The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus by John Burke

(pb; 1967: movie tie-in/novella collection)

 

From the back cover

“The Reptile

“From the steaming jungles of Borneo to a remote Cornish village came the fiendish curse that turned a lovely young girl into a nameless horror.

 

“Dracula – Prince of Darkness

“Blood mingles with the ashes and so becomes a life-giving force to the evil desires of a Vampire.

 

“Rasputin – The Mad Monk

“Hypnotist, seducer, libertine and drunkard—he ruled the Tsar’s court like a devil incarnate.

 

“The Plague of the Zombies

“Infamous Voodoo ritual casts its barbarous shadow over a village of ‘the undead.’”

 

Overall review

Like its predecessor anthology, Second Hammer is worth owning and reading, with three of the four based-on-screenplay novellas providing for excellent chills; the outlier tale, “Rasputin—The Mad Monk,” is entertaining, vastly improved by Burke’s writing (as is “The Reptile”) but “Rasputin” feels thin when compared to the others.

This slices of Gothic fun and terror book is out of print as far as I know of, so if you’re curious about it and see it for what you consider a reasonable price (do your research), pick it up! You can always sell it to someone who (may) love it more than you.

 

Review, novella by novella

The Reptile: Set in summer 1902 in “the village of Clagmoor in Cornwall, England, known as Larkrise,” a London couple (Harry and Valerie Spaulding) honeymoon in the rustic cottage Harry inherited from his recently dead brother (Charles Edward Spaulding), who died of a mysterious “heart attack.”

Once in Clagmoor, the newly married Spauldings encounter hostility, passive and aggressive, from most of the natives. One of them, inn keeper Tom Bailey, helps them when he can—whilst treading carefully so as to not offend his fellow, longtime patrons. Then there’s quietly hostile, emotionally strained Doctor Franklyn, a theologian, seemingly abusive father of the “lovely” Anna, both of whom are hiding a deadly secret. Will the Spauldings, with aid from Bailey, find out what’s going on with the strange silence surrounding the plague of “heart attacks” which seem to strike those around the Franklyns?

Like Burke’s four adaptations in The Hammer Horror Omnibus (1966), “Reptile” is an entertaining, waste-no-words and creepy-atmospheric tale, with quick-sketch-but-effective characterization and fast-moving action. In the case of “Reptile,” this is a vast improvement on its overlong, thin-story-stretched-to-feature-length film; at best, it was an hourlong short. Good read, especially for those familiar with the film version, or looking for a quick-read Hammer Films Ltd. Fix.

The cinematic counterpart of the same name debuted in England in February 1966; it was released stateside on April 6, 1966. The film was directed by John Gilling, from a screenplay by producer Anthony Hinds.

 

“Dracula – Prince of Darkness”: Charles and Diana Kent, a married couple, are traveling through the Carpathian mountains with Charles’s more conservative brother (Alan) and his shrew of a spouse (Helen) when ill luck befalls them and they find themselves stranded near a castle that not only offers shelter from the relentless rain and the dark forest but—dare they hope?—a telephone. Making them further uneasy is the fact that earlier a local, friendlier-than-other-villagers priest (Shandor) warned them not to go anywhere near the castle but didn’t tell them why.

They quickly find out why they were warned away but it’s too late, as Klove (the unsettling keeper of said castle) reveals himself to be in the service of another, who’s been dead for ten years: Dracula.

Burke again keeps the characters and their (mis)fortunes fast-paced, bloody, Gothic and bold (spectacle-wise) in the way that the best Hammer films are. This eighty-five-page pulp adventure is a febrile and delectable ride with vivid descriptions that thrill (e.g., “. . . making a last appeal to a thousand guardian demons”) and titillate in equal proportion. Excellent adaptation of its source 1966 film, which is also a blast, if I remember right (I haven’t seen it in a few years).

The film version, originally titled Dracula, Prince of Darkness was helmed by Terence Fisher, scripted by Jimmy Sangster and producer Anthony Hinds. It was released in Britain in January 1966.

 

“Rasputin—The Mad Monk”: Set in the early twentieth century (about 1916, the year the real-life Grigori Rasputin was killed), this mix of historical fact and mostly fiction, “Rasputin” is thinly plotted, character-study-intense story, with the titular odious and greedy hypnotist grifter worming his way into the Tsarina’s St. Petersburg court with help from a “struck off the medical register,” sometimes reluctant Dr. Boris Zargo.

Others, including everyman Peter Vassilievitch, set out to stop the lascivious, wily con artist. Can they stop him before he makes everyone around him his puppet, slaves to his seemingly inexhaustible desires?

