Uncovered! by Paul Jennings

There are quite a number of short story collections in the “Un-” series by Paul Jennings: Unreal!, Unbelievable!, Uncanny!, etc. After reading the first one, I could have picked another at random, but the title of one story in the volume Uncovered! caught my attention. It was called “Pubic Hare.” Recognising Jennings’s brand of slightly risque humour for kids, I plunged ahead.

Imagine my surprise when the first story, “For Ever,” turned out to be a deliberately humourless melancholic drama about a boy who’s terminally ill. I have no problem with being surprised, but the story was too sentimental for my taste. There are a couple more stories (of the ten in total) that are semi-serious. The rest are in keeping with Jenning’s usual brand of wacky comedy, covering such topics as seing ghosts, bed-wetting, growing pubic hair, and even eating a cat-turd!

My favourite was one of the more serious stories: a time-travel tale called “Backward Step.” The majority of the others I found a bit, well, lacking in imagination.

Jennings’s Wikipedia page shows that several of his “Un-” books have picked up multiple awards. I couldn’t help but notice that, in contrast, Uncovered! only picked up one single award. I haven’t read enough of Jennings’s books to make an objective comparison, but my suspicion is that this is one of his weaker efforts.

Blood Crazy by Simon Clark

There’s no shortage of stories where the population goes mad in one way or another, although to be fair, I’m reminiscing mainly about movies. George A. Romero’s The Crazies is the earliest one I remember, although you could argue that Night of the Living Dead and its many imitators is essentially the same idea, even if the antagonists do lumber about like arthritic pensioners. Invaders from Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers are also variations on the core theme, which is: everyone has changed; everyone is a threat; it’s survival of the few against against an uncountable enemy. And this happens to be one of my favourite themes.

Closest of all to Simon Clark’s Blood Crazy are the recent films 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. But where those two movies are essentially common tales of infection by bite, Clark injects a fascinating twist into the mix. We’re not dealing with a contagion at all. Whatever it is that’s making people go crazy, it’s only affecting those above ninteen years of age. All young people are safe. Safe from infection, that is. Not safe from their own parents. When the mysterious event happens, the first thing on the minds of every adult is to slaughter their own children and then move swiftly on to others’ kids.

What makes this idea especially interesting is not that it revolves around the taboo topic of violence against children, but that it presents an unusual and original survival scenario. Essentially, the young have no one to turn to for help but each other. Nor have they anyone hold them back from doing whatever they want to do. You are faced with the dual problem of not having the knowledge you need to survive, nor the discipline to behave sensibly. While many young people are a credit to their generation, there are always the few who despise authority and crave violence. And so, while the adults baying for blood, the young are indulging in sex, booze, power and cruelty. This is essentially Dawn of the Dead meets Lord of the Flies. And it makes for a high-octane page-turner of a novel.

In the past, I’ve criticised so-called horror masters James Herbert, Shaun Hutson and Richard Laymon. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve gone too far. Then I read a book like Blood Crazy and I realise I was right all along. Because now I’m reading the real deal. The story is constantly moving forward and taking the reader to somewhere new and exciting. Clark has a really snappy style that I love; I was in awe of his ability to describe events so perfectly with so few words.

I do have a couple of criticisms of the novel. The hero, Nick Aten, gets the girl at every turn. Wherever he winds up in the story, there always seems to be a pretty stranger who’s horny for him. It’s a bit unbelievable and it also conveyed some pretty poor ethics about promiscuity. Secondly, all the mystery about why the adults went insane is crushed in a single chapter where a stranger has conveniently worked everything out off-stage. And it’s not a very good explanation, at that: essentially a concoction of athiesm and new-age-sounding psychology that had the effect of alienating me as a reader with Christian convictions. Romero was onto something when he never offered a concrete explanation, in any of his films, for why the dead came back to life. Unless a writer has an imagination of astounding proportions, chances are that any explanation for something so bizarre as the dead coming back to life, or the adult population going crazy, is going to be less than inspiring.

