Review of ‘Vampires, Wine and Roses’

Vampires, Wine and Roses
John Richard Stephens (editor)
Sterling Publishing
August, 2008
ISBN: 9781435108325
366 pages
Horror Stories

So you’ve had it with the sexy vampires who have been walking the earth for centuries only to fall head over heels for a pubescent teenybopper girl? Ever wonder why it is that the vampires of old have become so, well, metro-sexual? If so, then Vampires, Wine and Roses is the book for you (and any other true vampire aficionado).

Vampires, Wine and Roses is a collection of poems, short stories, story excerpts and song lyrics. Each has a vampiric twist that is sometimes expected but at other times comes completely out of left field. Who would have thought that William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet would feature a vignette worth including?

Rubbing shoulders with Anne Rice, the grand dame or all things vampire, Ray Bradbury, Lord Byron and Sting, the topic of the bloodthirsty undead gets the royal treatment. Plenty of other heavy hitters of the horror genre pay homage to the vampire and – best of all – there is not a teenybopper in sight.

What makes Vampires, Wine and Roses a must-read is the earthy back-to-basic approach the stories take. There is no winsome lusting after the eternally young but instead it is a depiction of the animated raw corpse – dead, yet alive – that must lure others and destroy them to survive another night. Some of the stories have you almost smelling the fresh soil of the churchyard – just before the vampire sets out for its nightly dinner.

Humans are no longer the love interests but that which Stoker and those who went before him intended them to be: food. The careful reader will notice that even the order of the stories is not a haphazard choice; like a garden path that gradually descends into a narrower and even narrower dark alley, the stories draw the reader further and further away from the teen vampire image and back to its dark, murderous source. The book ends with a story by the grandmaster of horror himself: Stephen King.

Vampires, Wine and Roses is a wonderful book for any true vampire lore aficionado. The teen vampire fan, well, she’ll probably not ‘get’ the stories but it is always worth a try. With so much literature contained within the book’s pages, this is a great read for anyone (except, perhaps, for impressionable young minds who are not quite ready for the dark recesses of Edgar Allen Poe’s psyche).
***
For the sake of full disclosure: let the kind readers please take notice that I received a copy of Vampires, Wine and Roses – free of charge – from Mr. Clayton Bye.

X-Factor by Don MacPhail

X-Factor
Don MacPhail
Published 2009
ISBN: 9781449904166
Trade Paperback
282 pages
Horror

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Ranging from the Salem witch trials of the late 1600’s to modern day, X-Factor is a door through which we may safely watch the beginning of the end of everything. But this horrific glimpse will not be delivered passively. No, author Don MacPhail shows us a demon at war with himself: Does he finally destroy the bloodline of the evil man who burned his innocent mother at the stake as a witch? Or does he take one of those 3 people and remake him in his own image, creating a new X-Factor, a demon possessing both good and evil, with the free will to choose his future within the hierarchies of hell and who can survive in other dimensions for short periods of time? And can this demon, Toland MacDunn, manage either of his goals before the gates of Heaven and Hell slam shut and the Destroyer of Worlds rips apart all that lies between?

To answer this, we must watch as Toland offers master criminal Jack Sullivan revenge on all his enemies in exchange for his humanity. This is a painful thing to witness. We want Jack to be better than he is. We want him to beat The Devil. Then there’s Toland. He has already given up his humanity for revenge. We understand his hatred, and in that understanding we also want him to be better than he is.

Tough luck. No one in this unique examination of Hell and The End of Days is innocent. The town of Black Rock seems to be a pit of thieves, whores and drug addicts. Perhaps this is the reason that Kayutu, Mother of Chaos, begins her direct attacks on mankind here. Yes, she has many children who will ensure her overall success, but Black Rock is her personal hunting ground.

