TeddyDog

For The Bilingual

Revisado: 07-31-24

Ok one thing about this book drives me crazy and it’s a biggie. I assume back when this book was written most people were taught Latin in school (imagine that !). I am fascinated by the Roman Empire and get any book I can find about it. The trouble is that Ferdinand Lot uses lots and lots of Latin terms in this book which are not translated, meaning I don’t know what is being talked about. A significant problem as I do not speak or understand Latin. Sometimes I can figure it out from context but not often.

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Brace Yourself

Revisado: 07-24-24

Good god what a great horror novel. There’s a list of things no region of the world produces as well as the American South and horror is one of them. This is one more piece of irrefutable evidence. Things feel more surreal and real at the same time. The characters are more vivid, the sweat heavier, the stenches more pungent, the twists and the horror and the depths of depravity so much more shocking. And when you get a great writer like this one the best Southern horror has deeper emotions and heartbreak. This story of a young man searching for his brother who vanished into thin air years before just keeps slamming you into the wall while breaking your heart at the same time. I can’t express how unhappy I’ll be if this amazing new author doesn’t keep writing and writing. And the narrator fully inhabits the tale like a second skin, every fluctuation and emotion perfectly expressed. A true natural. A substantial book and so much more than a fresh bucket of blood and guts. A coming-of-age story for sure but not on the sometimes emotionally manipulative way that genre name suggests. Robert McCammon set the gold standard with Boy’s Life and Bad Man can stand proudly beside it.

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Reader Beware

Revisado: 05-31-24

My second and just as terrifying Ronald Malfi book. The first one, a short story collection ‘They Lurk’, still gives me shudders to think about. All I can say is Good God this guy is good. Sheer straight in the gut horror. There’s some queasy parts in here but that’s not what makes him so good. It’s the sheer hopeless mounting and suffocating dread which oozes from each chapter without respite. Without giving anything away, it’s a story about a small dying Maryland town stalked by a monster. A monster which can shred your body or your mind. I can feel the exhaustion of the poor town sheriff as he tries to cope and the damp from the apparently never ending rain. I can only say this about precious few authors but so help me I turned this book on with trepidation when I listen at night. Every sound I can’t account for as the absolutely amazing narrator David Stifel tells the story. I’ve heard Stifel read some Bentley Little books. His voice seems too sweet and kind for horror but maybe that and his pitch perfect inflections make him so frightening as well. At the risk of offending Marylanders who may read this, I’ve also read a lot of Edward Lee who also sets his savage horror novels in Maryland. Neither Lee nor Malfi should be on the state tourist board. Each town they describe is wretched and rotting and poor, filled with perverts and brutes and all other manner of corrupt human being. I feel coated in slime just getting to know the inhabitants to say nothing of the monsters who hunt them. If it’s all the same to you good people, if their portrayal of your state is even ten percent accurate I do believe I’ll steer clear. And I come from the heart of Lovecraft country for God’s sake ! The part which is uncomfortably close to Innsmouth anyway. What else can I say ? Two books in and Malfi is up there with the best horror novelists I know. I thought I was tough as rawhide chew when it comes to fear but Malfi has me on the ropes. I had to pause the book both to write this and because I don’t like the cold sweat on my body or the dark silence of the house. Bravo Mr Malfi. Long may you write.

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Eccentric narration

Revisado: 05-27-24

The story and research are all top notch. It’s hard to imagine a more authoritative account of this infamous crime. What I do not get is why the narrator slips from a sonorous “The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent” voice to a normal, conversational tone without any audible rhyme or reason. It’s a shame because the narrator is very good otherwise. This odd quirk is very distracting however so I hope he doesn’t make it a habit.

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Jaw Dropping

Revisado: 05-24-24

I had a loose tirade planned which I wanted to unleash at the end of this book. Then the book ended in a place I didn’t expect it to. A metaphorical Death Valley. I’ll just say it’s unfinished but what Tom O’Neill has uncovered and documented is staggering and the book is essential. My interest in Manson is as passing just as the authors is at the beginning of his story. But this book has upended everything I took as established fact. I urge anyone who feels compelled to read ‘Helter Skelter’ to read this first. My guess is you won’t want to bother once you’ve heard Chaos. I can say this much without being in the least bit a spoiler - tangentially O’Neill points out that CIA directors Allan Dulles and Richard Helms were members of the Warren Commission into the assassination of President Kennedy. I challenge anyone to track down an instance of either of these men ever telling the truth about anything. Their mere presence in the Commission invalidates its findings. A remarkable book by a sharp and relentless and throughly likeable workhorse whose efforts have - unmaliciously and without any agenda - brought everything we thought we knew about Charles Manson crashing down. I really hope there’s a sequel but I will read anything else O’Neill writes regardless.

