Book Evaluation: The Book of Eibon by Eibon (????)

I cannot take a picture of this book. I call it a book, but I do not think that is what it truly is. It is something beyond that, something that transcends that knowledge.

All I know is that I cannot take a picture of it.

I found it days ago, tucked behind one of the wheels of my car. There was not a note or any sign of acknowledgement of me. I assume that means I was given it randomly, although I can't believe that's true after all the things that have transpired. This book is something else entirely, a collection of stories, none of which seem even remotely plausible, but all of which I absolutely believe in every fiber of my being.

The accounts are insane, painting pictures too strange to be anything but lunacy. That's exactly what I thought when I read the slightly faded, but still legible text, mostly in English, although an older English than what we speak now, with some Latin sections thrown in. It is not a traditional book with cover page and a title. While the cover says "THE BOOK OF EIBON" the first page inside puts that title into Latin: Liber Ivonis.

The stories involve a wizard, the titular Eibon, going on various adventures across the stars, and speaking the truths that we have so far refused to accept. The Vale of Pnath is covered in detail, as are the horrors found within. I read about the terrible dread worms, dholes, that seek pathways through the vale, often eating each other and themselves. They would like to feast on the dead more than anything else, but few venture to that place anymore. Who knows where the Vale of Pnath even is?

I do.

There are maps.

There are also night-gaunts there. I saw a rough drawing of one.

I will never sleep again. Closing my eyes, I can see their faceless faces, their utter silence, and their unending pursuit. They know.

They know.

Shaggai. I don't even want to speak of that planet or its insect race. It is simply too terrible and alien to think about. I would rather dwell on other things than ever read that passage again.

The old ones. I cannot speak of them. And yet, in here, it says how to kill one. How to kill an old one. it is like killing a god. And in killing a god, one must also kill the universe. I can't read it again. I mustn't. Thoughts swirl around in my head, and the book dropped out of my hands, forever gone.

But I', being stalked now, stalked and searched by things that know I've read the forbidden texts. They are not forbidden because they simply should not be read. They are forbidden because there are things in this world that the human mind should never be able to comprehend, things in this world that are too dangerous, evil, or insane for the human mind to take into itself.

They ideas, these words, these very thoughts, they can change you. Not in a figurative sense but rather in a very literal way. I have started to grow large black wings. The alchemical knowledge I have gained scares me. My eyes grow dim. The light hurts my eyes. Even typing this now is more pain than I can easily handle. I move silently, and my mind is now always on something far away. A vale, perhaps, one that is empty besides those who also know. I should seek it out perhaps. I know where it is now.

The book may be gone. But I have gained so much from it... even though it has changed me in the process. My body and mind are different. I wonder, vaguely, what Eibon was.

But I cannot dwell on such things now. There are important things to do before everything is made ready. Oh, Tsathoggua, just wait. Soon there shall be an awakening like you have never known before.

Only a little bit longer.

And then...

Series Criticism: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1998) by J. K. Rowling

The Harry Potter series is like a wave. Everybody (and by that I mean people who have the chance to live in first world countries and to read) knows about it, knows the little guy with the circular glasses on the cover above this writing, with his orphan-status, his sad state of affairs living with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, and his entrance into the magical world of witchcraft and wizardry. That one is kind of a main point for this series, wouldn't you say?

I'm actually going to be rereading all of the Harry Potter books, and I will be looking at them from, I think, a unique perspective. I was a crazy little person in love with this series from around the time I was eleven until I hit about eighteen, when the final book of the series came out. I was really into the books for about the same amount of time that Harry Potter was in his magical school having his tales told to us... but then the seventh book happened as well as all of the abortions that call themselves films, and I became jaded and cynical. I had a deep and terrible falling out with the Harry Potter series. I started hating the world. The ending of the Harry Potter series along with the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the fourth Indiana Jones film, and Futurama and Firefly being cancelled all helped to create the jaded and cynical madman writing this review. Sure, there were probably other reasons, like maybe possible mental imbalance and a massive overload of psychological horror films (and Jacob's Ladder), college, House of Leaves, and massive overdoses of caffeine, but those are totally not the point of this review.

This review is about the first book of the Harry Potter series as reviewed by a person who can no longer stand Harry Potter. I say this because I lived in the years of this book series. I was ten or eleven when I read the first book and all of eighteen when I read the final abomination of the English language, but you know, I'm going to be fair here, not letting my own personal history hating the Harry Potter books get in the way of an honest and reliable review for all of you who might want that. I will be rereading the books, even the ones that make me angrier than I've ever been, bringing me to the verge of a heart-attack and a massive brain aneurysm together making a double-hatred death... but I will do this, mostly because I love torturing myself, and partially because I feel like I should give the series another chance, let it try its best to redeem itself in my eyes. And well, I wrote this introduction before reading the first book, so everything that follows will be my honest opinion of the book twelve years after first reading it, taking into consideration that I am no longer ten, and pretending very strongly I have never read the books before. Expect a large review, full of plot analysis. I will be going all out here. I will be looking at the five musts of book writing as well: tone, theme, plot, characters, and setting, and will also drive a focus on writing style and skill, trying to accurately describe my experience. Anyway, this will be a ride-and-a-half and I hope to get it all done before the end of summer, so sit back and enjoy this sucker. I hope I do too!

Okay, I did not finish the book by the end of the summer. Hey, you get busy, it happens. Then my October reviews came along and college, blasted college, and I've been playing catch up for a while now, but here it is: my crown jewel reviews, the ones that I am really looking forward to. This first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Also subtitled as Philosopher's Stone in most other markets that aren't America... and that would make more sense too. The Sorcerer's Stone isn't anything, while the Philosopher's Stone is what is featured in this book as used by Nicholas Flamel and desired by Voldemort and his "host" Prof. Quirrell.) Oh, by the way, expect spoilers. I say this after I just wrote a major one, but I am heavily expecting only people who know about Harry Potter to read this. If you don't, it's been out for over ten years! I think I can spoil something that was spoiled over ten years ago, you hypothetical stupid git.