X-Factor is a self-published book. I bring this up for two reasons. First, the book shows superior editing with respect to other books of its kind. The only suggestion for improvement I could make is a little more diligence in the line editing. Second, it’s my opinion that the structure and content of the book are too different from the mainstream to have come from a big publishing house. This is a good thing: X-Factor justifies self-publishing. Don MacPhail should be proud of his accomplishment.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2010

Ghost Road Blues by Jonathan Maberry

Ghost Road Blues
by Jonathan Maberry
Pinnacle Fiction, 2006
ISBN: 0-7860-1815-1
Mass Market Paperback
472 pages
Horror/Supernatural

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Ghost Road Blues assumes its title from a song in the repertoire of the blues playing guitarist known as the Bone Man. 30 years ago the Bone Man killed Ubel Griswald, a serial killer who had been terrorizing the small town of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania. Two unfortunate pieces of evil left their mark that fateful day: first, a vigilante mob killed the Bone Man, having been convinced he was the serial killer, and second, this happened before the Bone Man could finish an important ritual that would ensure Griswald stayed dead. Why was he worried about this? It turns out that Griswald wasn’t just evil; he was a werewolf.

Now the Bone Man has returned. He’s learned a few things the townspeople of Pine Deep need to know, mainly that evil never dies: it waits. And while it waits, evil gets stronger. The thing he buried in the mud of Dark Hollow so long ago is no different. It has plans for Pine Deep that are about to come to fruition. Evil plans. Deadly plans. Horrors that will break minds and souls just as easily as they break bodies.

Bram Stoker Award-winning Jonathan Maberry builds characters and atmosphere with skills reminiscent of Stephen King and Robert McCammon. The setting, weather, characters and their dreams are all brought to life in a way that leaves the reader on edge, building the expectation of violence and obscene horrors to such a level that one literally tears through the last half of the book.

And you won’t be disappointed. Maberry delivers up horror: old and cold; new, hot and bloody; in frightened mind and tortured body; even by hand, teeth, gun and truck. But Ghost Road Blues is just the beginning. “The Man” in the swamp has only made the opening moves of his elaborate plan to destroy Pine Deep. You see, Jonathan Maberry has created a web of possibilities that readers will have identified by the end of the book but won’t get to see resolved unless they read the next two books in The Pine Deep Trilogy.

Maberry sets the hook deep and hard. You will not get away.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

Review of ‘The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane’

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
Katherine Howe
Hyperion
ISBN: 9781401341336
371 pages
April, 2010

Most everyone knows about the Salem witch trials. Copious authors have regaled the reading audience with flights of fancy, factually accurate narratives and occasionally also factually inaccurate tomes that were as ridiculous as they were erroneous. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe fits into none of these genres.

Its premise is compelling: imagine for a moment that the notions of witchcraft from 1681 were correct. Consider what would happen if this type of magic was actually real – and don’t let today’s ideas on the subject allow your mind to bastardize the concept into something akin Cinderella’s fairy godmother. Therefore, what could old magic that relied on inner power as much as it required egg whites and salves accomplish today – had it been allowed to thrive?

If your mind can conceive of this line of thought, it is ready for the exciting ride that is The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.

Plot

Fast forward to 1991, when Harvard grad student Connie Goodwin prepares for her doctoral dissertation. While rummaging through her grandmother’s old house near Salem, she embarks on a search to put a face with the name Deliverance Dane, who turns out to be an accused witch. Before long, she is on the trail of the witch’s personal recipe book, but a third party is also making a play for the manual – and he is not playing fair.

The Good Thing about Mixed Reviews

It is interesting to note that The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is receiving mixed reviews. Generally speaking, readers either loved the book or really didn’t care for it; usually there is not much in between. I must confess that I cherish books with such a reception.

After all, if a book fails to engage, it is likely to only receive rave or even tepid reviews. On the other hand, if a read has a real hook, it solicits strong responses on either side of the spectrum. It is fair to say that Katherine Howe succeeded in hooking the audience, one way or another.

Okay … But Is It Good?

This opinionated reader loved the book. Colonial expressions, scholarly research, interpersonal drama and just the lightest touch of Chick-lit make this a winning read. It earns a designation of horror novel, not because of ghastly, gruesome and blood-soaked story elements, but precisely because of the events that the author only hints at. The realistic yet conscientiously un-sensational gallows scene drives home this point.

Deliverance Dane is not a character any reader will likely forget too quickly. Her integrity, quiet dignity, poise and also inability to escape a mob that is crazed by fears and superstitions make her a tragic and hopeful heroine all at once. Modern-day Connie may be less memorable but even so provides the striking “then and now” counterpoint that makes the initial premise work.

