Tag Archive for 'gore'

Book Review: Knuckle Supper by Drew Stepek

Knuckle Supper opens on a scene where a pair of drug-dealing Los Angeles vampires are killing a pimp in their house. They lock his twelve year old prostitute in the bathroom and kill him with an massive overdose of heroin. Then they pull his arms off, snap one finger off of each, and drink the blood from the pimp’s arms via the knuckle, in a way that I imagine might be like drinking from a bong – or something. The heroin in the veins of the now-dead pimp gets them high. During the entire scene, the vampires squabble like a stereotypical pair of junkies (a la Sid and Nancy). It is mentioned that this vampire drug-running gang call themselves “Knucklers” after this method of getting high. Later the head vampire, RJ, decides to take the young prostitute under his wing, and chaos erupts. Or maybe I should say that more chaos erupts.

Obviously, this is just a summary of the first few pages of the book, but to cut to the chase, if what I just described to you sounds interesting, then you might want to check out Knuckle Supper. Knuckle Supper by Drew Stepek is what I like to call a “shit sandwich.” Don’t get me wrong – saying that something is a shit sandwich isn’t in and of itself a bad thing. There are any number of great pieces of literature that are shit sandwiches. Take The Bungler by Patricia Highsmith for example, or basically all of the good output of James M. Cain or Jim Thompson. Shit sandwiches are books where shitty people do shitty things to other shitty people (and themselves) and eventually things turn out more shitty or less shitty, but usually more shitty. These novels very often include drug use and/or dysfunctional love affairs. Not to get all literate on everybody, but I classify The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles as the big daddy shit sandwich of all time, at least in book form. That was one big stinky, bad-tasting crap-fest camouflaged as a falafel sandwich or something.

I’m trying to come up with some shit sandwiches in the horror genre. The best I can do right now is The Cipher by Kathe Koja and Peter Straub’s If You Could See Me Now. These are both amazing books.

At best, shit sandwiches make us care about the people in them and maybe shine a light on what it means to be human. The main peril of a shit sandwich is that the reader can get alienated, annoyed, or decide that they simply don’t care about the shitty people or what shit happens to them, and the shit they are doing. I think that this ends up being one of the biggest problems with Knuckle Supper. By the end, I had stopped caring about all of the shitty people in it.

If I had to describe this book by comparing it to some others, I would say “Imagine The Basketball Diaries meets Sid and Nancy but with homicidal drug-dealing post-punk vampires in LA.” Indeed, like the first, there are drug-motivated capers that end badly. Like the second, there is a lot of drug-motivated squabbling that can be amusing. There is some humor. There is a lot of graphic violence. Even more potty humor. Some annoying people get offed. Our protagonists swirl down the drain in a spiral of bad decisions, compulsive behavior, and self-sabotage. There are many sub-plots:

Our hero, RJ, happens upon a large bag of heroin while killing some crooked cops and decides to deal it himself instead of turning it over to the kingpin vampire of LA.
RJ decides to take in the young prostitute with the idea that he is going to rescue her.
Although he didn’t really go looking for it, RJ finds out where came from.
RJ and another head vampire are forced by a band of rogue Catholic priests to kill a band of transvestite prostitute vampires.

Here is where I run down what kind of vampires we’re talking about here:

Good Looking: No
Superhuman strength: Yes
Changeling: No
Sparkles: No
Erotic neck biting: No
Drink blood: Yes
Can turn victims into more vampires: No
Must be killed by decapitation or stake through the heart: Yes
Reflection in mirrors: Yes
Scared of crosses and/or garlic: No
Burn in sunlight: Yes
Goth nightclub visit: Yes

Ah! I love classifying vampires. Regular readers will note that there is no weird eroticism in this book and will know that I am always disappointed when this is the case. Sigh. A vampire without the sexy might as well be a giant mosquito. I mean really!

By now you’re all like “OK OK already. Did you like it?” I kind of did and kind of didn’t. It was different. Let us see the numbers, shall we?

