Paperback: 0446616419, $6.99
I read and reviewed this one mostly for MonsterLibrarian.com’s Werewolf Month, but in the end, I needed more space to really explore my reaction. At best I thought “meh”.
I’m absolutely a werewolf fan, all shape shifters really, and even though I don’t like the tradition man-to-monster angle on werewolves found in horror I just can’t get enough. If it has shape shifters I’ll try it, and this is one of those times where that bites me on the rear.
What’s causing this internal conflict is the number of fans and positive reviews out there. I don’t understand what other readers see in this series, because I was done with this book 20 pages in (I kept reading through the first 100 pages and it never picked up.)
Kitty Norville is a werewolf, but she’s not only submissive, she’s whiny. She cowers, she whines, she cries, but she still goes against her alphas. Furthermore, she has a very flat personality and seems to be nothing outside of “being a werewolf” and running her late night call in show, The Midnight Hour.
The radio show bits are the only interesting parts of the book, but those aren’t entirely realistic, when combined with Kitty’s complete lack of experience and the reactions of the callers to Kitty. Callers seem to unquestioningly trust Kitty. This leads to a feeling that everyone who calls into The Midnight Hour is either an irrational hater/religious nut or blindly and adoringly trusts and obey Kitty. This, without a firm rational to explain it, directly sets off my Mary Sue alarm, because it leaves me, as a reader, feeling like the author is setting the character up to be loved and adored and sympathized with by other characters in the hopes readers will feel the same way (we don’t).
I never liked Kitty, and never felt like I was given a reason to like Kitty other than “Poor Kitty was attacked by a werewolf and victimized and can’t be herself except on this radio show, which everyone wants to take away from her”. That simply isn’t motivation enough for me. I need to see features in characters that I like and want to connect with.
And speaking of the werewolves, I’ve seen much praise for this book “showing the darker side of werewolf pack life that other books ignore” that I also don’t understand. I’ve seen lots of stories about constant battles and co-dependency among werewolves. But this book slaps readers in the face with the message over and over with every pack scene.
Put simply, Kitty’s whining is made worse by the fact that her alpha, Carl, commonly beats her and has
sex with her and when not doing either he emotionally manipulates her to be completely dependent on him. Kitty even says he wants her to be a child, helpless and useless without him, unable to protect herself, or make her own choices, but that doesn’t matter because Carl will make the tough choices (in his favor) for her. Even Kitty’s close friend, Carl’s second in command T.J., assaults her and emotionally abuses her, always undermining her choices, especially the ones where Kitty starts to stand up for herself. “Oh I’m worried about you” and “What’s wrong with you” he asks, when Kitty fights back against the man who attacked and infected her and who, in that scene, also tries to force her to have sex with him (again, apparently). With these not-so-subtle questions to her behavior T.J. implies that there is something wrong with Kitty defending herself from forced sex from someone who has proven to want to kill her.
Outside of the radio show and the pack issues there is nothing. All the other scenes, sometimes weeks at a time are completely skipped over, reinforcing the feel that there is nothing to Kitty other than pack submission and giving out advice she’s not qualified to give. It’s as if Kitty has no life outside of these things, save for the fact that she tells us certain things in the “fast forward” sections (like about her family, who are also mindlessly supportive once Kitty comes out).
Through the whole book Kitty is supposed to be investigating a religious cult claiming to be able to cure vampirism and lycanthropy, however no “on scene” time is spent on this investigation. Yet when asked about this Kitty always has more information. What is first presented as likely the main plot, sort of lingers in the background, not really addressed for the sake of Kitty’s emotional pack drama.
Add to that a myriad of small irritations like, how is Kitty’s own howl being used as the sign off for her show, how did she record her own howl if she avoids shape shifting as much as possible? Add the utter lack of resolution making this whole book feels like a prologue to the next book, and there just isn’t anything to keep me reading, much less wanting to buy the next.
In the end the only good thing I can say it that I didn’t force myself to finish this one, I didn’t pay full price, and what I did pay went to my local library (I bought this book at a library sale). Not to say I feel any ill will toward the author, just that a book this disappointing would be worse if its purchase hadn’t ultimately been for a good cause.
