'Salem's Lot by Stephen King: A Review

I suppose it's natural in being a fan of various types of vampire fiction that I turn to one of the masters of horror, Stephen King, to get stuck into how he writes of these pesky monsters that chomp on their victims throats and drain them of their life giving blood. 'Salem's Lot has been evading me at the library for months, popping in every now and again to see if it's there and not ordering it in because I do quite enjoy the thrill of the chase (and it costs money, I am cheap). So I made squeaking noise when it finally appeared on the shelf, looking inconspicuous and like it had been there all along.

'Salem's Lot is a small town in New England, a town abandoned and one firmly set as a place of evil and myth. King begins his tale at it's end as two of the survivors of the 'Lot have hit the road and are trying to come to terms with the horrible past behind them. We are then yanked back in time to learn about the terrible tragedy that befell the town, one which evokes whispers and suspicions from the surrounding towns and folk. Ben, a novelist has returned to 'Salem's Lot to write, instead he falls in love, causes a stir and becomes an unlikely vampire hunter. It all starts to go horribly wrong when someone buys the long abandoned and supposedly cursed Marsten House set atop the hill overlooking the 'Lot. With the arrival of it's occupants comes chaos, blood and many, many sacrifices.

First of all, I did love this. I do enjoy a good story that speaks of nasty, hissing grotesque vampires whose only desire is blood. King is one hell of a visual author and these creatures conjure up terrifying images as you read of their vile exploits. The thing that hit me the most was the parasitic spread of the vampires, a small town disappearing into the grip of a harrowing, unstoppable death. He hid them everywhere, in cupboards, food stores, cellars, under buildings and in any hole the nasty things could fit into. By the novel's grisly conclusion the vampires were literally everywhere in town.

As for the writing style, this is something that King is celebrated for. He has an exceptional attention to detail and in 'Salem's Lot he brings a whole town to life, you feel as though you have, at the very least, brushed past every occupant of the town and could give directions to anyone visiting. It wasn't only his thoroughness that grabbed me, this novel has a timeless quality to it in spite of the dates given. It would still work effortlessly if you said it was set in 2012, an impressive skill in light of his descriptive writing.

There was one thing that disappointed me, I never felt particularly engaged with the protagonists. King goes into so much detail about so many places and people that the focus which needed to be applied to the lead characters was lost in this jumble of small town folk. I must say this does improve as you hit the end of the novel, but only because most of the town have become the blood sucking undead. I did wince when one of the main characters fell down a pit onto a booby trap of knife blades, that affected me massively. So there are moments when you feel an affinity with these people, just not enough of them.

This is much more clever than your average vampire novel, and offers far more than constant action and gore. I can really see why Stephen King has a massive fan base and I know there are other novels by him that I would like to read. I just think 'Salem's Lot could have been a shorter novel, I was starting to struggle by the end and could tell that the novel would not have lost it's intensity if you were to cut out a few chunks.

Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill: A Review

A kindly colleague at work secured an early reading copy of Dreams and Shadows for me to read, thinking that it looked like something I would enjoy. I have already told him that he was spot on, this is one hell of a book and I can't stop nattering about it's weird and wonderful creatures to my friends (soon they will be buying earplugs). Due out in February 2013 this is the debut novel from director C. Robert Cargill, known most recently for horror flick Sinister.

Dreams and Shadows is about a world that exists just out of our reach, a world where fairy-tales are real and they come armed with sharp teeth and pole-arms  The novel begins with a couple falling deeply in love, love at first sight, and they have a baby. A creature crawls down the bedroom wall of their love nest and promptly replaces the beautiful gurgling child with a changeling and then, all hell breaks loose. This all happens in the first few pages and the novel then descends into a world of darkness, where fairies hunt humans, the Wild Hunt decimates fairies and a small boy named Colby has his seemingly innocent wishes granted by a genie. Little does Colby know, but his wishes are set to change his life, and the lives of many others (fae and human alike) forever.

Love, fear, jealousy, innocence and vengeance permeate the pages of this amazing tale. I will be honest and admit that I was not too certain at the start. The tale seemed disjointed, jumping from one storyline to the next, integrated with fictional scripture on the world of fairies. However, it becomes apparent that this is deliberate as Cargill deftly merges each of these threads as the novel progresses. I found myself exclaiming aloud, "ahhhh I see", as I was leafing through the novels pages in my comfy chair at home. His style becomes addictive, you begin to love the insights of the mysterious Dr. Thaddeus Ray as he explains the pitfalls and nature of this magical world just beyond the grasp of us mere mortals.

The characters are explosive, Colby develops into a fascinating chap, trying so desperately to protect his friends, yet in spite of his wisdom he still has his wild mistakes to answer for. Ewan is a bit dippy, but this is to be expected of a child stolen by fairies, and his finale is suitably epic. Knocks, a disgusting changeling modelled on the form of Ewan, is a terrifying figure, his jealousy and vengeance oozing from the pages of the book. There are many more characters, but if I were to go on this would become a novel in itself. Needless to say, they are all memorable and leave remarkable visuals as an after-burn in the brain.

Moving on from characters, of course there is a host of weird and wonderful grotesques walking through Cargill's world. Most of these are explained by the rather helpful Dr. Thaddeus Ray as the narrative brings more and more weird and wonderful creatures to the fore. I was equally fond of and terrified of the 'red caps' a particularly nasty bunch of small chaps that survive only though keeping their rep hats dripping with the blood of their slain victims, lovely.

