Damn it's been a while. New review! Blank by Lippe Simone!

I just sat down and realized I haven't updated in about a month. It's not because I didn't have anything to read, I just haven't actually found any books worth reviewing. I try to share books I like, or love, because it's a lot easier to write a review of something you like than it is to trash something that just isn't good.

That being said, unfortunately this review is going to be for a book that I can't recommend, Blank by Lippe Simone.



Basically, imagine an apocalypse that happens because everyone forgets everything. Pilots forget how to fly, people forget how to drive, etc.

Now, take that idea, and make it boring.

Now you have this book.

The idea that people would still be people but would not know anything about anything was a tremendously interesting idea to me. It's a very novel and unique way of bringing around an apocalypse without the overuse of zombies.

The problem is, when using this idea, when you change literally 99% of the characters shown in the book into tribal cavemen, there is a LOT less interesting things to the apocalypse and a shitload more "Holy shit this is boring as hell!"

There are 3 main characters, all of whom suck. There are plot developments that literally come out of nowhere and end up being done for no reason because otherwise there's not a reason for it to happen and the scenery of it would be SO COOL.

It's just a waste of a good premise for a book.

Example, one of the people who retains some of their memory is a woman who goes to the zoo and opens all the animal enclosures. Why? No reason. The only plot related reason is so she can throw fruit at monkeys later in the book so they chase after people chasing her, and panthers/lions/etc chase after the monkeys and she gets away. That's it.

Oh yea, the reason we all lose our memory and go tribal and retarded is because of solar radiation that somehow fries just one part of our brain.

As I said, the idea that everyone forgets everything could have been an amazing premise for a book. Hell, it still is. Imagine being in a nuclear power plant and having no idea why that red light is blinking but just knowing that it's a bad thing. Imagine being a pilot and suddenly not knowing how or why you are driving this big thing with the tons of controls, and no one on the ground can help.

There are SO MANY different options you can choose, even down to "soldier stuck in nuclear launch facility with THE SHINY RED BUTTON" but yet, instead of going with any of those, we get 3 main characters who are all boring, in boring situations, doing boring things, for boring and nonsensical reasons.

The final plot twist/reveal is just lame. There is literally nothing good about this book other than the lack of spelling errors and the cover itself. Terrific premise, great ideas, and it wastes them all. This book is the equivalent of a great quote from Shakespeare.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury 
Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28) 

When you can summarize your reaction to a book with a literary Shakespearean fart joke, it's a bad book.

1 out of 5 crashing planes.

BOOM! Another review! Making up for lost time, and presenting my favorite book, WOLF HUNT by Jeff Strand!

Weird, I know. I just updated a few days ago and boom, here I am again.

Well, this time I am bringing you my favorite book, Wolf Hunt by Jeff Strand.

I will gush a bit about this book, but please understand I will give reasons as to why it's my favorite as well as criticisms of it. Well, that last part is a lie cause I really don't have anything to complain about in it. It's still a 5 star novel that you seriously need to read if you enjoy werewolves, monsters, thrillers or the best dialog in written form.

Seriously, this guy writes the best dialog I have ever seen. It's natural, it's funny, it flows smoothly, it's not stilted or overly long explanations of whatever the author insert in the book wants to say, it's literally just great dialog. I think this could easily be turned into a movie with minimal loss to the book and it would be amazing.

So, basically the plot involves a werewolf. 2 mobster leg breakers are given an assignment, and that assignment is very simple. Bring the man in the cage to a location.

What starts out as an easy assignment quickly becomes very complicated, very dangerous, and very very entertaining.

