Book Review: The Serpent's Shadow by Daniel Braum

I've been away from this blog for a long time, especially when it comes to reviews, which I've had little to no time for unfortunately. However, when the (hopefully one day) legendary Daniel Braum sends you his new book to review, and it's released by Cemetery Dance, you make exceptions. Because you know you're in for a treat.

Before The Serpent's Shadow, Braum has proven himself to be a master of dark magical realism in the short story form. I'm always disappointed when certain writers are only masters of this particular form, and the novels they release end up being a tad lackluster. Though this tale is more of a novella than a novel, it's longer than Braum's other work, and the point I'm trying to make is that he is still able to pull of the vibe he's become known for, yet he manages to concoct a few surprises along the way. 

Set in Cancun in the mid-80s (those familiar with Braum's work will certainly not be surprised by the setting), a young, naive, inexperienced American named David is on vacation with his family. He meets a young woman named Anne Marie at a club, and as their relationship grows, so does the mythology of the story, which relies heavily on Mayan culture (whether the impetus for this story is based on actual mythology or is a creation of Braum's, I am unsure and too lazy to look up). Pyramids are explored, visions are had, and a dreaded killer known as the White Lady stalks the land. You know me...I don't discuss plot much in these reviews, and that's really all you need to know before diving in. Whether you're diving into the clearest water at one of Cancun's beaches or something far murkier, Braum is reticent to share. Which is a good thing. I always appreciate a little ambiguity in fiction.

One of the major pluses of Braum being allowed to spread his literary wings a little more in these 100+ pages is that the character development is much deeper than could be managed in a shorter story. Braum has always managed this better than most lesser writers in his shorts, but the characters in The Serpent's Shadow are given plenty of breathing room, and with David telling the story in first person, we are really able to get inside his head.

The greatest surprise of this book is that, at times, it is a smidge more violent than what I'm used to from Braum (especially the climax of the story). It never goes overboard, as that would be a major tonal shift from the rest of the book, but it still shocks when it occurs. Though much of Braum's work walks a fine line between magical realism and horror, it is in these moments that the latter prevails.

There's a lot to love about this book thematically, and I've got plenty of thoughts about that element of the book, but this isn't a literature class, so I'm going to let you read this and make up your own mind as to what those themes are (I believe there are more than a few). Your assignment is to write a paper exploring these themes and turn it in to me later.

If you think magical realism begins and ends with South American authors such as Márqez and Borges, think again. Try a little taste of Braum's interpretation of this genre, and you won't be disappointed.

Reading/Signing for Sexy Leper ay Mysterious Galaxy April 6th 2PM

Hey, if you're in San Diego, please come to my event for my new novel Sexy Leper, coming up in a few weeks! I'll be reading an excerpt from the book, there will be a Q & A, and a signing after.

Mysterious Galaxy 

5943 Balboa Ave #100

San Diego, CA 92111

Sexy Leper Available for Pre-Order

Hello all. My second novel, Sexy Leper, is available for pre-order from Bizarro Pulp PRess/JournalStone. It's a wild one.

You can check it out here:

http://journalstone.com/bookstore/sexy-leper/

Book Review: Night's Harbor by W.J. Renehan

Sometimes I forget how enjoyable straight-up old-school horror can be. You know, the stuff I grew up on? When it’s done well, as is the case with W.J. Renehan’s novella Night’s Harbor, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

At first I was a little worried since this is a vampire story, and we certainly don’t need any more romantic fang-whores littering up our literary world. No thank you. Luckily, Renehan has opted for vamps of the vicious variety. I mean, no joke, these bastards are fugly inside and out, and they do some extremely nasty things to some of the characters that even shocked me a little. Yup, Renehan is not afraid to go to some dark, dark places many authors will not explore, which I can appreciate. I mean, this is horror, right? Not a happy-go-lucky skip through Candyland while holding hands with Santa Claus.

The setup to this story is very basic. Vamps taking over a town, slaughtering or turning its denizens one by one, seeking something that could allow them to essentially take over the world, and the town (most notably a former sheriff and an old vampire hunter) must fight to protect humanity, both their own and as a whole. What makes this novel work well and stand out is Renehan’s superior command of prose. Not only is it very tight, but he allows enough flourishes of language to solidifies him as a solid all-around writer.

If I were to complain about anything, it’s that I wish this were a novel rather than a novella, mostly because I would have liked a little more breathing room to further develop some of the minor characters. The main players are developed well, considering the space constraints, but I would have loved a few more chapters with some of the other characters, specifically those who fall victim to the vampires and have some seriously horrible fates. It would have made the already strong impact even stronger.

