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.

Domain by James Herbert

I read James Herbert regularly as a teenager, and hardly ever after that. My one regret between then and now is that I never read Domain, partly because it was the third book in a trilogy of which I had read the first two (The Rats and Lair), and partly because the book belongs to my favourite sub-genre: post apocalypse.

Domain was written in the 1980s and is set in the same political climate, where it seemed that nuclear war might really happen. I can remember the vague anxiety associated with the time, even though I was a child. Back then, it always seemed like World War III would be a battle between the USA and Russia. How times change. The book is set in London and gets straight down to business with five nuclear missiles decimating the city. Most people above ground perish in the inital blast. For those more fortunate, the most convenient haven is the nearest tube station - get as far underground as possible before the nuclear fallout arrives. Unfortunately, there’s another threat lurking below: rats. Not regular rats, but a mutant strain throught to have been wiped out in the previous book. Instead, they have been hiding underground, breeding. Some of these rats are as big as dogs. And they’re as mean as rabid dogs. The people who took refuge don’t stand a chance.

The story is mostly told from the perspective of Steve Culver, a helicopter pilot, who is lucky enough to find himself in the company of a Government executive, a man called Dealey, when the bombs fall. Dealey is, unfortunately, blinded by the flash, and he needs Culver’s help to get to a secret Government fallout shelter that he knows about. From there, the story follows one survival escapade after another: battling the rats, battling floodwaters, battling rats in the floodwaters, battling people-gone-bad, battling more rats, etc. I started off enjoying the novel, but after a while I started to get the impression that there really wasn’t much of a story to tell. Towards the end, I was truly sickened by tunnel after door after tunnel after door.

I felt further frustrated by Herbert’s manner of storytelling. He’s quite verbose, tossing in unnecessary words and being vaguely repetitious:

He hacked their pink bodies, ignoring their faint cries, striking, pummelling, crushing their tiny bones, making sure each one was dead, beating any small movement from them, shredding them from existence, sundering them of all form, of any shape.

What is intended as dramatic is padded out to such a degree that all I can feel whilst reading it is tired and impatient. The story is further padded out with lines of dialogue between the characters that often serve no purpose except to slow everything down and bulk up the page-count. Many of the characters themselves are cardboard cut-outs. In one scene, there were several survivors travelling, and four of the men felt completely interchangeable to me; it didn’t matter who spoke. With the exception of Culver and Dealey, I couldn’t tell the difference between the men.

It’s not all bad. The novel does have its moments. From the sublime …

Ignore the old woman sitting on the floor rocking her blood-covered head backwards and forwards. Forget about the kid clinging to his mother, yelling for her to take out the horrible pieces of glass from his hands. Don’t look at the man leaning against the wall vomiting black blood. Help one and you had to help eveybody. Help everybody and you were finished. Just help yourself.

“Those people this morning didn’t look desparate. They looked as if they were enjoying themselves.”
“Let’s just say we’ve been knocked back a few thousand years to a time when other tribes are the enemy and certain breeds of animal are dangerous. We got through it then, we’ll do it again.”

To the ridiculous …

Sharon opened the door a fraction, just enough for her slim body to slide through, the tips of her breasts brushing against the edge.

As a teenager, I might have detected a degree of eroticism in the above paragraph. Now it reads like pure cheese to me. Sharon, a survivor among a group holed up inside a cinema, is heading to the toilet in the middle of the night. Every time Herbert deviates from the central group of survivors, you know he’s simply setting up a predicable scene where he gets to revel in death and destruction. Predictably enough, a horny bloke follows the girl, intent on raping her, and the rats break in and eat them both.

I recall generally enjoying Herbert’s novels as a teenager, but always feeling there was something a little cold about them in comparison to the likes of Stephen King. Almost two decades later, I can now put some words to those feelings. I think Herbert is purely a career writer, uninterested in creating art, just looking to earn a wage. I think he has an idea about what he thinks his target audience wants, and he simply aims to fill the gap. That’s why most of the books I’ve read by him have a typical and unnecessary sex scene. That’s why there’s so much gratuitous violence and gore. That’s why the characters are like puppets moved along a stage. Herbert’s books are product rather than art.

My frustration with this book boils down to this: I’m not as easy to please as I was when I was a teenager. Well, now that I’ve read the book that I always regretted not reading, I can finally put the ghost of James Herbert to rest.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Robert Neville is the last man on earth. He is the sole survivor of a mysterious plague that hasn’t so much wiped out humanity as changed it. By day, the city belongs to him. He is, for all practical purposes, completely alone - free to roam the concrete jungle, foraging for food supplies, equipment for his house, and entertainment to quell the loneliness. But come nightfall, they come out.