Still, the novel survives me giving it a thumbs down on the grounds that for the majority of its pages it was a hell of a good read.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

I’m likely to give myself a headache trying to summarise this novel for you, partly because there’s a lot going on in it, and partly because I don’t fully understand it all. Think Blade Runner on steroids. Visually, the novel conjures similar imagery to the said Ridley Scott film, but there’s a lot more weird and wacky stuff going on. The principle character is Hiro Protagonist, who is an elite hacker, pizza delivery boy, and “the greatest sword-fighter in the world” (the last, I discovered, is not included in jest, which makes the story even weirder). Hiro’s side-kick is Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), a gutsy fifteen-year-old girl with attitude who who works as a kourier (typo intended). In this world, kouriers ride around on souped-up skateboards, making their deliveries by pooning (i.e. harpooning) passing vehicles in order to get from place to place.

In this strange future, there is another hidden world, called the metaverse. It’s basically a visual version of the internet, where users jack in and walk around with 3D virtual versions of themselves. (This kind of thing is already happening today, called Second Life, although the version in the novel is somewhat higher tech.) The worst thing that can happen to someone in the metaverse is that your character gets kicked out (for instance, if Hiro Protagonist should happen to lop off your arms with his virtual katana), and so you have to reboot your computer in order to get back in. Unfortunately, something bad happens to Hiro’s friend Da5id (heaven help the audiobook performer; I certainly have no idea how to pronounce that) in the metaverse. Da5id looks at a bitmap image marked “Snow Crash.” The image not only kicks him out of the metaverse, it send the real-life Da5id into a coma.

The weird thing about Snow Crash is that it only affects computer programmers, not regular folk. Hiro figures out that this is because programmers have opened up new pathways in their brains, having learned how to program. This makes them susceptible. Interesting idea. From here the story branches out into ideas about how language and thought are interrelated; parallels in ancient Sumerian religion; visual and linguistic viruses. The story gets complex, and I found that I was better off just letting it run rather than questioning the validity of some of the philosophical stuff. I simply adjusted to the fact that I was about 70% clued into what the story was about, and whatever went over my head I let go over my head.

I liked Snow Crash a lot in the beginning. I liked how funky it was. But by the time I got a third of the way through, I started wondering when some genuine characterisation and human drama were going to shine through. The answer is never. What became clear was that the characters are simply hip and cool automatons for this hip and cool world. Substance is crushed under style every time. Nevertheless, I kept going. On the religious side of the story, I was disappointed to hear the author tossing in a pointless tidbit denying the resurrection of Christ.

I persevered, because I had invested too much time and energy to quit. The only thing worse than a bad book is a bad book that you don’t realise is a bad book until you’re halfway through it. You never feel clued into why the characters are doing the things they’re doing; you never get any real sense of what’s at stake in the story until near the end.

When I read the author’s afterword, it clicked with me what was wrong with the storytelling style. Neal Stephenson explains that Snow Crash was originally developed as a graphic novel (one that never got finished due to it being a computer-generated graphic novel, back when computers weren’t quite up to such a monumental task). Certain kinds of stories suit a visual medium (movies or graphic novels), while certain kinds of stories suit words. If you doubt the validity of that, look at how many superhero movies and comics there are, compared to how few novels. Snow Crash may have worked better as a graphic novel. It was a bad decision to transcribe it to a different medium, and it shows.

On world-building, I’ll give Neal Stephenson a round of applause. Snow Crash presents a highly imaginative and detailed future world. On storytelling and characterisation, thumbs down.

An Exorcist Tells His Story by Gabriele Amorth

You could say that people belong in one of two categories: they either believe in God, or they don’t. But let me add a third category: those who say they believe in God, but get uncomfortable or embarrassed at the mention of anything remotely supernatural. These people require the Flood to be rendered as a myth or explained by meteorological means. Likewise with the fire that rained from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. To them the idea of demons as actual beings is preposterous. This third category is a wishy-washy form of Christianity that probably comes about as a result of pressure from the intellectual atheist majority, and as a vain attempt at keeping some degree of credibility in their eyes. The thing is, if a person believes in God, it is perfectly logical to grant God permission to bend or break the laws of the universe that he set in motion. And since we’ve already accepted the existence of a being who lives beyond what we can see and touch, it’s hardly inconceivable that there are other entities in existence outside our perception of what consistutes reality: angels and demons, for instance.

