Kayla and the Devil

At the time of the implosion of Dorchester Publishing’s imprint Leisure Books, it was the principal mass market source of horror fiction, publishing 24 new and reprint titles a year. Since its fall, the authors of those books have had to find new means to get their books to the public. The best writer working in the Dorchester stable at that time was Bryan Smith (House of Blood, Soultaker, Freakshow), who has moved on to publish with Deadite Press. He has also ventured into e-publishing, and his latest book is Kayla and the Devil.

Kayla Monroe is a sophomore at Vanderbilt, and not that nice of a person. She is sarcastic and the definition of a “mean girl.” Since she’s also rich and pretty, her personality has never been an obstacle in her social life. In the last year, however, everyone has begun to shun her. She has no friends and even nerds won’t sleep with her. This is a mystery to her until she meets a stranger in the park, who explains to her she has been placed under a shunning spell which will keep everyone away from her. The stranger can lift the spell, however, and will be glad to do so in exchange for a couple of things: Kayla has to kill an innocent person, and give up her soul. If you paid attention to the title, you know who the stranger is.

As Kayla seeks to fulfill her end of the bargain, she finds out she might not be quite as mean as she thinks. She also gets to meet, courtesy of her benefactor, Jack the Ripper and the Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who functions as sort of middle management for Lucifer. Kayla has to make a choice between eternal satanic servitude and being unable to get a date for the rest of her life.

Stories about deals with the devil have a long history in literature, from Faust to “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and so on. It is a rich subject for exploration, and Smith handles it exceptionally well. There has always been an element of humor in Smith’s books, and that gets a lot of play here. The book is a bit of a hybrid between the author’s previous work and urban fantasy. There is plenty of elements of each genre, enough visceral scenes to satisfy horror fans, and enough of a playful element to attract readers who are more likely to favor Jim Butcher over Stephen King. Highly recommended.
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EBook Alert: Rock 'n Roll Reform School Zombies

Bryan Smith's book Rock 'n Roll Reform School Zombies is now available on the cheap, for those of you who have e-readers. It can be downloaded for just $2.99 at Amazon. I haven't gotten around to reviewing the book because I am insanely lazy, but I will tell you it is a bargain at that price.
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Deadworld

Bryan Smith is one of the better writers working in horror today. On this blog, I've reviewed his books House of Blood, Queen of Blood, Freakshow, Soultaker, and Deathbringer, and he's one of the few writers who has yet to let me down. He's now published his first book to be originally seen in e-book format, Deadworld. You can get it for the low price of $2.99 at Amazon, and I would recommend it. The cover is by my friend, the multi-talented John Hornor Jacobs.
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Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies

Here's something I'm a little late on: Deadite Press has released Bryan Smith's new book Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies. Smith is an author who never disappoints, so this one is worth checking out. You can order it (very cheaply, compared with what books are going for these days) through Amazon.
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Freakshow

I struggle back from the near death of a severe cold to cop out and reprint something I wrote elsewhere. Oh, well at least it's a book that is well worth reading, Bryan Smith's Freakshow. If you actually read this site, you know that Smith (Deathbringer, Soultaker, House of Blood, Queen of Blood) is one of my favorite writers, and this is Smith's most gonzo, balls-to-the-wall action/horror novel. i guarantee you haven't read anything quite like it.

A carnival comes to a small Tennessee town. But this carnival is manned by strange creatures, who abduct the inhabitants of the town, savagely torture them, murder them, then replace them with clones under their control. They do this to one small town each year. The main characters are Mike and Helen, who in two parallel story lines fight for survival, and to end the carnival’s reign of terror.

Circuses and clowns have been used in horror before, but never to quite this much effect. It is filled with outstanding squirm-inducing thrills.

This isn’t a book for those looking for slow buildup, tepid pacing, and incremental character build-up. You are immediately dropped into the action, and it never slows down. In fact, I wondered at first if it was a sequel to an earlier book (it isn’t, although it does reference the author’s earlier work) since you are instantly in the thick of things. Most horror novels would start with the carnival’s arrival in the bucolic town, but when you start The Freakshow, the terror has already started, and most of the town’s residents are gone. The action is grisly, with scenes of incredible savagery, some sexual. The story really grabs you, you feel like one of the trapped townspeople, caught up and unable to escape. Although it should not be read by the squeamish, this book is highly recommended.

I'd love to see a sequel to this one.
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Deathbringer

It took me a while to track down Bryan Smith’s Deathbringer, probably because people are starting to realize he is the next big thing. But it was worth the wait. This is Smith’s take on the zombie genre, but is much less derivative of the classic zombies than most.

