Cannibal Nuns from Outer Space by Duncan P Bradshaw – Book Review

Duncan P. Bradshaw’s Cannibal Nuns from Outer Space is exactly what the title suggests and so much more. Yes, it’s a pastiche of both the demonic possession and nunsploitation genres, but it’s also unlike anything you’ve ever found in book form in the past.

As he did with the charmingly cheeky killer vacuum novella Mr. Sucky, Bradshaw takes his love of speculative fiction and fringe cinema to a hitherto unexplored place. ‘Cannibal Nuns’ opens like you’re watching a DVD, replete with a piracy warning, featuring a fistful of faux “trailers” for other stories whose general plots are almost as mental as the plot of the novel itself.

It’s hard to discuss this book without giving up the ghost and I’ve never been one to spoil endearingly cheap thrills for the freaks who read our rag. So, with that in mind, I’ll summarize the experience of digesting this jubilant jaunt through myriad hells thusly: The web-fingered Bolo-Bolo is drawn so brilliantly and abominably that it emerges as a creature even more hideous to imagine than the nuns with “chest-mouths.”

To put it another way, Duncan P. Bradshaw is a writer afflicted with a particularly acute illness of the mind and we’re all the richer for it. Catch the infection here and develop a bad habit here.

September 13, 2019 by Silent Motorist Media

Zebra Summer—Item #5: Rip Tide by Donald D. Cheatham

Book Review by Zakary McGaha

In Zebra Summer, Zakary McGaha (author of Locker Arms and Soothing the Savage Swamp Beast) chronicles a very specific portion of his summer reading schedule: horror novels published by Zebra Books.

To my knowledge, Rip Tide is the only shark attack book published by Zebra. It’s a blatant rip-off of Jaws, which doesn’t bother me considering there wouldn’t be a shark attack sub-genre if everyone was uptight about that sort of thing, but it’s funny when you consider the details: the tiger shark in Rip Tide is said to be 26 feet long…a whole inch longer than the Great White in Jaws (the movie version) is said to be.

A labrador retriever dies and the main character is a cop at the beach who also happens to be attempting to escape the stress that comes with being a city cop. There are probably some other not-so-subtle things I missed, but the “inspiration” Jaws had on this book is apparent. Even the overall book design is similar, from the cover to the plain-white back and spine. Oh, and this one also doesn’t sport the “Horror” distinction on the spine, instead opting for “Fiction.” I’m guessing Zebra wanted this to be their big, summer blockbuster.

To say that Rip Tide is a mess would be the understatement of the year. There are so many odd details I picked up while reading this book that I found myself wondering if it was all intentional. My final summation is: no, it wasn’t. Judging from the acknowledgements and stuff, it seems as if this was Cheatham’s first novel, so, yeah…he probably didn’t know what he was doing.

This review is probably going to be longer than the other ones, but that’s because there’s so much shit to cover. Also, there WILL be spoilers, so if you were lucky enough to find this book for below $80 (I snagged mine before it was rare) and are planning on reading it, go ahead and do so. Okay, now on to the strangeness…

First off, this is the only book I’ve ever read in which there is a recurring fixation/obsession with Holiday Inn. Cheatham even THANKS them for putting up with him or something in his acknowledgements section, which leads one to assume that he wrote Rip Tide in one, but who knows. I believe this fixation/obsession started long before he wrote this novel.

Characters are always meeting up at the Holiday Inn, having drinks at the Holiday Inn, and at one point near the end of the novel—when a massive hurricane has destroyed big sections of Florida—the Holiday Inn is described as standing tall while there are several other hotels that didn’t make it!

In addition to the Holiday Inn fixation, this book forgets that it’s a shark book near the end. Recall the hurricane I just mentioned. Okay, so after the shark has already eaten a lot of people and the local authorities have commissioned an all-out shark hunt—like in Jaws—this hurricane that Cheatham has been hyping up for a bit finally hits, and from then on the hurricane is the focus of the novel. Sure, the shark pops up time and again in the hurricane, but not as much as you’d think.