Okay, I'm going to start with plot and plot analysis first because the plot here is pretty meaningful to the book. It starts off years before with an opening prologue discussing the recent deaths of certain characters we won't see again for some time. These characters include Harry Potter's parents as well as Voldemort, the great evil wizard who has it out for the wizard world because he's evil and terrible and likes death and pain and he's evil. Did I mention that he's evil? Because he is evil.

Well, we are introduced in the prologue to Dumbledore and McGonagall, a wizard and a witch who respectfully work as the headmaster and Transfigurations professor (and deputy headmistress) at Hogwarts, a school for witchcraft and wizardry. Oh, God... this is hurting to write. You all should know this already if you're reading this review... Anyway, eventually a hairy big dude named Hagrid comes down from a flying motorcycle thing owned by one Sirius Black with a hairy potter in his arms... uh... wait... I mean, Harry Potter, the titular character of the series in his arms. Harry's a baby by the way and he has this wicked lightning scar on his forehead, surviving the spell of death, which his parents had succumbed to, and vanquishing Lord Voldemort (he's evil by the way) because he's a baby who's pure and innocent and bleh. I get it, book. I get it. Evil versus good. Fight!

So, little Harry Potter is given to his aunt and uncle because he has no other family to speak of. They happen to be horrible guardians of this unnatural  ilk, often treating him as one might treat a dog or a cat rather than a sensitive young person who needs to be nurtured and made into a hipster. Wait... look, he's treated pretty awfully, to the point of it being incredibly fairy-tale-like. And I have to say, it's pretty well done. You sympathize with him. You want him to get out of his bad situation. And yet you know that he's stuck there, stuck there with no way out, under the thumbs of guardians who can't stand him and a cousin who uses him like a punching bag. He has no friends to speak of, rarely goes outside, and is basically stuck in a cupboard constantly. In short, he has a pretty horrid life.

This is all written in a highly convincing manner. Certainly there are some amateurish parts here and there, but you can certainly feel what's going on. The language is not superb, but it is well done and sufficient to get the point across. There is a little while spent on Harry being weird, doing stuff no normal person should be able to do, disappearing glass, talking with a snake... you know, the usual. And then he starts receiving the letters, the letters of his acceptance to Hogwarts. Well, the Dursleys, his aunt and uncle, are incredibly unhappy about this, going so far as to nail things shut and never go outside so that the letters will not reach their nephew. They eventually flee to a house on a rock in the middle of a body of water and are confronted by an angry Hagrid, telling them off for not saying that Harry Potter is a................. WIZARD.

Most of the introductory chapters are written in an almost surreal fashion. It is extremely over-the-top, but not unenjoyable. I could compare it to Roald Dahl and some of his more absurdist books that I read when I was younger. James and the Giant Peach and  Matilda really stick out, both having somewhat similar feelings and even plots to this book in the very beginning of it. And yet... it's enjoyable. It's fun. You like the main character of Harry Potter. Hagrid is new and interesting. The Dursleys are horrible people, petty and antagonistic in some ways, and Harry's goal is one of being accepted, growing in a nurturing environment rather than being stifled and stepped-upon. And it works. The tone is fitting, the plot interesting, the characters, while not three-dimensional, are engaging and mystifying.

And then the book gets better.

Think about all the possibilities that a normal kid, treated in a subpar way, can think of after this. The scenarios, the everything... it's mindboggling. And this giant, Hagrid, basically kidnaps Harry away to a sleazy alley. Oh... oh God... Hagrid... I hope this isn't going where I seriously don't want it to go. No. No, of course not. Hagrid's a good person, which is very good, and the sleazy alley is Diagon Alley, the mall of the wizards. I have no idea if British people... I can call the British, British people, right? Well, I have no idea if they even have malls or if those malls are all set up like this, but where I'm from it sounds like some kind of cozy little seedy mall. And I like it. The feeling here is somewhat claustrophobic and hectic, but neither feeling is wrong in this circumstance.

Hagrid leads Harry to Gringotts, a wizard bank, and learns that his parents were fairly well off before they died. Harry takes out as much money as he'll need and goes off to get the things he'll need for the upcoming school year. He gets a wand, robes, books, and... well, of course, a pet owl from Hagrid because owls are where it is at. Hedwig becomes Harry's friend throughout his adventures, a stalwart and constant companion. Anyway, Harry also meets a few other people in his adventure in Diagon Alley, including one little blond boy named Draco Malfoy and scores of strange characters.

Well, the story has to keep moving on. Harry is brought back home by Hagrid and Harry has to wait for a while until school starts up. He feels like a prisoner and a villain within his house and is glad when he gets to leave for school. He's eventually, after the long summer, dropped off at the train station with everything in hand, only to discover, OH NO! The platform that he needs is nine-and-three-quarters. Well, that's strange and kind of weird and probably doesn't exist. Harry's been duped! And the rest of the story is him getting legal action on Hagrid for fraud.

No, I'm yanking your chain, foolish reader. Harry just has to believe in it. Yes, he starts doubting, but then a family of friendly gingers come and board the platform, helping Harry out because they are simply very nice people. Harry meets Mrs. Weasley and some of her children, namely Ron (a new student like Harry), Percy, a prefect, twins George and Fred, and the young lady who is not old enough for school yet, Ginny.

Well, it's all very interesting. Harry and Ron become fast friends as Ron explains to Harry the knowledge of Hogwarts that he has gained whilst being in an actual wizard family. Some shenanigans ensue, Draco Malfoy is met again, this time clearly disliking Ron and very much desirous of Harry's friendship, which Harry does not seem to want to give.

The story moves on then. Hogwarts is seen, the Sorting Hat sorts the kids into one of four different houses in the school... uh... kind of like how you might have been in different teams in middle school or something. Each house has its own flavor and only certain personalities go into a certain house. Gryffindor is populated by smug, self-righteous people who think they're better than the rest of the school population. I suppose they are supposed to be courageous or something, but that's not always entirely true and seems vaguely stupid. Ravenclaw is full of know-it-alls and clever people even though nothing interesting ever seems to ever come out of Ravenclaw. Slytherin is made up of evil people and bullies, which seems kind of smart if you want a way to get rid of them all quickly, but really stupid if you have a house made up of the biggest pricks of the school population just reinforcing their own shoddy ideas. And then there's Hufflepuff that... uh... I still have no idea what Hufflepuff does. I think they're the rejects or something...

