Books read in 2013: May

I read a bunch of books one day, in the merry merry month of May...

• Watership Down (re-read) - Richard Adams
• NOS4A2 - Joe Hill
• Jeeves and the Tie that Binds - P. G. Wodehouse
• Young Annabelle - Sarah Tork
• A Hell of a Woman - Jim Thompson

Next up is Stephen King's new one for the Hard Case Crime imprint, Joyland. 

Literary places I don't want to visit

One of the most enjoyable things about writing my novels The Day After Yesterday and Ashes was creating the towns that are key settings in the books: Los Cielos and Haven Cove, respectively. They are places I wouldn't mind living in, let alone visiting.

I can think of many fictional places I'd love to visit... and a few I'd avoid like the plague. Let's tackle the ones I don't want to visit.

Leaving out the obvious dystopias (Oceania, Panem, Gilead), here are some places that I don't want to get any closer to (beyond the printed page):

Peaksville - from "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby
It's never clear where Peakesville is. It used to be somewhere in the Midwest United States, but now it's literally in the middle of nowhere. That's thanks to Anthony Fremont, who either made the rest of the world disappear or took Peaksville somewhere else - no one knows. And it hardly matters, because the residents are trapped. Anthony has the power to do anything with his mind, and he combines unimaginable power with the no-limits mindset of a sociopathic child. In the story's opening pages he forces a rat to devour itself, and all the townsfolk have to be perpetually cheerful lest their true thoughts draw Anthony's wrath. The tale is best known as an excellent Twilight Zone adaptation, but the story is just as good and well worth seeking out.

Morgantown - from The Brave by Gregory McDonald
I've talked about The Brave before in my "Most Depressing Books" post, and no small reason for that book's depressing qualities is its setting. Morgantown is a shantytown in the American Southwest, perched on the edge of a dump that provides subsistence for the residents. The people who live there are society's castoffs, living without clean water or electricity. Even the government assistance has abandoned the town, which isn't on any official maps. Yet it's home to those who live there. It's a trap as well, easy to get into and difficult to get out of, and one man's desperate attempt to help those he loves escape may only make things worse.

Derry and Castle Rock - from numerous works by Stephen King
Evil clowns. Stranglers. Rabid dogs. Evil shopkeepers. I could go on and on. Chances are if you've read more than one book by King you've encountered these towns and you know what I'm talking about.

Mordor - from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
For about the first half of the Lord of the Rings saga, Mordor is just a distant name of dread. But once Frodo, Sam, and Gollum get to the Dead Marshes, things get real. Tolkien's descriptive language makes it clear what a hellish wasteland this place is, from the stinking marshes with their faces of the dead (a detail apparently inspired by Tolkien's World War 1 experiences) to the endless vistas of barren rock and ash, where even the memory of sunlight, water, and plants is forgotten. If Sauron gets the Ring back, all of Middle Earth will be like this - by experiencing Mordor with the characters, we realize just how high the stakes are.

The high rise apartments - High Rise by J. G. Ballard
The new high rise apartments outside London have everything its residents could want - restaurants, playgrounds, pools, gardens. Things start going wrong, first on a small scale - random (or are they?) power outages, territorial squabbles - escalating quickly. Before three months have gone the residents are engaged in full-scale warfare within the building. It's Lord of the Flies with all mod cons, and its closing pages will leave you very unsettled.

My books available at Pegasus Books in Berkeley, CA

Good news! Both The Day After Yesterday and Ashes are both available at Pegasus Books in Berkeley, CA.

It's always so exciting to know my books are on store shelves.

Today's mood

5-star review of The Day After Yesterday

The blog Mom In Love With Fiction posted a five-star review of The Day After Yesterday - take a look!

Watch this now: Cookie Monster and Tom Waits again

The genius who brought us Cookie Monster singing Tom Waits' "God's Away on Business" has done it again. Now Cookie takes on "Hell Broke Luce." It's truly marvelous, and I am flat amazed at the craft and patience that has gone into this.

Now if Cookie could just sing "Come On Up to the House" I'd be ecstatic.

