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A short entertaining slice of life

Revisado: 03-12-21

This is very short, but well done. It shouldn't have to be said, but Weird Menace is not a real movie, and these are voice actors playing parts. (A few of the other reviewers seem to be confused on this point.) It's a short story told as if it were the director's commentary on a DVD, with the director and the star talking about a B movie that neither of them remembers very well.

There is an undercurrent of the Uncanny in this story, and the ending is ambiguous. In general though, it's more of a comedy sketch than anything else. I am a fan of director's commentaries, and they hit the tone and style perfectly. I can see how it wouldn't make much sense to someone who isn't used to watching them. If you're a fan of B Movies and like hearing the reminiscences of filmmakers, you'll probably enjoy it. It's only about a half hour long, which works really well for the concept--it would have gotten tiresome if it had gone on much longer.

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An Old Favorite, Revisited

Revisado: 03-06-21

One of my favorite books from my childhood. A lovely mix of whimsy and chills. The performance is very good. I would strongly recommend this for an audience of all ages.

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This, in my opinion, is Weird Fiction done right.

Revisado: 03-06-21

First, it works as Fiction, without the Weird. That is to say, it’s a story about a Folk Rock Band who rented a house in the countryside in the early 1970s to record an album. That story is engaging, told in a documentary style, with different voice actors playing the parts of band members and others such as the band’s managers, reporters, and the like.

It’s a kind of memoir of the Psychedelic Era, like Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool Aid Acid Test or Hunter Thompson’s Hell’s Angels. The drama of the band recovering from the somewhat suspicious suicide of their former lead singer and dealing with the intensity of being isolated together in a remote location, with all of the attendant emotional undercurrents, would have held my interest by itself.

Second, the Weird aspects are understated and subtle. They are kept in the background for most of the novel–strange things glimpsed out of the corner of the reader’s eye. Since it’s told as if the characters are retelling the story years after the fact, there’s a lot of “And the time it didn’t mean much to me, but after what came later…”

That kind of exposition takes a light touch, and Elizabeth Hand does it well, varying the mix of the mundane and the uncanny to keep the reader off-balance and wanting to find out more.

Most important to me, she keeps the sense of Mystery, in a cosmic sense, to the very end. Reviewers on Audible complain that she never explains what happened at Wylding Hall–I consider that a feature, not a bug. The different characters have their own theories, but there is never any big reveal that tears away the veil.

I like that. When the end of the book came I felt a pleasant chill and a sense of a vast dark universe, full of unknown wonders and unanswerable questions.

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Excellent Modern Dark Fantasy

Revisado: 01-02-21

This book feels, to me, like an updating of a Grimm's Fairy Tale. Not any particular one, but the same sense of an ordinary person who is suddenly thrust into an impossible and horrific world just past the edge of the world they know. Rather than a poor woodchopper, the protagonist is a retail sales associate, and instead of the deep dark woods it's the deep dark interior of a big box store after hours. And while there is no Big Bad Wolf, the monster that lurks in this darkness is every bit as terrible--in some ways, more so.

The narration is excellent, with Tai Sammons doing the story and Bronson Pinchot adding marvelously creepy accents as "the voice of Orsk". One note: the PDF that comes with the audiobook is perfectly spot on, but I advise waiting until after you listen to the novel to view it, since it does contain some spoilers.

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Quit listening at chapter 27 of 29

Revisado: 05-02-20

A fairly engrossing caper novel with a quirky, engaging main character suddenly turns into torture porn in the penultimate chapter. I'm don't know if there's a phrase that means the opposite of deus ex machina, but that's what the author pulled here--out of nowhere the bad guy just wins and the hero loses everything. I guess it's supposed to be a twist ending, but it just sickened me.

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Modern Noir Done Right

Revisado: 10-20-19

In the first place I should point out that I love this particular narrator, Brandon McKernan is great, and he's perfect for this particular story.

The story itself is very much in the Noir tradition. We meet the hero, Mac, on his last day on the job as a police detective, and he's a sympathetic everyman from the first line of dialogue. While he is still getting used to being retired, a mysterious figure from his past shows up and asks for his help in a very cold case.

From that point on, it's pure Pulp Thriller. Not the pastiches you see that are trying to be "Pulp", but the genuine article. I was reminded of Donald Westlake's early work like Killing Time and 361. Mac finds himself going up against a very powerful man in a dirty little town who will stop at nothing to keep the past dead and buried.

Highly recommended.

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Powerful dark humor

Revisado: 08-06-18

I can remember Joseph Wambaugh saying this was "the truest novel I've ever written" or words to that effect. It's a very raw, very honest portrayal of Los Angeles in the 1960s, seen through the jaded eyes of patrol cops. Parts are laugh out loud funny, and parts will bring tears to your eyes.

A note for modern readers--a lot of the language is very crude, including some racist and sexist language that would not get into print today. Like I say, though, it's honest, brutally honest in many places.

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