Lilith by Toby Tate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hunter Singleton and his wife Lisa are media guests on the USS Gerald Ford, one of the newest and biggest ships of the U.S. Navy. While on board, a hurricane forms quickly and is heading straight for New York City, and the Ford is ordered to go there immediately for aide and assistance.

This is where things start to go wrong. Men and woman, both the media guests and those in service, are not acting they're normal selves and it seems that someone is out to sabotage not only the USS Ford, but the entire mission.

This sweeps Hunter and Lisa along with members of the Ford's crew into a battle against a creature that is out to overtake humanity and rule the world.

While my description is poor and makes the book sound like it has a cookie-cutter plot, I can assure you that it does not. What fascinated me about Lilith was the creature-features, so to speak, along with the storm and its after-affects upon a large city.

What you have with Lilith is an adventure that doesn't require too much thought. Although meticulously researched, this book doesn't require much from the reader. Just plug in and enjoy the ride. Lilith is simply a hell of a fun story with great characters and, as I mentioned, an awesome monster. Reminded me a bit of Harry Shannon mixed with a little Clancy. Recommended!

View all my reviews

The Rain Dancers by Greg F. Gifune

The Rain Dancers by Greg F. Gifune
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Rain Dancers was a pleasant surprise. I have heard of Gifune's writing from the Goodreads group Horror Aficionados for some time now, but never really took the plunge. Recently, I joined the DarkFuse book club, and this is one of the novellas that I got for free for joining.

Getting the novella for free wasn't the pleasant surprise, though that was pleasant enough. No, what grounded me and got my head spinning was the great characterization and dialogue within this short, intense masterpiece.

Will and Betty return to Betty's hometown a year after her father's death to clean out his house and put it up for sale. On their first night a terrible rainstorm hits, and with it comes Bob Laurent. Bob claims that he's an old friend of Betty's father who moved away when Betty was only a teenager. He says they were so close that Betty used to call him "Uncle Bob." This appears to be true, because he knows an awful lot about Betty and her family.

The only problem is, Betty doesn't remember Bob Laurent. As the night, and Bob's visit, wears on, Betty slowly begins to remember Laurent. More importantly, she remembers what he is.

The Rain Dancers is tense from beginning until the end and I had a lot of fun reading it. It read very well as a novella, but I could see it being adapted as a play and/or a movie as well. A very engaging story and highly recommended.


View all my reviews

The Mourning House by Ronald Malfi

The Mourning House by Ronald Malfi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first book I've read in 2013, and talk about starting the year with a bang! Sam Hatch has just suffered a serious tragedy and has found himself wandering the country. He finally stumbles upon a house in a small town and immediately buys it. He's not sure why the house speaks to him so much, but the residents of the small town all think that the it's haunted.

And maybe it is.

Because Sam begins to hear noises in it late at night, and when he goes searching for the sources, digging through the floorboards and plaster, he finds relics and items from his old, dead life.

What I enjoyed most about this story is that it reminded me a lot of classic weird/horror fiction by the likes of M. R. James and maybe Arthur Machen. It's a short and fun read filled with real characters, great dialogue, and a creepy atmosphere. Recommended!

View all my reviews

The Hoard by Alan Ryker

The Hoard by Alan Ryker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Alan Ryker is a completely new writer to me. I joined the DarkFuse book club recently and was introduced to his work at the club's forum. And I'm glad that I was because his novella, The Hoard, is something completely original wrapped up in a wonderfully told tale.

The Hoard is about Anna, an elderly hoarder who's found herself in trouble with Adult Protective Services. Her son and his family are neighbors and, although they all know that there's something wrong with Anna and the inside of her home, no one wants to be the one to enter her house. Or worse, confront her about it.

When Anna is finally forced to leave her home and live with her son, they all can't help but notice that there's something wrong with her. Something seriously wrong. What nobody knows just yet is that there's a new type of parasite dwelling within the dirt and mounds of garbage, and maybe even Anna herself.

The character's in The Hoard are all very well realized and they are one thing that makes this book shine. The characters, in fact, begin to feel like your own family and friends.

Another thing that makes the story shine is the personal and dramatic look into a family suffering from mental illness and severe hoarding obsessions. Without these two elements, this could have very well been nothing but another zombie-like story. The Hoard is nothing like another zombie-like story at all.

I highly recommend The Hoard if not for it's originality and fresh story telling, but for the people who populate it. Give it a try and I'll doubt you'll be disappointed.

