DVD Review: Anna and the Apocalypse

Anna and the Apocalypse
(DVD Anna)

This movie started as a short film in 2011, Zombie Musical, written and directed by Ryan McHenry. It was then expanded to this full-length feature film, following McHenry’s death, by writers Alan McDonald and Tommy Reilly, with music by Roddy Hart and Reilly. And the music is integral to this film’s success — there are over 15 songs, sung by various cast members, who break into song-and-dance numbers that seamlessly merge into the chaos and zombie killing.

 

Teenager Anna is looking forward to traipsing around the globe following the end of her senior year — a prospect that neither her over-protective father and her best friend don’t relish. Anna isn’t part of the “popular crowd” but she and her fellow misfit outsiders still form a tight bond. They tend to ignore the news reports of a global pandemic that appears to be turning people into zombies — until it starts to affect the people in their sleepy Scottish town of Little Haven. As the entire world appears to be dissolving into total chaos, Anna and her friends (and enemies) must fight their way through their zombie-infested town to their high school, which may or may not be the last safe haven.

 

The entire cast of this is terrific, particularly Ella Hunt as Anna and Malcolm Cumming as her lifelong platonic best friend John. The songs are at first a bit jarring, but quickly become one of the best parts of the film — it reminded me of watching the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode “Once More, With Feeling” — and all the actors have excellent singing voices. The make-up and special effects are grotesque but impressive. If the film verges occasionally into cartoonishness, it is allowable, as the entire concept seems outlandish. And yet, somehow it works!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to see the If You Like…Die Hard list of harder-edged action/suspense films set at Christmas-time.)

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD/Movie Review: The Frighteners

The Frighteners
written and directed by Peter Jackson (DVD Frighteners)

In January, I was invited to go to the Filmstreams theater in downtown Omaha to serve on a discussion panel following a showing of Peter Jackson’s 1995 film The Frighteners. Why me? Because I’m the Lincoln City Libraries’ resident “expert” on the Charles Starkweather murder spree case from 1958/1959, and in the movie The Frighteners, Charlie Starkweather’s killing spree is mentioned several times — he serves as an inspiration for the “big bad” in the film.

 

I was pleased to see that the Lincoln City Libraries do still have The Frighteners in our DVD collection. In the film, Michael J. Fox is Frank Bannister, a man who can see the spirits of the deceased, but who uses this ability to con gullible people. He has partnered with three ghosts to “haunt” houses, after which Frank swoops in to offer his expensive services to de-ghost those properties. But multiple mysterious deaths by heart attack in Fairhaven. When one his latest ghostbusting clients has a chilling number appear engraved in his forehead (which only Frank can see), and then he turns up to be the next victim of a mysterious death, Frank ends up working with the man’s widow (played by Trini Alvarado) to figure out what’s going on in his town (and clear his own name as a suspect). It turns out that the ghost of a serial killer from the 1960s has managed to come back and is adding to his body count.

 

Some great performances, some spectacular special effects, a little humor, a little scare — this one’s got it all. Fox gives a great performance in his last feature film role before his Parkinson’s symptoms made it impossible for him to work. And the Nebraska connection is really played up, even though the film (made in New Zealand) is supposed to be set in the Eastern U.S. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the schlock horror Jackson had been known for, before being given the opportunity to direct this — and he soon went on to make the Lord of the Rings trilogy!

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Audiobook Review: Misery by Stephen King, narrated by Lindsay Crouse

Misery
by Stephen King (Compact Disc King)

Misery was best-selling author Stephen King’s 20th book (approximately), originally released in 1987. King, to that point, was known primarily as a horror writer who often featured supernatural elements in his stories — ‘Salem’s Lot, Carrie, The Shining, Cujo, Christine, The Stand, Firestarter, Pet Sematary — he wrote Misery in part as a reaction to being pigeonholed by his fans as a particular type of writer. His ardent fans did not gracefully appreciate his classical fantasy novel, Eyes of the Dragon, and insisted he return to what he was best known for. Also, and King has been clear about this in his own non-fiction writings, he had been dealing with drug addictions and abuse, and Misery was a chance to anthropomorphize those addictions as a destructive human character.

