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

Here's a book I was sent by an author based in Copenhagen, for an honest review. I know very little about the author, or the title prior to this read and review. What I have gathered is that this was originally written in 2011 in the author's native language, and according to what I've read, popular enough to warrant a  "coming soon" film adaptation, and an English translation, which has arrived now. In it's marketing, it declares it's a novel on the "tradition of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hostel, and Saw." Indeed, it is, especially if you consider "tradition" to be a total knock off. Also, it's hardly a novel, running at about 160 pages, much more a novella. Even still, that's a stretch, as it has enough material to warrant a short story, simply drawn out to fulfill a longer format. Two girls working at a gas station, during "the finale", some big sports event on Denmark, that turns the place into a ghost town.

I imagine/recall a time perpetuated by reading books like Mongster. It's the early 90s. The reader and prospective buyer of such books, is inside the local book chain...for me it was between Waldenbooks or a smaller company, Discount Booksellers. In either one, the audience had a good six towering shelves to choose from. All lined with books screaming "BUY ME, BUY ME! I WAS WRITTEN BY THE NEXT STEPHEN KING!" and several loud alarms garrishly blare such. Sometimes it was a quote by King himself, others it was a review blurb saying so. Other times, it was just some loud and flashy artwork that promised that while it wasn't King quality, if you liked spooky stuff, you'd like this one. Of course, by the early nineties, the genre had been run into the ground, leaving the writers and publishers to grasp at straws to figure out how to sell these damn books. I think the pressure of the industry niche's looming doom inadvertently put pressure on the author of this s

Real quick. Two days from now and I will have been running this blog for a year. I just wanted to say thank you to all of my readership, the authors and publishers who send me books for review, all the suggestions made by fellow readers. It makes doing this more meaningful than I ever hoped it would be. Here's to another year of reading and reviewing! And with this, I have come to a conclusion. So far, in my experience, if Zebra puts it out, it's just not good. A fellow reader and reviewer whose opinion I honor and trust, Leon, the paperback maniac, (if you haven't checked out his YouTube channel, it's a must see... check it out here ), referred to this book as the best Zebra offered in its heyday of putting out an endless supply of horror reading. If this is THE BEST, and I do believe it is, I am hesitant to do much more exploration of their titles. It's fine, honestly. Nothing is absolutely awful here. The artwork is particularly awesome. I will say it's e

It's always a pleasure getting new work by author's I'm not familiar with especially when it's nasty little blast like this one. Death Obsessed is a brand new book, just released in late June from a publisher I'm not familiar with, Grand Mal. However, upon some quick research of their previously released titles, I should have taken notice a while ago...they've got quite a few books I would be happy to read. In any event, Death Obsessed is the latest in the rash of newish books I've been reading that I feel are truly by horror fans, for horror fans, and well...about them. As such, it's very easy for the reader, as a horror fan, to identify with scenarios, characters and engage with the story. It's really a smart story move for the smaller presses, as it truly embraces the horror culture, aimed squarely at the market. Essig delivers a warm, gory hug to horror fans with this one. It's essentially a character study, looking at Calvin, a horror fan