This review originally appeared on Goodreads on September 3, 2014.

Bait

Edited by J. Kent Messum – Plume – August 27, 2013

Review by Robin Marx

Short and nasty, this little book was sort of a combination between The Most Dangerous Game and Saw. The premise was simple but effective: shadowy figures maroon six junkies on a remote archipelago in the Florida Keys, then place a package of heroin and supplies on a neighboring island. The addicts are forced to deal with aggressive sharks and their murderous audience, who watch from an offshore yacht. The heroin acts as bait for the addicts, and the addicts are bait for the sharks. Exciting stuff!

While the author kept things moving fast, the first half of the book was still hindered by the presence of six unnecessary and redundant flashbacks. The characters' backgrounds were all pretty similar (“I used to be X, then got hooked on heroin. Yesterday I was stalked and rendered unconscious by beefy guys.”), and they end up verbally explaining their circumstances to the other characters anyway. The flashbacks are mercifully brief, but they distract from the characters' more exciting present and end up feeling like filler. The book could have shed this bit of fat and become an even better, punchier novella.

While the characters were a little thin—the non-shark antagonists seemed a bit like comic book baddies—the story's pace was brisk and action-packed. While the term “pulp” is often used by snobs to dismiss stories that emphasize action and excitement over characterization and deep reflection, Bait is a good, modern embodiment of the best qualities of the pulp adventure tale. If the premise intrigues you, by all means give this book a read.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 23, 2021.

We Are All Completely Fine

By Daryl Gregory – Tachyon Publications – July 21, 2014

Review by Robin Marx

This brief novel (novella?) is about a group therapy circle where all the participants are sole survivors of supernaturally-tinged massacres. One patient was partially consumed by cannibals, another escaped from a cult that inscribed every inch of her flesh with occult scars, another was held captive by a deranged otherworldly killer that carved macabre artwork into her bones. They meet on a weekly basis, each searching for solace and companionship, but their fragile steps towards peace are halted when the past catches up to one of their members.

This is a fast, fun story with an interesting premise. However, I felt like it selected and followed up on the least interesting plot thread. I found Greta’s story the least compelling of any of the survivors’, and the book suffered in the second half when it made that the central focus. There was so much good stuff hinted at in the other characters’ pasts, and I would have rather liked to learn more about pretty much any of the other characters than Greta.

This story is still worth reading, but it felt like a great premise squandered.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on June 25, 2022.

Junkyard Leopard

By Oliver Brackenbury – Brackenbooks – November 26, 2018

Review by Robin Marx

This violent tale tells the story of Mary, an awkward and lonely girl who works scrapping cars at a junkyard. By night she dresses in a faceless leopard print costume, murdering the corrupt and venal capitalists of the city’s financial district by the dozens. Where Mary is insecure and shy, her alter ego The Figure is driven and fearless. While Mary navigates daily life as a member of the working poor, even falling in love along the way, The Figure works to hunt down Gerald Byrne, a ruthless financier who barely survived a previous attack.

Despite the Amazon categorization, there’s nothing particularly comedic about the book. It felt like splatterpunk-lite to me; there’s moments of extremely graphic violence, but it always felt like the author took a step back before going full splatterpunk and really reveling in the gore. The tech level seemed about five years or so more advanced than our own, adding some subtle cyberpunk overtones, but urban horror seems the most natural home for the novel.

Tonally, the book reminded me a bit of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but the book feels borne out of an Elder Millennial author’s tremendous frustration and disappointment with the current state of the world. The social contract has been broken. Working hard is no longer a guarantee of a comfortable and secure life, and traditional paths to success like university education and full-time careers are increasingly unattainable. The middle class is shrinking, and everyday we suffer a constant media barrage of suffering and fear. Late stage capitalism is abusive and unsustainable.

And rather than just attributing it to some vague societal malaise, it’s often quite easy to identify the specific companies, executives, and politicians that are taking an active hand in increasing the misery of the world so as to enrich themselves to ever more obscene levels. We know who these people are. And this book offers the cathartic fantasy of being able to take direct action and strike back at our tormentors. To make them feel the same desperation and insecurity they inflict on so many. To fuck up some billionaires with a customized claw hammer.

This is a brisk read. The sympathetic characters are well-rendered, and Mary’s romance subplot is handled in a charming and relatable way. The antagonists, on the other hand, tend towards caricature. They’re irredeemable comic book villains. Certain sections of the book are written from their perspectives, but they’re not leavened with any kind of sympathetic traits. I chalked this up to them being more symbols than characters. Elsewhere in the book Brackenbury demonstrates he can handle nuance, with the antagonists he chooses not to.

Recommended for fans of Fight Club and The Punisher.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on January 28, 2020.

Before You Sleep: Three Horrors

By Adam L.G. Nevill – RITUAL LIMITED – August 23, 2016

Review by Robin Marx

This free sampler contains three short horror stories from Adam Nevill's first collection, Some Will Not Sleep: Selected Horrors. I enjoyed Nevill's novel The Ritual (recently adapted as a Netflix movie), and the stories collected here have a similar ominous feel.

