The latest issue of the FREE Morpheus Tales Supplement is out now! It’s got an exclusive interview with Dan Abnett (Horus Heresy and 40K Legend!) and Nik Vincent, loads of articles and columns from the usual crew (marvellous!), and a load of book and film reviews including some from me (which are fabulous, obviously!).
Archive for book review
THE SKINNER By Neal Asher – Reviewed
Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized with tags action, adolescent, adult, AI, alien, amount, army, asher, back-stoies, body chemistry, book, book review, books, builds nicely, cleverly put together, colonise, detail, dicover more, enough action, entertained, execute, fatal, fauna, fiction, great ideas, hive mind, hoop, horror, ideas, immortal, information, janer, jay hoop, later stages, leeches, massive, mission, monster, neal asher, novel, novels, old crew, overseer, pirates, planet, plot, police, polity, prador, problems, review, reviewed, reviews, sable keech, seas, secret, SF, skinner, solid story, spatterjay, story, strangers, surface, survivor, the skinner, twists and turns, universe, war, war drone, water filled, waves, writer on March 18, 2011 by stanleyriiksThree strangers meet on the way to the planet’s surface. That planet, which has little serviceable surface, is Spatterjay, a mostly water-filled world. And the seas of Spatterjay are filled with all manner of creatures all ready and willing to eat you and anything else that invades their watery home: including the strange leeches, whose bite, if not fatal, will change your body chemistry until you are immortal, or near as damnit.
One of the party of three is Sable Keech, several hundreds of years old, and finally returning to Spatterjay to complete his mission: to find the remaining survivors of Jay Hoop’s crew and execute them. They were an ancient gang who sold cored-human slaves to the alien Prador’s during the war. Despite the war now being over a Prador adult and adolescent have arrived on the planet in secret with one of Hoop’s old crew, intent on causing problems.
Another of the three is Janer, part of a hive mind that may have secret plans to colonize the planet.
Throw into this mix semi-immortal pirates; a monster that skins people alive; the various fauna that occupies most of the planet and is intent on eating everything else; an AI overseer that acts as the planet’s police and army; and a War Drone; and you get a massive amount of story, huge back-stories, and a huge amount of information that fortunately doesn’t slow down the plot too much.
It takes a little while to get into the book because of the sheer volume of stuff you need to know, but it’s so full of great ideas that you can’t help but keep reading. The book builds nicely, we have enough action and enough ideas to not only keep you entertained but make you want to discover more. Fortunately Asher’s produced not only more Spatterjay novels, but also Polity novels (based on the more organised part of the universe that only make a brief appearance here). Asher’s universe is massively detailed and cleverly put together, and the novel is the same. What it lacks in pace to begin with is swiftly made up for in the later stages, and you can forgive this because of the amount of detail expounded.
Full of great ideas, with a good solid story and plenty of twists and turns, this first book of Spatterjay is the ideal entry into this virgin territory, and I have high hopes for the other books in the series, which I will most definitely be seeking out.
RED By Jack Ketchum – Reviewed
Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized with tags avery ludlow, blasting off its head, book, book review, car crash, classic ketchum, dean r koontz, dog, evil, horror, horror novel, jack ketchum, justice, ketchum, marion, murderers, nasty, normal, novel, novel review, off season, old man, publishers, rapists, readers want, red, revenge, review, reviewed, reviewer, richard laymon, rob, shotgun, sqiurm, subtle, teenagers, the passenger, violence, violent on March 9, 2010 by stanleyriiksAvery Ludlow is an old man fishing with his dog. When three teenagers try to rob him he offers them all the cash he has, barely twenty dollars. The teenagers aren’t happy and shoot Ludlow’s dog, blasting off its head with a shotgun and laughing as they make their escape.
So far, so Ketchum. I was expecting a huge and hideously violent revenge tale.
Erm, that’s not what happens. Instead, we get Ludlow trying to get justice, but by traditional, conventional methods; visiting the boys’ parents, going to the police, appearing on TV. But Ludlow’s efforts come to nothing and each time he tries something new, they retaliate against him, with bricks through his window, and burning down his store.
