Reviews

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Tony’s Review: The Rainbow Maker’s Tale, Melanie Cusick-Jones

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3/5

The sequel to Hope’s Daughter follows Balik’s storyline through the same events of the first book, told from his POV.

It’s an interesting choice for a sequel, and it fills in a lot of the blanks from the first book. I really liked Balik’s logical self-sufficient approach to life, and his approach to solving problems. He learns that trusting someone isn’t a weakness, but a strength – indeed, towards the end of the book, Cassie has to save him.

The world building was as strong as Hope’s Daughter, and this time we got to see more of the way the station worked. At the climax of the book, there’s a brutal torture sequence that makes me glad I’ve never upset the author enough to be interrogated by her!

It’s obvious Cusick-Jones has done her homework on medical and technological procedures – all the technology and biological information seem logical and consistent with what’s going on.

The pacing was good as well, the characters always on the move and the chapters never lingering too long.

It did suffer a little though, from knowing what was going on in Hope’s Daughter, and knowing how it played out. Although the books can be read in any order, you really need to read Hope’s Daughter first. For instance, the characters mention The Collective, which won’t mean anything if you hadn’t read HD.

There were a few typos that caught my eye as well – the most jarring was when Cassie says her friends have gone to the retirement quarter, not the marriage quarter, and there were a few run-on sentences that needed full stops and not commas – but nothing too major.

Looking forward to seeing where Cusick-Jones goes with the next book in the series!

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Tony’s Review: Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card

4/5

In fighting monsters, do we become monsters?

It’s the theme of this gripping book from Card. The writing is fluid and the characters dynamic and evolving.

Taken from his home at the age of six, Ender Wiggins is trained to be a killer against an alien race, a killer without remorse or pity. Terrified of turning into the bullying brother he hates, Ender is able to turn his anger to fighting mock battles in battle school, where a generation of children and teenagers are being trained to fight for the survival of humanity. At any cost to themselves, psychologically and physically.

The battles are fake and no one gets hurt, but that doesn’t stop Ender from being bullied and suffering psychologically – his brilliance is the target of envy, an envy fostered by his teachers. He responds brutally, without mercy…only feeling remorse when he’s finished.

In some ways, Ender reminded me of the literary James Bond. Bond would kill quickly and efficently; not enjoy doing it, but doing it because he had to in order to survive, and doing it to the best of his ability. Only Ender is a child, and the stress nearly pulls him apart.

One of the problems of the book is that Ender never sounds like a child. We’re told he’s a super genius, but I don’t think any super genius would be that mature. There’s a political subplot dragged in involving Enders sister and brother, but mostly it seems to be there for padding. What’s interesting about it is the way they go about it – they go online (The book was written in 1985) and set up sock-puppet accounts, each holding different opinions and written in a different style.

The biggest problems with the book start when Ender graduates to proper military training. I won’t give away the spoiler ending, but it seems rushed.

Also, 95% of the way through the book, a super weapon is mentioned in passing that has never been talked about before. It’s dropped so casually in the conversation, I thought I’d skipped a page. Half a page later, it happens again. “It will go straight through the Ecstatic Shield.” Oh, that’s all right then. So what is an Ecstactic Shield, since no one has ever talked about one before?

The epilogue seemed a little strained and too long as well. If the book had ended a chapter after the climax, it would have worked better. Instead Card seems to struggle to shoehorn extra plots in to work up to a sequel, and the book drags its feet to the last page.

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Horrorfest Review…Like Death by Tim Waggoner

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This book needs a bit of an intro before you read my review… it was truly strange.

Synopsis

Scott Raymond is a man haunted by his past and terrorized in the present. As a young boy, he witnessed the brutal murder of his family, but there is so much of the gruesome tragedy that he simply cannot remember — including the identity of the killer or why Scott alone was spared. The memories won’t come, but the trauma won’t go away.

Scott is an adult now, still emotionally scarred but learning to deal with it. He has come to Ash Creek to write about a different mystery, a six-year-old girl named Miranda who has disappeared in broad daylight one year ago. Here, Scott meets another girl named Miranda, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the one who’s missing — but this one’s a teenager. She will draw Scott into the bizarre hidden world known as Shadow. A world where nightmares are very real . . . and very deadly.

What the synopsis doesn’t tell you

Anything, even things just barely on your level of perception will be thrust into this world of crazy! If you’ve ever dreamt strange things that kinda freaked you out when you woke up, this will likely talk about and explore some of them! It wasn’t creepy (well not to me) but I wanted it to be. Perhaps I’ve just done a good job of creeping myself out of late. On another note, everything in this book has a latent sexuality to it. If not immediately, down the track some sort of sexual innuendo will be made about it.

