{"id":9683,"date":"2023-04-25T16:58:48","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T20:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=9683"},"modified":"2023-04-25T16:58:48","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T20:58:48","slug":"book-review-black-planet-vols-1-4-by-nikki-noir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-black-planet-vols-1-4-by-nikki-noir\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Black Planet, Vols. 1-4 by Nikki Noir"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Black Planet, Books 1-4, <\/span><\/i>by Nikki Noir<\/span><\/p>\n

Blood Bound Books, 2020<\/span><\/p>\n

ISBN: 9798675368907<\/span><\/p>\n

Available: paperback, Kindle edition (\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a> )<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With her short stories, author Nikki Noir has carved out a place for herself in the world of spleaze (that’s ‘splat and sleaze’) writing.\u00a0 <\/span>Black Planet <\/span><\/i>was previously released electronically as four separate sections, now all combined into one paperback book.\u00a0 It’s a decent effort, with the first two ‘setup’ sections being the best parts.\u00a0 The third section, which carries the bulk of the story’s motion, is a bit of a letdown, with too many of the essential plot details held back.\u00a0 Still, the first two sections help make up for the third.\u00a0 The fourth section is basically just a lead-in to whatever comes next, as according to the author, there will be more.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first section sets up the story beautifully, replete with the author’s usual trashy intensity.\u00a0 Two teens eking out a living by doing sleazy online fetish films have the good fortune of a relative dying, thus giving them a dead body to use in their videos.\u00a0 They hook up with a girl who is into the occult and crazier than they are. That concludes the excellent first section, and no question, it’s the best one.\u00a0 Section 2 is a different thread but still setting the story up, and it’s almost as good as the first section.\u00a0 This time it involves teen girl Haley, her younger brother, and weird mechanical owls in the woods.\u00a0 There’s also a shade of what’s to come, with the introduction of the shadowy organization Stillwater.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where the first two parts ran at high speed, you’d expect the overdrive gear to kick in for the third section, where the plot threads start to tie together.\u00a0 But, this section feels more like it’s stuck in neutral.\u00a0 The author’s trademark freaky sex and messy murders are there, the writing is fine\u2026 it just doesn’t have the same sense of urgency as the first two sections.\u00a0 Part of the problem is almost none of the “why” part is given in this section, and it would have been the perfect time to do it.\u00a0 The organization called Stillwater keeps lurking in the background, but its presence is given very little time, or explanation.\u00a0 To keep readers interested, an author have to give them something in the book for a bit of the ‘why’ things are happening.\u00a0 Otherwise, it seems more like a linear sequence of events that happen for no real purpose, and it’s frustrating.\u00a0 It’s playing the plot cards too close to the vest for a bit too long, you gotta throw a few cards on the table to keep the game going.\u00a0 The storyline is good, it just needs to be less of a mystery.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There’s some definite fun to be had with reading <\/span>Black Planet<\/span><\/i>, it just could have used a few tweaks to help keep reader interest higher.\u00a0 Hopefully, the next sections will reveal more to the readers in terms of the overall plot.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black Planet, Books 1-4, by Nikki Noir Blood Bound Books, 2020 ISBN: 9798675368907 Available: paperback, Kindle edition (\u00a0Amazon.com )   With her short stories, author Nikki Noir has carved out a place for herself in the world of spleaze (that’s ‘splat and sleaze’) writing.\u00a0 Black Planet was previously released electronically as four separate sections, now<\/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":[5371,2320,645,749,5208,5370,1346,642],"class_list":["post-9683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-black-planet-books-1-4","tag-extreme-horror","tag-horror-book-reviews","tag-horror-books","tag-nikki-noir","tag-serial-books","tag-splatterpunk","tag-thrillers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9683","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=9683"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9712,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9683\/revisions\/9712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}