This isn’t really a violent book, it doesn’t make your squirm. It’s a quiet novel from Ketchum, who doesn’t deliver the nastiness he normally does. This is a nice book, more subtle than regular Ketchum readers are used to. It’s good, Ketchum still provides the goods, but not in the way you expect. It’s a nice horror novel, more like a Richard Laymon or Dean R. Koontz book. A horror novel that turns out right in the end, not the bloody massacre of Off Season.
Obviously the publishers have realised that what Ketchum readers want is blood, violence and nastiness, and so they’ve provided us with the novella “The Passenger” in this edition. Classic Ketchum. When her car breaks down late one night Janet is pleasantly surprised to be picked up by a former classmate. So she wasn’t exactly friends with Marion, but she doesn’t have too far to get home. Then they crash into a group of murderers and rapists after Marion refuses to let Janet leave the car, and things start to get really nasty.
When humans goes bad, it could be the tag line of most of Ketchum’s work, and “The Passenger” is no exception. Think of all of the evil possibilities and them throw in some more and then ramp it up a notch, and that’s what Ketchum delivers.
Red isn’t Ketchum at his best, but it’s still a good novel, and nice and short. But “The Passenger” is classic Ketchum, and classic Ketchum always delivers. It’s not like reading, it’s like experiencing pain and torture. Somehow, you don’t know how, you managed to survive and you know that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
NEKROPOLIS By Tim Waggoner – Reviewed
Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized with tags adventure, atefact, best novel, bloody good book, book, book review, creator, creatures of the dead, dark lords, dark moon, dark world, dead, decent plot, descension day, destroy, detective, diagon alley, embriel, entire city, exciting, fantasy, father dis, god, grin with delight, half-vampire, harry potter, hellboy, horror, live, magical, mathew ritcher, mystery, nekropolis, novel, rare, review, reviewed, reviews, scarily good, serial killer, strange world, talking insects, tim burton, tim waggoner, travalogue, travel-guide, underworld, vampires, voldemort, warlock, were-creatures, witches, zombie on February 26, 2010 by stanleyriiksOn the cover SF Site says this is an “exciting mystery”, well, I’m not sure what book they were reading, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this one. This isn’t so much a mystery as a travelogue or an adventure.
Mathew Richter is a zombie, he’s a dead detective who followed a serial killer and warlock to the dark world of Nekropolis, the underworld where all manner of creatures live and non-live. Nekropolis is an amazing land, filled with vampires, were-creatures, witches and warlocks, talking insects, and the aforementioned zombies and other creatures of the dead. It’s a riot of Tim Burton-esque touches that will appeal to any horror and fantasy fan. A kind of really dark Harry Potter world, Diagon Alley after Voldemort takes over!
Anyways, back to the story. Mathew is contacted by a hot blond half-vampire who is in charge of her father’s – one of the five dark lords who rules Necropolis – collection of rare magical artefacts. One of the items in the collection is a powerful magical crystal capable of destroying the entire city, and today just happens to be Decension Day, when the five dark lords and Father Dis (the god and creator of Nekropolis), join forces to re-energise Umbriel, the dark moon that lights the city. And the artefact has gone missing.
So the meagre plot involves Mathew and his half-vampire friend searching the city of Nekropolis to find the artefact. But this is not about plot, it’s much more about exploring the amazing world of Nekropolis. Our protagonist is really the city, and whilst Richter and his squeeze are fairly well developed, there’s not really much to any of the other characters, and many of the citizens only make a brief appearance.
The book fails on many levels, the plot not the least as our hero goes round the entire city meeting up with someone to ask a few questions and then moving on to the next clue, and working his way round the city. The trail of clues (if you can call it that, some are tenuous to say the least!) is fairly easy to follow, or the next trip just takes them to another unexplored section of the city, seemingly at random. There isn’t really a mystery, and there’s no overall tension apart from the situational type as Richter finds himself in some sticky situations during his investigation.
