Horror World Book Reviews
September, 2006

PRODIGAL BLUES by Gary A. Braunbeck
Review by Mark Justice

Once again, Gary Braunbeck has written a novel with a concept that most other writers would have mangled into a Lifetime Movie of the Week. But in Braunbeck’s skillful hands, PRODIGAL BLUES is a literary bone saw, carving you to your core and leaving you as emotionally exposed as his protagonist.

Mark Sieber is a janitor with a Masters in English, traveling across the country to perform a family duty. After the car Sieber’s brother-in-law gave him dies spectacularly on the highway, Sieber is snatched from his motel room by an unusual assortment of kidnappers. What they ask of Sieber is something only Braunbeck could deliver.

I know that’s a very sketchy plot, yet to give away more would be a criminal act. Trust me on this.

From the point of Sieber’s kidnapping, PRODIGAL BLUES unfolds like nothing you’ve ever read. At times horrifying, disgusting and heartbreaking, Braunbeck proves again to be the best writer most of the world has never read.

At the heart of PRODIGAL BLUES is Sieber’s outrage at the cruelty that has been inflicted upon many of the characters he encounters, balanced against his hope that things can be made right.

Sieber is another of Braunbeck’s damaged good guys, someone who has seen the hurt the world can inflict, but still strives to do the right thing. He’s no action hero. He’s flawed and scared and vulnerable, afraid he will never see his wife Tanya again. In other words, he’s just like you and me. Or maybe a little better.

There are no supernatural or fantasy elements in PRODIGAL BLUES. It’s just the story of one man who is plunged into the darkness of real evil, and his attempt to get back to the light.

It’s simply the best book you will read this year.

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LIVE GIRLS by Ray Garton
Review by Nate Kenyon

From the acclaimed author of The Loveliest Dead and Night Life, the Bram Stoker Award nominated Live Girls has been recently reissued by Leisure Books as a mass-market paperback. Live Girls tells the story of Davey Owen, a loveable loser who can’t seem to stand up for himself. Davey’s got a girl about to walk out on him and a boss who wants him to sleep with her for a promotion. But Davey’s life is about to take a turn for the worse. While out walking on a lunch break in Times Square, he decides to pop inside a club called Live Girls, and inside a private booth he finds an irresistibly beautiful naked woman offering him a bit more than a peep show.

Of course, Anya isn’t any ordinary woman, and what’s she after isn’t just sex. Davey can’t stop thinking about her, and though he knows there’s something terribly wrong, he can’t stay away. Anya introduces him to a shadowy underground world of sex clubs and blood drinkers, and before long Davey begins to experience some very unsettling symptoms indeed.

Meanwhile, New York Times reporter Walter Benedek is hot on the trail of his brother in law, a formerly mild-mannered man who has inexplicably turned vicious, murdering his wife and daughter in a particularly brutal way. The killer’s trail leads Benedek to Live Girls. Benedek crosses paths with Davey Owen, and the unlikely pair team up to try to uncover exactly what is going on in the back alleys of Times Square before it’s too late for them both.

Live Girls has consistently appeared on horror fans’ lists of favorite vampire novels for its combination of fast-moving plot, gore and eroticism, although the book has not been widely in print for many years. Sadly, some of the impact of the novel has been blunted in the nearly two decades since its original release. The gore is no longer as shocking, and the sex is less explicit than many of the small press horror novels of today.

But Live Girls does not need to resort to cheap thrills to remain a startlingly effective play on the dangerous nature of sex in the modern world. Much as AIDS changed the landscape of the underground pleasure industry in the 1980s, in Garton’s world vampirism makes anonymous sex akin to playing Russian Roulette.

Garton’s vampires are not the romantic heroes of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, and they are not quite the vicious killers of novels such as Matheson’s I Am Legend. They are seductive and powerful, and they can walk in the daylight. Yet they are chained to their addiction, and there is something desperate and sad about their efforts to conceal the bloodletting among the pleasures of a sexual act.

Davey’s passive nature serves as a natural focal point for the novel. He is the perfect vampire victim. His life is all about having things done to him, rather than doing things himself; by the time he decides to act, it may be too late to save himself from an eternity of addiction and blood thirst.

