Blood Skies by Steven Montano

In Blood Skies the world as we know it has been smashed together with other worlds by an apocalyptic event known only as "The Black".  Cities that never were have appeared over night and cities that once were have been laid waste as the world shifted - and the things from our nightmares have returned.

That means vampires, zombies, and other horrors that like to eat or enslave people.  The only positive?  Magic has also returned.  It just comes with a price most of the time.

Mad Max with Magic and Real Vampires.  Hell Yeah!

The story is set 22 years after The Black as an organised faction of humanity, the Southern Claw Alliance, is locked in a stalemate in their war with the vampires of the Ebon Cities.  The vampires can't win any gains due to the bravery and growing powers of the human witches and warlocks, however, a powerful member of the Southern Claw, the witch Red, has stolen information which would give the vampires all of this knowledge and the power to destroy the Southern Claw as a result.

Enter the main character; Eric Cross.  Eric is a warlock in the service of the Southern Claw.  That means that he has a sort of guardian spirit that he can use to lash out in combat or shield himself from harm as well as perform other magics.  Of course there is a price to pay and using the spirit basically means he is guaranteed a short lifespan but when the only other option is being a vampires meal it seems reasonable...

Cross and his unit are tasked with finding and stopping Red at all costs before she can doom them all.

This book made me stop putting a rough genre guide at the top of my posts.  It was too hard to classify it neatly.  Its not a pure fantasy book because the setting has so many science fiction elements to it and overlaying the lot is a strong horror theme.  

Blood Skies has such a strong horror theme because of the atmosphere the book maintains throughout, something that the writer does really well through use of a dark visual imagery system.    As an example the very first paragraph of the book: 

He sees the city. It stands beyond fields of broken sand and salt estuaries, at the edge of a frozen sea, opposite a forlorn tower of black metal and razor protrusions. It is a city of the living.

It looks unnatural, like it doesn't belong.

Nothing in the world of Blood Skies is clean, it is always cold, broken, diseased. References to the world before The Black, by contract, are clean and bright but vague and soon to be forgotten memories.  Where ice, ash and darkness aren't the prevailing colors its sickly blood red or necrotic black.  This constant use of dark imagery really draws you in and reinforces the fact that the world in which Cross lives is a shattered and dying one.

The writer also takes his time revealing the rules and background of his setting to you.  This is something that I would normally be annoyed by, however, it fit in this setting as it helped to enhance the sense of dislocation that The Black seemed to be all about.  A risky strategy to use as it could have lost me but it was well enough done that it actually piqued my interest rather than leaving me confused.

Imagery and atmosphere are definitely the major strengths of the book.  

The adventure itself is exciting and sees Cross and his companions traverse a significant amount of the Blood Skies world including an undead city and a human town that has surrendered to the Ebon Cities.  There is plenty of action and those scenes are well written but the book is definitely not just about the combat. I say this despite the fact that the author refers to the book (series) as a "dystopian military dark epic fantasy. with real vampires." on his blog.

So where does it fail? 

Cross is an interesting character and develops as the book goes on, however, a lot of the other characters in the book aren't as well developed and don't grow much.  To be fair, this is often because life expectancy in the  Blood Skies world appears to be quite brief.

There are a number of spelling and grammatical errors.  Yes.  Pot.  Kettle.  Black.  I realize.  My work is just a blog not a book though and improving all the time (yeah that's what I tell myself...).  The errors in the end weren't enough to put me off or disrupt the flow of reading but if removed would leave the work feeling polished.

Also there is one scene in the book that left me going WTF.  The characters until then had made smart choices that tied in with their mission but at that one point they just sort of went off the reservation. It may have been in character but given the importance of what they were trying to achieve (stopping Red and saving mankind) it was bizarre.  I cant say more than that without spoilers but if you read the book you will get me.  

Despite those failings I have to be honest and say I loved Blood Skies (I made myself sit down and think of some negatives - I haven't pushed myself to do that until now).  It drew me in and I finished it in a matter of days.  

I loved it so much in fact that having read Blood Skies I knocked over Black Scars, the second book in the series, last night and will probably start Soulrazor (book 3) tonight.  The spelling errors persist (at one point yield is used instead of wield) but Cross keeps growing as a character and new ones come on board.