The rest of the story is about Harry and Ron learning about their studies, learning about their classmates, and finding adventure in the worst places. Harry joins a sports team as their seeker, which is him basically playing a big game of hide-and-seek with a small golden ball called a snitch, while the others on the team play the actual game. Quidditch sounds interesting, I suppose, if impractical. Ron and Harry meet a girl named Hermione eventually, who is Gryffindor and a know-it-all, which shouldn't be the case given the rules for the houses, but... okay, I guess? Anyway, she becomes their friend as well and they get into all sorts of trouble with an invisible cloak that they, for some reason, can all fit underneath, a baby dragon, and detention in the forest which leads Harry to start looking for some great Unicorn killing villain. Also, there's Neville Longbottom, who has one of the most unfortunate names in history and is treated like a butt-monkey throughout the book by our lead characters and others despite being a fairly good person. Let's yell our praises to the heroes for that, huh?

I like the Christmas scene for some reason. I feel that it is incredibly appropriate to the feeling of the book as a whole. Characters opening presents and being happy on a day that should be happy is kind of neat. Harry's awkwardness around Christmas also expands upon his character quite a bit. He has never really had a good Christmas and... well, it works here. It is very effective.

The forest scenes, though, are some of the best of the book, equal parts mystery and creepy. Harry being forced to share the scene with Draco makes it all the more interesting as the two characters act as interesting foils for one another even this early in the series. Draco is somewhat selfish and somewhat cowardly, but is only eleven years old, whereas Harry is much more brave and willing to put himself in harm's way to do something good.

The story moves on and reaches its climax as Harry suspects that Severus Snape, his Potions professor, is up to no good. Ron, Harry, and Hermione go and explore a labyrinth of tests to reach a magical mirror introduced earlier in the novel. They solve these tests saying once again that one should not design an impregnable labyrinth to be solves by an eleven year old. Well, solved it is and the figure at the maze is none other than cowardly and stuttering Professor Quirrel who wore a turban to disguise the fact that he had Voldemort on the back of his head. Huh, that's an incredibly odd climax to this book, I have to say.

Well, Harry defeats Voldemort with the power of his mother's love somehow and ends up happy and alive in the end while Dumbledore praises him all over. Then Harry goes home and... that's it.

Well, the book was certainly fairly good for a while. The earlier half of the book is incredibly well thought out and well paced. Once the train is boarded though, it seems as if the pacing goes all to hell and the story starts making some peculiar choices. The houses being made up of the stereotypes I mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg. Why are there no math classes here at Hogwarts? Isn't math important? What about literature classes? Or... anything really? How can an entire society be absolutely removed from the "muggle" (non-magical) world? I guess that always confused me. It still does, especially with what little we see of actual magical society. They seem completely removed from the muggles, almost a completely separate offshoot of humanity, ignorant of our life as we are ignorant of theirs... but that makes no sense. Certainly it makes sense in something like Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere because it's all happening underground or secretly, but that's because they can't get back up into the real world. They're stuck beneath society, forgotten. The magical society though, is right next to the muggle one, right in the same area, and everything and yet... they don't meet, or at least rarely do. I don't quite get it and it doesn't seem right to me.

The latter half of the book, besides the forest part and Christmas, mostly feels too quick-paced and unneeded for my taste. There's a lot of hints for the ending of the story, what with fluffy, the mirror, and Quirrel, but they are absolutely superfluous and just seem to make the story longer without any real character or plot development to speak of. Honestly, besides the Quidditch matches, classes, Christmas, and the forest, there is very little development of anything in the latter half of the story. With such an interesting opening, the ending of the book feels very much stagnant and dry.

Certainly there are some other set pieces that work well, like Harry and Ron saving Hermione from a mountain troll in the girls' bathroom, and some of the scenes that Neville gets kicked around in. I have a lot of sympathy for Neville and also for Draco. Both characters are very well characterized, but mostly seemed very undeveloped, used instead as comic relief, butt-monkeys, or as a distinct bully character. Both have the issue of not appearing three-dimensional despite the reader's desire to want to make them three-dimensional. It almost seems as if J. K. Rowling had an issue with both character types.

The fantasy elements are mostly well put together, if a little amateurish, and the school itself very much feels like home after just a little while there. There's something cozy about it, something very much warm about its atmosphere except in the very depths of night. That being said, the writing for the most part is well done for a young adult/kid's book, and for the most part flows very well from beginning to end even in the more extraneous parts. The tone is fairly consistent throughout, with a fairly dark feeling that emanates from every corner of the story. The characters are mostly fairly strong except those that are very one-sided, like Snape, Draco, Neville, and most of the side characters. Only Harry, Dumbledore, and perhaps Hermione have any real depth to them, something that becomes more apparent over the course of the series rather than less apparent. 

Anyway, I have to end this review now. It's taken a long time to get this one out because of the complicated nature of the material and also the fact that I have a dark history with the Harry Potter series. It took a lot of cajoling to get me to read this book again, and... the second half of it I wasn't very happy at all. The main characters solving the puzzles despite being eleven seems to be a particularly glaring example of lazy writing all around. Why would the school even do that? It seems so dumb and ridiculous. Yes, the story is fairly ridiculous already, but come on, you know exactly what I mean here.

In the end, I found this book to be satisfactory. It's nothing incredibly special, but it is certainly not terrible. The beginning is very well put together and the character of Harry Potter is both complex and interesting. I guess the next book beckons.

God help me.
God help us all.
Six books left and I could barely get through this one. Somebody help me. Somebody shake me and tell me "No!"

*Sigh* I do this for the writing, readers. I do this because I want my voice to be read by somebody and maybe, just maybe, I'll have somebody agreeing with me... or people screaming at me telling me that the story is perfect, how dare I say anything critical about such a masterpiece... I don't really care what people say. These are my thoughts and opinions and... well, first book down...