Review: NOS4A2

My review of Joe Hill's creepy new novel NOS4A2 is up at Horrorview. Read it and learn why Christmas will never be the same for me.

Win a free copy of Ashes

The blog Book Maven's Picks is hosting a giveaway of Ashes. Enter to win a paperback or ebook copy. Check it out here.

Author spotlight at Just One More Chapter

I've got an author spotlight post over at Just One More Chapter. Hop on over to learn a bit more about me, and while you're there take the time to get acquainted with the blog (it's a good one!).

"You'll be safe here."

Just click this link. You won't regret it.

RIP Ray Harryhausen

You'll be missed.

Books read in 2013: April

Well, didn't get nearly the reading done on vacation that I wanted, and was pretty swamped after that. But here's the tally for April:

Safe Haven - Nicholas Sparks

The Green Ripper - John D. MacDonald

Clockwork Twist: Waking - Emily Thompson

Lost and Fondue - Avery Ames (unfinished)

Web of the City - Harlan Ellison


Next up, the billionth or so re-read of Richard Adams' Watership Down.

Save the date: Ashes book signing in August!

I know it's a way off in the future, but save the date: I'll be doing a signing of my novel Ashes at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, CA, on Sunday, August 25. Further details as and when!

So excited!

Today's mood

Book Maven's Picks has Ashes as their book spotlight

The Book Maven's Picks blog has my novel Ashes as the book spotlight for today. Check it out, and stay tuned for a giveaway of Ashes from Book Maven's Picks.

April is the cruelest month - the most depressing books I have ever read (flashback post)

“April is the cruelest month” begins T. S. Eliot’s masterpiece “The Waste Land.” I don’t agree, myself. I always find January, with its post-holiday letdown, to be the most depressing month. September isn’t much better with its blazing weather lingering long after summer has worn out its welcome. But Eliot is my favorite poet and until I can write something as good as “The Waste Land” or “Ash Wednesday” or “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” or “Marina” I’ll defer to him.

In honor of the cruelest month I offer the most depressing books I’ve read. And they are all, in their own ways, good books. They aren’t depressing in the “trees died for this” way but in the bleak, brutal beauty of their stories and the empathy they generate for their characters.

1984 by George Orwell

Probably the grand-daddy of excellent-but-depressing books. These days Brave New World is more relevant to our society, but at least in that dystopia most of its inhabitants are having what they think is fun, at times. But 1984’s world is a grim, shabby place where even the Inner Party members lead lives devoid of much in the way of comfort or sensual enjoyment. Combine that with the ruthless efficiency of the brainwashing and the inevitable betrayal and renouncing of humanity, and you’ve got one downer of a book.

The Book of Sorrows by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

Wangerin’s sequel to his popular Christian fable The Book of the Dun Cow is an example of truth in advertising: its very title tells you this is a book brimming with sadness. Mind you, The Book of the Dun Cow wasn’t exactly a rollicking fun time: Rooster Chanticleer and the animals he’s lord of must fight for their lives (and their souls) against a demonic half rooster/half snake beast called Cockatrice and his horde of poisonous snakes; the battle is won by the self-sacrifice of humble dog Mundo Cani. The Book of Sorrows takes up shortly after the battle has been won, but implies the war may be nearly lost. The losses of the battle, particularly of Mundo Cani, weigh heavily on Chanticleer as he descends into depression and paranoia. As a brutal winter takes its toll on the remaining animals, the characters who triumphed over external enemies start to succumb to those within, facing starvation, infertility, suicide, the semi-accidental killing of a mother and child, and more. It’s a beautiful book, though, with marvelous characterization and effective use of both Christian and pagan stories and myths. But very hard going at times.

