Creepy Reads: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

 From the publisher:

It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginning of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse.

Faced with a future of mindless man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the ten-year fight against the horde, World War Z brings the finest traditions of journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of human civilisation.

 

So...yeahhh....I downloaded this audiobook on January 26, 2020, based heavily on the extraordinary cast (more about that later). I didn't start listening to it until a couple months ago, and I just finished it a couple days ago (I'm a slow listener) (and was distracted by 19 hours of Stamped from the Beginning). Taken by itself, World War Z is an incredible novel about a devastating pandemic. In these Interesting Times? Hoo boy. 

Max (son of Anne Bancroft and Mel) Brooks' best selling The Zombie Survival Guide came out in 2003, the same year that The Walking Dead comic premiered and helped usher in the wave of zombie-mania that's still getting fluids everywhere. Following up in 2006, World War Z takes place in the same world as his previous book. There's a viral source, it's spread by bodily fluids, and it reanimates the dead. WWZ  is a gripping account of the 10 years the world spent battling zombies, told through first person accounts from around the world. It traces the virus' emergence in China, then across the globe. World leaders and countries' responses are detailed, as well as the development of weapons and resistance. Critical battles are analyzed by both soldiers and commanders alike, and the cultural and environmental impacts are pondered. 

I'd read the book once years ago and really enjoyed it. When I saw that there was an audiobook with a stellar cast, I picked it up right away.  The cast list includes Nathan Fillion, Simon Pegg, Martin Scorsese, Jeri Ryan, Henry Rollins, Mark Hamill, Kal Penn, Alan Alda, and the late, great Rene Auberjonois and Carl Reiner, among others. The cast offers a captivating look into people around the world dealing with a plague that has changed everything they know. It is genuinely creepy in some parts, and then there's the whole 'world dealing with a pandemic' and 'actions government officials take (and don't take)' parts, and it may not be the best thing for you to listen to right now. You know you. But I do highly recommend this book in whichever flavor is your favorite.

Please note that the movies World War Z has nothing in common with the book besides the title.

World War Z is available from Galesburg Public Library in both Playaway (audio) and paperback formats. 

 

 

Full Throttle by Joe Hill

From the publisher: "Replete with shocking chillers, including two previously unpublished stories written expressly for this volume (“Mums” and “Late Returns”) and another appearing in print for the first time (“Dark Carousel”), Full Throttle is a darkly imagined odyssey through the complexities of the human psyche. Hypnotic and disquieting, it mines our tormented secrets, hidden vulnerabilities, and basest fears, and demonstrates this exceptional talent at his very best."

Full Throttle is a collection of short stories by Joe Hill, including two co-written with his father Stephen King. Some of these stories have appeared previously in magazines or other anthologies, but others are printed here for the first time. As might be expected from the son of the master of horror, most of these stories are at least some variety of creepy, although not all are truly horror stories.

The collection is bookended by an introduction and afterword from the author, in which he talks about his influences, his experiences writing in his father's shadow, and also about their collaborations. These alone might make the book worth reading for any fans of King, and those fans will also find plenty to enjoy in the stories themselves.

The thirteen stories contained within vary in tone and quality. Most are horror, and many contain supernatural elements of one kind or another. Two stories, "Throttle" and "In the Tall Grass," were co-written with Stephen King, and both are unsurprisingly among the more disturbing tales in this collection. "In the Tall Grass" is also the inspiration for the Netflix movie of the same name.

Highlights for me included "All I Care About Is You," in which a teen girl rents a coin-operated android to be her friend for a couple hours and try to experience the perfect birthday she can't afford, and "The Devil on the Staircase," in which one man's jealousies and inherent biases lead him down a very dark path.

However, my absolute favorite story in this collection is "Late Returns." It's about a man who finds himself driving a library bookmobile and finds that some of his customers come from different points in time. The story explores fun little time paradox questions and is a love letter to people who want to squeeze in one more read in the little time they have.

The audio version of this title is narrated by a pretty varied cast, including Kate Mulgrew, Wil Wheaton, Neil Gaiman, and Zachary Quinto, among others. Hill reads the introduction and afterword himself. One story, "Twittering from the Circus of the Dead," is not included in the audio version because it's written as a series of tweets and it was felt that it did not translate properly to the audio format. Instead, the audio CD version contains a CD-ROM that has the story in PDF format.

Overall, Full Throttle is a fun collection of supernatural and spooky stories that should appeal to any fans of the author's or his father's works, and probably to horror fans in general. Full Throttle is available for checkout at Galesburg Public Library in print and audio CD, as an eBook through the library's ADML and eRead Illinois collections, and as an eAudiobook through eRead Illinois.