Burke’s pulpy and tightly edited writing elevates this thinly plotted, eighty-four-page story into something worth reading (can’t comment on its 1966 source film iteration; I haven’t seen it in decades). Solid, good read, this.

Don Sharp directed “Rasputin”’s film version. Producer Anthony Hinds wrote the screenplay. It was released in Britain on February 20,1966.

 

“The Plague of the Zombies”: Religion (Haitian voodoo), capitalism, romance, their resulting zombies, and death come together in this (again) tautly penned Gothic-in-a-Cornish-village story, solid in its themes, content and overall delivery. This entertaining, fast-moving and excellent different take on zombies is a great, short-ish (eighty-two pages long) tale, worth owning and reading. I don’t remember the film which I haven’t seen in a while, but I seem to remember thinking this is one of the better non-classic monsters horror films Hammer put out.

Directed by John Gilling, “Plague”’s cinematic counterpart received a wide release in Britain on January 9, 1966. Peter Bryan wrote its screenplay.

Preacher: Gone To Texas by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon

(pb; 1995, 1996: graphic novel, collecting issues of Preacher #1 - 7. "Foreword" by Joe R. Lansdale. First entry in the Preacher graphic novel series.)

From the back cover:

"Jesse Custer is a small-town minister slowly losing his faith. . . until he merges with a half-angelic, half-demonic being called Genesis. Together with Tulip, Jesse's trigger-happy ex-lover, and Cassidy, a hard-drinking Irish vampire, Jesse sets out on a bizarre road trip from the heart of Texas to the bitter soul of New York City."


Review:

Preacher is a hyper-violent, more-Texas-than-Texas, blasphemous and darkly hilarious graphic novel series whose character interactions and supernatural storyline elements come together into a wild-ride, distinctive and entertaining read. This is one of my all-time favorite comic book/graphic novel series, not for the easily offended (religious) and faint of heart.

Followed by Preacher: Until the End of the World.

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The television series version, created by Sam Catlin, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, is scheduled to debut on the AMC channel on May 22, 2016.

Dominic Cooper plays Jesse Custer. Joseph Gilgun plays Cassidy. Ruth Negga plays Tulip O'Hare. W. Earl Brown plays Hugo Root. Jackie Earle Haley plays Odin Quincannon.

Ian Colletti plays Arseface. Lucy Griffiths plays Emily. Tom Brooke plays Fiore. Anatol Yusef plays DeBlanc.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

(pb; 1897)

Review:

Told through a series of various characters' journals, notes and cables, this nineteenth-century, milestone novel of vampirism, slow-burn horror, desire and other emotions is an enthralling, descriptive work, one that deservedly has been acknowledged as the blueprint for most vampire-themed art and writing. Stoker crafted the perfect bloodsucker book when he wrote this (I rarely use the word "perfect" to describe any writing); for this reason, this is one of my all-time favorite reads.

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Dracula has inspired so many other works, visual, literary, aural and cinematic, I will not even attempt to show the creative strands stemming from it.

'Salem's Lot, by Stephen King

(pb; 1975)


From the back cover:

"The town knew darkness. . . but no one dared talk about the high, sweet, evil laughter of a child. . . and the sucking sounds. . ."


Review:

'Salem's Lot  is an excellent, hard-to-put-down 'Old School' (if sometimes chatty) horror novel that effectively channels the slow-build, multilayered dread and gut-wrenching terror of  Bram Stoker's novel Dracula and late Sixties/early Seventies Hammer films, which are obvious (and stated) influences on Lot.  The characters are interesting and relatable, with their interlocking small-town histories and reactions to Straker and Barlow's insidious takeover of their town and its surrounding area.

Great read, this - worth owning.

Side-note: two of King's stories ("Jerusalem's Lot" and "One for the Road") from his anthology Night Shift are loosely linked to this novel.

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This novel spawned two television films and one cinematic sequel.

The first television film, which aired stateside on November 17, 1979, was directed by Tobe Hooper.  Paul Monash wrote the teleplay.

David Soul played Ben Mears.  Lance Kerwin played Mark Petrie.  James Mason played Richard K. Straker.  An uncredited Reggie Nalder played Kurt Barlow.

Bonnie Bedelia played Susan Norton.  Geoffrey Lewis played Mike Ryerson.  Lew Ayres played Jason Burke.  Elisha Cook Jr., billed as Elisha Cook, played Gordon "Weasel" Phillips.  George Dzunda played Cully Sawyer.  Kenneth McMillan played Constable Parkins Gillespie.  Fred Willard played Larry Crockett.

