Veil, Volume 1 by Greg Rucka

Veil, Vol. 1 by Greg Rucka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Veil" is an effective horror graphic novel from a proven writer in Greg Rucka. It's about a creature who was summoned from dark magic but seems to retain an innocence and vulnerability that makes predators want to prey on her and protectors want to keep her safe. The artwork is beautiful but also disturbing. The prevalence of sewer rats will creep out those with musophobia. They have a weird psychic connection with Veil that adds a disturbing connotation to the story. The urban setting adds to the atmosphere of fear in that the urban jungle is full of predators of all kinds. Add a secret group who resorts to black magic to achieve desired goals and the creepy factor gets very high. Although a dark story, there is some light in it that makes the ending satisfying for me. I would read further volumes.

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House of Mystery, Vol.5: Under New Management by House of Mystery, Vol. 5: Under New Management by Matthew Sturges , Luca Rossi (Illustrator), José Marzán Jr. (Illustrator), Bill Willingham , Sergio Aragonés, Dave Justus, Paul Levitz, Alisa Kwitney, John Bolton (Illustrator), Farel Dalrymple (Illustrator), Sam Kieth (Illustrator)

House of Mystery, Vol. 5: Under New Management by Matthew Sturges

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I think I just need to hang up the towel and admit this series is not for me. It's gruesome and dark in a way that doesn't appeal to me.  The characters are either sadistic or they fall prey to other sadistic characters. I wouldn't say I'm too squeamish to enjoy any horror, but this kind of horror I don't like.  I was drawn in by the story within a story format and the idea of a house between dimensions. But those things don't overshadow the unappealing aspects for me. I feel the series really jumped the shark with one event.  I was like, seriously!  I did kind of like the cameo though.  I guess I'm going to have to say that this is the last volume I will read.  My sister is tough and I'll ask her to hold me accountable not to pick any of these up.  It's a shame. I want to know how things end.  I suppose I'll have to do what I did with the Under the Dome show. I had my sister keep me honest!  I stepped away and haven't looked back, other than drooling over pictures of Mike Vogel.  I don't think that there's a hot actor in this series to tempt me to reading more of this series.

Three stars because it's not really bad quality or poorly written. It's just not my taste.



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Baltimore: The Plague Ships by Mike Mignola/Christopher Golden

Baltimore: The Plague Ships by Mike Mignola

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars


The Plague Ships is bonafide horror.  Not only does our intrepid hero battle vampires, but he also battles Hessian zombies infected from nasty fungal blossoms!  Baltimore is a relentlessly driven man with a soul full of vengeance and hurt.  An act driven out of fear leads to his whole life being destroyed and the subsequent quest for vengeance against all vampires, and in particular one with a vicious scar on his face.

Mignola is an auto-read for me.  His imagination is expansive and he plumbs the nightmares and dreams of the collective consciousness, offering up his resulting creations for the reader's enjoyment and consideration.  This graphic novel is actually more true horror than his Hellboy stories, which straddle the dark fantasy line as much as horror. But the visions in this novel are right from the darkest depths of horror.  The horror is of the more overt kind:  vampires, plague and zombies, but also emotional. The endless quest of Baltimore and his non-healing heart wound from the loss of his family through his own well-meaning actions. The fact that he can never go home again, either emotionally or physically. 

As much as the writing is a strength, so are the illustrations. They have a clarity and a concreteness, even though they are all almost monotonal (blacks, tans, reds). They convey action beautifully, making this graphic novel as much an action work as a horror work.  The dialogue is rather spare, but the pictures give you the whole picture even when there is no narrative.

For readers who enjoy the enigmatic, dark loner on a quest for justice, knowing that he can no longer call any place his home, this is worth reading.  I also recommend it to readers who enjoy the more traditional brand of horror, where the monsters aren't human, and where good fights against evil, even though man often struggles against the evil in his own heart. 

It doesn't feel like a five star book, but it's definitely close. 

Overall rating: 4.5/5.0 stars.



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Blood Brothers by Nora Roberts

Blood Brothers (Sign of Seven trilogy #1) by Nora Roberts
My rating: 3.75 of 5 stars

Yay! I finished it!

