Number 14 - Doctor Rat - William Kotzwinkle

 

First things first - that is an,,, erm... eye-catching cover and one of two reasons that I picked this book up.

The other reason is William Kotzwinkle as the writer.  I've read at least two of his other books many years ago. Considering the cover on this, you would have a hard time guessing what those might be.  ET the Extra Terrestrial and ET, the Book of the Green Planet.

I don't particularly remember anything about those books - a timeframe of 3 and a half decades will do that, but I do remember that I enjoyed them.

This book is quite a different beast to the E.T. novels.  That cover is quite a clear warning that this book is probably not going to be a pleasant read. I was still surprised at how visceral this book is though.  The contents are easily more disturbing than that picture.

This is the single angriest book I think I've ever read.  We're introduced in the first chapter to Dr Rat, an insane lab rat who provides the narration for nearly half the book as he faces down insurrection in the laboratory where he assists in the important research.

That research is described in vivid and gruesome detail. No paw nailed to a board to stop the animal moving is left undescribed. We're assured of the importance of knowing how a cat will react to its tail being shaved and moistened and ever increasing electrical currents fed through it, or clamps attached at increased pressures. The information gathered is invaluable.  That's actually one of the nicer experiments described in the book.   

Outside of the lab, we are treated to many more anthropomorphized creatures as the whole of animalkind starts to gather in enormous packs for reasons which become clear towards the end of the book. It is the call of the wild on a frequency all creatures can hear which is causing the uprising in the lab where Dr Rat must protect the research.

I have to assume that the experiments that Doctor Rat so gleefully describes are genuine research projects. That makes this book so much more disturbing. I can only hope that since this was written, that there is a more ethical approach to animal research.

I have never read a book quite like this. The searing sarcastic satire of the main narrative, the sheer vitriol towards mankind... the style of writing is varied, depending on what animal is talking at the time but always underpinned by a barely constrained anger. The denouement is rather devastating to say the least.

This is a book that requires a strong stomach.  There is an awful lot of animal cruelty in this book. But it has its purpose.  It's trying to shock people into action. It's not there just to be vile.  It's a call to arms to end licensed animal torture. It's a hugely depressing analysis of man's relationship with nature.

I loved it.  It's shocking, visceral and important.  

Number 13 - Maus - Art Spiegelman

 

Arguably one of the most important graphic novels ever written, this is Art Spiegelman's retelling of his father's experiences in Poland in the run up to and during World War II at the hands of the Nazis.

With the recent controversy when a Tennessee school board decided to ban the book, I decided it was time to dust down my copy and have a reread.

There are two stories running through this book, the tale of Vladek Spiegelman's early life, and how he survived till 1944 without landing in a concentration camp, and the More personal tale of Art's fractious relationship with his father.

The story of Vladek's time in Auschwitz is covered in volume 2 - which I've had to order. I'm not sure why I don't have a copy, but it wasn't the easiest thing to source at a reasonable price.  

The artwork is quite basic, and the mice are purposefully not easy to tell apart. After all, the dehumanisation of the Jews in nazi Germany is a central theme of the book. That, and the comparison with vermin, makes the  portrayal of the Jews as mice both horrific and ironic. The Poles are shown as pigs and Nazis as cats.

The juxta positioning of the two stories both serves to make the book feel more personal, and to accentuate the horror of the holocaust. It becomes easier to read without becoming a misery memoir even though the flashbacks to the 40's become more and more distressing with every loss that Vladek experiences.

I picked this book up when Art Spiegelman was giving a talk and signing copies at a local branch of Waterstones. It remains one of the  most interesting author events I've attended.

This story is a lesson from history that should never be ignored. Any time a group of people is demonised as something less than human, we should ask why, and what is it leading to. 

This book makes it clear that the holocaust didn't start with the gas chambers. They built up to that. They kept that part secret from the populous at large for as long as they could. 

There is only one type of person who would want to ban this book.  This book is a clear warning about that type of person.  It should be required reading for everyone.

Number 9 - The Fall - Alan Baxter

 I never liked mushrooms much before I read this book.  Now I know I'll never eat another one again if I can help it.

This is the follow up to The Gulp, which I reviewed last year. Once again we have five interlinked novellas set in a small town on the Australian coast. Known locally as The Gulp, Gulpepper is no ordinary town.  It's been possibly deliberately excluded from most maps of Australia. It has a habit of swallowing people, both literally and metaphorically.