Oh, and the vampires in Blood Skies don't sparkle (possibly why the author refers to them as Real Vampires.  They are truly monstrous in this series - becoming one means losing yourself not just getting super powers in exchange for wanting to drink blood and they definitely aren't pretty.  

Steven Montano has his own blog here.

Fantasy Ebook: Death's Angels by William King

Fantasy is a genre that is so dominated by Tolkien and spin offs from Middle Earth much of the time that it really is refreshing to read something a bit different.  Something without Elves, Dwarves and a Medieval setting.

Something with guns!

Guns and no armor?  This cant be a fantasy book!
Dude on the cover could be an elf though so maybe...

The setting for Death's Angels is a world in which humans were barbarians enslaved by demon gods and monsters until the Terrarchs arrived.  The Terrarchs came with dragons and powerful magic and conquered the humans, driving out the demons and stamping out their worship as well as any human sorcerers they could find.

The Terrarchs themselves are tall and elegant and came through a  portal fleeing a war that they were losing.   The Terrarchs have pointy ears but definitely aren't elves.  Magical, long lived, elegant.  Pointy ears.  Definitely not elves.  Yeah, I struggled there too but stick with me.

The actual book is set some time after the Terrarchs arrived and their Empire has split - the major kingdoms left now being Talorea and Sardea.  The Taloreans view humans as second class citizens but with rights, whereas the Sardeans consider them at best slaves.  Of course the two sides are at war and, you guessed it, they both use humans as their foot troops because the humans are so populous and keep expanding in numbers.

Rik is the main character in Death's Angels, a half breed soldier in the Talorean army.  Rik doesn't know who his father is, his mother was murdered when he was young, and prior to joining up he was a thief who worked closely with an old witch (magic being banned for humans this was particularly dangerous).  As a member of the Talorean army Rik is a Forager -  light infantry tasked with scouting and raiding the enemy rather than going into battle as a line infantryman -  so his past and skills make him a natural.

At the beginning of Death's Angels Rik and his unit are tasked with going into the mountains on the border of Talorea and capturing some hill tribesmen who have been raiding the local area.  These hill tribesmen are in league with a group of  sorcerers who have made a pact with demons in some mad attempt to overthrow the Terrarchs - even if it means bringing back the good old days of human sacrifice and subjugation by demons and monsters.

Whilst in the hills Rik finds the books of a powerful sorcerer which he steals, convincing his companions of their value if they can fence them to an underground human sorcerer whilst secretly wanting to read them himself.

This all leads to Rik gaining the attention of a powerful Terrarch sorcerer and beginning a series of adventures as she recruits him to be her agent...

I really enjoyed Death's Angels.

When I initially got the book from Amazon it was free - which was great - and I enjoyed it enough to buy the other books in the series.

Definitely worth checking out if you want something with a lot of action in a unique fantasy setting to read.

William King also has quite an interesting blog of his own that I have been reading for some time.  Check it out.

Good Horror Ebook: House of Corruption by Erik Tavares

Vampires, werewolves,a priestly professor who hunts them and the close of the 19th century. Its a classic combination when you think about it.

House of Corruption brings a new twist to it though.

Yeah, there are Werewolves in there.
Cover art is by Aaron Sims check out his stuff.  Its even more awesome than the cover art.

Set as it is from 1886 onward the world that Erik Tavares creates in House of Corruption is one reminiscent of those Gothic horror classics like Dracula and Frankenstein.  Its a world where technology and science are new and so full of promise providing a stark contrast to the strong religious beliefs and dark superstitions that continue from earlier times.

Against this setting Artemius Savoy is a professor and secular member of the Catholic church who studies the paranormal.  Laughed at by other academics for his fascination with physical manifestations of the supernatural like vampires and werewolves at a time when Seances and the spirit world are all the rage and appropriate for academics to discuss he is an expert almost without peer - having had a loved one turn into a Vampire and almost claim his life.

The story opens with Savoy attempting to slay a beast that has been terrorizing a monastery in Portugal,  slaughtering livestock and avoiding snares and traps laid for it.  A monster that is a horrific beast and yet cunning as a man - a Werewolf.

