Throttle

Throttle by Joe Hill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A trucker chases a biker gang across the Nevada desert. Carnage ensues.

Stephen King and Joe Hill team up for this tale which originally appeared in a Richard Matheson tribute anthology. Fittingly enough, it prominently features a father and son in a biker gang called The Tribe.

Fresh from a meth deal gone wrong, The Tribe speeds across the desert, looking for a way to get back its $60,000. For some reason, a trucker wants them dead.

That's pretty much all I can tell without just spoiling the entire story. There's a lot of blood and gore and a surprising amount of character moments between Vince and Race. I wonder if the conflict between them was in any way inspired by the collaboration of the Kings on this story.

It's a fun short story and a great read when you're looking for anything to do besides yardwork out in the heat of the Missouri summer. Four out of five stars.

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The Lies of Locke Lamora

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Locke Lamora and his gang, the Gentlemen Bastards, have been fleecing the nobility of Camorr for several years. While engaged in their latest scam, Locke gets betrothed to the daughter of the Capa, the crimelord of the city, and the Gray King starts picking off the Capa's subbordinates. Can The Gentelmen Bastards finish their con, free Locke from marrying the Capa's daughter and avoid the Gray King's attention?

Yeah, that summary's as misleading as a transvestite hooker but this isn't the kind of book you want spoiled for you going in.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is a serpentine tale, both in plot twists and in the way it is told, alternating in flashbacks and the present day. I see it compared to Ocean's Eleven and the Godfather in a fantasy setting. I can see the comparison to The Godfather with the Capa's troubles but it reminds me of The Sting way more than it does Ocean's Eleven.

The Lies of Locke Lamora takes place in a fantasy setting that resembles Italy of the 15th or 16th century. Locke and his compatriots, Jean Tannen, Bug, Caldo, and Galo, are all orphan thieves raised in the temple of the god of thieves. Gone are the usual fantasy tropes of prophecies and quests. This reads more like a crime book. Can the Gentelmen Bastards pull off one last big score?

The way the separate plotlines of the scam, the Capa, and the Gray King converge was very well done. When I started reading the story, I had no idea of the carnage that await me once I passed the 60% mark. When you start reading a fantasy series, you expect certain things to happen and not happen in the first book. Lynch certainly threw me for a loop.

I liked the characters of Locke and Jean quite a bit. The Gray King, however, was a bit of a villain cliche, with his explaining of the plan and motives and all. I thought the Bondsmage was a much more chilling and believable villain. Locke took a bigger shit kicking than any series lead in recent memory, both physically and emotionally, and was a much more relateable series lead than most fantasy characters.

However, it wasn't all pork chops and apple sauce. For what it was, I thought the book was really long winded. While some of the flashbacks did a lot to add background to the characters, others felt like padding and could have been summed up in a sentence or two without losing much. The Gray King came off like a scene chewing mustache twirler near the end. Why didn't he just tie Locke's girlfriend to the railroad tracks while he was at it?

All things considered, I thought The Lies of Locke Lamora was pretty damn great. If you're into crime books and want to give fantasy a shot, this is the perfect book for you. Four out of five stars.

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Tentacle Monster Finds a Mate

Tentacle Monster Finds a Mate by Alessa Montague
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After watching her in the shower for months, the monster living in her drain musters the courage to express its love to Ada in a physical way.

Is that a polite summary of a story that's essentially one long tentacle rape scene? Although, if I get my monster porn terminology correct, it's actually dubcon, or dubious consent. That being said, I actually enjoyed it. Not in a "hey baby, let's push our twin beds together" sort of way, but more in the way I enjoy B-movie shlock.

It's hard to find a story overly stimulating when a woman has one (or more) tentacles penetrating every orifice simultaneously while others are fiddling with her naughty bits, I got the idea that Alessa Montague probably writes some good straight up smut in her other books. The writing was surprisingly good and probably would have been erotic if it didn't prominently feature an octopoid horror gets it's groove on.

Three stars. And it's free on the Kindle.

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Full Moon over Cedar Hill

Full Moon Over Cedar Hill by Edward Lorn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Immobile after a massive stroke, nursing home resident Peter Hoskins is waiting to die when the nursing home becomes the scene of an unholy massacre...

Nana Lorn's favorite grandson does it again. This short story packs a lot of emotion into its pages, conveying the feeling of helplessness a paralyzed stroke victim must feel and the feeling of abandonment common to people living in nursing homes.

Since Full Moon is in the title, you can probably guess what's attacking the nursing home. I love how Lorn shifts between moments from Pete's past to the utter terror of being trapped in a body that won't respond to your commands when supernatural beasties are lurking just down the hall.