Normally, I wouldn’t mind this. I don’t like stories that simply go through the motions; I like new things being added. But, in this case, it’s odd because the novel just drops what’s been its main focus throughout its entirety. The shark goes from being front and center to being in the background in a split second. HOWEVER, it’s during the hurricane part of the book that Cheatham shows he can actually write. It’s full of gory imagery, fast-paced writing, and actual suspense. Too bad it took him an entire novel’s length to figure out how to do that.

The bulk of the book, before the hurricane shit happens, is rather dull and odd. As mentioned above, Holiday Inn is popping up nonstop, plus there’s tons of cheesiness that comes off awkward as opposed to 80s-ish.

Our main character’s name is Michael Stark…which pisses me off for some reason. And he’s a Vietnam vet/small-town cop who has flashbacks of, not Vietnam, but St. Louis.

Yes.

St. Louis.

Oh, every now and then he’ll say something like, “I’ve seen worse than this back in ‘Nam,” in regards to the shark attacks (I’m not going to find the actual passage because I actually have a life…as in I have other books to read), but most of the time St. Louis is on his mind.
The St. Louis thing also made him famous.

Basically, one of his fellow soldiers went crazy after the war and started gunning people down. Stark, being a cop, made it his personal mission to track the crazy sumbitch down and put him out of his misery. Traumatized afterward, he decided to move to Florida where things are quieter…except for the SHARKS! Well, scratch that…except for the hurricanes.

The weirdest part about the St. Louis incident is that its flashback reads as if it were an abandoned novel. There’s no way to know, for sure, but it’s not written in brief snippets. No, this St. Louis thing derails the story for a second, and all of a sudden you’re following a slightly younger Michael Stark as he figures out what’s up with this crazy mass-shooter. To say that it’s cheesy would be redundant, because the whole novel’s cheesy.

As a main character, Michael Stark is annoying. He’s constantly saying more un-PC things than your drunk granddad, and he’s described as being so mature that ladies can’t get enough of him. One thing that happens several times, thus competing with the Holiday Inn motif, is that Stark will meet a female peer (be it a fellow cop or coroner who works with the cops) and be surprised that she’s a female, then said woman will flirtatiously put him in his place concerning his old-fashioned ways, and then she won’t be able to stop flirting with him. Literally every woman in this Florida tourist trap can’t get enough of Stark, despite the fact that several of them, if I remember correctly, lament about how he’s old enough to be their dad.

The main problem with Michael Stark is that he’s the male counterpart of a Mary Sue. He’s too perfect…except for the end when he gets scared by the hurricane, then gets drunk, then pisses his pants.

The constant stream of flirtation Rip Tide provides is enough to keep you entertained, because it’s all so bad. I’m not going to paraphrase what was written in one of the sex scenes, but damn: it’s so corny, it comes on the cob! (yeah, that was bad; I know)

There’s also a section in which the three main cops of the small town’s PD, Stark included, go “undercover” to investigate a rape at a nude beach, and by “undercover,” I mean they go naked. It contains some of the cheesiest writing I’ve ever witnessed. Here’s an example, taken from one of the rare instances in which the main characters come into contact with the shark.

Page 228: “Screams started down the beach like an echo in a canyon. They began at the north end of the beach and traveled faintly down toward the hotels. Liza started giving CPR—cardiopulmonary resuscitation—to a man in his fifties who had a heart attack.”

That’s a perfect example of how AWFUL Cheatham’s writing is. He doesn’t know when to get to the point of what he’s wanting to say, nor does he have the skill to make his endless fluff sound good. Like, who was he kidding? Did he really think he should include “cardiopulmonary resuscitation” in the text? CPR would’ve sufficed. Also, it’s pretty anticlimactic to have time be spent on a random old dude who wasn’t even in the water at the time of the shark attack when there’s plenty of mayhem going on in the water.

Let me reiterate the main points and conclude this beast: the majority of Rip Tide is spent NOT on cool stuff but on Michael Stark getting acquainted with his new town. And by that, I mean meeting peers at hotels—yes, mostly the Holiday Inn—and telling them he’ll buy them a drink later.

