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Book Review: Welcome to the Splatter Club, Vol. 2 edited by K. Trap Jones

Welcome to the Splatter Club, Vol. 2, by various authors, edited by K. Trap Jones

 

Blood Bound Publishing, 2021

 

ISBN: 9781718170278

 

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com)

 

If you are tired of the “same old, same old” with horror stories and are craving something original,  Welcome to the Splatter Club vol.2 is your passport to madness and mayhem of the highest order.  Want a good dose of blood and pain, such as someone getting their balls smashed with a hammer?  You got it.  How about really weird erotica, straight out of freaky-deaky sex land?  It’s in here.  Best of all, if you want truly original stories that are so off the wall they make mind-bending substances seem like a good idea, then you need this book.  It’s the best, wildest collection I’ve come across in a couple of years.  Kudos to editor K. Trap Jones: he clearly knows how to pick ’em.

 

The overall story quality is exceptionally strong: there’s only one dud out of thirteen stories.  The rest graded an average of B+/A-, with one C+ and five solid A’s.  About the only unifying themes are taking an ordinary situation and making it beyond strange, and there are a few revenge stories of sorts.  

 

In “War of the Wildflowers”,  two apartment neighbors are squabbling.  Sounds standard, but one of them has a fishbowl for a head, and the two fish inside provide eyesight for the human. The story has real sadness built into it, and is the closest you get to a tearjerker in the book.  

In “The Sack Cutter”,  a young lady has the guy who used her and tossed her aside captive in a deserted cabin.  Contrary to the story title, this is NOT the usual “physical torture for revenge” plot.  The lady has a much more clever and less physically painful idea in mind to make him pay.  The story also does a nice job blurring the lines between vengeance and a desire to help improve people.

 

Take the opening scene from the movie Natural Born Killers, and substitute in crazed vegetarians who want to make a statement and get their 15 minutes of fame, and you have the basic story of “Hell Comes to Burger Hut”,  a cautionary tale about how far people will stoop to become social media darlings.

 

“Igloo Made of Flesh” is possibly the strangest two pages ever written.  A city apartment with an Eskimo who grinds up people to make igloo blocks?  Yes, you read that correctly.

 

In “The Long Winter Ahead”, two buddies on a cross-country trip run into the world’s weirdest cult in a hicktown bar.  How many stories feature guys having forced sex with trees animated by spirits?  This is a very unusual take on the Gaia mythos.

 

If that isn’t enough, there are also lycanthropes, undead pizza parlor owners, and flesh-chomping gators hopped up on meth.  Need I say more?  Bottom line: for horror fans, this collection is a can’t miss.

 

 Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on June 14, 2022 by , 1 comment

Book Review: The Final Cut by Craig DiLouie

Cover art for The Final Cut by Craig DiLouie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Final Cut by Craig DiLouie

ZING Communications, 2021

ISBN: 9798782486884

Available: paperback, Kindle edition (Amazon.com )

 

This is the final of a three book series, I have not read the other two, titled Infection and The Killing Floor.  While this book can be enjoyed as a stand-alone, it is recommended that you read the others first for full understanding and enjoyment of the story.  

 

We all know that zombie stories are like the undead themselves: just when you think the trend might finally be over, along comes another one.  Thankfully, The Final Cut bucks the usual zombie storylines and clichés, carves a path of its own… and does it well, breathing new life into what has become a stale genre.

 

In The Final Cut, the culprit for zombification is an organism from space, known as Infection, that has managed to infect most of the population. Here’s what makes the story fun: not everyone reacts the same way, or goes through the same Infection.  Some people have it for days or months before they go nuts and become killers…and some have learned to live and adapt to Infection, becoming almost superhuman but NOT becoming crazy.  That’s one of the best points of the book, the “zombies” are a mishmash of types.  Some are mindless, some can talk and reason, some are evil, some are more or less good– the variety helps keep the story interesting.  

 

As for the uninfected humans, besides survival they are focused on two things: finding a cure for Infection, or finding a way to wipe out all those Infected, and ending the plague.   There is still a semblance of a US government working on a solution in the book.  The author throws some interesting moral dilemmas to the characters: which makes more sense?  Go the easier route and blast everything to pieces to save the few left and take the collateral damage, or try the harder but preferable route of finding a cure?  The “ends justify the means” idea poses tough decisions for some of the characters, such as the need to test a possible cure on human subjects… but no volunteers.  Is capturing unwilling people to use ae guinea pigs justifiable, when your goal is saving people?  The author does a great job using these situations, without sounding preachy.

 

In any zombie novel, there will be violence and gunfights somewhere, and in that area, The Final Cut delivers the goods.  Tanks wrecking things, .50 caliber machine guns shredding zombies and creating carnage, plenty of pitched firefights– there’s enough to keep the entertainment level high.  Overall, this is a thinking person’s action/excitement novel and worth the read, even if zombie stories usually aren’t your thing.  Recommended (after reading the first two, that is)

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on May 27, 2022 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: Falconspeare by Warwick Johnson-Cadwell and Mike Mignola

Falconspeare by Warwick Johnson-Cadwell

Dark Horse Comics, 2022

ISBN-13: 9781506724768

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, comiXology  ( Bookshop.org )

 

Monster hunters extraordinaire Professor Meinhardt, Mr. Knox, and Ms. Van Sloan have investigated and hunted the uncanny before, but now they come together to answer the question that’s haunted them for years: what happened to their friend and notorious vampire slayer, James Falconspeare? 

 

Upon finding their old friend, he tells them of his adventures. After dealing with a werewolf problem, Falconspeare ended up in a community where young people were disappearing, only to be found later dead, the bodies in terrible condition. The people in the community found the police less than helpful, so they turned to Falconspeare for aid.

 

Upon investigation of the bodies, Falconspeare at first believed the victims were killed by a vampire. The incredible vampire hunter, acting under the suspicions of dealing with such a creature, found he was in error. Clues point to Baron Fontin, whose appetites were gossiped about in influential circles, but the baron is no vampire. He is a serial killer. When the vampire hunter approached local authorities to address the situation, no one listens.

 

Out of desperation and frustration, Falconspeare went in search of the Black Docks Biter, a female vampire who lives in the sewers feasting on rats, and ventures out rarely for human blood. Professor Meinhardt, Mr. Knox, and Ms. Van Sloan discover their old friend has done something unthinkable to deal with the human monster that is Baron Fontin. Johnson-Cadwell’s unique art style provides a good accompaniment to the Victoriam tale of terror. 

 

Falconspeare is the third installment of Johnson-Cadwell and Mike Mignola’s series that include the trio of monster hunters, Ms. Van Sloan, Mr. Knox, and Professor J. T. Meinhardt.

Highly recommended

 

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on April 6, 2022 by , Reply
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