jdhacker's reviews
1422 reviews

Trade Yer Coffin For A Gun by Jonathan Raab, Mer Whinery, Mat Fitzsimmons

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

3.5

Trade Yer Coffin is a departure from the previous short story collection of Whinery's I've read, though there was a fairly long form novella in a previous collection.
Like that previous longer form piece, Trade Yer Coffin does not fail to deliver in fast paced, believable action, characters who's internal life and relationship to others feels real and genuine, and a perfect balance of horror and magic. Its startling to me that Whinery has not broken through to a wider audience as his work always feels like the perfect balance of genre and accessibility to appeal to main stream audiences as well as genre and indie die hards.
Whether you're looking for western horror, dark magic, or something regional, you can't go wrong with this release from one of Oklahoma's best currently writing native sons.

Priest-Kings of Gor by John Norman

adventurous hopeful tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Norman is at his best when he's doing something interesting worldbuilding and exploring the kind of more bonkers idea of his sword and planet world. He's at his worst when he spends literal chapters on a repetitive back and forth between two characters or an internal monologue about his weird misogyny and slavery. And boy to we get both here. There are literal ten page passages of those ridiculous conversations between slave and master while other characters stand on silently. But we also get some really great stuff like, holy hell I didn't expect the Priest Kings to be giant bugs! And the culture of the Nest, both at the beginning and what it evolves into are fascinating. Similarly, *when* there's action its always punchy and engaging.

The Crypt of Blood: A Halloween TV Special by Jonathan Raab

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

More of a chapbook, with several very short inter-related pieces as well as a few others not completely connected.
Like much of Raab's work it touches on local access, in this case television and not radio. There is some interesting 4th wall breaking interplay between layers of story, reality, and what is real though it never really feels like it comes together for me.

The Hillbilly Moonshine Massacre by Jonathan Raab

adventurous dark funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

I don't know that I've read a book more embracing of the high strange and fortean than this bonkers novel.
That isn't the best part of, or even what makes, the book good. Raab's Cecil Kotto, while entertaining, can be too much at times as can the wild ramblings about conspiracy theories. What is excellently done within this framework though is the exploration of how society uses up and spits back out many members of our armed forces. The challenges both internal and external faced by soldiers in active conflict returning to civilian life. Similarly, there's great discussion of law enforcement overreach and use of force nestled in the otherwise silly narrative.

Outlaw of Gor by John Norman

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

You know, I keep expecting to *not* like these books. In point of fact, I generally hit points that put me on the edge of setting aside the series entirely. Sometimes that's long winded passages about how Goreans measure time, sometimes that's the pretty objectionable endorsement of extreme misogyny and slavery. But then you hit parts like 'We are of one chain', and I can't help but love what John Norman is writing. Its like the old saying goes, people are more than one thing, and contain multitudes. In the case of creatives, sometimes that's reflected in the work they generate. I would say, so far at least, this series is worth sticking with and sticking through the parts that you may find more objectionable parts for some of the brilliant gems you're going to come across.

Camp Ghoul Mountain Part VI: The Official Novelization by Jonathan Raab

challenging dark funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Camp Ghoul Mountain is an amazing book, though difficult to describe briefly. Horror novel, novelization of an 80s style slasher franchise movie that never was with alternating chapters of analysis and documentary style background context of the said film very much like what Orrin Grey gives us about real world horror films. But we've also got anti-capitalist american system messaging, aliens, the overall embrace of the high strange and fortean as one familiar with Raab's work might expect...and a whole lot of weed smoking. My father would have loved everything about this novel, and I can think of nothing better I could have chosen to read on the weekend that is the anniversary of his loss.

The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

adventurous challenging funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

A novel in three parts, spanning quite a few years. The first part is set on Earth, the second in the alternate universe we're drawing energy from, and the third on the moon. The second part is some very interesting world building, with some really novel notions about a completely alien life form. The structure within that part also mirrors the tripartite nature of the alien life form. Though I think the first part is probably the best written, though a lot of the drama is driven by the sort of politicking and jockeying that is going to be most familiar to those in academia. While the third part I think poses some of the most interesting ideas about people and human civilization, the writing is perhaps the most stilted...especially the writing for the one prominent woman in the book.
Over all, interesting, but not a must read.