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Larry Cohen directed and co-scripted its theatrical sequel, A Return to 'Salem's Lot, released stateside in May 1987.  James Dixon, who played Rains, was Cohen's writing partner.

Michael Moriarty played Joe Weber.  Ricky Addison Reed played Jeremy Weber.  Samuel Fuller played Van Meer.  Andrew Duggan played Judge Axel.  Evelyn Keyes played Mrs. Axel.  Tara Reid played Amanda. June Havoc played Aunt Clara.  Ronee Blakley played Sally.

#

The second television film, based on the original novel, aired stateside on June 20, 2004.  It was directed by Mikael Salomon.  Peter Filardi wrote the teleplay.

Rob Lowe played Ben Mears.  Dan Byrd, billed as Daniel Byrd, played Mark Petrie.  Donald Sutherland played Richard Straker.  Rutger Hauer played Kurt Barlow.  Samantha Mathis played Susan Norton.  Andre Braugher played Matt Burke.  James Cromwell played Father Donald Callahan.  Christopher Morris played Mike Ryerson.  Robert Grubb played Larry Crockett. 

The Night Eternal, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

(hb; 2011: Book Three of The Strain trilogy)


From the inside flap:

"It's been two years since the vampiric virus was unleashed in The Strain, and the entire world now lies on the brink of annihilation.  There is only night as nuclear winter blankets the land, the sun filtering through the poisoned atmosphere for two hours each day - the perfect environment for the propagation of vampires.

"There has been a mass extermination of humans, the best and the brightest, the wealthy and the influential, orchestrated by the Master - an ancient vampire possessed of unparalleled powers - who selects survivors based on compliance.  Those humans who remain are entirely subjugated, interred in camps, and  separated by status: those who breed more humans, and those who are bled for the sustenance of the Master's vast army.

"The future of humankind lies in the hands of a rag-tag freedom fighters - Dr. Eph Goodweather, former head of the Centers for Disease Control's biological threat team; Nora Martinez, a fellow doctor with a talent for dispatching the undead; Vasiliy Fet, the colorful Russian exterminator; and Mr. Quinlan, the half-breed offspring of the Master who is bent on revenge.  It's their job to rescue Eph's son, Zack, and overturn this devastating new world order.  But good and evil are malleable terms now, and the Master is the most skilled at preying on the weaknesses of humans. . ."


Review:

This second sequel to The Strain starts off well enough: it's dramatic, it's apocalyptic and it's ambitious in its storyline scope.  However, Night quickly succumbs to the same bullcrap writing elements that marred the first sequel, The Fall: at least one of its key characters - Dr. Eph Goodweather - is so unlikeable, hypocritical and willing to sell out the human race, I kept wondering why he was in the story at all. 

I have nothing against unlikeable or complex characters, but Eph's alienating aspects go beyond the pale, as if the authors were using Eph as a shout-out to the (justifiably) cautious, asocial Robert Neville, the lead character in Richard Matheson's novella I Am Legend.  If the latter is true, del Toro and Hogan have bungled it by making Eph so unlikeable and erratic he's practically useless - something Neville never was in Matheson's landmark work.

Not only that, the action scenes - normally an element I would applaud in such genre work - quickly begin to all read the same, with unnecessary, bordering-on-soap-operatic complications stalling out much of the momentum that this briefly promising work might have had.

This latter criticism wouldn't be an issue (for this reader) if del Toro and Hogan hadn't written Fall, and instead made Night the second and final book in the series, utilizing abbreviated key points featured in Fall - i.e., the Occido Lumen (the book needed to kill the Master), the vampiric takeover and the ensuing nuclear winter - and incorporated them into Strain and Night.  But they didn't, and readers are left with this deeply flawed and drawn out series.

If you must read it - I only read Night to finish the series - borrow it from the library, or a friend.  That way, if you like it, great!  You just read a wonderful book for free!  And if you dislike it, at least you were only robbed of a few hours of your time.

The Fall, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

(hb; 2010: Book Two of The Strain trilogy)


From the inside flap:

"Last week they invaded Manhattan.  This week they will destroy the world.

"The vampiric virus unleashed in The Strain has taken over New York City.  It is spreading and soon will envelope the globe.  Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather - head of the Centers for Disease Control's team - leads a band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters.  But it may be too late.

"Ignited by the Master's horrific plan, a war erupts between Old and New World vampires, each vying for control.  At the center of the conflict lies a book, an ancient text that contains the vampires' entire history. . . and their darkest secrets.  Whoever finds the book can control the outcome of the war and, ultimately, the fate of us all.  And it is between these warring forces that humans - powerless and vulnerable - find themselves no longer the consumers but the consumed.

