Undivine Interventions: Reviews of Horror Novels, Past and Present.

The universe sent me Patrick Lacey. I prayed to the literature gods and they delivered me one of the finest up and coming horror authors I could want. That's a bit exaggerated, but really, a few years back I asked a few authors to drop some new names I should be checking out. This dude got mentioned and the rest is history. Since reading his debut novel, Dream Woods, I have been quick to pick up everything he writes. I would suggest you do the same. When he was first mentioned to me, the only book he had out was this, A Debt To Be Paid. Unfortunately, it was e-book only. I am yet to be able to "get into" reading on a device, perhaps to a fault, but hey...we like what we like. And I like pages, book glue and seeing a book shelf. Beyond that, the original publisher was going under. I contacted the author and said "hey, man...when this thing is on paper, holla holla." He let me know that wasn't happening any time soon, but that Dream Woods would be out short...

Spawn of Hell is the debut novel of William Schoell, an author who wrote a handful of horror novels in the 80s and early 90s, before jumping ship to a more lucrative career in writing non-fiction. In other words, he's one of a billion authors who came and went during the horror paperback boom, carrying on writing something else, to be largely forgotten. One discernable difference, though. Ya boy William Schoell had fans. You'd be pretty hard pressed to find poorly reviewed work of his. Readers rave about the literary blast they have when reading the guy. To my absolute surprise, I found he even has a FANSITE. Sure, it's old and appears to be abandoned, but it's there. That is absolutely more than most of his peer group can say.  You can hardly find a review on some of these obscure old dust collectors. But this guy, people think he is good enough to have a FANSITE! And he's gory! And his books have monsters! I had to read him.  Why not start with this, his first bo...

TL;DR version. Patrick Lacey rules and his newest book is out now, on Adam Cesare's new house Black T-shirt Books! Buy it here !!!! Any reader of horror fiction will tell you the heyday of books has came and went. Right? Wrong. Well, half wrong. True, you can't walk into your local drugstore and find the gore-strewn goods any longer. But we are in the middle of a small renaissance, my insatiable friends. You see, there are a ton of newer authors, right now out there that are delivering the goods. In spades, at that. Two of which are my friends, Adam Cesare and Patrick Lacey. Fan first, friend later disclaimer. I first discovered Adam a few years ago, when I had hit a literature wall. I, at the time anyway, thought I had read all the things I had wanted to. I did some internet searching and came across Video Night, his first full length novel. It sounded right where I wanted to be as far as what I would read next. I couldn't have been more right. The book rules. And i...

Oh C'MON. I wanted to love this book. Everything I read about it, and the other things in the genre the author has written, made me really want to seek it out. Several rave reviews, noting it's b-movie fun, heavy gore and cave-dwelling monsters, led me to believe that this was going to be my jam. I was pretty stoked to find it for a few dollars at a local used bookstore. I don't really know how or why, but something went completely wrong. The plot of the book plays like Night of the Demons meets The Descent , with seven teenagers deciding to spend their Halloween night in a cave. Seven of the most bland teenagers you've ever met who are walking caricatures of themselves, culled from other sources. A crew of red demon creatures live in the cave and pick our blandies   off one by one. And you now know everything about this book. Literally. The biggest, most collosal problem with Hell-O- Ween is that if you've consumed any horror media of any kind, of the past 4...

Horror is my thing. It's always been my thing. Since I can remember, I've been fascinated by monsters, murderers and the gory demise that one could reach at the hands of such. But never in real life. Oh, no. Never. In fact, I am a grown man who can't stand real blood. I have been known to faint at the sight of it. In film, books, media... I can't get enough. The reality is that I am a 220 pound man who can't get blood drawn without taking an extra half hour to "collect" myself at the doctor's office, but can handle some hapless victim be eviscerated by a tentacled creature in the most vile of ways in books and films without batting a lash. What the hell is it all about? I often wonder myself. Furthermore, how can someone in my line of work, where I process the real horrors of the world with people every day? I mean, the books and films I enjoy, often hold tenets of my 9-5...things like rape, murder and brutality are all apart of my WORK. Not to me...

So. This may be some sort of manic decision that I will abandon in a few weeks, but as it stands, I have decided to start a blog. A public forum to dump my opinions about all the things I have opinions about onto the internet. My plan is to discuss a lot of the things that really get me goin'...music, film, books, political/economic climate...basically, whatever the hell I want. I can guarantee you'll be reading about me clamor about some horror novel written in 1989 that relatively few people care about. And then express my absolute disdain for some public education funding issue. Pretty unrelated, aye? WELL THAT'S JUST TOO BAD. HUN. ME. Brandon. I am 31. Living in New England. I work in mental health. I have a Bachelor's degree and Master's degree in the field. I am an avid collector of the things I will be discussing. I am getting married to a wonderful woman who I have known since I was 12 in October 2017. I have a stepdaughter, who is equally wonderful. 3 c...