25
Jun
“Hideki and the Gnomes” by Mark Lee Pearson is a very short, weird tale that’s similar to previous Apex offerings such as Nathan Rosen’s “I Know an Old Lady”. This one has a definite cadence, an almost Mother Goose feel, even if its meaning is murky.
“Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens” by Peter M. Ball is a spooky near-fairy tale set in a weird future world where a clockwork man helps save the life of a woman besieged by strange creatures. It’s like something Tim Burton would write, with a dark tempo, men that are more bird than human and an unlikely, determined hero.
This month’s classic reprint is “When Thorns Are the Tips of Trees” by Jason Sanford. Strange and sad, this is a tale of man’s hunt for immortality, that in this case, has led to humans carrying a disease that turns them into trees retaining ghosts of their memories at death, but rendering them unable to touch while alive. Like the delicate, haunted thorn trees themselves this story is at times lovely to behold, showing people treasuring their lost loved ones, and at times creepy with the objectification of the dead and the fear and repulsion of the living for each other.
“Gone Fishin’” by John R. Platt, from the Permuted Press Monstrous anthology, is a classic “big fish” story—unbelievable with a chance catch that’s destined to get away. This story doesn’t ever really throw itself into being the full yarn it could be, and it’s hard to sympathize with a lead who brought all the trouble on himself out of sheer meanness. But it has a few dark and amusing moments, nonetheless.
This Issue also features:
Beauty and Dynamite Essay:
“The Still & The Storm” by Alethea Kontis
Book Junkie Essay:
“Anthologies Like Preditors, Closing In” by Lavie Tidhar
Interrogations:
Fran Friel
T.M. Wright
23
Jun
Trade Paperback: 9781906584078
If Dracula and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Count Saint Germain mixed you’d have Gabriele, the lead in Sam Stone’s throwback vampire novel, Killing Kiss. Stone takes readers on a ride back to when vampires were ageless, alien creatures only pretending to be human, where they mourned or celebrated their liberation from the species, found themselves constantly drawn to it and they didn’t sparkle.
Gabriele was a well-off Italian singer who fell prey to a woman, who quite accidentally made him a vampire when she fully intended to kill him. After his own tragic attempts to maintain a human life Gabriele gives up and instead once a year he ventures into the human social world to find and attempt to change a woman to become his mate. Four hundred years, and four hundred failures later sees Gabriele assuming the life of a college student, and almost given up on finding an equal, intent just on surviving.
As his new persona Jay, he runs into shy, quiet, bashful Carolyn, exactly his type of victim. For he must be a serial killer, even if he’s only killed once a year, for leaving such a trail of lost loves behind him. Then there’s Lilly, who is most definitely not his type, until spiked drinks from a frat party cause Gabriele to drop everything, his identity, his game and his defenses to whisk Lilly away.
Killing Kiss could never be dismissed as mere “vampire porn”. While the plot is foresee-able it’s also a return to vampires as predators on humanity, yet creatures utterly charmed by and weakened to us. Flashbacks are mixed in with modern events, giving the book the feel of slowly backing away from a painting to see the full picture.
Vampire fans, especially those feeling left behind by romance’s siege on the genre, will find Killing Kiss (the first in a trilogy) has a lot to offer and shouldn’t be missed.
ISBN: 1401219187, $9.99
Contains: Nudity, violence, gore, language
“A very long time ago…in the lands we call home…these things happened.”
So begins the first volume of Northlanders, the tale of Sven, a Viking warrior in 980 CE who leaves his plush Mediterranean lifestyle to claim an inheritance from the harsh cold lands of the North. But once there he encounters resistance from his uncle, Gorm, who is unwilling to hand everything over to Sven. Sven begins a one man war against Gorm and his men to get his money and his lands back.
Northlanders is a familiar tale of one man against a greater evil, dressed in brutal, vivid Norse clothing. The art is fantastic and explicit, bleeding emotion out in color. The story capitalizes on the hardest, most violent parts of Viking legends. But it has a soul too. Sven is a remarkable character, one worth following into the wilds of the world.
Northlanders is a solid addition to the libraries of horror, historical or Viking fans and a good graphic novel for those new to graphics to pick up.