The first story, “Where Angels Come In,” is very effectively creepy. It involves two boys exploring an abandoned building, only to find it occupied by a variety of terrifying creatures. The ghostly inhabitants are very imaginatively described, and the impressionistic touch given the violence in the story makes it even more disturbing. I was impressed by how well executed this story was despite the somewhat well-worn premise.

The second installment, “Ancestors,” was well done, but not quite as engaging. In this story, a young girl finds herself living in an old home secretly inhabited by animated toys and a snuggly girl of a similar age who is, to the reader, blatantly a ghost. While the premise is intriguing, there were a few storytelling choices made that ended up hurting the story in my opinion. One was the vague touch with description. While the blurry lens worked in the first story, it obscured events just a little too much this time. I also felt the decision to make the family Japanese was a little baffling. The setting of the story didn't seem tied to a particular locale; the way the house was described (e.g., with several fireplaces) didn't sound particularly Japanese in terms of architecture, and no specific folklore appeared to be drawn on apart from the fairly familiar Sadako/Kayako-style ghost girl. I'm not saying all stories about Japanese people have to go all-in on cultural references, but this story would have been much the same had it been about an English family in Nevill's native England.

The third and final story, “Florrie,” was the weakest one in the bunch for me. A young man buys a house that an elderly woman had died in, and finds himself increasingly influenced by her ghost. The writing was fine, but it happened to be the third haunted house story in a row, and the effects of said ghost struck me as more comical than creepy.

While it felt like the book ended off on a bit of a weak note, it fulfilled its purpose of introducing me to the short fiction of Adam Nevill. I liked what I saw, and I plan to read more by this author.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on August 8, 2022.

Clown in a Cornfield

By Adam Cesare – HarperCollins – August 25, 2020

Review by Robin Marx

Uprooted from Philadelphia after the death of her mother, Quinn Maybrook and her father move to the rural town of Kettle Springs, Missouri, for a change of scenery. She attempts to befriend her high school classmates, but quickly realizes that the personal relationships surrounding her are more complicated than they appear, and the town as a whole harbors a collective trauma simmering just under the surface. Looming over it all is Frendo, an ominous clown mascot emblazoned on the town's burned-out corn processing plant.

This fast-paced book is a throwback to the lurid spinner-rack paperbacks and 80-minute straight-to-VHS horror flicks of the 80s. The title is a good example of truth in advertising. You want a murderous clown in a cornfield? Here you go.

While I enjoyed the book, I couldn't help thinking that it was also a victim of its own pacing. The violence ramps up pretty quickly and remains pretty constant through the end of the book. The results are action-packed, but the horror side could have benefited from more page count devoted to setting up a menacing atmosphere, hinting more at the wrongness of Kettle Springs, and building some more audience affection for the teenagers before slaughtering them.

Published by HarperTeen, this is apparently a Young Adult book. The violence is pretty graphic, and apart from the focus on teenaged characters there don't appear to be many concessions to the younger audience. It reminded me a bit of the old Christopher Pike YA horror novels, which could be similarly gory.

While it appears that a follow-up volume, Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives, is forthcoming, I'm not sure I'm in a rush to read it. I feel like my cornfield clown needs have been satisfied. The itch has been scratched. That being said, I'd happily read other work by author Adam Cesare.

Recommended for killer clown fans and readers who don't mind a heavier emphasis on the action- part of action-horror.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on June 22, 2015.

The Imago Sequence and Other Stories

By Laird Barron – Night Shade Books – July 1, 2007

Review by Robin Marx

This anthology collects more unsettling weird tales by Laird Barron. The overall quality is high, but a couple of the stories suffer from being too obscure (“Procession of the Black Sloth,” which has a great atmosphere otherwise) or a little slight plot-wise (“The Royal Zoo is Closed”). “Old Virginia,” “Parallax,” and the title story are particularly strong and creepy. I continue to enjoy Laird Barron's brand of thoroughly modern Lovecraftian fiction that doesn't rely on Lovecraft's monsters.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on May 29, 2012.

Meg: Origins

By Steve Alten – Gere Donovan Press – August 16, 2011

Review by Robin Marx

Many people would characterize the Meg series as a guilty pleasure. I think it's silly to get apologetic about one's choice in entertainment, but I'd certainly admit that Alten's books are goofy. The subject matter (giant prehistoric sharks!) is so appealing, however, that I have no trouble ignoring the creaky bits and enjoying the ride.

I've always liked sharks, and Alten focuses on one of the most interesting of all: Carcharodon megalodon, ancestor to the great white shark. Through some REALLY flimsy science and frantic “ignore the man behind the curtain” hand-waving Alten brings the megalodon up from the Mariana Trench to where it can snack on people for four books, with a fifth on the way.

