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Book Review: The Rogue Mountains by Joshua Tarquinio

The Rogue Mountains by Joshua Tarquinio

Joshua Tarquinio, 2017

ISBN-13: 978-0999240212

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

Brothers, Pennsylvania is a small town nestled in the shadow of three tree covered peaks known as The Rogue Mountains.  The main industries are farming and hunting.  Brothers is considered to be the edge of the East, at least since the Events of Pittsburgh, 23 years ago, when the monsters moved in.  Hideous creatures dedicated to tearing humans limb from limb, these beasts live for eating, sleeping and making little monsters.  They have taken over The Rogue Mountains and infested them.

Mt. Fayette is home to The Witch: no one has seen her for years, and no one wants to.  Mt. Liston is where the Cave Worm lives: nobody that wants to stay sane or alive goes there.  Ever.  Devil’s Mountain is where the hunters go to work. They come into town for a week or two to get their thrills and trophies. When they visit, the monster population is pruned back, and the town gets to survive a little longer.  Times are changing though–  humans are not the only hunters these days.

The Rogue Mountains was a pretty good read.  I expected lots of monsters, guns, and general mayhem, and it delivered.  The plot was consistent and the pace flowed along with the action well.  I did think that it was a little long and drawn out. It could have used a little less romantic sub-plot and more action.  The descriptions were well done, and kept me tuned into the environment.  There were a lot of characters, but the author did a good job of making most of them distinctive, with different personalities and goals.  There were occasional typos, but not enough to break the flow of the story.  I really liked the unique situation that was set up at the start, and the author did a good job delivering on the promise.  I have not read any of this author’s work previously. Recommended for adult readers.

Contains: Adult Language, Swearing, Adult Situations, Sex, Suicide.

 

Reviewed by Aaron Fletcher

Book Review: Assimilation Protocol by Brian F.H. Clement

Assimilation Protocol by Brian F.H. Clement

Damnation Books, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-9950790-2-1

Available: Multiformat ebook, via Smashwords

 

Assimilation Protocol is the sequel to Brian Clement’s novel The Final Transmission (Damnation Books, 2013). The Final Transmission was reviewed and recommended by The Monster Librarian in 2015. Clement weaves elements of crime mystery, post-apocalyptic science fiction, and horror into both novels.  Although Assimilation Protocol can be read alone, it is best read together with the first novel.  Some of its characters continue from the first novel, and the plot of the second book is best understood as the struggle between the forces revealed at the end of the first novel.

 

In Clement’s first novel, set in the 13th century, a French knight returns from the Crusade and stumbles across an orgy.  Mistaking the celebrants’ sexual frenzy as part of a heretical religion, he slaughters all the men and women.   In reality, the victims are members of the Children of the Ninth Darkness.  With incantations and human sacrifice, the cult summons an extraterrestrial force that they call the Olog’lahai’kuhul.  Its purpose is to seed the universe with microscopic organisms called zooids.  On Earth, zooids infect humans, melding together human, animal and plant cells.  The resulting mutants are chimeras that mix the appearance and capabilities of the organisms.  The knight and his followers form another clandestine group called the Ordo Sanctus.  Its members seek to destroy the Children and use the zooids to gain power for themselves.

 

Eight hundred years later, an introverted police detective in Toronto and his research assistant discover that a series of disappearances and murders are human sacrifices by the Children of the Ninth Darkness.  The sacrifices create deadly mutants that can rapidly self-replicate.  Meanwhile, the Ordo Sanctus has developed into a worldwide cabal that controls biotech and pharmaceutical companies and private armies, and has infiltrated the Toronto police.  Their most powerful weapon is an indestructible cyborg, called the Cleaner.  The Cleaner stalks and eliminates members of the Children and other threats to the Ordo’s plan.  The Ordo succeeds in almost eradicating the Children in Toronto, and  creates its own zooids, which generate mutants or kill humans.  The Ordo plans to disperse these zooids in aerial canisters, stored in a warehouse. The detective inadvertently causes a warehouse explosion that spreads zooids throughout the city.  Much of Toronto burns, and many of its inhabitants are either incinerated, killed by the Ordo’s mutants, or transformed into mutants themselves.

 

In Clement’s second novel, the Ordo Sanctus’ plan is almost complete.  Worldwide, cities are ruined after 20 years of civil war and famine.  Survivors form groups of humans and mutants, most of whom struggle to survive in crumbling sections of the cities. The Ordo is now the Ordex.  It controls most of Toronto’s infrastructure, business and government.  The Ordex’s power and control reside in the city center, in a massive, sentient computer made of organic tissue and electronics.  The Ordex’s biotech company has developed cybernetic brain implants that allow humans and mutants to communicate almost telepathically with each other and with the computer network.  The Ordex’s hive-brain surveils these communications.

