Ancient Horror History Unearthed: Aftershock by Robert W. Walker REVIEWED

I continue on my St. Martin's Press kick with this good little piece of pot-boiling fun, with the promise to myself and the readership here that my next read/review will be another publisher...

That being said, Aftershock had me won over before I even cracked the front page. With a cover like that, how could it not?

Of note, author Robert W. Walker, has another book published by St. Martin's from around the same time, Disembodied, which will be swiftly moved to the near-top of my endless to-be-read pile...for both the fact that it has equally fantastic cover art and that this was a fun old time.

I will give you a pre-cursor, however. If you're not a B-Movie fan, you're probably not going to dig this.

If you are, however, you'll find yourself in comfortable bliss.

Strong notes of the questionably great films of the 80s, churned out by the likes of Charlie Band's Empire Films (Creepozoids), Roger Corman's Concorde/New World output (The Terror Within, Mutant) and even a little of C.H.U.D. with a solid dose of 80s AIDS scare factor/viral horror...you've got a winner for a reader like me.

Here we've got a well aged-cheddar laced recipe for psuedo-scientific horror, starting in an underground lab, where some decidedly uncool scientists are bleeping and blooping their make-believe science gadgets when BLAM! An earthquake blasts through their headquarters and, of course, Los Angeles.

The titular "Aftershock" is far worse...the city is in ruins, a biological virus is making living things turn to goo and speak like toddlers, AND a giant, weepy monster is rampant, eating the brains of whatever unlucky something-or-other passes it by every 10 or so pages.

It's up to a few unlikely and rather likely heroes, including a newscaster and a romantically-inclined couple of doctors to save the already pretty ruined day.

At its core, this book is exactly what you expect it to be. A quick romp full of gore and adventure, with little to bind it together. It excels in it's writing, which is ultimately better than it deserves to be...Walker builds atmosphere with the best of them, he's a really great author for visuals and set pieces. He also makes a great character out of the brain-eating monster, who we actually get a backstory on, and often evokes just enough sympathy from the reader. It's generally a better-than-average book in this way.

I did get a sense that Walker wanted to rationalize and enrich his story, which is fine, but he often misfires...perhaps a bit too much time is spent trying to legitimize the fact we are reading a novel about a brain-eating sewer monster born from an earthquake. Quite a few pages are spent delving out hokey scientific explanations for things.

And don't even get me started on the romantic subplot....BLEGH! Written with all the lustre of an old soap opera, it seems there as a pre-requisite, not as anything to really move the story.

But there's enough brain eating, spine ripping and walls caving in to keep your interest...

Keep your brain locked on direct-to-vhs quality horror movies of the day, made for fast, silly consumption and you'll do fine.

I'm giving it a 3.5/5.

Of note, fellow reviewer and books of horror pal, Leon/Montese Crandall (sorry, dude, I am not sure which name you actually prefer!) recently gave this one a solid review on his great YouTube channel, Paperback Mania, as we read it around the same time.

His channel is absolutely worth checking out for fans of this blog, and the afforementioned review can be viewed here.

I liked it, but think I need something a bit more involved and less cheesy for my next read. Just to ya know, cleanse the pallet.