Golems, Mitzvahs, and a burning bush

The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook

Maxwell Bauman

CLASH Books 

December 12, 2017

4 stars

Upon reading the last page of The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook and putting it down, I began to mull over the lack of multi-cultural influences and references in Bizarro literature. Frankly, it is not a genre that encourages the liberal use of ideological, ethical, or religious references. Its surrealism and its tendency to stretch imagery to unbelievable levels don't always gel well with presenting ideas and humor of a down-to-earth ethnic and cultural nature. Yes I sure there are exceptions but none jump out at me immediately.

Except for Maxwell Bauman. The author has presented a sort of "cookbook" on how to meld the traditions of Judaism into the passages of horror and Bizarro. Here are a half dozen tales all centering around Jewish culture and traditions and all unique. Hail the birth Kosher Bizarro!

It is that weird and bizarre turn on Jewish myths and traditions that make the collection. The first story, "When the Bush Burn" is a take on Noah and the burning bush without Noah and that particular type of bush. "The Messiah in New York" is all about the coming of the Messiah. Unfortunately he gets a little carried away with the raising of the dead. "You've Lost That L'Chaim" Feeling" takes place in 1831 is both a love story and a ghost story. It's has a clever winsomeness for its rather Orthodox setting ("Granted, all the girls looked that way for modesty's sake, but something about Isha made Chaim hot under the yarmulke"). It also tells us what what spirits do for kicks. It's my second favorite piece of short fiction in the book.

"The Leviathan Blues" is about the Creation. It is the saddest story of the collection, sad and beautiful. The title story of this collection is just what is should be, a recipe or more accurate a set of instructions. It might come in handy if you ever need to make a Golem when the Nazi hordes invade.

The gem of the book though is "Baphomitzah", involving two twins who are about to have their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. It's a funny and eventually horrific tale of becoming 13 and being a insecure middle class Jewish girl with a touch of evil...or is it just teenage angst?... in her. It alone is worth the price of admission.

Themed collections based on ethnic or religious themes, rise or fall on the ability to install an authentic sense of culture in the stories. You wouldn't think that is easy when you are writing horror and Bizarro but these six stories succeed quite well. The short fiction is also less enmeshed with the usual excesses of horror and surrealism found in this genre. This book would actually be good for those reader who just want something different and not necessarily caught up in genres. I am not sure The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook would be rabbi approved but Maxwell Bauman should certainly be pleased with his finished product.

Young Adult attacks again!

Stranger Things Have Happened

Jeff Strand

 

Publisher: Sourcebook Fire

Pub. Date: April 4, 2017

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

If you are preoccupied with categories and labels. Jeff Strand is hard to pin down since he has written in many genres. Yet there is one label that fits practically everything he has written. Humorist. His humor and wit are evident in practically everything he has released and even more so in his most recent books. At the present, he seems to be writing mostly in the Young Adult market and his novels all feature young teenagers struggling with the normal challenges of adolescence in unusual ways. Stranger Things Have Happened is no exception.

Marcus Millian III is a 15 year old boy who is obsessed with magic tricks. His great grandfather Zachary the Stupendous was a professional magician and encourages Marcus to be a magician to the point of betting a local theater manager that Marcus will perform an amazing illusion. Unfortunately, Zachary passes away before the trick is created by them. That leaves Markus on his own to create an illusion that will be the greatest ever performed. He will make a killer shark vanish on stage! There are a few problems though. He doesn't have a shark or a shark tank , has no idea how he will pull off the stunt if he did, and he has a tendency to get stage fright.

So maybe the challenge of making a shark vanish in front of your eyes isn't a normal adolescent fear. However, anxiety in public venues is, living up to the expectations of your elders is, and certainly being the magic nerd , or any kind of nerd, in high school subject to bullies is. Marcus takes all this in stride and, graced by the author's wit and imagination, may actually get through it all somehow.

Stranger Things has Happened is a fun read. Marcus is likeable and just smart enough, even if he seems to have a bad habit of getting into bad situations. The rest of the characters serve their purpose. There is not much development here except for the main protagonist. But while Strand's other recent YA novels stayed in the realm of reality for the most part, this one seems to stretch the boundaries. A little too many weird situations happens. There is a ridiculously evil magician who is probably a close cousin to Count Olaf or Snidely Whiplash. Marcus' new friend Peter has a secret that he doesn't always use to the best advantage. Most annoying to me were three bullies who probably talked more than any bullies I've ever encountered. Finally, there is a climax that seems a bit over the top even for Strand. It is all in the best of fun but I preferred Strand's other YA novels., especially The Greatest Zombie Movie ever, where the fun and wit is centered on a more believable scenario.

Overall though, this is a fun and fast read and should have teenagers and slightly younger kids giggling on every page. There is no real violence aside from some bully payback of the mild kind. and no sex going farther than the first kiss so parents can choose this book with having any discomfort and feel comfortable reading it themselves.It is a good novel for younger teenagers and even adults will give some laughs out of it.

Vultures, Raccoons, and WHAT! monkeys?

The Unmentionables

Lance Carbuncle

Publisher: Vicious Galoot Books

Pub. Date: April 5, 2017

Rating: 4 & 1/2 out of 5 stars

Very few authors have such an crazy sense of imagination as Lance Carbuncle. Strange going-ons, weird characters and nightmare creatures abound in his four novels. Whether it is the Brautiganesque world of Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed, The sociopathic cousins a la Mice and Men in Grundish and Askew, or the Hieronymus Bosch meets William S. Burroughs landscape of Sloughing off the Rot, Carbuncle's novels are all different but alike in his unique style which is as rude and disturbing as...well.....a lanced carbuncle. But much funnier.