In the supernatural realm, there are entities known as Reapers, whose job is to collect the souls of the dead. One of these Reapers desires more power, and has come up with a plan to challenge God himself. He goes to the town of Dandridge, Tennessee (that Tennessee is the locus of evil doesn’t surprise me), where a mystical book (shades of The Evil Dead!) is placed in the hands of Mike O’Bannon, a young police officer grieving over the murder of his fiancée. O’Bannon reads from the book, which causes the dead of Dandridge to begin to rise from their graves, killing the living and converting them into part of the undead army. This will ultimately able the Reaper to exterminate all life on Earth, and provoke a confrontation with the All-Mighty. There is a representative of the other side sent to stop him, but is he up to the task?

The zombies of Deathbringer are fast-moving and sentient, which makes them more dangerous than the usual crowd. They also retain the memories of their human lives, and can feel some remorse for their actions, which adds depth. As is usual with Smith’s books, the story is action-packed and fast moving. As with his other novels, I would highly recommend it.

A couple of quick additional notes:

In searching for a cover photo to steal use, I had the misfortune of running across the Amazon reviews for this book, which are mostly incomprehensible. I guess some people get kicks by tearing things down. Yes, it is like looking into a disturbing mirror.

I had the fortune of getting a sneak peek at Smith’s next book, Depraved, which will be out from Leisure later this year. Don’t miss it, it might be the best book of 2009.
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Soultaker

It’s getting hard to review books by Bryan Smith; I’ve almost run out of adjectives to express how much I like his work. He started out strong with House of Blood, improved even beyond that debut with Deathbringer and Freakshow, and seemed to have reached the top with Queen of Blood. It’s unusual for an author to write that many books and continue to get better every time, but I’m very pleased to say Soultaker is his best book yet.

Horror writer Jake McAllister returns to his hometown of Rockville, Tennessee when his younger brother gets into trouble and finds a supernatural evil has taken hold. A Lamia, the mythological child-eating demon, has taken up residence. Every hundred years, the lamia must feed on a large quantity of young souls, and it’s time for the Harvest. As the lives of the residents of Rockville unravel around him, Jake and a small, rag-tag group fight to stop the lamia from killing hundreds and feeding on their essence.

The lamia, who takes the form of a beautiful young woman, is sadistic and powerful. She recruits a large number f accomplices, who serve her in return for great rewards. The human characters are well-drawn, with a deft use of backstory to flesh them out. As he always seems to manage, Smith shows us graphic violence without sacrificing the essential elements of a good story. It’s early in the year, but this is the best book I’ve read in 2009, and it will take something pretty remarkable to surpass it.

The setup of a horror writer returning to his hometown to find the things he writes about are real is a well-used one, going back at least as far as Salem’s Lot, and I imagine further. I bring this up not because I think it’s a flaw (there’s a reason it has been used so many times – it works) but because when Jake is finally made aware of what’s going on, his immediate reaction is that it’s a cliché. This delighted me.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot of the book, since it goes in some directions you can’t predict, so I’ll just leave you with this: If you haven’t read Soultaker, and every other book by Bryan Smith, you should do so immediately.

Who And Why I Follow

So, over on my latest time-waster, twitter, David Niall Wilson came up with an idea for everyone to blog about “who and why they follow” on December 2d. Since today is December 2d, and this will save me from coming up with an idea of my own, here comes a selection of a few of the folks I follow. I am am nothing if not a sheep.

– Jim is my Scot brutha from another mutha. I’ve traded jibes with Jim on about three message boards. Plus, he’s the one who invited me to Twitter, and thus responsible for another alarming decline in productivity. Also, when I thought I was dying last year, he was the only one who didn’t seem happy about it.

Matt Staggs – Matt is a man of very discerning tastes, which you should check out at his Enter the Octopus website. Matt was the proprietor of the old Skullring website, probably the best website for reviews of genre books and films. He also invited me to contribute to said website, and shortly after I began, it shut down. A coincidence? I think not.

– Kent is another message board friend, who I’ve come to reply on for recommendations about books and movies (not counting that disco thing). Kent is also the author of several excellent pieces of short fiction, and we’re all looking forward to a novel from him one day.

– He started this. Also, David is a very fine writer. His novel This Is My Blood and novella Roll Them Bones are on my favorites lists. I’ve also had the opportunity to read some of David’s work in advance of publication, and it is a privilege.

– John Hornor Jacobs hasn’t had much of his work published yet, but when he does, he’ll make a splash. His unpublished novel Southern Gods is a great read, and is going to make a lot of top lists one day. Although John has recently agreed to a collaboration that might wreck his career.