Book Evaluation: Ghost Story (1979) by Peter Straub

What? No picture!? This is blasphemy, I say! Blasphemy!

I'm just kidding here. I'm supposed to be talking about Ghost Story, one of the most appropriately titled works there ever was. It is about, you guessed it, a ghost story. Well, technically it is about multiple ghost stories, some absolutely fictitious, and some... well, less so.

The novel revolves around four members of a group called the Chowder Society, who have, for fifty years, been telling ghost stories to one another. The whole tagline of this book should be something like: This is where ghost stories... come true... because that's exactly what happens. There was once a fifth member of their group who died suddenly and unexpectedly at a party to celebrate a visiting actress years ago. It had looked like he had been frightened to death.

Oh, spooky! Now, I jest, of course, but ghost stories tend to not interest me in the slightest. It makes no difference whether I believe in ghosts or not, ghosts do not seem to really have the power to carry an entire novel. Most of the great ghost stories are, in fact, short stories or novellas at most. This is because ghost stories need that vague attitude about them to usually be effective. They need to take place at an indeterminate time and in a place that has old history to it. Well, that's usually what ghost stories are like, but this one is different. This novel is much less a ghost story and much more something else entirely.

Eventually, the Chowder Society seems to be seeing some fairly mysterious stuff and call on a member's nephew, Donald, who has written on the occult, to take a look. Donald is a man who has his own emotion issues, mostly with a woman named Alma Mobley. She was a grad student that he worked with and fell in love with in his time at Berkeley. He became enamored with her and then almost obsessed, all the while she acted like something unreal. She would frequently lie to him, unbeknownst to him, and eventually she left without a trace as he debated doing something drastic. Afterwards he investigated their time together and found all lies, nothing but lies surrounding her... then suddenly, one day his brother, dead in the present part of the novel, becomes engaged to one Alma Mobley. Well, that might have been fine, but soon after David, Donald's brother, was dead, and Alma gone again.

When one of the members of the Chowder Society dies, the rest decide to tell Donald the horrible truth of Eva Galli, the woman that they kind of killed and tried to hide the body of. Well, they attempted to because the body simply wasn't there in their trunk when they went to bury it. A lynx was near the car instead, glaring at them. And they believed that she was Eva Galli, a manitou, or shape-shifter who lives much longer than humans. Making the connections, they also believe that this thing was Alma Mobley as well.

Eventually as others die, they are joined by a man named Peter, and learn of a woman named Florence de Peyser, who seems to have control over the undead people and the manitou herself. Eventually, they track Eva/Alma down and defeat her, but she escapes before they can finish the job. Donald vows to go and find her and leaves soon afterward. He finds a young girl whom he believes to be the next form of Eva. The novel starts off with this and ends with this eerie young girl. Eventually she turns into a wasp and Donald kills her, then makes the promise to go after de Peyser in California.

The story is only part of Ghost Story. The plot, although important, only plays a small role to why this novel is so good. And it is very good, beautiful and brilliant in idea and execution, despite being a ghost story in name only. There are no ghosts here. Supernatural elements, certainly, but no ghosts. Ghosts are spirits of the dead, or even demons if you're being generous. Ghosts are not shape-shifters or creatures that can take the form of people. These are instead old Native American spirits of good and ill.

The idea of the story within a story, the little ghost stories inside of the large narrative are brilliantly handled as well, amazing set pieces to make the novel absolutely memorable. A memorable book does not make a good book, but a good book makes a memorable one. The ending, Eva and Alma, and the atmosphere of the novel stuck with me for so long after reading this novel for the first time years ago. It made me understand what horror could be if executed correctly.

Now, I have to talk about Peter Straub because, in my opinion, he is a terribly underrated novelist. The guy exudes atmosphere from every sentence. He's a better writer than almost any other horror writer I can think about, even Stephen King. The way he writes is brilliant, even in his less interesting novels, because he paces superbly, and every tangent has a reason to it, everything feels real, even when it obviously isn't real. And the atmosphere of his novels is basically the best set pieces to the novels since Lovecraft wrote some of his best works. In mentioning Ghost Story, I have to mention Shadowlands, which is also by him, and in someways is the more superior novel out of the two just because of how intricate the plot actually is.

Peter Straub is such a fantastic writer of horror-fiction and this novel shows it time and time again. Reading it is like going through the old horror novelists in turn... Algernon Blackwood, H. P. Lovecraft, Henry James, and M. R. James... he represents all fo them here, all of the old ghost stories that aren't that frightening to us today because of language, word use, or pure boring imaginations on our parts, are again made horrific here in the modern setting of Peter Straub's world. Here is one of the best ghosts stories of all time, paced  and written like a ghost story around the turn of the last century, but involving no real ghosts at all. In many ways this is the last great ghost story, the one that tops all of the rest... and of course the master of horror that Peter Straub is would be the one to write it.

I recommend this novel with every fiber of my being. It needs to be read. Go, find it, and read it. You won't be disappointed.

Book Evaluation: The Tomb (1984)

The Tomb by F. Paul Wilson is a book of multiple series. It is the second book of a series called The Adversary Cycle and the first book of the Repairman Jack books.

Now, if you have never heard of F. Paul Wilson, The Adversary Cycle, or the Repairman Jack books, you are certainly not alone. I only found out about the author and his books completely accidentally. The story is worth telling because I think it goes a long way to the actual review. I was in Cheyenne, Wyoming a few years ago and went into a used book store. While there I found three books by F. Paul Wilson. They happened to be the first three books of his Repairman Jack series. I didn't read them while I was there and once I got home, I put them on my shelf and there they stayed for the better part of two or three years. Last year I was bored and wanted to read something... anything... and I saw this book entitled The Tomb. I looked at the cover and read the back of the book and it seemed interesting. So, I started reading it.

As I read the book it spoke to me. Its writing wasn't anything special, and I'm pretty sure stories like this one have been done before... the overarching series story even eventually comes out as sounding like a plausible Batman series of novels, which I'm not saying is bad, but this first book came off as entirely plausible... well, except for the supernatural elements...