His fourth and newest novel is The Unmentionables and in some ways it is the most straight horror story he has written so far. It centers on Greg Samsa (name sounds familiar?) who is one of the most picked on boys in the small town of Finlay. The book is sort of a strange coming-of-age tale with a character that I suspect a lot of avid readers can identify with. He's a pretty smart kid but his wits is not enough to keep him from the terrors of adolescent bullying. That is until he find a stash of books and paraphernalia associated to black magic in the Winchester House clone he lives in. Parallel to this, the townspeople seem to be getting meaner and more violent which may be related to a underworld portal spurting out noxious fumes. Add on to this combo of terror vicious raccoons, living dead pig fetuses (the titled Unmentionables) and piss monkeys (don't ask, just read) and you get an idea how outlandish this seemingly "normal" coming of age horror story really gets. And there are turkey vultures, There are always turkey vultures.

It's all by the plan in the author's world. Hook you with weird but likable characters and once you're hooked, throw all that wild stuff at you . It may not be for everyone but it is delicious fun all the way. It may not be horror as much as black comedy. As Greg seeks revenge on the bullies, actually he's pretty angry at the entire town, it is hard to not like him no matter how rough it gets. Then there are those names; Coach Manlove, The Spanish Teacher Mr. French, and Wally, Lumpy and Eddie which works as an in-joke for the baby boomers to chuckle at. Mr. Carbuncle seems to like to give his characters clever names as much as he like to make his readers to go "Ewww,(giggle)"

Even though The Unmentionables may be the most straight-forward of his books, I hesitate to say "mainstream", it is still a far cry from safe and reassuring. But among the bizarre gore and violence there is always the feeling of a roller coaster ride with the sounds of screams and laughter. The Unmentionables may be weird and gross but it is always a lot of fun and maybe closer to our actual emotions and events in our life that we might be afraid to admit. Let's face it. Life is rude and disturbing. Perhaps it needs to be funnier...like Lance Carbuncle and his novels.

Dying off-stage

Ten Dead Comedians

Fred Van Lente

 

Publisher:  Quirk Books 

Pub. Date: July 11, 2017

Rating: 3 & 1/2 out of 5 stars

 

 The title of Ten Dead Comedians is going to sound very familiar to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of murder mysteries. The best selling mystery of all times is Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None which was also titled Ten Little Indians and in its first printing was given the title Ten Little *insert N word*. Fortunately saner heads won out in later years. Fred Van Lent's very funny take-off on the Christie novel can be called a pastiche or even a tribute to the classic book but, like all good tributes, it adds something of its own and makes its own statement.

Fred Van Lente is primarily known as a writer of comic books and graphic novels. This is his first novel and I guess it is a compliment that it didn't make me think of graphic novels at all. It made me think of someone who has a first hand knowledge of the business of stand-up comedy and the psychological make-up of anyone who wishes to go into that brutal business. I am not sure whether he has that experience but he made me feels like he did. The premise of Ten Dead Comedians, as it is in the Agatha Christie book, involves ten people who are invited to a secluded island for somewhat vague reasons. One by one, they end up being murdered. Since it is established that no one else is on the island, the murderer has to be one of the ten. And we are off to the races.

All of Van Lente's unsuspecting victims are comedians. In fact, they are sort of a sampling of comic stereotypes. Some of them are thin disguises of well known comics such as Joan Rivers and Larry the Cable Guy. A few seem to be a combination of individuals. For instance, prop comic Oliver Rees aka Orange Baby Man appears to be a mixture of Carrot Top and Gallagher. Others seem to be more of a capsule of a particular type of comic style than any one person. The use of comic archtypes works well in this story. They shape the characters and their issues. as they play against the mysterious personage of Dustin Walker, a legend who all ten comics have a connection to and the one who invites them to his island. Walker is sort of the McGuffin in the novel. He explains via videotape why they are all there and then kills himself. Guessing the connections to Walker and how he is pulling off this mass extinction of funny people is half the fun.

Of course a book like this needs to be funny. But not so funny or outlandish that we lose the structure of the mystery. Intermittent slices of each comic's routines helps us along as we follow this who-will-do-it and who-will-croak-it. All in all it is a clever take-off on a very weird profession. Van Lente offers lots of droll and witty one liners as each comic engage each other in a competition of words and wits. I can't say any one character is very sympathetic but since we are dealing with archtypes rather than rounded characterizations, it tends to work.

When we do get to the ending, we get a satisfactory if far fetched solution. It is actually no more unrealistic than many of the convoluted endings we expect from the masters like Christie. This ends up as a satire of a particular type of mystery as well as being a parody of comics. The author takes care of the loose ends adequately and we are left with a smile on our face. I'm not sure how much more a reader of a book titled Ten Dead Comedians should expect. If you love Christie styled mysteries you will enjoy the spin.. If you love stand up comedy you will enjoy the in-jokes and the inside look at comic psyches. And if you just enjoy funny novels, you should definitely give this a try.

Lovecraft meets Hip-Hop

Kanye West - Reanimator

Joshua Chaplinsky & H. P Lovecraft

 

Publisher: Yolo House

Pub. date: August 24, 2015

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Mash-ups are curious creatures. I would be hard pressed to call them anything but a novelty. We can blame Seth Grahame-Smith for the literary mash-up..or at least for its popularization due to the mystifying success of Pride and Prejudice with Zombies. I am still precariously on the fence with such endeavors. At best they are delightful diversions bringing out the best of the genres and authors they salute

Kanye West - Reanimator is somewhere in between. It is definitely funny and entertaining and it does an admirable job of blending H. P Lovecraft's style with the peculiarities of hip-hop. Yet even at its much less than a 100 pages length, it feels too long. The author had fun with this, using Lovecraft's serialized fiction, "Herbert West - Reanimator " and turning Mr. West into the rapper/beatmaster Kanye West as he uses the beat and the mixes to revive dead bodies. There is a lot of references to the need for fresh beats and quite a few musicians and rappers take a beating, so to speak, from Biggie to Paul McCartney. Maybe this is an acquired taste.

And I think i may have hit on the issue. I love Lovecraft and I am a bit of a music freak from rock to jazz to soul. But I honestly know little to nothing about hip-hop. I did really get into the earlier days with Run-DMC, Public Enemy and up to NWA but then I tapered off. There is clearly a number of in-jokes here .and I think too many of them went over my head. Plus I took points away whenever anyone mentioned Kim Kardashian.

