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Book Review: Eight Cylinders by Jason Parent

cover art for Eight Cylinders by Jason Parent

Eight Cylinders by Jason Parent

Crystal Lake Publishing, 2020

ISBN: 9781646693061

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

 

A motor with eight cylinders represents power, a strong machine that can outrun the competition with minimal difficulty.  That being said, Eight Cylinders is closer to a six, maybe seven cylinder story.  It’s a solid piece of machinery that will give readers a smooth ride to the destination, but it could have used a few more ponies under the hood to turn the story into a real road-burner.

 

This is one of those stories with little explanation for what happens: it’s a classic ‘here’s a crazy situation, how do we get out of it?’ story.  Seb McCallister is a lifetime crook who winds up on the wrong end of a shootout in a dope deal gone bad in Las Vegas.  Badly wounded, he powers out of Vegas behind the wheel of his V8 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, driving off into the desert.  He passes out from loss of blood, and wakes to find himself in a dilapidated camp in the middle of the desert, surrounded by mountains on all sides.   The camp itself is inhabited by a small group of vagabonds, some of whom have been there a long time.  When he tries to escape, Seb quickly learns that the mountains are riddled with caves occupied by a huge, tentacled monster that somewhat resembles a crazed land squid, and the squid makes mincemeat of anyone who tries to leave.  Within a day, Seb helps to convince the camp residents to make a run for it.  What follows is the inevitable Mad Max-style race across the desert, complete with tricked-out vehicles packing plenty of blasting power, both under the hood and in the form of armaments.  Seb and his new friends must outwit and outfight the monster if they want to escape the desert.

 

Everything in the story is a quick setup for the final chase, and thankfully, it’s worth it.  Jason Parent knows how to write an exciting, end of the book blast.   Complete with awesome vehicles, firepower, nitrous, and some nice creative touches with parachutes, the last forty pages are a full roar towards the finish, with all the excitement anyone could want.  This part of the story isn’t running on eight cylinders, it’s running on twelve.   It’s the part leading up to the end where the story could have used a little chrome and paint, in the form of more detail.  Little explanation is given for the backstories of the other characters, or the camp itself, or even where (or when) the camp and characters exist.  Another twenty pages or so to flesh out the beginning and middle sections of the story could have turned this one into a real monster.  Eight Cylinders is a perfectly good, exciting story, but it almost feels like a test run for what could be a much bigger version in the future.   The parts are all there in terms of character, mystery, and storyline, and the way the story ends, it could easily keep going.  The question is, will it?

 

This is certainly worth the read, and will likely leave readers clamoring for a novel-length sequel (this is only 100 pages)  There are a lot of unanswered questions in the story, and it would be nice to see where it goes next.  Recommended.

 

Contains: violence, mild gore, profanity

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on March 23, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Unseemly by Jason Parent

 

cover art for Unseemly by Jason Parent

Unseemly by Jason Parent

Corpus Press, 2016

ISBN: 9781523980307

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition  ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Unseemly is a nice little story that uses creatures rarely seen in horror stories as its backbone: fairies.  In a quick 59 pages, the authors crams in the story of a group of academics/grave robbers out to find fairy gold, and the bloody disaster that befalls them.  It’s a fast read, and perfect for a rainy Saturday afternoon of horror escapism.

 

The first nineteen pages quickly set up the characters, their backstories, and the story objective.  Peter Callum is a down-on-his-luck archaeologist with a mountain of debt.  He partners with a sleazy grave robber named Dervish and a folklore professor named McCoy to find out if fairies and their legendary gold inhabit a sparely populated, remote Scottish island.  The author does a nice job in the few pages allotted creating a perfectly serviceable explanation for why the legends might be true, as well as adding some mystery that concerns the lone village on the island.  The group sets off one fateful evening, and they get much more than they expected, as the fairies aren’t the cutesy type you find in Disney films.  The story quickly wraps up with a violent, unexpected ending.

 

Unseemly does what a good short story or novella is supposed to do: hook the readers with a quick setup, dose them with excitement, and end it with a twist or two.  There’s just enough story to assist the reader in forming opinions about the main characters, the ending is unexpected enough to not be predictable, and the story moves quickly, leaving out overly-detailed explanations.  The one place a bit more elaboration would have helped is the fairies-to-monsters part, which was a little hard to visualize from a reader’s perspective with the amount of description provided.

 

Overall, a good, quick story, good enough to easily justify the paperback price of $5.50.

 

Contains: violence, mild gore, profanity

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on March 15, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities, and Other Horrors edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey

cover art for Miscreations edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey

( Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com )

Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities, and Other Horrors edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey

Written Backwards, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1732724464

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

 

 

In the foreword to Miscreations, Alma Katsu writes that “we’re told from childhood that monsters exist… we don’t need anyone to tell us they’re real”. Collected within the pages are 23 tales of monsters of all kinds, from the traditional to the unconventional, from the literary to the personal.  Interspersed is artwork from HagCult, who also did the cover art for the book.

Josh Malerman gives us a werewolf tale in “One Last Transformation” with an engaging, murderous narrator addicted to the change, and a number of writers approach the Frankenstein story in different ways. My favorites of these tales were Stephanie M. Wytovich’s poem “A Benediction of Corpses”  in which the Creature addresses his creator directly, and “Frankenstein’s Daughter”, by Theodora Goss, with its surprising and satisfying ending. Christina Sng takes an unconventional approach to an evil Russian water spirit in “Vodoyanoy”.

More personal monsters also appeared.  Michael Wehunt’s “A Heart Arrhythmia Creeping Into A Dark Room” was an effective and creepy tale about the anxiety and dread that accompany someone living in the shadow of a potential heart attack. The story was flawed by the author’s insertion of a fictionalized monster and victim in a story that was far too realistic. Victor Lavalle’s “Spectral Evidence” touched on the way grief lives on, and Scott Edelman’s “Only Bruises Are Permanent” tells the story of a woman who has the bruises left from an incident of domestic violence tattooed on her body.

Monstrous mothers also appear, in Joanna Parypinski’s brutal “Matryoshka”, in which a family tradition of giving each mother and daughter a matryoshka doll goes dramatically wrong, and Mercedes M. Yardley’s ironic “The Making of Asylum Ophelia”, in which a mother raises her daughter to resemble Hamlet’s Ophelia with plans to also replicate her fate.

Other strong stories I especially enjoyed include Nadia Bulkin’s “Operations Other Than War”, Usman T. Malik’s “Resurrection Points”,  Lisa Morton’s “Imperfect Clay”, and the disturbing “My Knowing Glance” by Lucy A. Snyder, which went in a much different direction than I expected it to.

Miscreations is overall a strong collection. The authors have come up with imaginative creatures using a variety of creative approaches, and readers will find sitting down with it well worth their time. Highly recommended.

Contains: murder, torture, violence, gore, body horror

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note: Miscreations: Gods, Monsters, and Other Horrors is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2020 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology. 

Posted on March 5, 2021 by , Reply
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