some of his previous novels, Ghoul takes its time, building to a sense of unrelenting horror rather than thrusting us into it.  We care about these characters, and so we travel through this hell with them as active participants rather than observers.  I was pushed to the brink of tears more than once.  Brian, it appears, knows how to twist the knife.

While many are calling Ghoul Keene’s best novel to date, I still feel that honor lies with Terminal.  These two books share the same sense of reality and the supernatural blending together to create a sense of doom, but Terminal resonated with me in ways Ghoul did not.  That’s a matter of opinion, of course, and your experience may be completely different.  Either way, for those new to Keene and his work, Ghoul is a great place to start.  It’s a fast read of high quality, and it might take a while for Keene to top it.

Recommendation: Very Strong-to-Must Have.  Keene rides again!

Read This!: World War Z

Posted on February 2, 2007

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
By Max Brooks

Maybe I should list this as a “Hear This!” because I bought this as an audiobook.  You can judge for yourself.

Written by Max Brooks, author of previous best-seller The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z takes place years after a world-wide zombie apocalypse, as told through interviews with several characters who were there to witness the carnage first hand.  These interviews are both insightful and entertaining, offering a rather real world explanation of a fantastical event.  Brooks covers the challenges a world would face in this situation, and he tackles them in a practical matter.  Problems such as fighting an army that can replenish itself with its kills, solidifying government, and survival in its most basic form are covered.

These interviews tell the story of the war in a fashion that’s both entertaining and more than a little creepy.  We meet many characters whose own personal stories play into the greater story in ways both big and small.  A few of them, like the South African who came up with the plan that would eventually save his country, will leave you cringing with their tales.

The cast for this audio book is an incredible one.  Featuring actors as Alan Alda, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Eammon Walker, and Henry Rollins, the talent is more than capable of breathing life into the material.  Alda is especially powerful, but then again, he usually is.

If there’s fault with World War Z, it’s that-aside from its oral history structure-it’s just another zombie story.  We’re not with any of the characters long enough to grow attached to them.  It’s an academic work, not a narrative one.  It could have been released as a short story collection with little to no change.  Still, there’s more good than bad, here.

Recommendation: Moderate.  Brooks is the golden child of popular zombie books (Brad PItt has already snagged the film rights to this one), so shouldn’t you be reading him, too?

Read This!: Clickers

Posted on January 30, 2007

Clickers
By J.F. Gonzalez and Mark Williams

If you’re in the mood for a thrill-filled B-Movie experience, one chock full of deadly mutant animals from the sea, then Clickers is the book for you.

Clickers tells the story of Philipsport, Maine, a quiet little seaside town that goes a hundred degrees of apeshit when a swarm of prehistoric/mutant killer crab/scorpions (that we’ll call Clickers) come scuttling out of the sea to kill everything in sight.  What follows is all out war between the Clickers and the citizens of Philipsport, but nobody stops to think what the Clickers might be running from, because everything has a natural predator.

Gonzalez and Williams keep Clickers moving at a breakneck pace, and they don’t let up for a second.  The breathe life into their characters just in time for those characters to breathe their last.  Some of the characters, such as te town Sheriff, are a little more flesh out than others, but that’s not a problem.  The real stars here are the Clickers, who provide an unrelenting sense of doom throughout the novel.  This is the kind of book that makes you scared to walk around barefoot.  Maybe that doesn’t sound like praise, but trust me, it is.

Recommendation: Strong.  If you can find a copy (which might be tough), pick it up.  It makes for great escapist reading.

Read This!: Wildest Dreams

Posted on January 22, 2007

Wildest Dreams
By Norman Partridge

No writer has amazed me more in the past year than Partridge, and I’m happy to report Wildest Dreams is another in a long line of good reads Norm has written.

Clay Saunders is a bad man, a killer for hire who walks in both worlds at once. To him, the realm of ghosts is just as real and important as that of the living.  His latest target is satanic cult leader Diabolos Whistler, and when he delivers the old man’s head to heir to the empire Circe he meets the ghost of a little girl, spends a night of passion with Circe, and finds her butchered the next morning… or was it really her?

Partridge isn’t a punch-puller, but he delivers his blows with a skill few others possess, delivering well-placed jabs instead of desperate haymakers.  His prose hypnotizes even as it gets your blood pumping.  Saunders is a great character, as are the others who populate this short novel.  As events spiral out of control, the story only grows tighter.  For those who like their hard boiled with a sprinkle of the supernatural, Wildest Dreams is for you.

Recommendation: Strong-to-Very Strong. Copies are still available for cover price at Clarkesworld, while used copies are already showing up with triple-digit price tags.  Grab one while you can!

Read This!: His Pain

Posted on January 18, 2007

His Pain
By Wrath James White

I shouldn’t like Wrath James White’s work.  I’m not a fan of gore, and nobody writes with more of the red stuff than Wrath.  I’ve never felt my stomach turn as sharply as when I read White’s fiction.  Strangely enough, though, Wrath has become one of my favorite writers.  His characters are some of the most vivid and engaging you’ll find on stands.  His ideas can mesmerize even as they take away any semblance of appetite you might have.  White’s writing is the literary equivalent of a bloodsport.  You know you shouldn’t watch, but it’s far too interesting to ignore.

His Pain is a new novella available from Delirium Books. It tells the story of Jason, a teenager who suffers from a rare nervous system disorder that causes him to perceive every sensation, no matter how benign or pleasant, as pain.  Not just pain, but complete agony.  When a spiritual healer teaches Jason to convert his pain into pleasure, he decides to share his experiences with the world.  This, of course, is when the fun really begins.