Speaking of visuals, the scenes are well written, the right amount of realism mixed with fantasy to create a world easily imagined and equally terrifying. There is a scene set atop a roof with a half cut angel and Colby that is impossible to forget as they pass a bottle of booze between them whilst watching the Wild Hunt from hell career through the streets below. Where would you be in an urban fantasy without some gore? Well there is a balanced amount of no nonsense blood splattering to be had, all of it relevant and none of it gratuitous which suited me just fine. Again Cargill writes enough into the descriptions to conjure up some savage visuals. This would certainly work as a film, crossing my fingers for that eventuality as I would love to see this world come to life again.

Hopefully this is not the last we will see from Cargill as an author, he has gifted to us an urban fantasy filled with action and enough of a social commentary centred on the back streets of America to keep it's feet firmly in the grounds of a good read. In my opinion a great read if you love Neil Gaiman, or like a great many of us, enjoy a journey into the more sinister world of fairies.

The Natural History of Unicorns by Chris Lavers, a review.

Who doesn't enjoy a good myth? Especially one filled with magical beasties that capture the imagination and never leave your memory. Unicorns have filled our tales with whimsy and beauty for centuries, and I am just as excited about the notion of their reality as anyone else, wishing deep down that a creature of such elegance and beauty once existed. Chris Lavers sets out to explore the origins of the unicorn myth in his book, The Natural History of Unicorns, and even promises to reveal to us some real unicorns along the way. Understandably I was completely sucked into this rather beautiful little piece of nature writing, hoping for an insightful journey into how the unicorn became.

I feel it is safe to say that this is a piece of non fiction written for a specific, rather learned audience and I can appreciate the fabulous effort that has gone into the research of such an interesting, much debated subject. The archive images are brilliant and well spaced throughout, these are well worth a little nose through alone. "A One Horned Ass" launches us into the world of unicorn hunting as Levers' first chapter, I felt drawn around in circles by it's references and had difficultly remembering one avid scientists name from the next, constantly having to back track to figure out whether names had been mentioned before. This repetitiveness and circling seems to dissipate as you progress, yet it still didn't grab me.

I was sadly a little disappointed by this book, not because of it's vast, exceptional research or because of its subject matter. I felt let down by the writing, lo and behold we are dealing with a magical creature here, yet the writing is rather dry, prescriptive and altogether lacking in sparkle. I can only assume this is aimed at a far more academic audience than the title implies. I cannot feel the passion of the writer behind the words and neither could I read too much in one sitting without my eyes beginning to droop and my mind beginning to wander. This is a fair old shame and resulted in me not finishing the book, half way through I had just had enough.

Not one for me, but I can appreciate its value in the world of natural history myth hunting. Stick with it and you might love it, or nod off, just like me. Back to the library for you mon cherie!

Lace by Shirley Conran, a review

After a prolonged absence from the world of blogging I have decided to return with a review of a scandalous classic. The past couple of months has seen me ploughing though about 40 books classified as children's titles, from picture books right through to teenage, so I felt it time to shrug off all the kid's literature and get my nose firmly inserted into Lace by Shirley Conran. What a blinder of a decision. This novel has consumed my life for the past fortnight and quite rightly so. This has just seen a big re-release after a few years out of print, having first been published in the 1980s. I have not doubt we are seeing this adorning our shelves due to the massive success of ladies smut as per the sales of the E.L. James Fifty Shades trilogy, but don't think this is the same sort of novel, you would be very, very wrong.

We are thrown into the tumultuous world of five very rich and very powerful women, sharing an unexpected and awkward reunion in a room in the centre of New York for one very important reason. Four of these women share a secret and the other is determined to discover an answer to a question that has plagued her life since childhood. Known worldwide as a film star, Lili wants to know "which one of you Bitches is my mother?" Conran takes us back in time to an affluent school in Switzerland to begin a tale of four young girls and their journey into adulthood. This story spans several decades and takes us from the charming streets of Paris to the war torn countries of the Middle East, from the fashion industry to the film industry, to the magazine industry. Most poignantly it reveals the lives of five very different women and the importance of their friendships above and beyond the glamour, the men and the money.

Wow, this was guilty pleasure central. A pulse beating, addictive narrative, impossible to put down. This is no flimsy tome either, at a staggering 750 pages, don't expect to finish it in a day.  In spite of the hefty page count, it never feels like a chore, this is a gossip columnist's dream, no story really goes on for too long and the novel is effortlessly split into manageable parts and chapters to allow the tale to move along quickly and offer very different stories within the main body of the narrative. We are drawn into the personal lives of all of these fabulous women, to see their strengths, their flaws and, not forgetting, their deepest desires. This is the sort of novel that leaves its mark, not in a deeply philosophical manner you understand, but in the manner of friendship, you feel as though each woman in the book has become your best friend over the course of the novel. It becomes effortless to empathise with Kate's attraction to awful, controlling men and with Lili's alluring innocence, exploited time and time again.

Let's face it, there is smatterings of sex throughout the novel, used to expose the characters in a multitude of ways and to reveal some very old fashioned ideas about sex and where women fit into the world. This adds an interesting insight into a time I never lived through, and am grateful for having avoided. These ideas are of course rather old fashioned now, but it is clear how much of an impact this novel will have had upon its release. People talk at great length about 'that goldfish scene', which to be honest loses it's shock factor in this day and age. I was more shocked by the revelation at the end, kept as a coveted secret throughout the telling of the story. Conran gives nothing away of Lili's parentage, whilst tossing red herrings here and there to keep us guessing. Crafty writing that will bring a smile, a tear or a grimace to every readers face this is certainly worthy of a cult classic status and I will be throwing this novel at every woman I know. It is true what India Knight says on the back of the new edition, "There was life before Lace and life after Lace, and nothing was ever the same again".

If you were ever tempted by the Fifty Shades trilogy, don't bother, read this instead and you wont be sorry!