Creepy Factor: 2 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 2 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: -1 out of 5 (yes: repulsive)
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 4 out of 5

Final result: It’s complicated. I thought Knuckle Supper was one of the most purposefully offensive books I’ve read recently, and after a while a monster gets tired of it, and the shit all gets kind of meaningless. There were some good things. There were some annoying things. Some of the violent stuff didn’t make sense, like sometimes it didn’t seem physically possible. Like for example draining the blood from a severed arm through a finger knuckle. Like I said above, it was different. I think a lot of people will be glad to be reading vampire fiction where the vampires are actually monstrous. Different tends to be good, but I was left feeling only lukewarm about the book.

Knuckle Supper by Drew Stepek – Alphar Publishing – 2010
Order KNUCKLE SUPPER today on Amazon.

Posted November 28, 2010 at 10:14 pm in Book Reviews with Tags: 2010, dystopian, gore, guro, psychopaths, secret societies, teenagers, ultraviolence, vampires. See 1 Comment

Zombie Attack Southern Gothic: The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell

The Reapers are the Angels is a dark book about the end of the world, horrible awfulness, and shitty consequences. Have you heard the Nick Cave song titled The Carny? “No one saw the carny go.” Says the first line. It’s kind of about a murdered horse named Sorrow but kind of not. If you haven’t heard that song, but you’re reading this blog, then you’ve probably seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The original. You’ve seen that, right? There’s the scene where the hitchhiker cuts himself. Remember that? Have you read Savage Night by Jim Thompson? If you haven’t done any of these, then your assignment is to stop reading this NOW until you’ve done at least one. I’ll make it easy. Here’s a link to the The Carny on YouTube. These three are examples of dark, awful, shitty, horrific, rotten, base things that a mind might pick at occasionally, but that are probably best left alone. They contain equal parts cruel absurdity and rude meaningfulness.

When I first started The Reapers are the Angels, I groaned inwardly because at first glance the book seemed to be about Buffy the Vampire Slayer except that, instead of vampires, the world is populated with zombies. The protagonist is named Temple, and she is fifteen years old. You discover pretty early in the book that she is an unusually tough fifteen year old, considering that she can decapitate zombies or split their skulls with one stroke of a knife. To me, this ended up requiring a bit more disbelief than I could suspend, but I ended up getting used to the idea. The book is pretty violent, and as you probably expect from a zombie story, is unapologetically gory.

The setting is post-zombie-apocalypse Southern United States. The writing style is informal and has something of a Southern Gothic affectation. So you might think that you’re reading about Br’er Rabbit, or maybe some Flannery O’Connor. This is the second book I’ve read recently where the author has a very pronounced writing style. I liked that about this book. It’s got a flavor. It’s a brave book in that Bell has taken a lot of risks.

People should probably give this book a read, so I’m going to do my best to write about it without big spoilers. We find Temple on a deserted island in Florida. The Earth has been overrun by zombies. Seeing as how there are different kinds of zombies and different zombie infection scenarios, I’ll lay out the basics of zombies in The Reapers:

The dead rise and walk as long as they haven’t rotted completely away.
The zombies are the slow variety.
Killing zombies requires injuring their brains.
Zombies are hungry for humans, and thus like to bite them.
People who are bitten by zombies become zombies soon thereafter.
The zombie apocalypse in question started twenty five years before the start of the book.
Civilization as we know it ended under the assault and now the world is crawling with zombies.
Mankind has been reduced to huddling in heavily-guarded compounds, except for some few who roam and can defend themselves.
The most fun way to kill zombies is with a portable nail gun.

Temple grew up after the apocalypse and knows no other world. She never knew her parents (orphan alert!) and was raised and taught how to fight zombies by someone who wasn’t her uncle. She is haunted by the memory of someone who may or may not have been her brother, and who she doesn’t want to talk or think about. Temple is a wanderer. Not really knowing where she is going, she runs from a man who has sworn to kill her, and decides to deliver a developmentally challenged man to his family in Texas. Along the way, she makes some friends and some enemies, kills some zombies, and opens a can of whoop-ass on a pack of mutants who inject themselves with zombie pituitary distillate. That last part was a lot like a video game.

