Horror World Reviews

THE ORGAN DONOR by Matthew Warner
Review by Mark Justice

I'm tired of it.

I'm tired of novels that tease a supernatural or fantastic element, and then fail to deliver.

That's why The Organ Donor is such a pleasant surprise. Warner's novel is a fascinating blend of straight-ahead horror, Chinese philosophy and mysticism, along with a healthy dollop of social consciousness.

The story opens in China, where death row inmates have their vital organs harvested immediately upon execution. It seems that China is the answer to the prayers of many foreigners who need an organ transplant but can't get one in their home countries.

Paul and Tim Taylor have come to China because Tim needs a new kidney or he will soon die. Through a tragic circumstance, both brothers end up receiving body parts from the same executed prisoner.

Here comes the complication: the prisoner whose organs were taken was no ordinary man. He doesn't stay dead long, and when he does come back, he wants what's his.

Warner's story moves along at a brisk pace, making it hard to put down. The plot never lags and the details are expertly woven into the story. Whether real or imagined-or both-the elements of Chinese legend in The Organ Donor add another layer of enjoyment to the story.

A common flaw of first novels is often an unsatisfying ending. Warner manages to avoid this pitfall, delivering a finale that is both fitting and wide open for a sequel.

Additionally, The Organ Donor has led me to read more on China's trade in human organs, an immoral business condoned by a corrupt government.

I would say that a novel that entertains you, scares you and makes you look at the world in a different way is a successful novel, by any standard. Put The Organ Donor on your Must Read list

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HOLLYWOOD'S STEPHEN KING, by Tony Magistrale
By Jonathan Reitan

With seven other titles about Stephen King's works under his belt, it was surprising to hear that University of Vermont English professor and King expert, Tony Magistrale's his most recent, Hollywood's Stephen King, was his first overview on King's films.

Magistrale opens the book with a brand new never before seen interview with Stephen King. Conducted in King's Bangor office in May of 2002, the extensive interview (nearly 20 pages long!) covers a number of topics. You will read what King has to say about his movies, why some succeeded and others didn't and which one satisfied him the most. Read his theory on why we laugh at the most grueling scenes, such as when Annie Wilkes breaks Paul Sheldon's ankles with a sledgehammer in Misery. Other topics discussed include his latest project, Kingdom Hospital, Spike Lee, Edgar Allen Poe, September 11, Gerald's Game the movie, and much more.
Chapter 2, appropriately titled "The Lost Children" details the most significant children in King's movies. Carrie White (Carrie), Charlie McGee (Firestarter), Danny Torrance (The Shining), Gordie Lachance (Stand By Me) and Bobby Garfield (Hearts In Atlantis) are as Magistrale defines, "simultaneously blessed and cursed, but mostly they are lost", and I couldn't agree with him more.

"Maternal Archetypes" and "Paternal Archetypes", chapters 3 and 4, discuss the wide range of parents in King's movies. From the heroic defense of her child (Donna Trenton in Cujo) to the corruption of a father-son relationship (Jack and Danny Torrance in The Shining), Magistrale writes about all the good and evil mothers and fathers that shape and define the many characters and plots of King's films.

In chapter 5, "Defining Heroic Codes of Survival" Magistrale answers the question asked by many a non-King fan, "Stephen King wrote those stories?" by stating that such films as The Dead Zone, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile are "reminders of what is good and evil and noble and deathless in the human spirit" rather than films of "fear and despair".
Chapter 6, "Technologies of Fright" Magistrale takes on King's obsession with evil machines. Christine, The Running Man, Maximum Overdrive, The Mangler, and The Night Flier are all movies where King explores the fear of everyday items and "vampires in mechanized form" (cars, airplanes, electric carving knives, and soda dispensers, etc.), all of which are discussed in this chapter.

Stephen King is indeed "King of the Miniseries" as he is described in chapter 7. With well over a dozen Stephen King movies made for TV, Magistrale only writes about the ones highly praised by the most die-hard and casual King fans alike. An entire book can be written on King's miniseries alone, but Magistrale does an excellent job with examining the best of them in just under 50 pages.