Who they are depends on whether you are most familiar with the original 1954 novel written by Richard Matheson, or one of its three film adaptations. Yes, three! I Am Legend was first filmed as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, starring Vincent Price. This film remains the most faithful adaptation of the novel, which is no surprise since the screenplay was written by Matheson himself, albeit under a psuedonym. Matheson didn’t want his name associated with the movie because of some changes to the script demanded by the producers. The creatures in this movie are like George Romero’s zombies with just enough brains to speak. Romero himself cites this film as influential in making Night of the Living Dead. The creatures are called vampires, and vampires they are, except for the lack of fangs - possibly a budgetary restriction. But they can’t stand sunlight, crosses, and can be killed with a stake through the heart, just as tradition states. Matheson’s novel features all that plus the fangs and a lot more agility.

In 1971 I Am Legend was remade as The Omega Man starring Charleton Heston. This time, the only vampiric trait the creatures possess is an aversion to sunlight. They are much more humanlike in terms of their rationality - they’re not interested in drinking your blood - although they’ve been transformed into black-clothed religious zealots with a hatred of technology. To them, Robert Neville epitomises everything that led to the destruction of the world. Matheson, as you can guess, was not involved in this adaptation. Although The Omega Man departs greatly from the original story, it’s still a worthwhile film. It served as my introduction to the novel. I first saw it as a child, and it was a very memorable experience.

In 2008 I Am Legend was made yet again, this time keeping its original name, with Will Smith in the title role. A massive budget went into this adaptation, and it shows. The city is fabulously deserted, decaying and overgrown, thanks to the wonders of CGI. This time the creatures are exclusively computer generated. In stark contrast to the staggering zombies of the first movie, these are fearsome, frenzied killing machines, scarier than a lion bearing down on you. Again, it’s far from a faithful adaptation of the novel, but it remains my favourite of the three movies for its portrayal of Robert Neville, his loneliness, his desperation, his struggles, his griefs. The director really had his head screwed on. Will Smith’s natural talent for looking cool is subdued and we are treated to a movie experience where substance wins over style.

Sadly, none of the movies bar the first has embraced the courage of the novel’s startling climax. The novel’s ending (as well as much of the content) is so different that I would gladly encourage viewers to watch both The Omega Man and I Am Legend before reading the novel. It might even enhance your reading experience, because you will be saying, “Hang on a minute. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go down.” However, save The Last Man on Earth till later, because that movie is a 95% copy of the book.

I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I want to share a couple of examples of what makes Matheson’s writing so good. In the story, Robert Neville has fortified his house against the enemy. He lives every day in isolaton and every night listening to the mocking cries of the undead outside his door. And then one morning, an unusual visitor shows up …

For an hour he [Robert Neville] wandered around the neighborhood on trembling legs, searching vainly, calling out every few moments, “Come on, boy, come on.”

At last he stumbled home, his face a mask of hopeless dejection. To come across a living being, after all this time to find a companion, and then to lose it. Even if it was only a dog. Only a dog? To Robert Neville that dog was the peak of a planet’s evolution.

And then, when Neville manages to lure the dog into his presence with food, he is fearful of scaring it away again …

But it was hard to keep his hands still. He could almost feel them twitching empathically with his strong desire to reach out and stroke the dog’s head. He had such a terrible yearning to love something again, and the dog was such a beautifully ugly dog.

As you can see, Matheson has a talent for both empathy and artistry. I think I’m getting a feel for the way he works. He will take a ridiculous notion that has no place in reality (be it vampires here, or a shrinking man, from another of his novels), then he will throw into the scenario characters that are totally realistic. Matheson gives you the impression that he has thought long and hard about what it would be like to be in a situation like Robert Neville’s. I Am Legend is the tale of a real man in the midst of the fantastic. Zero melodrama. It’s a short novel, barely more than a hundred and twenty pages, but it’s a more rich reading experience than many a five-hundred-page tome.

Not many novels have been made into movies three times. The fact that this one has is testament to how good it is. One of the first post-apocalyptic novels, and still one of the best.

Brother Odd by Dean Koontz

This is the third book in the Odd Thomas series. To recap, Odd is a young man with the ability to see the spirits of the dead who have declined, for one reason or another, to move on. He also sees shadow-like creatures called “bodachs.” Their arrival is always the sign that a major calamity is about to befall the area - something that will result in numerous deaths. In the past, the presence of the bodachs has given Odd enough of a heads-up to prevent major tragedy unfolding. Odd’s third ability is what he calls “psychic magnetism,” the ability to intuitively track down a person just by thinking about them.

At the close of the previous book, Forever Odd, the responsibility that Odd’s unique talents demand of him has become too much to bear, and he seeks solace away from civilisation (and the needy dead) in a monastery, not as a monk but as a long-term visitor. The place is St. Batholomew’s, located in remote mountains. At the beginning of Brother Odd, Odd has been there for quite some time, and has already built up good relationships with most of the brothers and sisters. It’s winter and Odd is watching the snow fall outside the window. It’s not something he ever sees in the hot and humid town of Pico Mundo, where he has always lived. As he watches, a lone bodach slinks towards the building - a harbinger of doom. The snow soon becomes a blizzard, and the monastery is sealed off from the world.

