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Book Review: The Little Season by S.C. Mendes

cover art for The Little Season by S.C. Mendes

The Little Season by S.C. Mendes

Blood Bound Books, 2024

ISBN: 9798878808958

Available: Kindle edition

Buy:  Amazon.com

 

You have to give S.C. Mendes credit: in a genre that has some repetitive plotlines, he always comes up with an original one, and this is no exception.  It’s quite imaginative, and trying to figure out how it ends will keep the reader busy till the final pages.  There are enough questions on life in this one that it would actually make for a good choice for a horror book club discussion group.  The book isn’t shallow: it has some good depth to it.  There are some pretty nifty illustrations, too!

 

The protagonist, Jordan Carter, is one of those aimless sorts drifting through life, just hopscotching from one job to the next, with no real clear plan, other than trying to help take care of his ailing mother.  He finds an ad that seems like a godsend– get paid to eat one meal, (sponsored by a company called Talons) give reactions, and pocket $600, with the possibility of further meals.  His problems start with the horrible physical and mental reactions he has to the meal, but the possibility of money is too good to turn down.  It becomes a mystery, with Jordan trying to find out why the food causes such odd reactions.

 

That’s where the story really hits its stride, since there are a few competing ideas as to why the meals cause reactions.  Jordan’s New Age, mystic, neighbor, Michelle, has a theory; the occult doctor in the story has another; and of course, there is the actual reason behind Talons, which the reader will get eventually.  This is a good example of combining a few different ideas into one new one, with parts of all included.  Most people have heard the idea of ‘good karma’ and ‘bad karma’: most people know that everything is made of atoms that vibrate under certain stimuli; and, most people have heard of demons and angels.  What Mendes has done is combine seemingly disparate ideas into one that makes perfect sense for a fiction story, and tied that in to a new definition of what exactly sin is, and why bad things happen in the world.  It’s a good amount of material to ponder over in a 150 page book, and it certainly holds your attention until the end.  Surprisingly, this actually has a sort of happy ending, not something usually found in a Mendes book!  The whole book is a strong contrast in light and shade, in terms of the characters.  None of them are really bad people, but they aren’t saints either.  They are what they seem to be– realistic people, each with there own strengths and flaws.

 

The bottom line is, this is quite good, and won’t bottom you out, like the author’s masterpiece The City did.  For readers of this book: for a bonus, try finding the Easter egg hidden in there referencing Mendes’s fellow author Lucy Leitner.  It’s well hidden, but it’s there.

Recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

 

Posted on August 28, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Suck-U-Bus (New Adult Occult) by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

cover art for Suck-U-Bus by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

Suck-U-Bus (New Adult Occult) by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

Blood Bound Books, 2023

ISBN: 9781940250588

Available::Paperback, KIndle edition

Buy: Amazon.com

 

 

This dark and crazy heavy metal horror is the first book co-written by two very good authors, S.C. Mendes and Nikki “Spleaze Queen” Noir.  The plot line is excellent:  a nice tweaking of the classic “we sold our souls for rock n’ roll’  trope.  How does it fare?  Well…make no mistake, it’s good, it just never feels like the overdrive gear kicks in and blows you away, which is what both authors do.

 

The band Suck-U-Bus (succubus), led by three women called the Mothers, promote their legend online and at shows.  After each show, three lucky winners get a meet-and -greet on the tour bus…with a demon, and they must have, um, carnal relations with it.  That’s the price for the band’s success.  The demon makes them famous, but needs to indulge in his devilish desires after each show.  Lisa Hummer and her brother Danny go to the show, and Danny gets chosen. Next thing, he is following the band everywhere, but NOT doing well.  Alarmed, Lisa goes after him, learning as she goes about the misfortunes of prior backstage winners.  In the process, she gets pulled into the dark legend-or-reality-that is Suck-U-Bus.

 

Those are the basics.  As far as writing, the two authors work well together.  It’s a good blend of the darkness Mendes usually brings to his writing, with the over-the-top insanity of Noir..  The pacing is decent, the story just never quite explodes all over the pages.  There is some real cleverness to it, though.  Lisa’s doubts about the reality of what is happening demonstrate this: is all the demon stuff true, or is this one of the best metal hoaxes ever, a gimmick to get money by using fake exorcisms and possessions? It’s over too soon, but the book does put together a nice final section and a banger of an ending: the final demon confrontation felt like classic Nikki Noir all the way.

 

Bottom line: it’s a decent collaboration, but I suspect the authors can pull a better one out of their trick bag. Let’s hope they do another.  Fun error: the song in the book should have been ‘Necropedophile,’ not ‘Necropedilia.’   Like the authors, I also happen to be quite familiar with the Cannibal Corpse discography.  Recommended. (The book. Well, the music too!)

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on January 24, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: D.O.A. III: An Extreme Horror Anthology edited by S.C. Mendes

 

DOA Vol. 3

D.O.A. III: An Extreme Horror Anthology edited by S.C. Mendes

Blood Bound Books, 2017

ISBN: 9781940250267

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy from:   Amazon.com

 

The tagline on the back cover of the book reads: “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll vomit.”  And, they aren’t kidding.  This is one of the most extreme collections ever published: 30 stories of raunchy, sex-driven, blood-drenched mayhem.  The stories are good, just prepare for revulsion.  This is for true hardcore lovers only– keep the kids away from this one.

 

The book’s pedigree is impressive, as Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, Wrath James White, Bentley Little, and Richard Matheson are among the authors represented.  The stories are generally entertaining and well-written.  If there’s a theme, most of the stories involve horrible people doing horrible things to each other.  No joke: there are some VERY ugly torture sequences in this book that make Eli Roth films seem like Disney movies.   There are some stories with a paranormal bent, which helps keep the book from getting too one-dimensional.  The originality is decent, although not to the level of the Welcome to the Splat Club series.  As we’ve come to expect from Blood Bound Books, there is an undercurrent of dark humor threaded through many of the stories, which helps balance out the overall story mood. Notable stories worth mentioning include:

 

“Hostile” is only four pages, but it is comedic genius.  Jeff Strand’s hilarious twist on the Hostel movie series proves that the worst situations can be amusing, when written correctly.

 

In “Taking Root”, a virulent strain of plant spores has contaminated Earth, turning people into… plants, of a sort.  Two survivors find that, unfortunately, an apocalypse still doesn’t change peoples’ predatory instincts, or their bad nature.  Despite sounding grim, it’s a light-hearted take on doomsday writing.  Plants growing out of a person’s rear can be funny!

 

In “Ritchie”, Jackson killed Ritchie the bully when he was a kid, but Ritchie has a bad habit of coming back from the dead once a year.  So, Jackson has to kill him, again.  And again, and again.  The fun part is, Ritchie’s injuries from each death carry over year to year, and he becomes less intimidating to the point of hilarity… but Ritchie may still have a trick or two up his sleeve…

 

 It’s worth mentioning that this isn’t ‘peek under the bed and close the curtains out of fear’ horror writing.  These aren’t scary, and aren’t meant to be.  This is straight-up extreme splat writing to the max.  

 

Bottom line: if the members of Cannibal Corpse and GWAR decided to write short stories instead of lyrics, then DOA III is probably what you would get.  Recommended for hardcore fans only.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on May 15, 2023 by , Reply
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