{"id":10568,"date":"2025-07-28T22:36:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T02:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=10568"},"modified":"2025-07-28T22:36:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T02:36:31","slug":"book-review-tick-town-by-christopher-a-micklos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-tick-town-by-christopher-a-micklos\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Tick Town by Christopher A. Micklos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Tick Town <\/i>by Christopher A. Micklos<\/p>\n

Castle Bridge Media, 2025<\/p>\n

ISBN: 9798991785549<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition<\/p>\n

Buy:\u00a0Bookshop.org<\/a> |\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Do you miss the good old days of 80s pulp fiction? The times of old, when books like Guy N. Smith\u2019s Crabs <\/i>series, James Herbert\u2019s The Rats<\/i> and Graham Masterton\u2019s The Wells of Hell<\/i> terrorized bookshelves everywhere? Fear not, for Christopher Micklos\u2019s Tick Town <\/i>is here, and he\u2019s clearly learned from the best of the genre masters. This is a true homage to those days, a smashmouth, blood-spewing classic, right down to its purposefully cheeseball cover art. Readers will devour this faster than the giant ticks in the books devour humans, for Tick Town<\/i> is a true “rage on the page” that will stomp all over you.<\/p>\n

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As for the plot, the story begins with\u2026oh, never mind. Why bother? Based on the type of book this is, do you really need plot details? This is pulp fiction, which is just about one thing: pure, fast-paced entertainment. The basics are: giant mutant ticks, small midwestern town, good guy reporters and cops, slimy town officials and EEEVIL corporations. Any new, little used literary devices or elaborate character expositions? Perhaps some social commentary on the travails of the oppressed lower class? Hell, no! And that, my friends, is a good thing. Micklos wisely doesn\u2019t waste time trying to write some kind of horror literary masterpiece. Instead, he sticks to the three engraved rules of pulp fiction:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Hit the reader hard.<\/li>\n
  2. Hit the reader fast.<\/li>\n
  3. Get the heck out and end the story.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It\u2019s also a good idea to throw in a good mess of blood and guts, and a minor touch of sleaze never hurts, and the author checks all the boxes. Tick Town <\/i>races out of the gate in the first chapter, featuring two dumb teenagers fooling around in a tent in the woods. They hear something and go investigate, and you know what happens next. The throttle is now open, and it\u2019s WFO. right to the end of the book\u2019s 197 pages. There\u2019s no slowdown: this is heart-pounding to the end. One thing to note: most people are probably not that familiar with how ticks kill their prey, this isn\u2019t just teeth and claws. The author cleverly finds a way to work in a lesson on that for the readers, using a video call with a biologist to explain all the details. It helps with comprehending the ticks\u2019 slaughter as the book progresses. Who says you can\u2019t write pulp and be smart with it?<\/p>\n

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    Based on this book, pulp-style horror thrillers are not only still alive and well, but the genre just may have found a new torch-bearer. The fact that this is a debut novel makes it all the more impressive. This is a must-read for horror fans and one of my favorites of 2025 so far, this book will occupy a spot of honor on the shelf next to my yellowed paperbacks of Grizzly, Piranha, <\/i>and Croc.<\/i> Beyond highly recommended, and that is certainly the bottom line!<\/p>\n

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    Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n

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     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Tick Town by Christopher A. Micklos Castle Bridge Media, 2025 ISBN: 9798991785549 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition Buy:\u00a0Bookshop.org |\u00a0Amazon.com     Do you miss the good old days of 80s pulp fiction? The times of old, when books like Guy N. Smith\u2019s Crabs series, James Herbert\u2019s The Rats and Graham Masterton\u2019s The Wells of Hell terrorized<\/p>\n

    Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5850,5848,645,749,5851,1133,5849,5847],"class_list":["post-10568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1980s-horror","tag-christopher-a-micklos","tag-horror-book-reviews","tag-horror-books","tag-insects","tag-killer-animals","tag-pulp-horror","tag-tick-town"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10568"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10596,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568\/revisions\/10596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}