So this is my recommendation. if you are into rap and Lovecraft both, this might be "Da Bomb". if not, it will be a risky endeavor. But again, let's give credit to the author for a noble attempt and some very funny turns of phrases. As for me, I am best off waiting for a classic rock version. Maybe...Leslie West -Reanimator?

The Void and the Tingleverse

Dr. Chuck Tingle's Complete Guide to The Void

By Chuck Tingle

Publisher:  Amazon Digital Services LLC 

Pub Date: February 24, 2017

Rating: 3 & 1/2 out of 5 stars

 

 Welcome to the Tingleverse

I must confess I have never read a Chuck Tingle novel. I have certainly heard of him and have chuckled over titles like Space Raptor Butt Invasion, Schrodinger's Butt, and Slammed In The Butt By Domald Tromp's Attempt To Avoid Accusations Of Plagiarism By Removing All Facts Or Concrete Plans From His Republican National Convention Speech. I must admit I am tempted to read one if his writing style is as silly as his titles. Yet I am not really into gay erotic sci-fi satire so I have avoided the temptation...so far

But there appears to be a darker side to Tingle. Threatening his loving and tingly Tingleverse is The Void. It is a dimension that is so totally terrifying just the mention of it can lead one to Void Madness, a condition that does not sound pleasant. Dr. Tingle wrote this brief 69 page work to help us recognize the dangers of The Void and to prevent being consumed by it, a place very few escape from. He tells us of the terrible creatures that come from The Void and gives some specific examples such as an especially vicious form of "Shrieking Mass"...

Throughout history, there has been several Shrieking Masses who greatly affected the course of humanity through their manipulation of humans. In recent history, the most notable Shrieking Mass is United States President Domald Tromp, who attained power despite the fact that the seams in his human suit remained clearly visible during his entire campaign cycle.

So what to make of this "guide"? Despite Tingle's endless admonition to be careful reading this book less you "succumb to the call of The Void", it is consistently humorous. I do not know if this is a companion book for fans of his novels or simply a sidestep into silliness. But it is entertaining and may cause me to take a look at one of his novels, butt pounding or no butt pounding.

Movies that never were

Neon Trash: Forgotten B-Movies of the '80s

By MP Johnson

Publisher: WeirdPunk Books

Pub. Date: October 5, 2016

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I'm not exactly sure what M. P. Johnson is doing here but it is lots of fun watching her do it. The subtitle "Forgotten B-Movies of the 80" says it all. Neon Trash is a love story to those films that no one has seen and most people won't even try to. Fortunately there are a few people out there, like the author and myself, that lives for this stuff. Johnson in the first article, makes a case for loving B-movies (let's be frank. Most of 80s DIY movies are really D-movies) but makes a better case for reading the capsule reviews of the films that she will proceed to mention. She follows up with synopses of 52 films, none that I have ever heard of. That is actually quite a feat. These capsule reviews are quite fun. This is followed with interviews by actors and makers of these films. Again, none I have ever heard of. Hmmm. She pays particular attention to a movie titled Neon Meltoids of which I could find no mention of on the internet. It must be very obscu...wait a minute. None of these movies can be found on the internet! Am I being screwed with?

OK. Mrs. Johnson. You had your fun. I almost fell for it! Even as the humor it is, it is still a nice salute to the 80's B-Movie era. I must say the best chapter in this book is "Trash Tape Quest: My Hunt for Neon Meltoids". It is hilarious!

So how does one rate something like this? It is very weird. It is very funny. It is very short. It is a merry prank in print. Let's just call it a delicious fart and leave it at that!

To kill a cyclops

Cyclops Road

By Jeff Strand

Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC 

Pub. Date: September 19, 2016

Rating: 3 & 1/2 out of 5 stars

In the prologue of Cyclops Road we see a side of Jeff Strand that isn't always obvious. We are introduced to Evan and his memories of his recently deceased wife. It is a head on assault into the experience of grieving and a profoundly emotional start to what will be mainly a humorous novel. Yet it sets the stage to understand Evan and his unusual decisions as the novel progresses.

It is this grief that is the reason he impulsively insults his boss which gets him fired. While in the park mulling his brash actions, he spots an attempt robbery . He tries to intervene but it is the potential victim that ends up saving him. He discovers that she is on a mission to go to Arizona and slay a cyclops. Most people would think at this point "OK. Bye crazy lady." and that is what Evan initially does. Yet in his vulnerable condition and his concern for Harriet the potential cyclops slayer, he offers to drive her partway to her destination...just for a little more distance to get her closer.

Of course, a little more distance isn't the way it works out and we are soon deep into a modern fairy tale. Harriet is operating by some kind of mental GPS and needs to find her three allies for the adventure. We are now in classic Jeff Strand territory with a cast of eccentrics and a accompanying dialogue that is witty and fun. The prologue rounds Evan out enough to explain his participation in a scenario that could easily have stretched the reader's disbelief too far. Harriet is an excellent foil to Evan's skepticism. She is an innocence in the ways of the world but wise and loyal to the needs of her quest. The other characters fill out the novel and present clever commentary and comic relief to the plot. I wish I could say the same about a group of villains who suddenly show up and are eventually dispersed of with only a vague explanation for their existence.

But even with a strong main protagonist, the plot falters. Even though it is a modern fairy tale, sometimes the action and motives seems a bit forced. I can blame his last couple of great novels for this. Kumquat and Blister had a similar main character who connects with a girl who has issues but brings out a strength in him. In other words, Cyclops Road tells the same story with a fantastical edge and that edge really doesn't add much. It's a great theme told by Strand that I have already read. I think I may be too harsh here since the ones who comes to this novel uninitiated to Strand's previous novels will probably go "WOW!" and several of the reviews of this book bears that out.

But it's Strand, which means you are going to read something by a skilled storyteller who has a true talent with clever dialog and wears his heart on his sleeve. That is why I liked it and give it a recommendation.