Meg: Origins is an e-book prequel novella to his first story, Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror. The events in this prequel are referred to a number of times throughout the series, making this prequel fairly redundant and unnecessary. Still, I was lured in by the premise (giant prehistoric sharks!) and the $0.99 price tag. The story had all the familiar issues—stilted prose, paper-thin characters, chunks of scientific exposition that still manages to seem hinky—but as with the other books, the giant prehistoric shark action makes up for the weak spots. Did I mention this book has giant prehistoric sharks(!) in it?

Steve Alten is not an especially technically skilled author, but he is a very enthusiastic one. It's easy to imagine him at his computer thinking “Oh man, wouldn't it be cool if THIS happened?!” and then tapping away frantically. The 12-year-old inside me agrees: yes, it would be totally cool. Radical, in fact.

I doubt I'll pick up his non-Meg stories, but as long as he keeps writing more books about giant prehistoric sharks(!), he's got a customer in me.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on September 13, 2012.

Cadaver in Chief

By Steve Hockensmith – Self-Published – July 31, 2012

Review by Robin Marx

This novella is by the author of a prequel and sequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (but not that book itself, interestingly). While Cadaver in Chief continues to deal with zombies, this time the undead menace are blended with a satire of election year politics.

The story was brief but engaging, with many interesting implications. Retiring reporter Jan Woods comes across a blog post claiming that the President of the United States was attacked and killed by a zombie while on the campaign trail, and that the whole affair has been covered up by the government. Despite the unreliable source of the claims, she decides to investigate further, with hazardous results.

The setting was especially fascinating. While most zombie apocalypse stories take place after the sudden collapse of society, Cadaver in Chief depicts an invasion in progress, with an America that is slowly crumbling. Citizens are trying to cope: everyone is constantly armed and new social rules have cropped up. Those who damage a zombie (or “nasty”) are responsible for finishing it off, and pedestrians greet each other loudly to avoid being shot by wary neighbors. Gallows humor is everywhere. It'd be nice to see this setting revisited by the author. It could easily serve as the stage for a serious horror novel if some of the comedic elements were toned down.

Somewhat depressingly, I actually found the fictional Beltway pundits' diatribes to be less tone-deaf and absurd than the real-life political discourse going on in the US right now. Truth is stranger—and dumber—than fiction in this case.

Elements of comedy and horror are generally tricky to balance, but I think Hockensmith succeeded in walking that tightrope. The end result is a fast-paced story that spices its humor with some genuinely creepy moments. It's very important that a comedy story not outstay its welcome, but I wouldn't have minded spending more time exploring this world.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 15, 2020.

A Head Full of Ghosts

By Paul Tremblay – William Morrow – June 2, 2015

Review by Robin Marx

When psychiatric treatment fails to cure a 14-year-old girl’s bizarre outbursts, her desperate father turns to religion. And with the family’s finances in dire straits, he allows a film crew into their home to film a reality TV show about the apparent demonic possession and ensuing exorcism.

This book is told through the eyes of Merry, the 8-year-old sister of the troubled teenager. Tremblay’s handling of such a young viewpoint character is truly masterful. As the father of an 8-year-old girl, Merry felt authentically kid-like, not like the weirdly precocious miniature adults so often seen in entertainment. She’s stuck in a terrifying situation that she’s even less equipped to handle than her struggling parents, betrayed by and frightened of the older sister she used to idolize.

Unfortunately, despite a great viewpoint character, the story isn’t quite as fulfilling as it could have been. The possession and climactic exorcism are handled in a pretty traditional manner that’s been seen in fiction a dozen times. The reality show trappings and passages of the book featuring a horror blogger providing wry retrospective commentary upon the TV episodes add some originality to the proceedings, but in the end it felt more could have been done with those elements.

I enjoyed this book and raced through it pretty quickly, but despite moments of excellence it felt like there was some wasted potential.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on June 7, 2011.

The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig'

By William Hope Hodgson – Chapman and Hall – 1907

Review by Robin Marx

This is a rather gripping survival horror story that follows the crew of a pair of lifeboats, sailors adrift after the sinking of the titular 'Glen Carrig.' Hodgson wastes no time getting into the action; the shipwreck itself is covered in basically a single perfunctory paragraph, and events start getting strange and deadly very quickly.

The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' is similar to his other novels, The House on the Borderland and The Night Land, in that they're basically a linear narrative following the protagonist through a number of bizarre episodes. They read more like travelogues than carefully plotted novels, but the events are interesting enough that this isn't much of a complaint.

The story is written in an intentionally archaic style, with no quoted dialogue and few named characters, but it's fast-paced and packed with engrossing imagery. Stylistically it's a much more approachable read than The Night Land, which—while challenging—I also enjoyed considerably.

Hodgson delivers a thoroughly entertaining and imaginative story. I've enjoyed everything I've read by him thus far, and it's become clear that he's one of the more underrated figures in early 20th century horror fiction. I recommend The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' wholeheartedly.

★★★★☆

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