All in all, I was impressed and look forward to reading more of Renehan’s work, especially when I get the hankering for a primo modern take on classic horror.

Living Writers Series Reading at SDSU

I'm very excited to announce I've been invited to appear as part of the SDSU Living Writers series this semester. I'll be reading from Secrets of the Weird, and there will be copies of the book available for sale, as well as copies of the limited Civilized Cannibals tape (starting to run low on these tapes, and when they're gone they're gone). 

As a bonus, this event falls on the evening of my birthday! All the info is in the flyer. Come check it out if you can.

Bay Area Book Tour Coming Up!

Going to be in the Bay Area in a couple weeks for some Secrets of the Weird book tour events. Come out if you're in the area:

Saturday January 20th - QTY Treehouse 1684 7th Street Oakland 3pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/247685545770839/

Sunday January 21st - Borderlands Books 866 Valencia Street San Francisco 3pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/214188619126161/

Book Review: Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay

After 2015’s brilliant A Head Full of Ghosts, Paul Tremblay quickly became an author I had to continue following. Though his next book sat in my to-be-read pile a bit longer than I’d hoped, I finally got around to reading it.

A teenage boy named Tommy Sanderson mysteriously disappears. The world his family and friends live in slowly crumbles. Various twists and turns appear, which I shall not begin to describe because I prefer to keep this a spoiler-free zone, so that’s all you’re going to get regarding the plot. Deal with it.

I noticed some people claiming Disappearance at Devil’s Rock was a bit of a disappointment after Tremblay’s last book, and though it does not reach its predecessor’s greatness, it is far from disappointing. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. Tremblay’s main strengths are characters and language, two things that are immensely important to me both as a reader and a writer, and he beautifully weaves these elements into this story that I can’t help but love it. His characterizations of the children in this book are especially effective, successfully nailing realistic portrayals of young boys on the cusp of puberty and how quickly their innocence can go astray. He also deeply carves into the headspace of Tommy’s mother Elizabeth and his younger sister Kate, creating a strong emotional core. The sense of loss in this book is raw and exposed. And, God, so many sentences and turns of phrase that color me green.

A few loose ends throughout are likely the cause of some readers’ complaints, but I’ll defend this approach if I have to go down swinging. It adds an element of realism to a piece fiction that may or may not involve supernatural elements. And the less things are explained, the scarier they are, at least as far as I’m concerned. This is not to say that nothing in this book comes with an explanation, so don’t expect to be left completely in the dark. But you also shouldn’t expect to have everything wrapped up in a neat little gift box with a pretty little bow. Thank you, Tremblay, for taking this approach. It was a gift in its own way.

If your tastes in dark fiction lean more toward the literary, you really should be reading Paul Tremblay. I’d still recommend starting with A Head Full of Ghosts, but once you’re hooked on his work after that gem you should give Disappearance at Devil’s Rock a try. It’s a keeper.

Reading This Saturday

If anyone lives in or near Vista or just wants to make the trek to Standards Record Store, I'm doing a reading there this Saturday at 7pm. 216 E Broadway Vista, CA

Pick up a copy of Secrets of the Weird, the limited Civilized Cannibals tape, and buy some sick records from one of the best shops in San Diego County. See ya there!

Secrets of the Weird Cover Reveal

It's been a bit since I've posted anything, but I've been a tad busy. However, I'm pleased to reveal the official cover art for my debut novel, Secrets of the Weird, which will be released by Grey Matter Press this July. More info to come, but in the meantime, here's a tease:

The fulfillment of your every desire...

That’s the enticing yet dangerous promise of Sweet Candy, the new designer drug making the rounds through the community of club kids, neo-Nazis, drag queens, prostitutes and punks who populate the mean streets of Sweetville.

With its chewable hearts and candied lips threatening to forever transform the delicate social balance and the very lives of each and every member of the city’s underground, Sweet Candy is poised to ignite the tenuous powder keg that is life, love and lust in Sweetville.

But could the enigmatic back-alley surgeon Julius Kast and his partnership with a peculiar cult be the spark that lights the fuse once and for all? And how will their actions affect the life of a young woman named Trixie who is seeking salvation through transformation?

Take a remarkable journey that’s equal parts irreverent social commentary, revisionist dystopia, dark fantasy and horrifying reality when you travel to the unforgettable world of Sweetville’s counterculture where a host of sometimes dangerous, often deviant and always dark secrets are waiting to be revealed.