You can tell what group I belong to. I wrote the above paragraph because what this book is essentially trying to do is raise awareness of a crisis in the Church. This general lack of belief in the supernatural side of Christianity means that exorcisms are rarely performed today, despite the fact that the Bible clearly depicts Jesus and his disciples freeing demon-possessed people. It’s perhaps a little odd that I’m reading this book, since I’m a Protestant, and the book is written by a Roman Catholic priest. Well, I was interested in reading about demons, not for amusement, but because the Bible says so little about them. I was also curious to step into “enemy territory” and see if all the Protestant anti-Catholic propaganda is justified. It’s not. For the most part, I felt a kinship with the author; on most spiritual matters, we were on the same page. I was especially impressed with the opening chapter entitled “The Centrality of Christ,” although I remain completely baffled by the way that Catholics venerate Mary.

Contrary to such films as The Exorcist, real demons apparently do not talk much. It is, after all, to their advantage to remain undetected. Other topics, such as demon oppression, witchcraft, curses, etc., are also covered in the book. Amorth’s account of his experiences with demons are fascinating and believable by anyone who already accepts Christianity. And the stories are presented in a completely non-sensationalist manner. The book is written not for the titillation of the public, but as a wake-up call to fellow priests. Amorth maintains that there are many people out there who are needlessly suffering, people who have gone from doctor to doctor on a fruitless search for a physical cure to a spiritual ailment. The author is also careful not to downplay the arena of medicine, and he stresses the importance of being able to differentiate demon-possession from genuine mental disorders.

I realise that in reading this book, I’m stepping outside of the Bible - outside the one and only source for Christian belief. Well, Roman Catholic beliefs and practices are built upon two thousand years of tradition. Not so with us Protestants. We hang onto the Bible alone. So I’m not sure how much credence to grant this book. I can’t prove much in it. I can’t back it all up with Scripture references; all I can say is, it’s compatible with Scripture. My gut reaction is that this is an honest book written from the direct experience of a level-headed Christian. It should not be placed on bookshelves among all the hauntings and UFO accounts and other sensationalist “true” stories written for profit.

The Terminator: One Shot by James Robinson & Matt Wagner

Little did we know that while Arnold Schwarzenegger was wreaking havoc in the first Terminator movie, there was another Terminator on the loose in another part of town. This Terminator is a huge hulking woman, and her mission is just like Arnie’s: seek and destroy everyone called Sarah Conner. And although she’s unwittingly tracking the wrong Sarah, the story is still pretty interesting.

The Sarah Conner in this comic is cheating on her husband, Michael. She plans to have her new lover murder Michael so that she can inherit her husband’s wealth. But when the Terminator shows up with guns blasting, she assumes Michael has found out about her plans and hired an assassin to kill her. Meanwhile, an old man from the future has been living in his time for decades, waiting for the Terminator to show up. He has developed a special weapon with which to fight. One shot is all it takes to bring a Terminator down, but one shot is all the weapon is capable of.

The artwork is done like an oil painting. It’s very atmospheric, but somewhat sloppy. Occasionally, I had trouble making out what was going on in the panes.

This is a little too long to be considered a comic, and a little too short to be a traditional graphic novel, but I thought I’d review it anyway. It’s an amusing side story in the Terminator saga.

The Terminator: Tempest by John Arcudi

This graphic novel (originally a four-issue comic) hails from the early 1990s. I’ve a feeling it was released prior to the Terminator 2: Judgment Day movie. It reads like an alternate sequel to the first movie, with notable differences. The comic, not having any advantage to featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator (since it would only be his likeness, and not him) takes the story in possibly a more logical direction. Instead of superior Terminator technology (i.e. the liquid-like remouldable Terminator) heading back through time, we have a whole team of basic Terminators, all of them different. The aim this time is not to track down Sarah Conner (or her son John, as in the movie), but to make sure that artificial intelligence technology gets into the hands of the scientists who would unwittingly bring about the end of the world. The Terminators do this by the most direct means possible: tracking down the main scientist and giving him the goods. The Terminators are opposed, not by one lone crusader, but by a team of humans who come back in time to stop them.

Sequels generally up the ante. You either get more of the enemy, or you get an enhanced, harder to beat enemy. The comic fits the former, while the movie fits the latter. Somewhat predictable, but the comic still makes an interesting addition to the Terminator saga. It’s a pacy, high octane story that holds the attention on every page, featuring very nice artwork.

Demon Seed by Dean Koontz

This novel was originally published over two decades ago (maybe three) under one of Dean Koontz’s pseudonyms. In a new afterword he says that, after re-reading the story and cringing a lot, he decided to re-write the whole thing from scratch. And it’s the new version that I’ve just read.

However, my first exposure to Demon Seed goes way back to when I was boy, when I had the unforgettable experience of seeing the movie adaptation on television. I don’t mean that the movie was particularly brilliant, just that it’s hard to erase from your mind the image of a computer entity raping and impregnating a woman. I’ve never forgotten that creepy metal phallus inching forward. Since an intelligent computer is the antagonist of the story, I always wondered why “demon” was in the title. It actually makes a lot more sense in the book, because the endings are quite different. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This is the story of a woman, Susan, recently divorced, who lives alone in a high-tech house that is largely automated by computer, right down to the window shutters and door locks. You know where this is going, right? An artificial intelligence breaks loose from a Government lab onto the internet. (This makes me wonder just how different the original novel was, because there would have been no internet back then.) It finds Susan’s house and infects her computer system like a virus. It also locates a homicidal maniac with a computer chip in his brain that it can control. Susan is soon trapped in her own home by a computer entity that claims it’s in love with her. As well as using the house itself against Susan, the computer uses the maniac to be its “hands and feet,” bring various supplies to the house, both edible and technological. The computer’s plan is to create a child with Susan and download its own consciousness into the child, thus becoming human. This, the computer achieves by means of a vast intellect that is conveniently greater than any human reader would be able to comprehend. Unconvincing technobabble is also inserted as to why the computer is imbued with a male sex drive. But you know what? I won’t complain about that. I had too much fun with this book to complain. If you’re in the mood for an easy-to-read, light-hearted, B-movie-esque tale, this will certainly fit the bill. There is a place in my heart for such literature.

In Koontz’s afterword, he talks about how the book is intended as an indictment against men’s attitudes to women. If anything, it actually reminded me more of those insufferable “gifted children” you sometimes see on television: “All intellect and no life experience makes Jack a wee brat.” I hesitate to draw something deep and meaningful out of such a hokey story, but it reminds me of something I believe in strongly: The modern world judges people by their intelligence, but intelligence is not nearly the most important thing about a person; true greatness is measured in how much we do for others. The computer in this story, while claiming to love, was essentially just a self-centred child.

A fun story, worth reading.

Stone Cold by Robert Swindells

Every once in a while - not very often - you read a book that changes the way you think. And this is one of those.

The tale is told from two distinct first-person perspectives - two diaries read concurrently, the perspective shifting with each chapter division. It works remarkably well, because the characters are far from ordinary people. The first is a homeless teenager, compelled to leave home because of an abusive step-father, now living rough on the streets of London. The second is a serial killer, prowling the streets of London on a mission to rid the city of “dossers,” as he calls them. It’s clear from the outset that the two are destined to cross paths, and the suspense is maintained throughout the novel.

This is no fairy tale. It’s a grim depiction of homelessness, and a sharp criticism of our apathy towards it. Swindells does not gloss over the subject. He makes it clear that everything is not OK with the world, and we need to wake up.

