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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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 27, 2021.

Bedbugs

By Ben H. Winters – Quirk Books – September 6, 2011

Review by Robin Marx

This book will make you itch.

While I enjoyed this book, it was a bit of a slow burn. The prose and characterization were fine, but the horror elements don’t really kick in until the last quarter of the book, when it takes an exceedingly bizarre and fun turn.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on July 20, 2015.

Coldbrook

By Tim Lebbon – Titan Books – April 8, 2014

Review by Robin Marx

Zombie Stargate. If this premise appeals, by all means pick this book up.

The beginning was intriguing and exciting, reminiscent of the beginning of the Half-Life video game. Scientists working Coldbrook, a top-secret underground research complex, succeed in tearing open a rift to a parallel Earth. After days of passive monitoring by the scientists, one of the alternate Earth's inhabitants stumble through the portal. Unfortunately for the researchers, their first contact happens to be with a zombie.

The situation goes to hell almost immediately, and in a realistic manner. Despite all the protocols in place, one highly placed staff member has a very human moment of weakness, choosing to flee the facility and ensure the safety of his family, rather than stay for the security lock-down. While selfish characters in zombie stories tend to get their just desserts fairly soon after their betrayal, Vic remains for the remainder of the book as one of the main viewpoint characters, lending an interesting perspective to the apocalyptic events that follow.

While I enjoyed this book—the first half was unputdownable—there were some issues that kept it from greatness. Despite an abundance of action, it still felt like the second half lost steam. Many interesting elements (the culture of the alternate Earth humans, the search for a cure, etc.) were introduced, only to receive only perfunctory or lackluster development. Without revealing too much, the backstory behind the mysterious Inquisitor turned out to be a disappointment, nowhere near as exciting and cool as initially hinted. New characters (such as a biker gang leader named Chaney) were introduced too late and in too convenient a manner for me to care much about their eventual fates.

I also noticed a few Britishisms crept into the text. Seeing multiple American point-of-view characters referring to their flashlights as “torches” took me out of the story, and it was particularly jarring when a rough-and-tumble all-American biker promises scared children candy and ice cream “for tea.” Sure enough, the About the Author mentions that Lebbon is Welsh. It's a minor point, but I feel like the editor should have caught these anachronisms.

Coldbrook was a good read, but not quite a great one. While there's plenty of room left for a sequel, I think I'm satisfied with just the one book.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #ScienceFiction #Coldbrook #TimLebbon

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on July 7, 2017.

The Tick People

By Carlton Mellick III – Eraserhead Press – February 9, 2016

Review by Robin Marx

What if technology could allow you to find your perfect soulmate? What if your genitalia fit perfectly together like a literal lock and key? What if your soulmate was a six foot tall mutant insect? And what if you all lived on the back of a colossal depressed dog? This novella answers these questions.

The Tick People belongs to a subgenre of weird fiction called “bizarro.” From what I've seen, bizarro is to weird tales what splatterpunk is to conventional horror fiction: it takes elements present in the parent genre and ramps them up to incredibly graphic heights.

This novella definitely isn't for everyone, it revels in grotesque, ooze-slathered descriptions of sex between the protagonist and his arthropod paramour, but it seemed to me there was more going on than just a juvenile attempt to shock the audience for shock's sake. The end result felt like it was influenced by both Kafka and Terry Gilliam's Brazil, with bits of Douglas Adams and punk mixed in.

Recommended for people who like the weirder side of horror.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on August 4, 2012.

Vampirella Archives Volume One

By Various – Dynamite Entertainment – December 28, 2010

Review by Robin Marx

Initially, the original Vampirella comic was almost exactly like Warren Publishing's earlier horror comics, Creepy and Eerie, themselves both very similar to EC Comics' Tales from the Crypt. Each issue had a half dozen or so self-contained short stories, nearly always ending in some sort of ironic twist. While she apparently grew to have a more prominent role as the series progressed, in the issues collected here Vampirella herself acts in a Cryptkeeper role, setting the scene for the story and then wrapping it up with cheesy puns.

The artwork is hit-and-miss, with the exception of the occasional stunning Frank Frazetta cover. The stories are a bit dated and often corny, but the good ones are a lot of fun and the tedious ones end quickly. At least at this point in the series there's not much to separate Vampirella from Creepy except for the charm of the Vampirella character herself.

