Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

SMASHED by Junji Ito

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Junji Ito’s SMASHED is an amazing manga collection of thirteen twisted stories that will scrape your horror bone.

The stories instantly grab you by introducing the main character and the weird element that plagues or obsesses them, and then throws you into some horrific consequences. Many of the stories end rather abruptly, but the overall effect is still satisfying, particularly the almost perfect way the story and Ito’s hyper-detailed, eerie artwork work together.

Everywhere around Japan, people are freezing into unnatural positions … a secret nectar is so delicious it obsesses its tasters, who risk being smashed to consume it … a traveling haunted house leads to a very real hell … a beautiful woman consumes ghosts. These and other stories make up the collection, all of them disturbing and more than a little creepy. They’re like the old EERIE comics, only even weirder, focusing on titillating with the strange rather than going for the gross-out.

I’m going to check out more of Ito’s work–particularly UZUMAKI, which I’ve heard a lot about, as well as his other collections.

THE ENGINES OF SACRIFICE by James Chambers

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“Lovecraftian” is a mythos that feels overly familiar to me and therefore has to be done really well for me to fall under its spell. By “done really well,” I mean take Lovecraft and portray it in a contemporary way that conveys the feelings of mystery, dread, and horror, without sounding hackneyed or borrowed. TRUE DETECTIVE played with the Yellow King mythos in just such a way. A more direct and just as powerful example is THE ENGINES OF SACRIFICE by James Chambers.

This novella collection tells four dark stories firmly rooted in the Lovecraft mythos but told in a rewardingly fresh, direct style. Imagine somebody took everything you loved about Lovecraft, pared out everything that made it boring or dated (like presenting male characters who are decidedly masculine but not toxic), and then made it fresh and contemporary; the result is James Chambers’ excellently poignant horror collection.

All four stories are remarkable, but my favorite hands down is the title novella, “The Engines of Sacrifice.” Like the other stories, it stems from Lovecraft’s mythos while taking it to an insane level and rolls out like a thriller with numerous psychological as well as physical twists and turns. In this story, writer Rowley Cray lives in a world slowly gone mad, controlled by a genocidal totalitarian government, and subsumed by Lovecraftian creatures. The dead tell him their stories to share, but they want more; they have a very special purpose for him. Unfortunately, so does the government. Navigating various parties who see his stories as the key to altering the reality they live in, Cray must capture the power of words and make the ultimate choice.

If you enjoy horror or Lovecraft in particular, there’s plenty in this collection to enjoy.

CORPORATE ANIMALS (2019)

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Starring Demi Moore, CORPORATE ANIMALS (2019) is a comedy about a corporate retreat gone wrong when a rock slide traps a CEO and the leaders of her company in a cave. The film combines grisly slapstick with an attempt at satire about the corporate world, and despite some of the cast putting their heart into it, its on-the-nose gags and weak satire were stale on delivery for me.

It was great to see Demo Moore make a comeback, though she plays the character as shrill and a bit wooden. The “satire” mostly consists of the office workers squabbling with each other before predictably uniting against the CEO, who is portrayed as a jerk from day one instead of slowly being revealed. Without good context, the grisly slapstick doesn’t resonate. On the plus side, some of the performances are good, with the actors finding humor in their delivery if not the script.

The film might have been interesting if it became THE OFFICE meets LORD OF THE FLIES, with the workers factionalizing with office gossip and politics around limited resources and the CEO’s favor. The point being they can’t get over their office personas and their rivalries even when trapped in a cave. At the end, they unite against the manipulative CEO, realizing all of it doesn’t matter. I don’t know. Something. As it is, the script feels phoned in around an otherwise interesting premise.

Overall, can’t recommend this one. For really good grisly comedies about the office, try MAHEM, BELKO EXPERIMENT, and my favorite, SORRY TO DISTURB YOU.

HATE THE SIN by Artyom Dereschuk

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While browsing Amazon, I stumbled upon a horror novel whose stark cover and title caught my eye. HATE THE SIN by Artyom Dereschuk combines the brutality of being a child soldier fighting for an African warlord with an interesting horror premise involving the undead and a hidden underground world. I came away with some criticisms of the book’s construction, but overall, I found the story fresh, visceral, and engaging.

The novel follows several child soldiers fighting for a warlord during the Liberian civil war in the 1990s. They carry menacing names like “Corpse Eater” and “Desecretor,” and some of them don’t even remember their real names anymore. Their lives as fighters are brutal, not only because they are forced to fight, but because the adults can be cruel and because the man known as General Malaria rules his brigade with an iron fist. After a raid on a local village turns up an unsatisfying amount of food, the General decides to punish it with a killing spree. After they kill the local priestess, the new priestess calls upon the spirits of the Underworld to avenge her tribe.

The novel has some stark strengths and weaknesses. The idea feels very fresh, and the kids, who cling to a sense of morality while living in a brutal world, are sympathetic. The brigade’s fight against the undead is engaging, and the Underworld has a strange and engaging mythology. The action is good in a story that carries through to a satisfying ending. However, sometimes, the story feels rushed, while other times it drags due to repetition, with some characters really standing out and others that are difficult to distinguish. While the novel is billed as a young adult novel, I found it a story more fitting for adults.

Overall, HATE THE SIN was a fun, dark read, offering something fresh for the horror/zombie genre.

OUR WAR eBook Sale!

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I’m happy to announce that OUR WAR was chosen for Hachette’s 2019 Books Not to Miss promotion. From now until December 8, 2019, the eBook editions of OUR WAR are available for just $2.99. Now is the time to get your copy if you haven’t read this book!

Get it here at Amazon.

Check out OUR WAR and the other books in the promotion also at Nook, Apple, Kobo, and Google.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll leave a review!

BLACK SUMMER (2019)

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Produced by Asylum and set in the same zombie apocalypse as Z NATION, BLACK SUMMER (2019) is a Netflix series about a group of people trying to find sanctuary as the military pulls out and society collapses from the rapidly spreading infection. I picked away at this one all year, finally finished it, and found it overall good stuff but difficult to stay committed to.

There’s an interesting storytelling technique happening here; basically, it’s BUSHWICK with zombies. The idea is to follow a group of people individually and eventually all together, with Rose being the lead, a woman who must get to the evacuation center at the stadium in order to reunite with her daughter. There’s little plot other than characters either react to zombies or proactively fight for what they want as they travel from point A to B. The presentation style is pretty realistic and extremely tense, with very long takes, long stretches of moving with no dialogue, and people being terrified and aiming poorly and making mistakes exactly as they would in this type of crisis. I enjoyed this aspect the most, as it makes even a single zombie a seemingly unstoppable force, and it provides serious cathartic energy when the survivors get their thing together and achieve a victory. It also grounds the story nicely, as it’s quite believable. On the negative side, this is all you get; there’s very little going on character wise to make you care about any of these people, and they don’t dig very deep for the kind of ethical dilemmas that make apocalyptic fiction so interesting.

Overall, BLACK SUMMER was a fun watch for me, and I’d happily recommend it to zombie fans. Nothing super memorable, but definitely tense, engaging, and realistic.