Book Review: The Chrysalids

A side project I've been working on in 2018 is catching up on readings books that have been sitting on my to-read shelf for years, and this year that meant getting back into John Wyndham.

I had read a number of his books during my teen years (Midwich Cuckoos, The Kraken Wakes, The Day of the Triffids, etc.) but as Wyndham wrote books from the 30s through to the 70s, I had never got to them all.

The Chrysalids (1955) follows a young man in a post-apocalyptic era wherein society has fallen back into agrarian levels. His community, a close-knit, heavily religious one, focuses on the purity of mankind and deplores any who are different. 

David, our main character, is the son of a local leader, and has a pretty big secret - he's telepathic. This allows him to pass as human, but if anyone were to ever find out, it would certainly mean his death, and likely that of his family as well.

Having now read through Wyndham's earlier work (and some of it has some pretty big problems), part of what I think really works in the novel is the use of David as a our first person narrator, rather than simply have him as the protagonist - seeing the world through David's eyes as a child and becoming a young man made the book much more immersive for me and I think kept the writer much more on task.

A great read and a wonderful introduction into science fiction if you happen to be looking.

Book Review: Dark Matter

Last month I read Blake Crouch's Dark Matter for one of my book clubs, as a selection by my friend Ron. The novel (which I really enjoyed), follows Jason Desson, a college physics professor, who, after being kidnapped, wakes up in a strange new world, one where he is not married, not a father, and is instead a world renowned physicist. He's wealthy, well regarded and lives in an amazing version of his old home, and somehow, he's managed to create a door (spoilers follow) between worlds.

The book follows Jason as he attempts to reconcile his new life with his old and eventually, tries to leave it all together. As a story it follows an action/science fiction plot, and I imagine that if I hadn't seen a number of dimension-hopping stories before (Sliders, Ring Around the Sun, etc.), it may have took me a little longer to see where the novel was headed.

The book is quite engrossing, keeping up a really great pace and if you are not as familiar with this sub-genre of science fiction, it could be a gateway novel to a lot of really fun reads. It had a number of set pieces that worked extremely well (including the climax) and definitely has me interested in reading more from the author.

Book Review: We Sold Our Souls

So back in 2016 I happened across a copy of Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism in my local book store and after reading it was delighted to find a new voice in the horror genre that felt like a bridge between YA horror and the adult stuff.

A few months later I tried his first book Horrorstor and although I didn't like it as much, I loved the layout and design of the book and there were some really great bits in it that I saw coming more together with My Best Friend's Exorcism.

Finally, last year I read his non-fiction work Paperbacks from Hell and I have to say it ranks quite high in my favourite non-fiction about the horror genre.

So last weekend when a copy of his latest, We Sold Our Souls came into my local library I was thrilled to dig right in. And three days and 330 pages later - I absolutely loved it.

The book follows a has-been heavy metal guitarist named Kris who begins the book in a dead-end job in a small town, and on a quick side-note, I was thrilled the lead of this story was a woman in her mid-forties, rather than a nineteen year old kid - I'm always happy to read coming of age stories, but shake it up a little people!

The story moves from small town nightmare to the truly epic and does it with a great love of the music it glorifies. It bounces from humour to terror to gross-out horror and back again, and honestly, I simply couldn't put it down.

Book Review: The Sand Reckoner

The next-to-last book on my survey of Ancient Greece through historical fiction was Gillian Bradshaw's The Sand Reckoner (2000). The novel tells the story of Archimedes of Syracuse, the inventor most famous these days for the whole water displacement discovery (Eureka!).

The book begins with a young Archimedes returning home from Alexandria to Syracuse which is in a war with Rome. A mathematical genius, Archimedes hopes to find work as an engineer for the city and perhaps help out his family, and very quickly his value to the city becomes apparent to its current tyrant, Hiero, a surprisingly positive example of the type of leader we classify as a tyrant today.

The story parallels it's main narrative with that of Marcus, Archimedes personal slave, and for me, the much more engaging character in the story. Archimedes is interesting, but so in-his-own-head, it can sometimes be frustrating to watch him. Marcus, on the other hand, is much more aware of the world around him, both in terms of the city itself and the larger world.

I had never read Gillian Bradsahw before and honestly just loved this book, it reminded me a little of L. Sprague de Camp's The Arrows of Hercules (1965), but I found it much more engaging.

I'm really looking forward to next month when i complete my list and get to do it with another of Bradshaw's books!

Book Review: Ararat

Having read my way through all the Bram Stoker Award winners for Best Novel a few years ago, I look forward to the new winner each year as a way to see what's going on with the Horror genre lately, and the 2018 winner; Christopher Golden's Ararat was a pretty intense story of survival and mountain climbing, mixed with some aspects of both The Exorcist and The Thing.