The character of Savoy left me thinking of none other than Van Helsing himself, the archetypical vampire slaying doctor, but with a bit more humanity.

No, not this Van Helsing.  The old fuddy duddy one.

Thats more like it.  Classic Van Helsing.  Sorry Hugh Jackman your Van Helsing was cool too.

The Werewolf of course is no simple beast, but the other main character of the book.  

A young man named Reynard LaCroix who is cursed by his bloodline to turn into a werewolf.  Until, as we learn later, the silver and wolfs bane laced bullet that Savoy shoots him with keeps him from turning into the beast.

Savoy shoots him, then tries to save him and fight the curse.  That's is where he differs from the classic Van Helsing who would have just offed Reynard not tried to save him and risk him reverting to a monster in the future.

Reynard is a family oriented man who returns to Louisiana, America once the curse is (at least temporarily) under control to renew and expand his dead fathers business and look after his young sister Lasha LaCroix.  The one person in the world you get the feeling he cares for more than anything.

Lasha, who loves her brother dearly, has seen the beast and is terrified of it (possibly because her parents are now dead...) but doesn't know that it was / is her brother .

Of course then a stranger arrives leaving a note for Reynard with his sister letting him know that they know about his "condition".  This occurs at around the same time that Savoy arrives in town because of a series of gruesome murders that could be attributed to a Werewolf occur...

Not long after the note is received Lasha is kidnapped instigating a journey which sees Reynard and his compansions chase her abductors almost across the world encountering horrors along the way - and especially at the end of the journey.

Reynard is not overly like-able but as a major character is really interesting in terms of his constant battle with the beast within, the guilt over things he has done when he lost control in the past and his fears of what he is capable of in the future. 

The other characters in the book are all very three dimensional and most are equally as interesting, including

Mahonrie Grant who is wanted for murder of his wife Emily and has been on the run for some time but falls in with Savoy and Reynard after being arrested for the grisly murders that occur in Louisiana (which he witnesses).

Kiria Carlovec, a young girl who has been sent to find Reynard because her father also suffers from an affliction.  Kiria is innocent, and provides balance to Reynard who is clearly not innocent most of the time, but there is something dark about her as well.

It was particularly refreshing to come across a very different form of Vampire in this book as one of the majoor characters - one much more terrible than the usual blood sucking sort.  The Penanggalan.

A Penanggalan.  Definitely not sparkly and not a Vampire you want to meet.

A Penanggalan is an alternative form of Vampire myth that's based in Malaysia and surrounding countries.  Basically its a woman who has died and come back as a head and organs that float about and feed on people, stealing the bodies of its victims so that it can blend in...  

Its a pretty horrible myth and if I had my choice I would really really prefer not to have my head eaten off and internal organs consumed so that some Penanggalan can puppet the rest of me around.  Yuk.  

Awesome as a creature in a horror book though - especially as it could be almost anyone once its shelled them out.

House of Corruption is well written -  I picked it up to run over in preparation for this post and have managed to get to Chapter 7 in one day and will likely finish it for the second time in a day or so - and enjoyable.   The setting and characters are believable (yes, even the Vampires and Werewolves) and well fleshed out and I cant remember any inconsistencies in either the character or setting.  

As a horror tale the book is effective.  Throughout I was left with a sense of dread. The writer has done this well not only through description and a general buildup but also because you spend the whole book worried if Reynard will lose control as well as about what will become of his sister.

Definitely a book worth picking up.  A great horror book really that is clearly inspired by the classics - and  was self published on Amazon which makes it even cooler.

There is a blog and website for Erik here.  There is not much to it and House of Corruption seems to be the only horror book he has written at this point - but hopefully there will be another like it.

Horror Movie: The Pact (2012)

I love horror movies.

Not torture or gore flicks, which aren't scary just gross and distasteful.  

Slashers I tolerate, but the ones done well are horror.  The others?  Just an excuse to have a pile of teenagers chopped up by some ski mask wearing villain.

A good horror movie gets you feeling all creepy, screaming in the back of your mind at the main character not to open that door, not to get out that Ouija board, to run and run and never look back.

When someone suggests using the Ouija in a haunted house?  Dont.
Its Dumb Move #1 in most horror movies and only leads to bad things happening.