The bulk of His Pain is spent getting to know Jason and his well-meaning parents.  In fact, the story belongs to the parents more than it belongs their child.  White really allows us to understand the emotional turmoil of this couple who have to decide whether keeping a child who can only feel pain alive is cruel or kind.  In many ways, their lives have been ruined by their love for this child.  Will their attempts to save their child save themselves?

Much of Wrath’s signature blood and guts is absent from the first three quarters of His Pain, but when it arrives, it arrives with a horrible flourish.  It will take a very strong stomach to stand much of His Pain’s climax, but those who can soldier through will be rewarded with a gripping story.

Recommendation: Strong-to-Very Strong. Read it if you dare.  It’s worth the unsettling scenes.  Pick a copy up at Shocklines.

Read This!: The Drawing of the Three

Posted on January 17, 2007

The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, Book II)
By Stephen King

Confession time.  I’d never finished reading a Stephen King book until five years ago.  When I was 24 and becoming serious about writing, I knew I had to start, so I grabbed a copy of IT and went to town.  I’d read plenty of King’s short fiction, but never made it through a novel.  That has since changed, and I’ve devoured a majority of the man’s work. Until last year, though, I’d never given the Dark Tower books a try.

While trying to remain spoiler free, I’ll say The Drawing of the Three was much more enjoyable that The Gunslinger.  Sure, The Gunslinger started it all, but it fell flat for me, while I wasn’t able to put The Drawing down.

This book tells the story of Roland, the gunslinger, wandering the desert as he gathers companions for his quest that will lead him to The Dark Tower.  These companions: junkie Eddie Dean and crippled Odetta Holmes, come from another world (which just might be ours). I don’t dare say any more for fear of spoiling you.

The story crackles through this book, and we finally get to know Roland a little bit.  Through the previous book (which is probably my least favorite King novel) the gunslinger seems to lack any real sense of life. He’s all over The Drawing, though, and he’s incredible.  As grand as he is, however, he pales in comparison to Eddie and Odetta, who are some of the best characters King has ever written.  I’ll continue reading the books to see more of their adventures, if nothing else.

There are some cons. You do need to read The Gunslinger in order to understand much of the book, and we still don’t really understand why Roland is seeking the tower. It’s probably still worth your time, though.

Recommendation: Moderate-to-Strong. 

Read This!: The Losers

Posted on January 15, 2007

The Losers
By Andy Diggle and Jock

So let me ask you this… Do you like intrigue?  Action?  Engaging characters? A story so full of twists and turns you get motion sickness just reading it? 

If you answered yes to any of those, then you should pick up The Losers.

The Losers was a Vertigo comic series that was later collected in five trade paperbacks: Ante Up, Double Down, Trifecta, Close Quarters, and Endgame.  The Losers of the title are a group of military special operatives who were presumed dead when a mission went horribly wrong.  They learned something on that mission, however, something that makes them want to strike back at the CIA and the illusive agent Max who seems to be behind it all.

Diggle does incredible character work, from the always entertaining computer expert Jensen to the cold-as-steel Aisha to the scarred, silent Cougar, the cast of The Losers is one of the best in recent history.  The final chapters might just make you tear up a little.

And action.  No creative team does over the top action like Diggle and Jock.  They’ll have you biting your nails before you even realize it.

If there’s any complaint about the book, it’s the numerous fill-in artists who dot its run.  For a series that only ran three years, Jock sure seemed to be busy doing other things.  Let’s face it, the days of consistent artists are over.

Recommendation: Strong.  Pick up The Losers.  Start at Ante Up and work your way straight through.  You won’t regret it.

Read This!: The Kite Runner

Posted on January 11, 2007

The Kite Runner
By Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner tells the story of Amir, a Pashtun boy from Kabul.  As a child he betrays his cherished friend Hassan as a result of his own insecurities and his fear of bully Assef.  Years after Amir and his father flee Afghanistan in order to escape the Soviet invasion, Amir learns a truth about Hassan that sends him back to the now Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to search for his former friend’s son.

Hosseini has written an incredible tale with The Kite Runner, one that was recommended to me by just about everyone I know.  I hesitate to say too much, because it might give away certain later plot points, but I will say the book relies on coincidence just a little too much for my liking.  I’ve found this problem a lot in so-called “serious” literature.  Genre fiction is usually more careful to leave coincidence at home, as it needs all the credibility it can muster.

Hosseini has an incredible writing style, though.  It’s vivid without seeming brazen.  In the early chapters, he really brings Kabul to life, and his descriptions of invasion-era Afghanistan really get the blood pumping.  I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of him.

Recommendation: Moderate to Strong.  You’ll need to suspend your disbelief a bit for this “Real World” tale, but it’s worth it.

Coming Soon: Read This!

Posted on January 11, 2007

Inspired by Randy Lander’s noble (and possibly psychotic) quest to review a graphic novel a day, I’ve decided to do regular reviews on Static Broadcasts.  It won’t be daily, but it will cover every book I read this year.  I’m calling this little experiment Read This! and if it smacks of a desperate attempt to find stuff to blog about, there’s probably a reason for that.

First review will be up tomorrow or later today.  I have some catching up to do.

« Previous Page —

© Copyright Nate Southard : Static Broadcasts • Powered by Wordpress • Using Detour Wordpress Theme created by Brian Gardner.