Can I Buy One for Grandma? (What about the minister’s wife?)

If grandma (or the minister’s wife) enjoys historical fiction peppered with modern-day whodunit, this is the book to buy. Although there is a bit of nudity, it is part of the storyline and as such not at all objectionable.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is spellbinding in more ways than one.
***
For the sake of full disclosure: let the kind reader please take notice that I received a copy of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane – free of charge – from Mr. Clayton Bye.

The Store by Bentley Little

The Store
by Bentley Little
Signet, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-451-19219-6
Mass Market Paperback
431 pages
Horror

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A big box discount store is coming to the small town of Juniper. Its name is simply The Store. It plays ball in a manner similar to WalMart, demanding concessions from the town in return for building there. The problem with The Store (other than the entire construction is built with blood in the mixture—unusual injuries, a death, the dead birds and animals found on the lot every morning) is that once it is established the demand for concessions doesn’t stop. And heaven help you if you get in its way. Businesses are bought out, store owners disappear, competitors burn to the ground and some simply pack up and move away. Before long The Store runs council, the police force, the fire department, the school, the radio station and the neswspaper. You buy what it wants you to buy, and you do what it tells you to do (an example would be a curfew of ten o’clock pm that is established and maintained by The Store’s police force. An easy way to kill off the local bar).

And if you work at The Store? Well… no one wants to talk about it. They’re too afraid. They can’t just quit–they’re contracts forbid it. They know the things they are asked or forced to do are wrong, but somehow they can’t stop.

The Store reminds me of Stephen King’s Needful Things, a tale about a store owner who can create glimmers (make people see what they want to see rather than what they’ve actually bought) and in return for the priceless treasures he sells to his customers at unbelievable prices, he demands one trick or errand. These favours all fit into a plan that sees many townspeople killed and the town itself turned into a disaster area.

Now, in Needful Things, you know the store owner is bad. He may even be the Devil himself. In Bentley Little’s book, The Store founder, Newman King is definitely not human, and his stores seem to be entities in their own right. How else can people who hate the store suddenly become staunch supporters? Why on earth would an 18 year-old woman accept being raped to curry favour for her sister? Why would she kill her superior in order to get his job? How can the entire employee base pray to Newman King each day in The Store Chapel, and reaffirm each day that the store comes before anything or anyone in your life? These things just aren’t believable unless you accept that The Store is somehow a living extension of Newman King.

Watch the novel’s protagonist, Bill Davies, as his town is devoured by the evil store. He slowly comes around from dread and hatred until The Store brings him into the fold. Can he beat it from the inside? Or will he be one of The Store’s strange victims, disappearing into its bowels, never to be seen again.

The Store by Bram Stoker winner Bentley Little is interesting, if a little slow. But as I mentioned in my review of Stephen King’s The Dome, you’re reading about the demise of an entire town; it’s going to take the story a little longer to develop.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

Lots of buzz for Luke Romyn’s The Dark Path

The Dark Path
by Luke Romyn
Wild Child Publishing, 2009
ISBN -13: 978-1-935013-93-8
154 pages
eBook
Horror

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The Dark Man is coming, and those in the know are ever so glad it’s not for them. Also known as Vain, he’s an assassin of the highest order. A visit from The Dark Man is the same as a visit from death.

There are a number of reasons The Dark Man is named Vain. The author will explain the most obvious one, so I won’t spoil the surprise. I don’t know if he meant it or not, but the author’s choice of name for his assassin also fits the Latin origin of the word vain: empty, without substance. For Vain truly is empty. He has blocked out his previous life so well, nothing remains but a few nightmare images which visit him every night. He’s emotionless, killing without compassion, fear, joy or remorse. Vain doesn’t even use the money he gets for his work. He simply kills: it’s not only what he does, it’s who he is.

So, when a man named Priest (are you getting the feeling we’re dealing with archetypes here?) ruthlessly breaks through Vain’s inner armour, reminding him of the good man he once was, in order to enlist his help in saving a boy who is the next messiah, we hold our breath and wait.

