Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

I will admit to cheating a little with Heart-Shaped Box, as I had already read it several years before. It was my book of choice on a college trip to Berlin and I remember some good evenings spent curled up in a youth hostel scaring myself silly. But I'd forgotten some of the details of the book and thought that now would be a good time to remind myself of why I loved this book.

Heart-Shaped Box follows Judas Coyne, a middle-aged rock star who has gone into semi-retirement following the deaths of the majority of his band, and generally being tired with the whole business of being a rock star. He receives an email that says "Buy my stepfather's ghost". As he has a collection of the macabre, mostly consisting of twisted gifts from his fans, it seems like the perfect addition. But when the ghost is delivered to Jude, a dead man's suit in a black heart-shaped box, he finds that the ghost that he has allowed into his life had a grudge against him during life and is hardly about to let death stand in the way of his plans for revenge.
I really loved Heart-Shaped Box the first time round, and the second time was similarly entertaining. I will say during this second read, there were a couple things that stuck out as needing work that I didn't notice as a younger woman. But I'll start with what the book gets right.
Firstly, I personally really liked the main characters, Jude and Georgia/Marybeth. I've seen a lot of reviews that criticise them for being flat and predictable, but I think that's too harsh a line to take. Sure, ageing rock star and his significantly younger groupie girlfriend isn't exactly the most original of archetypes to run with, but I don't take much issue with this for a couple of reasons. First of all, you don't tend to get these character archetypes as the main protagonists, so I'm happy to switch focus to them for a while. Second, the development that they both go is pretty damn significant, even if it's kept a bit low-key compared to the whole "we're being chased by a homicidal ghost" thing. They go from being a pair of desperately unhappy people who are unable to deal with all of their emotional baggage to a couple that can last through thick and thin, knowing that there's someone who has seen them at their worst and decided to stick around.
The villain, Craddock, is a bit on the cartoonishly evil side of things, having pretty much no positive features either alive or dead, but then I think that's about right when it comes to the supernatural. For me, there is a big factor about a supernatural evil that influences how scary I find them, which is whether they can be reasoned with. It's the reason that I find zombies much worse than vampires. With vampires, there's the potential for a spark of humanity that can be exploited by the quick-witted to possibly get out of the situation alive. With zombies, there is no reasoning with them, leaving you with a zero-sum situation. Craddock has no positive qualities or virtues that can be appealed to and combined with his incorporeal form and eerie mind powers makes him a formidable foe.
The main issue that I had with Heart-Shaped Box in my second reading was that the really unsettling stuff seems to be in the first part, with each subsequent part getting less scary as it goes on. This could be because as they go on, Jude and Marybeth gather some additional tools to combat Craddock with. But then they also get increasingly on-edge and beaten up, so that sort of balances out. Part of it is probably that the character development does make up a big chunk of the road trip that takes up the latter part of the novel. But the thing that sticks out in my mind most is a scene right near the end of the first part which is just so fucked-up and creepy that pretty much everything after it pales in comparison. Afterwards the horror is more slow-burn, which only emphasises how good that shock to the system scare is.

I thoroughly enjoyed my second read-through of Heart-Shaped Box. While it does suffer scare-wise after having its most shocking and nauseatingly creepy scene fairly early on, the ghost is persistent and subtle enough that there is at least a decent amount of tension throughout. The main characters aren't necessarily the most original, but the personal development that they both go through is pretty damn good. I'd definitely recommend this for horror fans or maybe as a starting point for someone looking to get into the genre. 4.5/5

Next review: Banebringer by Carol A. Park

Signing off,
Nisa.

The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich

The Orange Eats Creeps was a book that I've been intrigued with for a while, if only because of the unusual title and blurb. I was definitely getting a Chuck Palahniuk vibe from it, so I was kind of looking forward to it, but otherwise I wasn't really sure what I was getting into.

A girl with drug-induced ESP, one of a group of self-described slutty teenage vampire hobo junkies, describes her life hitching rides across the Pacific Northwest. While her companions seem content to slum around gas stations and convenience stores, she intends to use her ESP to try find her runaway foster-sister and establish whether she has been murdered or not.
I still have very little idea of what happens in The Orange Eats Creeps despite having just finished it. Of all the books that I could have read as an audiobook, this one seems the least suited for it. The problem is that the book has a very strong voice, but a significantly weaker grasp on plot and continuity. So there's a distinctly teenage-style voice narrating a series of very similar scenes at convenience stores, punk concerts and scuzzy shared digs, which makes it all start to blur into an indistinguishable morass of sex, drugs and teenage apathy. I'm all for a strong voice in writing, but it needs to be grounded in something like character or plot, otherwise it's the literary equivalent of shouting into the void. Maybe that's appropriate for this book, but it doesn't lead to a particularly fun time.

A strong voice, but it doesn't have the same strength when it comes to plot or characters, or anything else that you are likely to care about. Admittedly, this was possibly the worst choice of novel for an audiobook, but it made for some serious spacing out moments. 1.5/5

Next review: Silent City by G. R. Matthews

Signing off,
Nisa.

Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer

Finally, we come to Acceptance, the last part of the Southern Reach trilogy, and it has quite a lot to live up to and possibly explain. I was really looking forward to finding out how everything would be tied up, and tucked into this with cautious enthusiasm. Spoilers will follow for Annihilation and Authority.

Following the collapse of Southern Reach when the border of Area X suddenly expanded, Control and the clone of the biologist, answering only to Ghost Bird, travel to the as-yet-uncharted island. Together they hope to find answers about how to get back home and what happened to the original biologist. The narrative also flashes back to the perspectives of Saul Evans, the lighthouse keeper who will eventually become the Crawler, and the former director as she prepares herself for being part of the first and final twelfth expedition into Area X.
I had a quick look over the reviews for Acceptance before starting my writing again, and I have just one thing to say about the main criticism that I saw levelled at this last installment. To those who have read Acceptance and were disappointed that everything wasn't explained in minute detail: were we reading the same series? I mentioned in my review of Authority that I didn't have more of an idea what was happening, I had a firmer grip on how the world and the people in it worked, and I'm quite happy to say the same for Acceptance. And honestly, I'm okay with that as an ending. For me, the Southern Reach series was never about explaining Area X, it was about how humans fare when they inevitably try and make it into something tame and conquerable. A novel, at it's best, is about documenting how people react to unusual, challenging settings or situations. And honestly, it would have been more disappointing if VanderMeer had just shoved in a load of last minute, bullshit answers just to placate readers who can't handle a bit of uncertainty. The Southern Reach series has never been super-detailed science-fiction, so why anyone would think that it would suddenly turn into that in the final installment is beyond me. For me, it was always about the journey of the biologist/Ghost Bird and Control. It was about how they both adapt to their new situation in their own separate ways. And in that sense, Acceptance more than succeeded.