Thoughts on the Story:

I loved the brotherhood bond between Cal, Gage and Fox. They had been friends for a very long time, and you could see that that bond was titanium and strengthened by their horrific mutual experience and legacy. I liked how they were three very different men, and I could see a distinction in their personalities throughout this book. I loved how the book started in the past, where we see how horrors begin in Hawkins Hollow, but also the three main characters as kids. It made me think of Stephen King's "It", "The Body", and also "Needful Things" and "'Salem's Lot". While I saw sort of an homage to King, I think Nora Roberts distinguished herself very well and gave this story her own stamp.

Additionally, I liked Quinn, Layla (writing this makes me laugh because I always thought of the Black Dagger Brotherhood when I heard their names in the same sentence, which also has a Quinn and Layla, although Quinn is spelled differently), and Cybil. I liked how their characters complemented Cal, Fox, and Gage's characters. While the other characters don't get as much page time, I got a sense for the local color and the world in which the main characters lived, how they related to their friends and family. I am a huge fan of small town fiction, and I think Roberts did a great job with creating this small town which seethes with dark secrets, anguish, but also loving families and friends, who are suffering with a difficult legacy and curse.

One of the best things about this book was the horror element. Roberts spectacularly imbues this book with a dark, horrifying atmosphere. I suppose this is a romance more than anything, but it really stands on its feet as a horror novel. The scary scenes were vivid and quite effective. I won't go into detail because I don't want to spoil anyone, but wow! Stephen King would probably give Roberts a pat on the back.

I have to say that the horror aspect engaged me more than the romance. I liked the romance, but I didn't feel any strong bond or connection to Cal and Quinn as a romantic couple. It could be that I like my romance intense and this wasn't that intense. It was more everyday to me, like when you see your friends meet and get together, and eventually get married. Nothing wrong with that. Just not as enthralling as the horror aspect of this book.

Audiobook Impressions:

I had mixed feelings about the narrator. He made some of the characters sound kind of goofy, but I liked how he made Gage's voice really deep, and how he did Giles' Scottish accent. I didn't like the way he did the female character's voices. They sort of sounded like men in drag. I think I might have connected more with the females if they sounded more authentically female. I think he did a good job of making each character have a different voice, so points there. On the good side, I loved the sound effects and music. It added to the eerie feel of this story. I listened to this at bedtime, late at night, and I had a couple moments where I questioned the rationality of that. Since audio is a good way to get a book read and still stay on my reading schedule, I'll probably get the other two on audio as well.

Overall Thoughts:
I liked this book, but I didn't love it. I think the horror part makes this a higher rated book for me. As I said above, the romance was sort of average to me. Not a big draw in this book. I did love the bonds between the characters and the small town feel, so that's another plus. I want to see how this series concludes, so I'll keep reading. It was a pretty good way to spend some hours listening.

Overall rating: 3.75/5.0 stars.

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Ghost Road Blues by Jonathan Maberry

Ghost Road Blues by Jonathan Maberry

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars


Ghost Road Blues was a great book to read during the month of October, as part of my 4th Annual October Scare fest. I love that spooky mood that comes along with the fall, when the days get shorter, the nights longer, and the weather cooler (hopefully).



Although this novel was very good, and well-written, I have to put in in the 'liked fairly well' as opposed to 'loved or really liked' category.





Let's talk about the stuff that didn't quite work for me:

*I think that this story depends a bit too much on the human evil quotient for my tastes. That doesn't make it bad at all. However, I like supernatural horror, and inhuman monsters. I know all about the evil that men are capable of. Just turn on the news or check Yahoo's home page, and you will get your fill of that. For this reader, when I pick up a fiction novel in the horror category, I want to see some nasty, unreal, supernatural baddies who scare the heck out of me, but hopefully get thoroughly vanquished by the good guys. Yeah, whatever, the cynics will revile me for my hopelessly optimistic nature. That's okay. Life sucks. We all know that. But hope is what keeps us going. Hope makes the heart keep beating. Reading about horrible people and their horrible acts on others doesn't do it for me. In this case, Maberry takes the supernatural and wraps it around a whole lot of human darkness. He does it well, I can't deny. And he doesn't make this book overflowing with gore and gratuitous violence, which is a plus. However, reading about an evil waste of skin stepfather nearly beating a kid to death, a psychopathic criminal abusing and/or murdering numerous people, a racist mob beating a black man to death is a lot to handle, and let's not forget a religious fanatic who hears the voice of God in his head and commits unspeakable acts in God's name--it's a bit much for me, even if it ties seamlessly into the story.