The Pact is just such a movie.  Or at least it was for me. 

The story is about Annie (played by Caity Lotz) whose Mother has recently passed away.

From the outset it is clear that Annie doesnt have a close relationship with either her mother or her sister.  She is around only for the funeral, and then only because her sister tells her that she needs her there.

When her sister disappears before the funeral Annie isnt surprised - and we learn that the sister was a drug addict and has only turned her life around due to her daughter.  A daughter she has left behind which is the only thing that leaves Annie wondering what happened to her.

From there things go down hill as the ghost torments Annie and she tries to find out what the ghost wants and where her sister is.

This includes an investigation into a serial killer, finding a hidden room in her house (that she grew up in but doesnt know its there.  WTF?  Freaky), and a creepy old school friend who can communicate with ghosts.

The character of Annie is one that drew me in fairly quickly.  She is real enough, and brave enough, that you identify with her - not a screamer she instead runs or grabs a weapon when afraid which makes her much more real than the typical horror movie heroine.  At her most scared you see her run to her motorbike to run away for good and only the fact that her niece needs her keeps her there.

Caity Lotz plays Annie in The Pact.
Annie doesnt scream and run all the time, she seems to prefer to get armed when scared.
Also is hot.

Ultimately the movie does tense buildups well and manages to leave you feeling really like something bad is about to happen throughout, has some interesting twists (which tie in completely with the plot and aren't just there to be smart) and does very well for what was clearly an indie film budget.

Not sure I would have gone to the movies to see it, but for a late night watching while its stormy outside with my wife?  

It made me want to leave the lights on down the hallway when I went to bed.  

SciFi Ebook: Embedded, by Dan Abnett

As a major nerd I have known about Dan Abnett for some time.

He has had a number of successful books for The Black Library, a Games Workshop publishing house that specializes in books based on their tabletop gaming products (Warhammer / Warhammer 40k).

Of the writers for The Black Library he is one of my two favorites (the other being Bill King) and his Eisenhorn and Gaunts Ghosts series are by far the best of the product offering there if you ask me.

So it was with a level of excitement that I found Embedded, a book written outside of the Warhammer universe.

Dan Abnett.  Not Warhammer.  Awesome.
Bad ass cover too.

Embedded is a military science fiction book set in a future where colonization of worlds by the human race has become fairly common place.  Mega corporations manage the process, and  two major governments rule the stars: the United Status or the Central Bloc.

There is a Cold War feel to the whole United Status vs Central Bloc relationship in the book, which some may not like as it is a little dated.  The Central Bloc settlers, as well as their military, certainly seem to have a very Soviet feel about them.  Personally I liked this as part of the atmosphere - and it offset the very capitalist and marketing driven feel of the United Status (early on in the book you find out that a cola company has even paid to have people "chipped" so that they will say Freek (the brand) rather than swearing...) to provide a sort of alien menace.

The main character in the book is Lex Falk, a jaded and ageing journalist who has come to the as yet unnamed Planet 86 to investigate and report on what appears to be a small conflict involving rebel settlers.

When Lex arrives on the planet he gets fed the usual dribble that journalists in this futuristic world are fed including being taken out to see the "wall with bullet holes" like every other journalist.  

The beginning of the book is a bit slow, however, it does build quite a bit of atmosphere.  

In fact the first part of the book reminded me quite a bit of the movie War Inc. starring John Cusack - a movie where journalists are "embedded" with soldiers by going into a cinema and watching a VR movie.  They aren't really investigating anything but just being fed what the military wants them to see and report on.

Of course not all is as it seems on Planet 86 and Lex Falk is too experienced to simply take the company line.  He begins his own investigations and eventually a contact gets him enrolled in a secret program to actually embed the consciousness of a journalist in the mind of a soldier - in this case the much younger soldier Nestor Bloom.

Once that occurs the book speeds up rapidly as Nestor and his squad mates are dropped into action and Lex goes along for the ride.

While this is military science fiction and Dan Abnett is excellent at writing combat scenes Embedded is a much better read than most other books in the genre. Its definitely not all hardware descriptions and Pew Pew Pew action -  the characters, especially Lex Falk, develop over time and the story itself is quite interesting.

