Retail Hell

After seeing Grady Hendrix give a presentation a few weeks ago on Paperbacks from Hell, I figured I'd give one of his books a shot. I mean, the guy was hysterical and I could not stop laughing. And after hearing such great things about Horrorstör, I figured I give it a try. I went into it expecting more of what he gave at his presentation, and after a line like this, "Trinity was one of those happy, super-popular, high-energy girls who reminded Amy of the creatures from Gremlins: she was fun for about half an hour, then you wanted to stuff her in a blender.", well, it seemed to reaffirm my expectations. Sadly, my expectations were not met.

For folks unfamiliar with the premise of the book, it deals with an IKEA-type box store that is haunted, although the employees aren't aware of it. Yet. What they are aware of is somebody sneaking in at night and vandalizing the store in little ways that wouldn't be noticeable unless you stumbled upon it. Like poop on one of the display beds. Since Corporate is planning a visit, the General Manager has tasked one of the floor managers with putting together a team to spend the night in the store with the hopes of apprehending the intruder. Enter Basil, the manager; Amy, a sales rep who gets by by doing bare minimum and avoiding her supervisor (Basil) as much as possible; and Ruth Anne, an elderly dedicated employee who has manned a register for a good number of years and someone who everybody (staff and customers) adores. During their first tour of the floors, Amy and Ruth Anne stumble across "happy, super-popular, high-energy" Trinity and her boyfriend of the moment, Matt. We get the impression that they are just finishing up some business before getting down to business (if you know what I mean, wink, wink), which is trying to film some footage of some ghosts, which they plan on showing to the networks with the hopes of getting their own ghost hunting show. Needless to say, all hell breaks loose, but not before they locate the intruder, who Trinity is convinced is a ghost. What follows is a lot of screaming, a lot of running, and a lot of playing hide-and-seek with an army of ghosts haunting the store as the group tries to make it out of the store alive.

On the outside, it doesn't sound like a bad book, but it's not what I was looking for. I wanted funny ha-ha ghosts, and instead I got scary EEEEEK!!! ghosts, so you'll have to excuse me if I feel a little disappointed. I know, get over it, right? I'll try.

While I try to do just that, let's discuss the book itself. While effective on its own, it fails when you compare it to other books (and movies) that tell a similar story. And when I say it fails, I mean it doesn't deliver anything new, which, I admit, is hard to do when you are dealing with one of the oldest tropes in the horror genre. While reading it, you can't help but notice the influences of films like Poltergeist and The Haunting. Recently I read another haunted house novel, The Siren and the Specter by Jonathan Janz, which really creeped me out. Again, it didn't offer anything ground-breakingly new, but what it did have was atmosphere, and while reading it, I actually caught myself starting at every sound and getting up to turn up the lights. Toy Box, a film I recently watched, attempted to take the haunted house a step further, and the creators gave us a haunted motor home. And I felt that was missing from Horrorstör. You get the impression that Hendrix was more concerned with the chain of events than developing a genuinely creepy atmosphere. And he tended to rely on the tried and true rather than risk trying something new. In so doing, he gives us a supernatural adventure story rather than a creepy (or funny) ghost story.

His characters are quirky when we are introduced to them, which provided ample opportunity to venture into the Ha-Ha territory, and while he may have tested the waters by sticking a toe in, he refused to take the plunge and kept us in the EEEEK! territory. And normally I prefer when an author keeps us within the mindset of one central character, Amy turns out to be a rather blah! character once the story gets going, and you come close to not liking her because she's only out for herself. About three quarters of the way through the book, she redeems herself. She's still blah, but not nearly as selfish as she was in the beginning. I can't help but wonder, though, what would have happened if somebody like Trinity was the central character, or if we had the opportunity to see things from the POV of other characters.

So is Horrorstör worth reading? Despite the issues I had with it, it was a fun, fast-paced read (not as great as everybody made it out to be, but enjoyable enough even if it wasn't funny), and if you're looking for a way to pass the weekend, this is an ideal book. However, if you're looking for something to chill you late at night, I think you'd do better looking elsewhere.

Angel of Death

As part of my "Don't Go Near the Water" summer reading, I decided to follow up Steve Alten's Meg with the second book in his living fossil series, The Trench.

The Trench picks up four years after the events that transpired in Meg. Angel, the baby megalodon they captured, is now a permanent resident of the Tanaka Institute. Jonas and Terry are married, but their marriage is in trouble due in part to Jonas's obsession with the dinoshark and his being consumed, eaten alive, by his survivor's guilt. The miscarriage Terry suffered during the numerous trials and lawsuits didn't help matters. In fact, when everything was said and done, the Tanaka Institute is on the verge of bankruptcy, and is bought by Benedict Singer, an unscrupulous businessman with a hidden agenda--an agenda that includes Jonas.

At about the same time Jonas is being approached by Singer and his protege, a knock-out blonde, Celeste, who has her eyes on Jonas, Angel is becoming more agitated within her enclosure. They think it's because of the migrating whales passing by, but it's more than that. Angel is in heat and is feeling the call of the wild. Her agitation grows, and eventually Jonas's worst fears come true: Angel escapes. Torn between his obsession over the shark and his duty to his new boss, Singer, Jonas opts to pursue the shark, determined to put an end to it before it can kill again, which leaves his wife to fill his shoes with Benedict Singer, making her the only woman aboard the underwater research station.

What follows is a dogged pursuit of the shark while becomes Singer's prisoner once she realizes there's more going on than just planting the UNIS robots.

The Trench is an ambitious book in that it's more than just a Moby Dick-like tale of obsession. There's government conspiracies, international intrigue, and games of cat and mouse, both aboard the William Beebe as it pursues Angel and aboard the underwater research station, and Alten handles it all flawlessly. We learn the real reason why Jonas was in the Mariana Trench eleven years ago, when he had his first run-in with the megalodon, and who the divers were who were killed. The problem is, Alten's Big Bad in The Trench is not as fleshed out as one would hope and becomes a caricature of the villain holding the damsel in distress.

As the novel progresses, we know there's another major predator loose within the Mariana Trench, as it already destroyed one sub. This is the reason why Terry is aboard the research station. She needs to file a report, but her report, while complete, isn't entirely truthful, as information has been hidden from her. She's given just enough to come to the conclusion that the destruction of the submersible was pilot error and not because it was attacked by some unknown creature lurking in the shadows. While Alten has to opportunity to bring another megalodon into the picture, he chooses not to, and brings in another prehistoric life form that's been thriving beneath the thermocline. Which makes you wonder what else is loose down there. If you've read The Loch, then you know some of what will be encountered in future books, as the sequel to The Loch, Vostok, is also the prequel to Meg: Nightstalkers, you'll have some idea of what's to come. So I am eager to jump into Primal Waters.

Graphic, at times, as the body count is high in this one, it doesn't detract from the narrative, which is evenly paced and thrilling. Meg was a fun read, The Trench is even better: more action, higher body count, underwater battles between leviathans. Definitely a must-read for fans of killer shark fiction.