The novel follows two adventurers Adam and Meryam, who together have made a business of archeological discoveries and adventure tourism over the years on what might be their greatest discovery yet, the discovery of an ancient ship entombed in Mount Ararat in Turkey, the biblical end point of the story of Noah's Ark.

Without going into too many spoilers, the novel nicely mixes aspects of mountain climbing with sheer survivalist horror tropes as the adventurers and their guides end up exploring the ruins with two other teams and end up finding more than they had bargained for.

Although I felt the story was a little too long and had a much bigger cast of characters than was necessary for my tastes, it was a thrilling story that seemed to care about the secondary characters and didn't rely too much on jump scares.

A fun read!

Archie Horror: Post Eight: Chillinng Adventures of Sabrina

At the end of a month of reading through Archie Horror, I ended with the new (almost a week old as of this post) Netflix series, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina created by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and starring Kiernan Shipka.

The series, following in the footsteps of the CW's Riverdale, continues to expand the Archie Universe, and although I've only seen the first four episodes (sorry - I was finishing reading Vampironica and I'm not a great TV show-binger!), it has been a pretty fun watch so far...

First of all, for the fans of the original comic book series (also created by Aguirre-Sacasa), the television series ditches the sixties setting (although it keeps much of the look), and hasn't (so far) gotten quite as dark as the comic series either.

In many ways I'm really enjoying the balance the show is doing, working to appeal to fans of Riverdale while at the same time acknowledging that for a lot of people, Sabrina Spellman is either the character from the comics or the character from the 90s TV series.  Is it edgier than I expected?  Absolutely!

For the record, my favourite characters to date are Sabrina's aunts Hilda and Zelda (but that may just be they are closer in age to me than the leads) and the freakiest moment to date was in episode four when the human world storyline got incredibly dark (probably darker than they intended), although I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet.

A fun, well acted and intriguing look at how we balance our home lives and personal lives, the show (although definitely not for children), is well worth the watch.

So there you have it, a month seeing what Archie Comics could do with the Horror genre, and you know what? They've done a pretty great job!

Archie Horror: Post Seven: Vampironica

Earlier this year, after the successes of Afterlife with Archie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and Jughead: The Hunger, the good folks at Archie Horror introduced a new title to the imprint.

Vampironica

Created by Greg and Megan Smallwood, Vampironica follows Veronica Lodge in a Riverdale not quite like the one we know, as she is attacked by a client of her father's, and turned into a Vampire.

Part what what I've always found tricky about the rivals in Archie comics (both Veronica and Reggie) is how easy it is to simply write them off as necessary foils for good guys Archie Andrews and Better Cooper, but in turning Ronnie into a vampire herself, the character is actually able to shine in a way I have seldom seen her; as a no nonsense young woman intent on changing her world to one in which she sees value.

To be honest I wasn't really expecting much out of this title, but found it to be a fun read and one I'd happily recommend to others.

As the title is still fairly new (issue four comes out later this week), I don't want to go into too many details, but I have read that the creators cited by An American Werewolf in London and Fright Night as inspirations, so I think it's safe to say the title is a little closer to Shaun of the Dead than Dawn of the Dead on the Horror/Comedy meter.

Archie Horror Post 6: Jughead: The Hunger

Okay - so what if Jughead was a werewolf.

Hey, where are going? Hear me out!

You know how Jughead is always ravenously hungry? Well what if that was just a symptom of the fact that he's actually a werewolf?

That's pretty much the concept behind a one-shot Archie Horror title that came out last year (2017). Jughead: The Hunger, written by Frank Tieri with art by Michael Walsh, opens in a Riverdale hunted by a serial killer called "The Ripper".

This killer turns out to be our own Foreyth Pendleton "Jughead" Jones III and using some pretty clear influence from The Wolf Man, follows Jughead as he becomes aware of just what his monstrous side has been up to in the last few weeks.  In a fun twist, it also turns out that Betty Cooper comes from a long line of Werewolf hunters, and she's been waiting and watching in case Jughead were to change.

The initial story was well received and an ongoing series started soon after. As with Afterlife with Archie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, it exists in it's own world (although Ms. Spellman has yet to appear), and, although extremely gruesome, tells a pretty interesting survivalist horror story of exactly what a young man tries to do once he discovers his own inner demon.

My only complaint of the series is the lack of a letters column, both for the interactions with the fans and as the creator comments have been a personal favourite part of the previous two titles.

In the end, a pretty fun read for werewolf fans, and one that begins to move beyond lycanthropy in issue nine...