The Dark Path doesn’t disappoint. Luke Romyn has written a story about redemption earned. Vain, The Dark Man, takes an equally dark path to hell and back in his efforts to protect a child from certain death. The assassin also fights a metaphorical as well as an actual battle for his soul and for the power to fight his enemies: demons, hell-spawned beasts, the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and the devil’s machinations.

Romyn’s story is brutal, to the point and is told in a way that keeps you from comfortably assuming the antihero will win the day and, thus, his personal redemption, right up to and including the end of the book.

If you like a fast moving, thrilling fantasy that keeps you thinking, then The Dark Path by Luke Romyn belongs on your bookshelf.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2010

Here Be Dragons by John B. Rosenman

Here Be Dragons
by John B Rosenman
eBook ISBN: 9781926640624

Price: $ 2.50
Genre: Science Fiction
Sub Genre: Horror
Short Story of 5500 words
Heat rating: 1
Edited by Lauren Gilbert
Cover Artwork by Dawné Dominique
Print ISBN: 9781926647388

Buy Here

About the book:
From space, the planet Mira looks safe and peaceful, but mysterious “dragons” slaughtered the fourteen members of the first expedition. Captain Jordan, leading the second expedition to investigate this tragedy, will do anything to avoid more bloodshed.

After their ship lands, they discover a lovely Eden. While there is no sign of the previous crew, soon a deadly snake enters the garden. Crew members start to die in horrible ways, and Jordan fears his officers have been replaced with clever imitations by an unimaginably alien monster with supremely evil powers.

The question is, what will happen when Jordan and the monster finally come face to face?

Excerpt:
He smiled. The lieutenant was such a gentle, honest man, that she couldn’t imagine him hurting a flea. With Rob Adams, what you saw was what you got. Unlike other men, he’d never hurt or disappointed her.

Still, if they were caught, their affair would probably bring them both a court-martial. So she had to be careful even with him.

Troubled, she turned back to the scope while his hands gently began to massage her shoulders. One descended and caressed her breast. She pulled away. Ordinarily she would have liked it, but something about him seemed wrong.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

She shivered. “I…I’m not sure. You seem different somehow.”

“Different? What do you mean?” His hand found her breast and started to caress it again.

“I can’t explain it. You’re just…not the same.”

His hand froze. He hissed, a strange sound that made her skin crawl. “No matter how hard I try,” he said, “you never accept me.”

Jason Dark, Ghost Hunter: Theatre of Vampires

Jason Dark, Ghost Hunter
Volume 2: Theatre of Vampires
Guido Henkel
Thunder Peak Publishing, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-9843891-1-7
Chap Book
61 Pages
Paranormal/Horror

I just finished reading Book 2 in Guido Henkel’s new horror series: Jason Dark, Ghost Hunter. A Gothic piece entitled Theatre of Vampires, the story is a quick and interesting read. Because the story is so short it’s hard to give you an outline without spoilers. Let’s just say that a friend of Jason’s returns to London after a 3 year absence and invites him to watch a bizarre play about vampires. The vampires are, of course, real, and Jason is soon involved in a strange, surprisingly personal case.

A story set in the winter during the time and in the world of Sherlock Holmes, the short volume contains surprisingly well-drawn characters and a solid plot. The hook or revelation is a good one that caught me completely by surprise. That doesn’t happen very often. I would have no problem paying the $2.99 USD retail price for this entertaining little book. One note: I counted four grammatical errors, which is four too many in a work of this size.

For those of you who don’t know, Guido Henkel is a long-time game developer with many credits to his name (Planescape: Torment, Realms of Arkania and Lords of Doom for example). After working for several companies, often as founder or CEO, Henkel now heads up (and, I suspect, owns) G3 Studios, LLC, which is an independent developer and publisher of games. Thunder Peak Publishing is an imprint of this company.