Hollywood's Stephen King was not written for the most casual King fan, however, it is a book aimed at the level of fan who has read and enjoyed The Stephen King Universe by Wiater, Golden and Wagner, and/or any of the Starmont series of books written about King and his works. Hollywood's Stephen King is a book to be used in high school and college film courses but it's also a book for King fans as means to expand their knowledge of all things Stephen King. When putting this book down you will have felt entertained, but more importantly, because it is written by a college English professor, you will walk away with the feeling that you have learned something.
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INTERVALS OF HORRIBLE SANITY, by Michelle Scalise
Review by Jonathan Reitan

With close to two hundred short stories and poems published in such anthologies as The Darker Side, Dark Arts, and Best Women's Erotica 2003, it's about time Michelle Scalise got her own book! In her debut, Intervals of Horrible Sanity, Scalise offers a combination of 30 dark and macabre short stories and poems.

Michelle starts off the collection with a wonderful tale titled "Three Floors Down We Cleanse the Soul". Ghosts, suicide and incest, how can you go wrong? "I was born in the arms of a corpse" begins the second story, "Eating Cotton Candy At the Dead Twin Carnival". Just try to put the book down after reading that opener! The third story, "The Night Around Me, Falling" will teach you to ignore the person sitting next to you on an airplane while the chilling, "Unsounded Deeps to Dance" puts HBO's prison drama, OZ, to shame.

"Just Someone Her Mother Might Know" is a story of murder, love, and more specifically, an entertaining tale of a mother coming back from the dead to kill her daughter's lover. In "Devil's Ring", Michelle takes on the traditional vampire tale and turns it 360 degrees around with her own unique style. One of the most enjoyable stories, "Dweller on the Threshold" is a period piece with a surprise ending that will shock even the most die-hard horror fan. "The House of Fall and Sorrows" is a zombie story that will disgust and terrify you, just as any classic zombie movie would.

The most disturbing story of all, "Where Death Sends Her", is one you just have to read aloud, it punches like a powerful poem. And speaking of powerful poems, Michelle includes 16 poems in this collection that are sure to please everyone. Not being a poetry expert myself, I can't pick them to pieces and criticize each one, but I do know what moves me, and that's Michelle's poetry. Specifically, the haunting and sinister poems, "Intervals of Horrible Sanity" and the most pleasing, "Shadow Forms". Ending the book is an erotic thriller, "What She's Worth", which makes one question Michelle's innocence.

With my only criticism being that I think some of the short stories could be just as good translated into novellas; it is very safe for me to say that I think Michelle Scalise is going to be one of the big names in horror soon, and one you won't forget after reading Intervals of Horrible Sanity. Move over Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite, Michelle Scalise is the new mistress of darkness to watch out for.

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COLD HOUSE by T.M. Wright
Review by Andy Fairclough

"Elizabeth is my art, all of her parts and her whole self, too. When you lose a thing, you find it in memory and you look at it and touch it again. You taste it, experience it, relive it by halves or less. Until, at last, you realize what you have always realized-that memory alone is insufficient but that, through it, you need not sleep only with a dying cat, that you can sleep with nearly the whole self of she who is still truly loved, she who haunts you like a wish not granted."

COLD HOUSE is quite probably the pinnacle of achievement that T.M.Wright has hinted at in the moments of greatness in his previous body of work. Strangely, it's his first book for an independent press and it's also his first 'mainstream' work.

COLD HOUSE is, however about as un-mainstream as you can get. Essentially, as you'll probably surmise from the extract above, the novel is a love story. It's a novel for everyone who has loved and lost.

Elizabeth lives in a house with many rooms, a house she describes as being as big as Cleveland. She lives there with her dog, Christian and can't remember when or where she last went when she last left the house some time ago.

Michael lives in a strange city in an apartment with his terminally ill cat, Simon and lots of ticking clocks. His forays into the city find him puzzled over the buildings and the strange people that are there.

That is the present, but COLD HOUSE is very much about the past. The childhoods that shaped both Elizabeth and Michael. Elizabeth who saw happiness in her father's flower shop and then witnessed the mental disintegration of her mother, and Michael who suffered at the hands of a tyrannical father.

Then there's the past of their relationship together. They met in a Chocolate shop. Elizabeth is married and initially doesn't want to get involved with Michael, who also is married. However their affair eventually blossoms.