Archie Horror: Post Five: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

First and foremost, it is important to view Archie Horror as an imprint, like Wildstorm or Vertigo, rather than a shared universe like Marvel. Although the different titles begin with characters from Archie Comics, they are not meant to be the same characters across all titles. The Sabrina in Afterlife with Archie (AwA) is clearly a different Sabrina than the one in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (CAoS). Part of how this is shown currently is by having different artists for each title, so while AwA has the Francavilla style, CAoS is given a far different look by Robert Hack.

The first issue follows Sabrina through her childhood and ends up being set in the mid 60s, so we're immediately in a really interesting and specific time period. The witches in the series are definitely the Horror genre standards, worshiping the devil and pledging him their souls (sorry fans of Hilda and Zelda, but these aunts are pretty terrifying). Sabrina is a half witch, half human and the first arc (titled The Crucible) follows her in the last few days before her sixteenth birthday when she's set to devote her life to darkness as her aunts have.

The series has a really great feel to it, and also includes shout outs to a number of horror films and books with similar themes, like Rosemary's Baby and others.

It is fair to say that this title, as with AwA is definitely not for children - there are incidents of extreme violence and not all of your favourite characters necessarily make it through each issue, but the narrative is really intriguing and I'm really interested to see how much of the source material will be making it into the Netflix adaptation later this week.

Afterlife with Archie: Post 4: Afterlife with Archie pt. 2

So now we get into a more sensitive, potentially spoiler-filled section (I'll do my best).

Afterlife with Archie issues six through ten (most of the Betty R.I.P.) storyline, moves forward a few months and has the Riverdale survivors moving away from their small town into the larger world.  Issues focus on secondary characters (Sabrina, Reggie, and Josie and the Pussycats all get issues dedicated to them), and although I didn't find the story quite as compelling as the first arc, it is still really great and has me chomping at the bit for more.

Although I'll be taking a break from this series until more issues come out - I can strongly recommend it and am really looking forward into my next deep dive in Archie Horror, into the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina...

Archie Horror: Post 3: Afterlife with Archie

After that delightful little trip into an aspect of Archie comics I didn't know existed, it's time to get to the main even, Afterlife with Archie written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa with art by Francesco Francavilla.  At the most basic level, the story is really simple; 

What if there were a zombie outbreak in Riverdale?

Archie comics have done many crossovers and genre switches in the past, most famously with the crime-noir adaptation that is the current CW show Riverdale, but previously including crossovers with The Punisher, KISS, and even The Predator.

What I love about Afterlife With Archie is the simplest thing, not the fact that Dilton is now an encyclopedic expert in horror trivia, nor the fact that Betty and Veronica have also become horror fans in this world.  Nope, it's the fact that I know everyone.

When watching zombie series like The Walking Dead, you definitely feel for the leads, but as wave after wave of the undead move towards them, it becomes increasingly easier to forget that these were all regular folk once, with there own goals, hopes, and dreams, and instead focus on the cool visuals.

The genius of what Aguirre-Sacasa and Francavilla have done with this comic is to populate it with people I've grown up reading, I know all about the rivalries, friendships, and back stories of all theses characters, from dedicated readings as a little kid, to watching the animated series, and even occasionally leafing through the issues now as I wait in the grocery line.  By using these characters that we know so well, they make every single new zombie in the outbreak personally heartbreaking, because we've been reading about these characters forever, even if only ironically we have a degree of investment and it hurts a little every time a new character falls to the zombies and rises again...

Which to be fair, makes it even more horrifying.

Well played gentlemen, well played.

Archie Horror Day 2: History Lessons

 So here I was all ready to go with a deep dig into the 2013 Afterlife with Archie comic and then I find out that actually, this is not the first time Archie comics has done horror, and that the series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is named after the imprints Chilling Adventures in Sorcery series which launched back in 1973 (a few years before I was born).

Luckily for me, however, the first seven issues have been released in a collection called Chilling Tales of Sorcery v.1, which means I didn't have to dig through old back issues in various comic book stores or break the bank using eBay or the like. Instead I got to immediately dig into a little bit of Archie history I wasn't aware of until yesterday.

So Chilling Tales of Sorcery actually starts out in the traditional Archie illustrated style, and for the first two issues is introduced by Sabrina the teenage witch, who, Cryptkeeper-style, sets up each of the stories and often gives a punch line ending as well. The stories themselves feel quite a bit like classic E.C. Comics tales, with monsters and ghouls featuring strongly as well a criminals, mad scientists, and a number of innocents who end up in their clutches.

As the comics were abiding by the Comic Code Authority, they tend to be a little more light-hearted overall, but a number of them end with gruesome fates awaiting the villains (and sometimes misunderstood heroes).