Live Girls is one of Garton’s most powerful works—alternately sensual and disturbing, bloody and surprisingly insightful. For those horror fans who have not yet had the chance to read it, the new Leisure edition offers them the perfect chance to play catch up.

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AMERICAN MORONS by Glen Hirshberg
Review by Mike Myers

American Morons was my first sampling of Glen Hirshberg's works. With such an odd title I went in not knowing what to expect. What I found is a collection of seven unrelated tales so diverse and believable I'm jealous at how easily Hirshberg adapts to each setting.

In American Morons we follow a situation facing two American college students broken down on a highway in Europe, dealing with the new reality of how Americans are seen outside their own borders.

Like a Lily on a Flood is a tale of revenge involving both past and present inhabitants of a lakeside cottage in New Hampshire.

Flowers in their Bridals, Hooves in the Air is an impressive tale of a woman confronting the memory of a neglectful father in a most unusual setting.

Safety Clowns, a tale of a young man’s eventful first day on the new job, is one of those rare stories that force the reader to take a closer look at themselves, questioning what lines they would be willing to cross.

Devil’s Smile, a historical piece taking place during the heyday of the whaling industry, is a story of coming home and lost loves with gobs of quirky atmosphere and satisfying bits of horror entwined along the way.

Transitway follows the morning of two lonely retired gentlemen discovering pieces of their past stolen by a Los Angeles different from their youth.

The Muldoon, finishes off the collection with an unsettling story telling of two children uncovering family secrets best left undisturbed.

A listing of Story Notes closes the book, giving the reader some interesting behind the scenes background on each tale.

While reading each piece, I couldn't help but compare Hinshberg's writing with that of Gary Braunbeck's in its ability to make the reader feel. And when I say feel, I'm talking full bore High Definition in living Technicolor with the Surround Sound cranked.

If you have ever been a fan of high quality short fiction you will find something to really enjoy in American Morons. Too many times I've read collections of short stories that contain their fair share of clunkers. You will find no such filler within these pages.

Each story brought forth alternating feelings of sadness, melancholy, despair and yes, horror. It seems that lately many horror readers have become numb to such emotions. Hirshberg's collection will remind you of why you came to love this genre in the first place.

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ROMAN DUSK by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Reviewed by Patricia Snodgrass

It is very easy to fall in love with Ragoczy Germainus Sanct-Franciscus. He is handsome very wealthy, owning a villa outside Rome along with a small fleet of merchant ships that sail as far away as the Middle East bringing back precious spices, silks and metals. He is also a physician, trained in Egypt in the Temple of Imphotep. He is kind, compassionate, and generous to a fault. So generous and accommodating it draws the attention of a third rate tax collector named Batsho, who hates Sanct-Franciscus the moment he meets him. Women adore Sanct-Franciscus, and he is the kindly benefactor to Meledulci, a former prostitute, as well as to the wealthy dowager widow, Olivia Clemens, who is slowly dying from lead poisoning.

But Sanct-Franciscus is not everything he seems. As a vampire who has lived for well over two thousand years, Sanct-Franciscus has learned very well how to hide his identity. No longer content with merely luring victims and draining them, he longs for a real connection with the people he encounters. However, he is still as dangerous, more so than Anne Rice’s Lestat if aroused, as young Octavian finds out in the worst way.

Brilliantly done, Yarbro weaves the history, culture, religion and social mores of Rome, showing quite distinctly how it’s status ends as a superpower. Heliogabulus, the current emperor prefers lavish parties than to rule. Everything is taxed beyond endurance. And finally, Yarbro brings forth two factions of early Christians, the Peterines and the Paulines into focus, showing how these two Christian sects grapple for the soul of Rome while the understructure of the empire collapses from centuries of decadence and disease.

It is not a dull history lesson. Roman Dusk is far from boring. Yarbro brings her characters to vivid life, each one full and vibrant and as alive as your next-door neighbor. The pacing is impeccable, the plot genuine and pure. And in the end you grieve for Rome, as you will for Sanct-Franciscus, Ignatia, and Meledulci.

I loved Roman Dusk and I’m sure you will too. Highly recommended.

Tor Books

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LISEY’S STORY by Stephen King
Review by Mark Justice

In his new novel, Stephen King returns to a landscape both familiar and welcome to fans of the author’s BAG OF BONES.

A writer. A dead spouse. The sins of the past coming due in the present.

This is not to say that LISEY’S STORY is BAG OF BONES with a mere gender adjustment. It’s also an examination of the complicated bond that forms through 20 plus years of marriage, a country that is both deeply rewarding and treacherous, spawning its own language and a lifetime of secrets.

Lisey Debusher Landon is the widower of best-selling novelist Scott Landon. It’s been two years since his death and though she’s still grieving, she’s finally ready to go through his personal papers. At the same time she has to deal with her aggravating sisters and an overzealous academic who demands access to Scott’s papers. Eventually, both situations worsen, and Lisey takes refuge in her memories of Scott, and the strange world he sometimes inhabited, a world that she has to return to if she wants to survive.

The characterizations here are rich and complex, something at which King has always excelled. He doles out the history of the Landon relationship in measured doses and it’s a pleasure to see the pieces skillfully assembled. King makes it easy to care for Lisey, Scott and Lisey’s sister Amanda.

On the other hand, a few of King’s eccentricities – stylistic trademarks that never bothered me in earlier books – seem excessive. For instance, hardly a chapter passes without a reference to some down-home small town saying attributed to one of Lisey’s parents. The transition from hints of a supernatural element to a full-blown fantasy world is abrupt and jarring.

But the most annoying aspect of LISEY’s STORY is King’s penchant for made-up words and phrases. “Smucking”, for example, is the Landon’s cutesy substitute for a popular profanity, and King dispenses it with abandon, to the point that it became a distraction. About halfway through the book, I began to dread turning the page, as each new “smucking’ felt like a nail in my skull. I could go some years without reading about “bools”, too.

It’s a testament to King’s undiminished strengths as a writer that LISEY’S STORY remains a captivating story. It’s just a shame that a firmer editorial hand couldn’t have removed a few of the author’s excesses.

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RAPTURE by Thomas Tessier
Reviewed by James R. Beach

First of all it’s great to see Leisure reissuing some of Thomas Tessier’s novels. If anyone is deserving of a second look it is he. A master of disturbing fiction, Tessier has a strong grasp of the language and building tension and suspense RAPTURE is no exception.

Although a much subtler novel than the previous Leisure re-release, FINISHING TOUCHES, RAPTURE is by no means a weaker one. Tessier takes a fairly simple concept, a man who builds up an obsession with a woman into a full-blown outburst of violence and manipulation Jeff is a smart, good looking man who has lost his wife due to being immersed in his business. His father dying and Jeff traveling back to his hometown for the funeral triggers the obsession with a former friend that he never pursued as a love interest. After finding Georgianne, Jeff becomes convinced they are meant to be together and that is what is missing from his life. Only problem is she is married with a grown daughter. That doesn’t stop Jeff though.

Even though this is a fairly straightforward suspense novel, Tessier has a knack for making the reader uncomfortable. The violence erupts in a shocking manner that makes it all the more realistic. It’s hard to make a murderer like Jeff sympathetic, but Tessier pulls it off. He does a good job of showing the way things can build up one after the other and also how no matter what we plan, sometimes it just doesn’t work out like we want it to.

I definitely recommend this and encourage you to check out Tessier’s other novels. Why he isn’t better known is beyond me but hopefully that will change soon All we need now is for Leisure to reprint THE NIGHTWALKER!

Leisure Books

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AFTER DARK A COLLECTION OF HORROR by Jeani Rector
Review by Dennis Duncan

When I got After Dark I didn't know what to expect. I had never read any of Jeani's work before. The reviews that I found for After Dark were very positive and I was not disappointed. Jeani has put together a great short story collection.

There isn't a story in this collection I didn't like, but my favorites were The Boogeyman and the novella, The Rye Witch. They were so good that I went back and reread them a couple times.

The Boogeyman is written from the point of view of a young boy who thinks a monster is living under his bed and in his closet. I related a lot to this story. It is a fear that most of us have grown up with. Jeani puts a nice little twist on the end that I absolutely loved. One of the best short stories I've read in a long time.