Gonna sidetrack for a moment here, so please bear with me. I seriously HATE the ideas that werewolves and vampires are all these emo, woe is me monsters. "Oh, I am so sad, I am immortal and  a perfect killing machine and I eat people but I can't handle sunlight/silver/the full moon, OH WOE IS ME FOR MY IMMORTAL LIFETIME WILL BE FILLED WITH PAIN AND EATING PEOPLE" is not something that garners my sympathies. 99% of the time in the books these things are not only insanely rich, they are insanely good looking and have pretty much nothing to complain about other than needing spf 900000 sunblock or a seriously good bottle of shampoo once a month. Granted, I can say something hand-wavy like "Oh, being attractive is a trait of predators that would allow easier feeding so yea I can sort of understand why the changes would happen to make someone look better" but I shouldn't have to. The plot of the book in a monster novel should be "Hey, it's a monster, and it's killing and eating people", not "Hey, it's a monster! Let's talk about feelings and how important it is to not judge people that eat other people."

They are monsters, they eat people. This attitude of "Oh, I am doomed to be alone because I am a rich, sexy being of the night in my castle/apartment and if I get close to someone I might kill them and eat them" is just boring as hell to me. Granted, I am not a woman and I don't read romance novels often, but I just cannot wrap my head about what might be sexy about a guy who might snap and kill you and drain your blood for food. It'd be like me moaning about how I can't stand to look at a cow because I would someday snap and want a steak. They are predators, they live to eat people, much like humans are predators and we eat anything made of meat or butter.

That being said, the werewolf in this story is a complete and utter bastard. He is an asshole, and he acts like one. He is NOT supposed to be this sexy beast that women throw themselves at. He is a killing machine and a sociopath, and he revels in the bloodshed he causes. I love that. Jeff Strand wrote a werewolf like it SHOULD be written. Big, hairy, crazy, mean, psychotic, etc.

It's a self contained story, which is also nice, because I kind of hate books that end with a DUN DUN DUHNNNNN ending with the hopes the author comes back to it one day. It's rare to find a book that ISN'T a setup for some trilogy or pentalogy or whatever you call those 18 book sets of cliffhangers and plot. I think Jim Butcher calls them "My new house and yacht".

Not dissing Jim, he's awesome and I own autographed copies of all of his books and even autographed dvd's of the show, plus an autographed map of Alera and maybe a lock of his hair and maybe a webcam pointed towards his house an... ANYWAY THIS ISN'T ABOUT ME.

This is about books, and how I like them to be self contained stories sometimes. This book is a self contained story, and I dig that. It has amazing dialog, and I dig that. It's an amazing story, and I dig that. Pretty much any and all of Jeff Strand's books are well worth picking up, even his romance novel Kumquat. I read it, and hardly got any cooties from it.

Now, as much as I mentioned I love self contained stories, there IS a sequel teased for October and I will be pre ordering it or buying it day 1 because I am pretty convinced that this man cannot write a crappy book. If he can, I'd be surprised. Even his earliest work, while being a little too try hard with the humor, was still at least entertaining.

So, do yourself a favor. If you like thriller/horror style books, check out Wolf Hunt. If you like dark comedy, check out Wolf Hunt. If you like thriller/dark comedy/horror books in general, read Jeff Strand. If you don't mind cooties, read Kumquat because it's seriously the best romance novel I have read and I'll be doing a review of that one later on.

I rate this here Wolf Hunt book 5 full moons out of 5. Go forth and read, you will not regret it.

Obligatory goodreads link so you can find a copy somewhere!
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8649882-wolf-hunt

New review time! Bad Radio by Michael Langlois

Alrighty! Time for a new review!

Apologies for the slight delay in my usual "Will get to it eventually" reviews, but hey, it's a free review. I could charge you like a whole dollar to read this, and I'd make like, a dollar. Quite the racket I'd imagine.

Ah well, No paywall for now guys and gals.

ONTO THE REVIEW!

Bad Radio is the first book in the Emergent Earth series. I have read the sequel as well, but that's coming up for a review at a later date, but I do feel completely justified in saying that these books are great. It's sort of horror, sort of lovecraftian horror, sort of thriller and sort of suspense. Basically it's a giant mishmash of good things that make a great book. Sort of how you combine a few various ingredients into a meat slurry that becomes a great chili, the author combined a dash of this, that, and the other to make a great book.