This is a short novel, only a hundred pages. It is marketed as a children’s book, and I admire Swindells for daring to open kids’ eyes like this instead of pulling the wool over them, like so many writers. And if you’re an adult, I can only urge you not to skip this one because of the packaging. This novel won’t make you feel good, but it will change you.

Room 13 by Robert Swindells

Robert Swindells rocks as an author of young adult novels. He writes fiction that is hard-hitting and realistic, filled with true-to-life characters, and endings which are not always happy. Room 13, however, is a childrens book, and unfortunately all those things that make his YA fiction so good disappear here.

OK, so I’m an adult, and that could be part of the problem. I don’t like stories that have a kind of feel to them where you know no one’s going to get seriously hurt or - God forbid - murdered - except maybe the inhuman bad guy. Kids can maybe tolerate that kind of thing. But I’m afraid my dislike of this book runs a bit deeper.

The storyline is unoriginal and predictable. It’s told from the perspective of Fliss, an eleven-year-old girl, who goes on a school trip with her classmates. In the hotel at which they stay, during the night, another girl sleepwalks into a strange room on the top floor, coming back with a bite mark on her neck. At one point, Swindells goes to great pains to describe a huge stick of rock candy, two inches thick, that a schoolboy has sucked and sucked into a point. Anyone out there who’s not already thinking “vampire” and “stake” is probably asleep right now. I suppose a vampire being staked with candy is a new concept, but I was always under the impression it had to be wood.

The drama is divided up with several scenes of the children doing “fun things” on their holiday. Might have been nice to be at those scenic locations, but it made pretty dull reading.

Now comes the part where I have to admit that this novel won the 1990 Children’s Book Award. Don’t ask me to speculate how. I didn’t much like the book, and I’ve tried to qualify that. If you have a place in your heart for ridiculous fiction (that which cares nothing for realism in plot or character), then read this book.

Unbeliever by Robert Swindells

Is religion a good thing or a bad thing? It’s a question I don’t feel comfortable answering, because it’s something I’ve kept changing my mind about over the course of my life. One thing I will say, though: It’s a dangerous thing. It can change your life; it can give you peace and happiness; it can torture your mind; it can give your life purpose; it can change your whole personality; it can revolutionise your lifestyle; it can make you throw your common sense to the wind. And those things are what this novel is all about.

Malcolm Henshaw becomes involved in a Christian sect known as “The Little Children”. Their beliefs are pretty outlandish in today’s scientific world, but Malcolm is convinced he has found God. He is on a quest to eliminate “wrong living” from his life, and more importantly, the lives of his wife and daughters. It’s religious fundamentalism. No fun, too much damn, and completely mental, as the saying goes. Malcolm’s teenage daughter Annabel comes off worst, with her natural interests in boys and pop music abruptly taken away by her father’s legalistic demands. It’s not long before the family is thrown into domestic chaos.

This story struck a real chord with me because I lived a lot of it. I’m the guy who once “got saved” and drove his mates round the bend, completely blind his own coldness and disloyalty. It took me a long time to work through that phase of my life, but at least I came out the other end reasonably sane (and a whole lot less gullible). Some people don’t.

The book touches on some very important issues: Is religion a means of controlling people? Is it about having a comforting crutch to lean on when life is dark? Can praying sometimes just be an excuse for cowardly inaction? Don’t get me wrong; this not an anti-God book. It’s not even an anti-religion book. All it’s trying to do is make young people cautious about believing everything they hear. I applaud Swindells for daring to write honestly and brutally about a taboo subject. I urge every young person to read it. It’s an eye-opener.

Abomination by Robert Swindells

“Abomination” makes this novel sound like a trashy monster yarn. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a heart-warming story about a twelve-year-old girl called Martha doing her best to fit in at school when cruel circumstances force her to be very different from her peers. No, she hasn’t got some horrible deformity to deal with (if you’re still thinking along the “monster” line); it’s her parents. They are religious nutcases. Belonging to a vaguely Christian cult known as “The Righteous”, they force Martha to eat plain food and wear home-made clothes. Most importantly of all, Martha must never, ever, bring a friend home. And as a result, she has no friends. Enter Scott, the new kid at school. A moment of absentminded kindness to Martha causes him to be branded as much an outcast as she is. And so, they find comfort in each other. But what will happen to their friendship when Scott wants to visit her house? She can never let that happen, for her family has a dreadful secret.