Anyway, the plot is incredibly interesting, delving into Indian mythology and British history all at the same time. The Rakoshi are surprisingly tense and well-done antagonist characters, and the whole plot has an air of mystery and supernatural thrills to it that not many other novels that I have read have at all. It is wholly different from anything else out there and so incredibly well done that I'm surprised and awed that it is better known. I loved the novel, the story, the characters, and the settings. The boat scene at the end was one of the best written things I've read in years. And Jack's relationship with Gia is both heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time, eventually culminating in something wonderful for both characters... a beautiful kind of soul-mate love, which I approve of in general.

The main character, Repairman Jack, although usually he just goes by Jack, no last name, seems to be a genuine antihero. He sometimes does very bad things, but usually for what he deems to be some greater good. At the beginning of the novel he's living his job, which is something like an urban mercenary who also happens to be living without any government notice at all. He has no Social Security Number, no solid last name, uses a ton of aliases. He has cars and apartments in other peoples' names, most not even in existence. he also has very few "friends"... with most of the people he knows being acquaintances of some sort or another... most of whom Jack doesn't like very much.

The other characters in the novel are Abe Grossman, an obese Jewish black-market weapons salesman, Julio, a tough bartender, and Gia, Jack's ex-girlfriend, who wants nothing to do with him ever since she figured out what he is... and what he is is a highly trained killer.

The novel has many instances of pop-culture as well... that may sound random, but Jack is a aficionado of old movies, mostly terrible ones. This goes a long way when Jack finally starts seeing some of the supernatural stuff that's happening and wondering if it's all real... and comparing them to old movies and such.

It's an intelligent, cultured, and enjoyable novel the whole way through. The rest of the series varies in quality, but this first book is absolutely fantastic and worth reading if you happen to be a fan of horror, the supernatural, detective stories, adventure stories, or anything like any of those things.

Anyway, I love this novel. It is in my top favorites of all time. I suggest that everybody take a look at it because it is so worth reading.

Book Evaluation: De Vermis Mysteriis (????) by Ludwig Prinn

I found this book at my local book-sale last winter. It was an old tome, completely in Latin, or so I thought. before I had bought it, I flipped through it quickly, noticing words and phrases that I could identify with my own knowledge of Latin. The book itself is also in German as well, and there is some English, but it is incredibly hard to read, varying from full sentences written in incredibly broken English to sentences that have no relation to the English language at all except that they use English words.

While going through this book, reading and translating, I would often find myself with unbearable headaches that would last for hours at a time. Sometimes I would black out and have incredibly vivid nightmares of necromancy and forbidden magic. It appealed to me in some horrific way. The forbidden knowledge and arcane arts seemed to call to me from beyond some vast distance, across both time and space.

Soon, I had read the whole thing, or so I thought, but the next day, while hoping to look at a certain part again, I found new words and verses written on different pages. Notes and scribbles were now written in the margins, nonsense phrases full of maddening riddles that keep digging into my very mind as the world seems to crumble down around me.

The magic is the most important thing now. I must have Ludwig's greatest memory carry on. The dimensional horrors must be shown a way in. The Great Gods must be released upon society to bring enlightenment and fiery Hell upon all who deserve it. There are paths the words tell me to take.

The sentences make more sense now. They scream at me to let the Old Ones in. They scream at me and I have no way... no way to end that powerful shock to my mind. I hear it and I express regret. It has been too long. I have read too much. The Old Gods will come, and soon... soon... existence will come to an end.

How much longer can I wait?

The drums... I can hear them all whispering to me now... They speak of the eternity I will face... the eternity I will find if I do not allow them out. Why did I have to read that book? Why did I have to let it call out to me. forbidden knowledge should have remained that way... but now the sorcery runs rampant and I alone can start or stop them... Please, I need to know what... The Mysteries of the Worm. The worm... The great worn who awaits us all.

Tired now. Weak. taxing. It taxes me and I cannot...

I only want it away. Begone and it won't.

This book is disturbing and all I want... all I need... is to have never read it... but I have... I have and that's...

Book Evaluation: From a Buick 8 (2002) by Stephen King

From a Buick 8, an odd title and a play on the Bob Dylan song, "From a Buick 6" is Lovecraftian-styled horror novel by Stephen King. This novel has become one of my favorite Stephen King novels because of the attention to detail, the pacing of the plot, and the sheer terror in the details. This novel, right here, is the reason why horror is so addictive and so amazing. Anything can scare a person, even a car that serves as a portal to another dimension.

Oh yeah, that's the premise of this novel... and it is wonderful. This is not a so bad it's good novel. And it's certainly not a bad horror story. This is an incredibly well done story showing off the best of a novel that skips time, following a father and his son as they delve into the mysteries of a car that showed up one day and was never claimed. This novel is eerie in almost every way, reminding me of the Somerton Man, just as much as it reminds me of almost any real life mysteries. It almost seems as if it could be real and that's the really scary part.

The novel follows a police officer throughout his life as an officer until his eventual death. But he's not the protagonist. Instead his son, a helper at the police station, takes over that duty. Most of the story is told through flashback from one of several different police officers telling the intertwining story of the thing that resembles a 1953 Buick Roadmaster and his father, Curtis Wilcox.

The story is incredibly effective, blending both past and present into a coherent narrative. It becomes terrifying, not because of what actually happens within the story proper, but rather because of the implications of the story itself. The Buick is left at a gas station by a man in black who disappeared seemingly into nowhere. The Buick drew people towards it. It would make interference with electronic equipment. It would do such strange and inexplicable things, like making people disappear or giving off a terrible energy.

The Buick would both "eat" people and spit alien things out of it. And that's what the terrible implication is: there is a parallel universe, or at least that this "car" that could never run, could never even freaking drive and yet was driven to a gas station by some mysterious and disappeared man in black, is only a portal between two separate worlds that find the other terrifying and awful to behold.

The book ends as the Buick is losing power, finally spending any excess energy it has to try and take the heroes of the story into it as they try to destroy it. It fails even if Sandy Dearborn, the Sergeant of the police officers, sees through the portal one last time and "sees" the personal objects of those men who crossed the barrier between worlds.