These comics (the collection I have contains the first seven) were a real treat for me and entirely unexpected! Although they don't cross over with Archie comics characters (except for Sabrina in the first two issues), they are well worth the read for anyone who likes a little bit of spooky fun in comic book form.

Archie Horror with Bookmonkey: Day One

Welcome to our 2018 look at the Horror Genre and this year we'll be digging in to the Archie Horror imprint of comic titles, including Afterlife with Archie, Chilling Tales of Sabrina, Jughead: The Hunger, and Vampironica.

Having been an Archie reader for most of my reading life (short stories AND sitting next to the grocery counter - how could I not read these little titles growing up?), and being a huge horror fan from my earliest days the mix of the two in 2013 was sure to peak my interest.

I'm going to spend the next month digging into the various series and ask myself whether they mix well, or work to simply alienate Archie and Horror fans from each other.

Come along with me!

Book Review: Tyrant: Funeral Games

Continuing to work my way through a list of Ancient Greece in 36 Historical novels, I hit #32, Christian Cameron's 2010 novel Tyrant: Funeral Games. This was actually the first time in the entire list where I was being asked to read volume three in a series, so of course I quickly read one and two.

Tyrant Mini-Review
This 2008 novel follows a Greek mercenary called Kinneas and his interactions with the Scythian people during the reign of Alexander the Great. The book was a lot of fun, showing a little known corner of the era.

Tyrant: Storm of Arrows Mini-Review
This 2009 novel follows Greek mercenary Kinneas and his battle with a Macedonian army led by one Alexander the Great's generals. A lot of action, as well as an interesting look at Alexander himself in the latter days of his reign.

Ok, so back to Funeral Games. The novel follows the children of the leads from the first two books as they navigate the collapsing Macedonian Empire after Alexander's death. Twins Satyrus and Melitta begin the novel around age twelve and allow the reader to examine how nobles from different cultures viewed gender, roles, and responsibilities against a backdrop of action, intrigue, and adventure. I think it's fair to say that this list very nicely led me to two great authors, Mary Renault and Christian Cameron.

Movie Review: The Predator

So yesterday I went to see the new Shane Black film The Predator with my youngest daughter and my friend Ron. The three of us kind of nicely represented a lot of the incoming audience; first, I had seen most of the franchise leading up the film (sorry AVP: Requiem) and had played the various video games, read the comics, etc., Ron came into the film having never seen any of the previous franchise films, but simply as a fan of Shane Black's work and my youngest daughter had seen the original film a few years back and thought the trailer looked fun.

The movie itself was a little bumpy; what worked really worked (fun quips, nice rag-tag team of predator-fighters, some pretty great action sequences), but I found a number of plot points were sort of left dangling (not willing to go into specifics due to spoilers) and in the end I have to say it attempts to out laugh and out violence the original and at one level succeeds, but at another simply shows that more isn't necessarily always better.

A fun film to watch in theatres, but not sure if it is one I would own (currently I only own the original 87 film).

Book Review: Funeral Games

Funeral Games, Mary Renault's final novel, and the conclusion of her Alexander trilogy follows the aftermath of the death of the Macedonian King, and how quickly everything can fall apart without any plans for succession.

The story is bloodthirsty and often heartbreaking, following both those who lust for the power left in Alexander's wake and those thrust into positions of power with little but their wits to protect them. In previous novels Renault largely focused on male protagonists, but here she has his widows, mother, sister and cousin all feature prominently and although history clearly shows how his empire worked out after his death, I couldn't help but root for many of these characters.

A fascinating look at how quickly events can turn on just about anyone, Funeral Games was well worth the read, and will have me looking for other Renault books in the future.

Movie Review: The Nun

So yesterday my friend Mike and I went to see the latest film in the Conjuring Universe The Nun, a film that works as a prequel to the series, but certainly requires viewers have seen the previous films or they will be spoiled.

The Nun is the fifth film in the series and although I wasn't quite as excited to see it as I was Annabelle Creation (mostly because I had seen other films by the director), in for a penny in for a pound as they say.

Set in 1952 the film follows Sister Irene (Taisa Farmiga) and Father Burke ( Demián Bichir) as they investigate a recent death at a convent in Romania. As can be expected in any type of horror film, there is a spooky old building, a number of jump scares and a sinister backstory for the duo to uncover.

In the end the film was a fun watch, but stand up as well as either of the main Conjuring Films or as well as Annabelle Creation (Still haven't seen the original Annabelle - maybe someday).

So if you're a fan of the series, check it out, otherwise perhaps check out some great classic Hammer films for a similar feel.

Book Review: The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

In Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland's 2017 novel The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. mixes the speculative fiction concept of time-travel with government bureaucracy and although it was a touch long for my taste, it was, in the end, a fun examination of how bureaucracies can ruin pretty much everything.