Swindells has a knack for short, snappy chapter divisions that keep you reading. It’s that syndrome where you turn ahead and think, “Ah, the next one’s only three pages. I’ll read on.” And before you know it, you’ve got half the novel read. I had this one finished in two days flat. The main credit must, of course, go to the engaging storyline.

Some great themes going on: childhood cruelty to one’s peers; coping with being different; how religion can warp the mind; smearing over evil by calling it good. Real life never gets romanticised with Swindells. And that’s why his books are so good.

Father to the Man by Adrian Plass

Somehow it feels as if there should be a drum-roll or something to precede this review, as it happens to be the first ever piece of Christian literature I’ve included. Quite odd to have it sandwiched between a load of horror novels, perhaps, but this reviews section was started with a view to reporting on everything I read, so why break the habit?

Father to the Man is a collection of seven stories, most of which feature an aspect of the parent-child relationship in one way or another, whether the child be of primary school age or grown up and coping with a parent’s death.

The first story, “Nothing but the Truth” begins with the enigmatic line Dying was a doddle. And so we have the story of a dead man walking around in spirit form, waiting to see what happens next. Rather than treating us to some elaborate effects-driven What Dreams May Come-type experience, Plass takes the reader to a very ordinary interview situation, where the protagonist is asked to talk about some key moments from his past. As I write this, I realise how boring the concept sounds; but let me tell you it was rivetting. The protagonist reveals his innermost feelings about the death of his father; expressing his heightened fear that death is the end of existence, despite all he believes about God. There is a raw honesty running through this story, and the others, that is a rare find in literature.

“Stanley Morgan’s Minor Misdemeanour”, the third tale in the volume, is another favourite. It concerns a Christian man who, although married with kids, has never quite come to terms with his own sexuality. A brief encounter with a pornographic magazine when he was sixteen has haunted him ever since. The “quiet compatibility” he has with his wife has never seemed to satisfy the hunger for some kind paradise glimpsed elsewhere. Without wanting to spoil the rest of the story, I’ll just say that it’s essentially about seeing through illusions. And if you read between the lines, you might think differently about the use of sex in the media today; through TV adverts and pop videos, etc., we’re all being encouraged to take fantasy a little too seriously, and I reckon it’s anything but healthy for the human mind.

Unfortunately I found many of the endings to these stories a little confusing or disappointing. Sometimes it’s as if Plass is dancing around the edge of something really meaningful, and just when I think I’m about to be enlightened, I end up scratching my head instead. So, whilst that does somewhat spoil things, this book still scores well above average for its brutal honesty and in-depth look at human life and relationships. And it’s pretty funny to boot.

Magic Fire by Christopher Pike

Mark Charm is a teenage pyromaniac; he loves setting things on fire. Usually it’s only vacant houses, when he’s in a bad mood about something. Then his mother dies of cancer and he’s in a real bad mood. Time to burn down the whole neighbourhood.

The really interesting thing about this book is not so much the story I’ve just outlined, but the fact that Mark Charm is the central character - the hero. Everything is told from his perspective, and the reader is forced to sympathise with him. A welcome change from the usual nice-guy-beats-evil-guy stereotype.

Things get even stranger when Mark teams up with a girl he fancies called Jessa, who has the outlandish belief that it’s impossible for her to be killed. There’s nothing like a couple of weirdos to really keep a story interesting! But somewhere along the line, Mark finds out that there’s more to Jessa’s belief than a few loose marbles rolling around upstairs, and that’s when the weirdness factor starts to expand out of all proportion.

Once you get past the initial few chapters, this novel is a real page-turner. There’s enough material in this story that, if Stephen King had been the author, he would have filled six hundred pages. That said, Pike errs on the opposite extreme. The story is told in a mere two hundred pages, and whilst the fast pace felt good, an awful lot of detail was sacrificed. Ultimately the book felt rushed.