Who I would recommend it to

Anyone interested in a complete mindscrew.

Having said that, it doesn’t ring true to horror, so some horror fans would be disappointed; it’s not even totally gore, though it is probably closer than horror. It’s not even in or outside of the science-fiction realm either. It contains some aspects of mystery and some crime-thriller themes. It seems to be a mash of a lot of genres, just a very gruesome one.

Review

Like Death: I’m not 100% certain as to why the book was called Like Death I think perhaps the PR guy thought ‘complete mindf*ck’ wasn’t appropriate. Even something relating to darkness or evil would have been a bit more appropriate in my opinion.

Don’t rush into this story if you can’t handle gore and horror. Don’t rush into it if you can’t stand constant WTF moments. Don’t rush into it if you don’t like talking/reading about killing, screwing, blood, guts, and all other manner of darkness.

This book was certainly all of those things; it was deep in the world of a sick mind (Scott Raymond’s, the main character). There was a lot of sexual innuendo mixed in with the horror and gore; everything seemed to be tinged in boobs, nipples, penises and sex. It did get a little, dare I say it, boring, tedious, same-same.

There were things I did enjoy. Some of the craziness was absolutely unexpected. I liked that feeling of being completely thrown off balance by a twist in the story. I also found the ending to be a bit odd, but I felt that it was a good ending to this truly strange book.

I didn’t feel creeped out by this book. I wanted to. Some of the scenes were heading down that path, but I didn’t feel the tension, I didn’t feel goosebumps on my skin or the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. This left me feeling a little disappointed.

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Hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Horrorfest review, here’s a little more about the author, Lynxie, who blogs at Coffee2words…

Coffee2words is me at my most basic in terms of my writing. I drink copious amounts of the darkly, rich stuff and attempt to convert it into at least partially amusing or interesting written word. I am sure those of you who check back here from time to time will see various spatterings of my work adorn the pages of my blog.

In other aspects of life, I enjoy reading, reviewing the books I read and interacting with the over 10 Million members on goodreads. I have spent a great deal of my life with my nose shoved between the pages of a book, and more recently pressed against the screen of my kindle. On a good week, I read between 1-4 books and I endeavour to review each of them. Reviewing is still quite new to me, having only picked up my quill late in 2011, I am still finding my own style.

When I’m not writing, reading or stuffing my husband’s or my own face with food, you can find me out walking my beautiful Border Collie dog, Tammy, frequenting the gym or sewing up a storm in my sewing room.

Thanks for taking part in our Horrorfest Lynxie 🙂

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Horrorfest Post…Why Stephen King missed his calling

This post by Tony T orginially featured on the blog in October last year, but I thought it fitted well with this event and so have re-posted it today 🙂

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I’ve read quite a few Stephen King books. Not all of them by any means – I believe the list is now up to sixty two, – but I’ve read enough of them to know his writing pretty well.

We all know the genre: Joe Average (who has a habit of being a writer) finds himself in a supernatural situation, gets himself out of it – though doesn’t always survive mentally.

And fair enough, some of them are gruesome to the max – I believe all aspiring writers should read Misery, just as an object lesson to run from anyone who tells you, ‘I’m your Number One Fan’, and as a delve into the writing process.

But I digress, and back to my point.

I put it to the world: He missed his calling. The man was born to write YA.

I came across the review Em posted on here for The Long Walk, and flicking through my shelves of King today, it occurred to me that the works I think are his best are all, at heart YAs: IT. The Long Walk. The Body (Stand by Me, for those who only know the film). The Talisman. Christine. Carrie.

But what about the horror? What about the profanity? Some might ask. I’d ask if they’d read any YA recently. I’d pick up a Bali Rai and point out the profanity in there. I’d pick up a Darren Shan and show you the gore inside. He’s not written anything in the books I’ve mentioned above that couldn’t be handled by a teenager.

The simple fact is Stephen King works best when he’s writing about teenagers and children.

He knows on a fundamental level how they tick, the elemental fears that move and shake them. He knows how a dark cellar scares the lunch out of them, how sunlight gleaming from the ankle bracelet of the first girl you ever love melts your heart.

And he knows the value of childhood friendships (The Body: I never had any friends later on like I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did anyone?), the easy pain cruel parents inflict on their children – and not always physically.