For those people looking for concrete answers, look elsewhere. That wasn't the style of Annihilation or Authority, so to expect details at this stage is just baffling. The character arcs are the most important aspect of Acceptance by far, and they are handled perfectly. This conclusion is about as open-ended as you can get, but that is just fine with me. 5/5

Next review: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

Signing off,
Nisa.

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

Having finished Annihilation, I was really excited to see where the Southern Reach series would go. From what I could gather from the blurb, Authority would focus more on the actual facility that sent out the expeditions, as they try and wrap their heads around whatever is going on in Area X, which I thought had a lot of potential. As a warning, there will be spoilers for Annihilation in the following review, so if you're still in the middle of it, I would advise skipping this until you're finished.

Authority follows John "Control" Rodriguez, a secret service agent who has taken over as the new director at Southern Reach, following Annihilation's disastrous twelfth expedition. Three of the expedition members have returned home without triggering any alarms at the border of Area X, only the psychologist, now revealed to be the former director, still missing. Having been charged by his mysterious handler, known only as "the Voice", to put Southern Reach back into some kind of order, Control must try and navigate deliberately obstructive staff who are certain that the former director will return, the unnerving and circuitous notes left behind by the former director, and the disturbing notion that his superiors are keeping secrets from him.
When I finish a book, what I usually do is write my review, submit it, and then take a look at other people's reviews to see where we differ. As I wanted to organise my thoughts a little before discussing Authority, I looked at the reviews first. The number of one star reviews that I found in surprisingly quick succession gave me a bit of a shock. But taking a look at the content of those criticisms, I could see where they were all coming from, despite personally quite liking it. So, the main criticisms seemed to be with regards to the comparatively slow pace and more mundane focus on what is essentially office politics, especially after the weirdness that was Annihilation. They seem like decent enough points to discuss, and I can avoid the majority of spoilers. Looking at Authority having finished it, I can say that the slow pace and the focus on office politics, while admittedly frustrating at times, does seem to have its place in the grand scheme of the Southern Reach series. The pace and focus serve to develop what could be considered the status quo of two elements: Control, and the Southern Reach facility.
I'll start with Southern Reach itself. While initially appearing rather normal for a facility dealing with Area X, the mundane routine of a 9-5 working week means that each day reveals layer after layer of weirdness and misdirection between all the different people working there. Control's return to his rented home in the nearby town provides a much more straightforward example of normality, so you can really see how Area X is starting to bleed out and affect its surroundings. And once you get to the part of Authority where the plot goes from 0 to 60, it is way more of a shock to the system. Having created a pocket of comparative normality, the uninhibited weirdness of Area X that turns up in the final third is stark and feels so much more threatening for it.
Then there is Control. He decides at the beginning of his term as the director that he won't let himself get emotionally involved in anything that he finds out, and that he will stay firmly in control of whatever he needs to do in order to clean up after his predecessor, meaning that he sets out with a hyper-vigilant mind-set. The set-backs that he encounters pretty much immediately, like the strange obsession that he has with interviewing the biologist and the deliberate withholding of information from both his employees and superiors, aren't necessarily big when he is first confronted with them. But with his hyper-vigilance, he picks up on every little detail, both legitimate cause for concern and irrelevant tidbit, and soon everything is being seen as part of a mass of competing conspiracies, leading him on a downward spiral to anxiety and paranoia. I think you can probably guess what a mindset that defensive and fragile will do when confronted with anything from Area X, right?

If you've started reading Authority with the intent of getting concrete answers for questions you had from Annihilation, then you will be disappointed. It does give some more details about the Southern Reach facility though, so while I won't admit to knowing much more than I did at the end of the last book, I think I have a firmer feel on how the world works. I have seen some criticism that Authority focuses too much on the office politics, but I think that the slow pace and (comparatively) mundane setting are very cleverly pulled off. The focus on seemingly unimportant details both develops how the normal world is affected by Area X even with containment, and allows Control to move from being stoic and hyper-vigilant to someone who is barely coping with his own anxiety and paranoia. You just have to be patient with it. 4.5/5

Next review: Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer

Signing off,
Nisa.

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

I’ve been a bit naughty with regards to my reading list. So my husband has been telling me how good the Southern Reach series was since shortly after it came out, but with my reading list as over-full as it is, I couldn't quite justify bringing the series forward. Cut to the New Year, and we found out that the series has been adapted into a film. My husband was utterly bewildered by this turn of events, and is determined to see it to find out just how they’ve gone about adapting what is apparently a very weird series. So now I have until late February to finish the series in time to see the movie adaptation.

Annihilation follows a nameless biologist as she enters a strange place known as Area X as part of a scientific expedition. Little is known about the area beyond that there was an apparent environmental disaster, despite the apparent lushness of the ecosystems there. The members of the all-female expedition have been given the seemingly simple task of charting the land and taking samples of anything unusual. But it soon starts falling apart, starting with the discovery of an unmapped tunnel right near their base camp.
Having just read Annihilation, I can kind of see why my husband was so confused about the trailer. While there is a lot that comes up that could be seen as scary, both with regards to the secrets that are revealed about the authorities behind the expeditions and the weird creatures that call Area X home, I think it's the kind of scary that is very difficult to translate to film. It's the kind of slow burn that most directors avoid, and it wasn't in evidence in the trailer that I've seen.

As to the actual book itself, I absolutely loved it, but it's a bit of a shock to the system after a lot of fairly standard novels. There's surprisingly little character interaction, and what there is is very detached and clinical due to the introverted nature of the biologist. It ends up being strangely claustrophobic in tone, as there is no secondary viewpoint to balance her out and her clear disinterest and difficulties regarding social interactions only makes her more isolated as a narrator. She's an intriguing voice to follow if nothing else. As for the plot, I probably couldn't say if I actually know what's going on in Area X, but I am hoping that the next installments of the series will be a bit more illuminating.

x

Seriously weird and claustrophobic, I would heartily recommend this if you're happy with a slow burn and not much in the way of answers for now. The narrator is refreshingly introverted, although I appreciate it might not be everyone's cup of tea. 5/5

Next review: Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

Signing off,

Nisa.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

The Shining Girls was a book that I stole from my mum after she had finished reading it, although she seems to have forgotten it entirely by the time that I actually got round to reading it. I took it partly because I was intrigued by the premise, and partly because I had heard good things about the author Lauren Beukes.