*I had some trouble tying all the pieces of the puzzle together. The werewolf angle came out of nowhere. I was like...huh? I think that needed a little more gradual building in the narrative. And what's going on with Terry's sister's ghost? Is she really trying to get Terry to kill himself? I felt like the secondary characters were more like chess pieces waiting to be moved around in the following books. I'm not sure I liked that feeling. I still don't understand the roles that everyone is playing here. I know it's working out to be epic, but I don't know if I like all these unanswered questions.

*I know this is a trilogy, but I was feeling a bit unsatisfied with the way this book ended. It might be my dissatisfaction with cliffhangers I'm feeling lately. I feel like I'm being coerced into reading the next books, which is probably exactly what the writer and publisher want. Fortunately, I am interested enough to keep reading. I got this feeling I was just scratching the surface in this novel. Yes, I know this is part of a series. But I honestly feel that a book in a series should be written in such a way that someone who doesn't read the whole series can still feel that they read a self-contained story. I don't like that whole, "Wait, there's more aspect" very much. With this book, I felt as though I was almost watching the trailer for the whole series. Tantalizing glimpses, but not coherent or satisfying if one doesn't watch the movie (or in this case read the whole series).



Now the good:

*Something about small town life--the reading of it, not the living in it--that gets me every time. Fans of Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot will likely enjoy the view of small town life on offer in this book. Maberry's approach to characterization does bring to mind Stephen King, but it's not a copy cat. It's more of a feeling that Mr. King was an influence for Mr. Maberry. He does enough of his own thing that it feels like Maberry's work, not a King Redux. That whole fishbowl effect, where the darker natures and acts of the town's inhabitants line the bowl like the scum that builds up over time, is very evident in this novel. The vagaries of the various folk in and around Pine Deep lay important groundwork to the story, although again I could have gotten more depth here. I did feel like I could drive down A-32 and spent a couple of hours in Pine Deep.

*Atmosphere in shades. Maberry writes description beautifully. He captures the ambience of living in the rural part of Pennsylvania, with forest, swamp, river, stream, fields ripe with crops, and mountains all around. He must have traveled to this area, because this book shows a tangible familiarity with this region.

*I admired Crow, Val, and Mike as main characters. I loved the Bone Man, and cried out because of the injustice he experienced. Terry seems like a lit fuse ready to set off a powder keg. He's sympathetic, but makes me worry for the future. I liked how Maberry built up Crow's character, giving him a well-rounded feel in his love of the macabre, blues music, his car, and his love for Val and his friends, not to mention his fundamentally good heart. I liked seeing both his strengths and weaknesses. He's a really good unlikely hero.

*The ghost aspect was great. I liked this a lot more than the crazy evil humans. I sort of wish this was played up a bit more. Righteous spirit versus vengeful ghost instead of resurrected murderer who turns out to be a werewolf with godlike/demonic powers would have read so much better. Alas, it wasn't my story to tell, and who says I could tell it better than Mr. Maberry?

*The evil folks/things are very evil. The menace isn't always clear-cut, but it's very apparent. That's definitely a plus in this novel.



Wrapping Things Up:

This is my first read by Jonathan Maberry. He's a good writer and I think he has some stories to tell. This one is an interesting story, although maybe not what I expected or wanted. It was a worthwhile read, and definitely a good one for reading in October. I have the next two books, and I will read them since I want to see what happens next (a good thing as Neil Gaiman has said). I'd also like to read other books by this author.



I'd recommend this if you don't mind reading about loathesome human beings and like the small time vibe.



Overall rating: 3.5/5.0 stars.



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Occultation and Other Stories by Laird Barron

Occultation and Other Stories by Laird Barron

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Laird Barron clearly knows how to unsettle his readers. If there was a universal theme of the various stories in this book, it would be that every single story was unsettling, albeit in different ways.



Mr. Barron evokes memories of reading Caitlín R. Kiernan, HP Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, and even Algernon Blackwood in his tales in this volume. He finds the fearsome in such diverse subjects as the entities from beyond, the power of guilt, the overwhelming and uncomprehensible enormity of the natural world, and lets not forget, the darkness of the human heart. He even has shades of black magic and the diabolical in his stories. I would hesitate to compare him to the comparatively gentle horror stylings of M.R. James, other than the subtle nod to MR James in the antiquarian/bookish leanings of some of his characters. He's a bit more overt in his horror methodology than Mr. James. For all that, he never steps over the line into 'gruesome' and 'debauched.' Indeed, there are moments when sex and violence intertwine closely until they are hard to separate. Fortunately, this is done adeptly and with a subtlety that one such as I (who is admittedly quite squeamish of the combination of the two) didn't feel that she'd stepped into a no-woman's land where she felt she could no longer keep her feet traversing on the path into the dark world of horror that he creates in his stories.



