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Book Review: Family Pack by Kali Metis

Cover art for Family Pack by Kali Metis

Family Pack by Kali Metis

Running Wild Press, 2024

ISBN: 9781960018878

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

Family Pack is the second novel in this werewolf series, the first being Cure, previously reviewed here.  This is one sequel that matches up to the original and actually improves on it..

 

This time, the story runs three plotlines concurrently, with each chapter changing to a different thread.  The main thread still concerns Luna, the baker who happens to be a werewolf.  Her story involves her training to harness her powers, as well as working with members of the TLG (a werewolf advocacy group) to ensure that werewolves treat others as they would like to be treated, and find a place for themselves among humankind without bloodshed.  Of the other two plotlines, one is a straight history that explains how the werewolves came to be in their present situation, and the other is similar, but told from one person’s perspective, adding more of a personal element.  Surprisingly, in the story context the different plots and perspective changes are not confusing. One reason might be that, unlike in the last book, many of the chapters are longer, making the timeline shifts much less annoying.  The chapters in the previous book were all very short, only a couple pages or so.  Here, they are usually at least five pages or more, and it makes the shifts of perspective between chapters much less jarring.  You have time to get interested and involved in a section before moving onto another one.  Of the three plotlines, the overall history one might be the best, with Luna’s thread running a close second.  The third one, the personal history one, doesn’t match up quite as well, but it’s still decent.

 

The biggest change from book one to book two is that the first one was written in the third person perspective, while here, two of the plotlines (Luna’s and the personal history one) are written in the first person.  For some reason, it works MUCH better for the story.  Allowing the reader access to Luna’s thoughts and feelings makes her a much more interesting and readable character, and fits better with the overall tale.  It also helps explain some of her questionable decisions in a way the first book failed to do.  It feels like the author really hit her stride on this one.

 

I would have liked to see more dialogue to flesh out some of the lesser characters.  As noted in the prior review, this is a bit of a political book, with the two factions maneuvering back and forth for power.  But, on the TLG side, the reader mainly gets conversations between Luna and Birger, her instructor, while the members of the TLG council get shortchanged in dialogue and character development.  Much of the dialogue is reported secondhand, written along the lines of “I spoke to them, and they said that they…”  Considering how important this part is to the story, it would be great to have the other council members actually voice their opinions, as opposed to being told what they said in a synopsis.  The reader knows that there is dissent among the council members: we need to have them voice, in their own words, why they think the way they do.

 

Bottom line: a nice improvement on a story that was already pretty good to begin with.  Recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on December 31, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: End of the Road by Brian Keene

cover art for End of the Road by Brian Keene

End of the Road by Brian Keene

Cemetery Dance, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1587677939

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

 

End of the Road is a memoir consisting mainly of weekly columns horror writer Brian Keene wrote for the Cemetery Dance website to finance his 2016 signing tour, the “Farewell (But Not Really) Tour”,  which lasted from May to December of 2016. It also contains some additional material, including an introduction by Gabino Iglesias and a piece written by Tom Piccirilli, as well as epilogues going through about April 2017.  In addition to chronicling his journeys to bookstores and conventions across the country, Keene shares his experiences with grieving the recent deaths of three close friends including writers Tom Piccirilli and J.F. Gonzalez and his reflections on mortality. He attended the last World Horror Convention during the tour and recalls fond memories of past conventions and friendships, and, as a member of the planning committee for the charity weekend Scares that Care, gives that some space as well.  He writes about meeting up with friends and fans he’s made in the horror genre, the value of independent bookstores and local conventions, and the loss of individuality he sees in towns as he drives across America. His focus is definitely not on the controversies going on in the horror writing community at that time: he is looking back, not forward.

Keene also muses over his generation of horror writers (he had been a published writer and outspoken advocate for the genre for about 20 years at that time), touching on the changes in publishing and selling since he started as both a reader and a writer. From about 2000 on, I watched many of the changes from the sidelines, seeing the conversations on Shocklines on ebook vs. print, the effect of the failure of Dorchester Publications, the changes from almost entirely small-press limited editions to easier availability to a much wider variety due to ebooks.  He describes his own vision of the six “waves” of horror writers, putting himself in the fifth wave, and ready to let go for the and let the most current wave to take over the direction of the horror genre. His prediction is that independent niche bookstores and Amazon will take over and drive chain stores out of business. As a former public librarian, I think it’s telling that none of his signings were in libraries, who often feature local writers and midlisters: maybe neither of his publishers thought he would find buyers there, or lists his titles with wholesalers, but Pressure, the book he was promoting, is the only one of his books available in my public library (on a personal note, my husband, the founder of Monster Librarian, who died at the age of 40 in 2014, loved and reviewed many of Keene’s previous books, and recommended them for library collections).