The Shining Girls focuses on two main characters, Kirby and Harper. Kirby is a young woman who is trying to put her life back together after a brutal attack that nearly killed her. Attempting to track down the man who tried to kill her, she starts finding evidence that she isn't the first woman who he has attacked, but some of the evidence is just impossible. Meanwhile Harper, having found a house that inexplicably allows him to travel anywhere within the years 1929 and 1993, is compelled to kill a set of girls whose names he has found written on the walls of one of the rooms upstairs, leaving a memento from one of his other kills at the scene of her death.
So I really wanted the whole time travelling serial killer premise to work for me, but it just doesn't. It's quite disappointing, especially as the writing itself is solid and engaging. But for me, the time travel just wasn't implemented well, leading to two main problems.
Firstly, it's really tough to make a thriller tense when you know that most of the awful stuff that the serial killer is going to do has, in another character's timeline, already happened. Sure, the murder scenes are really well-written and horrifying in and of themselves, but it's tough to maintain the tension when the reaction to each new female perspective chapter is "well, here's the next sacrificial lamb". The time and attention spent fleshing them out and giving them engaging problems seems kind of wasted since the reader knows that the next time their name crops up, they'll be dead by the end of the chapter.
Secondly, it uses my most despised type of time travel, the ontological paradox, also known as a causal loop. If you're not familiar with that, essentially it's if person A is given an item by the elderly person B, then goes back in time to give that item to a younger version of person B. At which point you sit there and wonder how the item came into being in the first place if it's constantly looping between two points in time. It drives me up the wall, and the aggravating part is that Beukes spends so much time setting up this closed loop. Spoiler alert, it turns out at the end that the reason the House makes Harper want to kill people is because the House is Harper's spirit. Which is just infuriating, because it wants to be so clever and thematic, but it just brings up questions. How are the girls picked out as victims? Harper keeps mentioning that they shine, but the narrative never elaborates on what that is exactly. The only way that Harper knows about who he needs to kill and when he needs to go to kill them is via the House, so there's never any thought process about why or how his victims are selected. It unwittingly leads to Harper being a more or less flat character, as he has no real motivations other than follow the House's lead, for reasons that are never explained.

The Shining Girls is a prime example of an interesting premise that is its own worst enemy. What interest there could be from the impossible serial killer storyline is sabotaged by its own use of dated time travel tropes. There's little tension because all the killings have already happened in one timeline or another, and the painstakingly constructed causal loop only brings up questions of how this all comes about as well as depriving the main villain of any meaningful motivation. The only saving grace is the writing itself, but there's only so much that can be saved from this plot. 2.5/5

Next review: Blood Rites by Jim Butcher

Signing off,
Nisa.

The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons edited by Paula Guran

The last time I took a look at one of the Mammoth short story anthology, I was somewhat disappointed, as it didn't really fit the theme terribly well. So I started The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons with perhaps a little more trepidation than I initially picked it up with. But it did have stories by Neil Gaiman and George R. R. Martin, so I thought that there could at least be potential.

The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons is an anthology of short stories focusing on angels and demons, both traditionally Christian in origin and more modern reimaginations.
First of all, and this might just be a personal gripe, but this is the first anthology where the editor has preceded each story with a snippet of information and a whole dollop of why this story/author is awesome, and it's really not needed. Rarely is the snippet of angelology or demonology especially necessary to understand the story, and it's really distracting to have the editor act as a hype-man. If you've included something in an anthology, I am going to take it as a given that you like the story in question, it doesn't need to be hammered home.
As for the actual content, I found that the stories were generally more consistent in meeting the brief than my last Mammoth anthology. There were a few duds, of which the worst was easily "Only Kids are Afraid of the Dark" by George R. R. Martin. Considering that I was expecting his entry to be one of the safe bets, it was really disappointing to find such a poorly-written mess under his name. But while there were only a handful of outright duds, there were only five that I would actively seek out to read again: "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel" by Peter S. Beagle, "Sanji's Demon" by Richard Parks, "Oh Glorious Sight" by Tanya Huff, "Elegy for a Demon Lover" by Sarah Monette and "Demons, Your Body, and You" by Genevieve Valentine. Beyond those four and the handful of duds, the stories included were just kind of okay. I would have hoped to get a better success rate than 5 out of 27, quite honestly.

Not a bad anthology by any stretch of the imagination, but there were only a handful of really good stories to appreciate here. While there were similarly only a handful of outright bad stories, that still leaves over half of the anthology as stories that will leave you going "meh". Having the editor act as hype-man before every story just made the experience aggravating on top of that. 3/5

Next review: Neuromancer by William Gibson

Signing off,
Nisa.

Fashion Beast by Alan Moore, Malcolm McLaren, Antony Johnston & Facundo Percio

It's been quite a while since my last comic, so I fancied something that was a little bit out of left field. In this case, that meant Fashion Beast, mainly because the artwork looked absolutely gorgeous, but also because I have a pretty good record with Alan Moore's work so far and I was interested to see how one of his lesser known works held up against the hard-hitters that I'd read, like Watchmen or V for Vendetta.

Fashion Beast follows Doll Seguin, an androgynous coat checker barely scraping by at a popular club, decides to take a chance auditioning as a "mannequin" for a world-famous, reclusive fashion designer after losing her job. Making an unexpected impression on the mysterious patron of the House of Celestine, she is initially delighted by the world of glamour that she now inhabits, miles away from anything she could have imagined in the nuclear winter outside. But she soon finds that all is not well, and that the secrets that inspire its head designer to create beautiful clothing could be the very things that tear the fashion House to the ground.
My first reaction to Fashion Beast upon finishing it was a deep breath, because it's quite a lot to digest over a lunch break. Having thought it over a bit, I find myself puzzling over it. In some ways, I like it and my initial reaction still applies as it tackles a lot of big ideas, like beauty and celebrity culture, the corruption of the creative process, gender identity, the class divide, and mental illness. It mentions on the blurb that Fashion Beast came out of an unproduced film script for a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, which would explain how it ends up feeling almost mythic in proportions, despite the comparatively small scale of the plot.
But then you look at some of the individual components and it starts to fall apart a bit. The characters, while vivid, are not for the most part written with much in the way of depth. This can make some of the emotional highs and lows come across a bit flat, as there hasn't been enough character build-up to warrant the change. The same could be said about the setting, which has an intriguing premise that isn't built on enough. Throughout the comic, you get glimpses of the outside world through radio segments warning about an impending nuclear winter, but it never seems to actually feel all that imminent. In the sections where the action is cooped up within the fashion house that makes sense, but even in the sections out in the poorest areas of the surrounding city it doesn't feel any more immediate. If anything, all the talk about a nuclear winter does it make it really obvious that Fashion Beast's story was written in the 1980s with the cold war still firmly in place.
The artwork is pretty much perfect though. It manages to combine the glamour of high fashion with the griminess of the surrounding post-nuclear world and somehow manages to make it all look weird and utterly gorgeous. I might have to look out for more of Percio's work if this is anything to go by.