 

In Misery, Paul Sheldon is the author of a best-selling series of Victorian romantic suspense novels featuring plucky heroine Misery Chastain — a series he has grown to despise. Sheldon has just finished a personal writing retreat at a lodge in the Rocky Mountains, having completed what he believes to be his first “serious novel”, and after too much to drink, he drives off a mountain road, overturning his car and doing himself grave bodily harm. When he next awakens, he finds himself in the remote mountain home of ex-nurse Annie Wilkes, who identifies herself as “his #1 fan” and tells Paul she pulled him from the wreckage of his car and has been treating his two broken legs. Unfortunately, Annie has more than a few screws loose, and has a hair-trigger temper. When she discovers in the latest Misery Chastain novel that Sheldon has killed off her beloved literary hero, Annie goes off the deep end. Reliant on Annie for illicit pain meds and help surviving his injuries, and aware that no-one knows where he is, Paul Sheldon has no recourse but to agree, when Annie buys him a second-hand typewriter and demands that he write a new Misery novel, resurrecting the doomed character. What follows is a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse and psychological terror. But Paul has yet to realize just how demented Annie Wilkes truly is…and how many people may have died at her hands already.

As the tagline for the novel Misery says, “Paul Sheldon used to write for a living. Now he’s writing to save his own life!”

 

I’ve seen the 1990 feature film adapted from King’s novel by Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman. That film starred James Caan as author Paul Sheldon and Kathy Bates as “his #1 fan”, the psychotically obsessive Annie Wilkes. Bates won the Best Actress Oscar as Wilkes, and most fans of King agree that the film Misery is probably one of the best adaptations of a King novel to film or TV. Screenwriter Goldman later also adapted his own film screenplay into a stage play, which premiered in a limited theatrical engagement in 2015, starring Bruce Willis as Paul Sheldon and Laurie Metcalfe as Annie Wilkes. The news that a local community theatre production of Misery is being mounted for early 2024 excited the actor in me, and made me realize I’d never actually read the original novel…so I fixed that by listening to the audiobook, narrated very effectively by actress Lindsay Crouse.

 

(The novel Misery is much like many of King’s early works from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, though in this case there is no supernatural element, only an all-too-human psychopath. Considering that there's only two primary characters, and one of those is left by himself a lot of the time -- there's a LOT of internal monologues, frequently peppered with "adult language". It was intended to be released under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman, but King was "outed" as Bachman before that could happen, so it came out under his own name. I do recommend seeing the Misery film, directed by Rob Reiner. You’ll never look at a sledgehammer the same way again, much like you’ll never look at an axe the same way after reading or listening to the novel.)

 

( official Misery page on the official Stephen King web site )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD Review: What We Do in the Shadows - Seasons 1 & 2

What We Do in the Shadows – Seasons 1 & 2
(DVD What)

What We Do in the Shadows is a TV series on the FX cable network which premiered in 2019, and is inspired by a movie of the same title, which came out in 2014. The film was created by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi (who also starred in the movie) and the series continues under the creative eye of Clement. However, the setting has changed, as have the central characters. But the idea is still the same — an eclectic group of vampires have been living in the same house on Staten Island for hundreds of years, trying to blend into the local populace, but they’re completely out of touch with modern culture.

 

The central characters here are Nandor (Kayvan Novak), a former merciless warlord, Nadya (Natasha Demetriou), a lusty female vampire and her husband Laszlo (whom she made into a vampire centuries ago), who fancies himself some of a scientific experimenter. Also living in the house is Colin Robinson, a mild-mannered “energy vampire” who drains the psychic energy from his victims, usually by boring them to death in creative ways. Rounding out the cast of roommates is Guillermo, a former vampire killer (unbeknownst to his housemates) who has become a familiar (supposedly in thrall) to Nandor, who has promised to eventually turn Guillermo into a vampire if he serves the house in an almost slave-like capacity.

