Four short novels by Joe Hill

Strange Weather

Joe Hill

Publisher: William Morrow

Pub Date: October 24, 2017

Rating: 4 & 1/2 out of 5 stars

I believe I have read all the novels that Joe Hill has written and published. So I feel fairly secure in saying that he has a certain weakness that he shares with a particular relative. he is subject to long novels that tend to have too much filler.It is no coincidence that his best novel, Heart Shaped Box is also his first and shortest. In my opinion, last novel The Fireman was impressive but way too long for the plot. On the other hand, NOS4A2, was just as long and fantastic so what the hell do I know?

Here in Strange Weather we have four short novels. Novellas. I do not believe any goes over 200 pages. From the strength of this book, I would say novellas are something he might want to focus on more. Each one has the right length, stays on track and, for the most part, rocks and rolls. All of them has elements of horror although at least two are not technically a horror story and one has no supernatural elements. This would be a good book for the Joe Hill novice to wade in to see what he can do.

Let's go over all four.

Snapshots is a very clever supernatural thriller that involves a boy who meets a strange man with a strange camera. Without giving it away, it's a clever gimmick and Hill makes it works partially because the teenage boy is so believable in his vulnerabilities. It is the closest to a straight horror tale in this collection and is the closest to the type of story that the other relative made so famous. For those who remember the old Polaroid cameras, it will make you wonder a bit. Five stars.

Loaded is by far the best novella here. It is not so much a horror story as much as a topical suspense thriller. There is definitely a sociopolitical message here. It starts with the murder of an innocent boy by a policeman then moves some years into 2013 to pick up another situation is unnerving and unfortunately way too possible today. There is some really good development of characters for such a short novel and the ending is explosive. It makes me hope that the author writes some more non-supernatural suspense in the future. He certainly has the skills. Five Stars

Aloft is fantasy where a skydiver lands on a strange cloud and is held prisoner. It felt a little Lovecraftian to me although it really isn't. It has a nice imagery while describing this strange trans-formative cloud. Four stars.

Rain is the only one that lost me. It has a great starting idea for a world wide catastrophe but it simply didn't hold me. The usual well-define characters didn't make it here to this party. There appears to be a social allegory in this one too but I don't think it took hold as nearly well as the allegory took place in Loaded. But Hill can't write a bad story so three stars.

So seventeen stars altogether averages to 4.1 stars. But the first two stories are so good I'm going to say 4.5 stars easily. What is really important is that Joe Hill has delivered 4 quite different short novels and hit it out of the ball park twice, gave a solid effort on the third and...well most people loved that one so let just say I am in the minority. As I stated, this is a good beginning read to learn what the author can do. But if you, like me , just happen to love novellas then it is pretty much essential reading.

It's all about THAT neighbor

Kill Your Neighbor

Andersen Prunty

 

Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC

Pub Date: October 20, 2017

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

This Kindle exclusive piece of short fiction may be considered a bit of a fantasy. it's about dealing with THAT neighbor. You all know who THAT neighbor is. You've been there. Emma and Kip Dupree are on the track to the American dream. It may not be in the best neighborhood or exactly the house they wanted but it is a significant step up. But there is THAT neighbor with her two little yapping dogs (that is why I'm a cat person) who may be crazy and dangerous. Their dream quickly turns into a nightmare and their options are limited to none...legally.

Andersen Prunty's Kill Your Neighbor may be short but it packs a punch. We follow the Dupree's solution and learn about what led to that solution. There should be a "don't do this at home" sticker on this tale since it is both horrific and, for some who have been there, possibly cathartic. Either way, it is a tight and riveting example of the short story. There isn't much else I can say about this without giving it away so just spend that 99 cents and enjoy.

Neighbor issues

Home is Where the Horror is

C. V. Hunt

Publisher: Grindhouse Press

Pub. Date: MAY 12 , 2017

Rating: 5 out of  5 stars

C.V. Hunt's newest novelis both a step more into traditional horror and  a continuation of her existential examination of the frequently perverse human naturethat I expect from this dark but always substantial writer. In <i>Home is Where the Horror is</i>, struggling photographer Evan Lansing has just separated from his cheating girlfriend. He makes an agreement with his brother to move into their deceased mother's isolated cottage and do some renovation work on it in exchange for rent. As soon as he arrived strange events start to happen including his new habit of sleep-walking and a sudden cutting of his skin.  Then there are his neighbors, a man and his daughter who he suspects are having perverted and illegal interactions.

The first thing I realized about this novel by Hunt is that the main protectionist was actually close to likeable. it is not unusual for the main character in  a Hunt novel to be not so nice and downright repulsive sometimes. This is not to say Evan doesn't have his faults and shortcomings. Those shortcomings and past experiences  has much to sdo with where this story goes. But he is someone you actually root for. But the author makes up in the supporting cast with the two neighbor... and possibly a third?  There is a clear darkness of mood developing over what is a fairly ordinary person and this is what makes this novel by C. V a little more conventional. You can see a distinct separation and eventual conflict of good and evil.  There are still similarities to her past novels though. There are a lot of scenes of kink and perversion. It is shocking and meant to be shocking. Hunt writes some of the best sexual and body horror in the field although I hesitate to call it erotic. It's horror and it is definitely terrifying.

I always like a CV Hunt novel but this one really thrilled me because the of stronger horror elements standing on their own. I believe the horror fan who want his horror straight-up and scary will enjoy this providing he or she has a strong stomach for both gore and sexual kink.  It also has a slower but steady built-up which culminate in pure terror for the last third of the novel. But that  unrelenting darkness is still there and it is one of the thing that makes her worth reading, at least for this reader. It's a nice and ultimately essential horror read for the year.

An exploration of gender and acceptance

Nails

M. P. Johnson

 

Publisher: Lazy Fascist press

Pub. Date: September 17, 2017

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

 

Some books you read because they give you an view to the human spirit that you may just not have had access to in any other way. Nails is that type of book. It is one of those books that, despite its sadness, actually celebrate our individuality in a world where some forms of celebrations are frowned upon. persecuted or even expressly forbidden. In Nails, our protagonist takes a weekend vacation to Los Angeles , far from anyone she knows, so she can be herself. Danielle, the pseudonym she takes for her weekend escape, is a man who only feels comfortable as a woman and dressed in women's clothes. But even then, she is aware and self-conscious how she is viewed and of the hazards that might befall her when out in public.

Danielle is obsessed with her nails. The acrylic, long, glorious, impractical kind. They become a symbol of her life and needs, a small allowance of the coming out she is not able to thoroughly do at this time. Many of her fears are real and as she chronicles her weekend she expresses and illustrate those fears. But there is always a want for acceptance and where she goes for that acceptance in the final pages may both shock and enlighten some of the readers. It becomes a moment of tearful sadness but also a small bit of hope.

Nails is presented as fiction but if it is, it is very likely autobiographical fiction, at the very least in the emotions and longings presented by the author if not the actual events. Beautiful and revealing writing like this can not stream from just the imagination. It takes a skillful acknowledged writer to present it and that is exactly what M. P. Johnson is and does. There is a scene in the middle of this too short work where she is at The House of Blues attending a show by The Damned when a young man comes up to her. It is a moment of mixed emotions for Danielle who is not sure whether the boy is simply fooled or accepting her for what she is. His advances are subtly and ultimately refused. Whatever possibilities existed disappears due to the power of that fear and doubt this book is so much about. For me, it was the most powerful moment in the book.

Books like this do not come around often. M. P. Johnson is known mostly for her bizarro fantasy novels but this is straight down to earth reality. It speaks not only of the want for other's acceptance but one's own acceptance of what they are and the reality that gender is not as necessarily defined as we think it is. Nails is way too short. M. P. Johnson clearly has much more to say and I believe she has a autobiographical novel or even a non-fiction work in her that will amaze us even more. Until then we have this brief revelation of a novella and it is one that I would deem essential reading for 2017.

An unsuccessful merge of cyber tech and demons

The Dark Net

Benjamin Percy

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Pubdate : August 1, 2017

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars 

 

 Let's talk about truth in advertising.

When I first looked at the title, It seemed pretty self-explanatory. The Dark Net. I am quite aware of what the Dark Net means in relation to the internet. The blurb at the back of the book didn't sway me any other way. My expectation was one of a William Gibson influenced tech thriller mixing the perils of cyber culture with the terrors of the supernatural. Now THAT would be a novel!

It was not meant to be. Whenever a disappointment like this happens, I am well aware that the expectation of the reader and the goal of the writer can misalign through no fault of the other. But this is where truth in advertising comes in. My expectation is indeed what appears to be the promise of the promotion . The Dark Net just isn't the cyber thriller it is touted to be, supernatural or otherwise.

So once we get that out of the way, what is The Dark Net? Basically it is a supernatural tale of demons, possessions and the gates of hell. Percy sets his story in Portland . How well he incorporates Portland I will leave to others more knowledgeable about the city to sort out. As for this reader, It doesn't really feel different than any other city asides from a few mentions of landmarks like Powell Books. The plot centers on the emergence of persons or devils with dark designs planning for evil around a place called The Rue that appears to be a conduit for such evil. A not-so-keen-on-computers reporter is honing in on the situation and becomes a target for the evil entourage. Add in an ex-evangelist homeless shelter manager, a mysterious woman who may have had one too many lives, and a blind girl who has gained some ability to see due to a surgical apparartus and is now seeing strange shadows and you have the basis for the action to follow.

The problem is I've seen this all before. There really isn't much that is new here for any book featuring demons, psychics, and gates of hell. The dark net gets a mention at the beginning of the book then becomes a minor player. Finally in the last 50 or so pages it goes into play but for this reader it is too late. This may have worked if there were more involving characters but except for Hannah the blind girl we just don't get enough to care much about the rest. Hannah is the most interesting character but she seems to have been borrowed from a few other known horror epics and we do not get enough originality in her character to separate her from the slew of psychically gifted adolescents which have already graced the pages of many supernatural stories. I found Hannah's aunt Lela rather annoying as an aggressive reporter who is hopelessly incompetent with anything to do with the internet or computers. Luddite journalists may have worked in the 90s but not in the 21st century.

There are some nice moments and some good ideas here but they do not come together and eventually blend into the formulaic. it appears we will still have to wait for the successful marriage of Gibson-esque tech thriller and supernatural horror epic .

I see a full moon rising

Full Wolf Moon

Lincoln Child

 

Publisher: Doubleday

Pub Date: May 16, 2017

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

 

Lincoln Child, along with his partner in crime Douglas Preston, has a pretty good gig going for them. They specialize in the not-so-supernatural thriller. In most cases , and especially with the Pendergrast series, this involves a mystery of seemingly supernatural origins but ends up being something from the natural, albeit the very imaginative and slightly farfetched natural. These Scooby-doo books, as I irrelevantly like to call them, are fun to read but I tend to go more for the supernatural scare rather than the manufactured natural one. However they are great summer reads or, on the other side of the seasons, fireside reads.

When Lincoln Child is writing solo, he likes to keep a good thing going. His protagonist is Jeremy Logan who calls himself a enigmalogist which is "an investigator who specializes in analyzing unnatural phenomena with no obvious scientific or rational explanation." As one may surmise from the title of this fifth installment of the Logan series, Full Wolf Moon is centered on the theme of lycanthropy. In the Adirondack Mountains, two hikers has been found dead with their corpses ripped apart, both having happened on different full moons. Logan is attending an artist and scholar retreat when his college friend who is now a ranger in the area asks him to investigate the deaths. The official explanation is a rogue bear or wolf, but the timing of the killings suggest another explanation and the strange seclusive family that lives in the woods seem to be the town residents' favorite suspect.

While Full Wolf Moon has a good sense of suspense and scares , it is more mystery and science fiction then horror and certainly not supernatural. As with Child's other books, there will be an explanation. Getting there is where the fun is . Child brings together some interesting science into the story that I suspect carries a good mix of fact and fiction. I think I prefer Child solo as compared to the Pendergrast series Preston & Child are known for. Mostly because Jeremy Logan is more accessible . He seem to be the professor next door type while Pendergrast is fairly foreboding. The pace and formula though is pretty much the same. These are light reads. This particular book is fairly predictable and feeds you a good amount of red herrings before the final reveal. I would recommend this more for the mystery fan than the horror aficionado. It may not take you into any new territory but if you read it you probably know what to expect and won't be disappointed.

It came from the paperback rack

Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of 70s and 80s Horror Fiction

Grady Hendrix

Publisher: Quirk Books

Pub. Date: September 19, 2017

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

If there was a golden age for horror fiction, it was in the 70s and 80s. There were certainly great and memorable horror fiction being written and published before that but it was the 70s when the publishing companies took notice and started to hype it as its own particular, and eventually profitable, niche. Before the 70s, most horror was delegated into the gothic romance section and, surprisingly to some I will surmise, labelled as women’s fiction. As Grady Hendrix points out in his excellent and constantly entertaining Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of 70s and 80s Horror Fiction the onslaught of horror can thank the stunning success of three novels from the late sixties and early seventies; Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin, The Other by Thomas Tryon, and The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. Of course, Stephen King would have a thing or two to say about all this but he was just the pinnacle in a coming horror cavalcade.

Before I start reviewing Paperbacks from Hell, I want to add my own personal recollection. I was introduced to horror via the movie Frankenstein at 6 years old thanks to a rather negligent babysitter who, unknown to my parents, allowed me to stay up way after my bed time and watch it with her. That was the beginning of my horror obsession. As a young teen the EC comics, also banned in my household, was really the only pure horror in print I could sneak out and find. My main source of scares and thrills was the paperback Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthology series (35 cents a pop) which would publish and reissue some pretty good and classic horror among its usual array of mystery and suspense fiction. This was my introduction to a number of classic horror writers including Bradbury, Bloch, Beaumont and others, not to mention the short story that Hitchcock later adopted for a film titled “The Birds” by Daphne DuMaurier. It was about the time of the horror trifecta of novels mentioned above that I began to discover paperbacks with wonderfully lurid covers that promise me more terrifying thrills than I was previously led to believe existed. So I grew up during this wonderful splurge in horror novels. I am both proud and embarrassed that I read an alarmingly large amount of the novels mentioned and illustrated in Hendrix’s book when they came out. I am sorry to say I missed the Nazi leprechaun one though. Whether I am the better or worse for reading so many of these books will depend on who you ask but it certainly kick-started my imagination and I for one will say I am the better for it.

Paperbacks from Hell chronicles the rise and fall of this publishing phenomena with much wit and glee. The book itself is gorgeous with its very generous photos of covers and illustrations from many of these books. Personally, it is my idea of the perfect coffee table book simply based on appearance. However, it is what is communicated between the pages that is important and Hendrix covers both the history and excitement of the era. He writes about the good and the silly.. He knows about the literary importance of some of the novels as well as the excesses. It is all written with a childish enthusiasm and more than a little humor. For instance, when he writes about the onslaught of demon spawn stories he offers some sage advice…

“But how do I know if the man I’m dating is the devil?” I hear you ask. Here are some warning signs learned from Seeds of Evil. Does he refuse to use contractions when he speak? Does he deliver pickup lines like, “You live on the edge of darkness.”? When nude, is his body the most beautiful male form you have ever seen, but possessed of a penis that’s either monstrously enormous, double headed, has glowing yellow eyes, or all three? After intercourse does he laugh malevolently, urinate on your mattress, and then disappear? If you spot any of these behaviors, chances are you went on a date with Satan. Or an alien.

Once Hendrix gives you the background for the rise of the horror genre in the 70s and 80s, Hendrix separates his chapter into the main themes presented in the novels: Hail Satan, Creepy Kids, When Animals Attack, Real Estate Nightmares, and four other intriguing subjects. This is where the fun really begins. He singles out the most representative of the writers and the books of that theme as well as his reaction. I was pleased with many of the authors I read during that time getting recognition, both famous and infamous, but there were plenty of writers I was not familiar with and whose books have been mainly lost in the shuffle . (Where has Brian McNaughton been all my life?) Whether being lost in the shuffle is rightly or wrongly so, Hendrix usually has an opinion on it but it does makes me want to get out there and hunt a few of these lost treasures down. One thing I really like is Hendrix doesn’t try to pretend these are all classic. Many he speaks of with befuddled amusement. He is particularly scathing when dealing with the Amityville Horror book series. Yet he does not ignore some of the real gems of this era. I am glad he mentioned three of my favorite and often recommended books by me; The House Next Door by Anne River Siddons, The Auctioneer by Joan Sampson, and Maynard’s Cabin by Herman Rauch. All three of these were one-time horror novels written by writers of other genres, But they are seminal works in the horror field and attest to the power of this golden age that these established authors were persuaded to tackle the disciplines of the horror novel and do so quite effectively.

And oh those photos! It represents the horror paperback in all its glory. Even if one does not read this book, which would be a damn shame, there are enough glorious covers complete with lurid subject matter and creepy stuff to fulfill anyone’s desire of the need for the same. The covers get as much attention as the novels themselves. Hendrix pays attention to the repeating themes and their attempt to attract certain readers. Skeletons, devils, Nazi leprechauns, scared females scantily dressed and running down a corridor. They are all there.

I can only think of one book that is even close to doing this topic justice and that is Danse Macabre by Stephen King. But King wrote it in 1981 and was too close to the material to do it justice. Hendrix uses the eyes of both a fan and a historian, pointing out the good with the bad and setting it firmly in the perspectives of other events going on during the time. The reign of the horror paperback begun to wane in the 90s and although horror boundaries are still being challenged, there has been no time since then when that the horror market was inundated with so much quantity and, arguably, quality. Many of the important horror writers that are active today first started their career during these golden years. There was Ramsey Campbell, David Schow and so many others. One can say it was essentially their apprenticeship.

This is a seminal work for a part of literature that has been unjustly ignored. The lows and highs are addressed here but it is hard to understate how much these lurid paperbacks contributed to the ongoing interest in horror today that we see in mainstream movies, TV and of course literature. You are not going to get this information in any more delightfully entertaining way so please lurk to your bookstore and order this. There are lots of demon children, killer rabbits, and splatterpunk villains in the pages ready to tempted you into a thrift store book hunting spree once you finish it.