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Book Review: Everdead by Rio Youers

Everdead by Rio Youers

Audible Studios, 2013

ASIN: B00CPAMSY4

Available: Audiobook, MP3 CD

 

Luca, a nomadic vampire, is being pursued by the ancient original vampires. He finds himself on the beach front resort island of San Antonio,  where youths around the world come to drink, dance, and party.   Two vacationing partiers, Toby and Cass, come across Luca as he kills a young girl.  Furious at the interruption, Luca hunts down the couple to exact revenge.  

While Youers goes into Luca’s origin tale, he doesn’t try to paint him as a sympathetic victim. Rather, Youers shows Luca as a man who hounds another vampire to turn him, knowing full well that he will have to kill people to survive.   Youers does a good job of fleshing out the character of Toby, who has finally overcome his insecurities in approaching girls to finally meet Cass.  Everdead is a competently written vampire tale. It is currently not available in print format but is available in audiobook format.

Posted on December 14, 2018 by , Reply

Book Review: End Times by Rio Youers

End Times by Rio Youers
IUniverse, 2007
ISBN: 0595437869
Available: Hardcover, paperback, audiobook, MP3 CD

 

Scott is a man who has lived a hard, sad life. He suffers from an addiction to heroin. He is missing all of the fingers on both hands, and has to make do with only his thumbs, a fact that is disturbingly presented throughout the book. He is working as a journalist with peers who he doesn’t really like, and who don’t like him. The only thing good in his life seems to be his friend Sebby, a quadriplegic that Scott met at a drug rehab program. Then Mia, a mysterious Indian girl, steps into his life and changes everything. She sees him as he is, and still seems to love him. Mia becomes like a drug to his troubled mind, an addiction that he just can’t quit thinking about. Everything seems to be going his way until he finds out who Mia is– a dangerous mystery from his past that has come to the present with the purpose of making him pay for what he did to her. The story follows Scott from his life as a bum, trying to eke out an existence on the hard city streets, to his joining a dangerous and twisted cult that requires horrible sacrifices for their god, Voice, and then to his life as a writer and his journey into self-discovery and destiny. The story is written in first person, and is filled with pain and longing. At first I couldn’t stand the main character, his world and views being a far cry from my own, but as the novel progresses, he seems to change, becoming a character that I began to relate to and sympathize with. All of the characters are created with the utmost depth: they are dark and believable. This book touches on all the emotions. As I read Scott’s tale I felt his pain, love, hatred, longing, fear, and humor. End Times is a brutally unique work that surely deserves a place in any library, whether public or private.
Contains: Violence, Sex, Self Mutilation

Review by Bret Jordan

(Note: End Times is now in print available at Amazon.com)

Posted on December 12, 2018 by , Reply

Book Review: Seize the Night: New Tales of Vampiric Terror edited by Christopher Golden

Seize the Night: New Tales of Vampiric Terror edited by Christopher Golden

544 pages

Gallery Books 2015

ISBN-10: 1476783098

ISBN-13: 978-1476783093

 

When this reviewer first heard of a vampire anthology, expectations were tempered, to say the least. Vampires haven’t had teeth in years, so why would this collection be any different? Two words– Christopher Golden. In the anthologies Golden has edited, he has chosen fresh material with strong writing that overcomes the tired tropes of the horror genre. Previous themed anthologies he has edited, such as Monsters’ Corner, The New Dead, and 21st Century Dead have broken the confines of the expected, and Seize the Night bucks the trend of unimaginative stories about toothless, romantic,vampires. Golden challenged the writers within the pages to put their fangs to the sharpening stone and bite down into some serious flesh.

They responded.

What burns between the covers is a reason to care about the creatures of the night once again, a feat not easy to accomplish.  Nearly all of the tales here work here in establishing a sense of dread and fear, .Highlights include “Something Lost, Something Gained”, in which Seanan McGuire spins an eerie tale about a young girl in a storm. Her writing is swift and smooth. Kelley Armstrong’s “We Are All Monsters Here” envelops the reader in a claustrophobic event that puts the frights in human form. Leigh Perry’s “Direct Report” is a fascinating, chilling tale of a woman who awakens to a new personal world full of pain and despair, until she makes a discovery that turns the tables. Gary Braunbecks “Papercuts” is outstanding; it has to be the most unusual vampire tale in years, and it succeeds on all levels. Set in a bookstore, this is an imaginative story with very effective characterization. Finally, Rio Youers has a pair of stories that end the anthology in style, In all, Seize the Night has achieved the vision Golden imagined. Here’s to hoping that more writers will be inspired to put fear and dread back into the vampire genre, like those who accepted the challenge put forth here. Recommended for adult readers of vampire horror.

Reviewed by David Simms

 

Posted on January 7, 2016 by , Reply