Such secrets refuse to be confined to Sweetville.
But instead will come home to live with you.
Changing everything.
Forever…

Book Review: Stranded by Bracken MacLeod

There’s a very special sort of desperation that accompanies being left helpless in an arctic setting. I believe I first encountered this sensation as a young lad while watching Carpenter’s The Thing. In more recent years, it was the central focus of The Terror, the wonderfully oppressive odyssey by Dan Simmons (and the book I initially I thought I’d be comparing Stranded to, but ultimately the setting and the ship trapped in ice are the only real similarities between the two).

Noah Cabot, a deckhand on the Arctic Promise, is the central character of the story. Cabot has few friends on the ship, due to being indirectly responsible for a crewmate’s death. His father-in-law, the ship’s captain, despises him more than anyone else. It’s bad enough to be stuck working on a ship where 90% of the people loathe you, but it’s certainly far worse when that ship becomes trapped in pack ice with no sign of it coming loose. Once the “stranding” occurs, the real story begins. The entire crew, save Cabot, come down with an unknown illness, and all of them (including Cabot) are seeing things in the corners of their eyes, things they can’t quite register. Days pass. They can’t radio for help, but they see something off in the distance. They’re desperate. They have no choice but to head off to this unknown shape. What they find when they arrive is certainly not what they expect.

Overall, this is a really strong novel. Tightly written, with its main strength being the tension and extremely stressful action scenes. There were more than a few moments when I wanted to yell “Holy Shit” out loud, and one scene on the ice that left me breathless.

There’s a bit of an existential slant to this book (at least that’s how I took it), but to say anything more would be spoiling the major horrific reveals in the book. There’s some weight given to “what-ifs,” which I’m sure anyone who has ever been in the center of tragedy and bad decisions can relate to. It’s not what I was expecting, which is obviously a good thing. I’m glad it ended up being a completely different approach to attempted survival in an arctic hell than The Terror. Many of the blurbs claim it has a Twilight Zone feel, and I honestly can’t disagree. I can’t predict this for certain, but I’m pretty sure MacLeod’s book is at least going to make the final ballot for the Stoker Awards this year. And I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow at that occurrence.

Book Review: Punk Rock Ghost Story by David Agranoff

Almost since the inception of punk rock, various forms of fictional media have misrepresented the genre. Sure, there have been a few films, books, etc. over the last four decades that have gotten it right, but there are many, many more that miss the mark completely. Almost without fail, the fiction that gets it right succeeds because the creator is someone who actually has a stake in the game. Enter David Agranoff, a writer who is not shy about the fact that he’s been deep in the trenches of punk rock and hardcore for a very long time. Aside from a couple of rookie mistakes that I promise to give Agranoff a slap on the wrist for next time I see him, such as claiming Toxic Reasons were from Indiana when they were actually from Dayton, Ohio, and the strange phonetic misspelling of Die Kreuzen (I realize most people mistakenly pronounce this band’s name “Die Krusen,” but that’s no excuse!), the details and the vibe are authentic. Anyway…allow me to move away from the nitpicking and onto the story.

Punk Rock Ghost Story blends two eras together, the first in 1982, when hardcore punk was still raw and fresh and bands were attempting their best Lewis and Clark impressions across America, and the second in 2006, long after punk had gone through many different forms and become commercialized to a sickening degree (despite the best efforts of those committed to the hardcore underground). A young band from Bloomington, Indiana, named People’s Uprising, set to go on their first cross-country tour, purchases a van that once belonged to a semi-legendary local band from the early 80s called The Fuckers, whose vocalist vanished in the middle of their only tour and was never heard from again. Oh yeah—did I mention the tour van is now haunted? Because that definitely throws a major wrench in the gears of the People’s Uprising tour. Things eventually go very wrong, but you’ll have to read the book to find out the details.

Arguably the greatest strength of Punk Rock Ghost Story is Agranoff’s ability to zero in on the ups and downs of being in a small, virtually unknown band on tour (something I can speak about from experience). Sometimes being on the road is wonderful and humbling, while other times it’s possible to come close to the brink of despair. Every new town promises wonders, but many do not deliver. If I am to offer criticism on the book (aside from the many typos throughout that I promised myself I wouldn’t mention…oops), I will say that I wish there had been deeper insight into the lives of the members of People’s Uprising. I can relate to the fact that, at that age and at that level of involvement in the punk rock scene, it can consume most of your life. However, I would have liked a little more information about their individual lives outside of punk. We get a glimpse of this with some of the members of The Fuckers, which I appreciated, but I wanted more.

Agranoff’s pacing is brisk, the story is a fun ride, and I think every modern touring band should probably carry a copy of this book in their van and read it at their darkest moments, if only to remind themselves that things could always be a hell of a lot worse.