I’ve been perusing random kindle freebies, checking out the field of dark speculative self-published fiction and this collection grabbed my attention. In fact, this collection is exactly along the lines of the sort of thing that makes my quest worthwhile.
Strange, dark, twisted tales of science fiction and/or more conventionally horrific persuasion, these ten nightmarish cuts do their best to take one closer to the eponymous line that the author draws. The book features a variety of themes (all dark), some very nice art and some complete unnecessary poems, but wherein the author may not be much of a poet, he’s actually quite a good writer. I’ve been reading a good amount of self-published genre fiction lately and this certainly stands out in quality. Sure, the narrative tends to be slightly on the dense side and might do nicely with more paragraphs and dialogue, but aside from that it’s engaging, interesting, and most of all, original. There are some really fun, interesting stories here. The editing is done well. The cover's great. A totally professional looking book through and through. And it disturbs as advertised. All in all, a nice find. I wouldn’t be opposed to checking out more of the author’s work based on this reading experience. Recommended.
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My first graphic novel of 2022 is a resounding success.
A bunch of 20something year olds surviving in the world of gig economy, apps, and 90s nostalgia. But living in a giant bubble. Ona distant planet. In a distant (or not so distant, whatever you consider the end of the 2100s to be) future. What madness is this? Well, that dear readers, is the madness of The Bubble. The awesomely hilarious high-octane satirical adventure adapted from a podcast this reviewer has never heard of, but then again, this reviewer is nowhere near hip enough for podcasts. So, what do a bunch of millennials do in the future, in a world remarkably similar and deliciously different from ours? They slay imps – the monstrous creatures who are native to the planet and like to get into the bubble and make snacks out of its denizens. Slaying imps is the latest in gig economy. All the kids are doing it. Some with more skill and panache than others. This is their story. And it’s so much fun. Genuinely funny, too. I laughed out loud reading it, a bunch of times, and how often are things that funny anymore? Especially things involving millennials, futuristic or otherwise, a generation generally too precocious and precious for pure laughs. The art was good too, bright, vivid, and exciting, it brought all the action scenes to life very nicely. Overall, it’s just such a fun world to visit and hang out in for a while. I enjoyed it very much. Recommended. Catriona Ward appears to be one of those unicorn authors who actually made a turn from thrillers to the dark side. It’s admirable; most go the other way, from the more niche horrific territory to the all-too popular mystery thrillers. Jennifer McMahon being the only exception I can think off, who started off with conventional thrillers, veered into the supernatural territory and now appears to be coming back around. And, of course, there are myriad things that constitute what is scary to a reader, from creature features to psychopaths and tons in-between. But…
But when I selected this book to be my first book of the year, I was expecting something from the realm of conventionally horrific. The way it looks, the cover, the category the publisher had it under on Netgalley…kind of steer you that way. Alas, it wasn’t the case. Or wasn’t quite the case. There’s plenty to horrify you within the pages of Sundial. Plenty to horrify you about Sundial, the place the main protagonist is raised in, a remote desert compound dedicated to psychological manipulation of animals. MK Ultra for puppies. Nightmarish, really. Certainly, not suitable for weak stomachs and puppy lovers. But… But if I had to classify or categorize this book, I’d label it a thriller, specifically a mommy thriller, a subgenre of all these ubiquitous female-authored female-centric thrillers that are powered by mother’s milk. Granted, it is much, much darker than most, but still very, very recognizable as such. The protagonist is a woman who by all rights should have never reproduced and yet she ends up being a mother of two, one of whom she suspects of latent psychopathy. So, she takes that one back to Sundial for some mother/daughter time and there amid the decrepitude of the place and the graves and all the terrible memories, they have a reckoning of sorts. This is a book that heavily exists in the past, a past so messed-up, so tragic, that it seemingly had no choice but to shape the protagonist the way it did. But then again…her spectacularly terrible marriage might have been avoided. Instead of taking up so much of her life and the book’s time. You make a lot of excuses for the character because of all she’d been through and the dramatic unconventionality of her upbringing, but still…she was raised smarter than that. Literally, homeschooled to be smart. Anyway, if the mother/daughter thing isn’t enough to flood you with a warm river of estrogen, there’s also a strong sisterhood theme going on, both in the past and in the present. It’s nearly every version of girl power you can think of and every relationship in this book is completely and profoundly f*cked up. The fact that the protagonist survives her past only to find herself in this future/present is… just lamentable. Good for drama, but lamentable. You do want her to succeed, presumably, but she isn’t an easy sell. No one in this book is, arguably, except maybe for Callie. That’s one of the most interesting things about this book, actually. It’s populated with thoroughly to mildly unlikeable and unsympathetic characters and yet makes for a surprisingly compelling narrative. I suppose that says a lot about Ward’s skills as an author. Dark and disturbing as this book in, it drags you in, quicksand style. Makes for a strangely engaging reading experience. Once I’d still class as a dark (stygian, pitch black) psychological thriller above all, but opinions may vary. Difficult to recommend this one. Read at your own discretion. Thanks Netgalley. Every so often, I peruse the kindle genre freebies, checking out what’s out there. The goal is to find books that feature intriguing premise, decent reviews, and short page count. A good cover helps too. I do judge the book by the cover. It works, believe me.
Anyway, St. Aymon checked enough boxes to merit checking out. And sure enough, this turned out to be one of the unicorns of self-publishing– a genuinely decent original story, well told and well edited to boot. Echoing heavily of the granddaddy of all scary stories, Dracula, this is an epistolary tale of a slow descent into madness. No need to go anywhere as far as Eastern Europe, when the wilderness of Canada is available. And somewhere in it, a tiny village of St. Aymon, a place where you can check in but not necessarily check out. Something that a young man who follows his beloved new wife from his safe but unexciting life in England to the snowy wilds of her native Canada finds out all too vividly. And then the same, though not quite the same, dangers are discovered by a detective following his trail. Madness lies that way. But just what kind of madness…well, you’d have to read to find out for yourself. A very short novella and well worth the 45 or so minutes it’ll take you to visit – and learn to stay away from – the not quite charming village of St. Aymon. Recommended. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a work of Afrofuturism before. I’ve read Octavia Butler, so maybe, but this, this takes things to the next level. It begins as some sort of Wakanda Forever fantasies but then it takes things further, in fact, it goes so far…
The sheer span of this book is hugely impressive. It literally takes the readers from the beginning to the end of time. In the beginning, there was life and life evolved into a proud African king and warlord who desperately wanted a legacy, a son. To this end, he took one and incurred a wrath of a witch and from that day on he wouldn’t die. Thus, he went on, outliving all he’d known and loved time and again, a one-man citadel traveling through centuries, witnessing grave injustices, wars, and progress. All the way into the distant future. All the way to the stars. And so, as a reader, you get to witness the entirety of the African experience, cradle to grave of civilization, as lived by one reluctant witness weighted down by his own immortality. It’s epic in the purest form of it, it is an epic. All presented in gorgeous art panels, something of a mashup of classic fantasy art and photorealism, with giant muscles and expressive faces, and stunning scenery. This story isn’t just entertaining (although it certainly is at that), it is exciting, emotionally engaging and thrilling. Presented quite succinctly by a sort of omniscient narrator, which is logical considering how much it has to cover, this story tackles so much, racial and gender inequality, war complex, all the repeatable offenders of the past, all the imaginable dangers of the future. It’s a story of Earth itself and its flawed and faulty denizens. There’s so much here and all so well done. I’m impressed. I really am. Nicely done. Recommended. This is my third book by the author. So, yes, I enjoy his writing. Normally, I prefer my graphic novels fictional, but he just does nonfiction so well. And so, lo and behold, another educated and educational work of investigative journalism told in cutely basic cartoons.
This time Cunningham tackles his probably most challenging subject, the science deniers. A subject one might find untackle-able, because stupidity tends to thrive on itself and wish for no outside perspectives. And yet, there he goes, a brave man, chapter after chapter taking on and ripping apart the most popularly held misconceptions about things like moon landing and climate change and closing n with the science of science denial itself. I’d imagine this must be very frustrating, just the sheer anticipation of all the deaf ears this is going to fall on. People have only gotten dumber and surer of their wrongly held ideas since the book was published. We live in the dangerously stupid times, literally. We live in the times where stupidity literally kills, and it still doesn’t seem like enough of a deterrent. So, what chance does this book have? What chance does any book have? Well, not much. People who already know all or most of it will nod in agreement and remain an informed minority. People who don’t know what Cunningham is talking about or, more likely, who believe in the complete opposite of it, will probably chafe at the pedantic patronizing tone of the scientific elite and burn it. To be fair, this book does have something of a patronizing tone, one I imagine born out of frustration with the fact that this these things need to be said in the first place. But nevertheless, it’s erudite and informative. It means well. It really does. The people who might get the most out of this book are probably those who understand that’s science is real and want to know more about it, more details, so that they can make more coherent arguments when arguing with the idiots around them. Personally, I like Cunningham’s books, I always learn something new even when I’m familiar with the subjects, so it’s always worth a read. And the last chapter is SO tragically right and makes such an excellent statement…the media in its misguided attempt to provide even and unbiases coverage by showcasing every single perspective has done terrible things to the public mentality by giving equal coverage to facts and opinions. In fact, by making the two indistinguishable and thus somehow equally important. And science isn’t an opinion. Though so long as it is considered as such, the idiocracy will continue its ascendance. Read this book if only in your own small way of protest against the prevalent mentality of the age. Be as smart as you wish the world to be. Recommended. Slowly but surely I’m working through the back catalog of Ruth Ware, an author who categorically ISN’T the Agatha Christie of her time but is billed as such anyway.
This time, she is trying for more than just a Christie pastiche to her credit, this time she is stretching her gothic fiction muscles, the ones also utilized in her Turn of the Key. This is a good thing. Turn of the Key is the first Ware book I read, and it left a certain expectation of quality, an expectation which was let down with the subsequent (Ware’s earlier) reads. When Ware goes for the traditional estrogen-powered thriller that sheeple just can’t get enough of, she is average to slightly above average at best, despite the hyped-up praise. When she goes gothic, she does much, much nicer. Mind you, Ware is innately a pastiche-like author, meaning that her traditional thrillers read like desperate tries to emulate Christie and her gothic ones read like desperate tries to emulate Du Maurier, another writer Ware confesses to admiring. Still though, let her stay with gothic, at least it offers excellent atmosphere she can overwrite in attempts to distract you from the unavoidable predictability of the plot. Which is to say, this book is a fun read. It read nicely. It has a surprisingly (because she’s 21 and kids are obnoxious) likable protagonist who, desperate to get ahead in her hardscrabble life decides to con her way into an inheritance she thinks she is offered by mistake. Perfectly understandable, really. She has nothing but debt and a dangerous man out to get her for it (she’s crap with money, like most 21-year-olds), her mom had died tragically a few years ago, but even back in the day the two of them didn’t have much. Both are/were clairvoyant on the Brighton Beach boardwalk without any pretense at being supernaturally gifted. So, basically like a low-level con. Now it’s time to put those skills to the test and see if she can con her way into some of that Westaway money. Our protagonist IS a Westaway, but she believes herself to be the wrong one, not the one the irascible and thoroughly unpleasant Westaway matriarch meant to leave her money to. And yet, once she gets involved with the family, the situation becomes more and more complex and increasingly more difficult to disentangle herself from. Soon, it’s a proper mess. And then the mess gets dangerous. Of course, there’s a snow in scene for the denouement, Ware is nothing if not a conscientious recycler. Of course, there are secrets long buried and of course, plot will twist. Exactly how much of a surprise the revelations of the novel will be depends on how savvy of aa armchair crime solver you are. Personally, I figured out most of it, frustratingly early on. And I’d love to say it’s because of my super-duper genius detective brain, but really it has a lot to do with the fact that Ware doesn’t do a good job of obscuring the plot. She may be a decent writer overall, but her plotting leaves a lot to be desired for those who mainly go in for the mystery aspect of it all. To be fair, she herself in the afterword states that she is more interested in the crime’s effects on the characters and their drama than the crime itself. It shows. It’s also why she can never be the next Christie. Or even the next Du Maurier for that matter. Because, traditional this view may be, crime fiction ought to be about the crime. You should NOT know what’s going on, you should work to figure out what’s going on. You should be surprised, delighted and stunned by the final reveals. Left marveling at their cleverness. Their ingenuity. Their originality. You won’t get that from this book. Or any other Ware books. But you will be entertained all the same. It also stands to mention that this book (much like this review, sorry) is way too long, though it reads quickly enough. Ok, over and out. Read at your leisure or your pleasure. Mileage may vary. I’ve read and enjoyed Snowball by the author before, so this was a pretty easy selection. And, mostly, a worthy one.
A conceptually terrifying tale of the high costs of renewable energy. Or something to that extent. As if Maine wasn’t made creepy enough by genre literature to begin with, now there’s this…on a small island off the cost of it something strange is going on with their newly erected wind turbines. And effect they call a shadow flicker. It isn’t inexplicable, it has to do with the sun reflecting off the turbine and creating a high potency sort of flicker. It drives the island denizens nearest to it to distraction. But they are not the only ones. And the madness this flicker seems to induce varies from individual to individual. Some get sad, some get mad, some get dangerous. Some get litigious. Enter an insurance investigator from the mainland, a fish out of water in every way, from his brown skin to his sexual orientation, the author really ramped up his protagonist’s otherness here. The man’s job is simple – talk to the locals, gather the information pertinent to the potential lawsuit, get out. It seemed like a good idea, a good assignment for the time being, a nice getaway from an abruptly and brutally dissolved relationship. Until it wasn’t. Until the assignment proved to be more complicated then possibly imagined. Some might even say otherworldly. So, conceptually this certainly lives up to its promise. It’s a fun, exciting and original tale. Kudos there. Writing wise is where it gets tricky. Mind you, Bastinaelli is, in theory, a pretty good writer, he understands the importance of character development, pacing, basic story dynamics and all that well. So, the sum total ends up like a perfectly readable and coherent story. But the individual sentences - the metaphorical trees of this forest - leave a lot to be desired. Now, a fair disclaimer, I read a Netgalley ARC of this book, it is entirely possible that the book hadn’t made it to the final round of edits before offered (although this particular publisher is usually good about that), but the version of the book I read had strikingly clunky sentences all over it. From compound ones to ones that started with a but, not one but two in a row back-to-back, from just weird stiltedness and frequent repetitiveness…this book screamed for editor’s attention. The weird thing is that it still worked overall as a novel, it just jarred you now and again with the incongruity of quality of the individual elements when compared to project at large. Kind of like a person with individually unattractive features that still presents like a decent looking individual. And, since my reviews are meant to reflect personal reading experience first and foremost (with overall semi-objective opinion of the book as second), it must be rated accordingly, which is to say good story with writing that, at times (not always), left a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, fun was had and Bastianelli continues to be an author worth watching and this book is worth reading if only for the really exciting idea behind it. Gotta love reading a book uncertain of where it’s going, all the surprises that comes with. Thanks Netgalley. |
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December 2023
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