"Though Eph understands the vampiric plague better than anyone, even he cannot protect those he loves.  His ex-wife, Kelly, has been transformed into a blood-crazed creature of the night, and now she stalks the city looking for her chance to reclaim her Dear One: Zack, Eph's young son.

"With the future of humankind in the balance, Eph and his team, guided by the brilliant former professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and exterminator Vasiliy Fet and joined by a crew of ragtag gangsters, must combat a terror whose ultimate plan is more terrible than anyone has imagined - a fate worse than annihilation."


Review:

The Fall fails to deliver on the promise of its source novel, The Strain.  It starts out slow and emo-chatty (regarding Eph's family problems), as well as introducing scattershot, forgettable characters who ultimately, in the course of this second novel, are merely distractions in what should be an edgy, straightforward action book.  Its storyline and action picks up near the middle of it, and the ending (much of it predictable) is decent.

This is not a badly written book, but overall it's lazy, subpar - that is to say, meh - work from two admirably ambitious, usually worthwhile writers who have put out much better product than this.  I only stuck with Fall because del Toro was involved with it, and it was a relatively fast read. 

Borrow from this from the library before committing cash to it.  That way, if you like it, great!  You've read a great book for free!  And if you don't like it, you've dodged a disappointing purchase.

Followed by The Night Eternal.

The Strain, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

(hb; 2009: Book One of The Strain trilogy)


From the inside flap:

"A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead.  All window shades are pulled down.  All lights are out.  All communication channels have gone quiet.  Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC.  Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane.  What he finds makes his blood run cold.

"In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening.  And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing. . .

"So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets.  Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save the city - a city that includes his wife and son - before it is too late."


Review:

Good supernatural apocalypse novel with worthwhile characters and plenty of gore and action.  Strain reads like a mix of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Michael Crichton's medical thrillers, del Toro's 2002 film Blade II and Stephen King's better-edited works.  Check it out.

Followed by The Fall.

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The resulting television series is scheduled to air sometime in 2014 on the FX network. 

Corey Stoll plays Dr. Ephraim Goodweather.  Mia Maestro plays Nora Martinez.  John Hurt plays Professor Abraham Setrakian.  Kevin Durand plays Vasiliy Fet.  Miguel Gomez plays Augustin 'Gus' Elizalde. 

Jonathan Hyde plays Eldritch Palmer.  Natalie Brown plays Kelly Goodweather.  Ben Hyland plays Zack Goodweather.  Sean Astin plays Jim Kent.  Robert Maillet plays The Master.

Leslie Hope plays Joan Luss.  Doug Jones has an unnamed (at least thus far) role.  Jack Kesy plays Gabriel Bolivar.  Jonathan Potts plays Capt. Redfern.  Nicholai Witschl plays Ansel Barbour. 

The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray, by Mitzi Szereto

(pb; 2013: erotic/supernatural novel)


From the back cover:

"Inspired by Oscar Wilde's classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mitzi Szereto continues where Wilde left off in her Faustian tale of a man with eternal youth and great physical beauty who lives a life of corruption, decadence and hedonism.  The story begins in the bordellos of Jazz-Age Paris, moving to the opium dens of Marrakesh and the alluring anonymity of South America.  Will love be Dorian's redemption or his final curse?"


Review: 

Wilde is a focused burn-through-it read.  Szereto masterfully balances memorable characterization, supernatural (often horrific) elements, and a visually and exquisitely realized eroticism, bringing them together in a gripping book that actually had me rooting for Gray's underlying quest for redemption, despite his (emotionally) grotesque debaucheries and eras.  This is one of the best erotic-supernatural themed novels that I've read in a long while - and one of the few that may be worth re-reading, not only for pleasure but for pointers on how to write a character-rich, era-seamless tale that not only builds on a classic work but matches Wilde's Gray in its excellence.

Worth owning, this.

Dead Ever After, by Charlaine Harris

(hb; 2013: fourteenth/"final" entry in the Sookie Stackhouse series)


From the inside flap:

"After the terrible events of the past weeks, both Sookie and Sam are finding it hard to concentrate on Merlotte's - and the bar is suffering for it.  But Sookie finds it easy to turn down the request of former barmaid Arlene when she wants her job back.  After all, Arlene tried to have Sookie killed.

"Sookie's relationship with Eric Northman is in limbo.  He and his vampires are keeping their distance. . . and a cold silence.  And when Sookie learns the reason why, she is devastated.

