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Book Review: The Mind Altar: A Novel of Subterranean Terror by Michael Just

The Mind Altar: A Novel of Subterranean Terror by Michael Just

Giddings Street Press, 2018

ISBN 13:9781530441297

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

The Mind Altar: A Novel of Subterranean Terror by Michael Just is head and shoulders above most novels in the science fiction, horror and mystery genres. The author describes scenes in just the right amount of detail to place the reader within the story. He reveals the personalities and motives of the characters gradually, keeping the reader engaged. His plot has twists and turns that keep the reader continually guessing about the story’s outcome. The ending is no less complicated and intriguing, seemingly doubling back on itself three times.

Taking place in the near future, the U.S. government sends a team of black-ops mercenaries to the desert in the Four Corners region of the country. Communications with a secret facility buried in a mountain, called Bright Angel, went dead a few weeks earlier. Each of the seven-team members has a special skill, and knows only part of their mission. Our protagonist, Eurydice Wiles, is an expert in resurrecting programs and data from crashed computers. She is buttoned up, avoids emotional contact and has no memories from the age of seven to eight.

As Eury and her teammates explore the myriad of Bright Angel’s rooms and caverns, they discover hollowed-out, plasticized bodies with no heads, preserved brains cut in-half, and dozens of crisp, burned bodies. All computer hard drives have been smashed. Eury intuits that the entire tunneled mountain is a computer and that ghostly visions and voices are part of its programs. Did the staff and inmates go mad and kill each other? One-by-one the team members are dying. What will Eury and the other survivors find when they get to the Mind Altar at the heart of the mountain? Highly recommended.

Contains: Mild sexual situations, moderate gore.

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

Book Review: Black Mad Wheel by Josh Malerman

Black Mad Wheel by Josh Malerman
Ecco, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-0062259684
Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

When Bird Box hit the horror scene three years ago, readers discovered a new voice. Lyrical, rhythmic, and brutal, Josh Malerman wrote like a musician carving away at an album of great songs. The result was a true original that should have won the Bram Stoker award. Malerman is the singer and guitarist of the rock band The High Strung, and in this second novel, Malerman has used his experience to pen a novel about the power of music, both good and bad. Black Mad Wheel is incredibly accessible, with strong characters and a narrative that flows like the best classic rock and roll.

In the post-World War II era, the members of The Danes, a band with a one-hit-wonder, are looking for their next big thing. They find it when an officer from military intelligence makes them an offer that could put them all back on the path to wealth. The officer claims there is a “sound” emanating from the African desert that can disarm any weapon, but can also destroy a human in a horrific manner. The band accepts, and heads to the desert to find the source of the sound.

Meanwhile, in a parallel story, Phillip Tonka awakes from a long coma in a strange hospital, unable to move. Nearly every bone in his body is broken. He is a miracle to those who care for him. Ellen, his nurse, begins to unravel the mystery of what is happening to him, and why he is still alive and healing at a rate that is physically impossible. Both stories weave around each other like a great vocal riding atop a harmony, a guitar riff alongside a backbeat rhythm that can transform the simplest of songs into something magical. What the band finds in the desert is something most won’t see coming; Phillip’s tale is both mysterious and thrilling, and, as Malerman develops the bond between the man and his nurse, heartwarming as well.
Black Mad Wheel proves that Josh Malerman wasn’t a one-hit wonder. The story is just as enticing as Bird Box, with as much heart as horror. Do not miss this. Highly recommended. This ranks near the top of any thriller written about music.

Reviewed by Dave Simms