Fashion Beast is a bit of a strange one. If you read it as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, then it does work with that kind of fairy tale/mythic tone. If you look at it with more of a critical eye for depth of character and setting, then it may well disappoint you. Probably not Alan Moore's best, but the potential is definitely there, and I would love to see an expanded version of this if that's ever considered. 3.5/5

Next review: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Signing off,
Nisa.

The Mammoth Book of Body Horror edited by Paul Kane & Marie O'Regan

You may be wondering what could have possibly made me pick up The Mammoth Book of Body Horror. I have something of a soft spot for the body horror sub-genre, as it's pretty much the only type of horror that I can watch without having to worry that the orchestra will set off my noise aversion with jump scare chords. And having come across a book that included not only the inspiration for one of my favourite horror movies, John Carpenter's The Thing, but several other stories on similar themes, I couldn't really resist the temptation to check it out. 

The Mammoth Book of Body Horror is a collection of body horror stories, ranging from classic writers like Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe to more modern writers like Clive Barker and Stephen King. 

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm really rather disappointed. Considering just how grim body horror can get, I couldn't believe just how many more or less unequivocally happy endings there were in this collection. I could kind of understand this with some of the pre-20th century stories, but once you get to post-war stuff I was actively stunned by the unbelievable level of optimism that a share of these stories had. I mean, "Who Goes There?" the story that I picked up the volume specifically to read, has the characters kill off everyone assimilated by the Thing and then everyone has a big sigh of relief and gets back to work happy that they interrupted the Thing before it perfected anti-gravity. And no, that last bit is not an exaggeration, which only takes the story from mildly disappointing to outright silly. I think I'll stick to the film adaptation. 

There are also a few stories that I would argue don't really qualify as body horror at all. The two that stick out most in my mind are "The Telltale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe and "Changes" by Neil Gaiman. I love both of these writers, but I couldn't tell you why either of these stories was included. With Edgar Allan Poe, not only does the inclusion not make sense, but it's made all the more baffling by the existence of his story "Ligeia" which is infinitely more appropriate for this collection. And with Neil Gaiman, the alteration detailed is gender reassignment. First, the last time I checked involuntary gender reassignment was claimed by the stupider sub-section of romantic/teen comedies. Second, nice going alienating your transgender audience. Third, it's a change that can be easily reversed, so it hardly counts as horrifying. It just fails as a body horror story on all levels. It's an interesting story on its own merits, but shouldn't have a place here. 

That negativity out of the way, there were a few stories that did scratch my body horror itch, if not to the extent that I had hoped. Probably the best of the actual body horror stuff was "The Body Politic" by Clive Barker, "The Chaney Legacy" by Robert Bloch, "The Look" by Christopher Fowler and "Residue" by Alice Henderson. Some stories that were good, if not necessarily proper body horror were "Survivor Type" by Stephen King and "Black Box" by Gemma Files. 

A rather disappointing showing actually. I might be somewhat inured to body horror, seeing as I have yet to see the microwaving baby scene from Victims beaten for most uncomfortable, but there wasn't much in the way of proper scares or discomfort. Some of the stories even had happy endings which was just absurd. There were a few decent stories though, so not a complete wash. 3/5 

Next review: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez

I've had the Locke & Key series on my radar for some time, as I am a huge Joe Hill fan. I think I've managed to gather the majority of the series, so now the only thing left is to give them a read, starting with Welcome to Lovecraft.

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft follows the remains of the Locke family after a disturbed student kills their father. They move in with their uncle in his New England mansion, known locally as the Keyhouse. But while they're only looking to move on with their lives, the house is filled with doors that transform those brave enough to travel through with the right key. And there is a relentless creature who will stop at nothing to gain the power over those doors.
Considering that there was a lot made about the doors themselves, I was kind of expecting to see more of them. But Welcome to Lovecraft is a bit of a slower burn, which seems to be working for this volume at least. The first half alternates the focus on the kids trying to adapt to life without their dad and the traumatic events that led to their move in the first place. The slow familiarisation with the characters really works because by the time things start getting more threatening, the family has moved from generic survivors to characters whose safety I do feel genuinely concerned about. Character-wise, the three that are perhaps most important are the children. The oldest is Tyler, a former friend of the boy that killed his dad, and convinced that he is in some part responsible for the tragedy that occurred. The middle child is Kinsey, who saved her little brother at the time and is now struggling to reintegrate with her peers. Finally there is Bode, the youngest by a fair margin, who seems to be coping the best out of his siblings, but is frustrated that his encounters with the supernatural elements in the house are being written off as worrying signs of emotional instability. That's one of the things that I really like about how the supernatural stuff is written in. It kind of takes a trope that's really common with child fantasy protagonists, where the adults are useless and unwilling to believe, and makes it terrifying. I haven't seen much of the house yet, but I already know that Bode is in way over his head and that's really unsettling. It's definitely made me want to read more of the series.
Since this is another comic, I guess that I should spend some time taking about the artwork. I hadn't heard of Rodriguez before now, but I would be happy to see more of his work following this. It's perhaps not the prettiest of artwork, but it's great at evoking atmosphere and character personality, so it does fit the tone of the writing really well. He really doesn't shy away from the blood and gore either, which works with this kind of horror. Sometimes horror works better without visible gore, but this is not one of those instances, so it was good to see that the visuals haven't compromised that way.

More of a slow burner than I was initially expecting, but it really works to set up appealing protagonists who I am genuinely concerned for. It doesn't compromise on the gore, so if you're squeamish you may want to come prepared. It's definitely set up a series that I am eager to continue reading. 4.5/5

Next review: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Signing off,
Nisa.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Boneshaker has been on my reading list for a fair while now, picked up as part of a geeky bundle. I was definitely looking forward to this one though, as it combines one of my favourite sub-genres, steampunk, with something looking horror elements. I was keen to see how it would pan out.

In an alternate history where the Civil War has been raging for two decades, an attempt to mine through the frozen Klondike for gold leads to disaster when the massive drill known as the Boneshaker destroys huge parts of downtown Seattle and releases a previously subterranean gas that turns those unfortunate to breathe it into the living dead. Sixteen years later, the worst affected parts of the city have been sealed off by walls, and the widow and son of the Boneshaker's inventor, Leviticus Blue, are trying to make a living whilst dealing with the ignominy of their relative's devastating actions. When Ezekiel makes his way into the sealed off city determined to find proof of his father's lack of malicious intent, Briar must find a way through the living dead and heavily armed criminals still living in the ravaged city in order to bring her son back.
Boneshaker was something of a slow burner for me. While I absolutely loved Briar and her sections trying to reach her son whilst regretting all the things that she never felt ready to tell him about his father, I was less keen on Zeke's sections. While there's nothing outright wrong about the way that he's written, I just find his kind of character irritating. An ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure and all, it's more interesting watching Briar's more considered approach as opposed to Zeke's "I have maps and a mask, I have no more need for preparation" plan of attack, which inevitably leads to a lot of blind panic. He does get better by the end though, so it's worth it to plough through his sections of blundering in the middle of the book. And Boneshaker is definitely worth finishing. Keeping in mind that it's alternate history and thus there are some massive creative liberties that have been taken with regards to historical accuracy, you can really tell that Priest is enthusiastic about the period and tries to keep as much historical flavour as possible within her re-imagined chronology. It makes the world feel a lot more grounded and realistic than a lot of other fantasy/science-fiction books, even compared to series where comparatively little is different to the real world. I can't really think of many people that I couldn't recommend this to.