"Then Arlene is found murdered, and Sookie is arrested for the crime.

"But the evidence against her is weak, and Sookie makes bail.  Helped by her assortment of friends, living and undead, she must discover the truth about Arlene's death to clear herself of suspicion.  All she knows is that two mysterious men were somehow involved.  As to whom they might be - Sookie will soon learn that she has more than one enemy waiting to get vengeance for the past.

"Nothing is ever clear-cut in Bon Temps.  What passes for truth is only a convenient lie.  What passes for justice is more spilled blood.  And what passes for love is never enough."


Review:

Fun, blast-through, series-overview read - not a murder mystery, but, rather, an effective (if brisk) character and story wrap-up of Harris's Sookieverse that occasionally dips into Sookie-based melodrama, but otherwise made this reader chuckle and sometimes feel warm and fuzzy.

My expectations were relatively low for Harris's books (in comparison to those of many Sookie fans), so I was appreciative that Dead Ever After [DEA] is a solid read. Is it great? No, because the series has been hit-and-miss since All Together Dead, the seventh book, published in 2007. (That said, I've found something to enjoy in each of the books, no matter how much or little I recommended them.)

Borrow DEA from the library before buying it; this caveat goes for especially passionate fans of the Sookie novels. 

Dead Roses for a Blue Lady, by Nancy A. Collins

(pb; 2003: horror anthology. Sixth book in the Sonja Blue series.)


From the back cover:

"Even the undead fear the Blue Woman.

"Collected for the first time in a trade edition, Dead Roses for a Blue Lady includes the complete Sonja Blue short fiction, with four hard-to-find stories and four others exclusive to this collection. 'Knifepoint' reveals the origin of Sonja's trademark silver switchblade and hints at the nature of her uniquely human and monstrous nature. In 'Tender Tigers' and 'The Nonesuch Horror' Sonja encounters two very different families in which human and monster coexist, and learns the price such cohabitation can impose. 'Person(s) Unknown' gives a glimpse of the pieces Sonja leaves behind."


Overall review:

Good, entertaining read that adds new wrinkles to and furthers the storylines of previous Sonja Blue works. The last story ("Hell Comes Sundown") has nothing to do with Sonja.

Like the rest of the series, this is worth owning.


Stories:

1.) "Knifepoint": Erich Ghilardi, an "occult expert would later go on to tutor Sonja [Blue] in the fine art of vampire slaying," embarks on a dangerous journey to steal a supernatural blade.


2.) "Cold Turkey": Sonja meets an impulsive young man (Judd), who attracts the attention of a demon snitch (Malfeis).

This story appeared as Chapter 3 in Paint It Black (the third Sonja Blue book), and later, as a "Prologue" in Darkest Heart (the fifth Sonja Blue book).


3.) "Tender Tigers": Sonja tries to rescue a human family from an ogre who's taken over their family.

This story also appeared in another horror anthology - Shivers, edited by Richard Chizmar.


4.) "Vampire King of the Goth Chicks": Sonja tracks down a wanna-be vampire (Lord Rhymer) who holds a trio of Goth kids in thrall.


5.) "Variations on a Theme": This story echoes the feel and mythological elements of The Crow, with its melancholic take on revenge.


6.) "Some Velvet Morning": An ancient, atypical vampire - a strigoi, who has renamed herself "the Contessa"- tries to elude the "Blue Monster" (Sonja) who maimed her, years before.


7.) "The Nonesuch Horror": In an old Western town, a melting pot of humans and monsters - vampires, coyotero, an ogre and vargr - are shaken out of their quiet lives when a murderous, ghoul-making vampire on the lam invades their remote haven, followed by Sonja Blue (who's hunting the aforementioned vampire, Vasek).

This story reunites Sonja with the now-grown up siblings, Cissy (a human) and Cully (an ogre), who also appear in the story "Tender Tigers". ("The Nonesuch Horror" takes place ten year later.)


8.) "Person(s) Unknown": The police interview an eyewitness to one of Sonja's vampire fights in an alley.


9.) "Hell Comes Sundown": Sam Hell, an ex-Texas Ranger and vampire, and his companion, a squaw named Pretty Face, track a pestiferous conquistador bloodsucker (Sangre), who's traveling town to town and decimating them with his undead army.

(This story was also published in Collins's single-author anthology Dead Man's Hand.)