The basic plot is that a guy (Abe) thinks he saved the world back in WW2 by stopping a spell, but these things never really work out the way we hope and now a person he thought was long dead is back to try again. Unfortunately it also involves killing Abe's friends to recover relics used for the spell, and it's not looking like it's going to end well.

I went into this novel completely blind, having just barely gone through the synopsis of the book before I decided I NEED TO OWN THIS IT SOUNDS AWESOME. Right now, it's available for free on Kindle Unlimited, so if you are a member of that, you have no reason not to check this out. That's also why I am trying to not spoil any of the plot because it's pretty well done.

The book lived up to my expectations perfectly. It's got horror, it's got weird things, and it's got a crazy plot that sounds like a mashup of Hellboy and some PCP. If lovecraft, Hellboy or PCP sounds like your kinda thing, then brother go grab a copy cause it's awesome.

It's a pretty unique idea, and one that the author handles in a very unique and interesting way. I really, really enjoyed this, and bought the sequel as soon as it was available. Unfortunately there hasn't been a book 3 yet but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

If you need a rating system for this review, I'd rate it at least 4.5 cosmic horrors out of 5.

Goodreads link to point you to where you can buy a copy :
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12430013-bad-radio

One incredibly hard to write review - The Translators by Gord Rollo.

Take a moment and look at that cover. Seriously, check out the detail in it.

That cover lets you know some seriously bad shit is going down somehow. You don't know how, but you know it's gonna be bad.

This review is one of the hardest for me to write, because the book is written in such a way that it takes a basic premise, and judo flips it into a few different directions and you end up with something that TECHNICALLY matches up to what was mentioned but is also batshit crazy enough to warrant screaming SPOILER WARNING!!! any time you go to discuss the book.

So, basically, I'm not going to spoil this because I love this book, and I want you to have your brain as dislocated as mine when you read it. YOU SHOULD READ IT. GET THIS BOOK AND PUT IT INTO YOUR HEAD. I love this guy's work, but this is probably my favorite novel of his. Strange Magic was the original favorite, and then Valley of the Scarecrow came out and dethroned it, and now The Translators has come out (well, to be fair it's BEEN out) and now it occupies the #1 spot on my list his books.

Basically, the book starts with the end of the world, and rolls the clock back to explain just how the world is ending. This synopsis found in the front of the book sets the idea up a lot better than I could hope to.

"Most people think John is crazy. He's not. The doctors think he's schizophrenic. He's not. The government thinks he might be humanity's last flicker of hope, but unfortunately he's not that either. What he is is something no one - including himself - could have ever imagined..."

The story revolves around John, his fiance', and her kid. John has the unique ability to understand any language, and hears voices in his head translating them for him. Now, with that firmly in mind, realize this book goes kind of crazy. I can't really say anything about the book because, honestly, it's a house of cards. Everything is built on the next level of crazy, so when it amps up and you find out something new, it makes you realize that it was based on something earlier and boom, mind blown.

I love this book, and it's currently 2.99 on amazon, which is an incredible bargain.

It's not the BEST story ever told, but it is a hell of a book and one of the few I can recommend to anyone who wants an interesting reading experience.

Go get it, read it, and be amazed at how a story ranging from the end of the world to Nessie to temples in Peru can end up making sense. It's a hell of a ride.

Goodreads link so you can go find it wherever you need to get it from :
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18489287-the-translators

Next up in the review list, The Reckoning by Jeff Long!

Yes, I know you are thinking "Why are you reviewing an old book from 2004 when there are so many new ones to review?!?!" and my answer to you is "Pfft. It's called Random Boom Reviews for a reason" and also "I was reading it before I started the blog and I'm lazy".

So, THE RECKONING. Is it good? Yep. Is it weird? Yep. Is it worth reading? Yep!

Basic plot premise is a crew looking for missing U.S. soldier remains in Cambodia get a tip about a missing crew, and head off into the vast wilderness to go about finding said remains.

