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THE LESSER DEAD by Christopher Buehlman — A Review

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BOOK | FICTION | HORROR
THE LESSER DEAD
CHRISTOPHER BUEHLMAN
AUDIOBOOK
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The secret is, vampires are real and I am one.
The secret is, I’m stealing from you what is most truly yours and I’m not sorry… 

New York City in 1978 is a dirty, dangerous place to live. And die. Joey Peacock knows this as well as anybody—he has spent the last forty years as an adolescent vampire, perfecting the routine he now enjoys: womanizing in punk clubs and discotheques, feeding by night, and sleeping by day with others of his kind in the macabre labyrinth under the city’s sidewalks.

The subways are his playground and his highway, shuttling him throughout Manhattan to bleed the unsuspecting in the Sheep Meadow of Central Park or in the backseats of Checker cabs, or even those in their own apartments who are too hypnotized by sitcoms to notice him opening their windows. It’s almost too easy.

Until one night he sees them hunting on his beloved subway. The children with the merry eyes. Vampires, like him…or not like him. Whatever they are, whatever their appearance means, the undead in the tunnels of Manhattan are not as safe as they once were.

And neither are the rest of us.

Amazon Book Description
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Except for the originals — Shelley’s Monster; Stoker’s Dracula; Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde, etc. — when it comes to horror, regardless the medium, whether it be movies or books (although, nightmares get a pass — nothing like a good monster trying to chase me down and rip me to shreds in my dreams), I typically will give a hard pass to any story with a monster in it. Not sure why… maybe because I find that most are just too goofy to suspend reality enough for me to enjoy them.

But I tell you what, I love Christopher Buehlman’s monsters like no man should ever love a monster.

THE LESSER DEAD is my third book by Buelhman — THOSE ACROSS THE RIVER and SUICIDE MOTORCYCLE CLUB are the other two and both are outstanding reads in their own right. However, by comparison, TLD is a completely exceptional read, a pure literary masterwork, not just as a genre novel, but as a true literary novel. But even regarding it just as a horror novel, by comparison with its angsty and vulgar (vampire) coming of age vibe to it, I would say it ranks as the THE CATCHER IN THE RYE of its genre if I didn’t think TCITR was so grossly over rated. But regardless, to me TLD, although a much more complete body of work than TCITR in my opinion, deserves such similar acclaim among its contemporaries as TCITR enjoys among its. Not to mention TLD has an ending that is pure literary genius.

As if that weren’t enough, Buehlman himself narrates the audiobook and his skills as a voice actor are equal to his skills as an author.

The dude’s for real folks.

#whythefhaventanyofthisdudesbooksbeenmadeintoamovie

Featured image courtesy of Goodreads

 

An American Pope by Paul Xylinides – A Review

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BOOK | FICTION | LITERARY
AN AMERICAN POPE
PAUL XYLINIDES
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★

A modernizing American has assumed the papal throne. One of His first acts is to select a seventeenth century priest for canonization. The Congregation for the Causes of the Saints recoils in horror at the new pontiff’s choice. Against a backdrop of Vatican intrigue and infighting, a long-unsolved crime comes to the attention of a retired detective. The forces that contribute to it reach far back into the distant past. No one can truly fathom the life of the candidate for sainthood including the nun and priest who join forces to prepare the submission to Rome.

Amazon Book Description
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I’ve been got…

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For years my barely read first novel INSIDE THE SKIN (formerly The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor) had been pegged at 15 meager but oh so appreciated and loved Amazon reader reviews…

about

However, as of today there are now only 7.

I mean, c’mon…

Thanks Amazon.

Sigh…

#itainteasythiswritinggig

There’s a story here somewhere…

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This abandoned car is oh, I don’t know, maybe a half mile or so from my humble yet lovely abode and it’s been parked right there for as long as I’ve lived in my said humble yet lovely abode, which has been oh, I don’t know, maybe eighteen years or so.

Every time I pass the beautiful, wabi-sabi of a relic on one of my walks, I always think to myself, I bet there’s a heck of story to go along with that thing…

And I also always tell myself that one of these days Ima gonna write my own story about it.

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Our Amazon Overlord* Means Business

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Especially when it comes to product reviews.

So, here’s some news you can use…

Well, at least it is useful news for me.

And by it, I’m referring to the fact that in order to be able to post a review on any of Amazon’s products — for example: a review for a favorite book — one must have spent a minimum of $50 (or your country’s currency equivalent, I’m assuming) within the past twelve months.