A steampunk story that feels a lot more grounded than other examples in the genre even considering the additional undead, Boneshaker is definitely a book that I would recommend picking up for fans of the genre or those looking to for an introduction to steampunk. I personally found Zeke's sections in the middle to be a bit tiresome at times, but they are more than made up for by Briar's sections and he does gradually get some decent character development. The characters are solid, and there is some decent intrigue. 4.5/5

Next review: Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton

Signing off,
Nisa.

Weekend by Christopher Pike

When I was a teenager, I used to stay around my grandparents' house a lot over the school holidays, and they would always allow me to use their library card. Whilst exploring the library there, I first discovered Christopher Pike, whose books I would have a love-hate relationship with from that day. I have previously read Weekend, but it has been a while and I wanted to see how it held up.

In Weekend we follow a group of friends who are spending their last days before graduation on holiday in Mexico. But what should be a dream holiday is made tense by memories of an unexplained accident that left one of their party severely ill. These tensions are ramped up as things go wrong one by one, starting with the phone lines going dead.
I'd forgotten just how 80s this novel feels at times. These days you'd have to write in why no-one is using a mobile phone for one thing. But mainly, the characters feel very reminiscent of the kind of teenagers that you got in films from that generation, both in teen dramas and slasher films. None of them are really all that likeable, but they're entertaining enough that you want them to stay alive. While that can be really cheesy here, it does feel kind of comfortable. Like nothing new has been made here, but the stuff that does come up is handled at least competently. After the irritation that was The Benson Murder Case, I think I needed a bit of comfort reading.
Admittedly, I'm not sure why Weekend is labelled as horror, considering that it only barely flirts with the genre in the most minimal way possible. And of Christopher Pike's work, it is also one of the least scary. If you start reading it expecting scares, then you'd be disappointed. If you're looking for a pretty decent thriller and mystery, then you're probably on safer territory.

Overall, pretty cheesy and very 80s in feel, but quite good if you're looking for something comforting and easy on the brain. One of Pike's less tense books, but still one of the most tonally consistent of his works. 3.5/5

Next review: Batman: The Dark Knight: Golden Dawn by David Finch & Jason Fabok

Signing off,
Nisa.

Rose Madder by Stephen King

Rose Madder isn't a Stephen King novel that gets talked about much, especially when you consider how much attention some of his work does get. Honestly, until I found this again on my shelf, I had kind of forgotten that it even existed, let alone what the book was actually about. I think the only thing that I sort of remembered was reading that King himself was kind of disappointed with Rose Madder. So I guess I was curious to see how it would pan out.

Rose Madder follows Rosie, a woman who decides to leave her physically abusive husband Norman after a 14 year loveless marriage that has already caused her to miscarry once. Armed only with a few hundred dollars that she took from their joint account, she journeys to a new city, where she slowly starts to regain friendship, independence, self-respect and even a little romance. But her newfound happiness may be short-lived, because Norman isn't the type of man who can handle the thought that Rosie not only left him, but took his money in the same move. And even he may pale in comparison to the danger that Rosie lets in herself without even realising.
I can definitely see why King refers to Rose Madder as a "stiff, trying-too-hard" novel. I don't know if this is the best way to describe it, but I would say that there was a real sense that Rose Madder was deliberately constructed, at least in comparison to some of King's other novels. With King, I always got the sense that the bulk of his stories come out in one lump, with some tidying up done after the first draft. You know, making sure that characters act in ways that make sense or highlighting thematic links, that kind of thing. In comparison, Rose Madder felt more like the IKEA version of King: competently constructed, but hardly his best work.
Whilst I'm talking about how the novel doesn't work, I should probably mention the supernatural element. So it's a painting that Rosie finds, from which we get the novel's title, and it is somehow the most stiff and awkward part of the narrative, and yet the flimsiest as well. It is when the painting comes to the fore that you really start to notice how obvious the construction is, because it's this clumsy mish-mash of Greek mythology references that really don't mesh well with the modern (at the time of writing anyway) American feel of the novel as a whole. It's all the more noticeable when you're like me and read a LOT of Greek myths as a child, and you get the references. So yeah, while the Ancient Greek angle could have worked quite well, it needed to pick a particular myth and expand on it instead of cherry-picking. As it is, we have a weird mix of Theseus and the Minotaur, the River of Lethe, Persephone in the Underworld, and a blending of the Furies with the Cretan Bull, all of which have very different tones and themes. So that's the stiff part, now for the flimsy. While King's books rarely explain the supernatural elements in great detail, it's usually understandable from a thematic point of view. He had devil surrogates in The Stand and Needful Things representing ways that people can stray from the path if they don't pay attention, and the eldritch monsters from Hearts in Atlantis were a nice metaphor for the loss and fear experienced if we grow up too quickly. Here, there is no theme that the whole painting marries with. Sure, the image of the bull works nicely as a metaphor for her brutish husband, but the rest of the painting could do with a bit more explaining. Maybe the woman in the painting is her, maybe it isn't. It's never really explained and it just makes the climax confusing and conflicting with Rosie's story as an abused woman. Because while I can accept Rosie regaining confidence and beating her husband through wiles, I find the whole "suppressed rage" thing that comes up towards the end to be unsatisfying. It doesn't fit the character arc if she sinks to her husband's level.
One thing that I will concede works well is Norman's sections. I have found some reviewers who consider him to be a bit of a one-note villain and I can see why (the corrupt cop who is happy to dish out police brutality is also a domestic abuser, really?), but the sections that followed him in his search for his errant wife were by far the most vivid and creepy of the novel. There is a line of reasoning in his inner monologue that is utterly awful, but makes him feel so much more immediate as a villain. Honestly, I think that Rose Madder could have been so much stronger if it had done away with the supernatural stuff and just focused on the cat and mouse game between runaway wife and abusive husband. It might not necessarily be the most original novel without the supernatural element, but a more solid and even-toned read perhaps.