 

Thomas is the last resident of an orphanage in the Toronto suburbs.  He was brought there as a child 20 years ago, by a small splinter group of Ordo Sanctus members who secretly oppose the Ordex’s plan for world domination.  Thomas is not a mutant, but has a special ability to intuit other peoples’ intentions.  The orphanage is closing, and for the first time, Thomas must seek shelter and work outside. He wanders through the suburbs and meets gangs of humans and a menagerie of mutants with varying degrees of sentience and language.  Thomas’ bag of belongings contains a copy of the Encyclopedia Nefastus, a book of forbidden knowledge transcribed from the writings of the Children of the Ninth Darkness by the crazed French knight who slaughtered  them.  Unknown to Thomas, he and the Encyclopedia are sought by the Ordex, the Children of the Ninth Darkness, and the Ordex splinter group who hope to use Thomas and the book to achieve their goals.

 

Thomas meets Ren, a human-salamander chimera, who has martial arts abilities.  Together they travel through dangerous enclaves of mutants and outlaw gangs of humans, through a toxic zone where Ordex has dumped chemical wastes, and underground warrens of mutants and humans live in abandoned subway and sewer tunnels.  The Ordo Sanctus’ Cleaner survived the explosion, and is buried in a graveyard.  Resurrected, it continues its last mission to track down Thomas and the Encyclopedia.  The Ordex sends murderous mutants, including a walking, poisonous, giant fungus and a cyborg bio-unit with a myriad of powerful tentacles hidden in a biohazard suit, to track down Thomas and his book.  Thomas, Ren and members of the splinter group must somehow defeat everyone and everything hunting them, infiltrate the city center, and destroy the hive-brain.

 

Although Clement has several plot lines that interweave throughout the two books, they are fast-paced, coherent and move toward a satisfying finale.  The characters are well-drawn, clearly displaying qualities of bravery, loyalty, determination, greed, cunning, viciousness or bloodthirstiness.  Some characters are in both novels, but main characters that are only in one novel have connections that are not revealed until the denouement.  Clement was a filmmaker and screenwriter before becoming an author.  His ability to create vivid and dramatic scenes reflects this experience. Highly recommended

Contains: gore, violence

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

Book Review: Grave Predictions: Tales of Mankind’s Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian, and Disastrous Destiny edited by Drew Ford

Grave Predictions: Tales of Man’s Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian, and Disastrous Destiny edited by Drew Ford

Dover Publications, 2016

ISBN: 9780486802312

Available: paperback

 

In Grave Predictions, Drew Ford has selected some of the best representations of post-apocalyptic and dystopian short fiction available: stories both beautiful and terrifying. These include tales from some of the most outstanding authors of the genre, such as Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, and Ursula K. Le Guin.  Each story is far ahead of its time, with its own distinct presentation of the future, and evokes a range of emotions from the reader. It’s amazing how science fiction writers have more of a pulse on the future than most people care to recognize.

Eugene Mouton’s “The End of the World,” first published in 1872, presents a tragic story about global warming before it even had a name, and culminates in the proclamation that “THE EARTH IS DEAD.” In W. E. B. Du Bois’ “The Comet” (1920), Jim Davis, an African-American man, is sent down to the vaults on a task by the bank president, only to emerge to cold, dead world. It’s reminiscent of the Twilight Zone’s “Time Enough at Last” in that respect. As he makes his way down the city streets he finds Julia, a wealthy white woman, who is seemingly the other survivor. The theme of racial tensions and the breaking down and reconstruction of barriers is central to this story. Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” (1951) focuses on a writer who walks aimlessly through the city at night when he is stopped by robotic police for aberrant behavior. No one walks around the streets anymore when they have the warm glow of their televisions screens, after all. “Upon the Dull Earth” (1954), by Philip K. Dick is the tragic story of Silvia, Rick, and the fate of the world. Silvia summons angels, believing they are her ancestors who will someday usher her home. She intends to use lamb’s blood, but when she accidentally draws her own blood, they appear to take her home. Rick cannot accept her death, and tries to bring her back, even though it may mean the destruction of his world. In Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s “2 B R 0 2 B” (1962), the United States population has been  limited to forty million people: someone must die in order for someone else to be born. Edward Wehling, Jr.’s wife is about to have triplets, but there is only one volunteer for euthanasia. Desperate, he finds a last minute solution to ensure his children will live. There is a witness to Edward’s predicament, who makes a fateful decision as well.

Other titles in this anthology include Arthur C. Clarke’s “No Morning After” (1954); Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967); Urusla K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973); Brian M. Stableford’s “The Engineer and the Executioner” (1976); Stephen King’s “The End of the Whole Mess” (1986); Joe R. Lansdale’s “Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back” (1992); Greg Bear’s “Judgment Engine”; Mark Samuels’ “The Black Mould” (2011); Ramsey Campbell’s “The Pretence” (2013); and Carmen Maria Machado’s “Inventory” (2013). Highly recommended.

Contains: racial epithets, abuse, body horror, disturbing imagery

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker