A Few Short & Sweet Reviews

Here's a few short reviews of books I've read recently.

The Strain/The Fall/The Night Eternal by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan: First off, I love a good vampire apocalypse book, whether it's small scale like Salem's Lot or global, as in this trillogy. No sparkling vampires, no romances between the dead and the living...just lots of fangs and blood and action. The first book of the series, The Strain, starts off on a high note, as a vampire arrives by plane to New York and mass death and chaos follow. The Master, as he likes to call himself, aligns himself with rich old man who wants to live forever and begins a quick takeover of NYC. Eventually, everything gets very, very  bad for people in the city. Vampires are everywhere, nuclear explosions in other parts of the world have created an endless dusk for them to run around in, and the Master is getting ready to dominate the globe. It all ties up with a (sort of) satisfactory ending. Highly recommend the series.

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers: Oh, my Glob...I loved this book. Loved it. Read it in one sitting. It's a YA title, but don't let that keep you from reading it. The premise is one of my favorites: zombie apocalypse. But this story is told through the point of view of a suicidal 17 year old girl who keeps on surviving despite her attempts not to. She and a group of her friends end up at the high school, which makes a nifty temporary shelter from the throngs of the undead. But of course, get a bunch of teenager together and there's going to be drama. Lots of it. Especially when there are zombies thumping at the doors. Extremely well written. Highly, highly, highly recommended.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker: Another YA novel, another highly recommended book. I loved this one too (maybe I'm going through my second adolescence...only this time there are much better books to be read). In this one, the Earth, for some reason, is slowing its rotation. Time begins to lose all meaning. People begin to divide into two groups: those who remain with time as we know it (24 hours days, regardless of day or night) and those who follow the sun, literally. If a night lasts 48 hours, then that's one night, etc. and so on. The main character is a young girl who is witnessing the slow end of the world, watching her family begin to fall apart under the stresses, experiencing her first love, realizing that she might not become an old woman. The writing is extraordinary--this is another one that I read straight through. Don't let the YA label keep you from reading this.

REVIEW: Profoundly Erotic by Joe Bob Briggs

When Joe Bob told me that his next book was going to be on erotic movies, my first thought was, "Oh, my God...how am I going to find information on these movies without looking like the world's biggest perv?" My second thought was, "Oh, my God...where am I going to find anything on 'I Am Curious (Yellow)?"

Well, I didn't come off as a perv to anybody, and I did find the information, as proven in the book. So I would personally like to thank everyone who thought that the book was well-researched. I appreciate it.

Research for this book was just as tough as the other. Believe it or not, you can't just go to the Internet for everything. I tracked down books and stood for hours over a Xerox copier and provided files for each movie that were, like for Profoundly Disturbing, two to three inches thick. Some would call it overkill. I called it being thorough.

Researching these books led to researching JB's commentaries for a slew of Z-movies...once again, volunteering, and once again, struggling to find adequate information for movies no one's ever heard of. So if you enjoyed his commentaries on "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter," "Double D Avenger," "Samurai Cop," "Blood Shack," "The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid-Row Slasher," "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies," "I Spit on Your Grave," "Hells Angels '69," "Run, Angel Run," "Hell High," "Warlock Moon," "Blood Sisters," and maybe one or two more that I can't remember...you're welcome! I sweated blood finding all the info that made his commentary so interesting, so I'm happy somebody out there appreciates it.

REVIEW: Profoundly Disturbing by Joe Bob Briggs

I can't really review this book with any kind of unbiased opinion, because...I was Joe Bob's Researcher! (that sounded like it should be the title of a B-movie, so read it in your head as such).

Yep, 'tis true. Check out the thank you's at the bottom of the page and you'll see my name right there in black and white. It's funny, because no one ever thinks about the person who provides all the raw material for the author...and let me just tell you this, you have not worked your ass off until you've tried to find information on movies that are out of print, starring no one you've ever heard of, and that no one has ever really seen (I'm looking at you, "Mom and Dad.")

I'm happy to read the positive reviews of this book, but I feel like I should add my two cents to the pile and let readers know the massive amount of work that went into it. I remember scouring reputable websites and photocopying dozens and dozens of books and providing JB with files of reference material that were at least two or three inches thick. He definitely got his money's worth out of my efforts (considering I volunteered to do it).

I think the book came out beautifully, and I can't say enough good things about the index (I helped with that, too). I give it five stars for the amazing research. (ha ha).

Keep an eye out for the sequel to this review: Profoundly Erotic.

REVIEW: The Cannibals of Candyland by Carlton Mellick III

To be honest, I wasn't sure about this book. I'd stumbled across it while looking for other things, and while the cover was eye-catching and the title is unavoidably cool, I wasn't sure if it would be my "thing." I'd never read bizarro fiction before and didn't think it was my cup o'tea.

But anyway, I gave in and downloaded this one for my Kindle and it sat there for a few months while I went through my "read only true crime/read only biographies/read only nonfiction" phases. Last night, bored with everything else, I decided to read a few pages and see just how 'bizarro' it was.

Well.

My first bit of surprise was that I got into it immediately. I'm unfamiliar with Mellick's writing, but once I accepted his world of men who wear only candy-apple red and keep multi-colored kittens in his pockets while hunting down the candy-men who killed his siblings, I was totally absorbed in the story.

Huh? What's that you're wondering? Candy-men?

First of all, to enjoy this book you're going to have to embrace the absurd. Yes. Candy-men. Men and women literally--and I really do mean literally--made of candy: taffy bodies, cotton candy hair, gumdrop nipples, etc. and so on. They also have really sharp teeth. Think Pennywise from "It." And they use said teeth to eat up little children. Graphically and in great detail. This is not a book for the faint of heart or easily upset, because the kids in this book...they don't fare too well. Apparently they make for dee-licious eatin'.

The great thing about this book is that it has such a simple plot: as a child, Franklin saw his siblings eaten by a monstrous candy-woman and, of course, no one believes him. The candy people grow into a thing of legend, and when he grows up, Franklin makes hunting them down and getting proof of their existence his goal in life. When he wounds one of the monsters and follows it down into the underground caves they live in, he finds a world right out of Willie Wonka's wet dreams: everything is candy. Houses are made of cookies. The ground is chocolate. Everything is edible...including Franklin. I won't give too much more of the plot away--needless to say, he runs into the candy-woman who killed his brothers and sisters--but the details of that world are so interesting and well described that I actually think it made my blood sugar go up.

So will I be reading more of Carlton Mellick's work? Yep, yes, and oh yeah. I've already got two more of his books cued up on the Kindle, and will likely be reading more. I'm in professional awe at his ability to just go batshit crazy with his ideas and take them as far as he can. That kind of fearlessness is rare nowadays. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes weirdness, horror, and cannibals (not necessarily in that order).

Before ORFOB went FUBAR

Before the nightmare that was ORFOB began. Me and my brother, David. I am, of course, the one without the goatee.

The problem with GoodReads...

...is that I'm constantly forgetting to add the stuff I'm reading to it. Maybe it's a touch of ADD, but I'm usually reading at least two or three books at the same time. To look at my Kindle would be like looking at the horror section of Amazon. Seriously. Too many books and not enough time. And don't even ask about the books I lose interest in reading. If I'm not caught hook, line and sinker in the first chapter (or even first few pages), I'm out. I'm notoriously vicious in my reading habits. I don't tolerate boredom well...especially if it's in a mass-produced, major-publishing house novel. Again, I guess I'll chalk it up to writer's envy (it's like penis envy, only you envy someone for their publishing contract/connections instead).

I really need to do some work on GoodReads. Maybe even a competition or giveaway for my books. I can hear the multitudes reaching for their keyboards now.

A smallish rant

I'm not naming names, and this could come across as just a simple case of writer's envy, but when did it become okay for the EDITOR of an anthology to present himself or herself as the sole author of the work? I'm talking about anything from appearing alone at book signings to having it under his/her own name at Amazon. I'm not talking about anyone I've worked with (well...recently) but I'm noticing this and wondering if it's a new trend. I realize that the editor does a good bit of work in creating an anthology, but what would it be without the work of the writers (who are, in most cases, listed as "and others" in an anthology that has one or two brand name authors)?

Okay. End rant. For now.