One of the brothers goes missing, but that’s not enough to justify the presence of bodachs. Odd plays detective for a while, trying to find out what possible calamities might unfold in a place like this. One suspect is a scientist with a strange laboratory deep underground, accessible only by an electronic palm scanner. The recent suicide of one of the brothers also needs investigating. But before Odd gets very far, something truly bizarre attacks him in the snow. He doesn’t get a good look at it, but from what he does see, it’s the strangest assailant this reviewer has heard described. Strange enough that I had to keep reading.

I liked the characters in this novel, particularly the brothers and sisters. The dullness of their clothing was certainly not reflected in their personalities. It’s clear also that Koontz has a great respect for Christianity and Christian ideals, so much so that I find myself wondering if he is one himself. Occasionally, Koontz comes out with insightful comments about life that are gems to read. I wish I had bookmarked a few of them for you. They’re hard to find now, unfortunately, because they don’t characterise the book; they’re just tidbits. It’s on this issue that I have problems with Koontz. Occasionally, Koontz will say something that reveals him to be a writer of great depth, but he never seems to choose to write a story with genuine worth. Instead, he writes typical supernatural thrillers that meander down common plot-lines, injecting into them the occasional nugget of brilliance. Koontz is super-productive, writing one or two novels per year. He’s bound to be so rich now that he doesn’t need to write so often. Sometimes I wish he would just stop and carefully examine the merit of every idea he gets, because I think he often chooses to write sub-standard ones simply because they’re there in his head.

Still, I enjoyed Brother Odd. I think it’s better than Forever Odd, but not quite as good as Odd Thomas. I was in the library last weekend and I spotted a fresh new copy of his latest novel, The Darkest Evening of the Year, but I just couldn’t bring myself to borrow it. I may read the new novel one day, but not right now. To be fair, it’s more the feeling you get when you’ve eaten too much cake (and I have read four Koontz novels in the past year), rather than the feeling you might get if someone put a plate full of doggy-doo in front of you. To draw the analogy out further, cake might taste sweet, but there’s not much nutritional value; I’d like to see Koontz cook me a proper meal, and I’m confident he could, if he put his mind to it.

The Walking Dead #2: Miles Behind Us by Robert Kirkman

Another enjoyable volume in The Walking Dead saga, although not quite on par with the first one. For me, there was far too much dialogue. Some frames had speech bubbles that were overloaded, the characters constantly pausing to express their feelings about life in the wake of the apocalypse. I get that the author wants to tell a story with emotion as well as action, but there’s such a thing as overkill. And frankly, we’ve heard it all before, and more succinctly, in George Romero’s movies.

Although The Walking Dead was first published in serialized comic form, there are definite story arcs that fit tidily into the graphic novel format. Volume 2 tells the tale of the survivors in their camper van hooking up with a small farming family, only to discover that the father has gone a bit batty. Chaos ensues. The thrust of the story covers similar ground to themes already expressed in Night of the Living Dead (being unwilling to kill your zombified loved ones) and Dawn of the Dead (storing the undead instead of killing theme). Although entertaining, it all felt a bit like filler material between volumes 1 and 3. Although I’ve never read 3, I think I can say this because 2 ends on a note of promise that leaves you wanting more.

It by Stephen King

This is the story of a town, King’s infamous Derry, under seige by a malevolent entity that often manifests itself as a clown. Only children can see it (rather, It) - something to do with a child’s open-mindedness. To grown-ups, Derry is a normal town, but to a particular group of kids (known as the Losers’ Club), Derry is the feeding ground of a monster that lives in the sewers. These children - Bill, Richie, Eddie, Stan, Ben, Mike and Beverly - must do battle, to end the terror that stalks their town. Worse still, in later life they learn that their efforts back in 1957 were incomplete. It is back with a vengeance, determined to avenge Itself. Bill has his own personal axe to grind: he knows that It is responsible for the death of his younger brother George, while George sought to retrieve a paper boat that had accidentally swam into a storm-drain. The two stories - the children in 1957 and the adults in 1985 - are told concurrently.

I first read this massive one-thousand-page tome when I was about fifteen years old. It was quite an undertaking, and it probably took me a couple of months, but the experience was no chore. This was my first oh-so-rare experience of never wanting a story to end. Although I found the “grown-ups” sections of the novel a little tiresome, the childhood parts were pure magic. They were so good that I didn’t even care about the horror story in the background. I just loved feeling like I was a part of the lives of these children, as they played down in the Barrens or faced off their bullies. If anyone had asked me, from the time when I was fifteen to when I was twenty, what my favourite novel was, I would have instantly replied, “It.”

My, how times change. I’m now thirty-five. And what took me two months to read in my teens took two years in my thirties. The novel is far less impressive to me in adult life. Interestingly, one of the major themes of the novel is the manner in which children view life differently from adults. Their minds are more open to ideas like magic. It’s perhaps not so surprising, then, that an adult (this adult, anyway) finds a story that clings to the notion of magic far less interesting than he found it as a teen. I even found it a tad pretentious at times.

Stephen King has always demonstrated a considerable strength at portraying child characters. This is where the novel still holds up well. But the horror story that these terrific characters inhabit isn’t really up to much. It’s far too wacky to be scary. After reading a few hundred pages of this, I realised that it was failing for me. The magic had gone. I persevered, hoping that it would return, but it didn’t. And so, over two years, I slogged my way to the end in fits and starts, reading other novels in between, because this one was just too darn big and just not good enough to captivate me for commitment of time and energy required to read it.

King’s most frequent “failing” is that he has a tendency to go into detail overkill. Whilst this has the effect of slowing down a story’s pacing, it also adds a richness to the drama in later parts of a story. So, it’s maybe not correct to call this a failing. Many of King’s novels walk this uncomfortable line that risks a reader becoming bored, and if there was ever a King book that was in need of a substantial haircut, it’s this one.

Forever Odd by Dean Koontz

Forever Odd is the second in a series of novels centred around the character Odd Thomas, a young man with the ability to see what he calls “the lingering dead” - spirits of dead people who, for one reason or another, have unfinished business before moving on. It’s far from an original notion, of course, but that didn’t stop me devouring the first and second novels quickly, and anticipating the third.

I’m probably repeating what I said in my review of the first book, but Forever Odd is a great read because of its titular character, a sensitive, eccentric, deep thinking young man, dealing with a supernatural gift that has the habit of doubling as a curse.

Forever Odd begins several months after the traumatic climax of the first novel. We see Odd voluntarily unemployed, living alone in an apartment, trying to put the pieces of his psyche back together. Suddenly he is visited by a new ghost, the father of one of his friends - a man who should be vey much alive. Odd quickly visits the man’s house, only to discover that his friend has been kidnapped, and his friend’s father murdered. And so, Odd sets off in hot pursuit, his gift giving him an edge over anything the police might do.

In one sense, the novel is typical formulaic Koontz, and just when I’m inclined to view the author as a bit of a hack, he goes and surprises me with a nugget of wisdom among the pages, elevating the book to more than just the literary equivalent of a dumb action movie. Koontz, in his podcast, said the novel is about “the redemptive nature of unearned suffering.” That’s a tad pretentious, but credit where credit’s due: Koontz does inject a few good insights about life into the prose.

All things considered, the Forever Odd makes a pretty good thriller, and it has a tendency to surprise the reader (as did the first novel).

A worthy sequel. Looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into Brother Odd sometime. And I’ve heard Koontz is intending to write yet more Odd Thomas books.

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

I became fascinated with this novel as a result of Dean Koontz talking about it (and the two sequels) on his podcast. One of Koontz’s friends pointed out to him, “Do you realise you’re writing the life story of a saint?” Koontz says that book one is all about the theme of perseverance, book two unearned suffering, and book three altruism. While Koontz is not specifically a Christian, I (as a Christian) am broadminded enough to know that you don’t have to be a Christian to learn (and communicate) important things about life. And so, I began Odd Thomas with anticipation.

Odd is actually the protagonist’s real name (revealed as a possible misspelling of Todd on his birth certificate), and Thomas is his surname. And odd he is. Odd and fascinating. He has a power: the ability to see the spirits of the dead who have not yet moved on to the next life. The dead with unfinished business. And Odd makes it his business to help them. In a marked difference with the movie The Sixth Sense, Odd was never a little boy traumatised by his ability. He has embraced it as a gift. He has other paranormal abilities, too. He sees dark, mist-like, shadowy creatures that he calls “bodachs,” after a similar creature from folklore. These beings flock around people who are destined to die soon, as if drawing sustenance from their doom. Odd’s third ability is something he calls Psychic Magnetism. If he pictures someone in his mind that he wants to locate, he is able to drive around in a car and intuitively home in on them.

It’s not the abilities that make Odd interesting; we’ve seen similar things before in works of fiction and film. Odd is interesting because of his humble nature and lifestyle. In order to cope with his strange ability, he has simplified his life. He works as a grill-cook; he doesn’t own a car; his house is sparsely decorated; his wardrobe consists of jeans and T-shirts. He is humble, in terms of possessions, ambitions, and character.

The novel sees Odd on the trail of a sinister man to whom a great many bodachs flock. Something very bad is about to happen in the town of Pico Mundo, unless Odd can figure out what this man is up to and put a stop to him.

First, let me get out of the way what I didn’t like about the novel. Odd’s abilities are unrelated to each other and way too convenient, especially Psychic Magnetism. If the story requires Odd to find a particular person, all the author has to do is turn on the Psychic Magnetism and we have an instant result. It’s a lazy plot advancement device. Remember Mr. X from The X-Files? Every time the story required Agent Mulder to have a certain piece of information, Mr. X would show up and give it to him. It didn’t matter how irrelevant or pointless this information seemed; we, the viewers, were always required to believe that Mr. X had his own secret agenda that we would never know about. Instant plot advancement, in any direction the writers deemed suitable. And with Odd Thomas, instant character location, without the reliance on traditional means of investigation. No reason is given for Odd to possess these abilities. They simply are. I can accept that for one ability, but not two or three.