The novel follows a Linguistics doctor named Melisande Stokes, who after having a particularly disastrous run in with her academic supervisor, runs into a mysterious government officer who offers her a job.

The majority of the novel is told from Melisande's point of view, and is written as a document she has deposited in a bank from Victoria England, where she has been trapped in the past.  Other characters and story elements get focus through internal memos, newspaper clippings, personal journals, etc.

The novel focuses on exactly how a government agency might go about setting itself up with a time-travel based department, and the increasingly byzantine obligations put on it as its importance raises over time.

Although it works strongest in concepts, rather than person to person interaction, in the end I found it to be quite a fun read.

Book Review: God of War

Christian Cameron's God of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great (2012) is the last on my list of historical fiction set in Ancient Greece to focus on the Macedonian King during his life.  Although I've still got six more books to go (and another by Cameron), this was the last to deal Alexander as a living man, rather than the legend he became.

For me, the novel had a lot of great strengths; putting the perspective character as his general Ptolemy was an excellent way to view the character from a different perspective (much as Mary Renault did in The Persian Boy) and also to slyly write a novel about the (arguably) greatest successor of Alexander, the battle scenes (as with all of Cameron's books I've read to date) were phenomenal, and the turning points in Alexander's life, where he goes from boy to man, man to king, and king to emperor, and at significant personal cost, were really striking to see from the point of view of a good childhood friend.

My biggest problem with the book was actually the length; at just under 900 pages it was fairly massive and I thought it could have either been pared down considerably or split into two novels, either way would have been fine by me, but I think that the narrative would also have moved better in either situation.

A really fun read, but perhaps not the first book I'd recommend for someone who wanted to read more about Alexander the Great.

Book Review: The Afghan Campaign

My fifth book by Steven Pressfield, and his fifth on the list, The Afghan Campaign (2006) takes a look at a specific era in the Macedonian King's conquest of empire during 330 BCE when he attempted to subdue the Afghan kingdoms (modern day Afghanistan). The novel focuses on a recent recruit called Matthias who begins the book by running away from home to join the military, where both his older brothers have enlisted.

Following Matthias on his journey the book begins to feel like a young man coming of age story, then a love story, and then a meditation on the costs of war. Much of the novel focuses on cultural differences between the Macedonian army and those it battles, and Matthias makes a number of clear missteps throughout the book from a place of good intentions but almost total ignorance of the people he is either liberating or conquering, depending on your point of view.

When I tell people I've spent the last few years working my way through this specific list, I'm often asked what draws me to these stories of Ancient Greece, and with certain novels, like John Gardiner's The Wreckage of Agathon or this title by Pressfield, I find the answer is that much of the issues dealt with at that time are still very close to us here are the beginning of the 21st century.

A fascinating read.

Book Review: Head On

John Scalzi's follow up to his 2014 book Lock In continues to follow FBI Agents Chris Shane and Leslie Vann as they examine an accidental death/potential homicide during a game of Hilketa, an especially violent professional sport specifically for Hadens (the 1% of the population locked in to their own bodies and forced to explore the world either online or through surrogate robots called Threeps).

The novel works as a fairly fun action mystery and speaking as someone who is not particularly interested in professional sports, I still found it to be a really fun read read and one that continued to expand and eplore the world that Scalzi created in the first novel.

Well worth a look, although I'd strongly recommend you read the first novel before digging into this one.

Book Review: The Hot Kid

Back in 2002 I read my way through the works of Elmore Leonard, who began his writing career with westerns and ended up writing some of most interesting crime novels I've ever come across. His dialogue was snappy, his characters intriguing, and I was never sure when I started one of his books whether the good guys would win or not.

At the time I read all of his works from his first novel, The Bounty Hunters (1953), up to his kids book A Coyote's in the House (2004). I was clearly reading at a much faster pace than my current "one book a month" style. At the point I caught up with him, I moved on to my next author and figured I would keep up as new books came out.

Turns out I didn't, and when the author passed in 2011 I still had six books to go, At the time I was working through Robert R. McCammon's books, and afterwards I switched to Richard Matheson and then Charles de Lint, so it was only now I've managed to begin catching up.

The Hot Kid is a prohibition-era crime story following a U.S. Marshall named Carl Webster as he tracks down a number of bank robbers. He plays on the bank robber's need for attention and tries very hard to bring them in alive. The novel follows both Carl's story and that of the villain, Jack Belmont, the son of a rich man who desperately wants to become a John Dillenger-level criminal.

The novel is fast-paced, fun, and feels like a fun throwback to his western novels. Well worth the read.

Book Review: The Wind in His Heart

Reading Charles de Lint's latest novel, The Wind in His Heart, I was struck by how much of the story involved people feeling trapped in their own lives, and the things they do to change.