The Rye Witch is a novella about the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. A lot of it is based on fact. Some of the people in this story actually existed, and some of these horrific events actually happened. It is appalling to know at how many innocent people died during that period. This story shows that humans can be the biggest monsters of all. A very fine novella.

I highly recommend After Dark to anyone that likes good creepy short stories. They are perfect for the campfire. This is the first work of Jeani Reactors I've read but it wont be my last. She is a writer to keep your eye on.

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THE BIZARRO STARTER KIT ed. By D. Harlan Wilson
Review by Gary Frank

By the time I got this book, I had already read “Fishy-Fleshed” by Carlton Mellick III so I knew a little about Bizarro fiction and had expectations of what a collection like this should be. I was a bit disappointed. Not by the quality of the stories, but by how bizarre each story was or wasn’t.

The Bizarro Starter Kit is a panoramic view of Bizarro, a term given to weird, cult-like storytelling, the literary equivalent of a David Lynch or Tim Burton movie. Here we have very short shorts, short stories and novellas that range from the amazingly strange (The Baby Jesus Butt Plug) to the Twilight Zonish (Suicide Girls in the Afterlife). These stories offer a glimpse into a rising genre that functions like the cult movie section in your local video store.

In order to properly review the stories here, I’ve named each author, their contribution(s), a short review of their piece(s) and a Bizarro Quotient (BQ). This number signifies what I felt to be the degree of bizarreness that each piece (or pieces) exhibits. It has nothing to do with the quality of the story, but just how strange it is with 10 being the most out-there thing and 1 being completely devoid of strangeness.

If you’re looking for something different, humorous, odd, dark, surreal, wacky, and just plain fun reading, the Bizarro Starter Kit is a great collection.

D. Harlan Wilson (6 short stories): Mr. Wilson’s short shorts are a perfect intro into the world of Bizarro. Very imaginative and well written. I felt like I was reading someone’s lucid dreams. Overall BQ = 8

Carlton Mellick III (The Baby Jesus Butt Plug): If there is a “master” of Bizarro fiction in this anthology it is Mr. Mellick III. Not to take anything away from any of the other authors here but this guy has an imagination like no one else I know. This story, whose title always elicits raised eyebrows and looks of disgust from those uninitiated with the author and his work, offers so much more than what the title suggests. Here, a baby Jesus clone, adopted by an unsuspecting couple, has its sights set on conquest. What happens next can only come from someone who’s slightly out of step with the rest of reality. BQ = 10

Jeremy Robert Johnson (Extinction Journals): An offbeat, post-apocalyptic story of what happens when a man in a cockroach suit, out to find any one else alive, meets a naked woman covered in ants. One of the longer pieces that I thought could’ve been a bit shorter, but still a good read. BQ = 7

Kevin L. Donihe (The Greatest Fucking Moment in Sports): A wild, two-wheeled ride about a cycling race that has everything from a ninja to hateful cyclists, from Walri love to well…just read it. Another novella and very entertaining. BQ = 7.5

Gina Ranalli (Suicide Girls in the Afterlife): This was a very well written and entertaining story and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The title explains some of the story, but there is so much more. However, it’s not quite as bizarre as I thought it should be for this collection. BQ = 6

Andre Duza (Don’t F(beep)k With the Coloureds): Though I’ve seen the concept of the story done before, the execution and telling of the story is excellent. What I thought Mr. Duza meant by coloureds was completely wrong and I am glad I was. A solid story and I look forward to reading more of Mr. Duza’s work. BQ = 7.5

Vincent W. Sakowski (3 short stories): The first two short shorts made me think Mr. Sakowski listens to Robyn Hitchcock. Strange, bizarre and absolutely appropriate for this anthology. The third story, while very well written wasn’t quite as bizarre, being more ironic than what I consider “Bizarro”. Overall BQ = 7.5

Steve Beard (Survivor’s Dream): Bizarro to me should be in the storytelling, not in the writing style. Just my opinion. This story offers both. An absolutely strange story, that would’ve worked for me had it been written in a more traditional style. The constant time shifts from past to present, the repetition of sentences when rejoining a time frame, and the overuse of a couple of words throughout made the story feel disjointed, and not as well written as I would’ve liked. BQ = 8.5