I know that I keep talking about Nick Cave, but those of you who might have read his novel And the Ass Saw the Angel will notice some similarities between the two:

Both books are titled after passages in the Bible.
Both are written in Southern Gothic style.
The meat and potatoes of both books are the small miracles and black blunderings of an accursed life.
At worst, both books get mired in the heavy molasses of their own seriousness.
At best, both books are garish, morbid, dark, mysterious, and emotionally gripping.

Let’s see those numbers:

Creepy Factor: 4 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 2 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 4 out of 5

Final result: In The Reapers are the Angels, Alden Bell manages to pull off an ambitious novel. My one main complaint was that I would have found it more believable if Temple had been in her twenties. I’m not kidding around when I say that two chapters in, I was sure that I was going to hate it. But in the end, I thought it was a good book. The Reapers has a compelling and suspenseful plot, emotional depth, plenty of creepy terror, some graphic gore, horrific apocalyptic tableaux, and a girl who had to grow up much too fast.

The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell – Holt Paperbacks – 2010

Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews, and thanks to Henry Holt and Co. for the review copy. See you next time!

Posted September 9, 2010 at 5:15 pm in Book Reviews with Tags: 2010, apocalypse, childhood, creepy, dystopian, gore, horror, Orphan, psychopaths, Southern Gothic, teenagers, ultraviolence, zombies. See 0 Comments

Book Review: Supernatural – Heart of the Dragon by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Today I’m going to review the book Supernatural: Heart of the Dragon by Keith R.A. DeCandido (a.k.a. Krad). But first, this book got me to thinking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Can I tell you what’s hot? This is kind of old news, but remember how Alyson Hannigan’s character would get all evil and her eyes would turn black? Dark Willow was HOT! I’m not talking about when Willow got all vampire faced with spikey teeth and stuff. That was kind of intimidating. No I’m talking about when she would get all dark and had veins on her face and she was all ready to destroy the world. That was hot.

* * *

I don’t know about anybody else, but this makes me want to shout. “Give it to me, baby. I want to feel it! Yeah!” Besides hot dark Willow, the best thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the mythos. And the worst thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the mythos. There was all this back story about Buffy being the “chosen one” and how somebody else was actually an angel and then there was this demon lady and of course there were vampires and the whole worldwide anti-occult conspiracy thing and all that other stuff. That was a lot of stuff. I could never keep track of it all. But who needed to?

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, TV shows and mythos… and this book, which is based on a TV show that would appear have quite the mythos: Supernatural. I’ve never seen the TV show. Apparently, it follows the adventures of the Winchester brothers, who are two guys that hunt monsters and demons. From what I’ve gleaned about the show, it’s kind of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer in that there are a lot of implausible things going on, and a lot of people fighting supernatural beings with shotguns, magical swords and bows and arrows and stuff. The Winchester brothers come from two generations of “hunters,” as they call themselves. The book follows the adventures of all three generations of hunters as they fight a particular Japanese menace through the ages.

The Japanese menace in question is known as the “Heart of the Dragon” and is a fiery samurai ghost who is summoned by a gangster to do his dirty work. In the book, the first two generations of hunters fight the samurai ghost, but only manage to banish him temporarily. Will the Winchester brothers be able to defeat him? The book fits into the overall storyline of the TV show in that some higher stakes are involved. While the ghost is controlled by a gangster, it was created by a demon to be a tool for evil during the coming apocalypse. So while the Winchester brothers fight the ghost and the gangster, demons and angels are fighting over who will ultimately control the vengeful flaming samurai ghost, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

The book is a fast read and a page-turner. The writing is clear and gets out of the way of the story. At the same time, it basically is a novelization of a TV show, which cuts both ways. Because there is a back story and mythos that needs to be tended to, one gets the idea that a basic story outline was created, and then a laundry list of necessary mythos points was added to the outline, and then the author filled in the details. In other words, the writing ends up seeming a little bit mechanical. Particularly near the end, where there is a battle between some angels and demons that really doesn’t fit into the plot of the book and was obviously thrown in to make the book tie into the TV series.