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Bringing History Uncomfortably To Life

Revisado: 04-02-24

Despite all the diaries and memoirs and brilliantly written histories - I’m looking at you, Fest and Kershaw - very few books put you right into the rank heart of Nazi Germany. A book which, I hope, will make the teeth of any rational person grind with fury. I am not sure if this is a criticism or what Larsons intent was but among all the characters - the Rohms and Goerings and Himmlers - I find the most contemptible character the daughter of the American ambassador,Martha Dodd. I’m no prude but does her promiscuity have to extend to the chief of the Gestapo and an obvious NKVD agent ? Her naïveté which may strike some as charming and refreshing strikes me as contemptible and almost treasonous. Her gushing admiration for the ‘new Germany’ and seemingly endless willingness to wave away its ever mounting horrors makes her positively one of the most unlikeable characters in any work of history I’ve ever read. Just so long as she’s enjoying herself and feeling the thrill of danger she doesn’t give a damn she’s cavorting with criminals or what happens to their victims. Her later-in-life attempts at self-exculpation are hardly worth the name and it would probably be better if she’d gone to her grave without her apologies which just make it worse. She’s the moral equivalent of Cardinal Pacelli aka Pius XII. Not evil but devoid of morality and genuine courage. An enabler. If Larson is attempting to portray her sympathetically, then he failed miserably. The prim propriety of her father is not much better but at least he’s fully aware of what he’s up against and sabotaged by petty enemies within the State Department and does his meek best to stop the Nazi juggernaut. He’s about as effective as a gnat but at least he doesn’t throw his arms around the Third Reich in blind, selfish, moronic and passionate embrace like his daughter. In case it’s not gleaming through this review our own domestic politics are nearly as rank with the famously banal evil our ambassador is thrust into. A wonderful yet very disheartening read.

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Great Story. So So Performance

Revisado: 03-10-24

I have been a huge fan of Lumley and his glorious Wamphyri for decades now. The Bloodwars trilogy, of which this is volume one, is perhaps my favorite of all the Necroscope-connected books. Nearly all of them are available on Audible and nearly all are narrated to perfection. This one is not. It’s the tale of the twins Nestor and Nathan. One is drawn to the seductive and evil call of the Wamphyri, the other is on the side of beleaguered humanity. So why the soft-spoken and almost singsong narrator ? This is material meant to be frightening, not to lull a five year old to sleep. The good twin, Nathan, comes across as a dense and whiny and self-pitying wimp and I spent the whole book wishing he would just shut up. Sadly the narrator doesn’t give the arrogant and regal Wamphyri lords much more punch than this drip which is especially disappointing. This narrator would be great for a benign and feel-good story but this is supposed to be horror and rather extreme horror at that. Maybe he’d do a fantastic ‘Hobbit’ but steer clear of his Lumley unless you want to spend the whole book wanting to throttle the hero. There are some good effects - well, mainly echo - but other than that, this guy was a terrible choice for this book. Even as I type this I can hear Nathan asking idiotic questions and whimpering. Ugh.