 

The story is told documentary-film-style, much like popular sitcoms The Office and Modern Family, where a film crew is constantly present, and the vampires and Guillermo, in addition to speaking amongst themselves, frequently do on camera interviews to comment on what is happening in wry and sardonic asides.

 

The humor is sharp, witty and often filled with the kind of unfiltered qualities that would have earned this series an “R” rating as film — lots of swearing and sexual humor. Most of the time, it is characters sitting around talking, interspersed with occasional field trips outside of their gothic mansion into “the real world”, and occasional violent bursts of bloody action — they are all vampires, after all. The series pokes fun at nearly every vampire trope imaginable, with our regulars meeting and interacting with other types of vampires from the worlds of pop culture (though not yet the “sparkly vampires” of Twilight). The pomposity of these centuries-old creatures thinking they are the height of culture and society, when they are literally decades if not centuries out of step with the world is where most the humor comes from — all three traditional vampires are proud to have been invited to a neighbor’s Superb Owl party (when it is actually a Super Bowl party), is an example.

 

What We Do in the Shadows has run now for five seasons on FX and streaming platforms as of 2023, but only the first two 10-episode seasons have been released to DVD and are in the libraries’ collection. Each 10-episode season is filled with stand-alone episodes but also has plot threads that last the entire season and come to a head in the season finale. The performances are all excellent, though in my opinion Matt Berry as Laszlo and Harvey Guillen as Guillermo steal the show in nearly all of their scenes, particularly Guillermo in his non-verbal facial reactions and glances at the camera as he deals with the actions and statements of the clueless but authoritarian vampires he has to care for.

 

What We Do in the Shadows is perfect for fans of comedic horror, as long as you don’t mind a lot of “adult content”, and for anyone who loves the mocumentary-film style of storytelling. Individual episodes themselves may vary in quality, but overall I’d say the first two seasons easily earn an overall “9” rating from me!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the original 2014 film What We Do in the Shadows,)

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this series ) | ( official What We Do in the Shadows web page on the FX network )

 

Read Scott C.’s review of the 2014 film What We Do in the Shadows, in the November 2015 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Black Tide by K.C. Jones

Black Tide
by K.C. Jones (Jones)

Black Tide is a horror novel reminiscent of disaster thrillers. Instead of something bad happening to people insolation, two people who were in relative isolation come out to find a civil disaster in progress and everyone too busy dying to explain what’s going on.

 

Beth has had trouble keeping her life together but is currently on a good streak as she house-sits (and dog-sits) for a wealthy couple in the Pacific Northwest. Mike is a burned-out film producer trying to drink himself to death next door. There’s a meteor shower the night they meet that leaves strange objects scattered down the beach. Outside their empty-for-the-season neighborhood, they encounter people trying to flee the area by boat and by road. The two of them — plus Jake the yellow lab — soon become stuck on a beach with a violent, unknown threat.

 

Highly engaging.

 

(Recommended for fans of Stephen King’s short stories “The Raft” and “The Mist”, the Strugatsky short story “Roadside Picnic”, the films Attack the Block, Skyline , and Nope, or Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer.)

 

( official K.C. Jones web site )

 

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Book Review: Blacula: Return of the King by Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander

Blacula: Return of the King
by Rodney Barnes (writer) and Jason Shawn Alexander (artist) (741.5 Bar)

Many years ago (back in the 1980s), I saw the 1972 film Blacula, starring William Marshall as the titular black vampire…an African prince (Mamuwalde) in the 1800s, who tried appealing to Transylvanian Count Dracula for help in stopping the slave trade, only to be attacked by the vampire and lose his wife. Dracula turned Mamuwalde into a vampire, then imprisoned him in a coffin in Dracula’s own estate. In the film, Mamuwalde’s coffin is moved to Los Angeles in 1972 and opened, and mayhem happens. The name “Blacula” was actually a derogatory slur from Dracula, and the film Blacula was one of a wave of “blaxploitation” films in the early and mid-1970s. It was actually successful enough to inspire a sequel, Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973).