A Zombie Food Fest

Celebrity Chef Zombie Apocalypse

By Jack Strange

 

Publisher: Kensington Gore Publishing

Pub. Date: May 4, 2016

Rating: 3 & 1/2 out of 5 stas

Robert Turner is given the thankless and impossible task of making the reruns of an old outdated cooking show interesting again. Luckily he has an uncle that has invented a machine that brings the dead back to life. After trying it out on a cat that becomes mean and hungry enough to chase pit bulls, he convinces his uncle to revive the 15 year old corpse of the cooking show’s host Floyd Rampant with the idea of using the resurrected chef to hype the show. The experiment is highly successful but Floyd has bigger ambitions. He is set on making an army of celebrity zombie chefs thus creating his own “Cookiphate” based on the devotion of one main food ingredient. Human flesh.

That is how Jack Strange starts his debut novel Celebrity Chef Zombie Apocalypse, to be called CCZA to maintain my sanity and preserve my typing fingers. We’ve had zombie everything else so celebrity chefs seem to be a logical extension. The author’s zombies are of the thinking type and Floyd Rampant is an especially smart one. Hence we have a bizarre plot being hatched by him that includes all the cannibalism and massacre one would expect in a novel with such a title. The book starts out like Bizarro black humor but soon morphs into an equally dark socio-political satire. Yet the objective of a farce like this is never lost no matter how many topical turns it takes. It makes you laugh even at the rather comical but grotesque and gruesome stuff.

CCZA manages to make fun of a lot of things: cooking shows, the media, politicians, the military and, of course, zombies, although I doubt real zombies have the ability to understand the humor. Strange has a lot of funny ideas going from his head to the pages. I do wish he spent a little more time on the characters though. With the exception of Floyd Rampant, the rest of the cast weaves in and out without real focus. It create little grounding in the novel which made me think I was reading a different novel by the end due to the switch from horror farce to social satire. At some point, the cleverness outweighed the structure. But that did not keep me from laughing. CCZA is a very witty take on the over-populated Zombie sub-genre of horror novels. There is always room for a zombie novel that makes you laugh.

I do have one minor complaint. It doesn’t include any recipes.

Ferrying souls to the afterlife for fun and profit

The Ferryman Institute

By Colin Gigl

Publisher: Gallery Books

Pub. Date: September 27, 2016

Rating: 4 & 1/2 out of 5 stars

Charlie Dawson is a ferryman. He meets humans at their appointed time of death and persuades them into opening the door to the hereafter. It's an important job. If one does not enter into whatever is after death they become lost spirits on earth destined to wither away into non-existence. Charlie has been doing it for 250 years and has gained a legendary status as the ferryman who never failed an assignation. The result though, is that he is burned out by all the deaths that happened without his ability to do anything but watch them die. Until one day when he receives an unique choice seconds before a woman is about to kill herself. "Be a ferryman or save the girl. Your choice."

Colin Gigl's The Ferryman Institute is a modern fantasy with satirical edges. It is easy to compare with Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job since it has a similar plot and a similar style with an equally sharp wit. Yet there is a major difference. While A Dirty Job is satirical farce all the way through, The Ferryman Institute takes a more serious action-packed turn half-way through. It still remains funny and clever yet the reader acquired a more grounded concern for the characters and may realize the theme of the novel may not be all that light and funny. It's a nice move that prevent the novel from be another satire on death and modern life.

Yet that satirical tone does remains and it is quite entertaining. The Ferryman Institute, founded by Charon of course, is a corporation that holds a monopoly on the guiding of recently deceased spirits to their lives after death, whose form is a mystery as much to the ferryman as it is to us. But they are aware other smaller organizations are ready to take up the slack if they falter. The similarities to our own compartmental life in the rat race is part of the satire which takes on a Terry Gilliam style absurdity at some points.

Yet Charlie remains the focus of the book. He is the well performing cog in the system who can get away with things others can due to his brilliant performance. Yet he is slowly burning out and regretting his immortality. There are reasons for this but we don't receive them right away. Gigl feeds them to us slowly and painlessly through the antics and farce of the coming confusion and chaos. The girl he meets is another well written protagonist. Moments before killing herself, she becomes embroiled in a world she did not know exist with a man who she sees more as a kidnapper than a hero.

As far as satiric fantasies goes, this is far and away one of the best. The comparisons to Christopher Moore are deserved yet this is a debut novel and shows some cracks that reveal it. The switch halfway through could be a little more smooth and sometimes the cleverness of Charlie gets a little annoying. But these are minor issues when compared to the vastly entertaining value of the novel at whole. And as I said, there is a more serious tone lurking in the book that , if nurtured in the author's future writings, can take this writer's work above the loads of satiric fantasies out there on the shelves. Comedic fantasies are not easy to do convincingly yet the Ferryman Institute, both book and venue, were real and sincere enough to convince me.

Four and a half stars.

Geriatric cyborg vs. attention-deficit vampire.

The ADHD Vampire

By Matthew Vaughn

 

Publisher: Journalstone

Pub. Date:  February 16, 2015

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Horace Dracul is the half-brother of Dracula. His more legendary sibling didn't think much of him and now it is Horace's time to conquer and devour the humans. His coffin is discovered and opened on the deck of a cruise ship catering to the sexual whims of the geriatric crowd. Horace, despite his short attention span and difficulty staying on task, plans to have a splendid meal of the senior citizens and might even turn a few into his brides. However Martha, a retired cyborg spy, is about to make his dream of conquest a very difficult one.

OK. First impression of The ADHD Vampire. This is silly. Second impression. This is fun! Third impression. Does this cruise ship actually exist sans vampire? Where does a senior citizen sign up? Fourth impression. This is really silly. Fifth and final impression. I'm gonna read it again!

Matthew Vaughn specializes in silly. He does it well and is not afraid to push the envelope. Sometimes he just doesn't push the envelope but drags it screaming into the pool and holds its head under the water, laughing at the bubbles. Actually, he does that a lot. This funny novel is full of kink and gore yet it is the type of comic violence that works as an escape for the reader. It's hard to take a senior citizen cyborg spy vs. attention-deficit vampire too seriously. This is fantasy, folks! For its 88 pages, the novella stays at full speed ahead until all the damage and violence is done and the reader gets a few laughs and groans for his money.