If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “Let me by you a drink,” or, “I’ll take you up on that drink later,” I’d be able to buy at least a better novel in hardback. Time is also spent, as mentioned, on Stark being flirted with by damn near every female character.

Time is ALSO spent on Stark spying on nudists from his condo’s balcony with the assistance of a telescope (SIDE NOTE: at one point, a nudist woman is apparently psychically aware of Stark watching her—I know, it doesn’t make sense—so she starts pleasuring herself, in public, for his benefit). Oh yeah, and there’s a hurricane that destroys everything, but SPOILER: Stark, and the largely forgotten shark, both survive.

I actually give this novel 3/5…which surprises me more than anyone…because I was able to stay into it. I didn’t dread finishing it like I do some of the horrible shit Zebra put out. Cheatham, while being a fucking awful writer, was at least able to entertain me for a couple hours.

What the hell my ratings mean: 1 star = I didn’t enjoy it, and I’m fairly certain I can objectively say the book sucks ass. 2 stars = I didn’t enjoy it at all, but I can’t in good conscience say it was an objectively bad book (in other words, I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone else loved it). 3 stars = a book I enjoyed quite a bit, but it had several flaws that made me unable to honestly say it was a great book. 4 stars = a great book without any serious flaws. 5 stars = made my soul feel tingly and changed my worldview (usually reserved for classics like Siddhartha and The Magic Mountain).

August 3, 2019 by Silent Motorist Media

Zebra Summer Item #4: Bloody Valentine by Stephen George

Book Review by Zakary McGaha

In Zebra Summer, Zakary McGaha (author of Locker Arms and Soothing the Savage Swamp Beast), chronicles a very specific portion of his summer reading-schedule: horror novels published by Zebra Books.

Whew…I took a little break from reading Zebra books. I’m glad I did. I read some awesome things like Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, The Pumpkin House by Chad Brown and The Manse by Lisa Cantrell, amongst others. Life is too short to just read bad books because you’re writing a series on a blog site for fun.

However, I ended up feeling like the time was right to get back to my old commitment, and a friend of mine had let me borrow some books, several of which were Zebra novels, so I decided to go for it.

Boy, did I regret it.

Stephen George is, by all accounts (even mine), a fine writer. His Zebra novel, Bloody Valentine, has so many good ingredients, but, for whatever reason, **cough cough Zebra overlords cough cough** wound up less than readable.

The novel’s main flaw is that it presents itself as a sort of bad ass whodunnit/slasher with supernatural undertones, but it’s apparent from very early on EXACTLY who did it! Now, to be fair, not every little detail about the supernatural slasher is known, but yes, the identity of the killer is clear.

To explain this flaw, I’ll need to explain the plot. Basically, a group of college kids participated in an experiment spearheaded by the FBI back when the profiling of serial killers was in its infancy. The experiment involved creating a false murderer from scratch in order to explain his motives and, thus, understand real serial killers. Soon afterward, real people start dying, and all of the deaths fit the fictional killer’s modus operandi.

It is then revealed that your first guess is actually the right one: yes, the college kids somehow willed this killer into being, and now he’s on the loose. Granted, there is a slight twist in this near the end, but this basic premise is the right one. In fact, early on the killer is shown in “ghost” form or something, so there’s no guessing…

…which leads one to wonder why every character is trying to figure out who the killer is throughout the whole novel. Like, one minute everyone’s accepting the reality of the situation, then there’s denial, then there’s a supernatural occurrence, then “Oh, no! We were just imagining things,” then there’s another supernatural occurrence, and so on and so forth.

Throughout the bulk of the novel, the characters are running around in circles while in the dark whilst ignoring the glowing answer icon that’s screaming, “I’m here! I’m here!” Even when they finish second guessing themselves and accept that they’re dealing with something science can’t explain, which happens pretty late in the novel, they don’t do anything different. They run around in the same circles.

This novel went from awesome to flat-out boring QUICK. And the boringness stretched itself out til the very end.

The writing was awesome, and the characters themselves were interesting and well-drawn, but the boredom factor got in the way of everything. Literally everything the characters did was pointless, repetitive, and just flat-out stupid. At the very end, the main character actually does something useful, which leads one to wonder: why did Stephen George have all the characters do nothing important throughout the majority of the novel?