There's a lot more to it than that, but like I said, it's a basic plot premise.

I haven't liked all of Jeff Long's work, but I did like this one. It's interesting, the plot is officially something I have not seen done before, and the story is handled in a very unique way. There aren't any political leanings in the book, it doesn't feel like the author is trying to beat you over the head with his own ideology at all. There are pro and anti war characters, yes. There are discussions of things like the Kent State massacre, but it makes sense in the book given the way the characters were written, and at no time did I sense a soapbox for the author to stand on.

It's a horror/thriller with supernatural elements to it, and basically it's pretty creepy in places.

Minor spoilers about some of the book.

Gonna get on my own personal soapbox for a minute. I hate rape in books. It's virtually (99.9999999999999% of the time) ALWAYS pointless, and is an incredibly lazy way to either add "adversity", have the woman "overcome the odds" or "have a reason to enact vengeance because this time it's PERSONAL."

A truly lazy writer will make a rape the hallmark of the character, or it will be something she "overcomes" and goes forth to smite evil in the name of... well, not getting raped again I suppose. Either that or she will just exist to get raped/killed and that's it. That is creepy and you guys need to stop that. You can have a strong female character in books and not have rape involved at all. It's lazy writing and you should feel bad. If I had a rolled up newspaper I'd swat you and say "NO!" if I could.

The main character is a rape survivor, and I honestly can't decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing, because while it adds pretty much nothing to the story overall it doesn't feel like she was included to be rape bait like we see a lot of characters in horror books.

Anyway, that's not the point behind this character. It adds a backstory to her but I can't decide if it explains her actions in the book better than just being a normal lady who hadn't been abused as a kid. Hence me wondering if it's a good or bad thing.

Please note, she doesn't get raped IN the book , it's part of her backstory since the book is told from her perspective and she mentions it a time or two. Well, there is a weird bamboo thing that happens but that's less Evil Dead and more just "Well, that's odd".

So, that's a lot of paragraphs about the virtual sex life of a main character of a book.

Other characters don't really get played up as much since it's told from a first person perspective for the most part, but it's not like a cardboard cutout of a horror movie where there's Black Guy, Crazy White Dude, Nerdy Guy, Slutty Girl, Jock and OMG I CAN'T EVEN Valley Girl. The characters here are pretty 3 dimensional, and are fairly well written.

The main star of the book, though, is a lost city in the wilderness that we get occasional glimpses of but never really get much of an idea of what it looks like. It's always entrenched deeply in fog, with lots of horribly creepy things possibly around. The city itself is pretty amazing, and gave me a real Silent Hill kind of vibe, minus the weird monsters and sirens.

All in all, the book was pretty good. The ending was an interesting one, and the story keeps you entertained and flipping pages up until the end.

I'd rank it 3.75 dog tags out of 5.

Goodreads link so you can go buy it if you want to read it (which you probably do):
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239074.The_Reckoning

Review Numbah one! Eric Carter returns in Broken Souls by Stephen Blackmoore!

Alright, time for review number one!

Broken Souls came out on Tuesday, and was bought Tuesday night. I read part of it Thursday morning, and just literally finished the book about an hour ago. I read this thing in 2 sittings.

This, is a damned good book. Seriously, they say you can't judge a book by it's cover, but that cover art is SWEET.

On a scale of "HOLY SHIT" to "WHAT THE FUCK MAN" this rates a solid "SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS" (hah! Necromancy pun!) from me, because I love this man's work.

This is urban fantasy, but GOOD urban fantasy.