– The previous post contains much of the reasoning for following Bryan Smith, but to briefly recap, Bryan Smith is one of the best writers working in the field today.

The Blog That Dripped Blood

One of the best writers working in the horror business has launched a new blog. You can read Bryan Smith’s The Blog That Dripped Blood by clicking on the title. (Why am I the only one who can’t think of a cool name for a website?). Bryan is the author of House of Blood, Queen of Blood, Freakshow (review to be ported over soon) and Deathbringer. If there is a writer today poised to have a major breakout into the mainstream, I believe it is Bryan Smith. Read the blog, and if you haven’t read his books, do yourself a favor and check ‘em out.

Queen Of Blood

WARNING: For anyone who has not read House of Blood, the following review of Queen of Blood will give away most of the ending. If you are planning to read HoB (and you should), you should skip this.

One of the things you look for in a writer, at least during his early career, is how his technique grows and develops over his first few books. Few writers spring fully-formed from the brow of their muse. This sort of growth was something I was curious about when I began Queen of Blood. House of Blood, Bryan Smith’s first published novel, was so good, I wasn’t sure he could improve that much. I’m happy to report that Smith does seem to have improved, and Queen of Blood, his fourth novel, is even better than the excellent House of Blood.

The story takes up a few months after the events in HoB. The Master is dead, his kingdom destroyed. The few survivors of his reign of terror are trying, in various ways, to put their lives back together. Ms. Wickman, The Master’s sadistic apprentice, escaped the destruction, and is using what she learned to construct a new kingdom. One of her goals is to track down and punish those involved in the overthrow of The Master. Dream Weaver, Chad, Giselle and “Lazarus” will all be drawn back into the fight. A major new organization will also emerge, the mysterious Order of the Dragon. Once again, sacrifices will be made, and lives will be destroyed, in the struggle against evil. As with the first book, it is a non-stop thrill ride.

One of the things I most appreciated about Smith’s approach to this book is how each of the returning characters has been changed by the events they have endured, some of them for the worst. This seems very realistic, as traumatic experiences do tend to have lasting psychological effect, although many authors ignore this. Smith also refuses to play favorites among his characters. It is a cliché of horror that you can tell who will live and who will die from a cast of characters at the beginning of the story, but in Bryan Smith’s world, no one is safe, as any character, no matter how well-liked, can meet their doom at any moment. Or, even more surprisingly, can be induced to switch sides.

As for as stylistic changes, they are all for the better. I thought Smith showed a more confident hand in dealing with the story, and did a better job of focusing the plotlines toward a common end in this than in the first volume (although I didn’t think HoB had any major problems). It is always difficult to extract sales numbers from publishers, but the scuttlebutt is Queen of Blood is flying off the shelves. Bryan Smith seems poised for a major career explosion, and if you want to be trendy, read him now, before he becomes a household name.

Incidentally, although Queen of Blood has a definite conclusion, there is plenty of room for a third volume in the same series. You can count me as someone who is eager to read it.

House Of Blood

House of Blood was the debut novel from Bryan Smith. It has been out for a while, but I have held off reading it until the recent publication of the sequel, Queen of Blood, so I could read them back-to-back.

It’s a cliché in horror to call any relatively new writer the “next big thing”, but Smith may be the real deal. He already seems to have staked a substantial place for himself in the realm of what used to be called “splatterpunk” horror, and I guess now is called “extreme”. Or something.

A long time ago, I was told a key to selling a story or gaining a reader was to have an opening that grabbed the attention. Here’s the opening from House of Blood:

Later they would all agree they should have stayed on that dark stretch of Tennessee highway. One or two of those left alive at that point would remark on the futility of the desire to change that which could not be changed…

Nice bit of foreshadowing, without giving anything away. It grabbed my attention.

Five friends are returning from an ill-fated vacation in Key West, when they take the wrong interstate exit in Eastern Tennessee. Without any realization, they pass out of the normal plane of existence and into the realm of The Master, a mysterious figure who has used supernatural power to create a realm of torture and human sacrifice. The steadily diminishing group struggles to escape the clutches of The Master and his chief assistant, the sadistic Ms. Wickman, while in The Master’s fiefdom of Below, revolution is fomenting.

If there is a weakness to House of Blood, it is that it throws almost too many ideas at the reader, which is probably the result of being a first novel. This is a very minor observation, however, since House of Blood grabs the reader and sweeps him/her along its bloody path. Having earlier enjoyed Smith’s even more gonzo Freakshow, count me among his fans. Details on Queen of Blood coming soon.