Rose Madder is the first of Stephen King's books that I find myself not recommending. It's disappointing, because there is a very solid basis for a great book in Norman's increasingly deranged hunt for his wife, but there are just so many things that don't work that I can't really say that it's a necessity to read. A large part of that is a supernatural element in the eponymous painting, because the mish-mash of Greek mythology references and uncertain origins do not marry well and just leads to a tonally confused ending. I suppose entertaining enough if you're looking to complete reading King's works, but by no means one of his best. 3/5

Next review: Mort by Terry Pratchett

Signing off,
Nisa.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

There are two main reasons that I can think of why I picked up Perfume. Firstly, the idea of a man who kills in order to preserve the scent of a young virgin is kind of fascinating in a sickening way, and there is a part of me that does relish narratives like that every once in a while. Secondly, I have very little sense of smell myself and I was curious to see what a novel with smell as its primary sense would read like. I guess I wanted to see if it could be conveyed clearly even to someone with my dulled olfactory sense.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer follows Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an intensely strange and disturbing man throughout his equally disturbing life. From the moment that he is abandoned by his mother to die beneath her fish stall, he is seen as different by those who meet him, though they couldn't necessarily be able to explain why. Whilst growing up, he realises that he has an unusually heightened sense of smell, and he develops a desire to become the world's greatest perfumer and to recreate the particularly exquisite scent of a young virgin girl. And he will do anything in order to possess that scent.
Perfume is an odd book to try and review, because while there is nothing that I can point to within the novel and say that this part is badly written or included unwisely, there is something about the work as a whole that left me a bit cold.
I suppose that I can start with what definitely did work, which was the writing itself. It is kind of unusual for me, most of the time I can point at characters, scenes or even themes that endeared me most to the book. But here, it was the style itself that really caught me. In some ways, it reminds me a little of The Child of Pleasure by Gabriele d'Annunzio, because the two have a similar way of enriching their comparatively simple narratives with grandiose sensory accompaniment. Where d'Annunzio focuses on visuals, Suskind brings this world to life through a cavalcade of different scents. I keep trying to think how to describe it and the word lush always seems to come to mind: rich and abundant, if not always (or indeed often) pleasant. It is an enthralling experience to imagine that crush of scents and definitely makes up for some of the lesser elements of the book.
I suppose that my main issue is with the main character, Grenouille. Don't misunderstand me, in his own way he is an interesting and well-written character. It was certainly refreshing to have a villain protagonist at least. I suppose my issue with him is that he is more or less a static character. While he creates conflict and has epiphanies about himself throughout the novel, I didn't feel that there was much real change in him at all. At various points in the narrative, he is compared to a tick, parasitic and infinitely patient. Neither of those key personality traits change at all, and considering that his is the perspective that the narrator sticks to for long chunks of the novel it does start to feel a little flat and one-note at times. It's not a huge issue, but I found it noticeable enough to bother me.

I found Perfume an odd book, but a mostly satisfying read. I would give it a shot simply for the lush sensory element of the writing style, although I did find myself a bit bothered by the static characterisation of the villain protagonist Grenouille. A book that I would recommend maybe reading once, but I can't see myself re-reading it any time soon. 3.5/5

Next review: Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Signing off,
Nisa.

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

Since my last two books have been more than a little disappointing, I thought that I would go back to an author that has been pretty consistently high in my estimation, Stephen King. I chose Dolores Claiborne because I vaguely remember watching the film adaptation many years ago and rather enjoying it. I wanted to see if the book was as good.

Dolores Claiborne is the confession of the eponymous Ms Claiborne after she had driven herself to her local police station. Widely suspected of killing her long-term employer, she decides that she is going to make a clean breast of it and reveal all: about how she killed her husband and got away with it, and how her employer's death was an accident.
Stephen King states in his book On Writing that he never starts with a character, always with a "What If..." scenario, and doesn't have much time for character studies as a result. I can imagine that this will seem unlikely with regards to Dolores Claiborne, considering just how much her character impacts this novel. Due to the fact that it is a first person narrative, and an explicit confession at that, it is an intensely personal and intimate experience to read. I think that, as a result, your enjoyment of the book will depend largely on how much you like Dolores herself. I personally rather liked her, perhaps relating to the fact that she is a perennially-grumpy bitch by her own admission. Throughout the book, she displays a refreshing amount of understanding about herself and an unwillingness to suffer fools kindly, whether that foolishness come from other people or herself. That is a large part of what drives her reactions to the situations that arise from her relationships with both her husband Joe and her employer Vera, so if you like your protagonists to be a little softer and kinder, then you may wish to look elsewhere. For me, Dolores Claiborne was a more or less perfect novel, with some really vivid characterisation and revelations that are flawlessly timed. I personally wish that there was more of Vera, but then I have a bit of a weak spot for characters who almost revel in their own viciously spiteful natures and yet still remain classy as hell.

For me, this was a compelling character study with complex relationships and well-timed plot reveals. I personally found nothing to fault it with. I would say that your enjoyment of Dolores Claiborne will ultimately depend on how much you like Dolores herself though, so if bitchy old ladies aren't your thing then you may wish to skip this one. I'd be more than happy to recommend this though. 5/5

Next review: The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis

Signing off,
Nisa.

Darkside by Tom Becker

I can only conclude that I got Darkside as a present at some point, because I really don't remember picking it up myself. For one thing, the blurb is far too vague to really raise any interest whatsoever. For another, there's something about the cheesy cover obviously aimed at young boys that would normally put me off from picking it up (although I do appreciate that the glow-in-the-dark bits aren't really intended for my demographic). Figured it might still be worth a look since I inexplicably owned it anyway. 

Darkside follows a teenage boy named Jonathan in the wake of one of his father's episodes of catatonia. After resigning himself to another period of waiting for his father to come round to his normal, though only slightly more verbal, self, Jonathan finds that there is something hunting for him and it appears to be connected to his father's illness and his mother's disappearance. To find out what is happening, Jonathan must travel to the Darkside, a secret part of London where Jack the Ripper's descendants reign supreme, and try to find out what's going on before he's taken away or even killed. 