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To Review or Not to Review…

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That is the conundrum.

More specifically, the conundrum is should authors review or not.

I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for a while now…

At least ever since reading back at the end of June horror author sensation Ania Ahlborn’s excellently articulated post I Won’t Pan Your Crummy Book. I’m Not That Type of Gal.

And then even more so after having an interesting Goodreads discussion with my internet buddy Author Joy Pixley about it (I know, I know… Goodreads, ugh!).

Fortunately, during my recent meanderings I found the excellent post Should Authors Review Books? by Author Raven Blackwood — an author and Navy vet! which makes her a lifelong shipmate of mine — that I’ve reblogged down below for your entertainment and instruction, and which sums up the issues nicely regarding reviews.

But as far as Ahlborn is concerned, in her post mentioned above, as well as her subsequent post, she comes down strongly against authors reviewing books.

And she particularly takes Indie Authors to task for it.

One should remember that after hitting the big times as an Indie herself and subsequently getting drafted by the Trades into the Big League, Ahlborn has returned to her roots and has gone Indie once again with her latest novel IF YOU SEE HER [about].

Which is very cool thing for her to do… and very profitable one I’m sure.

Both of which I admire (read: envy) greatly.

But I don’t necessarily agree with her position regarding reviews.

Indie Authors such as myself, those down closer, much closer, to the lower rungs of the authorial success ladder, need to do just about anything they can to expose their literary flare.

Showcasing the fact that they are not just well-read, but understand what they read and that they can articulate why they do or do not appreciate what they read can, in my estimation, go a long way toward proving their own writing chops…

Or lack thereof.

And when it comes to reviewing well-established authors backed by the highfalutin publishing industry, I’m all for being brutally honest in regards to how one feels about their work.

Meaning all is fair: from one-star reviews to five; as is even making note of the fact that a book of theirs had to be DNF’d…

As can be witnessed by those DNFs found on my sidebar.

But, as an Indie Author who understands that this writing gig is a tough one, I do believe we Indie Authors need to find ways to uplift and showcase each other’s work…

And providing positive reviews for each other is one way to do that.

I didn’t always believe this.

Back when I first started this Indie thing a decade or so ago, I wrote a few rough reviews of other Indie Authors’ work.

And I still feel guilty about it.

And I won’t do it anymore.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be dishonest with my Indie Author reviews.

It just means I will look harder for the positive when reviewing them than I probably would for non-Indies.

And if I can’t find enough positive in an Indie’s book to at least write a decent three-star review?

Then I won’t review it.

And if it’s so bad I have to DNF it, gawd forbid — let’s be honest, there are a lot of less than good books out there, especially by Indie Authors I’m sorry to say…

Then I will do it without mention or fanfare.

Which means, if you are an Indie Author and if one day you find your book on my Currently Reading list and then the next day it disappears from the sidebar altogether, never making it to either the Recent Reads or Recent 5-Star Reads lists where all books are rated and (some are) reviewed…

Well then I apologize in advance, for, with my particular literary sensibilities being the way they are, I just couldn’t stick with your book to the end.

But so what, right?

I mean, my opinion about a book is just that…

An opinion.

And we all know what that means, right?

Yeah…

Exactly.

Now do yourself a favor by disregarding this extremely long opinion of mine and go read Raven’s most excellent one on the matter!

TL:DR: Some think it’s okay for authors to review other authors’ books, some don’t. Yours truly here thinks it’s okay… albeit with some provisos attached.

What a Bizarro World We Live In

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So, it’s kind of becoming a thing for me to head straight to the WordPress reader after publishing a new post to do a search on whatever it is I have just posted about so I can see what others have written about it.

I like to do this especially after posting reviews since I don’t like to read other reviews regarding whatever it is I’m reviewing prior to writing the review…

Huh?.

Anyway, I did exactly that yesterday after posting my review of AND THE HIPPOS WERE BOILED IN THEIR TANKS .

First I did a search on the title and pretty much came back with zippo, except for my review.

Then I did one on Jack Kerouac and a ton of stuff came back on him of course, but nothing regarding the book I just reviewed.

Next came the search for William S. Burroughs.

I found nothing on his relationship with the book, as expected, but I found a whole slew of information about him that I didn’t no otherwise, which was easy because I really didn’t know much about him except that he was an OG Beat, the author of Naked Lunch, a junkie, and a murder.