This book opens with Gulpepper Curios.  Like the opening story of the Gulp, this also features an unlucky outsider who makes the mistake of staying the night and rapidly finds himself in deep trouble. In this case it's a man on a motorcycle trek across the country who falls under the influence of the town. He finds a lot more than he bargained for when he looks for hidden treasures in the town's curio shop.  This is by turns funny, gruesome, scary and the ending is diabolically good. I laughed and shuddered simultaneously. It's a great intro for the uninitiated into the world of the Gulp.

Next we visit Cathedral Stacks. A fishing boat is attacked and the crew are stranded on a large rock formation a few kilometers from the "safety" of Gulpepper harbour. What they find underneath the rocks is worse than whatever forced them to abandon ship. A brilliant frying pan into fire story with engaging characters and some beautifully realised horrors deep in the caves. The visual imagery here will stick with you.

The third story is That Damned Woman - a local farmer tries to cover up after his wife dies accidentally and horribly while they're arguing. This sort of thing never goes well in horror fiction and this is no exception. Again this switches effortlessly from jet black comedy to truly scary happenings in the turn of a sentence. 

Story 4 - Excursion Troop - a group of venture scouts from a nearby town wander too close to the Gulp whilst on an orienteering exercise. After eating some of the local delicacies they foraged, the horror starts and a chase commences. This is an exciting and horrible (in a good way) story. We feel every ounce of panic that the ever reducing cast of characters is feeling. The ending of this one leads directly into the final story

The Fall - the title story in the collection is suitably apocalyptic on a scale not yet seen in the Gulp stories.  It pulls together plotlines and characters from all 9 of the prior stories from both collections. The Lovecraftian hints from the earlier tales come to fruition here like a hideous spawning fungus. The stakes are raised exponentially and the survival of more than the Gulp could be in question.

This is easily as good as the first book in the series. If you've not read the Gulp, a few references in the final story might go over your head, but it covers the essential details to allow you to follow the plot so it's should still be effective as a standalone. 

Alan Baxter is a name that has become a benchmark for quality. I've yet to read one of his stories that I've not loved unreservedly. He is a major talent. His books are effortlessly readable, and damned scary. 

The fall is released in April  I was lucky enough and privileged enough to get an advance reading copy.

It can be preordered on Alan Baxter's website if you don't want to pay mr bezos any more money than you think he deserves

Alan Baxter - Warrior Scribe - Horror, dark fantasy, and weird fiction from multi-award-winning author, Alan Baxter. (alanbaxteronline.com)

Number 12 - Something is Killing The Children Vol 2 - Tynion et al

 

When the first thing you do after finishing a book is jump onto the interwebz to order the next volume, safe to say that it's done its work and done it well.

That's exactly what I did when I reached the last page of this.  it was a case of "You can't leave it there! I need to know what happens AND I NEED IT NOW!"  

Sadly it's going to be a few days until it arrives.

Subtlety isn't the strong point of this series.  The title kind of gives away the main thread of the story. Small town America and something in the woods is, well, killing the local children.

The something is a very nasty set of monsters.  Enter Erica Slaughter to kick some monster ass. In the last volume she was a bit of a cypher, arriving from nowhere to save the day.

In this volume we learn more about her past and the organisation (the House of Slaughter) that sent her on her mission. Similar to Buffy and the Council of Watchers if they were a lot more unpleasant to work for. 

there's very little originality in the story, but its all packaged so well and breezes past at such a hectic pace that you really don't care.  It was only last night that I twigged about the similarity to Buffy, hours after finishing it. that's a good sign.  if you read it and you're making the links while you're reading, then you can suggest it's derivative.  This certainly doesn't feel it.

The artwork is pretty good. the panel layout could be clearer as to when you're reading across a double page and when it's single pages, but it's not enough of an issue that it spoiled my enjoyment.

It's exciting, scary and damned good fun, and finishes with a massive cliffhanger. Highly recommended.

Number 11 - American Vampire - Scott Snyder/Stephen King

 

Scott Snyder came to my attention last year when I read his Wytches graphic novel - which was possibly my favourite graphic novel of the year. 