That’s why his horror works so well…he knows the fears of childhood and knows we’ve all been there. Who’s never been frightened by a clown like Pennywise in IT? Personally, I don’t remember a time I didn’t find clowns scary.

Even Christine, which is perhaps a borderline case for YA, is all about the losers in high school, full of teenage angst and anger. Breaking the rules for the first time to get what you want, breaking away from your parents.

Stephen King missed his calling. He’s wasted on all those adults! YA’s should take him as one of their own!

So I put it to the world: Start a campaign. Stephen King should write YA!

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Horrorfest Review…Live Undead by Steve Warren

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Live Undead – a wicked ride slick with blood, guts and fangs

Synopsis: The first installment of the Undead Chronicles.

Live Undead tour the country, bringing their blood-slicked shock rock to out of the way dives and underground clubs. Their obsessed fans follow them from city to city, unaware of the band’s horrifying secret. The lacerated throats and acts of self-mutilation isn’t simply makeup and effects – it’s all real. The members of Live Undead are vampires. They prey on the black-clad, disaffected, and depressed teenagers who flock to their shows, while leaving a trail of dead bodies in their wake.

Depressed, sexually confused, and bullied at school, Nothing desperately longs for escape. He dreams of rock and roll stardom and thousands of adoring fans, but will settle with knowing what it’s like to be special. That’s the question he needs answered when he finally gets his chance to meet Live Undead.

Eric’s life has been in a downward spiral ever since his pregnant girlfriend went missing thirteen years ago after a concert. When Eric stumbles across Live Undead, he’s shocked by their uncanny resemblance to the band that had played the night his life changed forever.

Inspired by splatterpunk novels of the late 1980s and early 1990s, LIVE UNDEAD contains depictions of explicit sex, gruesome horror and graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised.

Thoughts: 133 pages. While not for everyone, this book was fairly easy to digest in terms of writing style. It took me two days to read.

Where to buy: You can buy from Amazon on kindle for $2.99.

Review: Live undead will not be a book mainstream book readers will read, it has far too much death metal, hard rock and gore in it, but there will be a loyal group where it will make its mark.

Akin to the cult following of the band ‘Live Undead’, the book too will likely find a niche with the horror/gore fans. I must admit, however that while I am no horror/gore enthusiast, I didn’t find this book to be overly offensive. Perhaps it is that through the reality of today’s society that we are becoming desensitised to this subject, but while definitely in the gore realm, it wasn’t truly in your face.

There is a lot of sexual violence, blood, fetishism and murder among other things, so if these areas bother you, don’t pick this one up!

I think even more-so others will be put off by the large amount of gay sex in this book. This too could be another area for potential fans, I am sure there is a group of M/M fetish/horror/gore fans out there.

Add to this wicked little tale a dark undercurrent of paranormal themes, including the non-sparkly vampires, a very heavy dose of hardcore music exposure, and you have yourself a tidy read. (Blood and guts aside of course).

The writing is clear, the plot reasonably well developed and a few twists thrown in to keep you guessing, the ending is a bit of a let down, but I feel there will be a continuation down the track that will probably fix that. I personally would have stopped after the mention of Hollywood.

If you want a comparison for this book, think Marilyn Manson meets a twisted Twilight meets an episode of Law and Order. Give it a try!

*NOTE: The author provided me with an electronic copy of the book in return for an honest review*

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Have you ever read any books dripping with blood? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments below. Hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Horrorfest review, here’s a little more about the author, Lynxie, who blogs at Coffee2words…

Coffee2words is me at my most basic in terms of my writing. I drink copious amounts of the darkly, rich stuff and attempt to convert it into at least partially amusing or interesting written word. I am sure those of you who check back here from time to time will see various spatterings of my work adorn the pages of my blog.

In other aspects of life, I enjoy reading, reviewing the books I read and interacting with the over 10 Million members on goodreads. I have spent a great deal of my life with my nose shoved between the pages of a book, and more recently pressed against the screen of my kindle. On a good week, I read between 1-4 books and I endeavour to review each of them. Reviewing is still quite new to me, having only picked up my quill late in 2011, I am still finding my own style.

When I’m not writing, reading or stuffing my husband’s or my own face with food, you can find me out walking my beautiful Border Collie dog, Tammy, frequenting the gym or sewing up a storm in my sewing room.

Thanks for taking part in our Horrorfest Lynxie 🙂

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Tony’s Review…Tomorrow When the War Began, John Marsden

5/5

Tomorrow was one of the first YA books I read as an adult. My wife had read them, and kept telling me to read it. I bought Tomorrow When the War Began, and was blown away by it.