But it’s still so much fun to discover the city. It’s like entering the world of nightmare, which since this book was originally written, has been explored by Tim Burton, Harry Potter and Hellboy. But this manages to be just a little darker than all of those and is all the better for it.
With a decent plot and some new material this book could be scarily good! Well, the good news is that the second and third books have been commissioned! Excellent.
Despite its failures this is still a bloody good book, and you’re unlikely to read anything else like it. It will make you grin with delight and make you want to visit the strange world of Nekropolis. It’s the perfect travel-guide, it’s just not the best novel.
THE KULT By Shaun Jeffrey – Reviewed
Posted in Reviews with tags absorbs, action-packed, atmospheric, avenge, bodies, book, book review, bully, bullying, clues, cold dead fingers, crime thriller, dark, death, deeply satisfying, detective, difficult to put down, disgusting, dive back in, excitement, experience, fantasy, fast paced, feel alive, furiously, grabbed me, grin, hit list, horror, horror film, horror novel, horror review, loving eveny minute, multilated, mystery, nasty piece of work, novel, pages, photos, police, prosper snow, reader, reading, revenge, review, serial killer, SF, shaun hutson, shaun jeffrey, story, suspects, tension, tension filled, the kult, the oracle, the reader, vengeane, victims on June 25, 2009 by stanleyriiks![artwork_kult_c_t02[1]](https://stanleyriiks.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/artwork_kult_c_t021.jpg?w=450 "artwork_kult_c_t02[1]")
THE KULT By Shaun Jeffrey
It’s rare that I get excited by a book, but Shaun Jeffrey’s The Kult really grabbed me.
The book was sitting on my sofa when my girlfriend picked it up and started flicking through, the next thing I know she’s over a hundred pages in and won’t let me have it back. My girlfriend doesn’t read horror, SF or fantasy, she reads romances and crime thrillers and she’s usually not willing to deviate despite my best attempts to educate her. She’ll gladly watch a horror film with me, hiding behind her hands, but I’ve not seen her manage ten pages of a novel before throwing it back at me and spitting, “that’s disgusting!”
So when I discovered she was a hundred and twenty pages in after only one day, I asked for it back so that I could review it and was a little taken aback when she said I could have it when she was finished and not until. I had to pry it from her cold dead fingers, but it was worth it!
Prosper Snow is a detective on the hunt for a serial killer called The Oracle. The Oracle is a nasty piece of work who sends photos of his mutilated victims to alert the police. He leaves no clues, no bodies, nothing for the investigating team to work with except the photos. And the photos of the bodies are starting to pile up.
When one of Prosper’s oldest friends enlists the help of their revenge group, called The Kult, he has little choice but to help out. But this time the retribution the group is seeking isn’t a simple beating to avenge a bullying as in the past, like when they were kids, when the group started. This time it’s vengeance for a rape. And the penalty for the perpetrator is death.
From the start this is a dark and atmospheric story that absorbs the reader. This is a mystery that keeps you guessing as Prosper and his friends are drawn further into the machinations of the serial killer, eventually finding themselves on the hit list. The tension continues to ramp up as members of The Kult turn up dead and we run out of suspects.
This is edge of your seat stuff and it’s difficult to put the book down as you haveto keep going. I polished the three hundred odd pages off in two days, and read the finale with a grin on my face, loving every minute of it. The final few pages will see you sighing with relief as you travel through the novel with the protagonist and feel his every effort to remain alive.
Just thinking about The Kult fills me with excitement, it’s like the feeling you get coming out of the cinema after watching a really good film, you feel alive. You just want to dive back in and experience it all again.
When I started reading this book I was thinking about making references to the British best-seller Shaun Hutson, whose novels are also fast-paced, action packed and furiously tension-filled. Jeffrey shares these attributes, his story is similar brutal and nasty as well, but The Kult leaves you not only deeply satisfied but also somehow wanting more.
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