In fact at the beginning of the book I remember thinking Lex Falk is cool, but what a dick.  He was so jaded and ready to use everyone he came across to further his own ends.  Towards the end he had grown, and grown on me.  I liked the guy, and felt like he had become something more - like being embedded had given him something to believe in.

All in all a very good book and I really hope there is more of this type of work out of Dan Abnett. 

(If you are interested in the Warhammer 40k books check them out at the Black Library.  Its almost pure military science fiction / fantasy but Abnett's work is definitely still a good read.)

   

A Super Zombie Ebook: Ex Heroes, by Peter Clines

Yeah, yeah.  Its a cheesy blog title.

Its also appropriate - Ex Heroes is a tale of superheroes and the zombie apocalypse after all.

Zombies V Superheroes. Yeah.

A fairly random purchase one afternoon based on a "customers who bought this also bought" recommendation from Amazon (I cannot for the life of me remember the other horror ebook I was looking at), I was initially put off by the premise of the book.  

It sounded original, something the zombie genre desperately needs, but I was worried it was going to be shallow and hammed up.

I was happily surprised.

Ex Heroes is set in the aftermath of a major zombie outbreak which sees the US Government collapse as zombies overrun the populace.  These are the slow old school zombies but as you would expect no one believes zombies are real until its too late. 

The only place of safety?  A walled off movie studio in Hollywood under the protection of a band of superheroes - St George, Stealth, Gorgon, Zzzap, Cerberus, Regenerator.

The superheroes have a range of different powers and fit different superhero archetypes: 

Stealth is a genius with the body of a model who is the leader of the group.  She is fast and agile but her super power does appear to be her ability to think through situations and plan really fast, as well as being well equipped.  Sort of like Batman.   Her drawback?  She is emotionally removed from everybody around her and is always covered head to toe so that no one can see her.  

St George was called The Mighty Dragon before the zombie apocalypse and, like a dragon, can fly short distances, breath fire, is really strong and has a tough skin that is almost impossible to cut or penetrate.  St George is also the most moral of the heroes and reminded me of a limited Superman.  

Gorgon is a strange hero with an ability kind of like the one Cyclops from X-Men has, only instead of shooting energy out he sucks it from anyone who makes eye contact with him. When he drains people he gets super strength for a short time.  The only problem?  It doesn't work on zombies.  

Zzzap is a cripple when normal, but can shift into a form of pure energy at will and when he does so can fly, and of course burn zombies.  Zzzap is also the major power source for the fortified area in which the survivors are holed up.  A useful man to know all round.

Cerberus is like Iron Man, only without an infinite power source and much less agile - a couple of weaknesses I really liked.  A prototype robotic suit designed for the military the Cerberus suit was deployed by its inventor who is a young scientist.  She isnt anything like Tony Stark and is instead weirdly addicted to being in the suit - you get a real sense that she likes the power it gives, and hates being vulnerable out of it.

Regenerator is the man that cannot be killed, the man who can heal from any injury.  A doctor who developed super powers and can heal almost anything except the sickness in his arm from a zombie bite that is consuming all of his power just to keep him alive...  As the story progresses you find out that Regenerator lost his wife early in the zombie apocalypse  and learn about his frustration as the infection his power is fighting basically makes him just a normal man, no longer a superhero.  

These are not the only superheroes in the book - there are a couple of others who crop up - but they are the main characters.

One of the major features of the book is that you learn a lot about these superheroes and they develop in character as the story progresses.  I always like character driven tales and this book delivers on that as each of the heroes develops over time - some become darker, some more driven, but they all become more real as you read on.

In addition to the normal story driven character development the writer also uses a series of flashbacks to help provide background and rationale to the superheroes.   Going from a "now" chapter to a "then" chapter which covers a major event in the superheroes past can be a bit offputting at times - it breaks up the story flow after all - but once you get used to it this actually adds a lot of depth to their character and some of their tales are actually quite moving and others show a very dark past.

No superhero book would be complete though without a villain and in the case of Ex Heroes the villains are a street gang that has also managed to survive the zombie apocalypse and is a constant threat not only to the compound in which the superheroes and their charges live but also outside of it when they are scavenging for supplies.  