"And they kissed another half dozen times. Michael thought it was like discovering a new form of life, a new language. They convinced themselves that their kisses were like kisses no one else in history had shared, not Schumann and Schumann, Anthony and Cleopatra, Tracy and Hepburn, Browning and Browning, Bogart and Bacall, Balanchine and Farrell.
It was like visiting a magical land that had always existed just inches away, but which, until that afternoon, had been invisible.
At last, they got into their separate cars, and went their separate ways, to their separate houses."

So that's the past and Elizabeth is in her cold house and Michael in the mysterious city with strange street names. Michael wants to get in touch with Elizabeth but he knows not how. His letters go unanswered.

COLD HOUSE is a strange and unsettling book about life, love, loss and inheritance. It's a fabulous melancholy work and possibly Wright's ultimate novel. His characters have never been more well wrought, his prose never more emotive or insightful.

Treat yourself to a copy, you are unlikely to find anything more fascinating this year (or next).
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MONSTROSITY by Edward Lee
Review by Andy Fairclough

Oh boy.

Sometimes it's great to read a good old-fashioned pageturner. A book that you can't put down, no matter what. MONSTROSITY had me burning the midnight oil on more than one occasion, I can tell you. Not that it's that fast paced, it's just great fun to read. Anyway onto the story….

Clare Prentiss is down and out with a dishonourable discharge from the Air Force after she is accused of making up a rape that she really suffered. She's on the streets and can't get the most menial job. That is until a mysterious benefactor offers her the job as Chief of Security at a military clinic where they've discovered a cure for the most aggressive form of cancer. She's offered a great salary, tremendous perks and a new start. It has to be too good to be true … and of course it is!

We find out early on that deep in this Florida hideaway lurk mutated animals and mysterious creatures that brutally ravage unsuspecting trespassers. Nothing comes as entirely unexpected as the novel moves on but the author knows which buttons to press and when.

With more than a nod to the classic horror monster books of old (THE RATS) and the classic works of science gone mad (THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU), MONSTROSITY is a first grade slice of horror hokum. Absolute pure escapism at its finest, the novel is hideous, dark fun from start to finish.

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SCORPION by Chris Poote & Brian Willis
Review by Andy Fairclough

An artist leaves behind a mysterious legacy, the key to which is held within his paintings and in documents retrieved from a secret trunk. Art dealer Robert Pierce gets hold of the trunk and becomes obsessed with the workings of the artist and searches for his hidden meaning.

Helena, who works in an occult bookshop seems particularly sensitive to the paintings and sees the evil within them.

I hate to be negative about a book that is a) written by jolly nice chaps, one of whom at least I have met and is a lovely guy and b) one that is published as horror in paperback in the UK, as you know, a very rare commodity.

Okay, then Fairclough don't say anthing at all. But I've been sent SCORPION to review and attempt to do that I must.

Mysterious paintings and artists with dark secrets reminds me of dozens of short stories that have used similar themes. Some good, some not so. It also brings to mind Clive Barker and his worlds within worlds horror. SCORPION is a novel not a short story and neither Poote nor Willis will proclaim (I hope) to being in Clive Barker's league.

SCORPION just doesn't get under your skin. The use of the English language in the novel is good enough but the way the words are put together doesn't really take it anywhere. From Helena's early fainting spell at the art exhibition, to Robert's puzzling over the strange passages of text left behind by the artist (to which, after about a minute he proclaims the words are meant for him and him only), nothing rings particularly true or beyond two dimensional storytelling.

Passages seem bizarrely disconnected and there's confusion amongst the person the story is told in and in the naming of the characters. It's quite obvious this is a book by two authors as it's unlikely this would have happened in a solo authored novel.

Okay, that's what's bad about the novel but it does have some good points. Odd sections in the novel do garner and hold interest and this does bode well for future works from the authors. However despite it's attempts to prove it's point, the book just isn't interesting enough.

The upshot is this. Although most of the fiction published by Razorblade is interesting and most of the books good, most could be better with a professional literary edit behind them. The majority of authors published by Razorblade are inexperienced with working at novel length and many of the books published could be improved dramatically with a clever editor's work.

Razorblade are still doing a great job as British horror's only paperback independent press publisher. They are giving new authors a chance and the books are beautifully produced. However at the same time, a lot of the novels seem untidy and a good number of the books could have been a lot better, SCORPION included.