This novel shares similar themes with two or three other Stephen King works and many, many Lovecraft works. The Mist and The Dark Tower series are the obvious candidates for being so similar to this book. The Mist is almost exactly like this novel, but on a larger scale, without a car, and with mist and monsters pouring out instead of being spit out or taken in from time to time. The Dark Tower series has many similar themes as well, especially in the last three novels of the series that explain "Todash" space and what lies within it. Actually many of Stephen King's more recent novels have built upon these similar themes, with Lisey's Story and Duma Key having some similar ideas and feelings to them. The other few books that have similarities are The Talisman, describing nightmare landscapes and a way to move between worlds, and N. that describes creatures from some other existence bent on the destruction of the universe if certain things are not done correctly. All in all, Stephen King likes the themes that are found in this novel and so do I.

This is a fantastic and horribly underrated novel. Few people know about Stephen King's amazing novels, knowing instead his weaker works like Carrie, The Shining, and Cujo. Those novels were all made into big movies (with a few other well known ones besides, deserving or undeserving), but even though they are known as Stephen King's REAL HORROR novels, they come off as shlock. They are earlier novels by him and do not stand up to the novels that he really takes seriously, like From a Buick 8 as a telling example.

This is an absolutely effective and terrifying novel that proves that pacing, plotting, characters, and atmosphere with an air of mystery and confusion can really lead itself to feelings of absolute horror. it may be subtle horror. It may be the horror of nothing, but, to me, it's the most effective kind of horror and the one that stays with me for months afterwards and still makes me shiver in the night.

Book Evaluation: Abarat (2002) by Clive Barker

Abarat is a young adult book with elements of fantasy, horror, and dreams. It is a well thought-out  novel with an intricate story, characters, and setting. It does have some more negative elements as well, but I'll get to those later. First, I'll start with what I know about Mr. Clive Barker. It's not much, I assure you. He's an author of primarily dark fantasy and horror fantasy and what I know about him the best are two video games that have his name attached to them: Undying and Jericho and the Hellraiser series of movies. That's about it.

Growing up I wasn't a fan of Clive Barker. I was for Stephen King all the way. I didn't really know much about him and his stories never seemed to interest me, at least what I knew about them, which again, video games and the movies. Other than those things I knew almost nothing. Unfair, I know, but there's the truth. Well, recently I read through Abarat and I have to say I really liked it.

Yes, it is very obviously aimed at the young adult market. So, don't read this if you're not expecting something for the twelve to fifteen demographics. That being true, it holds up remarkably well. It is a well-written young adult novel that, albeit heavy-handed at times, exploring a fantasy realm that stands well on its own. Some of the characters, most of them not exactly the friendliest crowd, are fantastically well-rounded even if the main character, a twelve-year old girl named Candy Quackenbush who acts much older than she is, is much more of a generic heroine character.

The setting, with twenty-five islands representing the twenty-four hour clock with one extra, is an incredibly well done idea and work fantastically in this novel.

The problems are easier to jump on though. Although the novel is well-done, it seems that it sympathizes with the wrong characters (in my opinion, of course). It has a bland protagonist and the story seems fairly generic once you take a step beyond the new kind of setting and some of the more brilliant characters. The writing, as I said before, can be heavy-handed, and seems to be written by a man who does not usually write for young adults. (This is where I wink knowingly. Clive Barker is not usually an author for the young adults and kids of the world.) It comes off as if he is trying desperately to dumb down his own language. Clive Barker, when I was eight I was reading The Lord of the Rings. You don't have to dumb down your language for young adults. They'll understand if you use big words, and if they don't then they should pick up a dictionary and learn. My point is the writing is simplified in many ways.

I'm also going to clarify my "heavy-handed" statement. It seems that there is a working morality within the story and that the readers and audience are supposed to go, "Oh boy, that's wrong." or "Oh man, that's right! You go girl!" I don't like either of these things. I guess I like the vague ideas better. This novel seems to be more a take on fairy tales. Actually that is one of the first things I thought about when reading this. It's a modern fairy tale with clear cut good and clear cut evil, and I find that tedious.

Altogether though, it is well done. The beginning of the novel is particularly great. It starts the story off ridiculously well. The lighthouse scene is one of the best in the entire book and even holds up well against many other, better novels. The ending is weaker as the novel clearly wants me to side with the good guys, when the big evil dude is clearly more sympathetic and the stronger character, a selfless character who gets dragged into evil because of a very selfish woman... or maybe I'm being unfair... although I don't think so. I think people can make sacrifices for peace... I guess that's just my limited imagination or something...

Oh, I don't have a limited imagination? Huh. HUH, I say.

Anyway,if you want to read a decently done young adult fantasy novel done by a horror novelist, this is well done and is very interesting, but you should really read The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King instead. Great novel, standalone and, in my opinion, brilliant. Plus, it's connected to The Dark Tower series. How can there be a loss there?

Book Evaluation: 'Salem's Lot (1975) by Stephen King

I may have spoken of this in my first October Nights review of the television movie Salem's Lot, but since I don't remember, I'll reiterate myself for the masses, yes, the absolute masses of people reading my reviews. 'Salem's Lot is my absolute favorite Stephen King novel. To me, this novel is better than anything else he has ever written. Now, also keep in mind that this was the second novel he ever wrote. Yeah... yeah... I hope you understand where I'm going with this.

Now, it's not that I don't like a lot of his other books because that is grossly untrue and I'd probably go berserk for even trying to think it. Some of his other novels are fantastic. Duma Key and The Dark Tower series come especially to mind, but I also love many of his other works. Some of his short stories and novellas are absolutely brilliant as well, but I'll get into more detail about them when I review some of them whenever I do that. I will say that some of his legitimate novels are absolute rubbish and that I'm not afraid to say that. Actually many of his better known works tend to really rub me the wrong way.

Getting back to 'Salem's Lot though, this novel is his best to me for many reasons. It may not be as perfectly written as many of his later novels, it may not be as subtle nor as creepy as his other novels, and it deals with vampires, something that Stephen King has had almost nothing to do with before or since except in a few Dark Tower novels for brief periods. So, what makes this novel my favorite? What makes me love this novel more than the rest? What draws me back for more?

