FREE/BARGAIN - Horror/Supernatural

[ZodWallop]

$5.99 is a bit steep for a bargain, but this book sounds so damn quirky. Anybody read any of Daryl Gregory's other work?

Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory is $5.99 at Amazon US.

It is a world like our own in every respect . . . save one. In the 1950s, random acts of possession begin to occur. Ordinary men, women, and children are the targets of entities that seem to spring from the depths of the collective unconscious, pop-cultural avatars some call demons. There’s the Truth, implacable avenger of falsehood. The Captain, brave and self-sacrificing soldier. The Little Angel, whose kiss brings death, whether desired or not. And a string of others, ranging from the bizarre to the benign to the horrific.

As a boy, Del Pierce is possessed by the Hellion, an entity whose mischief-making can be deadly. With the help of Del’s family and a caring psychiatrist, the demon is exorcised . . . or is it? Years later, following a car accident, the Hellion is back, trapped inside Del’s head and clamoring to get out.

Del’s quest for help leads him to Valis, an entity possessing the science fiction writer formerly known as Philip K. Dick; to Mother Mariette, a nun who inspires decidedly unchaste feelings; and to the Human League, a secret society devoted to the extermination of demons. All believe that Del holds the key to the plague of possession–and its solution. But for Del, the cure may be worse than the disease.

[Dr. Drib]

From the Ruby Jean Jensen publisher [quoted]:

Satan’s Sister, Ruby Jean’s sixth published book, releases tomorrow. The Amazon eBook price is $0.99 until May 12, then back to $2.99!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZH7WDZ7

[ZodWallop]

Another artsy horror novel. The synopsis for this one doesn't sound very good. I'd say go to the Amazon page and check it out:

The Beast in Aisle 34 by Darrin Doyle is $0.99 at Amazon US

Sandy Kurtz has problems. He's got a baby on the way, his wife doesn't love him, and he's struggling to find passion or purpose at his big-box retail job. And, once a month, he turns into a werewolf.

In Darrin Doyle's deft hands, Sandy's story is a tall tale for our times, an absurd and darkly comedic take on toxic masculinity, small-town America, and the terror of not knowing who you are—or who you're capable of becoming.

This segment of a review does a better job selling the book:

It’s wonderful to see Doyle’s virtuoso talent for writing gore—sequences of violence and bloodbath elevated to such pitch perfect art—at work in this novel. But he’s also created a complex, restless man-beast, his protagonist, Sandy Kurtz. It’s pure pain-pleasure to witness Sandy’s struggle with identity and how it plays out in his marriage, friendships, and adversarial bonds. This novel is a rewarding read with its study of human failing, our faltering attempts at being ourselves, and stepping into one’s truth.

[radbaddude]

It Came From Space by Eddie Generous
Amazon US $0.99
p. 92

The only way on or off Picture Island is by two-hour ferry ride. The locals know how to get along without outside help, dealing with emergencies as they come. That was before something huge and monstrous crept from the ocean to discover it had a taste for human flesh.

This mysterious creature is fast, strong, and seemingly impervious to human defenses. Can the locals stop this incredible beast? Or will they be massacred in the name of a bloody buffet...all to feed a single insatiable hunger.

[radbaddude]

Snow by Ronald Malfi
Amazon US $1.99

They come in with the snow. They are the snow . . .

The blizzard begins pummeling the Midwest on Christmas Eve, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Todd Curry doesn’t need another reason to disappoint his son, so he joins three other people in renting the last four-wheel drive available and they set out into the blinding snow.

Only two hours into the treacherous trip west, Todd swerves to avoid a man in the middle of the highway. The stranger claims his daughter is lost somewhere out in the snow. Though his odd demeanor and ripped clothes make Todd and his group uneasy, they agree to take the man to the nearest town—if the now-damaged car can make it.

What awaits them at the next exit, however, is nothing they could have imagined. Around an empty town square, fires burn, cars are abandoned, storefronts are smashed. And there is no one to be seen—for now . . .

But soon the shadows lurking on the edges of their vision will step into the light, and Todd and his fellow travelers will find themselves facing a sharp-scythed evil shaped from the snow, tearing its way into human form—and taking the neighborhood by storm.

[ZodWallop]

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones is $2.99 at Amazon US.

The below is half synopsis/half marketing blurb. Sorry I couldn't easily separate the two. I guess that's what happens when mainstream intelligentsia falls in love with a horror novel.)

Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR

​In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest novel from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.

“Some girls just don’t know how to die…”

Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called “a literary master” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and “one of our most talented living writers” by Tommy Orange.

Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life.

Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.

Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Another artsy horror novel. The synopsis for this one doesn't sound very good. I'd say go to the Amazon page and check it out:

The Beast in Aisle 34 by Darrin Doyle is $0.99 at Amazon US



This segment of a review does a better job selling the book:

I often judge a book's potential by how well the blurb is written. Reviews are often posted by friends so not reliable.

Thank gods for Kindle samples. That's always my final test.

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

$5.99 is a bit steep for a bargain, but this book sounds so damn quirky. Anybody read any of Daryl Gregory's other work?

Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory is $5.99 at Amazon US.

I see what you mean. Sample it is...

[ZodWallop]

Zombie by Iain Rob Wright is $0.99 at Amazon US.