This one was apparently his first original comic he produced after working on various Marvel and DC established properties.

Wytches was a very original take on the concept of witchcraft and magic.  This is, on the surface, an original take on the vampire story.

It creates its own vampire lore and the protagonist vamps have a new set of powers compared to what we're used to. They certainly look a lot different to the standard aristocratic gentlemen or the more recent moody emo look. It's stated specifically that this is an attempt to get away from the recent trend for moody teen vampires in love and make them scary again.

That's what Stephen King says in his intro and I have no reason to disbelieve him.  

I'm not 100% sure it's as original as it thinks it is.  Mutant ugly vamps - 30 days of Night/Buffy, daywalking vamps - Twilight, SP Somtow's Timmy Valentine books/Lucius Shepherd's the Golden/ Blade. The look of the vampires in full attack mode is new, but the extra powers have been done before in various guises.  This doesn't make it bad in any way.  It feels fresh as you read it.  it's only after finishing it and let it simmer that any similarities came to mind- and that's a sign of good writing.

Each issue of the comic that makes up this volume is split into two parts - a story set in Hollywood in the roaring twenties (scripted by Snyder) and a set of flashback stories charting the origins of Skinner Sweet, the first vampire created on American soil, written by Stephen King.

It's a bit of an egotistical concept that America makes better vampires than Europe, (there's something very MAGA-hatty about it) but it's played well enough that I can forgive it and go with the flow of the story.  

The artwork perfectly suits the story being told.  It's vivid and gruesome and contains some really great flash pages. 

The Hollywood story follows a newly created vamp, Pearl Jones, as Skinner enlists her into the ranks of the undead to help him get revenge on the European vampires who accidentally gave him undeath forty years earlier and tried to bury him under a lake. The flashback tale fleshes out the 1920s story neatly. 

Both stories are equally well written, Snyder here showing us he's as good as the King of horror at least in comic book format.  They blend together seamlessly, and if it wasn't for the credit page at the beginning of each issue, you wouldn't know there were two writers involved, let alone who wrote which part.

Maybe in a few volumes we might find out why the American vampires are so different. There's only one way to find out and I'm happy to part with more of my hard earned cash to do it. This is exciting and entertaining, and just bloody good.

Number 10 - Queen of bad Dreams - Lore, Perez, Kelly, Mclean, Andworld

 Yes, I've missed number 9 - I'm still reading that.  For various reasons, I can only read that at home so I took this to work and read it on my lunch break.

It's an interesting concept.  In this world, since an event some years previously, anyone with psychic powers can release "figments" from their dreams and imaginations out into the real world.

It's up to the Inspector Judges to track the figments that escape down when they either destroy it, reinsert it into the dreamer or allow it to roam free in society as its own living creature.

Our hero Daher stumbles on a conspiracy when the son of a prominent politician loses a powerful and potentially dangerous figment.

It's nicely written, very inclusive - Daher is a black lesbian and her lover and her daughter are the two narrators of the comic book. Some people will take that as a bad thing, but those people are idiots and bigots.

It's nicely twisty and turny with a few big surprises along the way. There is plenty of strong social commentary, a police state where even your dreams are monitored... etc. The artwork is sharp and clear although I found a couple of the characters hard to distinguish between. 

The worldbuilding is surprisingly good on reflection. Considering the brevity of it (5 issues of a comic bound into one edition)  the world feels natural and complete. The stranger concepts are introduced seamlessly.

All in all a nice little cheat read to go with my chicken curry.

Number 8 - The Eyes of the Carp - T.M. Wright

Another very weird book.  And again, completely intentional on the part of the writer.

T.M. Wright has a very distinctive style. He wrote fractured narratives more skillfully than nearly any other writer I can think of.

This book is no exception.  

Kevin, the narrator doesn't stick to the subject at hand for long.  He jumps back and forward in time.  The diary style date headings cease making sense very rapidly, and once they're replaced by increasing and decreasing levels of pi it just becomes surreal.

Surreal is probably the single best word to describe this book.  Kevin is not the world's most reliable narrator.  The fractured nature of the storytelling gives us a picture of how broken his mind is.

The story follows Kevin and his wife after they move into a strange house in the middle of nowhere.  Weirdness ensues, but seems to be more from the narrator than the surroundings.