Well, one of my favorite novels has always been Bram Stoker's Dracula. I love that novel. I'm pretty certain it is the perfect vampire novel. I happen to like vampires. I think I mentioned that in my freaking review of vampires. They are my favorite presumably not real creature/horror monster. I think the idea of them is fantastic and works so well as something both exciting and creepy. That isn't to say that vampire fiction is all good. It mostly sucks. (Ha ha ha...) I make a stupid pun, but I mean it. Vampire fiction is mostly terrible, but the few shining gems really did make an impression on me.

'Salem's Lot is, at a basic level, a retelling of Dracula with a modern day small town instead of some British gentlemen and a castle. It also doesn't set itself up to be a vampire story. In fact, the whole story is set up to be a haunted house story. It seems like everything is leading up to the Marsten house and finding out that the place is haunted and everything, but no, Stephen King does something nobody reading that book would have ever expected: He brings a random vampire named Barlow into the mix along with his creepy hairless familiar-thing, Straker. Now, that actually sounds awful, but it works in the book. It really does.

The characters are absolutely fantastic as long as the character isn't one of the three leads. Ben Mears, Mark Petrie, and Susan Norton (the three leads) are the worst characters in this novel. They really come off as very one-dimensional characters, but that's okay, since some of the best Stephen King characters ever come out of this novel: Father Callahan, Doctor Jimmy Cody, Matt Burke... these characters are the reasons that the novel holds up so well. They work so beautifully in the world this novel takes place in.

This novel also happens to be Stephen King's first novel to focus on an entire town rather than a few individual characters... It is, in style, a lot like Needful Things, The Tommyknockers, and, seen in a grander scale, The Stand. It was the first time Stephen King used this style and it works here better than the rest of his novels in my opinion. It works really well, I think, because the main character here is the town itself. Yeah, that sounds a little crazy coming from me, but that's exactly how it feels. 'Salem's Lot is its own entity, a town already cursed by many things, becoming gradually less human because of a vampire outbreak and possibly its own disease. The town is diseased, you see. It's cursed and everything. That's why Barlow comes to the town. That's why he picks that town to feed. Or at least that's what we can assume. It sounds good though, doesn't it? It gives the vampire some motivation, some characteristics. He's drawn to a place of evil. So, in many ways the novel is a haunted house story... or rather a haunted town story.

I'm sure a more astute person could write essays on how 'Salem's Lot is a metaphor for the degradation and falling apart of small town America, or that it says things about AIDS, or some similar kind of STD that vampirism usually suggests. These are apt metaphors, and work really well, but I'm not really into examining something with that much academic acumen. I think a vampire is a vampire and the town is a town. You see bad towns from time to time. Who's to say some vampire won't try to make it his own village of the damned?

Why would Barlow do it anyway? I mean, what's his motivation here? Is he trying to create an army? His own town? A vampire refuge? It doesn't make a lot of sense. I guess he could have been really inept and couldn't control the very vampires he made, and they in turn started turning everybody else into vampires. That explanation works, but really takes away from Barlow as a character. I guess the more apt thing to say is that Barlow just wanted to screw up things in the town of 'Salem's Lot. He wanted to go and mess everything up and destroy the town. I guess that makes sense. But what would have happened once he finished with the town? Would he have moved on? Huh... that actually sounds really cool...

I guess my point is that this is a novel that should be read by pretty much anybody who likes old-fashioned vampire stories. I think this is one of the legitimate best novels I have ever read and really does work quite well. I love this novel. I love so much about it. Sure, it has its flaws, but it does work very well, and holds up very well despite being written thirty-six years ago. Hell, the idea of small-town America and its portrayal sounds exactly like it does today.

I love this novel and I have to add that again. Go ahead and check it out. I'd rather not tell the story again or spoil this novel for you. Check it out for yourself if it sounds interesting. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Book Evaluation: Necronomicon (????)

I tried taking a picture of my copy of this book, but my camera didn't seem to be working for whatever reason. Oh, well... that's not a problem. I can explain this one without a picture, I suppose. I would have tried to find a picture off of the internet for this one too, but in looking up "Necronomicon", I just came up with fake examples of the real thing and... well, I don't want to use a fake book as a stand in for something that is very much real.

Sure, it's real. Why wouldn't it be? Just because somebody tells you something isn't real doesn't make it so. This book is every bit as real as it could be. I'm currently flipping through it as I type, looking for a good bit of it to explain about. This book is harder to "review" than most because it has the nonfiction element, sure, but also because there is no real narrative... it's more just full of stuff... stuff I have trouble talking about in present company, meaning whoever is reading this.

Yeah, I know, you don't believe me. Well, you don't have to. I don't care if you do or not, but the Necronomicon is real whether you believe it or not and you should believe it... because why would I lie to you? That seems like a silly thing to do.









Anyway, I came across my copy a couple of years ago... probably seven or eight. I found it... uh... well, I won't tell you where I found it. Suffice it to say that was there and I... uh... took it away with me. I didn't know precisely what I had taken. There were no words on the front cover. Instead it was bound in leather... but an odd-colored leather that I had never seen before. It has a patchwork quality to it and is a bit disconcerting                                                                          . Opening the book the word Νεκρονομιψον is written in Greek as shown. I was glad that I knew Greek and could readily and easily read it. Underneath the title was عبدالله الحظرد. I had to look that one up. It translates roughly to "Abdul Alhazred".

There is no date that I've ever found in the book anywhere... and I have found nothing on this Abdul Alhazred. I suspect the name is a clever pseudonym rather than an actual name. This is frustrating. I should be able to find more than I've found!

What's even more frustrating is the book itself. None of it is in English. Not even a bit. Parts of it are in Latin and Greek, but I can't seem to find them when I'm ready to translate. I don't know the other languages in it... some of which seem to be nothing more than scratches made in the book itself. Sure, there is some Arabic (I think) and some Hebrew (again, I think), but there are very few other languages I could readily identify. There did seem to be a few of the Oriental languages as well, but I could not tell them from one another. Most of the languages remain a mystery to me though. I thought I knew of most human writing, but some of this stuff looks a litt

                                                  are the diagrams. I                                                  . They are at best                                                                and                                                                                          I know                                      organs all                                                  but then                                        .                                                                                       . I didn't like them at all. They made me very uncomfortable. Something about them made them a little too realistic to me.

I guess a book shouldn't make me nervous like that, but just some of the parts of it seem a bit off. I don't know. Maybe I should get rid of it or something... or maybe I should just not look at it        .

Ah, well... maybe I'll tell you about some of my other older books pretty soon. Like De Vermis Mysteriis by Ludvig Prinn... or the most r cent o es I h v : Caretakers of Underground and The Red Cage Effect by Harold Zimmer. Or the very si  le L. Dreosin by Landon Nielson.

Book Evaluation: The Ruins (2006) by Scott Smith

The Ruins by Scott Smith is a horror novel with elements or gore, third-world countries, and college students.

Yeah, I know what you're probably thinking (Well, no, I don't... but that's not the point. I'm trying to say something here, all right?). You're thinking, Saquarry, that sounds all good and fine, but isn't every single horror movie like that? Especially those new-fangled horror movies with all of that "torture-porn" type of stuff... or "gorn" or a million other words to describe the same thing. Aren't there a ton of different movies like that, you're probably thinking.

Well, you're not wrong, but take a look at the title of this review. Go ahead, I'll wait.

So, yeah... you so the "Book Evaluation" thing there too, didn't you? Yeah, this isn't a horror movie. (Well, it was made into one in 2008, but that's not the point, all right?) This is a horror novel with elements of gorn and torture-porn and all that good terrible, terrible stuff... well, kind of at least... but not quite too...

Now, yes, this book is disturbing. Highly disturbing. I would never recommend this novel to anybody who has a week stomach or cannot take even vaguely disturbing stuff in stride.

I think of myself as being very well-abled to handle any kind of horror, in novel form or otherwise... but even I found myself slightly disturbed at some parts... and really disturbed at others.

The premise of this novel is simple. Some college friends, two groups of couples actually) go to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and see the third-world first hand. It starts getting bad when the four college students meet up with a German man and three Greeks who go by Spanish nicknames. The German man, Mathias, has a brother who met a female archaeologist and went to her dig site with her. Mathias really wanted to meet up with his brother again, so the four Americans, Mathias, and one of the Greeks, Pablo, go to the archaeological dig site to find Heinrich, Mathias' brother.

After trying to be dissuaded the six decide to take the plunge to the ruins...

The ruins?

Oh, this can't be good...

It isn't. A bunch of villagers surround the ruins once the six get to it. They also find it strange that an area around the dig site has been salted so that nothing can grow in a large circular area around it. Weird, huh?

Well, Pablo gets hurt after they all think they hear a cell phone in a large hole. They take him up and try to help him out of the dig site, but the villagers surrounding the ruins won't let them go past... they even seem willing to kill to keep the six of them from leaving the dig site.

Oh, this can't be good. Why would they do that? Well, what about that phone that was ringing before? Did they ever find it?

Heh heh... Let's just say that something odd stirs amongst the ruins...

Now, I'm not going to give this story away. The movie is quite a bit different from the novel and the novel is much better. The novel is much scarier even though the visuals on screen in the movie are supposed to be really nice. I prefer the descriptions of the book.

I have to say that this was one of the few legitimately terrifying novels I have ever read. It is disgusting and hard to read at points. The ending is legitimately depressing. I've never read another ending like that in my entire life and I kind of hope to never do so again. It felt like being kicked in the gut multiple times especially with such well-written characters.

This book is well worth reading... much more so than most terrible modern horror novels that aren't Clive Barker, Stephen King, or Peter Straub (Or House of Leaves for that matter, but I'm not going into that one yet.). Seriously check it out if you like horror and feel you can handle it. If not, take my word for it. This novel is wonderful and disturbing... it's hard to read... but also impossible to put down. Have fun sleeping soundly one you've finished it...

Book Evaluation: The Mothman Prophecies (1975) by John A. Keel

The Mothman Prophecies by John A. Keel is a creepy supposedly nonfiction book. Now let me just say that if this book is nonfiction than the world is a much creepier place than most of us have ever known.

I'd like to believe this is nonfiction. It makes me truly think that the world is much more interesting than I had ever known.

I like this book. I like it a lot.

See, it talks about the Mothman, a moth-like entity that supposedly visited people in Point Pleasant, West Virginia between 1966 and 1967. Keel was a journalist dealing in paranormal kinds of stuff and he was investigating these strange sightings.

One particularly disturbing group of incidents described in the book concern "The Grinning Man" Indrid Cold. Indrid Cold is supposedly a paranormal entity who contacted Keel and others in Point Pleasant and Elizabeth, New Jersey during that same period of time. This whole episode of the book is incredibly creepy with strange sounds and lights appearing all over the place and Cold asking questions to some of the people who saw him. He is used as an example of some kind of extraterrestrial because his features are supposedly very alien-like, which is kind of awesome.

I guess this book simply excites me. I love the idea of reality being more interesting than what we can sense with our limited capabilities. I like to think there's more to life than living and dying and finding someone to live and to die with. It would seem empty if that were what life was all about.

I just have to say that I really like this book. I find it creepy and convincing,but mostly I find it fascinating that something like the account written within could be the truth.

The Mothman also goes down in history as one of the strangest phenomena of all time, a convincing scary creature that was almost meant to be a bad omen of something or other.

I should also give a mention to the collapse of the Silver Bridge, which in the book is shown to be a culmination of the paranormal events and an end to the grouping of sightings of the Mothman and Indrid Cold of this time period.

I think that this is the best of the nonfiction paranormal books in existence, and easily my favorite. It was made into a movie in 2002, but the movie was frankly not very good. I didn't like it at all and it really screwed up the source material which is a damn shame. I'm going to end this review with a quotation that I particularly liked from the book, even though it isn't scary or whatever else... I found it memorable and a little funny. So, there's that.

They expressed surprise that I had been given a tour of the exchange building. This was unheard of. The FBI and the CIA hate each other, and they both hate the telephone company. The telephone company, in turn, seems to hate everybody.