Let’s elaborate on this aspect: think of Bloody Valentine’s plot as a long hallway. At the very end of said hallway is the right door, which represents the obvious outcome (meaning that it has a bulls eye painted on it), but before said door there are countless other doors that lead to nowhere (and that much is posted on each door like an eviction notice). Well, instead of going to the door with the bulls eye, Stephen George opens every door along the way and fucks around for…oh, about the length of a 413-page novel, before finally getting to the right one.

I normally don’t like being harsh on books, and I’m sure Stephen George is a fine writer; his atmosphere, character development and all-around writing style are actually ABOVE typical Zebra standards, in my opinion…but the pointless fluff that filled the bulk of this 413-page novel simply made it way less than enjoyable.

2/5 stars.

What the hell my ratings mean: 1 star = I didn’t enjoy it, and I’m fairly certain I can objectively say the book sucks ass. 2 stars = I didn’t enjoy it at all, but I can’t , in good conscience, say it was an objectively bad book (in other words, I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone else loved it). 3 stars = a book I enjoyed quite a bit, but it had several flaws that made me unable to honestly say it was a great book. 4 stars = a great book without any serious flaws. 5 stars = made my soul feel tingly and changed my worldview (usually reserved for classics like Siddhartha and The Magic Mountain).

July 22, 2019 by Silent Motorist Media

Impossible James by Danger Slater – Book Review

Impossible James

By Danger Slater

Fungasm Press, 2019

Reviewed by Gordon B. White

Impossible James, Danger Slater’s latest novel, is a book about the tensions of finding meaning in an absurd world, about tensions that rupture into paradoxes. It’s about growing larger, but also becoming smaller. It’s about fighting a system, but surrendering to it. It’s about creating a legacy and destroying history in the process. It’s also funny, gross, bizarre, and even a little touching. It’s a trip.

What is Impossible James about? The plot is simplicity itself: James Watson (soon to be James Watson, “Sr.”) is diagnosed with a malignant “black spot” in his brain that will kill him … in fifty years or so. Driven to despair, he loses his job at the multinational conglomerate Motherlove, burns his belongings, and gets a screwdriver through the brain which both pins the black spot in place and sparks his creativity such that he can clone himself through a very disgusting process and, eventually, cure death.

As James Sr. grows less and less human, his first clone, James Watson Jr., narrates the story from the end of the world, alternating between his father’s history and the imminent collapse of the universe beneath a plague known as the Gray Tide. Got it? Good.

While the above description should make it clear this is a fine and pulpy story, Slater has a way of writing that belies the danger of his underlying ideas. The plot careens forward and the writing is almost always conversational and, sometimes, willing to derail its own narrative and draw attention to the mechanics of the novelistic structure. The cumulative effect is a story told by a friend, holding on to your arm and shaking you at the good parts. To focus on just the presentation, though, hides the real heart of Impossible James.

Impossible James bears the subtitle “A book about death,” and this is no joke. At every moment, the specter of futility and the void hangs over the proceedings. It has thematic overlays of capitalism, climate catastrophe, existential dread and more. None of them fit completely, but they do so in a way that evokes the unease that all of them do. It’s about setting up Impossible Goals and Impossible Defenses, but being unable to escape the Impossible End. It’s about giving oneself to the world, but also the sheer egotism that doing so takes.

It’s a very strange book about self-centered sacrifice and catastrophes, and the human moments in the face of both, which are by turns poignant and useless. It’s a book about frustration and how as one’s goals explode, one becomes smaller and smaller. It’s about the selfishness of creating a life filled with doubt, but also the catastrophe of abandoning that doubt — and how that doubt which may be the only thing keeping us in check, or at least placated.

Because it’s that sense of doubt — that question of “What’s it all for?” — that might be keeping us from turning into unrestrained sociopaths. In fact, by abandoning that doubt, James Sr. becomes both a society and a pathology in himself. What’s that mean? Well, you’ll have to read it to see.