Keene is at his best in this book when he writes about the people and places he cares about. His description of his grandmother, and of West Virginia, is nuanced and vivid, and his frustration over the lack of recognition for Hunter S. Thompson comes through pretty solidly. His self-proclaimed middle-of-the-road politics make the book pretty much an artifact of the times, but he really puts himself out there in speaking about his grief, his love for family and friends, and his feelings about the horror genre.

I’m not sure why it took so long for the book to come out, given that (according to Keene’s epilogue) the epilogue ends in February 2017 and the foreword was written in April 2017. While it is an interesting read ( and will be reflective of many interested readers’ experiences), it is not likely to be of wide interest outside the horror community. That said, current members of the horror community may enjoy his reminisces and appreciate his musings on the state of the horror genre circa 2016. Keene still has a blog, a newsletter, a Patreon, and does podcasts, so readers who are interested in what’s going on with him currently have many opportunities to do so. End of the Road is really a snapshot of his state of mind at that particular time, and a way to support a writer readers and friends want to support.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note: End of the Road is a nominee on the final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in Nonfiction.

Posted on May 9, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn

cover art for Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn

( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn

Omnium Gatherum 2020

ISBN: 9781949054279

Available: Paperback, Kindle

 

Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women is an anthology of stories by Southeast Asian women writers of horror. No one questions that the dangers cultures try to warn against in their ancient stories exist, but should we take the stories themselves as fact or fiction? The “unquiet” Southeast Asian mothers, daughters, wives, and girlfriends in Black Cranes ask this very question as they experience the the disturbing intrusion of these supernatural stories into their modern lives. Many of these characters think that by leaving home or separating themselves from their cultural roots, they can learn to forget, discount or even reject the stories they have grown up with about ghosts, terrifying beasts, bloodthirsty demons, deadly tricksters, and zombies only to find out that is impossible.

 

Several of the stories in this collection are built around characters from Asian myths and legends. The kapre, a tree demon, protects an infant and loves her for life, as kapres do, in “A Love Story” by Rin Chupeco. In Gabriela Lee’s “Rites of Passage,” no matter how an unmarried pregnant girl from Manila tries to escape, the demon child or tiyanak that she has killed will eventually make her pay. Nadia Bulkin asserts that “Truth Is Order and Order Is Truth” in her tale of a conquering Demon Queen who retakes her kingdom from the “fish people,” while the wily fox spirit of Rena Mason’s “Ninth Tale” masquerading as a beautiful woman vies for a tricky bride-to-be’s young man. There is also a daughter who is shocked into believing in a kwee-kia, a dead or miscarried child brought to life again, by catching her mother breastfeeding her own in “Little Worm” by Geneve Flynn. There is even a take on what started as a 1970’s Japanese urban legend involving the kuchisake-onna, or “slit-mouthed woman” in “A Pet Is for Life,” also by Geneve Flynn.

 

A few of these tales read like modern updates of older stories. Their focus is the clash of cultures within an individual’s psyche. Grace Chan’s “Of Hunger and Fury” explores the separation between a daughter and the mother who sent her into a foreign world for a better life. Chan’s poetic descriptions and strong sense of place enhance this tale of the superstition and deeply held beliefs that hold the old generation captive and threaten to erase those in the new who dare to ignore their roots or move beyond the past. The resulting sense of loss is revealed from the mother’s perspective in “Frangipani Wishes” by Lee Murray, in which the mother destroys her own life to forge a future for her daughter. In “Phoenix Claws”, also by Lee Murray, a young woman’s boyfriend is culture tested when he is offered chicken feet at a family meal. When she covers for him by eating the feet herself, she is given a supernatural punishment.

 

The remaining science fiction stories suggest what could happen when culture, relationships, and conflict reach the mythological future. Elaine Cukegkeng predicts the next iteration of overbearing mothers as those who can genetically alter their daughters. A “cosmetech” surgeon can upgrade his wife’s appearance in “Skin Dowdy” by Angela Yuriko Smith, but will she or he ever be satisfied? In Smith’s “Vanilla Rice,” a daughter threatens to undo her mother’s work by removing her physical trait chip. Finally, in “Fury” by Christina Sng, we find out what new horrors  a pandemic will unleash and ask ourselves why the husband in “The Mark” by Grace Chan has a zipper on his chest.

 

There are so many ways into this horror collection: mythology, science fiction, legend, women’s issues, and cultural issues. Readers will appreciate the variety and be drawn in by the storytelling that leads us to believe that the horrors of the past are real, have not died, and are waiting to be reborn in the present. Recommended.

Contains: violence and sexual situations

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on February 3, 2021 by , Reply
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