There was a lot of promising material here. Which makes it really frustrating when I say that Darkside is a completely uneven mess. You have no idea how difficult it was just trying to summarise the novel's premise up there, because by the time you get to the end of the book and look back on the whole thing, you can see plot-holes large enough to drive a truck through and it just comes across as a string of events that just kind of happen because the author says so. For example, the whole being hunted across London thing? Turns out that Jonathan is meant to be part of some weird zoo/gladiatorial pit kind of show. But that stops mattering all that much because when in Darkside, he and his allies find that he's also wanted by one of the most dangerous men in the city for completely different reasons. And that second guy's reasoning for wanting him is also completely ridden with plot-holes: turns out that Jonathan picked up this guy's knife and said assailant wants his property back. Problem is that he dropped the knife in a hospital. Anyone could have picked the sodding thing up, but no, he just somehow knows that it's this specific kid and even knows his name. Why? We never find out! I mean, if you want this kid to be sought after by two separate parties, then just pick the one reason. The gladiatorial zoo thing could have been dropped so easily without having to rework the plot that much, and considering that you have both a secondary protagonist and antagonist tied pretty much solely to that section that's a really worrying lapse in editorial decision-making. Really though, it shouldn't have been there in the first place. All it serves to do is introduce a villain who is vaguely creepy-looking and gets beaten to a pulp in his second appearance, and introduce a protagonist who tags along after being rescued and not really doing much. It could have been so much sleeker, more interesting and less confusing if you just went for "the kid picks up a knife that two or more parties want possession of". It really should not be that difficult. And that's just one point of contention plot-wise. Why does Jonathan insist that he has to find out about his mother from his father, when there are non-comatose people who knew her that he could ask? Why does that one mundane police officer suddenly have a revelation right at the end for no real reason? Does the mental institution not notice that its patients are being picked off one by one, or do they just not care? 

And another thing. The setting. Darkside could be a really cool place to set a story in. The supernaturally dark underbelly of London that has pretty much stayed in the Victorian era, where it's very much a survival of the most ruthless kind of attitude. Except that there are an extraordinary number of people there with a massive conscience. Carnegie, the lycanthropic private investigator that Jonathan allies himself with, considers himself honour-bound to help this kid he's never seen before because his dad helped him in a tight spot once (not that it's ever elaborated on). Marianne, the bounty hunter hired to kidnap Jonathan, frequently expresses regret that she's paid to kidnap children and keeps one of her henchmen in service because she feels that she is responsible for him after an unnamed accident of some kind. Raquella, the main bad guy's maidservant, helps Jonathan for no real reason at all. Honestly, a setting where Jack the Ripper is the ancestor of their royal family and where time hasn't moved on from the questionable societal norms of Victorian England, I was expecting something quite a lot more brutal. Sure, I get that it's for kids, but these should not come across as nice people. Carnegie, maybe, but the rest? It removes the teeth from what could be a really creepy setting. 

Finally, just a small thing that pissed me off the whole way through. Carnegie is, as I mentioned above, a lycanthrope, also known as a werewolf. He insists on being referred to as a wereman. For those of you unfamiliar with the etymology of the phrase werewolf, the were in werewolf is an Old English word meaning man. So what is evidently intended to be a clever little spin on old folklore is instead made ridiculous by having the werewolf refer to himself as a man-man. Considering that I learnt that off of a kid's show when I was growing up, my faith in this author's researching ability has plummeted through the floor. Although considering the rest of the novel, maybe we can just assume that my estimation of this writer is currently at a sub-basement level. 

Honestly, Darkside's total ineptitude wouldn't irritate me as much as it does if some of the ideas behind it weren't kind of interesting. But while a darker, supernatural version of Victorian London could be really cool, it's ruined by a plot that is overloaded and nonsensical, too many characters with morals and a basic misunderstanding of werewolf lore. If I hear of any of you giving this to children, I will be severely disappointed in you. Just because it's aimed at young boys doesn't excuse poor writing. 1/5 

Next review: Past Mortem by Ben Elton 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

Needful Things by Stephen King

I decided not to wait quite so long to take a crack at another Stephen King novel as I did for Hearts in Atlantis, and quite the understated one I decided on. Needful Things isn't really one of King's books that is mentioned terribly often, but I picked it up over some of his more famous offerings as the premise really struck me as interesting. I know, that has lead to some... less than successful ventures for me in the recent past, but my track record with King's novels has been pretty good so far. What could it hurt?

At the beginning of Needful Things, Castle Rock is more or less your average small American town. A few weird things have happened there in the recent past, but not so hugely weird that most of the townspeople would notice. Then a new shop opens up in the business quarter. Nobody can quite tell what it sells, Needful Things being something of an obtuse name at best, but everyone is intrigued by it in only the way that small things can be fascinating to the population of a small town. When it does finally open, people are quite taken with the vendor, a Mr Leland Gaunt, and his shop proves to sell all kinds of interesting items, all things that people desperately want. And he sells them just within his customer's budget, an added bonus almost. It's only when old tensions start to intensify that the true price of said items come to light.
I do love a slow burner sometimes, and after a string of quick reads, it was nice to sit back and let Needful Things work its way under my skin. When you have this sort of story-line, where a lot depends on the slow build of conflict and tension, there are two primary things that you have to get right. First, there's the basis for conflict within the cast of townspeople and the way that those grudges are exploited. There is quite admirable work on show here: mud thrown at the sheets of the woman who pretty much lives to be angry at her neighbours, spreading incriminating letters and "evidence" to sow the seeds of doubt in the lives of loving couples, and escalating what was already a bitter and petty argument between the congregations of the local Baptist and Catholic churches. Secondly, and inescapably tied to the first point, is the identity of the person masterminding the whole bloody affair. Enter Mr Gaunt, a devil figure who is, for the most part, much more subtle than Randall Flagg from The Stand. I think I kind of prefer this version of the Devil in King's work, because, while I love The Stand, I did always wonder what really attracted people to someone as creepy as Flagg. In contrast, Gaunt is just the right mix of utterly charming and completely malign. There's so much power that he could use to much flashier effect, but doesn't because it's so much more interesting to just nudge people into indulging the worst parts of their character. With these two aspects, the tension ramps up to some truly impressive heights, and that's saying something considering that my favourite character is killed off probably less than halfway through the novel.
What stops it from being my current joint favourite King novel along with The Stand is the ending. All the mind-games that Gaunt has been playing on the town are in their final stages, people are dying left, right and centre. And then the heroes have their bittersweet victory after the intervention of a completely unexplained deus-ex-machina. It is seriously frustrating to have your main hero, a sheriff who until now was normal if decidedly more observant and slower to jump to conclusions than the rest of the town, suddenly develop powers that he had previously shown no signs of. Not cool. I'd have settled for a moral victory, have the heroes lose the fight but retain their dignity and souls, just so long as the magic hand-waving could be avoided.

The majority of Needful Things is absolutely brilliant, with a great build in tension stemming from intensifying small town grudges and a subtle mastermind villain. I only wish that the ending hadn't been the unfulfilling deus-ex-machina that it was. I'd still give it a read though, considering that, bar 11 pages of disappointment at the end, it's a damn near perfect supernatural thriller. 4.5/5

Next review: Darkside by Tom Becker

Signing off,
Nisa.

Hater by David Moody

Hater was another of those books that I picked up because the premise intrigued me. I had previously read this one and I remember liking it, but I couldn't really remember the specifics of it terribly well. So I figured that if anything was worth a re-read, it was this.