But all of this is the paradox of Impossible James: a way to balance these warring impulses of the insignificant and the psychotically grand; the crippling doubt against the destructive untethering. And in the end … well, James Watson Jr. has to make a decision. It’s a decision we all have to make, although it isn’t easy to make and even harder to tell if the decision is the one that’s “right.”

With Impossible James, Danger Slater continues slipping his readers existential poison pills beneath a shiny, gleefully gruesome candy coating. By turns humorous, horrifying, and even heartbreaking, Impossible James struggles to make sense of a modern world collapsing under its own bloat and the human but absurd drive to create — be it meaning, purpose, art — in the face of that catastrophe. Is it impossible? No, but it’s Impossible James.

June 30, 2019 by Silent Motorist Media

Zebra Summer—Item #3: Chain Letter by Ruby Jean Jensen

In Zebra Summer, Zakary McGaha (author of Locker Arms and Soothing the Savage Swamp Beast), chronicles a very specific portion of his summer reading-schedule: horror novels published by Zebra Books.

I’m a fan of Ruby Jean Jensen; several of her books are among my favorite horror novels in general (which is no easy feat). Sometimes, though…she just misses the mark.

You know an RJJ novel is going to be bad when you recognize her formula right away. In this case, I knew within the first couple of pages in the first chapter (not the prologue) that it was gonna be a clunker.

Fair enough: most, if not all, of Ruby’s books are about kids in dire situations, but this, sadly, allowed her…or forced her, if my suppositions of Zebra editor overlords is correct…into a rut that got super-tiresome. Although none of these books follow the exact same plot, they’re all too similar in my opinion: Wait and See, Jump Rope, Lost and Found, Victoria, and the novel in question: Chain Letter.

All of Ruby’s good novels… Home Sweet Home, Celia, and Annabelle…involve children, as well, but they feel like their own books…they feel like they were written with actual passion, instead of simply churned out, one after the other, in factory-line fashion.

Chain Letter is an okay read, but it pales in comparison to the novels mentioned above. I’ve already forgotten most of it, because, sadly, there wasn’t anything worth remembering…except for what might be the funniest ending in pulp-horror history.

The ending actually made me laugh out loud. I can’t say whether I think it was intentional or not, but damn: it made the book worth reading.

The novel is about a couple of kids who find a chain letter in an abandoned retirement-home/asylum…which sounds like a fun place to wind up in…and then proceed to bumble around while bad things happen to them and their families because they don’t follow the instructions to a tee. Their lives are further complicated because half the letter is missing!

As in all of Jensen’s formulaic works (as opposed to her good ones), some of the kids make it and some don’t. Nothing particularly surprising or inventive happens in this regard; Chain Letter is no exception.

The novel’s principle flaw involves the stale plot that meanders about at Christmas’s pace. Everything you expect to happen does, and it takes forever at that…this excludes the amazing ending, of course…and absolutely nothing cool happens concerning the supernatural aspect of the story. There were multiple ways the book could’ve been made at least cool, but I suppose it wasn’t meant to be.

Perhaps I would’ve enjoyed the novel had I not been familiar with Jensen’s other works. You may be wondering why I continue to read this author if I dislike her “formula” so dearly, but trust me: when she doesn’t follow it, she’s AMAZING.

There’s been talk of Ruby’s books coming back into print in ebook form…there’s a new website and everything; the domain name is simply her name plus a dot and a com…and I seriously hope this happens. All of her books are worth reading, in my opinion, even if some are better than others.

It’s about time her work became easily accessible. Horror fans shouldn’t be deprived.

As far as my “rating” for Chain Letter goes…I’m thinking 3/5. It was at least readable, and some parts kept me glued to the pages. Originally, I gave the book 5/5 on Goodreads, but that’s only because I was still laughing at the ending.

If you’re like me…a mega fan of ole RJJ…then you’re going to read this book anyway. If you’re a horror fan who’s just now getting to RJJ, I’d say go for one of the novels I mentioned above as being her best.

After that, read this one to put an end to your suspense concerning the hilarious ending.

June 16, 2019 by Silent Motorist Media