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I Don’t Get It

Revisado: 02-29-24

Maybe I needed to focus more on reading comprehension growing up. I don’t think it comes down to stupidity. For example, I’ve read ‘Crime and Punishment’ and thoroughly enjoyed it. Probably because it’s a straightforward story told plainly. There’s nothing obscure about it. This is my frustration with Wastelands. I love a good apocalyptic story but in one story after another here, I feel like I’m being asked to read between the lines to actually unravel what the nature of the apocalypse was. I was deeply frustrated as one writer after another refused to make it explicit what actually happened and why the characters live and act and speak like they do. Was there a nuclear war ? An asteroid ? A Martian invasion ? God forbid we’re ever told. We have to parse every sentence and hint and give it our best guess. Personally I find that too much work when I read a book. Just tell me a story or don’t. Don’t impress me with obscurity and ambiguity. I guess this is the reason I prefer horror to sci fi and I think this book falls fully into the sci fi category. I was so excited about the concept of post-apocalypse short fiction that I bought the second volume too. I hope that one will be more straightforward about how the world ends but I’m not optimistic. I won’t be told so I’ll have to ‘infer’. Oh joy.
The narrators are all excellent and I’m sure the authors are too for those with a higher IQ than me. I was especially happy to hear Steve Rudneki who’s the best narrator on Audible imo. If ever a man was born to tell a story it’s him. Even if I don’t know exactly what he’s talking about I simply enjoy his voice.

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Awesome !!!

Revisado: 01-06-24

I’m a fussy or perhaps undereducated reader. I love literature and I love horror but not when the two mix. By literature, I mean books which don’t have a straight, linear narrative. I’ve been reading (ok,listening to) a lot of Faulkner and Joyce lately. I always wanted to derive the pleasure from these books which far more intelligent people than myself have gotten but the actual reading was laborious and confusing and an irrepressible part of me was forever screaming to get back to the screams and blood-spatter. I discovered that hearing rather than listening to nearly all these great books did the heavy lifting of making me aware if I were suddenly in a flashback, or another character was speaking. Switches from interior monologues and dialogue became more defined. There’s a murky area where literature (in the sense of this particular definition) and horror meet - Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O’Connor and Robert Dunbar (will Audible PLEASE put out his ‘Barrens’ trilogy ?) I’ve enjoyed tremendously in either format. My favorite author of them all, Ramsey Campbell, seems to have nailed that sweet spot between art and gut wrenching horror. Far too often though, I pick up what looks like some genuinely gruesome pulp horror and await that shot-from-a-cannon sensation and instead slam into a wall of Art. Either I don’t know who’s talking or I don’t know where or when I am, or I’m treated to four pages of the author describing the way dust motes dance in a ray of sunlight. Ronald Malfi spared me all this, bless his dark heart.
This is the first book by him I’ve tried and I feel the same excitement I did when I first chanced on James Herbert or Bentley Little or Douglas Clegg. The writing is extremely good and the characters become real people whose fate concerns me. His use of language and description are first rate and always in the service of adding to the fear and propelling the story forward. Nothing is obscure or unexplained (or inexplicable) but it’s not simplistic either. Imagine an excellent suspense and crime author (Dennis Lehane leaps to mind) who’s here to tell you a story and tell it richly, and has turned their talent to the admittedly problematic field of horror. I come across far more bad horror novels than good - just like horror movies. I crave them but finding a good one which doesn’t insult my intelligence is exasperating. Or one where the author gets - for lack of a better word - artsy. Problem solved. I have high hopes for all the Ronald Malfi I’ve purchased on Audible, thanks to the reviews. It’s both a good book and a good horror book.
I hesitate to use the word ‘pretentious’ because maybe, just maybe, some of the horror novels I’ve flung across the room simply exceed what my elementary school teachers called my ‘reading comprehension’. But far too much recent horror seems to fit that description. The who, what, where, why and how are amply covered here with descriptive and energetic writing. I won’t include any spoilers by saying this but if you found the scene where Clarisse Starling enters the den of Buffalo Bill, or your jaw dropped in disbelief at what the police actually found when they entered the farmhouse of one Edward Gein in the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin in 1957, then I expect you will find this book equally unforgettable.

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PKD Deserves Better

Revisado: 11-21-23

Usually I’m indifferent to the gender of the narrator but I can only restate the complaint made elsewhere in these reviews - since the vast majority of the characters in these stories are male, why did they choose a female narrator for this book ? What’s worse is she seems to lack the ability to give the voices any variety so I’m constantly unsure who’s talking. To cap it off all the male characters (virtually all of them) sound congested and not especially bright. And most annoying of all is that this is a collection of short stories yet none of the titles are listed in the table of contents. Seems to me that at least this minimal convenience could have been provided. Philip K Dick is one of my favorite authors and I wish more than minimal effort had been made in the production of this book. I’ve bought the rest of this series since I’m a completist but I sure hope they’re a lot better presented than this first volume.

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