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Book Review: Storm-Star (Storm-Star Lore Book 1) by I. N. Morgan

cover for Storm-Star by I.N. Morgan   (Bookshop.org | Amazon.com)

Storm-Star (Storm-Star Lore Book 1) by I.N. Morgan

Heavy Rush Media, September 2020

ISBN: 9781732876514

Available: Paperback, Kindle

 

Storm-Star is a decent horror debut from rookie author I.N. Morgan.  It’s a werewolf story (well, sort of) with a touch of sci-fi added in.  The elements in the story are nothing new, but they are combined in the right proportions to make the story fun.  The book won’t blow casual readers away, but they will probably find it enjoyable enough to be worth the time.

Set in 1997, Ash Jagerhund is a down-on-his-luck 23 year old with no family, relatives, or future.  He receives a letter from a lost uncle, Jasper, who invites him to live with him, in an effort to rekindle old family ties.  Ash does so, and they reside in the Midwest town of Rust Springs, a town recently plagued by a series of gruesome pseudo-ritualistic murders.  The nature of the murders suggests they may not have a human source.   Ash makes two new friends, Attila and Daisy.  The three of them are unwillingly pulled into the search for the killer, who has ties to the Loupcroix family, a bunch of meth dealers on the outskirts of town.  The Loupcroixs believe that the world will end when a creature called the Storm-Star comes across the galaxy and trashes the Earth for the benefit of the Loupcroixs, who will of course then rule the world.  Add in Ash’s later revealed family history, and you have a fair amount of plot elements, which the author manages to fit into all the right places.

The writing is solid enough and keeps focused on the plot without detours, but there are times when a bit of detail would have helped connect the plot dots better.  Example: the cops somehow find a website all about the Loupcroixs and their beliefs, but there was no one to give them any hint of the site.  Besides, how many meth dealers maintain a website?  The characters are developed well enough, and are interesting, although the reader may get a few of the secondary characters mixed up on occasion, as the character cast is around 10-12 people.  The plot is nice and linear, and has enough action (and just a touch of gore) to keep the reader flipping pages.  It’s not a breakneck thriller, but it’s enough to make it worth reading.  One annoyance is that a good editor should have corrected is the grammatical and sentence structure errors that crop up from time to time.  It’s not enough to pass on the book, but it is aggravating.

Reading this, you can tell it’s written by a first-time author with talent, but who is still learning the craft.  As long as the reader is willing to tolerate the minor problems, Storm-Star is worth a look.  The author did leave a tractor-trailer sized opening at the end of the book for a sequel, and it would be great to see a sequel that focuses on the most exciting characters (Ash, Attila and Daisy) and whittles down the number of secondary ones.

Contains: violence, gore, profanity, drugs

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on December 29, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Hexis by Charlene Elsby

Editor’s note: Straight up, Monster Librarian needs $45 to cover hosting fees. I mean that is the absolute base. To revamp our static site would be a much larger cost but this is what we need to keep moving forward. We are one of the oldest horror fiction review sites online. If you find any benefit at all to what we do, I really need the financial support. I can’t do it all alone. Please use the link to Bookshop.org to purchase the books we review through our affiliate storefront or contribute through PayPal  using the red “contribute” button in the menu on the right to support our work. And now our review of Hexis by Charlene Elsby.

Cover art for Hexis by Charlene Elsby

Hexis by Charlene Elsby  (Bookshop.org)

CLASHbooks, February 2020

ISBN: 9781944866525

Available: Paperback, Kindle

 

Hexis, the slickly crafted debut novella from Charlene Elsby, is entertaining, while using almost none of the conventions of typical horror writing.  Linear stories, easy to follow happenings…they don’t exist here.  Instead, you get a down-the-rabbit-hole journey into the inner mind and musings of a seriously disturbed lady.  This is what might have happened if Aristotle and Timothy Leary had decided to pool their intellectual resources to create their own version of serial killer Aileen Wuornos.  Sound insane?  So is the book.

 

Hexis is written in an extremely vague, open-ended fashion, so much so that even describing the book is difficult, a lot of it will depend on how the reader interprets it.  It seems to be about a lady who is never even named, so for this review, she’ll be called ‘X.’  X had a crummy relationship with a man at some point in her younger years, so she killed him.  From time to time as her life progresses, the man shows back up in her life, so she kills him, again…and again…and again.  The End.