Which is part of why I think that people who like the TV show will like this book. It ties into the mythos, and even includes a note for which TV episode it fits in after. Also, it has action, mystery, fights with vampires, some weird gore, San Francisco Chinatown intrigue, and people posing as CIA agents to get into morgues. I also think fans of Buffy would like it. Did I mention that DeCandido has written some Buffy books?

There are some annoying things about this book. Number one: I don’t want to spend too much time on this, but I feel compelled to mention that the term “half breed” is often considered offensive, and the author used it in ways that I thought were careless and/or clueless, considering everything. Number two: It does happen that the Japanese have their own word for dragon, and it’s not “doragon,” which is how they might spell the English word in Katakana. Number three: Since this is partly a travel book, I wished that DeCandido had filled in some details of Chinatown. I ended up imagining the action happening on a blank sound stage.

After that it’s just quibbles. Somebody gets shot in the knee when they should have been shot in the face. Somebody else spouts an overused R.E.M. lyric. There is no dark Willow. I ended up being entertained by the book, but didn’t love it. It sets out to entertain the reader and it gets the job done with a minimum of muss and fuss. I liked how a lot of the action was set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where I lived for a number years. Let’s see the scores.

Creepy Factor: 2.5 out of 5 (mostly for a Picture of Dorian Gray type scene that happens at the end.)
Suspense Factor: 2 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5 (Yes, dear reader, zero.)
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 1 out of 5

It’s my opinion that fans of the TV show will enjoy this book. As I said, it’s a fast read and a page-turner. I just think it’s a little flat and seems a lot like an episode of a TV show, which makes sense, I guess. That may or may not be a bad thing, depending on what you’re looking for as a reader. I would also repeat that fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer might be interested.

Supernatural: Heart of the Dragon by Keith R.A. DeCandido – 2010 – Titan Books
Buy Supernatural: Heart of the Dragon at Amazon

Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy of this book. See you next time!

Posted March 18, 2010 at 11:29 pm in Book Reviews with Tags: 2010, dragons, gangsters, ghosts, gore, Japanese Monsters, monsters, vampire hunters, vampires. See 1 Comment

Book Review: Blood Water by Dean Vincent Carter

Influenza is a mainstream type of monster and has lately eschewed the supernatural. The flu invades bodies and kills the very young, the very old, the infirm, (and sometimes the perfectly healthy), and spends a lot of time in the limelight. Influenza drinks a lot of margaritas while sitting around the pool and has forgotten all its old friends. In fact, it’s safe to say that the flu threw out its little black book long ago. Not that I’m harboring any grudges. Of course there is competition, like flesh-eating bacteria and deadly e-coli, but really when you catch the flu, it’s on top of the world.

Have you ever wondered if the flu does other things than just make you feel bad? What if it could change your personality? What if it could take control of your body?

In Blood Water, a supernatural horror thriller aimed at the young adult set, Dean Vincent Carter asks some of these questions and comes up with horrifying answers. A scientist discovers a leech-like creature in a cave pool. When introduced to other animals, it enters their bodies and takes over, making them do horrible things. It also slowly brings about their deaths in a way that resembles the horrifying ends of people who die of the flu (breaking out in sores, suffering from massive infections that lay waste to the internal organs, and eventually ending in what is known by the medical community as “bleeding out”). Did I mention that it is also homicidal? And as these things tend to go in supernatural horror thrillers, the creature escapes and wreaks havoc in a school during a flood.

I think Carter has tapped into our collective terror about the flu and given it a supernatural twist. Take two parts Hot Zone, one part 28 Weeks Later, and mix with a hearty dose of best-selling horror thriller author Dean R. Koontz, and you’ll get a book like Blood Water.