Darkest Heart, by Nancy A. Collins

(hb; 2002: fifth novel in the Sonja Blue series)


From the inside flap:

"Sonja Blue - known to vampires like herself and other inhuman Pretenders as the 'Blue Woman' - has gained quite a reputation. To avenge herself on the monster who turned her into the walking undead. Sonja haunts the shadows of the world's greatest cities to rid them of the vampires that stalk the unsuspecting human race. But she can never escape her truest enemy: the Other, the vile demon who has shared her mind since she was transformed twenty years ago.

"Sonja Blue knows what it's like to have loved and lost - those she loves are definitely lost - so she has grown accustomed to a hard and lonely life. Until she meets 'Harker,' a vampire hunter with an impressive list of kills. Harker's real name is Jack Estes, and as Sonja soon learns, he's lost everything - his parents, his childhood, and his life - to a thousand-year old, vicious vampire who might just have the darkest heart of all. Though she can't quite explain why, Sonja agrees to take Jack on as her apprentice. Now, as the pair hunt down this savage predator, murder and mayhem are the only things she can truly count on."


Review:

Darkest Heart, like its predecessor novels, is a blast-through read: lots of blood and action, with squick-effective elements, and writing that builds on - adds new twists to - its characters and their histories, as well as its storylines.

This novel is an excellent addition to this horror-with-a-capital-H, often-surprising series, which deftly sidesteps the usual undead tropes, and brings something fresh and exciting to the abbatoir.

Worth owning, this.

Followed by Dead Roses for a Blue Lady.

Deadlocked, by Charlaine Harris

(hb; 2012: thirteenth entry in the Sookie Stackhouse series)


From the inside flap:

"Growing up with telepathic abilities, Sookie Stackhouse realized early on that thre are things she'd rather not know. And now that she's an adult, she also realizes that some things she knows about, she'd rather not see - like Eric Northman feeding off another woman. A younger one.

"There's a thing or two she'd like to say about that, but she has to keep quiet - Felipe de Castro, the vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), is in town. It's the worst possible time for a human body to show up in Eric's front yard - especially the body of the woman whose blood he just drank.

"Now it's up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl's fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who's set out to make Sookie's world crashing down."


Review:

Deadlocked is a good read - as usual, Harris balances her characters' tangled histories, their interactions and other plot elements into an entertaining book.

That said, while Deadlocked wraps up key/ongoing elements and characters (all the while opening up new ones), Harris should consider ending the series within the next few books - I understand the Sookieverse characters are beloved by many, but Harris' last few books have been generally flat, humor-wise, and the characters' dilemmas (along with Sookie's flash-temper) are beginning to wear thin, feel redundant and/or read like trifling affairs, despite Harris' consistently solid writing.

Deadlocked is worth checking out from the library, perhaps worth purchasing, if done so at a cut-rate price.

A Dozen Black Roses, by Nancy A. Collins

(hb; 1996: fourth novel in the Sonja Blue series)


From the back cover:

"An urban quagmire greedily devouring lost souls, its bloodstained streets haunted by the living dead. In an ancient war between two gluttonous vampires, Deadtown is both battleground and buffet table.

"But all that's about to change. Into the carnage walks Sonja Blue, vampire and vampire hunter, hell-bent on sending Deadtown's ruling fiends to the graves they've eluded for centuries. And if the rest of Deadtown gets in her way, well. . . she'll make damn sure the place lives up to its name. . ."


Review:

Entertaining crossover novel that brings together the worlds of Sonja Blue and White Wolf's World of Darkness - Dozen's plot is a blend of those series, structured by a template that explicitly mixes Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher".

Dozen feels like a write-for-paycheck assignment, but that's not necessarily a demerit, reading-wise: aside from its predictable plot (for those familiar with A Fistful of Dollars), Dozen is an engaging, bloody and violent vampire-adapted romp from the mind of one of my all-time favorite horror writers.

This is best read as a homage side tale within the Sonja Blue series. Like the first three Sonja Blue novels, it is worth owning.

Followed by Darkest Heart.

Paint It Black, by Nancy A. Collins

(pb; 1995: third book in the Sonja Blue series)

Review:

This is the kind of sequel I love to read - one that seamlessly, intriguingly progresses the storylines and character evolutions of previous series works, while simultaneously wrapping up and shattering established storylines with organic, foreshadowed wild card elements.

Collins not only delivers on the promise of the first two Sonja Blue novels (Sunglasses After Dark, In the Blood), but raised my expectations for the milestone series even higher.

I can only hope that the bulk of my writing, sequel- and otherwise, matches the excellence Collins has displayed thus far with her published writing, which continues to amaze me.

Worth owning, of course.

Followed by A Dozen Black Roses.

