Bookmonkey vs The Hoard: Post Thirteen - Jericho

Sitting on my video game shelf for the last few year's has been Clive Barker's Jericho, a Playstation 3 title that was written and co-designed by Clive Barker.  It follows a team of military witches who are called upon by the military to stop supernatural threats.

Unfortunately for me, being a fan of the writer didn't help as the game mixes two of my least favourite types of video games; first-person shooters (I tend to get a little nauseous after playing for more than a few minutes), and progressive game style (wherein you follow a simple track and don't really have the chance to explore the world).

I did my best for the first half of the month to play about half an hour a day, and I did get through the first third of the game, but eventually the first-person play style just got me woozy (and not in a good way).

Oh well, not everything I checked out this month would end up as my cup of tea, and by finishing as much of the game as I could, I cleared the last little bit of the pile to reveal...

ASH VS EVIL DEAD (and yes,  I knew it was there all along, but I'm excited!)

Bookmonkey vs The Hoard: Post Six - Book of Blood

Following my viewing of The Midnight Meat Train, I was looking forward to the other longest-held item in my "to be viewed" collection, the 2009 film Book of Blood, based, strangely enough on the framing narrative of Clive Barker's Books of Blood collection of short stories, "The Book of Blood" and "On Jerusalem Street (a postscript)". As these two stories offer an excellent way to view enter and exit the entire collection, they seemed a strange duo to turn into a film, but, as a long-time fan of Clive Barker's work, it certainly got me interested.

The film follows a young man named Simon McNeal (played by Jonas Armstrong) as a young medium hired by a paranormal researcher to investigate a haunted house. Unlike the original work, which, like The Midnight Meat Train,is quite short, the film expands the original story to include background on the researcher, Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward), and her own relationship with the events in a haunted house.

Overall the film does a good job with scares and like The Midnight Meat Train, is pretty gruesome, but it falls to the same problem as the previous adaptation, in that I feel it would have done better as a short film. This isn't to say every short story must be made into a short film, as stories from the same collection were made into the films Candyman and Lord of Illusions, both great films on their own, and adaptations which brought more to the original story. I just felt that these two stories in particular, would have been served better in a shorter (perhaps televised) format.

Bookmonkey vs The Hoard: Post Four - The Midnight Meat Train

One of the first horror authors I actively began to collect in life was Clive Barker.  As a younger teen I saw both Hellraiser and Nightbreed, and somewhere in my teens I happened across the first of his short stories series The Books of Blood, and as the price was right, I snapped it up.

The very first story (after the framing story), was "The Midnight Meat Train", a twenty-page journey into one of the most terrifying concepts I had every come across.  It follows a man named Leon who happens to see something while riding on a train, something horrifying, methodical, and something that sees him back.

The story began my interest in collecting the works of Clive Barker, and over the years I've built up a pretty decent collection of his writing, so when I found they had made a film adaptation of "The Midnight Meat Train" I knew I'd have to check it out.

Due to the short nature of the story, the movie fleshes out the narrative, changing the main character from an everyman into a photographer, he's given a girlfriend, a job, and a goal - to see the reality of New York City.

The film works fairly well, but honestly, I think the story works if told quickly - an introduction to the horror that is about to be read by the reader.  In the end it wasn't a keeper, but an interesting adaptation of one of the most startlingly horrifying stories I read in my youth.

Book Review: The Scarlet Gospels

In my reading I have three favourite authors, three people who get space on my shelves no matter what, and although there are a few close seconds, so far no other author compares for space in my collection when it comes to Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and Clive Barker (Although Charles de Lint is quickly moving into a strong contender for number four).

I've re-read all three authors a few times and still go back for more, so when a new book comes out, you can bet I'm chomping at the bit to crack that new spine and get reading.

Barker's latest, The Scarlet Gospels, combines two of his most famous characters - the demon known as Pinhead (introduced in his novella The Hellbound Heart - later adapted into the film Hellraiser), and Harry D'Amour (introduced in the short story "The Last Illusion" in Books of Blood volume 6 - later adapted into the film Lord of Illusions).  