The book focuses on a number of main characters: Thomas Corn Eyes, a young man who feels shoe-horned into becoming a shaman for his people, Steve, a hermit who thinks he has long escaped his past, Sadie, a teenager abandoned by her foster father in the middle of a desert, and Leah, a journalist who thinks she may have just found the biggest story of her career.  

As compared to his Newford novels (which do get a shout out here) and his more recent Wilding YA series (which also have a blink-and-you'll-miss-it note), The Wind in His Heart has de Lint masterfully balancing multiple characters and storylines against an amazing background of life on an American reservation as well as journeying into a strange otherworld.

What I've always loved best about de Lint's work is the way he matches regular folk with the fantastic and examines how they deal with finding out their world is now much bigger than they had ever imagined.  The mix of real-world concerns with issues involving spirits, witches, shapecahngers and others bring both into sharp contrast.

The Wind in His Heart marks my last de Lint novel for now, I've been reading his his books at the rate of one a month since March of 2014 and have thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.  Now, like all the other de Lint fans out there, I've just got to sit and wait until he releases his next story.

Book Review: The Virtues of War

As I continue to work my way through this list of 36 Historical novels covering Ancient Greece, two names always bring a smile to my face as they reoccur, Mary Renault and Steven Pressfield. Renault's work gives such an interesting look at aspects of the Ancient world I'm not as familiar with, such as the lives of actors, poets, and even occasionally, kings. Pressfield, on the other hand, wows me both with spectacle and how he pairs ancient philosophies with the events he describes.

His 2004 novel, The Virtues of War begins with Alexander the Great nearing the end of his conquest in India, and looks back across his life at many of the key battles he fought. Pressfield works hard to show Alexander's military genius and after reading Scott Oden's Memnon, I found myself approaching the battles between Alexander and the Persian general with trepidation; I knew how everything would turn out, but had previously only seen it from the other side.

The novel was a really great look at Alexander's world from his own point of view, and although perhaps not as lyrical as Renault treated the same source material, a really excellent read.

Book Review: Wanderers of Time, by John Wyndham

I can't honestly say when I read my first John Wyndham novel, but if I had to guess it would have probably been sometime in Junior High (88-91) and was most likely either Day of the Triffids or The Midwhich Cuckoos.

For me his books were an early introduction to post-apocalyptic fiction and his mix of end of the world terror with a sort of middle class 50s United Kingdom mindset was a great introduction to the sub-genre for me.

Over the past few years I've collected a number of his books and this month dug into my first, Wanderers of Time which is a short story collection of some science fiction he wrote in the 1930s. With stories ranging from Time Travel to space adventure and two pretty interesting horror stories (one a sort of Mummy on the moon and the other a terrifying example of bio terrorism), I was quite impressed and am definitely looking forward to reading more.

Book Review: The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin

Following up on The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin's The Obelisk Gate continues Essun's story, but this time includes the point of view of her daughter Nassum as well. In an attempt to stay away from spoilers, as the book is only a few years old, I will say that although I was a pretty big fan of the first novel, the second one took the concepts and world building from its predecessor and starting looking at them in detail, including a much more in depth look at the stone eaters and the character of Hoa.

I'm really interested to see where this series is going and although I'm still not certain as to whether I'll ever own copies of it myself, I'm finding this tragic, intimate story to be much more affecting than I was initially expecting.

Movie Review: A Quiet Place

John Krasinski's A Quiet Place begins with an intriguing concept; what if there were creatures that could kill you if you made any noise? Following an alien invasion (I'm assuming, the particulars are never mentioned), creatures have effectively overtaken the earth in a matter of months and those who still live on day 89 (where the film begins) only do so by keeping incredibly quiet.

The film follows a family as they attempt to deal with their new world, and for me the family drama going on was one of the most exiting parts of the film. Yes, the monsters are quite scary and the tension is very high, but by stripping away almost all spoken dialogue, you are left focusing on the actors faces and actions. Both leads, John Krasinski and Emily Blunt were really fantastic, but for me the standout was Millicent Simmonds, who was really fantastic throughout.

Also, the experience of watching the film in a packed theatre, where the only sounds were people occasionally coughing or rustling their bags of popcorn, made the film much more immersive for me.

Ultimately the film comes down to questions of what would you do to keep your family safe? What I loved was the fact that is in effect asked not just of the parents, but of the children as well. An incredibly engrossing film, and one I would gladly see again.

Book Review: The Fifth Season

Picking up N.K. Jemisin's 2015 novel The Fifth Season last month for a book club read, I wasn't really sure what to expect. My rule of thumb when it comes to books I've decided ahead of time to read is to entirely ignore the back cover and end pages, basically anything that might tell me what the book is about, as I figure that's simply advertising for a book I've already agreed to read.

What I knew about the book going in was:

1) It had won the 2016 Hugo for best novel - so I was looking at Science Fiction
2) My friend Mike (who has himself read his way through most of the Hugo winners since they began in 1953) picked it

So I start this book about a woman called Essun and the very first thing I notice is that the book is written in second person - the first chapter begins:

You are she. She is You. You are Essun. Remember? The woman whose son is dead.

You're an orogene who's been living in the little nothing town of Tirimo for ten years. Only three people here know what you are, and two of them you gave birth to.

Well. One left who knows, now.

For me, this immediately pulled me into the narrative, starting with this woman's tragedy and over time finding the stories of two other women, Daraya, a young child taken from her home and Syenite,an orogene paired with a curmudgeon named Alabaster for further training and breeding.

The story was often a hard read, and the broken Earth described by Jemisin was a strange and fascinating world for me to explore. In the end I liked the book enough to follow up with the sequel The Obelisk Gate within a few weeks, and I've got the final novel in the trilogy The Stone Sky on hold at my local library.

A really facinating read, and one that I would definitely recommend checking out.

Book Review: The Amazing Screw-On Head

Sometimes you buy a book and decide not to read it yet as you know it will be a special treat for you the day you finally crack it open and peek inside.

Originally published in 2002 and purchased by me as a hardcover book back in 2010, Mike Mignola's The Amazing Screw-On Head is a fun little story about an Abraham Lincoln-era robot who can screw his head (think of a lightbulb) on to a variety of robot bodies in order to best serve the U.S. Administration and save the world from a number of villains set on destroying the world.

The comic is strange, funny, and clearly related thematically to Mignola's much more famous Hellboy, but works to create a strange world in which the fate of existence is left up to a robot and fighting a villain called Emperor Zombie.

All I can say after reading this tasty little gem this morning is "Thanks 2010 Bookmonkey!"

What a delightful little book.

Book Review: Memnon

Scott Oden's Memnon examines the era of Alexander the Great, but from an outsider's point of view. Memnon of Rhodes was the commander of a group of Greek mercenaries who served the Persian King and is largely thought to have been the empire's best chance against Alexander the Great increasing power as he grew from controlling Macedonia to all of Greece and eventually most of the Ancient World.

The story follows Memnon as a young man in Rhodes, desperate to see his fortune in war, through his own rise to power under his brother Mentor and eventually as the last, best hope of the Persian Empire in the face of Alexander.

I've always been a fan of familiar stories being told from a different point of view and Memnon did not disappoint. Although I wish the book had been a little shorter, the structure was well done and Alexander takes on a very different look when he's eyeing your land as his next conquest.

A really interesting read.

Book Review: A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

Going into this book I actually had no idea who Kim Philby was, or indeed what was ultimately betrayed. I read it as it was a book club selection made by my friend Ron, and having already decided to read it, I didn't see any need to go any further into researching the book (which I'll often do if I'm deciding whether or not to read something new).

Little did I know at the time, I had already read a book in which Philby was a main character only a few years previously, so when the aspects of his story started coming out to me, I had the delicious feeling of things falling into place as I moved along.

If, like me, you are unfamiliar with Philby, he was a Russian spy who began working undercover in British intelligence during the Second World War aiding in the Allied effort, but secretly reporting everything he had witnessed, acted on, and read over to his handlers in Moscow.

I don't actually want to get into how long it took to uncover him, or exactly how the discovery of his actions came about, as the book was much more engrossing for me to not know, wondering every time that his number appeared to come up if this would be the time he would finally be caught.

Ben MacIntyre's book is incredibly well-researched, a great example of how non-fiction can be truly engrossing, and a surprising look at just how much a well-placed spy can get away with in a culture that is unwilling to even theorize about a spy in their own midst.

Moive Review: The Shape of Water

Ok, so no surprise, I really really loved Guillermo Del Toro's 2017 film The Shape of Water.  

Focusing on the relationship between a woman (Sally Hawkins) and an aquatic creature being studied at a Baltimore research facility in the early '60s, the film clearly borrows some inspiration from the classic 1954 film The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but is such an engrossing look at a relationship unlike any I had ever seen before that I have a little trouble describing it.

Honestly, do yourself a favour and go see this if you've got the time, because honestly, it is simply a delight to see, mixing the mundane with the fantastic and the hopeful with the horrific.

Blog: Book Review: Paperbacks from Hell

While browsing through a bookstore a year and a half ago I had the delight of discovering author Grady Hendrix, who's book My Best Friend's Exorcism was both a delightful look at high school in the eighties and a really effective horror novel focusing on demonic possession. Last year I read his earlier work Horrorstör which, although not quite as good as exorcism was still a fun read and had some really great moments of tension as his characters worked their way through a haunted IKEA-style store. In some ways it reminded me of China Mieville's 2005 short story "The Ball Room", both in subject matter and high tension.

Then last year I found Hendrix's nonfiction work Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction and was simply blown away. The book covers the boom of Horror paperbacks that started in the late sixties with Rosemary's Baby and ended in 1988 with Silence of the Lambs (which re branded Horror as Thriller).

The book includes everything from monsters and Satan through to V.C. Andrews and apocalypses, and although Stephen King and Anne Rice (who dominate the Horror section in any bookstore), the book is a treasure trove of the crazy stories that were published over these two decades and as a long-time horror fan I wasn't sure if I was more delighted when Hendrix examined books I loved or introduced me to titles (and series) I had never heard of before.

A really fascinating read and the cover art of these stories is well displayed and makes for a great book to dig into or just browse through.

Book Review: Wildings vol. 1: Under My Skin

Charles de Lint's most recent series moves away from Newford and into a small coastal town in California called Santa Feliz.  Under My Skin follows Josh Saunders, a young man simply trying to make his way through high school when one day he transforms into a wildcat during a fight with his stepfather.

Over the last six months this strange phenomena has been plaguing the town and a heightened police presence is in effect with a threat of a potential quarantine just around the corner.  Called Wildlings, these effected teens seem to have the ability to change shape and no one seems to be aware of their purpose beyond being a potential threat.

As with similar stories about the secret lives of teens (the X-Men immediately spring to mind), Josh has to quickly disguise his new abilities and attempt to make sense of the strange new society he is quickly becoming part of, with new friends and foes appearing in his life while one of his best friends may be hiding something herself.

As a YA book it was a lot of fun, and has me interested to see where the author will go with this action/adventure story about a young man in over his head that combines elements of fantasy, science fiction, and a little horror.

Movie Review: Insidious: The Last Key

My first theatre film of 2018 was Insidious: The Last Key and in the end I had some mixed feelings about it.

The Good: Lin Shaye's performance as parapsychologist Elise Rainer is consistently the best part of these films.  Honestly, I'm thrilled to see any franchise with a female lead older than 40, regardless of genre and her brave, yet troubled character makes each film the franchise much more emotionally involved than I have any right to expect.

In addition, although yes, the film does have a few jump scares and fake outs, (the lack of which were a huge part of why I loved the first film in the series), much of the best stuff happens on the astral plane (called "the further" in the film series), and that exploration is a really interesting journey that I don't see very often in haunted house films.

The Bad: The film suffers from working as a joining piece, stretching in between the events of Insidious Chapter 3 and the first film in the series.  In many ways there are sequences in this film that I wish had been done different (specifically one taking place in the further and an early sequence with a six or seven year old Elise) but I'll shy away from specifics to avoid spoilers.

In the end the film is a functional conclusion to the series and was a fun filmgoing experience, but would not be for newcomers and suffers from a need to reinforce the franchise, rather than telling its own story.

Game Review: Heavy Rain

One of my favourite things about the winter break is the ability to catch up on some long awaiting books, movies, and games that I've been meaning to get around to for a long time.

Case in Point, Heavy Rain a thriller designed for the Playstation 3 and released in 2010, which follows multiple leads over the course of a week in the search for a missing boy and the serial killer who has captured him.

Throughout the game you play the boys father, a journalist, an FBI agent, and a Private Detective, all racing to solve the crime before the young boy dies.

What I loved about the game was the whole "choices have consequences" aspect, wherein main characters can die or make decisions that dramatically effect the later chapters of the game.

What I actively disliked about the game was the way that Madison Paige (the jounralist), the games only female protagonist, was largely involved to nurse the other characters or act simply as a sex object.  I'm all for sexuality in games and stories, but it would have been great if she had had anything more to do than the very basic traditional female roles given to her in the story.

Of course my favourite aspect of the game was the fact that the main character, Ethan Mars (the missing boy's father) spends much of the game solving horrible Saw-style puzzles to get clues as to where his son might be, and each successful trial gives him more letters in a hangman-style game which he has on his phone, spelling out the final address.  After one trial, I'm pretty sure he could have taking the partial clue to his local library and solved everything on day two (of seven).

Overall a fun game, but the follow up Beyond: Two Souls was much better, and I won't be keeping this one having finished it.

Happy New Year's 2018

Happy New Year's All!

Although I'm a day late (lots of sleeping in on New Year's Day), I wanted to take the time to thank all the good folks who stop by and read here.

Thanks Everyone!

Your old pal Bookmonkey!