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The first three Sonja Blue novels (Sunglasses After Dark, In The Blood, Paint It Black) were republished in a paperback omnibus edition, titled Midnight Blue: The Sonja Blue Collection, in 1995. (Part of its cover heads this review.)

In the Blood, by Nancy A. Collins

(pb; 1992, 2003: second book in the Sonja Blue series)

From the back cover:

"Love and an open vein.

"Sonja Blue, the leather-clad vampire-cum-vampire-hunter star of Sunglasses After Dark is back, taking out her rage on the demonic blood-drinkers who prey on the living. But her hunt has attracted attention from an unholy family Sonja barely knew she had. Morgan, the monster who remade her twenty years ago, wants to bring his beloved daughter to heel, and Sonja finds her existence entwined with that of Palmer, a mortal man. Part of her wants to love him, but when dealing with monsters where does love and slavery begin?"


Review:

Excellent sequel that delivers and expands on the gory, action-driven promise of its source novel, Sunglasses After Dark, while introducing new, equally intriguing characters and storylines.

Blood also reads like its own distinctive novel in that Collins has pushed light humor, based in genre, to its spine-snapping, edgier fore: mad scientists, haunted houses, legendary monsters, vampire and werecreature themes, et cetera - and the result is a novel that not only is a wonderful follow-up, but one that made this reader look forward to the next four Sonja Blue books, starting with the third one, Paint It Black.

Worth owning, this.

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The first three Sonja Blue novels (Sunglasses After Dark, In The Blood, Paint It Black) were republished in a paperback omnibus edition, titled Midnight Blue: The Sonja Blue Collection, in 1995.

Sunglasses After Dark, by Nancy A. Collins

(hb; 1989, 2012: first novel in the Sonja Blue series)

From the back cover:

"Erotic dreams, blood-soaked nightmares.

"She could lead a man to heaven or deliver him to hell. A beautiful vampire of consummate, immortal power. . . lust beyond the warmth of blood. . . revenge beyond desire. . . the world lay at her feet. The extraordinary power of unnatural life breathes behind Sunglasses After Dark."

Review:

All thriller, no filler take on the undead gig - damn near impossible to set down, this roughshod-toned, not-for-the-squeamish novel about a vamp-raped and -murdered vampire hunter (Sonja Blue) who ruthlessly exterminates the evil undead.

In Sunglasses, Sonja must kill a powerful televangelist named Catherine Wheele, a "Pretender" (supernatural being) who had Sonja sent to an insane asylum.

Loaded with wry humor, unrepentant gore and sexuality, character-intrinsic twists and so-crazy-it's-sometimes-funny violence, this is one of the best vampire books I've read - it blows away most fangster hunter-themed offerings, a landmark work.

Worth owning, this.

Followed by In The Blood.

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The first three Sonja Blue novels (Sunglasses After Dark, In The Blood, Paint It Black) were republished in a paperback omnibus edition, titled Midnight Blue: The Sonja Blue Collection, in 1995.

Sunglasses was also recently republished in Kindle form, as well.

Dead Man's Hand, by Nancy A. Collins

(hb; 2004: horror/western anthology)

From the back cover:

"Have you seen the dark, strange corners of this big ol' stretch' a land called the West? Sure, you've heard the stories of gunfights and gold rushes, but that ain't the half of it. Not by far.

"Have you met Dr. Mirablis and his miraculous elixir re-vitae? Or heard the real story of the Ghost Dance and the man they call Walking Wolf? How about Sam Hell, the Dark Ranger with a taste for blood?

"Looks like you need yourself an education, and there ain't no teacher better than Nancy A. Collins. Dead Man's Hand collects her acclaimed novellas 'Walking Wolf' and 'Lynch,' the short stories 'Calaverada' and 'The Tortuga Hill Gang's Last Ride,' and completes the five-card draw with an all-new vampire Western novella 'Hell Comes Sundown.'

"The West has never been wilder. . . or weirder."


Overall review:

Dead Man's Hand is an exemplary anthology that seamlessly, with fresh visions and voices, brings together familiar-yet-new horror and the Old West elements; her writing is damn near impossible to set down, with its darkish wry twisty humor, relatable (or hiss-worthy) characters, as well as pitch-perfect, genre-veracious action, gore and horror elements.
Worth owning, this.


Story/novella descriptions:

1.) "Hell Comes Sundown": Sam Hell, an ex-Texas Ranger and vampire, and his companion, a squaw named Pretty Face, track a pestiferous conquistador bloodsucker (Sangre), who's traveling town to town and decimating them with his undead army.