Personally I enjoyed it, but as someone who has been looking forward to this book since he first mentioned it as an idea in the late 90s, I will say I felt it lived up to it's promise, and worked quite well as an extremely creepy read.

As with most of his books, I wouldn't recommend it to the faint of heart - it is filled with some truly gruesome and horrifying content, and as it focuses largely on characters from his previous works, I wouldn't recommend it as a  first dip into the books of Mr. Barker (check out Books of Blood for that).

Catching up on the genre classics: Necroscope

I've been seeing them since I started getting into horror fiction back in Junior High, while looking through the horror section at bookstore for the newest Stephen King or Clive Barker, they've always been patiently sitting on the shelf, knowing that at some point I would inevitably get around to trying them out.  Well, today is that day (or yesterday, to be more precise).  I've finally started reading Brian Lumley's horror series, Necroscope.

I'll happily admit that a big part of what has kept me away but interested all these years is the bizarre cover art by George Underwood (see left), which shows both a skull with tendrils moving through it and a man lit in blue in the background with his eyes closed.  As a kid, the cover images for the series (almost twenty titles), were both fascinating and horrifying, so much so that I could never quite give the series a chance, even while I was picking my way back and froth through some other pretty horrific stuff as the mood took me.

Last year while on a used-bookstore trip with my BFF Mike I finally picked up the first book as a trade for some titles I was getting rid of, and it's sat on my "to be read" shelf ever since.  Until yesterday when I decided to finally give the book a shot.

So I'm now about 200 pages into the title and it's pretty great - the whole thing is a strange Cold War era battle between agencies in Britain and the USSR between psychics - kind of a proto-Nightwatch if you will, and follows two psychics with some pretty disturbing abilities as they make their way through life.

Oh yeah and those skull tendrils on the cover the unnerved me so much as a kid?  Yup, that's actually a pretty good representation of something one of the psychics in the book can do - Yikes!

I'm not finished book one yet, but so far it's a pretty fast and fun read, so there you go.

Why I love horror: The Early Parenting Years

Picking up from where I left off two years ago - as a young man working in a local video store learning to love the horror genre alphabetically, we move on to the next stage of my exploration of the horror genre.

Kids.

As a father of two young daughters in the late 90's, I did see a number of really great horror movies in theatres with my wife (...28 Days Later, The Blair Witch Project, etc.), but on a day to day basis I found that I really couldn't have horror films on display as they might freak out my kids (or any friends they may have over for play dates - this included my super-cool Clive Barker designed toys which spent five years in a box in the basement, hidden under a blanket before I could find them a good home), so I found the horror icon that got me trough those dark years.

Reptar (Pictured left).

Yes, I'm talking about the giant dinosaur from the Nickelodeon television series Rugrats.

For those of you who don't know; In the show, a bunch of adorable babies toddle around their homes and have adventures.  The main character is named Tommy and his favourite TV show character is Reptar, a giant dinosaur who is sometimes portrayed as a giant monster and sometimes as a misunderstood hero.

Basically he's Godzilla, only changed slightly for a kids show - and you know what?  The kids in that show LOVE him!  He stomps around smashing stuff and does everything a giant dinosaur would be expected to do, and like all kids who love horror stories, the kids in Rugrats somehow immediately adore this bizarre giant creature who, in their world, is incredibly popular (he appears in theme parks and ice shows!) and is either a hero or villain depending on the episode.

For me, this green monster was a great way to introduce horror icons to my kids and get them to understand just how awesome movie monsters could be.

Keeping on top of Genre, the Yearlies

Yearly Genre updates are actually pretty simple, mostly it's just keeping up with the genre awards and checking in on certain sequels I've been patiently waiting on.

The Awards

One of my favourite things about the Internet is how easy it is to keep on top of award winners.

From Science Fiction (Hugo, Nebula, and Locus), to Fantasy (World Fantasy and Mythopoeic), to Horror (Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild), and even the few award shows that specialize in horror (Scream Awards, MTV Movie awards), I can keep track of what the newest critically acclaimed titles are (or in the case of the MTV movie awards - what my kids friends most acclaimed movies are) by doing a simple Google search.