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kozinski

Kozinski’s 1965 novel is somewhat overshadowed by its author’s personality and by his claims about the book’s inspiration (once described as largely autobiographical, it was later revealed to be not so autobiographical after all). But despite that and some occasionally clumsy writing/translation, it’s a stark, grim novel that’s more frightening in its depiction of the depths humans can sink to than many horror genre novels. The story follows a nameless child in World War 2 Poland, sent to the country by his parents to escape persecution (it’s implied he’s Jewish, though he’s at times assumed to be a gypsy). When his guardian dies he’s left to wander alone in a countryside that’s populated more or less exclusively by ignorant, savage peasants. Halfway through the book (right after he’s tossed into a cesspool to drown after he accidentally drops a Bible during Mass) he’s so traumatized he’s unable to speak. It ends on a (not entirely convincing) happy note, but the horrors witnessed by the child linger in the reader’s mind, as does the suspicion that this kid is going to end up as one seriously messed-up adult.

The Bridge by John Skipp and Craig Spector

What do you get when you combine no-holds-barred splatterpunk with apocalyptic environmental horror? You get The Bridge. The titular bridge is in a small town called Paradise, and is the favorite dumping ground of the local polluter. At least until the toxic waste becomes this sentient, unstoppable force that mutates everything it contacts, inhabits the minds of every living thing, and takes over the world in a matter of days. What makes the book frightening is that the toxic force doesn’t kill – everything from plants to people just becomes an extension of the force, trapped forever in a kind of living death. What makes the book so depressing is the inevitable doom for everyone, including some very likable people.

The Brave by Gregory McDonald

Fans of McDonald’s lighthearted Fletch series definitely had to reach for the Xanax after reading his 1991 effort The Brave. Young Rafael lives with his family and some other lost souls in a shantytown community in the Southwest. There are no jobs, no government assistance, no money, and almost no food. The primarily Native American populace’s life consists of foraging in the nearby dump for food and for other goods they use to survive. Alcoholism is rampant, even among children, and if the people aren’t shot by the dump’s armed guards they die quickly in accidents or lingeringly from untreated cirrhosis or cancer. So when Rafael is given an offer of $30,000 to be tortured and murdered on camera for a snuff film, he agrees – to give his family and friends the means to escape the shantytown, and to have the chance at a quick (if agonizing) death instead of his miserable existence. And his sacrifice will help his family and friends, because the sort of people who make snuff films would never go back on their promise to give his widow thousands of dollars, and they’d never use a phony contract to bamboozle a naïve, illiterate young man. Would they? The Brave is a very good book but bleak doesn’t begin to describe it – it’s for those who thought Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle just wasn’t grim enough.

Now, I can hear rumblings from the peanut gallery – people asking why on earth I read these in the first place. Well, I don’t really have an answer for that. I’ll blame some of my early reading, particularly Russell Hoban’s The Mouse and His Child, a children’s book that’s grim, almost existential fare. And those Choose Your Own Adventure books – no matter what I did, I always got the “and you were never heard from again” endings. Just lucky, I guess.

Review of Ashes at Horrorview

For years I've been a reviewer at Horrorview, and now my work's being reviewed there! Check out the review of Ashes.

Kelly's Big Score: Festival of Books 2013 edition

Now that was a splendid day at the Festival of Books. Went to a panel to see Margaret Atwood, who then signed my copy of Cat's Eye (hope she didn't notice that the book is falling to pieces, I've had it so long). Hung around with my friend Karen and many more of my book brethren, and had some yummy food truck eats.

And it wouldn't be a Festival without buying some books, now would it? Picked up:

Lost and Fondue - Avery Aames

A Spy in the House of Love - Anais Nin

The Light Between Oceans - M. L. Stedman

The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones - Jack Wolf

T'aint The Meat, It's the Humanity (Jack Davis EC stories)

Also got some writer pins for the fangirl jacket (Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ernest Hemingway).

Books read in 2013: March

Sorry for the delay in getting the monthly reads posted. Things have been a wee bit busy. And though I took a metric ton of books with me on vacation earlier this month, I got very little reading done. Darn beach walks and cool relatives and good restaurants!

Anyway, here's the score for March:

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Sacre Bleu - Christopher Moore

The Madman's Daughter - Megan Sheperd (unfinished)

A Week to be Wicked - Tessa Dare

Boy's Life - Robert McCammon


Currently reading Clockwork Twist: Waking, first in a steampunk series, by my friend Emily Thompson!

Today's mood