 

In this brand-new graphic novel sequel, set in contemporary times (2020s), the name “Blacula” has been showing up in urban graffiti all over L.A., but especially in the Watts neighborhood. A paranormal blogger, Tina Thomas, investigating the rumors of the return of a serial killer not heard from since the 1970s, connects with a group of other “vampire hunters” seeking vengeance for lost family members.

 

Meanwhile, Prince Mamuwalde, in Hell, appeals to Lucifer to be released — he is only there because he was cursed beyond his own control. Though denied by Lucifer, Mamuwalde somehow escapes and returns to the world of humanity, pledging his “undead” existence to finding and destroying Dracula. The bulk of this graphic novel follows Mamuwalde’s quest in search of Dracula, and the actions of the team of amateur vampire hunters who have to decide whether to oppose Mamuwalde or aid him.

 

The painted artwork in this graphic novel is absolutely gorgeous — atmospheric and haunting. Alexander manages to capture the looks of both the actors William Marshall (Mamuwalde) and Charles McAuley (Dracula) as they appeared in the 1972 film, and all of the new supporting characters are also extremely well-realized. Although the storytelling is done in such a way that you don’t absolutely have to have seen Blacula (1972) or Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973) in order to understand the modern update, I strongly urge readers to see at least the first film before indulging in this excellent sequel — there are many callbacks in the artwork and storytelling to the events and characters of the original film. (*Spoiler alert* — though much of the plot of this graphic novel is brought to an end, it does actually end on a cliffhanger, meaning the creative time intend for Blacula to return!)

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the films Blacula and Scream, Blacula, Scream.)

 

( official Rodney Barnes web site ) | ( official Jason Shawn Alexander web site )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison

Such Sharp Teeth
by Rachel Harrison (Harrison)

Such Sharp Teeth takes the point of view of one identical twin, Rory, who has come back to her hometown to help her sister Scarlett through her first pregnancy. Rory goes to a party and runs into a man who had a one-way crush on her in high school, then — much more literally — runs into something on the road on her way home. When she gets out of her car to investigate: werewolf attack! She survives, heals in hours, but has a whole lot gross things happening to her even before the next full moon.

 

This book is not at all subtle about drawing comparisons between pregnancy and lycanthropy, but that’s okay because that’s what we’re here for. This is a genre blend that respects the complexity of mundane relationships in realistic fiction while also holding nothing back on the supernatural bits. Content warning for child sexual abuse and, separately, for being an adult with an emotionally immature parent. Also plenty of body horror.

 

The wolf is also explored as a metaphor for the rage of women who have to contain themselves either for personal safety or for prioritizing the emotional well-being of other people. The idea is: what if you didn’t?

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage or Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder.)

 

( official Rachel Harrison web site )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

How to Sell a Haunted House
by Grady Hendrix (Hendrix)

Louise has returned home to Charleston, South Carolina to assist her brother, Mark, with the funeral and estate of their parents who were killed suddenly in a car accident. Louise considers Mark to be a failure and a leech on their parents. He accuses her of being the “perfect” daughter he has to live up to.

 

Their parents’ house is filled to overflowing with puppets of all sizes – each with its own name – and crafting materials to repair and make more puppets. Their mother was a puppeteer who was HEAVILY involved in the puppeteering world, and performed for children’s parties and church programs. But now, weird things are happening with those puppets and Louise feels her brother is trying to freak her out.

 

The ‘haunting’ in this book is ambiguous. Is the house haunted because the puppets are possessed? Is Louise unstable and seeing hauntings where there are none, and why? Or Is the house haunted with family memories and unresolved issues thus making it difficult to agree on how to dispose of the personal property and the house?

 

Louise is our narrator and we’re seeing this story only through her eyes. I have to admit, I had a theory about the house but I was still caught flat-footed at the end – and I should have seen it coming.

 

A suspenseful story that will keep you guessing. And you’ll never view “The Velveteen Rabbit” story the same again.

 

( official Grady Hendrix web site )

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD/Movie Review: Bodies Bodies Bodies

Bodies Bodies Bodies
(DVD Bodies)

Bodies Bodies Bodies is variously characterized as a satire, a whodunit, a black comedy, and a horror film. I say “yes” to all of these! I found it strongly reminiscent of Glass Onion, though more realistic and messy. A group of college-age rich kid friends (and a couple of their current partners) are having a house party during a storm with drugs, TikTok video filming, and intense ongoing personal conflicts. They start to play a social deduction game where someone plays the murderer and others tapped in the dark have to play dead. Then the storm knocks out power and one of them is truly dead.

 

This film’s lighting is striking. Much of the film is lit only by cell phones, flashlights, and glow sticks, yet it never feels too dark for the audience to clearly see what’s going on in the foreground. The characters are intense, as concerned about their relationships, their image, and their secrets as they are about being the next to die. The opening scene shows two of the young women making out for a couple of minutes while discussing the upcoming visit. Without giving the audience enough information to make sense of what they’re saying, you can feel their deep insecurities and needs, which sets the tone for the whole story. Bodies Bodies Bodies succeeds in holding tension for the whole runtime and has a reveal that will make you want to watch it all again.

 

Bodies Bodies Bodies was written and directed by women and is queer inclusive. Other recommended watch-alikes are Heathers (1989) and the interactive drama PS4 game Until Dawn (2015).

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Goblin by Josh Malerman

Goblin
by Josh Malerman (Malerman)

I picked up Goblin from a “Goblincore” library display, then looked up what “goblincore” means. According to Collins: “a fashion style that celebrates aspects of nature that are not considered traditionally beautiful, e.g: mushrooms, insects.” I’d say this book counts because of its motifs of near-constant rain, forbidden woods, and dark-plumed owls with creepier than usual eyes.

 

This book bills itself as “A Novel in Six Novellas” though I suspect only one of the stories — “Happy Birthday, Hunter!” — is long enough to count as a novella. The good news is that this long story midway through is truly the star of the collection. Neal Nash is a big game hunter in the small city of Goblin, where it’s almost always raining. It’s his 60th birthday party and everything is pushed to excess (his cake is made from a dozen kinds of game meats). The narrative itself feels like Ray Bradbury’s exuberance. Nash’s house is filled with animals from around the world, but he doesn’t have one of the legendary owls from the forbidden woods north of Goblin. No one has ever killed one. Tonight he’s going to be the first, no matter the cost.

 

The other five stories are all connected to this community in the style of an anthology horror with a wrap-around narrative about delivering a mysterious box. If you liked Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, I’m pretty sure the story “Presto” is a direct tribute. Reading the whole collection straight through adds a lot in terms of setting and vibe, but if you have limited time, I would still recommend “Happy Birthday, Hunter!” as a great standalone experience.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Books of Blood by Clive Barker, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury or A Taste of Honey by Jabari Asim.)

 

( official Goblin page on the official Josh Malerman web site )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: HellSans by Ever Dundas

HellSans
by Ever Dundas (Dundas)

HellSans has a lot going on, but the first thing you’ll notice is that there are two options for where to start reading. The book as a whole is divided into three parts labeled:

 

• Part One or Two: Icho
• Part One or Two: Jane
• Part Three: HellSans

I opted to start with the Jane narrative which follows the protagonist, Jane, the billionaire head of a personal assistant robotics company who is having a very bad day. As you might guess, the other option is to follow the other protagonist, Icho, who is secretly working on a cure for HellSans Allergy and is also having a very bad day. Not for sensitive readers.

 

The titular “HellSans” is a typeface which produces euphoric “bliss” effects in most people who look at it. It is, of course, used heavily by government and news agencies. Some people are immune to this effect. Still others have a severe allergic reaction to seeing or even visualizing in the typeface. This has led to social ostracization to the point where allergic people are not legally considered human. The personal assistance robots are free to kill them. So, as you might imagine, there’s a lot of political analogy and satire happening in this book.

 

This all might have made for a fine sci-fi novel, but once you’ve gotten through both of the first parts and into the final section, this book gets bold. There’s metatexual play and the stakes change dramatically. I was left with as much appreciation for what HellSans *does* as I did for how it told the story.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, or Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin.)

 

( publisher’s official HellSans web site ) | ( official Ever Dundas page on the Scottish Book Trust web site )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Manhunt
by Gretchen Felker-Martin (Felker-Martin)

Manhunt is one of the most gross and gory books I’ve read. The sci-fi setting is that a pandemic has transformed anyone with high testosterone into monstrous beasts. It’s *almost* a gender plague book crossed with zombie apocalypse. The difference here is that the pandemic doesn’t know anyone’s gender, only their testosterone level. The story centers on two trans women, one trans man, and one cis woman who are trying to find safety in this hellscape of transformed men (mostly) on one side and a military legion of TERF women on the other.

 

From glancing at other reviews, it’s clear that many people dismiss this book as gratuitously violent and insensitive for portraying rapes. It is hard to read; I’ll give them that. For many — even most — readers, this book is not for you and that’s an okay thing for both you and the book. But I think I get it. A while back I read the book Ice by Anna Kavan. That book is also about an apocalypse with horrible sexual violence written by a woman. In both cases, the point is to show something extravagantly horrible on the main stage that we normally expect people to endure, to hide, to be quiet about. We’re comfortable with that status quo: the hellscape already here. Authors should be able to scream about it.

 

Plus, under all the gore, it’s often a funny and poignant book. Strongly recommended to no one in particular.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosiński or Ice by Anna Kavan.)

 

( publisher’s official Manhunt web page ) | ( official Gretchen Felker-Martin Twitter feed )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Audiobook Review: Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Relic

by Douglas Preston (Compact Disc Preston)

This is an action-packed mystery/horror story. The book begins with a failed archaeological expedition years earlier in the Amazon Basin (everyone died – how more failed can one get?), then moves to current day with several deaths in the lower level of a museum of natural history in New York City. (Trigger Warning: two young boys and dogs are among the victims.)

 

Strange goings-on have been occurring for years in that museum ever since the cargo of artifacts from the Amazon expedition arrived. So the museum hid the cargo behind locked doors – in the basement. But now the body count begins to climb.

 

The police so far are discounting the stories of weirdness in the basement, and officially state that a serial killer or a wild animal is the cause of the most recent museum deaths (though they haven’t actually solved the case yet), so the museum insists on holding the big fundraiser the next evening with ramped up security. The key exhibit for that event includes a figurine of a character that kills in the same fashion as the unknown murderer.

New Orleans FBI agent Pendergast has come to New York City to investigate a possible link between the museum killings and some unsolved murders at the New Orleans docks years earlier. The same docks that the cargo had passed through on its way to New York.

 

You know how this is going to play out.

 

The investigation into the mystery of the expedition, the curses, the secrets, the back-stabbing will satisfy any mystery reader. Then toss in the monster-in-the-basement, and the excitement of all the big-name donors at a fundraiser where everything could go horribly wrong, and people end up fighting for their lives, and you have a good ol’ monster story with all the beloved clichés.

 

This is the first story (1995) in the Pendergast series of which there are currently 21 books. David Colacci read the story and he brought all the characters to life. So maybe don’t listen to this at night or while home alone.

 

( official Relic page on the official Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child web site )

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!