They have a particular enmity for Gorgon who was, and is, one of the least like-able of the superheroes and definitely the quickest to resort to violence.

The majority of the story covers escalation in tensions between the superheroes and the street gang, both of whom offer a viable method for survival for the remaining survivors, but the street gang does it through using people as serfs whereas the superheroes are trying to help people survive to return to a normal way of living.

Now I mentioned other superheroes and that is one of the coolest parts of this book.  See, some superheroes are immune to the whole zombie bite thing because they are too tough, but not all of them, and a number of superheroes have already fallen and - you guessed it - become zombies.  

Scary thought isnt it.

  

Superheroes can become zombies - sucks doesn't it.
Marvel did a run of an alternative zombie apocalypse world
so Peter Clines wasnt entirely original, but he has done it well. 

There are also, as it turns out, other superheroes out there.  Or perhaps super villains?  That is as close as I get to spoilers though so my lips are zipped.

Overall its a good read and a book that I have kept on my Kindle rather than just leaving it in the archive once I finished reading it; a book that I can read again in a couple of months.

The writing is good, the characters engaging, and its flaws are fairly minor - mostly because the villains aren't as well developed in terms of character as the superheroes which is a shame.  It does also fall into the trap of  if superheroes exist, then all problems must be caused by them / super villains.  Normal people are just as capable of changing the world (for good or ill) and this is something overlooked by most superhero tales.

If you have read it, what do you think?  If not I would recommend it to you as a fairly original zombie apocalypse book that is worth your time to read.

Soap Box or Mission Statement?

Welcome to my blog!

So whats it all about?  Well ever since I was a child I have been a fan of science fiction, fantasy and in particular horror movies and books.

For me they have always been a way of escaping, of travelling somewhere new and exciting that is more special than buying a plane ticket and just flying to another country - you cant get onto a plane and go visit Khazad-dûm with Gandalf, but you sure can buy the book or watch the movie and stand with him on that bridge as the Balrog comes out of the smoke (I am really looking forward to the Hobbit... ).

Who didn't watch this scene and think Gandalf was the coolest.
I would probably have run at this point though...

Anyway recently I got a new Google Nexus 7 (its not an iPad.  Deal.) and have been getting books on the Kindle app for that which is great because not only can I carry my library with me effectively at all times, but when my wife and I move next we wont have to carry as many books.  Have you tried moving a small library?  Its not fun!

Having said that I have also discovered a minor problem, which I discovered a long time ago with movies: there are lots and lots of ebooks out there on Amazon, but finding the really good ebooks is near impossible without a long trawl through junk.

Thats always been a problem with movies, my wife and I have seen so many really bad B movies over the years, but the thing is that there arent actually that many movies out there and you can usually tell the quality of the movie from if its in the $2 bin at the Reject Shop or not.

A couple of quick Amazon searches illustrate the problem.

Zombie Ebooks
A guilty passion of mine.  Zombies, whether slow (Romero style) or fast (Dawn of the Dead 2004 style) or diseased and gushing blood 28 Days Later style are awesome.  Also possibly done to death according to a lot of commentary I have seen.

A search of Amazon for Zombie Ebooks comes up with 4,776 hits of which only 2,552 have more than 3 stars as a rating - the rest being mostly terrible.

Vampire Horror Ebooks
Come on, we all love vampires.  A search for Vampire Horror Ebooks comes up with a more modest 3,666 hits, again only 1,779 with 3 or more stars, but with the added problem that most of them arent horror at all.  I  don't want a teen romance where a 100 year old vampire is drawn in due to some strange fascination with a 16 year old girl.  Thanks Twilight.  Don't get me wrong those books have their place but I want the Lost Boys that I remember from my childhood (even if I also remember that was just a little bit comedy come teen romance) - scary, evil, inhuman.

Keifer Sutherland agrees with me.  Vampires are bad ass, not sparkly.

Now I happen to love the fact that Amazon lets writers self publish, and that programmes like Kickstarter are helping indie film makers bring their visions to life,  but the side effect of this is the result of those searches; a  large amount of dross to filter through to find the gems.

They are there.

My goal is to find them and post about them here, along with movies that I watch and love.

Hopefully I will also improve my own writing and provide some enjoyable reading at the same time.