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Book Review: End Times by Rio Youers

End Times by Rio Youers
IUniverse, 2007
ISBN: 0595437869
Available: Hardcover, paperback, audiobook, MP3 CD

 

Scott is a man who has lived a hard, sad life. He suffers from an addiction to heroin. He is missing all of the fingers on both hands, and has to make do with only his thumbs, a fact that is disturbingly presented throughout the book. He is working as a journalist with peers who he doesn’t really like, and who don’t like him. The only thing good in his life seems to be his friend Sebby, a quadriplegic that Scott met at a drug rehab program. Then Mia, a mysterious Indian girl, steps into his life and changes everything. She sees him as he is, and still seems to love him. Mia becomes like a drug to his troubled mind, an addiction that he just can’t quit thinking about. Everything seems to be going his way until he finds out who Mia is– a dangerous mystery from his past that has come to the present with the purpose of making him pay for what he did to her. The story follows Scott from his life as a bum, trying to eke out an existence on the hard city streets, to his joining a dangerous and twisted cult that requires horrible sacrifices for their god, Voice, and then to his life as a writer and his journey into self-discovery and destiny. The story is written in first person, and is filled with pain and longing. At first I couldn’t stand the main character, his world and views being a far cry from my own, but as the novel progresses, he seems to change, becoming a character that I began to relate to and sympathize with. All of the characters are created with the utmost depth: they are dark and believable. This book touches on all the emotions. As I read Scott’s tale I felt his pain, love, hatred, longing, fear, and humor. End Times is a brutally unique work that surely deserves a place in any library, whether public or private.
Contains: Violence, Sex, Self Mutilation

Review by Bret Jordan

(Note: End Times is now in print available at Amazon.com)

Posted on December 12, 2018 by , Reply

Book Review: Favorite Scary Stories of American Children by Richard and Judy Dockrey Young

Favorite Scary Stories of American Children by Richard and Judy Dockrey Young

August House, 1999

ISBN: 0874835631

Availability: New and Used

Favorite Scary Stories of American Children is a collection of 23 short and scary stories told in the oral tradition, ranging from the truly creepy and frightening to pun-filled groaners. the authors, who are professional storytellers, chose the stories based on the enthusiastic demands of their young audiences. The age-appropriateness of each story is indicated using a code of pictorial symbols (for ages 5-6, 7-8, and 9-10), with the key to the code on the page opposite the title page. All the stories are intended to be readable by nine and ten year olds, but the authors note that stories aimed at younger children may not hold the interest of independent readers. Because of its attempt to cover a wide range of ages, cultures, and interest levels, the book is a mixed bag, including versions of classic scary stories like “The Red Velvet Ribbon” and folktales like “The Bloodsucker”, as well as some that feel like story flotsam, such as “Stop the Coffin.” This book would be a great resource for storytimes or for teaching storytelling to children, and has a variety of possible interdisciplinary connections for elementary classrooms.

An afterword for parents, librarians, and teachers addresses the value of scary stories for children as well as some of the concerns and issues that may come up in the telling and reading of scary stories. Origins of the stories and a pronunciation guide for regional terms are also included in the back of the book.

Favorite Scary Stories of American Children will appeal to children who have worn out Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories books, as well as to parents, teachers, and librarians looking for a way to give their kids the shivers. Recommended for elementary school libraries, public libraries, and families. Contains: violence

Posted on December 10, 2018 by , Reply

Book Review: The Mind Altar: A Novel of Subterranean Terror by Michael Just

 

The Mind Altar: A Novel of Subterranean Terror by Michael Just

Giddings Street Press, 2018

ISBN 13:9781530441297

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

The Mind Altar: A Novel of Subterranean Terror by Michael Just is head and shoulders above most novels in the science fiction, horror and mystery genres. The author describes scenes in just the right amount of detail to place the reader within the story.  He reveals the personalities and motives of the characters gradually, keeping the reader engaged.  His plot has twists and turns that keep the reader continually guessing about the story’s outcome.  The ending is no less complicated and intriguing, seemingly doubling back on itself three times.

Taking place in the near future, the U.S. government sends a team of black-ops mercenaries to the desert in the Four Corners region of the country.  Communications with a secret facility buried in a mountain, called Bright Angel, went dead a few weeks earlier.  Each of the seven-team members has a special skill, and knows only part of their mission.  Our protagonist, Eurydice Wiles, is an expert in resurrecting programs and data from crashed computers.  She is buttoned up, avoids emotional contact and has no memories from the age of seven to eight.

As Eury and her teammates explore the myriad of Bright Angel’s rooms and caverns, they discover hollowed-out, plasticized bodies with no heads, preserved brains cut in-half, and dozens of crisp, burned bodies.  All computer hard drives have been smashed.  Eury intuits that the entire tunneled mountain is a computer and that ghostly visions and voices are part of its programs.  Did the staff and inmates go mad and kill each other?  One-by-one the team members are dying.  What will Eury and the other survivors find when they get to the Mind Altar at the heart of the mountain? Highly recommended.

Contains: Mild sexual situations, moderate gore.

 

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

Posted on December 5, 2018 by , Reply
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