Click to Buy
Paperback: 9780425224243, $7.99
An Ice Cold Grave is the third book in Harris’ Harper Connelly series, a dark mystery with feather-light touches of paranormal. For those who haven’t encountered it before Harper is a woman who gained the uncanny ability to sense the dead and read their last moment after being hit by lightning. After surviving a horrible, abusive childhood she and her step brother Tolliver travel around using her talent to survive.
In An Ice Cold Grave Harper and Tolliver have been called to Doraville, North Carolina where a woman, angry at the past sheriff’s handling of the disappearances of several teen boys, asks Harper to find the bodies of the boys that surely must be dead by now. Harper begins her hunt, and to her horror finds not only the six missing boys, but two others as well, all buried in what looks suspiciously like a serial killer’s dumping grounds.
Suddenly Harper finds herself not just blackmailed into staying nearby by the newly appointed sheriff, but a target of the serial killer’s outrage.
As usual Harris offers a tale that features a delicate thread of darkness. There is true horror in this book, but by the characters trying to block it out, move past it and not dwelling on it, even when it rises up and tries to claim them, it becomes secondary, and undertow rather than a flood of dark themes. The characters are Harris’ strength. They are complex, easy to sympathize with and as a reader you find yourself wanting things to work out for them.
This particular book is more scattered than the previous books, but it reflects the complexity of the serial killer nature. Despite the attention focused on Harris’ other series, this is her best. An Ice Cold Grave is satisfying, page turner that fans of dark fiction should definitely give a chance.
15
Jun
Talebones and Lone Star Stories are both closing down. Both are good magazines with a history of good stories. Both owners site a loss of passion for the amount of work the magazines require. Talebones owner Patrick plans to continue the Talebones name as a yearly anthology in 2010.
This reflects a similar decision by Apex Publications owner/editor, Jason Sizemore, who has stated in several interviews that running the magazine, in print and digital form, has been the most time and money consuming aspect of his business and with the least return. Sizemore, showing more transparency than other places, cites the distribution system for print magazines as the main problem of running a magazine while most others on the front and back sides cite diminishing subscribers and interest in short fiction.
Click to Buy
Paperback: 9781933836454, $7.95
Though the plot centers around her and the book is named for her, Agnes Hahn doesn’t have a strong presence in this tale. Agnes lives a very solitary life after her Aunt Ella is placed in a home, suffering from severe Alzheimer’s, and her Aunt Gert dies. But all that is shattered when the local police arrest her for a series of gruesome murders.
Enter Jason, a reporter suffering from a broken heart and under pressure from his editor to deliver a good story or else. Agnes might be the central character, but Jason is the lead, whether he’s fighting the local cops for the big exclusive or falling for someone who might be a rare female serial killer.
While the tension sometimes falters and the characters are largely ordinary people, the mystery of Agnes Hahn is solid, a twisting tale of police procedure and psychology reflective of the genre’s forerunner, Thomas Harris.
Michele Lee: How much fun did you have playing with all the monsters out there?
RTR: I had a blast with exploring the issues and situations in my new collection. The experience was bittersweet, however, as there is a definite theme of loss and betrayal running rampant through the collection. The themes were not necessarily deliberate, but I think that is why the collection is so strong on many fronts and will connect with many people because the majority of the stories are based on my own personal experiences. To me, there is nothing better than a little bit of truth in fiction.
ML: Do you have a favorite story among the collection?
RTR: Actually, I have two. The first one is “Twin Thieves”. This story is very special and dear to my heart as it is so intensely personal. It was extremely difficult to write in many ways for me. It was easy to write in the sense that I knew exactly what I wanted to say with this piece, but very difficult in the sense that I was working through some major personal issues and living, examining, and experiencing those feelings during the process. The second story is “Brittle Bones, Plastic Skin”. Once again, there’s a lot of “me” in this story.
ML: How have the readers’ tastes or opinions of your stories differed from your own?
RTR: For a long time I really didn’t like anything once I finished with it. For a number of reasons, either I wished I could’ve expressed things better or once they were published I saw something else I could’ve added. For this collection, there are very few stories that I am not completely satisfied with. I’m very happy with how the majority of the stories turned out. One thing I’ve noticed so far are that the most personal stories are the ones that are getting the most comments and reactions. Then there are other stories that I really like and readers have not and vice versa. That’s normal, though.