Quite the portfolio of virtues, no?

So I had fun reading up on him for a while.

But then, all of a sudden, I scrolled upon a post by Zé Burns entitled How I Discovered Bizarro Fiction, and which I have reblogged here (way) down below for your entertainment and instruction…

And a whole new world opened up to me.

I cannot believe I have never heard of Bizarro Fiction before.

After reading Ze’ informative and highly interesting article about how he got turned on to the genre and where he trumpets the virtue of one bizarro writer in particular — Danger Slater, whose book now adorns my Want to Read list — I spent the next several hours digging deeper and deeper into the subject as a result.

What a ride that was.

Here are some description of the genre direct from Bizarro Central:

  • Bizarro is like:
    • Franz Kafka meets John Waters
    • Dr. Suess of the post-apocalypse
    • Takashi Miike meets William S. Burroughs
    • Alice in Wonderland for adults
    • Japanese animation directed by David Lynch

So, to be honest (Now, I’m not saying that I haven’t been honest up to the point… or am I?), I don’t really think the genre is for me.

I mean, I like the idea of it…

Just like I like the idea of low-grade cult movies, which is another comparison of bizarro fiction I found…

But I never, ever watch cult movies.

At least not any more.

Which takes me to where yesterday’s adventure eventually ended up.

When I was a kid growing up in Ashtabula, a lake-front town an hour or so east of Cleveland, there were some pretty bizarre dudes on TV back in the 70s and early 80s that would “perform” severely bizarre/warped skits interspersed and sometimes overlapping with seriously low-grade cultish movies, and/or Three Stooges skits, and/or cartoons.

These bizarre dude were Hoolihan & Big Chuck, The Ghoul, and Superhost… and their sole purpose in life was to lovingly pollute the hearts and minds of every adolescent in the Greater Cleveland area.

And they did.

At least they did of yours truly.

Poor Froggy never had it easy…

But that was long, long ago and I have long since pretty much turned up my nose to such bizarre, cultish entertainment…

And I expect I may end up doing the same with bizarro fiction.

I didn’t know it at the time when I read Brian Evenson’s Last Days [about] that he is regarded as a bizarro author (at least he is included in the long list of them on Bizarro Central’s website).

As you can tell by my review, I didn’t think too highly of his work…

Not because of its highly bizarre, cultish story (it really is a story about bizarre cults)…

But because it was poorly executed in my opinion, one which, as evidenced by the high praise it receives from others elsewhere, seems to be in the minority.

But who knows…

Maybe I’ll like Danger Slater’s work better.

In Zé’s interesting and informative post, of which I reblogged here down below for your entertainment and instruction, hé highly recommends Slater’s HE DIGS A WHOLE [about].

But I’ll probably start off with his novella ROADVOLUTION [about] since its available with Kindle Unlimited.

Hey, I’m not cheap…

I’m cost conscious.

Anyway, I’ll report back to you after I finish the read.

I promise…

🤞

TL;DR: There’s a thing called Bizarro Fiction. I may or may not like it.

AND THE HIPPOS WERE BOILED IN THEIR TANKS — A Rapid Review

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BOOK | FICTION | LITERARY
AND THE HIPPOS WERE BOILED IN THEIR TANKS
BY JACK KEROUAC AND WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
FORMAT: AUDIOBOOK
RATING: ★ ★ ★

In the summer of 1944, a shocking murder rocked the fledgling Beats. William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, both still unknown, we inspired by the crime to collaborate on a novel, a hard-boiled tale of bohemian New York during World War II, full of drugs and art, obsession and brutality, with scenes and characters drawn from their own lives. Finally published after more than sixty years, this is a captivating read, and incomparable literary artifact, and a window into the lives and art of two of the twentieth century’s most influential writers.

Book description, grammar errors and all, as found at Amazon

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THE CONTORTIONIST’S HANDBOOK — A Rapid Review

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BOOK | FICTION | LITERARY
THE CONTORTIONIST’S HANDBOOK
BY CRAIG CLEVENGER
FORMAT: AUDIOBOOK
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This is the book’s description, as diminutive as it may be, and as it may be found on its Amazon page…

John Dolan Vincent, a forger who suffers from migraine headaches and mental illness, invents a new identity for himself in order to be released from a mental hospital and build a new life.

And this is my review of the book, as diminutive as it may be, and as it may be found as follows (huh?)…

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