Koontz has a tendency to ramble off on a tangent occasionally. One scene in the book involved a character depositing a body in a disused Quonset hut. The author treated us to a two-page history of what had led to the location being abandoned. This involved the place originally being the headquarters of a religious cult and later a brothel. Why did I need to know all that? The information added nothing to the story. As a reader, I’m perfectly happy to accept that there are abandoned buildings here and there on our planet without needing to be told all the facts that led it the abandonment. Thankfully, there’s not a lot of this rambling in the novel, but when it happens, it’s a minor irritation.

The ending of the story was somewhat less dramatic than the build-up led me to believe. In the book’s last gasp, there’s a twist in the tail. I didn’t see it coming, but when it arrived, I recognised it as the same twist I already had seen in several ghost movies.

Having got all that out of my system, I need to say that I still enjoyed this book immensely. I’m conscious that’s it’s often easier to find words of criticism than praise, so I need to say that there’s no denying I had a great time. As a thriller, the novel was a page-turner, and it had me picking up the book at various points in the day, instead of only for my usual bed-time reading routine. Having read lots of Koontz books in the past, I’m not sure there’s any I would class as truly excellent reads, but I think Odd Thomas is probably the best of the bunch. It didn’t entirely live up to my expectations, especially on the “life story of a saint” angle, but I find that I really want to read the next book, Forever Odd, for the promise of that side of the story being developed.

Dying to Live by Kim Paffenroth

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of zombie novels around these days. Most of them are of the small press or self-published variety. Why is this? Well, I can speak from personal experience and say that zombies sell. Back in the early 1990s, in my late teens, I co-directed and starred in a no-budget zombie flick, Zombie Genocide. This movie simply will not die. Regularly, I get requests for DVDs, while the other - and arguably better - movies I’ve made since then simply sit there and stagnate.

Even though zombies are my favourite movie monster, I’m loathe to jump too far into this sea of fiction, for fear that I will be drowed by waves of poorly written cash-ins on a tried-and-tested formula. Dying to Live, however, piqued my interest more than the others, because the author, Kim Paffenroth, has a degree in Theology (to the unfamiliar, that’s the study of God). Zombie scenarios, to me, have always seemed like the perfect vehicle for discussing life and death, the existence of God, heaven and hell, etc. I was very interested to hear another author’s thoughts on something I had already mused upon.

Dying to Live fits snugly into the mythology created by George Romero. The zombies are slow-moving, hungry for warm flesh, and they go down with a bullet in the head. There’s nothing new about the creatures themselves, and I personally don’t think there needs to be. We begin the story many months post apocalypse, with a solitary man, Jonah Caine, who spends his days wandering from place to place, scavenging for food and hiding from the dead. Right at the start, we see him waking up one morning in a tree-hut to the sound of a lone zombie groaning up at him from ground level. After dispatching this irritation, the neverending quest for food takes Jonah dangerously far into a nearby city, where he ends up surrounded by an army of the dead. He is rescued by the skin of his teeth by a band of survivors who have made a home for themselves inside a museum. Most of the rest of the story revolves around this place: who the survivors are, how they came to be there, and their unusual way of life within those walls.

The book contains various thrills and spills regarding zombies, but doesn’t get down to anything really high octane until about three quarters of the way through. I hesitate to raise this point as a criticism, because I have to remember how much I love the old 1970s Dawn of the Dead, and the 1980s Day of the Dead, both of which had a similar story structure. And like those two films, the real threat in Dying to Live comes not from the zombies but from man’s own wickedness, and we end up with frenzied battle involving the good, the bad and the putrifying.

The book is vey well written. There were times that I paused and thought, “Wow,” at a particular description or observation. I wish I had noted down a few references to share with you now, but take it from me, the whole book exudes an atmosphere that makes you mentally say to the author, “Dude, you have been spending way too much time thinking about this stuff.” Paffenroth has no doubt enjoyed many, many daydreams in the land of the dead - which is, of course, exactly what we want! Consequently, the prose is rich, and you can’t help but think, “If I were Jonah, this is exactly how I would feel in his shoes.”

As well as the philosophical observations, the book will also appeal to those who like a more straightforward horror story. There is plenty of zombie blasting of offer, and when it’s human versus human, the author is not afraid to be mean and nasty to the good guys.

Overall, a worthwhile read, written by an author who is passionate about his subject matter.

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.