ML: What do you feel that you bring to horror?
RTR: I bring realism to horror, I think. The themes and situations in my fiction can actually happen. Man is the most fascinating monster to me. What we, as humans, can do to one another is very disturbing to me. Everyone is capable of the things I write about, I think. There’s just some small line that we don’t cross that separates us from other who have chosen to cross that line.
Sure, I write about supernatural monsters and the like, but they are merely archetypes and stand-ins for issues that everyone has gone through at some point in their lives. I write what I know.
ML: Apex Publications is notoriously “anti-monster”. How did you manage to sell them a collection that features vampires, witches and even a unicorn?
RTR: I’m still trying to figure that out myself! Basically, Mari Adkins and I met on a message board in 2005. We started chatting and when the defunct Nocturne Press published my first collection, Mari picked up a copy, dug the stories and wrote a review of the collection for Apex. She passed the book onto Jason, I think, and based off the strength of those stories he got in touch me and offered me a shot at being a feature author for Apex in 2006. One thing led to another, and Jason offered me a slot in Gratia Placenti and I jumped at the chance. I can still recall the email I got when I sent him the story “Only Spirits Cry” and warned him it had a unicorn in it. He was dubious at first, but wrote back quickly and accepted the story. A few months later he offered to publish “The Monster Within Idea” and then went even further and offered to re-release my first collection in 2010. Like I said earlier, Jason saw past the ‘monsters’ and saw the stories were about life and things everyone has gone through. Jason recognized the world is a really messed up place and I was dealing with it in my own way through the fiction I wrote.
ML: You’ve been published both “traditionally” with ink and paper and been involved with epublishing in the form of the Amazon Shorts program. What have you taken away from these experiences?
RTR: I’m always looking for new ways to reach readers. The Amazon Shorts program allowed me to reach readers that normally would not have come across my books. I see that as a positive. Both methods are viable and have worked for me. I write for myself first, but like any author, I want to be read as well.
ML: Do you think more people in the industry will begin to recognize ebooks and epublishing as a beneficial tool, or do you think we’ll all keep digging our heels in against the change?
RTR: I think there will always be a certain percentage that will dig their heels in against this change. People still want to hold a book in their hands and turn the pages. There is a growing majority of publishers that are realizing that there is a market for e-publishing and are exploring it. For me, I’m eager to explore any new method to reach new readers.
ML: You’ve called yourself a company killer in the past. Any advice to those out there trying to figure out which markets to submit to and support and which to avoid?
RTR: Google is an author’s best friend. Before I submit to any market, I do an extensive search on them to see what I can find out. Message boards are a good place to find out both good and bad track records of publishers. If a publisher has a bad record people will definitely talk about it somewhere on the internet. I’m also much more wary these days of the authors that some markets may choose to publish. My reputation and integrity are extremely important to me and I don’t like being associated with “nitwits”. In the past, I have actually withdrawn projects from certain publishers when they chose to publish individuals I didn’t want to be associated with. Put simply ask around before you submit to a publisher. Contact their authors and see how they’ve been treated. Usually, these authors are happy to rave or rant about their publishers.
ML: Can you pin point a book, author or movie that triggered your desire to write horror?
RTR: Yes, I sure can. The first book I ever read was “The Stand” by Stephen King. I was 12 or 13 at the time. The book simply blew me away and started my obsession with all things horror. I was raised in a very sheltered environment and was quite protected, but once I read King, I searched out anything horror-related and my love affair with the genre blossomed very quickly. Currently, some of the best authors in the business, both small and mainstream presses, are Brian Keene, Tom Piccirilli, James A. Moore, Ray Garton, Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston, Nate Kenyon, John Skipp, Jason Brannon, and John Grover.
ML: What can we fans look forward to seeing from you in the future?
RTR: I’ve got a lot of projects in the works. At present, I am trying to place a co-authored novel with John Grover entitled “If God Doesn’t Show”. John and I are also working on another collaboration “At the Foot of the Mountains”. I also have projects forthcoming from Permuted Press and Library of the Living Dead Press. You can find out more about all of these projects on my myspace blog.