I'm going to go off on a tangent for a moment, but I feel like I need to explain why I love this genre and hate it at the same time. I like the genre because I enjoy the real world settings (seems just, better than some imaginary forest populated by one race of elves, or a barren wasteland populated by one race of ghouls, you get my drift), but it has a few horrible failings, mostly of the "let's write porn and call it urban fantasy, cause my main character love getting gangbanged by werewolves or dragons", or the "My character is totally not a Gary Stu, but yes he is my height and coloring and has my hairstyle but he is like, way cooler and has all the sex with the chicks because he is AWESOME" variety. You either end up with a sex crazed lead who's banging anything with 2 or more legs, or you end up with some random author's version of themselves as Goku or Superman.

Looking for a good Urban Fantasy novel is HARD. Finding it is damned near impossible. You luck out, find a good author, and latch onto that bastard's work like a remora onto a shark. Blackmoore is one of the people I have on my instant "BUY WHEN THIS GUY HAS NEW SHIT" list, which is probably the best kind of shitlist for an author to be on.

Enough of the tangent, ONWARDS AND UPWARDS TO THE REVIEW! Or, you know, downwards and below, to the review...

It's a damned good book.

HOWEVER, and this is NOT a slam against the book whatsoever, This is NOT a good starting point for the series. I would strongly recommend picking up Dead Things first, or you will be wondering why some things are the way they are. Besides, Dead Things was another amazing book by him.

So, with spoilers ahead (minor ones at least), we can get the review on the road.

Eric Carter opens the book trying to find a way to get out of his deal with Santa Muerte, and from the literal start of the book we encounter crazy shit, and it keeps on running strong through the book. This theme of "What the fuck?" keeps up through the book and is done so in a very interesting and (to me) nifty way.

I won't spoil more of the book, but I will say that I am still a big fan of Sharpie Magic, and the fun of it carries over to this new book, and it works just as well in this book as it did in the first.

The plot carries itself very well, and there will be emotional gut punches, and to me, and ending that I completely did not see coming.

I enjoy his "universe" that he has built, and seeing characters from other novels of his that I enjoyed works in a way that doesn't seem to be heavy handed or in an over "wink wink nudge nudge isn't this cool" sort of way. They fit in the story where needed, and then go pop off to live their own little virtual lives. It gives the story a very organic feel, and that is one of the best qualities I look for.

It's a great read, and one I highly recommend. I rated it 5 stars on Amazon, and I'll rank it 5 here as well. Go read this man's work. You will encounter wonders like ghosts that eat people, psychotic midgets that are basically gollum on PCP, and the wonders of Sharpie Magic.

Link to the goodreads profile so you can find online or local versions of this book to own:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20579053-broken-souls

So, wow. I have a blog now. Is this 1998?

Yep. I have a blog now.

You may ask "Why" (I mean that as "you can ask, or may want to ask", not as some sort of Bond villain or royalty kinda thing), and I can only answer "Pfft, why not?"

So, a little about me. I am a guy. I read a lot. I thought "Hey, let me start a blog to keep track of all the stuff I read and post up a little review of em! Yea!" cause apparently I thought you guys needed to know what I thought about everything.

I don't really have anything to do with the publishing industry or writing industry other than reading books. I'm not an agent or publisher or anything. One day I'd like to write a book, but first I need to actually develop a plot and characters and not Gary Stu the hell out of it. I refuse to write crap intentionally, and I am also a bit of a coward as well, so I've yet to "nut up" and lob anything out on paper or screen.

However, much as I don't need to be a chef to know if a meal is good or not, I don't need to be a writer to know if a book is good or not.

Why should you listen to me? Because, well, I am a special unique snowflake who has a blog... Or maybe just because you want to know an opinion about a book. I don't have any political agenda, I more than likely will not have rants up pro/anti anything. The blog is basically to just let me review a book in a few sentences or paragraphs or pages if it's really really good or the thing just sucks and I hate the author for wasting my time and money.

So, basically, that's what the point of the blog is. I'm just an average dude who reads a lot, and thought other people might want to read my thoughts on if something was good, bad, or just interested.

First reviews will be coming up pretty soon, I'm kinda new to this whole blogging thing and frankly I don't really have a clue how this site works. I'm hoping if I hit publish this will show up. Wish me luck.