Mind’s Eye by Philip Henry

We begin with a bizarre death scene: Johnny Knox, a lonely teenager with a talent for drawing, is discovered one morning, dressed in his pyjamas, lying in his driveway, without a mark on him. Suicide, natural causes, or murder? No one knows. Classmate Steve Norton gets the first clue when leafing through Johnny’s art folder, where he discovers a portrait of a humanoid reptilian creature. Nothing strange in that; Johnny had a penchant for fantasy. Except this isn’t the first time Steve has seen the creature. The first time was in reality, when it was on his doorstep trying to get in and kill him. Clearly, Steve isn’t the only one who’s had an encounter with this beast. Where did the creature come from? What’s its purpose? Can it be stopped? Steve’s next move is to photocopy Johnny’s drawing and put it on the school’s noticeboard with his phone number .. and wait to see what happens.

Mind’s Eye is told from the perspective of Steve Norton as an adult looking back on his school days. It begins with a catchy hook: Fifteen years ago, the town of Portstewart was the scene of a series of strange deaths … Only three people knew the whole story of what really happened. I am one of those three. The author does a magnificent job capturing what it felt like to be sixteen, in particular how horny we were! Steve is tossed to and fro between his commitment to his girlfriend and his desire for other girls. At times, he seems like a cheating rat, but he never quite gets as far as actual cheating; it’s all in the intent. Henry handles the character so well that you feel empathy rather than contempt. I remember myself as a boy of semi-integrity, with a fairly noble heart, at the mercy of my sex drive. Steve Norton is like that. He reminds me of myself, and is the sort of friend I would have liked to have had. The sexual content also injects a great deal of light-hearted humour into the book, and never seems in bad taste.

The book is set in the real town of Portstewart, Northern Ireland, circa 1989, which happens to be the very year that I was sixteen. As such, it allowed me to experience a heart-warming time capsule that readers of other ages might miss. Bands like Def Leppard and Bon Jovi get talked about, as well as movies like Rambo, and such fashions as shell suits and headbands. At one point in the novel, a teacher responds to Steve’s headband with the remark, “You look like a bloody Comanche!” For some reason, this cracked me up more than any other line in the book; there was just something so perfectly Northern Irish about it. One slight mis-step that I found funny was the mention of the BBC microcomputer as state-of-the-art. Dude, 1989 was the era of the Commodore Amiga versus Atari ST war!

School life is quite dramatic in Mind’s Eye. There are a lot of sexual shennanigans and bullying going on. Class divisions are quite prevalent, with jocks and cheerleader types at the top, lording it over the common folk. This is the only aspect that didn’t ring true to life in Northern Ireland - at least in my neck of the woods. But I don’t want that to read like a criticism. Henry simply chose to portray school life in a fashion that seems more American (no offense to the Americans!). And it works just fine. If anything, it feels like the literary form of one of those teen horror flicks that emerge from the US every once in a while. In fact, I’ll go further: it feels like everything you wish those teen horror flicks were. Let’s face it, there are a lot of crappy teen flicks out there. Mind’s Eye would make a great one.

I haven’t said a great deal about the supernatural side of the story. That’s on purpose. I don’t want to spoil too much. The book is 233 pages long, divided into ten fairly evenly spaced chapters, each one a month in the life of Steve Norton. I found myself looking forward to each chapter, as each carried the story to somewhere new and unexpected; there was never a dull moment, and pacing was spot-on. What you get is a thoroughly enjoyable B-movie-esque monster mystery that is both serious and funny, filled with believable characters.

The novel has been self-published by the author. Grammar and punctuation (that ol’ self-publishing headache) are close to professional, needing just a little more work. No one but a hawkeye grammar-hound like me will spot anything amiss! I will, however, slap Henry’s wrist on the amateurish cover art. This also affords me an opportunity to ask you, dear reader, to overlook such considerations and get stuck into a great read. Someday, I’ll put together an official top ten list of self-published fiction that I’ve read. I can tell you right now, though, that this one occupies the number two slot. In fact, I had a lot more fun with this than with many a Stephen King novel. And if that doesn’t validate self-publishing, I don’t know what does.

Mind’s Eye is Philip Henry’s second novel. The first is Vampire Dawn, also reviewed here (a sequel, Vampire Twilight, is due later this year). Both books can be purchased through www.philiphenry.com (take note that the book is cheaper at Diggory Press - the author’s POD publisher, than at Amazon).

Autumn by David Moody

I recently bought myself a Pocket PC and I’ve been trying out various applications on it, one of which is that old niche interest: the ebook. The vague memory of a free zombie novel was the first to surface in my mind, so I hunted for David Moody’s site and downloaded Autumn. Turns out, it’s pretty good.

We begin with 99.99% of the population dying of some mysterious plague. Already we’re in different territory than George Romero. No zombies running amok, biting the population and creating yet more zombies; everyone but a handul of people dies.

People, industrious as they are, find a way to locate other people, and soon we have a small community of twenty-something, holing up in a community centre. Meanwhile, outdoors, the dead start to get up and walk. If this were a George Romero film, the zombies would be banging on the door trying to get in. But the zombies in Moody’s novel are simply mindless wanderers, with no inclination towards violence … yet.