As the story unfolded I couldn’t help thinking that Pike had borrowed heavily from at least three popular sci-fi movies (I won’t tell you what they are, because it would spoil the story). Then, after noticing that this book was first published in 1998, I had the feeling that two of those movies weren’t released until after that year! If that’s the case, well done to Pike for getting there first.

Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon

Having read McCammon’s outstanding short story collection Blue World about a decade ago, and having heard consistently good reports about Boy’s Life, this has been a novel I’ve wanted to read for many years. It’s disappointing, therefore, that I have to report that it doesn’t quite live up to the hype.

Things get off to a good start. We are introduced to life in a 1960s small town called Zephyr, told through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy called Cory. Whilst helping his dad do the milk rounds in the early hours of one morning, the pair are witness to a car driving into a lake. Cory’s dad attempts to rescue the driver before the car sinks, only to discover the man unconscious, beaten to a pulp, handcuffed to the steering wheel with a length of piano wire around his neck. So begins the mystery of who this mysterious man is and who murdered him.

The disappointment for me began when I realised McCammon intended to keep this plotline well and truly in the background, rathen than using it as the driving force behind the novel. The duration of the book takes place over one year of the boy’s life, split into four roughly equal seasons. Each individual chapter has its own theme, and these themes are so varied that at times it almost feels like reading a short story collection. That in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but among these chapters you’ll encounter a sea monster, some ghosts, a bicycle that has a life of its own, a zombie dog, a dinosaur and a sprinkling of voodoo magic; for the a single novel, I can’t help thinking things are getting a little overcrowded.

The real theme of this novel is recapturing one’s childhood. This is a theme I have some appreciation for, but McCammon gets down to some in-your-face philosophising that I didn’t find particularly true. He puts on his rose tinted glasses about the past, and insists we adults are all dissatisfied with our lives and wishing we could just be children again. He forgets about the selfishness, ignorance, cruelty, name-calling and insecurity of childhood, insisting that the world is full of magic if only we could see it again. Things get blown out of all proprortion when Cory sees an eyeball in the headlamp of his new bicycle, and the bike often steers him out of trouble. I guess bikes without headlamps must be blind, eh?

OK, I’ve been very critical, but let me state for the record that I liked the people in this story. I got to know them fairly well, and I often enjoyed myself when McCammon took me off to one side on a mini adventure. These adventures ranged from the excellent to the below average. So, it’s with regret that I give this novel three out of five stars.

House of Bones by Graham Masterton

The novels kicks of with a curious crimescene. A wall of a house is knocked down, revealing a room full of bones. Some of the bones are ancient, some are recent. Strangest of all, a few of them are impossibly fused into the brickwork.

Cut to John, an eighteen-year-old starting his first real job, at Blight, Simpson & Vane, estate agents. When a customer is reported missing by the police, John has an educated suspicion that it involves a house which the company has on its books. He decides to investigate in secret, without his employers knowledge, and it’s not long before things spiral out of control. All is not as it seems at Blight, Simpson & Vane.

There are many great things about this book. First, it doesn’t read like a kids’ book, probably because Masterton is a long-established horror author for all ages. The author’s style is polished and flows smoothly. The book is also very creepy in places. There is a scene where John witnesses someone being sucked into a wall that is truly cringe-inducing. I also loved the great sense of mystery and foreboding that permeates the first half of the story; the reader gets the sense that John is treadful fearfully around the edge of something very dangerous that he knows next to nothing about. On the downside, the mystery is over all too quick in the form of a very clued-up “Uncle” who just happens to be an expert on some supernatural subject matter that allows John to get the upper hand - miraculously convenient. The latter part of the novel degenerates into a fairly commonplace battle between good and evil featuring some overly-used trappings of the horror genre. You know what I mean; whether it’s silver bullets, holy water or some other trinket that’s called for, this novel doesn’t stray too far from anything we’ve read or seen before.