Still, this collection is a good bargain and an interesting look at the way horror comics used to be. I'd recommend it to horror fans, as long as they don't pick up this volume expecting to read many adventures of Vampi herself.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #ComicReview #Horror #Vampirella #VampirellaArchives

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 31, 2018.

Heart-Shaped Box

By Joe Hill – William Morrow – March 25, 2010

Review by Robin Marx

This extremely entertaining ghost story involves an aging heavy metal musician (I basically pictured him as Danzig with a beard) haunted by the ghost of a dead groupie's stepfather. Simple yet effective, this initial premise develops additional layers over the course of the story.

This was my first Joe Hill book, and I was curious to see how his work compares to that of Stephen King, his father. Their styles are decidedly similar. Most of the story takes place in the kind of rural locales favored by King, but Hill emphasizes the South as opposed to Maine. Hill also excels at characterization, one of his father's strengths. But he also avoids some of King's weaknesses. Stephen King characters often tend to have a catchphrase or tic that inevitably wears out its welcome, but that's not present here. Hill also sticks the landing, and ending the story is something that his father has struggled with. While it'd be doing Hill a disservice to compare him to his father too much—especially since he's carved out his own successful career without relying on the King name—if you like King's work you'll probably like Hill's.

I was especially impressed by the characterization and the pacing of this book. Hill starts off with some fairly stock characters in a rockstar and associated hangers-on, but all of them are humanized and made real as the story progresses. The pace is also breakneck. Events in the story built at such a speed that it seemed like I was reaching the climax at only the one-third point. I had to check and make sure this book wasn't a collection of novellas instead of a full novel.

This was a very satisfying read and something I can wholeheartedly recommend to horror fans.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on April 23, 2013.

The Kingdom of Shadows

By K. W. Jeter – Editions Herodiade – June 8, 2011

Review by Robin Marx

I started this book hoping for a decent horror tale, but it turned out to be quite a struggle to get through. Set mainly in Germany during World War II, half of the plot deals with a Nazi doctor's deranged and homicidal investigation into the Lazarene—a Romani-like Christian sect believed to possess the secret to immortality—and (the less interesting) half deals with an actress of Lazarene heritage.

Despite heartbreaking circumstances (forced to act as Joseph Goebbels' mistress, having her child torn away from her), actress Marte is presented as more or less a flat, passive cipher. Concentration camp internee Pavli shows a bit more initiative, but he too is more or less a reactive character until the climax. The plot is as weak as the characters. Events happen and then the book stops. Marte's child is hinted as having some greater importance, but he doesn't really.

Throughout the book Jeter demonstrates technical competence, but I can't remember the last time I read a story this uninteresting and unengaging. It's not poorly written, just tedious and bland. It sparked almost no emotion or surprise in me whatsoever. It was only my dislike of leaving books unfinished that kept me from abandoning it partway. This is the second book I've read by Jeter and assuredly the last.

★★☆☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on January 28, 2013.

The Yellow Wall-Paper

By Charlotte Perkins Gilman – Rockwell & Churchill Press – 1892

Review by Robin Marx

This story is frequently mentioned in connection with weird and Gothic fiction, with H.P. Lovecraft himself praising it in his Supernatural Horror in Literature essay. I'm glad I got around to reading it, as it's surprisingly effective despite its brief length.

The premise isn't shockingly new (and probably wasn't even in 1892): a young couple vacation in a creepy old house, and madness ensues. The vehicle for the insanity is novel, however, as the anxiety-ridden protagonist finds herself becoming more and more obsessed and disturbed by the elaborately patterned, torn, and stained wallpaper decorating her sickroom.

Lovecraft aside, most of the commentary on this story has to do with its feminism. Readers get the sense that the protagonist isn't very well-served by her doctor husband's dismissive paternalism, and her condition is likely exacerbated by—if not completely due to—her subservient role and lack of agency. This is communicated effectively and subtly; the protagonist seems largely unconcerned by the restrictions imposed on her by her husband, while the author is clearly critical of that treatment.

While the feminist subtext is interesting (especially given when this story was released), one shouldn't overlook that it's also a really good spooky story. The atmosphere is very claustrophobic and tense, and the descriptions of the wallpaper are intriguing. The truth of what's going on is left mostly ambiguous, but concluding that the protagonist has been driven insane (by the Patriarchy!) and should therefore be distrusted is probably the least interesting interpretation.

By all means, read this as an early example of feminist literature, but don't forget that it's a nice bit of Gothic horror!

★★★★☆

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