The ADHD Vampire works best as a romp. It is an easy night's read for most readers. It is funny in a gross sort of way and is clearly not for the easily offended and squeamish. Yet I like the author's just-throw it-out-there style which I suspect is as fun to write as to read.While it is not as over-the-top as his Mother F'ing Black Skull of Death, it is still pretty wild. What both books has in common beside the extreme sex and violence is that there is no attempt at a social message. It is just meant to be an entertaining ride. I think I liked The ADHD Vampire a little more, ironically because it is slightly less extreme than his other novel. But be aware. That "slightly less extreme" is a judgement call.

So here's the bottom line. Don't like gore and violence or you don't have a twisted sense of humor? Stay away. But if you do, read it. And if you don't have a twisted sense of humor, why are you reading a review of something called The ADHD Vampire in the first place?

NOT an instruction manual!

How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers

By Max Booth III

 

 Publisher: Journalstone 

Pub Date: July 20, 2015

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

I get real nervous when reading about authors kidnapping book reviewers. This is not the first novel on this topic but, for reasons that will be disclosed, it is the best novel about kidnapping book reviewers. But I do know some book reviewers that should be kidnapped. If one is a reviewer, they should always write about the book and, even if the book sucks, they should not take the negative hyperbole to a personal level. Even if the author is a truly creepy creature who writes about disembodied heads from his own experiences, it should not be an issue in the review. Now mind you, I am not saying Max Booth III is a truly creepy creature who writes about disembodied heads from his own experiences. That would be a falsehood. I never actually met him and our few exchanges on Facebook have been quite pleasant. In fact, I think it was me who brought up the topic of disembodied heads...

I think I better stop there.

Fortunately, I do not have to worry about dissing the author in this review. How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers does not suck. In fact, it is pretty damn good. The premise starts with the sudden and as yet unexplained kidnapping of Harlan Anderson, a somewhat antisocial and vicious reviewer of books he hate. Currently his insults tend to be directed to the writers of a tiny independent book publisher, BILF Publishing. Think of MILF and you'll get the full name. Harlan's kidnapper, Billy, is one of the writers, a tweeted out loser who seems to be tolerated only because he is the brother of one of the close-knitted denizens of BILF. Billy also manages to kidnap one of the witnesses of his assault on Harlan and pretty soon the crimes are piling up like methed-out dominoes.

How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers is a Keystone Kops version of a satire about the writers and readers in the independent publishing business. The characters are all weird, outcasted, maybe a bit repulsive, and instantly likeable. That even includes the serial killer. The action never stops but within it all we get a hilarious glimpse of the people who populate both the Bizarro publisher genre and its target population of readers. The conclusion appears to be that we are all sickos, but in a good way. if I had a issue with the book, it is that the author appears to be writing to a small audience who will get many of the in-jokes and understand the attractiveness of reading that which no one else in their right mind would read. But there is also a sense of slapstick humor in it that would appeal to those who like books with twisted humor or even movies like Scorcese's After Hours and the more mainstream The Hangover.

Max Booth III is writing about an environment he know, even if it doesn't usually involve disembodied heads. He is able to write about these characters that occupy a reality flirting with the underground and cultish, yet infuse them with enough real life and honest pathos that the uninitiated can even get it. There really are some other novels that have taken on the strange relationship between readers, reviewers and writers. Yet this one, while being one of the more outrageous, is the only one that seems to get all three . Humor is funny that way. it may be easy to make fun of something but it only really works if you love what you make fun of.

A odd and curious museum

Curioddity: A Novel

By Paul Jenkins

Publisher: St. Martin's Press 

Pub Date: August 30, 2016

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

In Curioddity by Paul Jenkins, we have a emotionally oppressed gentleman by the name of Wil Morgan who lives in a life-long struggle between the imaginative and the mundane. His mother, who died when he was young, encouraged a fantastical approach to life. "Your eyes only sees what your mind lets you believe," she tells him. His father, on the other hand, steered him toward the safe and the dull, so much so that when Wil becomes a private investigator of insurance fraud he is afraid to tell his father who wants him to follow the even duller and safer career of accounting. One day an eccentric owner of an unusual museum comes to him and asks him to find a box of levity, which is the opposite of a box of gravity. From this point on, Wil becomes entrenched in an adventure going beyond just finding a box and is entrusted with the task of saving the Curioddity Museum.

It is a cute tale and there is lots of stuff is going for it. Wil is an adult that misses the childhood feeling of wonder that his mother instilled in him. It takes a major push for him to reclaim it and that push is aided by Mr. Dinsdale who is the owner of the museum, and a woman who is so endearing and cute that I wanted to ask Wil for her phone number. There is a satisfactory amount of befuddlement in Wil's reactions to the weird going-ons and even a nasty capitalist villain to move along the plot.

Yet, as enjoyable as it was, I couldn't get over the feeling I've read this all before. The clever and humorous writing is often in a style too close to that of Douglas Adams and the characters seemed like copies from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy right down to the neurotic piece of technology. Much of the humor is charming but not all that unpredictable. At the same time, It didn't really launch itself into the farcical surreal as I wanted it to. In a manner of speaking, I wanted to do more than just leave Kansas. I wanted to see Oz. The Museum opened the door but I, Wil, and Lucy never really passed through it.

The thing that works best in Curioddity is Wil's conflict between being "odd" himself or being a conformist. That struggle parallels the conflict between the love for his father and mother to which he cannot reconcile. Wil's father makes an appearance in the second half of the book and it is those conversations between Wil and his father that puts flesh on the bones of the story . Yet the fantastical elements do not meld well enough with the part that moved me to win me over

Curioddity is certainly clever and there are lots of funny one-liners and situations. But with all the satirical fantasy and science fiction that is out there begging to be read, i just didn't give this book too much of a thought afterwards. It seems fairly obvious that the author left plenty of room for sequels. I can think of many series that didn't win me over until the second or third book. This could easily be one of them. But that is in the possible future and for now I have to say I liked it but with reservations. But if you are into satirical fantasy, it just might be worth a shot.

