Iggy's Book Nook

[Abraham Smashington]

I loved the sequel. It was streets ahead of Land of the Dead.

[Captain Russ]

I think there is a good story somewhere in there, but it was buried under clichéd characters, superfluous descriptions/dialogue, and no resolution.

I'll get my coat...

[Abraham Smashington]

[IggytheBorg]

I think there is a good story somewhere in there, but it was buried under clichéd characters, superfluous descriptions/dialogue, and no resolution.

I'll get my coat...

As far as there being no resolution, he probably had City of the Dead planned as he was writing this. I wouldn't be surprised if Leisure told him to write the 2 instead of 1 monster volume; they are a small genre press label, after all. He may also have needed the paycheck. And really, who knew it'd have the impact it did? Maybe I just liked the cool as fuck premise too much to have noticed the other flaws. But I never did claimit was litt-ra-chur, just a damned enjoyable read.

If you can find it, give "Wet Work" a read. Keene was probably influenced - hugely - by it, and I think it's a better written book that avoids the pitfals you note. And I say that having read it after I read The Rising, so the concept had ceased to be a novelty. I'm pretty sure my admiration for it is based more on style.

Pretty sure.

[Martin]

Keene said City was made because of fan pressure. He always intended to end The Rising like that, if I remember an interview I saw somewhere.

[Captain Russ]

Keene said City was made because of fan pressure. He always intended to end The Rising like that, if I remember an interview I saw somewhere.

That's terrible.

And thanks for the suggestion, Ig. I'll give Wet Work a shot.

[Martin]

Yes and no.

[Captain Russ]

To clarify, terrible that he wanted to end a book with a cheap hook after so much toil.

A bunch of sound and fury.

What of these Autumn books? How be they? What say you?

[IggytheBorg]

I hate cliffhanger endings, so IK'm with ya on that, but I don't blame him at all for writing the sequel. I read an interview wherein Keene said he hears from a LOT of fans whenever he makes an appearance: "When are you gonna write another zombie novel?" I wouldn't say it was fan "pressure" so much as overwhelming demand. Clearly, they wanted more of what he gave them in the Rising. Is his doing so a bad thing? I don't think so, considering the fact that, while the Rising itself was better book, City of the Dead was pretty close to it in quality. Dead Sea wasn't written in exactly the same universe, but was still pretty damn good (the final kill was AWESOME). I haven't been able to secure a copy of the "Selected Scenes" book, (which was written in the Rising universe) but by all accounts it was great as well. It's not like he's churning out crap just to cash in (at least, as far as the fans are concerned). And the readers are happy, so everybody wins.

[Captain Russ]

Well, not knowing the backstory as to how a second installment came to fruition, I cynically assumed it was a blatant marketing ploy to get rubes to pay for the ending of the story.

[IggytheBorg]

Just finished "The Pines" by Robert Dunbar. As the name implies it's set in the NJ Pimne Barrens. For those of you who are not Tim, Lisa or Vin, you may recall seeing them filmed in an episode of The Sopranos (the one w/ the Russian hit man?). The Barrens have, since early Colonial times, been haunted by a legendary creature known as the Jersey Devil. This book was a tale set in the modern day about one of the Devil's periodic rampages.

What did I think of this book? In a word? Lame.

Lame! Lame! Lame! LAME!!! Why? It used a device that I'm sure was meant to be clever to keep you guessing about what the hell was going on. You were never sure if this was going to be a book about the actual mythical beast, a pack of wild dogs, an escaped psychotic killer from an asylum, any one of several, inbred, retarded kids in touch with the supernatural beast (because we all know retarded kids have special rapport with the forces of the supernatural, don't we kids?), the same retarded kids just exercising retard strength heretofore unknown on this Earth, the main character's cop boyfriend, or God only knows what else.

I hsted this structure because I like supernatural horror. If it had turned out this book was about feral dogs or an escaped psycho, I would have been massively disappointed at the book's turning into quasi horror. As it was, Dunbar kind of copped out and came up with what I assume he thought was another clever device. I guess it IS kind of original, but cobbled together some elements of several of the above possibilities, in an ending worthy of Dean Koontz's lame-ass tendency to explain everything scientifically. As you can tell, I'm not a fan of such things. I'm reading a HORROR novel for Chrissakes; I'm PREPARED to suspend disbelief. To a frighteningly great extent. A scientific explanation is hardly necessary.

If you must know, here's what he ended up doing:
He posited that due to the massive inbreeding of the Pines egion, a sort of disease? Curse? Whatever. . . is experienced by one or two children every generation or so, and they manifest as the Jersey Devil. . . all of the kids doing so are of sourse retarded. And share a weird sort of psychihc bond. The telekinetic powers added for good measure was a pathetic way of explaining away why mom didn't realize it was her retarded son dong all this when they were locked in the basement and the Devil was trying to claw its way into the basement. Or was it the OTHER retard. . . ?

So glad I only paid 10 cents for this fucker used on Amazon. What I'm most pissed off about? He managed to take a cherished local legend from my home state & fuck it up beyond all recognition. Skip this book unless you're a glutton for Jersey Devil lore. . . even the lame kind. So disgusted was I, I am about to read a documentary book about the REAL Jersey Devil and other legendary monsters of NJ. There's apparently quite a few, and I hadn't heard of any of them, much to my chagrin. Hopefully it'll scrub the last book's detritus from my mind.

[V]

I believe a strongly worded email that questions the author's parentage is called for.

[Martin]

Why would monsters like the Jersey Devil hide in Jersey? They're already on the spotlight with Jersey Shore.

[V]

Why would monsters like the Jersey Devil hide in Jersey? They're already on the spotlight with Jersey Shore.

[Martin]

I can only see a red x.....