John Edward Lawson (Truth in Ruins): A strange, post-apocalyptic story that I couldn’t quite get into. There seemed to be a lot going on and though I kept up with it all, it seemed too much. From humanzees to Darkness People to Kaballahryans, this novella probably would work better as a much longer piece so there’s more time to get deeper into all the fascinating aspects of the story. BQ = 7.5

Bruce Taylor (4 short stories): As the Bizarro Starter Kit opened with short stories that define Bizarro fiction, so does it end with some great short pieces that really sum up what this genre is about. Mr. Taylor (a.k.a. Mr. Magic Realism) is a very talented storyteller and each story reflects his ability to offer up some fascinating and bizarre bits of fiction. BQ = 8

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BIZARRE NOVELLA #5 by Mike Philbin
Review by Patricia J. Esposito

When the main character in Mike Philbin’s bizarro novella # 5 (Chimericana Books) gives himself a new name, a nomme de voyage, as he says, for his needed vacation from work, he chooses, Clarke, something solid and stable. His vacation, however, turns into a journey, a voyage into a world turned inside out, an oddly erotic, oddly disturbing nightmare worse than most of us have ever dreamed. In the town of Tiamoros, Clarke meets Fuentes, and there is no longer any reliable map for his world. Mountains encroach, crushing walls, juice pours from brick buildings, and the sky is a "black brown slab of soil." Space warps and Clarke's world twists to Fuentes's vision. Or, as the narrator says, the world Clark encounters is “a bearing of the soul in physical form.”

Yes, this is bizarre, and it’s also beautiful, which is an achievement from an author writing about excrement, vomit, sewage, semen, dirty skies and desert cities, and bodies that distort and twist and spew out of themselves and back into themselves. This is a book I couldn’t put down, caught between worlds and always on the edge. The prose is at once hard-hitting, with evocative and shattering images (“I was disgusted by the dog-rape, a thigh bone protruded through a wrinkled thigh, a crab claw manhandled a bag of sawdust breast, a cripple’s hand spasm pulled back the foreskin … Razor blades ran through living flesh like shark attack”) and then a soft watercolor of pain (“The sky was a sordid flesh-pink erosion of joy. The sun was a half-effort of shine.”).

My only squabble is the occasional typos that make me blink away for a minute—I do want to flinch but I don’t want to blink. But don’t let that dissuade you from a fantastic and unnerving story. I’m a copyeditor by trade and a typo in this text was merely incidental. This is a book I will want to read again, loaded with ideas that made me dog-ear the pages and lines I have to remember (“…the softly rippling texture of all the lakes I had ever been forced at the gunpoint of my beating heart to love”). A man named Fuentes, his sister Carla, and Clarke—they form a marriage triangle that makes me ask if this is an unholy trinity, or the truth behind the terrible pain of God’s spirit in human form.

Highly recommended.

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MONSTER ISLAND by David Wellington
Review by Dennis Duncan

A Zombie Plague has swept across the planet wiping out most of humanity. Only a few pockets of survivors remain. The human race is on the verge of extinction.

Dekalb, a former UN Weapons Inspector, along with a group of heavily armed teen aged schoolgirls have traveled from Somalia to New York City in search of desperately needed medicine and supplies. They have prepared themselves for the millions of zombies that will be ready to greet them once they come ashore, but they will soon realize that they have more than just the undead to worry about.

Gary is dead but he is different from the millions of other zombies roaming around New York. His brain still functions perfectly. He soon realizes that he also possesses psychic powers that allows him to control the dead. Gary has a destiny. Evil Forces that now walk the earth plan on using him to destroy what is left of mankind. Gary and Dekalb's expedition are on a collision course, and only one will prevail in the dead streets of New York City.

I am a sucker for Zombie Stories so when I saw Monster Island I had to grab a copy. My expectations were very high considering all the rave reviews it was getting on the net. I wasn't disappointed in the least. It is a original zombie story loaded with action, gore, and dark humor. It takes off early and never lets up; I could not put it down. I found myself reading the night away on a couple occasions. I was left feeling satisfied and a little nauseous. David pulls no punches with the blood and guts.

Monster Island is one of the best zombie stories to come out in the past couple years. This title is a must for any zombie lover. I can't wait to read the next installment in this trilogy - Monster Nation. Mr. Wellington you have a new fan.

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