It has been a long time since a horror novel made me feel anything, but there’s a particular scene in Autumn that gave me some genuine chills. Three of the survivors are making a home for themselves in an isolated country farmhouse. They’ve created a flimsy barrier around the property to keep the dead out. By the time they realise that the dead are learning to function better (and what they are learning is mainly aggression), it’s too late. The survivors have been lulled into a false sense of security, and they are now sitting ducks, surrounded by hundreds of zombies. There’s no telling if the inadequate barrier will hold back the onslaught.

Much is made of the idea that zombies are attracted by noise. It was quite chilling to consider that once you make the mistake of allowing yourself to be surrounded by the walking dead, it was no use simply switching off your noisy generator and hoping the zombies would disperse. The fact that the zombies themselves were moaning was enough to attract more zombies. Then those in turn would attract yet more: the snowball effect.

The story works so well because it is very personal. Moody gets into the characters lives and makes you care for them. There’s a lot of dialogue in Autumn. Occasionally, I got a little irritated by the constant need of the characters express their feelings. Things occasionally felt a bit repetitious, but mostly the dialogue worked to the story’s credit (except for all the pointless swearing). The only other irritation in the novel was the inclusion of one of those old “it was only a dream” chapters that you can see coming from a mile away. Thankfully, this affected only a minor sub-plot, not the whole novel.

Autumn is self-published, and with almost all self-published novels comes a certain lack of polish. I spotted a few typos, but for the most part the work was a smooth read. Moody makes a couple of grammatical mis-steps, but nothing to get in a twist over. In fact, the errors were consistent, revealing Moody to be a writer who cares a great deal about his work, but simply needs a little more growth.

Autumn is the first novel in a series. It is offered free for download at the author’s website in the hope that the reader will be motivated to continue the saga in paperback. The ending does leave you wanting more.

Night of the Beast by Harry Shannon

I first encountered Harry Shannon on an internet forum called the Horror Author’s Network. He arrived on the scene in 2001 with a short story collection called Bad Seed, published by small press publisher Medium Rare Books. I followed his career with interest, watching as he released book after book in a steady flow between then and now (2001-07). Many spoke highly of Shannon’s work, and his mix of horror and crime fascinated me. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get his books in the UK at a reasonable price, even on eBay (he has become quite collectable). Finally, I was able to pick up Night of the Beast (his second book).

I hate saying what I’m about to say, truly I do, because Harry Shannon and I have corresponded briefly; heck, he even purchased a copy of my own first novel. But I am determined to keep this review blog honest. Unfortunately, Night of the Beast is nowhere near publishable standard. The writing style is sloppy and littered with terrible punctuation; nowhere near enough editing and proof reading has been done. One example is the sentence Peter fired BOOM. It’s rendered just like like that - no breaks. Sloppy, impatient writing. Two of the chapter headings even have a completely nosensical Roman numeral: XVIX. The story is based around the familiar cliche of a terrible ancient evil awakening in a town; it fails to say anything we haven’t seen before among the plethora of existing horror novels and movies.

The publisher also lets the book down. While the text is a nice readable size, the lines are cramped together to save a few pages. Widows and orphans abound. Worst of all, part three of the novel is entitled “NIGHT OF THE BEAS. The T and closing closing quotation mark are missing. How, oh how, does a glaring typesetting error like this go unnoticed? It’s inexcusable first time round, let alone being left unfixed in my second edition copy.

Okay, there are some good points. Peter Rourke, the hero of the story, is a fascinating character, and he’s the main reason why I didn’t give up reading long before the end. I loved the idea of an adulterous, drug-taking rock music producer deciding to try and better himself, daring to walk out of the career that is sucking the life out of him and go back home to the quiet Nevada town of his boyhood. Another fascinating character is Timmy Baxter, a naive, noble-hearted little boy who has to confront the reality that his sister has secretly become a vampire. (When reading the Timmy Baxter chapters, I realised that I was reading an expanded version of one of Shannon’s short stories that I had discovered online years ago. Integrating it was a nice touch.)

Amidst the cliched plot elements and the sloppy writing, there were moments of beautiful prose that reveal Shannon to be a writer of some potential. The reason why this mixture of good and bad writing is contained within the pages of one book is perhaps explained by the fact that the novel was written over a long period of time. Here are Harry’s own words from the introduction:

Night of the Beast has just turned thirty this year. It has sections written drunk on my ass, or wired out of my mind on cocaine in the 1980s (a lifestyle I do NOT recommend for creative or any other reasons) and other scenes carefully composed over a cup of coffee with my toddler daughter tugging at my jeans.

Most authors have ancient works tucked away in a drawer somewhere - poor quality stuff they wrote when they were still finding their feet as writers. Most keep them in the drawer, with good reason. I’d like to think that Shannon’s recently written works are on a different level than this one, but his decision to publish Night of the Beast has seriously lessened the likelihood of me taking a chance on him again.