WHAM! POW!

The Return of Boy Justice

By Peter Atkins

 

Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications

Pub. Date: February 10, 2016

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

 

The Return of Boy Justice is an odd offering. Only available as a Kindle download from the specialty press Cemetery Dance, it is quite different from the horror and dark fantasy they usually offer. The plot is rather simple and there isn't really anything unusual or unpredictable in it that would jump it ahead of much of the short fiction one can find . Yet it manages to entertain and bring a smile to my face. in this tale, Boy Justice was the young sidekick to a TV vigilante called The Blue Valentine. However the actor that played him is now 78 years old. The once popular series and his character is now forgotten. So he is surprised when he discovers a young boy actually remembers him. He is even more surprised when the boy comes to him for help.

Perhaps you can see now why I called it simple and predictable. Yet you would be wrong to call this a criticism. There is something rejuvenating about the theme of emotional rebirth. "Boy Justice" is now an embittered old man, forgotten and without purpose. Yet what he once was becomes important to someone again,. The question becomes, does Boy Justice return to fight for Truth, Justice...or whatever he and the Blue Valentine used to fight for? Or has he lost that spark?

I think you know how this is going to go. The Return of Boy Justice is short, sweet and satisfying. It is a few minutes of escape that may leave you yearning for the simple justice of the pulp TV heroes. And if you are old enough, like me, you might remember those heydays you had and realize they never really left. That spark is still there.

Sex, Lies and Handcuffs

Long-Form Religious Porn

By Laura Lee Bahr

Publisher: Fungasm Press

Pub, Date: February 2016

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

What a delightfully subversive novel! Long-Form Religious Porn by Laura Lee Bahr is deceptively conventional at first. We meet one of the main characters right away, Madeline Hunter, who is a struggling writer and director in the tight knit Hollywood film industry. She is trying to make a movie on a shoestring budget and really wants to get George Clooney to star in it. At the same time she is dealing with her gay friend who is caught up in a vampire cult with its teeth proverbially embedded into several film celebrities. The novel reads like straight satire at first. Hollywood is rather easy to make fun of but the author's sense of humor is up to the task of giving it a new shine. Yet we soon find there is much more to this tale than that. There is a parallel story, starting ten years before, regarding a Dominique Colt "who in two years would be famous for two of the most brutal murders of white boys in Los Angeles County." Dominque is a psychology student on a doctorate track. She becomes involved in her own sexually complex and kinky menage a trois that will eventually lead to these tragic murders. It is at this point that this darkly humorous tale becomes more than just a Hollywood satire. Bahr takes this story down some deep and narrow passages while adding some thoughtful insights to that ever present wit. We learn eventually how the two stories come together. Yet all that initially humorous send-up of the film industry and cults takes a back stage to the tale of Dominique Colt which is a masterpiece of relational angst and eroticism. Bahr's almost casual writing style is actually dense with complex emotions and drama. Her characters are so well developed that they have enough motive for an huge epic of a novel rather than this 200 plus page book. It is a sly combination of a contemporary manners comedy and a psychological exploration of the mind. Even the somewhat ridiculous Vampire cult sub-plot, (most will pick up the "Hollywood cult" analogy quickly) takes a surprising and tragic turn that tells the reader there is so much more under the surface.

Long-Form Religious Porn is from the new Fungasm Press which is an offshoot of the Bizarro oriented Eraserhead Press. The other novels from Fungasm are deep into the more surreal Bizarro genre. This one was a surprise in its stylistic accessibility and grounding in the world we know. Yet that does not mean it is any less shocking or controversial. The more conventional setting is still fraught with surprises and deals with situations what some may call taboos. While it starts with a great deal of wry humor, it becomes very serious but it is the kind of seriousness made palpable with those turns of humor. The author 's great strength is the ability to carefully emerge us into the most serious of themes even before we realize just how serious it is becoming. It is a gift that will lead me and many other eager readers to her next novel and the next one after that and so on. I recommend you try Long-Form Religious Porn not just because it is on track to becoming one of the best novels of 2016 but also so you can say, "I read her first".

Scary but whimiscal

Scary People

By Kyle Muntz

Publisher: Eraserhead Press

Pub. Date: October 1, 2015

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

So here is something I thought I would never say about a Bizarro novel that features a serial killer, a samurai, a demon possessed psychopath, monster guinea pigs and zombies.

Scary People is cute.

Kyle Muntz has managed to make a fantasy novel of the Bizarro type that is alternately scary, funny and even a little warm-hearted. It entails equal parts of Richard Brautigan, Tom Robbins, Anime, Warner Brother Cartoons (Watch out for that anvil), and something else that must be all Kyle Muntz since I can't quite put my finger on it. The novel doesn't really have much of a plot even though all is brought together at the end. It reads more like a series of vignettes centering around four friends: Matthew, Michelle, Karen and the unnamed narrator. There are a couple other characters that weave in and out of the story: A cannibalistic serial killer named Siquard and a quick on the sword Samurai. Yet the four very close but often conflicted friends are the focus. The vignettes center around their adventures which are episodic and somewhat random in their telling. Some of them die a lot but they always manage to return for the next vignette. As the narrator states, "I wish life were a series of vignettes, instead of a sequence of memories. It would make things so much easier sometimes." They live in a place simply called The City. The narrator is well aware that he and his friends are characters in a novel and constantly remind us of that, which gives it a Calvino-styled edge. There seem to be different rules about life and death in the place that the characters reside but the narrator and his friends share problems and emotions that are a fixed ground for any universe.