This is a volume best not attempted at night. Even in the cloudless, startlingly bright, azure-skied and sun-washed landscape in which I read, I still felt those stirrings of unease that a good horror work should birth in its reader. This book is equally successful as weird fiction. I had that feeling that I didn't quite get what was going on--that there were questions unanswered, and the 'fearful unknown' was hinted at, and maybe I didn't want to go through that door that Barron leaves barely cracked.



Occultation and Other Stories exists in that gray area between modern-styled horror and the old-fashioned gothic horror that I prefer. And this was successful. I was not alienated in that I found the subject matter too extreme, too shocking, too overtly unpalatable for my tastes. Instead, this caused that shuddery feeling that I can appreciate, although some of the stories made me feel like I needed a sponge bath to remove the miasma of the dark, unfriendly organic, and somewhat visceral arena I had ventured into. But that is horror, my friends. Admittedly, I prefer my horror with an emphasis on the atmosphere, the shivers, and less on the repellent. But horror does have to take us out of our comfort zones, to make us feel unsafe, and Mr. Barron knows how to do that.



Recommended to readers who want to go to that dark, uncertain place for a few hours.



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The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro

3.5 out of 5 stars


This was probably a 3.5 star read for me. It was good, but it could have been better. I think the writing lacked a certain polish, although I did like some of the imagery. And it definitely was scary!



Story:

The vampires in this book were both disgusting and fearsome. I admit that thinking about the vampires and their nasty stinger and how they would excrete their waste products gave me the shivers (both in repulsion and fear). I liked the scientific angle employed in this story, taking an ancient evil, and giving it a scientific explanation. The potential for exponential and catastrophic spread of the vampire plague in this novel gives me the shudders. Books like this make me glad for the light of the sun, which is what a good vampire novel should do. This book touches both on my primal fear of ancient evil and infection, so it really did push my buttons.



Characters:

There were some characters that were so beautifully written that they spoke to me. Others were too cardboard for me. Abraham Satrakian, the elderly Jewish Shoah survivor was a wonderful character. He was like Van Helsing, with even more credibility, having earned his slayer status deep in the trenches. Hearing about his horrendous time in the Treblinka concentration camp added a deeper sense of horror and anguish to this story. He's one tough old guy, and he's definitely my favorite character in this novel. Ephraim is a pretty good character. At times, his narrative seemed a little half-baked. Over the course of the book, he gained a little more life and authority in my mind. I think his co-worker Nora was woefully under-used. I wondered what the purpose of her character was, other than being a soundboard for him. I felt very badly for Ansel and his situation, with his wife Anne-Marie. I didn't really care for the lawyer woman Luss, although I want to see what happens with her perceptive, Haitian nanny and the kids she saved from their mother. I like Fett, the ratcatcher a lot. He's a smart guy, street smart, intelligent, and resourceful. He knows how to handle himself. He is a huge asset to the small vampire slaying group that Abraham forms with Ephraim. The Master Vampire, well, I'm kind of undecided about. He wasn't in this book enough for him to resonate with me. I think Abraham is a much more powerful, and iconic character. The Master is more like Patient Zero to me, just a disease vector, one who comes around and sneers into the camera. He didn't really establish a lot of credibility with me as the Great Villain or the Big Bad. We'll see if that changes with the other books in the series...



Overall Thoughts:

This was a suspenseful, scary book to hear on audio. I was definitely sucked in. My aunt (who was riding with me on Friday) also got sucked in. Unfortunately, I think the characterization could have been more even-handed. There were a bit too many storylines, and I felt like some were dropped prematurely. I know this is a three-part book, so I guess I will have to keep reading to see where things go. As far as being scary and gross and keeping a reader invested, this is a Class A read. I think that work on the characters and the plot would have made it a stronger read over all. Ron Perlman was a really good narrator. He has a great voice, and he did a good job with the accents. I would definitely listen to other audiobooks read by him. If you find this available on audiobooks, and you are a vampire fan, I say check it out.







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