Re-reading it, it’s got me hooked all over again.

Marsden has an uncanny ability to get right into the heads of his characters, to make you think and feel exactly as they do. Every emotion and sensation, every smell and nuance comes alive on the page. Although a story about teenagers going through a war isn’t new, Marsden brings a new angle to it. If you ever want to know how shooting someone – even an enemy of your country – would really feel, it’s right here. How the vomit would rise in your throat, how the cold fear would lock up your legs and your brain as bullets fly towards you. How watching your best friend for life get shot would make you feel.

This is no Hollywood film where death and emotion are cheap. We go through everything the main character goes through, the highs and the lows.

The YA field and the world have moved on since this was published in 1993, so none of the characters has a cell phone or smartphone (A scene they changed in the movie with good comic effect), and oddly, the characters feel at first like a 1950s bunch with their dialogue. None of them swear – even the ‘bad kid’ never utters a profanity. Not that they need to; just a reflection on how YA evolves.

One of the things I noticed on a re-read is how Marsden lets our imaginations fill in what the characters look like. Beyond describing them in basic details, like the colour of their hair and their eyes, everything else is left to us. I didn’t realise until the re-read that Ellie the main character is stocky, for instance.

Every character starts as a stereotype, simple for the effect of blowing those stereotypes out of the water. Lee the quiet boy becomes a killing machine. Homer the clown becomes a leader. Fi the gentle becomes brave and utterly fearless. Never judge by appearance, Marsden shows us, and here is why.

It’s more of a character driven story as well, I now realise. In some ways, the war is secondary to the characters and how they evolve. Marsden wants us to see them change, and the agent for that change is not really important.

Simply superb. Marsden should be regarded – and in some places he is – as one of the best YA writers there is, and it’s books like this that make you realise why.

He really is that good.

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Tony’s Review…Mice, Gordon Reece (Spoilers)

4/5

Shelley and her mother are mice, hiding away from the world in one of its corners. Both of them carry the scars of their battles with predators – Shelley’s at the hands of school bullies who nearly killed her, and her mother emotional scars from fights against her father and her bullying bosses.

So being mice, when a burglar breaks into their home and threatens them, they do what mice do: They hide, they accede, they submit. But Shelley snaps, pushed past the limit. And she discovers that mice have teeth, and what sharp little teeth they are. Shelley kills the burglar in self defence, but her mum realises that the police won’t see it that way…they’ll see it as murder.

They decide to hide the body, to bury the burglar in the rose bushes. The act of defiance becomes a waiting timebomb beneath them, waiting to explode. Every knock on the door makes Shelley think of police, of prison bullies who will make the ones at school look like nursery teachers.

But gradually, the two women come to realise that the teeth they used to kill the burglar are still sharp. They begin to take control of their lives, to come out from the shadows. To fight back against the people they submitted to.

And when a note from a blackmailer arrives, the two women decide to use those teeth again, this time to kill…

A fantastic premise and a wonderful idea.

I loved this book. The two characters come alive and evolve, transformed by what they’ve been through. Every stage of the plot proceeded from it’s tense (all be it slightly unrealistic) first encounter with the burglar and shot off without a pause, pulling me along with it. Will they be caught? What will happen next? What will trip them up? It kept me flipping the pages and I zipped through it.

The descriptions and world building were first class, lending the book a real sense of atmosphere and place. I had no trouble visualing the world they lived in, and I breathed in the smell of the flowers through their windows, felt the terror and the tension as they did.

I did wonder at the end if Shelley was becoming a sociopathic monster, desensitised to the violence she’s lived through. She urges her mother to shoot the blackmailer, screaming at her to do it, do it. And at the end, when she wants to return to school, she almost seems to relish the thought of a confrontation with her former bullies.

I wonder: What becomes of a mouse when it realises that it enjoys how sharp it’s teeth are?

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Tony’s Review…Breathe, Sarah Crossan

3/5

Sometime after the world has starved itself of oxygen and humanity has retreated to sealed domes, our three main characters find themselves bound together in an adventure. Alina, resistance fighter, who knows the pods are an excuse for the elite to hold on to power; Quinn, the son of one of those elite; and Bea, the daughter of one of the working classes, lovelorn for Quinn who never notices her (at first, anyway).