On the back cover, popular authors Graham Masterton, William F. Nolan (of Logan’s Run fame), Ed Gorman, plus Cemetery Dance magazine, all heap praise upon the novel, with words like “Right up there with King and Straub,” and “The chaos that ensues in the final act is as apocalyptic and enthusiastically satisfying as anyone’s ever done.” One has to wonder about the believability of endorsements. Fair enough, you can say my opinion of the story is subjective, but the sub-standard punctuation and grammar should have made any professional writer run a mile from endorsing this.

The small press publishing arena is exactly that: small. We tend to recognise each other. So I need to say that I have no axe to grind against Harry Shannon. I’ve said everything I wanted to say with reluctant honesty.

Cell by Stephen King

Apocalyptic stories are my favourite kind, and King has impressed me in the past with such tales as The Mist and The Stand. I listened to the hype surrounding Cell, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the book. I hadn’t felt this excited about a King novel in years. Mind you, I did think the idea of cell phones turning the populace into homicidal maniacs was a tad hokey (not to mention reminiscent of the film 28 Days Later), but not even that could deter my enthusiasm. Having read over thirty King novels, I had an inkling that he was going to do something unique and surprising with the idea. And what I was really looking forward to from King was a return to a more visceral and fast-paced form of storytelling than what he has been delivering lately. In that, at least, Cell does not disappoint.

The story gets right down to business, with an ordinary street turned into an instant bloodbath, as certain men, women and children turn on one another. No one knows why. And what do you do if you’re one of those watching, uninfected by the madness? Why, you reach for your cell phone, of course, to dial 911. And whoops! You’re instantly infected by something eventually referred to as The Pulse, and you become one of the “phone-crazies,” intent on as much bloodshed as possible.

The story was working a treat for me, and it would have continued working except that the phone-crazies don’t stay crazy. They evolve into some new kind of human being that gets along fine with others of its own kind, intending to infect (rather than kill) all those who remain normal. And they are aided by capabilities such as telepathy and levitation. When the story started losing touch with anything remotely down to earth, it started to fail for me. The wackiness reminded me of another King tale that suffered the same disease: Insomnia (where an unseen little imp went around snipping people’s auras off with scissors; King, man, what are you on sometimes?).

To its credit, though, Cell held my attention to the end. I loved the characters. I loved the idea of a journey across the country to find a little boy. But taking everything into consideration, I would only rate the novel above average.

The Hides by Kealan Patrick Burke

The Hides is the second book in an unnamed series about a boy called Timmy Quinn. Timmy can see the dead. Immediately, everyone’s thinking this is a copycat of The Sixth Sense, but things are a little different in this tale. These dead are not angry spirits calling out for a living boy to avenge them; they are actual physical manifestations, right down to the smell of their rotting flesh. And they don’t need Timmy Quinn for anything. They are able to execute their revenge solo. Timmy is nothing more than a conduit; when he’s around, the dead are able to pass through something called The Curtain, a thing separating their world from ours. And Timmy is left with the terrifying task of stopping them.

Book two sees Timmy Quinn as a teenager, moving from his home in Ohio, America, to the small town of Dungarvan, Ireland (where the author himself grew up). It’s a chance to start again. But Timmy’s stateside girlfriend suggests, “Is there a rule over there that says the dead have to stay quiet?” Of course not. Timmy can never escape what he is. And the dead will always come knocking - or rather, crashing through. This is a story about dark family secrets, revenge, and a hideous monster. In comparison to the first novel in the series, The Turtle Boy, I have to say that I feel The Hides is the weaker of the two. It does contain a very startling and original creature in the closing chapters, but the story does unfortunately go into a bit of a lull halfway through. The Turtle Boy told the story of Timmy’s early boyhood, filling me with a sense of kinship and nostalgia, which was hard to beat. Sequels are always in the unenviable position of having to go one better than the first story, and unfortunately The Hides falls short of that ambition. I finished the book only mildly satisfied, with no real zeal for volume three.

The book is published in the USA by small press publisher Cemetery Dance, as a signed and numbered hardcover, limited to 750 copies. The Turtle Boy was similarly published by Necessary Evil Press, but with 450 copies. It’s a bit odd having a situation where 300 unlucky people have the opportunity to read volume two but not volume one. However, The Hides is marketed as a stand-alone novel, and the story does make sense independently. But it also makes numerous references to the first story, so there is definitely more enjoyment to be had if you are able to start at the very beginning.

On the matter of style, Kealan Burke is a bit of an enigma to me. His vocabulary is often rich, sometimes startlingly so, and yet his punctuation suffers on the most basic level of correct use of the comma. For example, a simple phrase like, “Hi Sandra” (on line 5 of the first page, no less) omits the necessary comma after “hi.” This kind of mistake is all over the place, and it has slipped through unnoticed by the publisher. This, as I have stated in the past, is what I call The Curse of the Small Publisher. Kealan, if you are reading this, get reading Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style, because you are making yourself look like an amateur, and in every other respect you are not.