Dark Celebrations by Calvin Demmer

adventurous dark funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I picked up Dark Celebrations not because of previous exposure to Calvin Demmer's work, or because of a recommendation per se, but rather because on the whole I liked the collections Duane at Planet X Publications was putting together and this was one of few I didn't have. Speaking strictly about the publishers work, the cover art is great, but the line spacing and font size are both on the larger size, leading the book to be probably at least a third longer than in page count than it probably needs to be. So, it'll read much faster than you might be expecting as a reader!
Its interesting that Demmer and Duane went with essentially two themes for Dark Celebrations. The first is related to the title, each entry is supposed to correspond with a holiday or cultural celebration of some kind, though some of those are a little questionable. I'm not I'd classify spring break, prom, or a couple other of these as 'holidays' per se. But hey, the author is South African, I can easily see how these *look* like holidays for Americans. Secondly and less explicitly stated are 'monsters' as an overarching theme. I'd seen it implied elsewhere that the focus was 'classic' monsters...your vampires, zombies, ghosts, werewolves, even mummies, etc. Which are certainly here. There are also some neat things done with some nonstandard 'monsters' like mermaids, witches, aliens, what might be a dragon or maybe a fire elemental (or something else, its not really said), and an unfortunate end story including Cthluhu and also seeming to exclude any semblance of a holiday. 
There are some weak entries at the beginning to stumble through before you get to more enjoyable material. The opener, 'Hungry Ghosts' felt particularly weak and the behavior and dialogue a bit nonsensical. 'Labor Day Hunt', our vampire story, was terrible but also wasn't great and feels like its not bringing anything interesting to the vampire table. There is a weird easter egg that connects to the final Cthulhu story. I'm not really clear if this was an accident, laziness in naming, or an attempt to try to create some sort of unified setting for these stories. If the latter is the case, I'm not really sure it works as the potentially shared locale is only mentioned in two stories explicitly with a third story referencing most (but not all) of the stories happening in the same world. As it stands, it feels like an afterthought or something that should have been omitted. I found 'Thanks Sinning' (devils), 'Three Dead Men' (mummies), 'Dying Valentine' (witches), 'Happy Dark Year (mermaids), and 'She Will Rise' (ghosts again) to be the strongest entries, with the latter three being the real stars of the collection. Both 'Unidentified Fatherly Object' (aliens) and 'Independence Delayed' (cthulhu) are unfortunately weak closing entries.
All in all, not a bad collection, though the best meat is in the middle.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

adventurous dark hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

Not a bad book, and I see why it was popular, but...
I had about 3 false starts with this since a copy found its way onto my shelves. Sometimes that ends up well, the timing just not being quite right to really dive headlong into a book at first. More often, its just a sign that a book isn't going to grab me at all. Unfortunately the latter was the case here. The world itself is a interesting creation. The four London's how they interact, various subsets of magic. I could have stood for quite a bit more, or more detailed, worldbuilding in fact. Maybe more about how the London's interact historically, more about the broader worlds than *just* the city, maybe more about the magic itself because I feel like we barely got information on two-ish types of magic, and even that tended to be pretty repetitive and brief. The characters themselves just weren't that interesting to me. Not their interpersonal conflicts, their internal conflicts, or the conflicts with the broader world/the plot. It also felt a surprisingly light and fast read for its length and the type of fantasy setting I assumed I was in for. It almost felt like I was watching a tv show or movie...the pacing, the surface level details of the world, the repetitive nature of a lot of the magic, the not exactly flat but fairly uninteresting characters. And maybe I was? It seems as though a pilot script for pitching at least was written by the author either around the same time as or withing less than a year of the book. Maybe that was the plan all along...make something that can be used to supplement a pitch and tie-in to sales if/when the movie or show gets made. I'm speculating...it could also just be someone who's strength *is* writing for the screen writing a novel instead? Anyway, I'll skip the rest of the series, and unless they end up free at some point, probably anything else by Schwab. But this could very well be to your, and is in many cases to someone else's, tastes.

Are You Loathsome Tonight?: A Collection of Short Stories by Popy Z. Brite, Poppy Z. Brite

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I've read that this is probably not the best volume of Poppy Z. Brite's work, and while I'm not extensively familiar I can certainly see that being the case. This is a pretty scattershot collection of (I believe) all previously published short stories without much in the way of unifying theme. Oh, the lackluster and frankly confusing introduction by Peter Straub rattles off a few themes he felt the collection focused on, but as far as I'm aware those are over-arching themes of (at a minimum) all of Brite's horror genre work.
I don't wish to mislead though, the writing here as one might expect is amazing. The subject matter, however, my not be to everyone's tastes. That's actually the reason for my relatively low rating compared to quality of the writing itself, a lot of the stories were just not what I was looking for.
So one knows what to expect, though this isn't necessarily what turned me off the stories, there is a lot of sexual and sexualized violence. I would classify it as erotica myself in a number of cases, though I don't know that Brite would. For fans, there are some characters recurring from previous stories, which should be a solid hook. I know some readers have been put off by "Self Made Man" being too similar to Dahmer, but the fun Dahmer-meets-Night of the Living dead tale was probably my penultimate pick from from the collection. My favorite story, which came as a surprise to me because I expected it to be much more mundane and less to my liking, was "Mussolini and the Axeman's Jazz". A great supernatural spin on early 20th century history, serial killers, and one of America's favorite sweaty noir settings. You've everything here from Armstrong to Cagliostro in a few short pages.
All in all I'd say more of a collection for true fans, rather than for casual readers, although Gauntlet Press does a great job pulling together books.