 

If only it were that simple.  Due to the vague way this is written, even determining what actually happens will depend on personal perception.  Is he somehow brought back to life each time, forcing her to kill him again?  Is she simply killing people who look like him, and her deranged mind fills in the blanks to make it seem like the same person?  Does the whole thing take place completely in her mind, and none of it really happened?  No explanation is ever given, and that’s the enjoyable part about the book; the story allows the reader to decide what actually happened.  The whole book is an introspective study of X: what she feels, her anti-social tendencies, how she perceives her reality, or lack of it.  The story does not move in a linear fashion; it’s more akin to jumping in and out of the river of time at different points, for a brief moment.  Some of those moments are loaded with graphic sex and violent, gory killings, and that’s about the only nod to conventional horror writing.  This is written to appeal to a certain type of horror fan: the ones who like a lot of psychology and musings, and aren’t as interested in fast-paced plots that zip from Point A to Point B.  It’s a very well written piece of work, it just works best for a certain type of reader.  The book works best if you read a chapter or two at a time.  Take a break, think about what you just read, what it means to you, and what you think happened.  Then, read another chapter or two, and prepare to have your cerebrum twisted yet again.  Trying to burn through this book cover to cover in a sitting or two won’t work, you really need to take the time to think about it and enjoy it.  Otherwise, you’re missing the point.  This is meant for you to ponder over, not have everything explained and handed to you.  That’s why it’s so much fun, you can almost mold the story to your own liking.  It’s an unusual way to write, and makes for an “out there” reading experience.

 

Also worth noting is the author’s ability to write long passages that at times, don’t really mean anything at all… but they sound really good.  It’s not just rambling for the sake of wasting pages, it’s done to sound incredible, without really saying much at all.  It’s as if the words are no longer words, they are musical notes that form a melody, and it’s a quite a melody.  You may find some meaning, or it may mean nothing at all, but the melody sounds beautiful.  It’s not something you find often in horror writing; I really can’t think of any other examples to compare it to.  Well done, and truly original.

 

Bottom line: if you are looking for something that is truly unique and different from a standard horror novel, and you want a mind-breaker of titanic proportions, this is the way to go.  If you prefer straight-ahead stories where all is explained, look elsewhere.  It will be interesting to see where author Elsby goes next; she’s got an original and enjoyable style.  Highly recommended, for the reader type mentioned.

 

Contains:  graphic violence, profanity, graphic sex

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on December 9, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: The Plumbers by Terry M. West

A note from the editor: It is now December and Monster Librarian still needs to raise the funds to pay for our hosting fees and postage in 2021. If you like what we’re doing, please take a moment to click on that red “Contribute” button in the sidebar to the right, to help us keep going!  Even five dollars will get us closer to the $45 we still need to keep going at the most basic level. We have never accepted paid advertising so you can be guaranteed that our reviews are objective. We’ve been reviewing and supporting the horror community for 15 years now, help us make it another year! Thank you! And now our review of The Plumbers by Terry M. West.

cover art for The Plumbers by Terry M. West

The Plumbers by Terry M. West  ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com  )

Pleasant Storm Entertainment, 2020

ISBN: 9781916084520

Available: Paperback (October 2020), Kindle edition (available now)

 

Once again, it’s ANOTHER story with zombies as the main monsters!  Thankfully, Terry M. West’s The Plumbers takes the road less traveled; this isn’t another story with the world fully decimated and a small group of plucky survivors trying to survive a zombie apocalypse.  West’s approach is more reminiscent of George A. Romero’s take on walking corpses in the film Land of the Dead.  It’s a fun, 110 page novella, perfect for a couple of hours of escapism.

 

The story concerns Liam and Pierce, two “average Joe” plumbers.  The undead (called ‘plauguers’) are scattered throughout the country, and people survive in three different zones based on risk of zombie attack: green, orange, and red.  The whole book is just one day in the life of  these two wrench jockeys, as they deal with traffic jams, irritable customers, blown water service connections, trying to order pizza, and undead mayhem, among other things.  It’s a quick snapshot of what life might be like for those that survive and try to carry on as normal in an abnormal world.

 

The story is a nice blend of action and character development, although it does lean a bit heavy towards the conversation between the characters.  That’s as close as there is to a flaw in the story.  A bit more actual plumbing would have brushed up the characters a bit, there isn’t a whole lot of pipework.  When action does happen, it’s entertaining enough, whether it’s Pierce bashing zombies in the head with his favorite hammer (dubbed ‘Uncle Fran’) or tossing pipe bombs out the vehicle window to decimate the hoards pursuing them.  The climax of the story is solid enough: it’s not edge of your seat excitement, but it’s enough to keep the reader turning pages.   There are moments of occasional wry humor, usually provided by Pierce.  He’s probably the only person who can be trapped in a room with zombies outside the door, and calmly read a book and fall asleep.  There’s not much in the way of backstory for the cause of the zombies, and in a short story like this, it isn’t needed.  It’s enjoyable to read a narrative that doesn’t bother trying to explain everything, but just tells what is happening at the current time, with any further explanation is happily tossed off to the side.  The gore in this story is kept fairly minimal, although there’s the occasional person torn apart or body part amputated.  This is one zombie story that concentrates on driving a simple theme along instead of splashing figurative blood all over the pages, a la Jack Ketchum.

 

The Plumbers is a nice, slightly different from the average, story to breeze through for a quick zombie fix.  Considering that novellas usually only cost around $10 for an actual paperback, it’s worth the minimal investment for an evening of entertainment.

 

Contains: violence, gore, profanity

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on December 1, 2020 by , Reply
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