The Doll Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow

The Doll Collection is a set of 17 new tales of dolls from 17 different writers. The editor made one condition: no evil doll stories. The stories do plumb the depths of the "uncanny valley" of human comfort level with dolls.

I did not enjoy The Doll Collection as much as Haunted Dolls (edited by Seon Manley), but as a doll collector it was definitely still worth reading.

As usual with story collections, there are two star stories and five star stories. I thought the strongest story overall was "Homemade Monsters," about a boy who turns a Captain Kirk doll into Godzilla and what happens after a neighborhood bully intentionally breaks it. As a doll collector, I thought Seanan McGuire's "There Is No Place for Sorrow in the Kingdom of the Cold" was the best story. In it, a doll maker explains the true purpose behind her craft, and the creepy boyfriend who makes fun of her work gets what is coming to him. You can tell reading this story that the author collects dolls herself.

(The author note says, "Seanan McGuire is an avid doll collector, and she shares her room with several hundred blank, soulless eyes. In addition to her doll problem, she has a small writing problem, and she publishes and average of four books a year".)

There are some truly disturbing stories in this collection, and some that just didn't work for me. Some didn't really have much to do with dolls. Still, I recommend this collection for anyone who enjoys short stories and has an interest in the creepy/cute paradox of dolls.

The Galesburg Public Library has both The Haunted Dolls and The Doll Collection in the adult FICTION area.

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

The Library at Mount Char is one messed up book. The perverted violence was very hard to take at times. But it is populated by characters who are, in their twisted ways, well developed and interesting. The plot seemed to contain some original ideas (although I am not a horror fan and am not well read in the genre). The book is well written; the narrative flows and kept me reading despite my revulsion at what the characters were doing to one another.

The Library is inhabited by an ancient man who has learned most of the secrets of the cosmos. (I would refer to him as a sorcerer, but the characters are quite firm that there’s “no such thing” as magic.) He is powerful – too powerful, and the U.S. government sends a bomb to destroy him. He lives in the United States in a subdivision. His house serves as a kind of portal to the Library; it is not physically present at that spot. He is barbecuing in the midst of a picnic when the attack happens. But he is able to stop time and save himself and many of the children at the picnic. The children then become his apprentices (or “librarians” as he calls them). Each is studying to become a master of a different “catalog” – death, murder, animals, healing, language and so on. He becomes their replacement “Father” – and he is a cruel and abusive parent. The librarian who studies murder and violence is a particularly good student of Father’s techniques.

When the book begins, Father is missing and the portal to the Library is repelling approach by any of the librarians. The librarians are attempting to find their way in and figure out what has happened – but they most certainly don’t all seem to be working towards the same goal.

For the first half of the book, the fantastical plot was the kind of horror I could suspend my disbelief and buy into. After that there were some plot twists I found a little harder to take. Still, the story wrapped up neatly and cleverly.

I liked the idea of a “heart coal” – a memory you keep in your heart to warm yourself with when your world is otherwise cold. I also liked the character of Erwin Leffington, a complex ex-football player and war hero now serving as a special agent who gets caught up in the machinations of Carolyn, one of the librarians. I felt I could relax a little whenever he entered the story.

The Library at Mount Char is creative and imaginative. It is also twisted and horrific. I will admit: I chose to read this book because of the Library in the title and the librarian label on the characters. If the book had been named the Academy at Mount Char and the characters had been called students, I would probably have bailed on this book. So well done, author, to pull me in by appealing to my love of libraries and librarians.

If you are a fan of horror, I recommend this book. If you are a fan of complex plots and don’t mind horrific abuse against children, you might also give it a try.

I read an advance reader copy of The Library at Mount Char. It is scheduled to be published on June 16.

Shutter by Courtney Alamenda

Genres: Horror, Thriller, Young Adult

Release Date: February 3rd, 2015
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Source: ARC from Publisher

Add on Goodreads

Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat—a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual: the corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She's aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-whiz and the boy who developed her camera's technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever.

When a routine ghost hunt goes awry, Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse known as a soulchain. As the ghostly chains spread through their bodies, Micheline learns that if she doesn't exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends will die. Now pursued as a renegade agent by her monster-hunting father, Leonard Helsing, she must track and destroy an entity more powerful than anything she's faced before . . . or die trying.

Lock, stock, and lens, she’s in for one hell of a week.

Shutter has left me in a turmoil because I am not exactly sure how I feel. It’s safe to say I enjoyed reading it but at the same time, I did not like the characters.