I actually keep a spreadsheet listing the winners of each of the book awards and am slowly, but surely moving my way though the winners list - when I'm done it's on to the nominations list.

Sequels

For the simple reason that I don't want to feel bad on a monthly basis, I only follow up on sequels I've been waiting for once a year. Currently Clive Barker's third Abarat novel tops the list (I've been waiting since 2004) followed by my hopes for a new Miles Vorkosigan novel from Lois McMaster Bujold.

What the heck I'll check right now - for fun.

(frenzied sound of typing)

NOPE - no third Abarat book any time soon - that's fine, I've been waiting for half a decade, I can keep waiting for now.

But wait - Lois McMaster Bujold is releasing a new Miles Vorkosigian book in September! It's called Cryoburn! SQUEEE!

(Sound of Bookmonkey doing a quiet victory dance - everyone else in the house is asleep)

Things I've Noticed: Weeding your Genre Collections can be fun

I'm off to do the used-book store rounds over the weekend, and that means that right now it's time for me to begin weeding my collection of genre books, movies and games.

I know that the idea of weeding your genre collection can be frustrating (pictured right), but as with weeding a garden, weeding your collection simply means getting rid of the materials that are stopping your collection from attaining its true level of awesomeness. Basically it's a pretty simple procedure that will make your collection stand out to your friends and be of more use to you.

Bookmonkey's guide to weeding your genre collections

1. Look at your collection - in a perfect world, take it off the shelf or out of the boxes where it lives and actually go through each item, figure out what you've got. Last time I did this I found multiple copies of the same book, something I definitely did not need.

2. Figure out which stuff you are most proud of (often it is not the stuff that all of your friends also own). This could be titles by the same author, titles about the same subject or that share some other characteristic. I have found that with the exception of my author collections (Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker), my collections of genre books tend to be of the rare or hard-to-find variety.

3. Get rid of titles that you are embarrassed to still own, titles that everyone owns and titles that you can get from the local library - this will open up tonnes of space on your shelves for new things.

3a. Realize that every item you freaked out about getting rid of in step three probably means something to you - keep them. I'm not saying get rid of stuff just for the sake of getting rid of them, I'm saying get rid of stuff that is clogging up your lifestyle.

4. Understand that your collection is a living thing, it grows, shrinks, and changes by nature, so don't feel bad about doing a little pruning now and then - it's likely to give you a healthier collection overall.

5. Remember, a collection with a high level of awesomeness makes for happy monkeys (pictured left).

Not sure how I feel about the new "Book of Blood" Movie

I just saw the trailer for the new film Book of Blood, based of the short story by Clive Barker and I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it.

First off - I love Clive Barkers books, I own all of them and I even bought the six-part short story that came with all the nasty looking toys from MacFarlane Toys (story was worth it (totally keeping that) - but the toys are in a box in my basement somewhere - any offers?)

Although some of his movies are hit and miss - Loved Nightbreed (probably because it takes place in my home province of Alberta, Canada), Liked The Lord of Illusions, and was steadily disappointed by the Hellraiser series. I have heard great things about The Midnight Meat Train, and have it on my Ziplist.

Anyway, I found the trailer for this upcomming movie and here are the pros and cons as I see them.

Pros

- Starring Jonas Armstrong (Pictured right) - loved him in the BBC Series Robin Hood

- Directed by John Harrison - who worked on the Dune Mini-series for the SciFi Channel and directed one of my favourite episodes of Kindred: the Embraced.

Con - actually only the one

-The story the film is based on is a framing story for the six-book series The Books of Blood; basically it shows us where all these great stories come from, and gives the collection of short stories a starting and ending point. Even if you take the final story in the series and add them together, you get a page count of 15 pages!

So there you have it - I like the director's work, the lead actor's work, and the story the film is based on, but how do you make even a 90 minute film based on 15 pages of prose?

Check out the trailer at Spike.com

and let me know what you think.