Once again with a TM Wright book, I have to say that I only had a vague idea what was going on, although the ending was probably 75% clear. However I loved the journey to get to whatever that destination was.  It was creepy and strange and disturbing in a way I find it difficult to pin down. 

We are seeing the world through Kevin's eyes and it's not a nice place.  Kevin is not a nice man. There are several instances of way too much information. It's a good literary impression of what living with a serious mental illness might feel like.

It's very short and an easy, if confuzzling, read. 

I got lucky and found a cheap-ish copy on Ebay which I snatched up.  This tends to sell for silly prices online.  If I'd paid the regular price for this I might have been less pleased with it. But since I found it for reasonable second hand rates, especially considering it's a signed limited edition (number 19 of 750) I can't complain.

Number 7 - Nemesis - Millar & McNiven

 

Mark Millar has one hell of a CV in the comics world.  He's written for all the major superheroes in Marvel and DC. He wrote the Old Man Logan series for Wolverine that was turned into the most interesting Marvel film to date  He also wrote the Kickass comics and Kingsman.

Slightly less well known is this one - mainly because it hasn't been filmed yet. 

Gratuitously violent, and necessarily so, this type of story works best taken to excess like this. 

Nemesis is the world's greatest supervillain. Born to ultra-rich parents, he uses his wealth to gather the best gadgets and career criminals to help his rampages. In the first pages alone his death toll is probably in the thousands. And he's never been caught. Supervillainy doesn't come much mor supervillainy.

Pitted against him is super cop Blake Morrow. He's never failed to take down a perp and now nemesis has set his sights on Washington DC, the city under his protection.

The scene is set for a gloriously OTT ultra-violent confrontation.

There's no subtlety of characterisation.   There's no deep hidden meanings.  This is good old fashioned action storytelling. 

McNiven's art is perfectly suited to the story, sleek and gory with no detail missed.

There's not much more to say about it.  It's a great fun read, funny and shocking in equal amounts. As good fun ways to kill a spare hour go, this is pretty hard to beat.

Number 6 - The Unconsoled - Kazuo Ishiguro

 

And the winner of most boring book cover of 1996 goes to...

This isn't a book I knew existed before I found this in the charity section of my local Tesco. It's Ishiguro's fourth novel and it's a doorstop of a book.

Despite the cover being boring, it's also weirdly appropriate for the book despite the book not being boring. It's such a strange choice of picture but has a feel to it that matches the tone of the book. 

Our first person narrator- Ryder, an internationally renowned pianist- arrives in an unnamed city to give a performance at a gala concert in three day's time. He has a hectic schedule ahead of him, according to one of the organisers who greets him. The concert is apparently the last hope the city has to pull itself out of an unnamed crisis and only Ryder can save them. If only he could remember what the schedule is, or could avoid his personal life and extraordinary talent for procrastination getting in the way.

This is one of the strangest things I've read for several years - and if you're reading this, you can look back and see I read some pretty strange books. 

Ishiguro manages to give the book the feel of an ever shifting dream. Locations are malleable.  Trying to make a mental map of this city is nigh on impossible as long car journeys into the surrounding countryside apparently finish in the centre of the city in a location he visited earlier. His stream of consciousness frequently dips into the lives of the surrounding characters and we're given details he has no way of ever knowing. Despite his unfamiliarity with the town, we are introduced to some of the most important people in his life living there and waiting for him to come home.

A phrase I've heard used to describe this book is Kafka-esque, and I have to agree.  This is a book you take on faith. don't go picking plot holes, they're clearly intentional, put there to increase the sense of unreality and confusion. We know that Clint Eastwood and Yul Brynner did not star in 2001 A Space Odyssey and can assume Ishiguro knows it too.

This is weirdness on an epic yet intimate scale. It's funny and sad and dark and silly and serious. Allegiances between characters are important yet irrelevant. Will Brodsky reunite with the love of his life? Will Ryder ever find time to practice his recital piece? 

if you're the type of person who thinks Stephen King goes on a bit, this probably isn't the book for you. Characters speak in three page long monologues with no paragraph breaks. Much of the book feels like a character in a game getting stuck on the side quests, and then side quests from the side quests and never quite returning to the main thrust of the original journey.

I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this, and I got exactly what I expected.

I loved it. It's a book to savour.  I'm sure I will reread this one at some point.