Our main character, Micheline is really self-absorbed at times. She seems to make everything about her, including the lives of her fellow team mates and I am not sure how I feel about that. Considering the fact that they work as a team, the fact that she keeps secrets from them, secrets that could possibly endanger their lives, just doesn’t sit right with me. She is a 17 year old with a superiority complex and she just reallllly bothered me at times with her self-pitying.

The rest of the characters are not much better and at one point Micheline calls one of her friends emo just because she thinks that some of his characteristics are ‘emo’. It’s so offensive and throughout the story, Oliver seems to be separated from the group because he is the brains and not the brawns and I don’t like this distinction. No matter what role they play, as a part of their team, all members contribute to the well-being and should NOT be put down because of that.

I don’t know what was happening with Jude either, he was kind of a sexist jerk and said things like “you punch like a girl” and I was just like whaat? What does he mean, Micheline punches like a girl? Is he putting her down because of the fact she is a girl? Even though she is a lot more successful at exorcising ghosts than he is? I think the author may have been trying to make him seem like a bad boy who was a puppy at heart but let me tell you that that did NOT work. He just came off as a jerk most of the times.

Ryder, the love interest, is pretty much the only character that didn't really bother me. He was, for the most part, respectful of Micheline and it was only his 'golden boy perfectness' that bothered me at times.

As a team, they aren't much better and at one point Micheline mentions that the boys have this ‘macho’ thing going on where they won’t really talk about their injuries in front of one another. SERIOUSLY? You are a team. You work as a team. The fact that you get hurt is completely normal and this should not be something to hide from your team. I really just don’t understand the dynamics within their team. They are called a team but they don’t seem to work as one and that was a huge issue with me.

I want to give them credit though and I like that when Micheline’s dad slapped her and she refused to acknowledge it, her friends told her to stop because it was abuse. He slaps her and breaks all of her cameras and she cannot just keep making excuses for him! Her friends realized that and that made me feel a lot better about them.

Her dad has some serious issues and I don’t think there is enough words to talk about what kind of a jerk he was to his grieving young daughter. He is not fit to be a father and should have his parent card revoked. I do not kid.

The romance within the novel was kind of awkward and given the nature of their situation, I just wished it would go away.

Now, I am done ranting about the things I didn’t enjoy and I can finally move on to the good stuff. The horror aspects of this novel were so incredibly well done and they were the reason why I could continue reading even though I wasn’t getting along with the characters.

The author really knows how to create a creepy atmosphere. Plus the way she incorporated the Van Helsing/Dracula stuff within the story made it so enjoyable. More than that, she also has an original take on the whole idea of ghost hunting where the main character hunts the ghosts with her camera.

At first, I admit I was a little thrown off (for some reason I had missed that part in the blurb), but it’s clear the author has done her research and isn’t just randomly throwing something like that in for the purposes of originality.

The plot is also well paced and the mystery aspect is well done. I was scared for these characters’ life (hey just because I wasn’t their biggest fan doesn’t mean I want them dead). She had me on the edge of my chair, flipping through the pages, trying to figure out why all of this was happening.

The twist towards the end was one that I only guessed at and so it managed to take me off guard. I had no idea that was the direction the author would head down and that just made me so much more interested.

Going back to the character’s for a moment though, seeing them in all these scary situations really helped me understand them better which was why, in the end, I was able to still enjoy the story in spite of the drawbacks.

I genuinely hope there will be a sequel because I want to see where the author can go with this and I am curious to see how things will change and develop in future books.

This may not be a perfect book but it is fantastic brain candy and if you’re curious, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you to give it a shot.

 

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

Posted for review Norm - 

This book is set in an ORSK, an IKEA-like furniture store, and its main characters are employees. That part is a hoot. At the beginning of each chapter there is a black and white drawing of a piece of furniture for sale in the store, with an appropriate Scandinavian-sounding name (well, in the later chapters, while some of the items listed are in the store, they probably are not on sale, and certainly not to ordinary customers). There are also various inspirational company blurbs and the odd internal memo.

“Let you become We—at Orsk.” That would make any potential employee feel warm and fuzzy, and it’s not just the employees. Customers are funneled through the showroom by following the Bright and Shining Path. Advertising includes the advice to “pause by your Arsle to turn breakfast into a celebration of a brand new day.” As the book develops, a careful observer can begin to find some sinister hints—potential employees are told that “It’s not just a job. It’s the rest of your life”—and all the product numbers used at the beginning of each chapter contain the sequence “666” somewhere.

When the horror element stepped center stage, I thought at first it was going be weak, but it turned out to be anything but; it also has a definite and creepy relationship to the “this store [work] is your life” element ORSK tries to create in its employees. This was both a fun and a scary read.

 - Norm