My one nagging disappointment is that I think the author didn’t use the flood situation to its fullest. Here you have a deadly black leech-like creature that can swim, and you have a school full of unsuspecting students in knee-deep water, and to me that sounds like some fertile ground for a nightmare. Instead the monster spends most of its time jumping from host to host. Don’t get me wrong — that was plenty scary — but I think that would have been interesting.

The book is suspenseful, fast moving, well-written, and in places, quite terrifying. I mentioned in my Weekly Geeks introduction of this book that it was gory, and several people had reactions to that. Jackie at Farm Lane Books wondered if it had a good story-line as opposed to being all about the gore. (Yes. Good story-line. Not so much gore.) anothercookiecrumbles wondered if this book would be a good introduction to the genre. (Yes. If you’re curious about supernatural horror thrillers for young adults, this would be a great book.) Jacqueline C. wondered about Dean R. Koontz. (In a nutshell, he wrote really terrifying thrillers which sometimes had a lightly supernatural element but which usually could happen in real life. My favorite is Phantoms, which is a book about a town whose population is mysteriously disappearing in a terrifying manner.) Jackie at Literary Escapism worried (as many parents probably do) about the gore in this book and exposing her young adult kids to it. To answer her question: although it’s pretty graphic and nasty, the gore in the book is not gratuitous and there isn’t tons of it. I personally was reading far worse at a young age and look how I turned out. Ah HA! HAHAHAHAHA!

Creepy Factor: 4 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 4 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5 (darn it.)
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 1 out of 5

Final result: Although I think most adults would find the broth a bit thin, I have to recommend Blood Water for young adult readers. Other reviewers have mentioned that in a time of incompetent vampire teenagers, geeky magician teenagers, and obnoxious time-traveling teenagers, this fast-paced thriller stands out from the pack.

Blood Water by Dean Vincent Carter – Corgi Books – 2009

Blood Water on Amazon

Thanks to the folks at Random House for sending me a copy of this book! (See my disclosure policy.) Thanks to you for reading another one of my book reviews. Hopefully next time I review a nice juicy horror novel with loads of Weird Erotic Tension. I’m working on it! See you next time!

P.S. This review was part of a Weekly Geeks assignment.

Posted June 17, 2009 at 10:34 pm in Book Reviews with Tags: childhood, gore, horror, monsters, thriller, young adult. See 1 Comment

Weekly Geeks – Catching Up on Reviews

I haven’t done a Weekly Geek post in a long time, and am excited to be participating this week. Here are the steps for this week’s assignment:

1. In your blog, list any books you’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet.

2. Ask your readers to ask you questions about any of the books they want. In your comments, not in their blogs.

3. Later, take whichever questions you like from your comments and use them in a post about each book. Link to each blogger next to that blogger’s question(s).

4. Visit other Weekly Geeks and ask them some questions!

My first book I just finished this morning. The book is Blood Water by Dean Vincent Carter and was sent to me by the wonderful people at Random House. It’s kind of a young adult horror thriller in the style of Dean R. Koontz (think Phantoms) but with outstanding gore.

I also keep meaning to write a review of Edward Gorey’s masterpiece The Glorious Nosebleed. I’m actually a little confused about what I’m going to write about it, so I’m hoping that people will come up with some good questions.

I can’t wait to get everyone’s questions!

Update:

Here is the resulting review of Blood Water by Dean Vincent Carter.
Here is the resulting review of Edward Gorey’s The Glorious Nosebleed.

Posted June 14, 2009 at 10:55 am in Memes with Tags: gore, horror, monsters, teenagers, Weekly Geeks. See 6 Comments

Tag Archive for 'gore'

Book Review: Knuckle Supper by Drew Stepek

Zombie Attack Southern Gothic: The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell

Book Review: Supernatural – Heart of the Dragon by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Book Review: Blood Water by Dean Vincent Carter

Weekly Geeks – Catching Up on Reviews

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