After a terrible night of arguing, young married couple, Laura and Danny, drive home with their daughter, Rose, asleep in the back seat. Danny is drunk, and shouldn't be driving at all, but Laura keeps quiet about it. She always keeps quiet. There's no point making her husband angry. That would only make things worse.

But things are about to get much much worse.

What happens next will put Laura's strained marriage to the ultimate test as she and Danny find themselves broken down in the middle of the night on a lonely road. Their only hope for survival is to stay inside the car, because there are cannibalistic maniacs outside trying eat them.

Though the story is a standalone, it's part of a series called The Cursed Manuscripts, where the author is trying to build a fun mythos:

On December 21, 2012, according to the Mayan Calendar, the world was supposed to end. It didn't. But on that day, 113 mysterious manuscripts were discovered around the world, each one written in blood by an unknown author. After several dozen unexplained deaths befell the finders of said manuscripts, a decision was made to lock them up for good in a secret vault beneath the Vatican. It is said that anyone who reads the stories will die, and as such they are now referred to as 'The Cursed Manuscripts.'

In December 2020, new manuscripts started turning up around the world.

If you find one, do not read it.

The first book, Witch, was on sale a while back.

[ZodWallop]

The Devil You Know by Mike Carey is $1.99 at Amazon US.

Author of The Girl With All the Gifts Mike Carey presents the first book in his hip supernatural thriller series featuring freelance exorcist Felix Castor.

Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist, and London is his stomping ground. It may seem like a good ghostbuster can charge what he likes and enjoy a hell of a lifestyle, but there's a risk: sooner or later he's going to take on a spirit that's too strong for him.

When Castor accepts a seemingly simple ghost-hunting case at a museum in the shadowy heart of London, what should have been a perfectly straightforward exorcism is rapidly turning into the Who Can Kill Castor First Show, with demons and ghosts all keen to claim the big prize.

But that's business as usual: Castor knows how to deal with the dead. It's the living who piss him off...

Mike Carey was formerly the writer of the John Constantine, Hellblazer comic. Castor bears a passing resemblance to Constantine.

Weirdly Mike no publishes as M. R. Carey (that was the name he used for The Girl With All The Gifts). You'd figure as he gets more successful, he would use his own name.

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Weirdly Mike no publishes as M. R. Carey (that was the name he used for The Girl With All The Gifts). You'd figure as he gets more successful, he would use his own name.

Did he say he stops using that name? Usually pen names are used to signal a specific genre (or sub-genre in this case). Maybe this is different enough than the MR stuff that they decided to go with this one.

This is an old series. His latest Koli series is published as M. R. Carey.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

This is an old series. His latest Koli series is published as M. R. Carey.

Sorry. That was my point. The Felix Castor books are older and were published under his name: Mike Carey. Then everything after was published under the vaguer name M.R. Carey.

Did he say he stops using that name?

TBH: I wasn't interested enough to seek out an interview. It just grabs my attention when I pick up one of his books.

Usually pen names are used to signal a specific genre (or sub-genre in this case). Maybe this is different enough than the MR stuff that they decided to go with this one.

I could see that. But the Mike and M.R. stuff seems so similar, why bother?

Aha: Found a Reddit AMA:

Finally, why the pen name for The Girl with all the Gifts? It's not like "M. R. Carey" is much of a disguise for "Mike Carey." I'm just curious.

It was because I was sort of jumping genre. My publisher wanted retailers and readers to approach it with an open mind. I'd already used a pseudonym for my two conspiracy thrillers The Dead Sea Deception and The Demon Code. I take no responsibility for those titles, by the way...

The series he mentioned is called Heather Kennedy as by Adam Blake. Looks like DaVinci Code stuff. Not really my bag.

I think at this point the books should all be republished under the same name, Mike or M.R. It couldn't do anything but help those Adam Blake books and I couldn't imagine the reader that enjoyed Girl With All the Gifts but hated Felix Castor.

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I think at this point the books should all be republished under the same name

That's up to the author and publisher. Let's assume they know what they're doing

I'll admit that, not having read any of his books, and only being vaguely familiar with The Girl, I thought M. R. Carey was a woman, and took me a while to figure out he's the Mike Carey that did the Neverwhere comic adaptation. (Which I was interested in reading until I learned how they depicted the single Black character in it).

[BetterRead]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

.... I couldn't imagine the reader that enjoyed Girl With All the Gifts but hated Felix Castor.

Well, I wouldn't say I hated Felix Casto -- I only read the first book -- but I was very disappointed in it, finding it too long and drawn-out. But I loved The Girl with All the Gifts. Maybe I should give Felix another try...

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Sorry. That was my point. The Felix Castor books are older and were published under his name: Mike Carey. Then everything after was published under the vaguer name M.R. Carey.



TBH: I wasn't interested enough to seek out an interview. It just grabs my attention when I pick up one of his books.



I could see that. But the Mike and M.R. stuff seems so similar, why bother?

Aha: Found a Reddit AMA:



The series he mentioned is called Heather Kennedy as by Adam Blake. Looks like DaVinci Code stuff. Not really my bag.

I think at this point the books should all be republished under the same name, Mike or M.R. It couldn't do anything but help those Adam Blake books and I couldn't imagine the reader that enjoyed Girl With All the Gifts but hated Felix Castor.

This all sounds as mysterious as the famous pulp writer, Paul Cain. Perhaps even a dash of B. Traven thrown in...