Rock-a-Bye Baby

 

I haven't read much Joe Hill, but what I have read has been pretty much hit or miss with me, but I needed a couple of short, quick reads to put me a little further along toward my Goodreads goal for the year, and since Amazon had launched this new collection of Creature Feature novellas, I thought they'd be perfect. I mean, creature features? Count me in.

When I started The Pram, I felt I was going to be in for a disappointing read, as it started out with a young married couple wallowing in sorrow over the miscarriage of their child and seeking a fresh start, hoping a change of environment would be just what the doctor ordered. I perked up a bit with the couple happened to be from Brooklyn, NY, and I happened to be a native Brooklynite. So the couple moves from Brooklyn to the Middle of Nowhere, Maine. Talk about culture shock. But I figured I was going to be in for a Burnt Offerings, Bethany's Sin type story, and I figure to be closer to Bethany's Sin, at least what I can remember of it.

I can't really say much about this without giving too much away, but suffice it to say this has all the trappings of a folk horror piece. A creepy old couple, ancient woods, old-time religion, and based on the title alone, a creepy baby.

For a such a short read, I would have expected more of a hook at the beginning to catch the reader's attention, but The Pram starts off slow and moves at a snail's pace for just about three-quarters of the novella. I mean, it dragged, and I was tempted a time or two to chalk it up to a DNF (did not finish), but I hate letting a book get the better of me, so I persevered, and I'm glad I did, as it didn't go in the direction I thought it was heading.

Besides the pacing, I didn't really care for the characters, as they're kind of flat. I couldn't decide if I felt sorry for them or wanted something bad to happen to them. Their backstory is focused on the miscarriage, so other than that sad aspect of their lives, which I guess is supposed to make them sympathetic, you really don't learn that much about them to care one way or the other. So you just accept them and let them carry you along for the ride.

For a story that dragged for a major part of the narrative, the ending made it all worth while, fast paced, suspenseful, and gory. Gore is always a good thing. Had the pacing for the majority of the piece been a bit faster and the characters given a bit more depth, this could easily have been a four-star read, but I need to take a star for those issues. With that said, if you don't mind a slow burn and you have an hour or two to spare, this is one that's worth checking out.

The Rats Take Manhattan

Several years ago, Hunter Shea, one of my favorite creature/cryptid authors, released a Must Read titled Rattus New Yorkus. As you may know, I love me some creature/eco-horror, and I also, as a Native New Yorker, love when NYC is under siege by vermin, creepy crawlies, supernatural terror, or whatever. If the Big Apple is doomed, I'm reading it. So when I saw that Shea was releasing a sequel, it automatically jumped to the top of my TBR pile.

Manrattan picks up several years after the events in Rattus New Yorkus. The rats have been defeated, but for Chris and Benny Jackson, the thrill of living in New York died, and when it came time for the residents of the city to return, the Jackson had opted to relocate to Westchester -- and rats were something they no longer handled as part of their pest control/extermination company.

When a close friend who is also in the pest extermination business calls and asks for their help, both Chris and Benny say no, 1. because it's NYC, and 2. they no longer deal with rats. But their former associate is adamant that they come. It's not a rat, he swears, but an escaped capybara, that's how big it is. So, against their better judgment, they venture into the city to lend a hand. Only, it's not a capybara.

It's a rat.

The size of a small German Shepherd.

As soon as the situation is handled, they hightail it back to Westchester, only to be summoned back to New York by the military as consultants on this new menace threatening New York. It seems the fool-proof rodenticide that turned rats into horny incubators for multiple rat litters that eventually overran NY has had some unforeseeable long-term side effects. The rats are no longer hyperbreeding machines; they've just grown to mammoth proportions, and there's a helluva lot more than at first thought. Now, Chris and Benny's in-and-out consultation has turned into a life-threatening escape from New York.

I've yet to read a Hunter Shea novel that failed to deliver the thrills and chills, and Manrattan is no exception. The tension runs high and is broken up by the humorous back-and-forth dialogue between our two favorite exterminators. Each encounter with the Ratzillas is more over-the-top than the previous one, so there are quite a few eye-roll moments that are very much intentional, and you find yourself looking forward to their next run-in to see how the author is going to top the last one. The only problem I had with Manrattan was the ending, which just didn't work for me. It leaves things open to a sequel, which I don't mind, but it's one of those open-ended cliffhangers that I hate. And while most of the cliffhangers I've read seem to be plotted into the story, this one seems unintentional, like the author didn't know where else to take it, so rather than fumble for an ending, he just decided to end it, and in doing so, leaves the reader hanging, frustrated in that we have to wait until the sequel (if there is a sequel in the works) is released to find out what happens.

If cliffhanger endings don't bother you, this is definitely one to check out. But make sure you read Rattus New Yorkus first.

Radioactive Creepy Crawlies

 

Ever since I was a kid, I had a thing for bug books and movies. Giant ones, hordes of little ones, and everything in between. So when I stumbled upon Neil Hunter's Scorpion, I just had to read it.

Scorpion takes place in England, a place you don't really think of when you think of these little critters, in the small town of Long Point.

When the book opens, a reporter (Les Mason) is covering the protest outside the Long Point Nuclear Plant, so right away you know where this is going. Les also happens to be the first victim of the titular creatures, and it's in Les that we see how potent and quick-acting the scorpions' venom is. The doctors treating Les are at a loss. They acknowledge the fact that Les is suffering an extreme reaction to some sort of bite, but they are unable to identify just what it is that bit him. Enter Dr. Allan Brady, a young research assistant assigned to run a toxicology report on Les's blood, the results of which are inconclusive. But even though he's hit a brick wall, he's determined to uncover what is responsible for the growing number of bodies turning up around Long Point.

Reading Scorpion, I was taken back to the days of my youth, when movies like Kingdom of the Spider, The Swarm (1987), It Happened at Lakewood Manor, The Deadly Bees, etc., were popular. There's a large cast of characters, many of whom are introduced and killed off in the same chapter, but Hunter breathes enough life into the cannon-fodder characters that you're on the edge of your seat wondering if they're going to live or die. The problem, though, with giving us a backstory on every character, even the minor ones, is that sometimes the pacing suffers. When you want to turn the page to find out what happens next, and instead of a face-off with the deadly creatures, we get bogged down with two pages of details about the character that's going to die on the next page, but once we get past that and into the meat of the matter, so to speak, the story moves along at a faster clip. There are, as in any book (or movie) of this type, some unanswered questions. There are also questions that are answered in a manner that makes you go, "Huh?", but that's par for the course with this eco-horror. But these are easily overlooked as you get caught up in the events of the book, and it isn't until you're finished that you begin to wonder about those questions.

I'm not gonna say Scorpion is a great book, because it isn't, but it definitely is a fun read, and if you, like me, enjoyed all those B eco-movies as a kid (or even as an adult), it's definitely worth it. And I enjoyed it enough to pick up the sequel, Scorpion: Second Generation.