The ending was unexpected and great. If my family shoved me in a nursing home, I'd do the same thing.

Good stories featuring supernatural menaces of this type are hard to come by and Lorn knocked it out of the park. Five out of five stars.

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The Whitefire Crossing

The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer


A smuggler named Dev is hired to escort a young man from Ninavel to Alathia, taking him through the treacherous Whitefire Mountains. But when the young man turns out to be an apprentice Blood Mage with an angry master on his backtrail, Dev gets a lot more than he bargained for...

I had this on my radar for about a year. When the ebook went on sale for $1.99, I knew the time was right.

The Whitefire Crossing is a refreshing change of pace from most fantasy novels on the racks. Gone is the pseudo-medieval Europe setting and generic quest story. The setting of The Whitefire Crossing reminds me much more of the American West. Ninavel is an analog to Las Vegas, with it's dependence on Mages for water and its lawlessness. The Whitefire mountains are a stand-in for the Rockies and the protected border of Alathia could easy represent the US-Mexican border.

Dev, smuggler with a heart of gold, reminds me of a mountain-climbing Han Solo, in it for the money but also having a kind streak. Kyran, apprentice Blood Mage, is a pretty believable pissed off young man wanting to escape his master's hold on him.

The magic system was pretty interesting. I like the idea of kids born with magical talents, The Taint, and losing them once they hit puberty. Dev's origins did a lot to explain why he was who he was. Ruslan was a pretty vile villain and Blood Mage reminds me of the dark side of the Force quite a bit.

The Whitefire Mountains setting did a lot to separate this one from the rest of the fantasy herd. I saw on Courtney Schafer's bio that she's into mountain climbing and her love of it shows through in the descriptions of mountain terrain, flora and fauna.

I liked the book quite a bit but it wasn't without its flaws. For one thing, the story took a nosedive for me at the 60% mark, once they left the Whitefire Mountains behind. A new threat was introduced and the story lost some of its luster. That's about my only complaint, though.

The Whitefire Crossing is the first book in a series but it stands pretty well on its own and was well worth the $1.99 price tag I paid for it. Four out of five stars.

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A Beautiful Madness

A Beautiful Madness by Lee Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When a mystery man dumps a mutilated and near-dead senator's son on the lawn of a former governor, the former governor's life, and that of his children, spins out of control. Who is the mystery man and why did he leave the dying man on the governor's lawn? And is it connected to the governor's sons? That's what detective Jim Thompson means to find out...

I got this from DarkFuse via Netgalley.

When I saw the detective's name was Jim Thompson, my first thought was "Yeah, they're all fucked."

A Beautiful Madness is told from the point of view of Sammy, the ex-governor's oldest son, who happens to be a drug dealer. His sister, Delilah, is a manipulating gold digger. It seems that Andy is the only one of the Wood children who is worth a shit.

Sammy tries to keep his drug operation running while trying to catch The Wolverine, the mystery man who dumped the senator's boy on his father's lawn. Complicating things are his sister Delilah having a past relationship with the boy and Detective Jim Thompson trying to solve case himself.

A Beautiful Madness is full of twists and turns. There is a fair amount of blood, violence, and death. The characters were surprisingly three dimensional. The Wolverine was far from the one-dimensional scene chewing villain he easily could have been and even had a touch of sadness and pity in his backstory. Sammy is a drug dealing shit but still craves his father's approval and the love of his siblings. Delilah has a slight kind streak despite being a shitbag.

Once The Wolverine's story unravelled, the book become scientifically impossible to put aside. I loved the way everything ended for Thompson, Sammy, Delilah, even the Wolverine.

Darkfuse continues to be one of my favorite publishers and I'll be on the lookout for more Lee Thompson. Four out of five stars.

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The Sleeping Dead

The Sleeping Dead by Richard Farren Barber


All Jackson Smith wants to do is go to a job interview. When a suicide disrupts traffic, Jack hoofs it and finds that's just the tip of the iceberg. Why are people all over the city killing themselves? And can Jack keep himself from being next?

I got this from DarkFuse via Netgalley.

"The suicide plague hits" would be a good way to sum up this novella. People all over town are gripped by suicidal thoughts and are offing themselves in various horrible ways. Jackson's struggle to find his girlfriend and not become one of the massed victims is palpable and very well done. The Sleeping Dead of the title are even creepier than the actual suicides.

The way Richard Farren Barber depicts the suicidal thoughts invading Jack's mind was chilling and all too believable. I liked the way Jackson and Susan banded together without falling repeatedly on one another's genitals.

My only real gripe with the book was with the ending but that was a matter of personal taste. The DarkFuse Novella series continues to impress. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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