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Book Review: Interface by Scott Britz-Cunningham

cover art for Interface by Scott Britz-Cunningham

 

Interface by Scott Britz-Cunningham

Keylight Books, Nov 1, 2022

ISBN: 9781684428816

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

(  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

 

Interface is a good old-fashioned thriller with a sci-fi bent to it.  If your idea of horror is what people have become due to cell phones and information/social media overload,, this is perfect for you.  Author Cunningham has put together a rollicking, fun ride in the possible future, with some pretty profound insights about the dumbing down of society thanks to the Internet, mixed in.  This is good stuff, and it’ll make you think.

 

 

It is the near future, and everyone over the age of 14, by law, is connected to the Interface.  Imagine everything your cell phone can do hard-wired into your brain through a tiny implant.  You can do anything online through the power of thought.  Instant news feeds, file shares, non-verbal communication: all without pressing a button.  Trouble strikes when isolated cases of individuals going mad and killing people start., Detective Yara Avril suspects that the Interface implants may be the cause.  The rest of the book is a madcap run as Yara, and sleazy yet intrepid reporter Jericho Jones, pursue the truth and try to prevent further deaths, while every power of what’s left of the government opposes them.  

 

 

There’s really nothing to find fault with in the book.  The pacing is fast, and the characters do an excellent job representing their factions, while blurring the lines between good and evil.  Egon Graf is the head guy for the government, which needs the Interface to stay in power.  Opposed to him is his brother Taiki, who is bent on taking down the Interface, which he created years before.  The story does a nice job playing on the axiom “the ends justify the means”, when it comes to how much murder can be justified to prevent the future idiocy of humanity.  The author’s vision of the  future is scary: it’s a future ruled through human emotion, not logic. Why have politicians debate and vote when the public can just vote online, regardless of whether they understand anything?  No need for criminal trials, just throw up a quick infomercial online detailing the case, and let the people decide their fate.  It’s a scary thought, and maybe not that different from where we are today..  

 

 

It’s worth noting that for a thriller, there is some pretty deep thought in the dialogue sections.  The insights into social media and being “connected” are well thought out, the kind of material you can ponder on your own long after you finish the book.  I wound up bookmarking five or six different pages along the way to go back to and re-read, it’s that well done.  People will enjoy this book for the ride, but it’ll linger with them long after the ride’s over.  

 

Bottom line: don’t miss this one.  Recommended

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on November 9, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Jawbone by Monica Ojeda translated by Sarah Booker

cover art for Jawbone by Monica Ojeda

Jawbone by Monica Ojeda., translated by Sarah Booker

Coffee House Press, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1566896214

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com )

 

Fernanda wakes up, disoriented, to discover she has been kidnapped by Miss Clara, her literature teacher. Figuring out how she got there is the first step in navigating a twisty narrative.

 

Fernanda, her close friend Anne, and their friends had found an abandoned, isolated house where they told horror stories, participated in violent dares, and worshipped the White God (as friend groups of teenage girls do). Fernanda and Anne pushed their limits further than the other girls, but Fernanda finally reaches hers.

 

Anne is forced to take extra lessons from Miss Clara after the teachers discover an irreligious drawing of an insect god in drag. Miss Clara has closely modeled herself on her mother and has anxiety and frequent panic attacks that result in repetitive and neurotic behaviors and self-harm, making her a perfect target for Anne, who is angry with Fernanda for drawing boundaries. Anne uses her conversations and assignments with Miss Clara to manipulate Miss Clara’s anxieties and turn her focus on Fernanda as a villain victimizing Anne…

 

The writing varies in style. Parts of the book record Fernanda’s therapy sessions; conversations between Anne and Clara;  and a long essay on “white horror” by Anne for Clara. Others get into the mental state of Clara or Fernanda which are quite disorienting, vivid, and sometimes gut-punching, with insect and body horror. The descriptions of physical responses to anxiety and panic attacks are hard to read. It gets harder and harder to trust any perception of events.

 

There is so much left to the imagination that it creates a real sense of unease. The violence keeps escalating but a lot of it happens off the page. This is generally effective but left me confused with the ending. There is so much left to the imagination that it creates a real sense of unease.

 

This is far from being a straighforward narrative, Readers who enjoy experimental narratives and unreliable narrators will find much to recommend it, though. ,.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note: Jawbone was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award in Translated Literature. 

Posted on November 9, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Petite Mort by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

 

Petite Mort by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

 

Blood Bound Books, Oct. 2022 (Halloween release date)

 

ASIN: BOBB87TLWY

 

Available: Kindle edition ( Amazon.com )

 

Petite Mort is a short story collection that reads like a crossbreed of the Hostel movies and a Jenna Jameson film fest, but with more originality and better storytelling.  This will appeal to readers who like healthy doses of gore and raunchiness.  If you can handle that, the stories are worth a read.

 

There are eight stories, six short and two longer ones. A few have been previously published in other collections.  The main selling point: none of the stories have the tired and overused “male psycho kidnaps, rapes, and tortures helpless woman” plot.  There are elements of the supernatural to the majority of the stories, and some of them are WAY off the path of normalcy.  “Santa’s Package”, the longest (and maybe best) story, has a young woman pregnant by either a) Santa Claus, b) alien abduction, or c) she’s just totally nuts.  ‘”Into the Pit” has a demon residing in one of those plastic ball pits kids play in at places like Chuck E. Cheese eateries.  “Cucumbers and Comforters” has a kappa, a somewhat reptilian water deity from Japanese folklore.  Kudos to author Nikki Noir for working the kappa into a story. It’s fun when authors use lesser-known deities from mythologies other than the familiar Greeks as a story backbone.  

 

The rest of the stories are a touch more “normal”, that being a relative term here, but they all are page turners and pack good doses of creativity, along with heavy doses of splat and lewdness.  Certain tumescent organs being chopped off, horror movie themed sex toys, people being literally torn apart through every possible orifice, it’s all here… for a certain reader type.  

 

Two other things worthy of special mention: the story “HorrorGasm”, which does a slick job of creating a wild revenge tale, while managing to poke fun at the dorks who sit around watching online porn all day.  For hilarity, “Santa’s Package” wins, running away with the writing of Santa’s bedroom scene. He’s quite the ‘jolly old elf’!  The author’s turning of Christmas clichés into witty double entendres is side-splittingly funny: you’ll laugh hard enough to turn your own belly into a bowl full of jelly.  

 

Bottom line: this one is good entertainment for certain readers, just don’t take any of it too seriously.  It’s all meant to be fun, over-the-top craziness, and it succeeds well on that score.  However, this is for adults only: don’t let your junior high students near this one.  Recommended for lovers of splat and sleaze.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on October 18, 2022 by , Reply
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