Hater is the story of what happens when a sudden and violent shift occurs in British society. Over the course of just over a week, there is a sudden increase in violent assaults across the country with no discernable reason. The reader follows council employee Danny McCoyne and his family as they try to cope with the increasing level of uncertainty and paranoia.
There's a lot that I like about Hater. The build-up of tension is gradual and quite effective, going from a single incident to the point where armed police are a common sight. The violence is suitably shocking and brutal, counterpointing the comparative normality on show at the beginning. I just wish that I could have liked and sympathised with the narrator. I can appreciate where Moody was coming from when he created Danny: stuck in a dead-end job with the council that doesn't pay enough, stuck in a council flat with a nagging wife and three children under 10, trying to be civil to a father-in-law who seems determined to dislike you regardless of what he does. Honestly though, he comes across more whiny and self-absorbed than the intended sympathetic everyman. He coasts through his job because he doesn't have the drive to look for something better, then has the gumption to complain when his situation doesn't change. He has the money to go to a concert with his wife to get away from the kids, but when the question of a pub lunch comes up suddenly they don't have the funds. He claims to love his kids and tortures himself over the potential that someone in their family might turn violent, but it's difficult to believe when the only dialogue that he really has with his kids is either telling them to shut up or fielding their questions to unsubtly imply that they should shut up. There's just such an attitude there that is admittedly partially brought on by trying circumstances but mostly a result of his own laziness. I want to like him. I want to sympathise with his worries about looking after his family and his fears that one of them might be a Hater. But it falls flat for me, because there's so much about him that pisses me off.

A solid horror plot with some decent build-up and some really good depictions of violence. But for me it's made disappointing by a protagonist intended to be an everyman who just comes off as lazy and entitled. It's difficult to care how the situation progresses when you're hoping for the narrator to be bumped off, the sooner the better. 3/5

Next review: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

Signing off,
Nisa.

Nobody True by James Herbert

Sometimes I pick up books because I read the premise and I just know instinctively that I need to read the book proper to find out what the author has done with that scenario. Nobody True was one of those books. Considering that my last encounter with James Herbert was mixed at best though, I was somewhat wary going into this, regardless of my enthusiasm for the premise. 

Nobody True follows Jim True, a man who is ordinary in all but one way: he has had incredibly vivid out-of-body experiences ever since he was a young boy. While he is on one of these out-of-body experiences, he returns to his body to find that he has been murdered and his body horribly mutilated while his spirit was away. He finds himself searching for his killer, but first he must figure out whether he was the victim of a serial killer who had similarly mutilated their victims, or whether his murderer was someone he knew and was close to. But even if he can figure that out, is there anything that he can actually do in his now-permanent incorporeal state if he does discover the culprit. 

I really wanted to like Nobody True, but I knew that it was a dud when the first seven chapters or so focused on his childhood from the age of 3 onwards and his career in advertising. If anything was an example of the importance of judicious cutting when writing a second draft, then this is it. I did not pick up a horror novel because I wanted to find out how the everyman protagonist started up his advertising business in excruciating detail. I want to see the everyman protagonist struggle with their own impotence and lack of importance within the universe. That fact that Herbert then proceeds to add footnotes that are both long-winded and almost wholly unnecessary to the actual plot only makes the proceedings all that more infuriating. 

I could have coped with that if the characters were half interesting. They really weren't. I mean, your main protagonist is a guy who actively wanted to be in advertising. There isn't really much you can do to save that character. Honestly, this is the most boring, white-bread character I've seen in a long, long time. I really couldn't care less who actually killed him. The fact that the serial killer that I mentioned previously is only evil because they have a physical disability is also really intensely uncomfortable and not in the manner that I had willingly signed up for. 

Having read Nobody True, I have come to the conclusion that James Herbert was an author that had a great eye for a book premise, but didn't seem to understand that the reader doesn't need to know everything about the main character's backstory. The whole book feels in need of a brutal but necessary trip to an editor, and the main character couldn't be more boring if he tried. A swing and a miss on pretty much every count, which is a shame because I really wanted this to be good. 1.5/5 

Next review: The Fire Thief by Terry Deary 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King

Hearts in Atlantis is one of those books that has been on my shelf for so long that I can't really remember when or why I got it in the first place. I seem to have a fair few Stephen King books that have cropped up in my collection, so I can only assume that I must have had a period where I picked up any of his books that peaked my interest, only to never get around to reading them. Hearts in Atlantis in particular may well have been picked up because I found out that there was a film version of it made starring Anthony Hopkins, an actor whose work I admire immensely. In any case, it had been sitting on my shelf long enough for me to feel guilty about it.

Hearts in Atlantis is a collection of five interlinked stories set between 1960 and 1999. The first "Low Men in Yellow Coats" follows a young boy named Bobby as he befriends a new neighbour who asks him to keep an eye out for strange and unpleasant individuals that he only names as Low Men. "Hearts in Atlantis" follows Pete Riley in his attempts to win the heart of a fellow student, all while trying not to flunk and avoid the draft for Vietnam despite a crippling gambling habit. "Blind Willie" follows Willie Shearman as he cons busy New Yorkers out of their money by pretending to be a blind Vietnam vet. "Why We're in Vietnam" follows Sully-John revisiting the past following the funeral of a fellow veteran. And finally, "Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling" focuses on a grown up Bobby revisiting his childhood hometown and brings together all the tales that had come before it.
Apart from the first story in the collection, there isn't really much in the way of supernatural goings-on in Hearts in Atlantis, which was a bit unexpected but not really a bad thing. Considering that the last book by King that I'd read before this was The Stand, it was actually kind of nice to read a novel where the main bad guy wasn't the Antichrist. Much as I like The Stand, there needs to be variation in terms of stakes, and I certainly got it here. It was nice to read something where in the end, even if the good guys don't win completely, the world doesn't have to come to a screeching halt. It was good to read a book where the consequences were all so close to home, and the recurring characters really hammered that home, as you can see just how all of these events affect them all while the world continues on as normal.
I will say one thing though that I wasn't so sure about. I can't say for certain, not having read any of the Dark Tower series of books, but I feel like there's a lot of context from that series that would make the supernatural elements of "Low Men in Yellow Coats" make a lot more sense. It certainly isn't essential, as the important points come across just fine and don't actually need to be explained in full. I just feel that, having seen the use of terms like "breakers" and "te-ka", there is a lot of context that would take on a lot more meaning if I had already read at least some of the Dark Tower books. Probably not a huge issue, but it might well tip the balance of which you read first.

A superb look at a small group of characters, seen at various times throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Definitely one to pick up if you're looking for some more low-key, personal stakes after all these books with world-changing consequences. There may be some context about the supernatural elements that would only really make sense if you've already read the Dark Tower series, but it's not something that is going to completely ruin the novel if you're ignorant of the context like I was. 4/5

Next review: Dark Moon by David Gemmell

Signing off,
Nisa.