It’s a wonderful premise of a book, the world suffocating without oxygen, and the world building and descriptions of the wastelands outside the pod are great. It’s the characters that let the book down a little. We shift from one perspective to another every chapter, first person every time, and perhaps that’s the problem. I would have liked to have stayed in Quinn’s head for longer to get to know him better, for instance. The characters voices are quite similar as well, such that I had to check the chapter headings to see who was speaking and thinking a few times.

I would have enjoyed the book more if it had been about the end of the world, the time called “The Switch”. Watching humanity fall apart into ruin was what pulled me into the book and the little flashbacks are what kept me interested. It would have been grim reading, I’m sure, but there are glimpses of the lost world that I felt needed exploring more. A character talks of when she was a death nurse, killing people who asked rather than let themselves slowly suffocate. Tell me what that was like rather than focus on the long-after. Write a prequel, maybe.

Unusually, the love triangle is between two girls and one boy, rather than the other way round. I liked that. I liked there was a character who was gay and it was the least interesting thing about him. It’s mentioned once and not again. He isn’t defined by it as though it were his only attribute.

There are inevitable loose ends – this is book one of at least two – and it felt like there was a slow build that will continue into the next book, and I never felt cheated out of the unanswered questions.

Will I read book two in autumn 2013? I think I will, just to see where it all goes and how it all ends.

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Tony’s Review…Tethers by Jack Croxall

3/5

Karl and Esther, both 13 years old, both bored by their restrictive Victorian lives, stumble across a mystery in the village where they live. It quickly leads them from their quiet land-locked lives to the coast of the UK and then back again to its heart before the climax, making some friends and very dangerous enemies along the way.

Jack Croxall has a pleasing, old-fashioned style of writing, an almost “Famous Five” feel to his words and language. The pacing is perfect, shifting the book forward at a nice clip and not lingering too long. I needed to keep reading!

The characters of Karl and Esther are fleshed out and full of life – their flaws and imperfections as well. I love that Karl can’t climb through windows as elegantly as Esther, nor can he sword-fight as effectively. Esther isn’t just a passive Victorian girl either, going weak at the knees at the first sign of danger, but is a kick-ass heroine in her own right. I loved the reaction of Karl when he sees the ocean for the first time; it really made me connect with the character.

The secondary adult characters were all nicely done as well, but I kept expecting them to have their own agendas. Perhaps an unwritten rule of YA is “Never trust anyone over the age of 30”, and I kept expecting a heel turn from them. I got the impression they were holding a lot back from Karl and Esther. Karl would announce a discovery or a clue, and the two men traveling with them would nod and smile as though it was expected. They put me on edge, and I was expecting something dark from them.

The accents of the characters dialogue were nice, apart from Scot Shona, who didna speak like this, but did speak like this. That was a flaw I would have liked fixed; everyone else speaks in a realistic voice.

I would have liked the two teens take on more of the danger themselves, but the adults take a lot of it. It is a YA book after all, and I don’t read YA for the grown-ups to have all the fun. On the other hand, it was nice to have at least competent adults on hand, and the kids did manage to do most of the important stuff.

There were a few typos I noticed, and a few grammar errors – a run on sentence here and there and a missing speech mark – but nothing that bumped me out of the story.

A delightful, fast-paced read with an old-fashioned feel to the structure. I enjoyed it a lot. (Tony Talbot)

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Just Finished…Jake by Michael Cargill

Jake

It’s a 4.5* for me.

Michael Cargill ‘gets’ people – now I’m not sure whether he gets everyone, or that he writes about people whose brains work very like mine, but with each book of his I’ve read (Jake being the third), regardless of the plot or setting, it is the characters and their realistic behaviour that stands out for me. Jake is the same, and perhaps the most realistic and relatable of all Cargill’s characters I’ve met so far.

For much of the book you follow Jake through his daily teenage life: daft ‘boy’ antics, school and home life, rolling along. Within the first few pages I was transported straight back to high school – from the noises and sounds, to the familiar mad behaviour of the lads in class (although, seeing it from Jake’s point of view it makes a lot more sense now!) As YA books go, it was very ‘real’ – with no random appearances by vampires, angels or other common supernatural types – and I found myself quite happy reading about the intricacies of Jake’s life.

His first romance is really cute – to the point some scenes had me smiling to myself at the clumsy sweetness, and I loved the development of Jake’s relationship with his little brother, and the way he began to see his mother differently through observing her parenting the new addition to the family.

Overall, Jake is a really well-observed book, Cargill writes great characters and works with the smallest of details to give realism to his writing – as I’m not in to giving away spoilers there is little more I can say about the book without ruining it, but definitely worth a read if you like normal books about normal people.