2.) "Lynch": A resurrected gunman (Johnny Pearl), seeking revenge for the murder of his wife and unborn child, discovers that his brutal mission may be part of a larger design.

3.) "Walking Wolf": Walking Wolf, a raised-by-Comanche white man (and vargr - i.e., werewolf) recounts his violent, rollercoaster life that touches on noted historical events, and effective emotional points.

4.) "The Tortuga Hill Gang's Last Ride": A dime novel-inspired leprechaun (Little Red) joins a second-rate gang of bank robbers with wild and life-changing results.

5.) "Calverada": Killers crashing a Day of the Dead festival learn a harsh lesson.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

(hb; 2010: loosely linked prequel to The Last American Vampire)

From the inside flap:

"Indiana 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call 'Milk Sickness.'

" 'My baby boy. . .' she whispers before dying.

"Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

"When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, 'Henceforth, my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose. . .' Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

"While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving the Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

"Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time - all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation."


Review:

Landmark horror novel, when one considers how Grahame-Smith seamlessly, cleverly melds faux-historical and horror fiction: fictions that simultaneously manage to be mainstream and horrific, for those of us who like our inked terrors to be bloody and graphic (which Abraham Lincoln is, in effective, short bursts).

Not only that, but Grahame-Smith made this reader care about his characters, with their interwoven, character-centric, vivid-but-fast-tracked histories - when Lincoln is shot, I actually felt sad, as if Lincoln had been a real, warm-individual President in my lifetime.

Exemplary read, this. Worth reading and owning for both mainstream readers and gorehounds.

Followed by The Last American Vampire.

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The resulting film is scheduled for stateside release on June 22, 2012.

Benjamin Walker played Abraham Lincoln. Dominic Cooper played Henry Sturgess. Robin McLeavy played Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Mary Elizabeth Winstead played Mary Todd Lincoln. Lux Hany-Jardine played "Young Abraham Lincoln".

Alan Tudyk played Stephen A. Douglas. Rufus Sewell played Adam. Anthony Mackie played William Johnson. John Rothman played Jefferson Davis. Jaqueline Fleming played Harriet Tubman. Jimmi Simpson played Joshua Speed.

Timur Bekmambetov directed the film, from a screenplay by book author Seth Grahame-Smith and Simon Kinberg.

Image of the Beast, by Philip José Farmer

(pb; 1968, 1969. Foreword by Theodore Sturgeon)

From the back cover:

"A grisly love-murder is recorded as a home movie. It is so hellish that seasoned policemen turn from it in horror. Then a second film is discovered. It shows the startling transformation of a beautiful, sensual woman into a ravening wolf. And this is only the beginning. . ."

Review:

This multigenre novel (in actuality two conjoined, plot-bound novellas, Image of the Beast and Blown) is one of the best science fiction/horror/neo-noir novels I've ever read. It seamlessly melds elements of the above genres into an often hilarious, reader-seizing read.

The plot: Herald Childe, a P.I., is investigating the horrific, freakish murder of his slimy business partner (Matthew Colben), when his tempestuous ex-wife, the aptly-named Sybil, disappears, too, leading him deeper and deeper into a fluid-splattery cosmic struggle that he couldn't have foreseen.

The darkly-comedic, carnally-explicit, over-the-top and literature-sourced storyline will likely appeal to horror/science fiction/neo-noir readers who don't mind mixing their genres, or seeing clichés skull-blasted into something original and unforgettable.

Worth owning, this. Pick it up, already! =)

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Big thanks to Gary Russell, a great friend who recommended - and sent - Image to me almost ten years ago. (I told you I'd get around to reading it!)

Gary Russell is an accomplished author of many stories, including Morph. and Nikkatsu. He co-edits the microfiction website, Leodegraunce - check it out! - with the incomparable and talented Jolie Du Pre

The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Ninth Grade Slays, by Heather Brewer

(hb; 2008: second book in The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod)

From the inside flap:

"If middle school stunk for Vladimir Tod, high school is a real drain. Besides being a punching bag for bullies, he's still stalled with dream girl Meredith, and he's being tailed by a photographer from the school paper. Needless to say, practicing his vampire skills hasn't exactly been a priority for Vlad - until now. A monumental trip to Siberia with Uncle Otis is Vlad's crash course in Vampire 101. Training alongside the most gifted vampires is exactly what Vlad needs to sharpen those mind-control skills. . ."

Review:

Good, reader-hooking, story- and character-expanding follow-up to The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Eighth Grade Bites.

Worth reading, this.

Followed by The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Tenth Grade Bleeds.