And that is what makes this novel so charming. The surrealism of the story catches up to you gradually. The first thing noticeable is the narrator 's somewhat stoic reaction to what is going on around him. Yet he is not indifferent and certainly not indifferent about his friends even when he is terrified or confused about them. That is his grounding and, consequently, ours. The thing that the narrator keeps mentioning is that the people around him are turning into "Scary People". If I had to figure out what this novel is all about, I would say it is about friendship, the kind that gets you through all the scary people. There's an old saying that starts, "You can pick your friends..." and I have always wondered if that is true. Our "choice" in friends seems to be just as determined (or unintentionally random even) as anything else in reality. The narrator is stuck for better or worse with his friends and that will be either his burden or his salvation.

But that's just me reading into what is a wistful combination of weird, horror and comedy. The main thing to get out of this meandering is that Scary People is a delight to read. The violence tends to be cartoonish and the pace is gentle and thoughtful. This is one of those novels which you are likely to think of as a light read yet it keeps pulling you back to the things between the lines. It is a nice change from a lot of the more explicit gore and horror out there and even from its taboo stretching cousins in the Bizarro genre. Not that it doesn't mention a few taboos of its own. It is just you will be smiling when you get to them. If you are looking for a change of pace in the usual fantasy and plain old weirdness, Scary People may just be what you are looking for.

Testing the limits

Mother F'ing Black Skull of Death

By Kenneth Vaughn

Publisher: MorbidbookS

Pub. Date: November 27, 2015

Rating: 3 & 1/2 out of 5 stars.

I am going to start out by saying something a little weird here. It may be taken as a criticism but it really isn't. Please stick around as I explain. Matthew Vaughn's Mother F'ing Black Skull of Death (MFBSoD) reads like a Young Adult novel; a young adult novel with lots of sex, perverted actions that would make Jean Genet and John Waters blush, lots of very explicit violence and gore that would make Hershel Gordon Lewis proud, and silliness that would cause Lloyd Kaufman to be envious. It reads like a Young Adult novel that I would never ever give to anyone under 18 and would card even senior citizens, and request a maturity test, if they attempted to buy it. Ever heard the saying, "If it walk like a duck and quacks like a duck?" MFBSoD walks and quacks like a duck but it f'king hell isn't a duck!


If we look at the plot (the PG-13 version) it may get clearer. Shelbyville, Kentucky is getting a tainted batch of a really messed up power drink called Mother F'ing Black Skull of Death (I guess Sumofabitch Red Bull was taken). It is the favorite drink of a nasty bully Vince and his cohorts who seem to push around anyone they want. The drink is doing some weird things to their bodies and is making them more perverted and cruel than they were before. Stevie, who has a hard time standing up for himself, is one of the guys they pick on a lot. He is forced by Vince to drink the stuff but it is affecting him differently. Stevie must get the courage to stand up to Vince and save the town. His only support is Janet (Dammit!), a girl he has a serious crush on. But she has her own issues with her only method of emotional support is talking to her doll and stuffed bear. And they talk back.

I streamlined the beginning of the plot and left out a lot of weird stuff but I hope you get the picture. When you remove the X rated stuff you get a typical plot and theme of much YA. So where does that leave us? In my opinion, and strictly my opinion, what we end of with is a crazy and hilarious satire of Young Adult fiction. It is this that makes this crude and wild book work for me. Matthew Vaughn is a hell of a writer and takes us on a messy but exhilarating ride through oversexed baddies, talking dolls and teddy bears, Hulk-modified good guys and basically every sexual crime and dismemberment known to man. It reminds me of some of the Heavy Metal punk sci-fi installments, if they had the nerve to take it over the limit. The prologue also reminds me a little of the beginning of the film Return of the Living Dead which may mildly clue you into the type of mayhem the novel dwells on.

But there really isn't much social import here. MFBSoD is a roller coaster ride for those who can handle the extremes . And here is my quibble. The intense extremes sometimes take away from the story. I find myself wondering how far the author will go rather than getting into the dilemma and caring about the characters. A little more control would have been nice. But I realized while reading it that the author was fully aware of his boundary pushing and was taking it to where he wanted it to to go. Vaughn has all the makings of a successful if taboo punching author. It certainly makes me want to go out and grab his other novel, The ADHD Vampire. The bottom line is, if you have a iron man stomach for extreme sex and violence and you appreciate good but over-the-top writing , you will like this. I liked it even if it tested my limits. But this is one of those books I would only recommend to the right people and I don't know all that many right people. I'm 65, Dammit!. Get this, read this, enjoy it, but if you are offended, don't complain to me. I'm only the f'ing messenger!

How not to make a zombie movie

The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever

By Jeff Strand

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire 

Pub. Date: March 1, 2016

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

 

I would have liked to have made a movie when I was a teenager. The closest thing I ever came to making a movie was being the junior high projectionist. Today's kids have it easy. They have digital video cameras the weight of a Tea-Cup Chihuahua rather than those monstrous elephants of the 60s. You can distribute on the internet rather than bribe a small theater owner to show it in the morning to a handful of friends and family. And you don't have to lug the reels 10 miles in the snow to the not-so-local development lab.

Jeff Strand's very funny The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever is about some teenagers who want to make the Greatest...you get the idea. Justin has made a couple 10 minutes horror videos and got a few likes on YouTube but he and this friends are ready to made their Citizen Kane of zombie films. Unfortunately for them, they have not yet ran into Edison's famous admonishment that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. What starts out as an epic idea turns into a disaster fueled by teenage reality and inertia. Justin and his friends run into all types of distraction and mistakes, like casting Justin's dream girl in the leading role and borrowing money from a grandma who must be related to Donald Trump. But through all the tribulations, they learn a valuable...who am I kidding? This is a Jeff Strand Novel!

