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Book Review: The Claw of Craving: The First Book of Lost Carcosa by Joseph Sale

 

The Claw of Craving: The First Book of Lost Carcosa by Joseph Sale

Blood Bound Publishing, 2023

ISBN: 9781940250595

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition 

Buy:  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

Some of the best horror novels of the 80s and 90s weren’t really horror at all.  They were, at heart, fantasy books with a dark core, with James Herbert’s Once, Clive Barker’s Weaveworld, and Ronald Kelly’s Fear being standout examples. Joseph’s Sale’s The Claw of Craving is a beautifully crafted tale of darkness and light in the “world beyond our world” realm of Carcosa that could revitalize the genre.  If you like dark fantasy, this is a must-read.

 

Alan Chambers is an ordinary guy convinced there has to be more to existence than his mundane life on earth…it’s there, somewhere, just beyond his grasp.  His search ends when he is granted passage to the fabled land of Carcosa, ruled by the Yellow King (a nice nod/tribute to author Robert W. Chambers in the choice of ruler). Alan and a few companions find themselves on a journey to recover the Claw of Craving, so they can rescue the wife of the Yellow King from her captors.  Magic and mayhem abound, as the companions journey through the bleak land to the fortress where the Claw resides.  

 

It only takes 25 pages or so for Alan to get to Carcosa, afte suffering through a pain-soaked ritual.  Once in Carcosa, the story takes off, pulling the reader along at a quick pace. 

 

Dark fantasy books work best when taking the standard elements of magic and demihumans, then warping them or shading them in gray.  Author Sale does this throughout the book with impeccable skill:  this is outstanding writing.  The magic feels original, .the monsters are new creatures from old elements, and the fights are bloody enough for the gorehounds, but it’s all in service to the story, not the other way around.  One can catch hints of Lovecraft in the narrative, with the whole “describing things that cannot be described” style.  Author Sale does this well, and makes it sound like his own style.

 

The characters and their development are what really elevate the story.  At heart, this is a story about one man’s need for redemption and becoming a better person, even if he didn’t know he was looking for that.  It’s emotionally deep at times, and will give some fearsome yanks on the heart-strings, as Alan tries to put the damage from his past life behind him.  The other characters are also emotionally complex, with Princess Cassilda being especially well done. Her insights on human nature would hold up in any philosophy discussion. It’s Alan who is the star of the book, though, and an outstanding one he is.

 

Bottom line: enough talkie-talkie!  Just read this one: it’s hard to imagine anyone disliking it, and should appeal to non-horror readers as well.  The only problem is waiting for the next one in the series!  

Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on September 24, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Monster Club by Darren Arnofsky and Ari Handel

Monster  Club by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel

HarperCollins, 2022

ISBN: 9780063136632

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

If you’ve seen The Wrestler, Black Swan, or The Whale, you know Darren Aronofsky is a serious director who directs serious films.  Who knew that he and Ari Handel could write such a seriously fun kid’s book?  A loving tribute to the nerdy, role-playing gamers who still hide amongst the ‘cool’ students in junior high schools across the country, it’s impossible to dislike Monster Club.  It has it all: cool, comic-book styled monsters, light, frothy action that’s its easy to enjoy and laugh along with, and of course, the nerdy kid gets the girl!

 

Set against the backdrop of the famed Coney Island boardwalk, Eric “Doodles” King and his junior high pals, who go by the nicknames of Yoo-hoo, Smash, Hollywood, and Beanie, spend their time outside of school playing Monster Club, an RPG game they designed themselves, a cross between Dungeons and Dragons and pro wrestling. Their characters consist of monster drawings created by the players, each with hit points and attack skills, using some dice and a spinner from the old boardgame LIFE to determine their actions as the characters battle it out for superiority. 

 

Fortune strikes in the form of a Sharpie with magic ink, which allows Eric to draw characters that come to life off the page.  Can he use this gift to help save his dad’s carnival, which is threatened by land developers?  

 

The story sells itself with the characters and breezy, happy nature of the writing. It’s easy to root and relate to the Monster Clubbers since we all knew kids like them when we were kids, charming in their goofiness. Brainy Beanie is a member of a club that designs drones and Smash tends to crash her skateboard, often into lockers.  Of course, they get picked on by the big kids, and can’t play sports worth a damn.  The story picks up the pace and shifts into the crazy fun section when the Sharpie falls into the wrong hands, allowing for creatures such as Noodle Monsters and Crumple Noodle.  The last quarter of the book is insane fun,  reminiscent of the movie Gremlins.  You knew that the gremlins were bad and were wrecking the town, yet you had to laugh at how they did it, thanks to the presentation.  It’s the same with the Noodle Monsters as they go wild on Coney Island.

 

However, the Monster Club creations of Brickman, BellyBeast, Robokillz and their ilk stand ready to do battle and save Coney Island.  The fights themselves are some of the best parts.  They aren’t bloody, they are fun, Gremlins-style.  BellyBeast picks his nose and sticks it in Brickman’s ear, while Brickman himself dishes out some pretty mean ball-shots with his cannonball on a chain to neighborhood bullies.  Readers will be enthusiastically cheering on the good guys in their quest to smash those evil Noodle Monsters and save the carnival.

 

Bottom line here: this is lighthearted fun with a lot of bounce to it, and it’s one all readers of this site would enjoy.  It’s oriented towards the middle grade/early teen crowd, but it’s plenty of fun for adults too, especially those who grew up like the main characters, they will see themselves in the story.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on September 13, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Rabbits in the Garden (Gardening Guidebooks #1) by Jessica McHugh

Rabbits in the Garden (Gardening Guidebooks #1) by Jessica McHugh

Ghoulish Books, 2022

ISBN: 978-1943720736

Available: Paperback

Buy:  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

After reading Jessica McHugh’s Rabbits in the Garden, readers will never look at rabbits or gardening tools in quite the same way again.

 

Avery’s mom has a creepy interest in her garden, as well as in keeping Avery and her sister on the straight and narrow when it comes to boys. She is a big believer in correcting people’s negative proclivities with her own brand of vigilante justice… as in, murdering them.

 

Unfortunately for Avery, her innocent friendship with Paul and her weird mother-assigned responsibility for the behavior of rabbits in the family garden lead her to discover the truth about her mother’s evil ways, and put her in danger of spending the rest of her life in a nightmarish insane asylum. Her fellow residents have some serious problems and believe that Avery is trying to hide hers. The staff employs brutal methods designed to punish rather than heal. 

 

Avery struggles throughout the book, fighting against the lies that have been told about her, defending herself against the horrible crimes she has been accused of by her own mother, and dealing with the survival friendships she makes with the mentally ill where she has been imprisoned. The odds of changing her situation seem impossible, and Avery suffers far more disappointments than successes along the way. 

 

Although the restrained language and minimal horrific and sexual detail might appropriately put this story of young love and family dynamics under the YA umbrella for some, an adult reading of Rabbits in the Garden as a coming-of-age horror novel also propels the book over the YA line to older readers who will appreciate McHugh’s excellent storytelling and dynamic style. Even after the worst acts in the book have already been committed, there are always still more to come. Even after the most intense human responses to betrayal, emotional/physical pain and loss occur, there are inevitably still more of those to come too, but in supernatural form. This leads to a fast and furious build up of tension, anxiety, and crushing fear that grow in the shadow of evil and finally explode in the last chapters. 

 

Is Avery a lesson in female empowerment in the fight against injustice or will she be an example of “like mother, like daughter”? This is the first book of The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy, so we will find out.

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

 

Posted on June 28, 2023 by , Reply
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