View all my reviews

When We Join Jesus In Hell by Lee Thompson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When We Join Jesus In Hell is an emotional punch to the stomach with a couple of knees to the face for good measure. The word 'Hell' is mentioned in the book's description a few times, and I like to think that that is exactly what this novella is. A sudden decent into grief, rage, vengeance, and then, finally, Hell.

I don't want to go into the plot because it moves quickly and there are a few surprises along the way that will ruin it if I even begin with the set up. One thing I can tell you, however, is that the characters breath with life, the atmosphere is thick, and the prose is lyrical and full of symbolism. It's really quite a startling read that will draw you into its grim, darkly painted world.

Once there, it will no let you go. When We Join Jesus In Hell will haunt you long after you've read it. I finished it almost a month before writing this review, and I still think about it. Highly recommended.

View all my reviews

The Hungry 2: The Wrath of God by Harry Shannon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I was a kid, I loved movies like Aliens and Predator. A big reason for this was the awesome monsters that the military heroes had to kill. Another big reason was the character of the heroes themselves. At that time in my life, I had dreams of joining the military so I could go on similar adventures, albeit without the monsters, because in these movies along with some books I was reading, the heroic military men and woman were a lot like the monsters: bigger than life and stronger than any mortal man. Even when and if they died.

The beginning to Steven Booth’s and Harry Shannon’s sequel to the great The Hungry made me reminisce of those older movies and the emotions they summoned within my impressionable and young heart. In Wrath of God we first meet Rat and her team of military mercenaries who are on their way to Nevada for a mission with an odd catch. There are zombies in the desert, and their mission is of the upmost importance.

When we rejoin Penny Miller and crew, they are held up in a Las Vegas hotel by the military. General Gifford, however, has other plans for them. He offers the crew a deal that will see them out of Las Vegas with a crap load of money. All they have to do is join up with the mercenaries and return to the scene of the crime from the climax of the first book to retrieve some data.

Sounds easy, right? Penny doesn’t think so. In fact, she thinks that the deal stinks, and what follows is a one crazy and fun and entertaining moment after another.

What I liked most about Wrath of God is the fun factor. I would even go so far as to say that this volume is even more fun than the first. The characters remain true to themselves as they did in the first, and the new characters, mainly Rat, another hard-edged, ass-kicking female protagonist, was a lot of fun to read. Yet, some of the mercenary’s felt a little flat to me, reminding me of hulk-like men, doing what their told while grunting their displeasure and scratching at their privates.

There were also a few scenes at the end that just didn’t seem very realistic to me, but with that said, I am reminded of Sigourney Weaver hanging from one arm in a decompression airlock opened to the big black abyss of space. Large metal crates whip quickly by her head from the vacuum, and yet Sigourney’s harm does not tear off at the shoulder. I also remember Arnold Swartzaneggar stumbling out of the remnants of an explosion equal to that of a nuclear bomb with nothing more than a limp. Sure, his mind was completely gone, but he was relatively unharmed. Right?

It’s these things that made these heroes larger than life and worth every inch of my childhood admiration. And I would argue that it’s the same with the heroes in The Wrath of God. They’re as tough as metal, and one would want to double check their sanity in messing with them.

Oh yeah, and there’s lots of Zombies.

How could you possibly want more?




View all my reviews

The Haunted by Bentley Little

The Haunted by Bentley Little
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Despite its bleakness, Bentley Little's newest, The Haunted, was a lot of fun to read. Although Little is known for his sense of humor, I warn you to not look for that here. This is a book that is dark, bleak, and full of despair as the Perry family loses control of their average, every day lives.

The story is about an innocent family haunted by their new house, but it reminded me of self-abuse spinning out of control, the unknown anger and angst of adolescence, the fear and desperation of a child stuck in a family haunted by its past and current abuses. And this is without any of those subjects taking center stage.

We start off with the Perry family looking to move out of what they feel is becoming a bad neighborhood. Had they known what they were in for, perhaps they would have stayed and put up with the bully kids, the ones who use the Perry family's driveway for skate board practice without permission. Now that they have moved, however, they're trapped in debt and stuck with a ghost, or maybe it's some other entity, that's physically abusive and life threatening.

This book is about the love and hate of a family (that innocent family with the average lives I mentioned earlier), invaded by unknown forces. It's a book about what's not in your control, and how what's good and average can turn to bad and abnormal at any time.

As this is a haunted house book, there's nothing really new here. Yet, the haunted house book has been written regularly for close to two hundred years now, so what are looking for? Something groundbreaking?

I don't think so.

Give The Haunted a try. Its got some real creepy moments that's excluded from a lot of other horror novels. I highly recommend it.


View all my reviews