Seriously though, this is quite different from most of the author's novels. Being Young Adult, it is closer to Strand's excellent YA novel, I Have a Bad Feeling about This than his many dark comedy thrillers and horror novels. There are no supernatural elements, no killings except for the imaginary ones on film, and no real zombies in it. The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever reads a bit more Y than A and it is actually about adversity . It is also about friendships, the kind that gets one through all the obstacle that teens encounter as they struggle with their identity and their aspirations. Strand may be a decade or two or ? removed from the adolescent years but he still has a fine ear for the subtleties. Justin and his friends are obsessed and ambitious but still kids. It is the challenges and the chaos that make this such a clever and funny novel. Strand is renowned for his sharp and witty dialog and the trade-off between Justin and his partners in crime Bobby and Gabe is some of the best dialog I have read by him. Finally there is the resolution but it is not the type that anyone may expect. I sort of got an idea where it was going when Spork arrived to the scene (A nickname derived not from the Spock character but from the plastic spoon-fork) but it was a twist that was delightful and fitting to the nature of the tale.

The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever is a great choice for young teens and maybe even a little younger. It is especially good for those who like zombie movies or have daydreams about making their own movies. I have seen a few criticisms about how Strand's movie obsessed teens are not realistic with "real" movie making teens, but I think that is bit of zombie bull. Besides, the author was not writing a how-to. Maybe a how-not-to. He was writing about ordinary kids who have dreams, have those dreams tested and still manage to come out of it not just as dreamers but doers. Comparing it to Strand's other works, I personally lean more for the gore and very dark humor of his horror novels. But keeping the audience in mind, this is a solidly funny effort perfectly suited for teens and pre-teens. So I give it an equally solid 4 stars.

To BEE or not to BEE

Night of the ZomBEEs

By Kevin David Anderson.

 

Publisher: Ronin Books

Date: November 8, 2015

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Shaun and Toby live in Honeywell Springs, the “Honey Bee Capital of the World”, which is something 13 year old Shaun is not delighted about, having this “thing” about the buzzers. It is Founders Day where everyone dresses up like bees and wear black and gold. But before the festival starts, Shaun must make a grocery delivery to Dr. Romero (get it?) who is doing secret experiments with bees. Dr. Romero’s genetically altered bees, being the size of chihuahuas, have escaped and are headed to the town’s festival. It is up to Toby and the melissophobic Shaun to warn the town. Did I mention that the sting of these dog sized bees turn people into zombies? Did I need to mention that considering the title of the novel?

Geared at the young adult and maybe slighter younger crowd, Night of the ZomBEEs by Kevin David Anderson is one of the funniest zombie novels I have read in a while. Anderson is no stranger to the satiric sci-fi/horror comedy having previously written Night of the Living Trekkies. In his major protagonists, he gives us two smart but picked-on nerds in Shaun and Toby and teams them with Samantha aka Sam. She is usually a bully to the two “Dweebs” but Shaun has a secret crush on her. Shaun and Toby provides the very smart dialogue while Sam gives the team its tension. The dialogue is one of the best things about the book. It is sharp but still sounds early teen. The adults are a different matter. Like many YA books of this variety, the adults are there as fodder for the disaster and a sounding board for the kids’ eventual one-upsmanship. It is no spoiler in a YA book like this to say the kids save the day. How they save the day is where the fun is.

Yet as an adult, I found it quite amusing as long as I let my inner child wander a bit. There are plenty of references to chuckle at for both the adult and teen zombie movie fan. Remember Dr. Romero? I also learned how to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. (Spock vaporizes rock but lizard poisons Spock). Since Shaun and Toby are James Bond fans, we also get plenty of references to the secret agent as they argue if they are really brave enough, or stupid enough, to try what they are thinking of doing.

I can’t say that Night of the ZomBEEs explores any new territory. It follows the tried and true zombie format fairly closely. Yet there is a large measure of FUN in capital letters that makes this story work. There is violence of the B-Movie zombie variety but it never goes into what I consider gore. Actually I would have no trouble recommending this to the Tween category which I suspect it was written for rather than the broader “12-18” age range. Night of the ZomBEEs is an imaginative romp through both the zombie and mutated animal genres that succeeds on wit and imagination. Recommended for all zombie fans, adult and teens alike.

Thugs vs werewolves

Wolf Hunt 2

By Jeff Strand

Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Pub. Date: December 17, 2014

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Let's cut to the wolf chase. I was really happy to begin reading Jeff Strand's Wolf Hunt 2, the sequel to...you guessed it. The main reason is because I got to spend more time with George and Lou. George and Lou are the main characters in Wolf Hunt and Wolf Hunt 2. They are thugs for hire who admit to being not exactly good role models but they have scruples. They are perfectly happy breaking knuckles but draw the line at indiscriminate killing and especially harming children. Yeah I know. You've seen this cliche before. Yet it works here mainly because we accept that George and Lou are part of the fantasy as much as we know werewolves are a fantasy. Why it works is because, as thuggish as they are, they always remain goofy and endearing. They are also the perfect literary example of a bromance. I think of them as the Tucker and Dale of organized crime. Or maybe the Hap and Leonard of supernatural crime noir. Whatever you call them, they are a riot and what makes both Wolf Hunt novels so much fun.

So. When we last left our anti-heroes, they were hiding out from the mob in Costa Rica. They are soon discovered and brought back to the main crime boss who wants them to either die or do compensation for messing up the job in the first book. He still wants to get bit by a werewolf to have their powers. He has found another one, a 14 year old girl who doesn't even know she has lycanthropic tendencies. George and Lou are not happy with child abduction yet must go along with it if they want to live.

Of course things are never easy for George and Lou. Crime boss betrayals, werewolf avengers, and a cute but smart-ass teenager all make their lives more complicated. There is a lot of buddy dialogue, action scenes, and some pretty disturbing images for what is mainly a fun but dark comedy. Yet the author again deliver just what he wants to deliver, a rollicking good time. Strand is one of the funniest writers in the horror and thriller genres yet he knows how to both scare and up the tension. I liked Wolf Hunt 2 more than the first one. The stakes are higher and there is more complexity and character interaction in the plot. Yet it is George and Lou that pulls it together. There is also a nice twist in the werewolf legend that puts this high up in the ranks of werewolf sagas. It's has to do with how and when they change. Actually, there was only one thing I hated about the story but I cant tell you what that is.. I think the author knows. If you like dark horror comedies with likable but unlikely heroes, then you should read this.