I would think the background mentioned above would provide fertile ground for a fellow interested in writing about the fantastic, the paranormal and the horrific. I’m looking for more from Mr. Henkel.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

Review of ‘Blood Oath’

Blood Oath
Christopher Farnsworth
Penguin Group (USA)
ISBN: 978-0-399-15635-9
390 pages
May, 2010
Vampires/Fiction

Imagine if the president of the United States had an ace in the hole in the form of a bona fide vampire who – by blood oath – is indentured to protect the holder of the office and follow his lawful orders. Now go further and consider the rumblings of Roswell – cleverly explained away as weather balloons – as actually being something far more sinister, such as a supernatural dark side that is every bit as real as al-Qaeda. If the reader’s mind can accept these premises, it will embrace the tale of Nathaniel Cade, his human handlers and the horror that is barely kept at bay on a daily basis.

Christopher Farnsworth is a well known L.A. scriptwriter and former journalist, but Blood Oath actually represents his novel debut. On the President’s Vampire website, the author muses about his love-hate relationship with the vampiric character. He cites a lifelong fascination – aptly blamed on Scooby Doo and ‘those meddling kids’ – for his deep-seated aversion to the evil that the mythical characters represent. This translates into the unique methodology of featuring Cade, the novel’s hero.

Open any current tome on the genre – dare I say “Twilight?” – and without fail the vampire hero is misunderstood, romantic and inevitably rescues a damsel in distress that soon becomes a love interest. Note so in Blood Oath. Vampire Cade is not misunderstood; he is a predator who views humans in the same way that a Texas rancher might look at cattle: livestock.

Even so, in a nod to his former humanity, the vampire has decided to abstain from human blood and instead feasts on animal products entirely. From this vantage point, Blood Oath is refreshingly different and gets down to the business of horror, not late-night teeny bopper swoon fests.

What really makes this book work is the integration of other horror genres as well. There is the concept of the Frankenstein monster that is intermingled with the very real horror of the war against terror. Religious relics feature in the book, as does the typical human quest for eternal youth and perhaps even immortality.

This is a fascinating read that should make it onto the shelves of any vampire aficionado (maybe the romantic teens might learn a thing or two about the immortal objects of their desires, too).

Some of the scenes are rather graphic and I advise against enjoying the book with lunch or dinner. It is not a good holiday present for the minister’s wife or grandma (unlike they share your tastes in reading materials). For the Goth, mystery lover, vampire aficionado and horror genre devotee on your gift list, on the other hand, Blood Oath is a surefire winner.

***
For the sake of full disclosure: let the kind readers please take notice that I received a copy of Blood Oath – free of charge – from Mr. Clayton Bye.

The Garden of Ghosts by Scott Thomas

The Garden of Ghosts
by Scott Thomas
Dark Regions Press, 2008
Trade Paperback
ISBN 978-1-888993-62-2
148 pages
Ghost Stories/Horror

Buy now at Dark Regions Press
Buy now at Amazon.com


The Garden of Ghosts: a collection of Victorian ghost stories linked together by the common factor of vegetation. Does it work? Absolutely. The tone of this marvelous book is earthy, visceral and surprisingly committed to its theme.

From the uncomfortable humour of The Ghost who Nibbled Fennel to the wonderful A Night on Little Orchard, Scott Thomas skillfully takes us back to a simpler time, when people had no trouble envisioning terrible things that go bump in the night. And he writes as if he is talking to an old friend, toning down the rigid, stilted and (may I say) boring style of most traditional writers of the supernatural.

I’ll tell you a secret: I’m not a fan of ghost stories. I groan when someone sends me such a book to read and review. Nor will you find many ghost stories in my own library. They don’t scare me, most are as dry as dust and none offer up the vibrant entertainment we all look for in stories. Yet, here comes Scott Thomas with a beautiful book of stories that just happen to be of the ghostly variety. Bad things happen to good and bad people alike. Not all ghosts are interested in haunting, nor are they mere spectres; this author reveals ghosts with a need for real shoes, who have sharp teeth and fire rifles with real bullets. Then there’s a truly unique telling of Jack the Ripper’s tale, which is all about the supernatural, but it didn’t feel like a ghost story, and it was a wonderful piece of entertainment.

I read the final story in The Garden of Ghosts and closed the book with a wonderful sense of fullness and satisfaction, of having been given something both substantial and pleasing to the soul. This is a collection of short stories I will return to again and again.

Thank you Mr. Thomas.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye