Review: The Rhesus Chart- Charles Stross

The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross is the most recent full-length novel in the Laundry Files, an on-going series that combines espionage, bureaucracy, and cosmic horror equally, and it's sometimes difficult to separate the three. It is also probably the best book in the series thus far.

Without giving anything away, The Laundry comes into contact with vampires (the non-sparkly variety) and it all goes horribly wrong and downhill from there. I'm marking this as the best in the series because of all the books in it thus far, The Rhesus Chart has the most straight-ahead plot without limiting complex subplots, the most character development on multiple levels, and a wrap-up that left me just saying "daaaaaaaamn" over and over again. It's an incredibly quick 370 page read, which is unfortunately because you really don't want it over and done with as quickly as it is. Very well done, 5 stars.

Review: Axes of Evil anthology

There are just some thing you think there should be more of, but you don't realize it until you see it for the first time. It's like when the Eggo waffle folks finally got around to making their own syrup. How hard of an idea was that to pop out? And how long did that take them? It's not rocket surgery, folks. I felt the same way when I heard about Axes of Evil, an anthology of horror stories based with heavy metal music as the central theme. Heavy metal and horror, the chocolate and peanut butter of my world, together in the written word. I could pee.

Axes of Evil is a huge (almost clocking in at 600 pages) collection of  stories ranging from the brutally hilarious to the downright evil. Personal favorites of mine include "Keltorrian" by Jacurutu23, "Extremophiles" by Lucy Taylor, "Battle of the Bands" by Joel Kaplan, and "Tones of Skin and Bones" by Michael Faun. The absolute gem of the anthology, in my opinion, has got to be "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" by Charlie D. La Marr. It's set at the utterly tragic fire that took place during the Great White concert the Station back in 2003, and is one of the most emotionally riveting stories I've read in awhile, horror or otherwise. It packs a punch and puts a serious lump in your throat.

This is a definite must for fans of horror and heavy metal alike. Four stars.

Book review: Skin Game- Jim Butcher

The fifteenth book in the Harry Dresden series, Skin Game picks up some time after the events in Cold Days. Mab, whom Harry serves now as the Winter Knight and does so in completely dickish fashion to annoy her every chance he gets, sends Harry on a task for her, a heist of literally mythic proportions. The problem being that the person whom Harry will be working for and is Nicodemus who harbors a serious grudge against Harry, a grudge so serious that Harry has right to think that Mab wants him killed off. The story actually gets a hell of a lot more complicated in terms of what everyone's motivations actually are. In the end, you have a cross between Oceans 11 and the Avengers movie if everyone on the team was a varying degree of asshole.

This is a very different book from Cold Days, which primarily set the stage for the new plot lines in the series. Skin Game really doesn't play as heavily into the character development as its predecessor did. This is not to say they don't occur (Fans of the interpersonal relationship fires that get stoked in the series, you're going to like this one. Oh, and then there's B...oh, that'd be telling. ), but they do take a back seat to the amount of action that occurs in this one. From the point that Harry and Co. sit down to discuss the heist onwards, someone is constantly being chased, fought with, or close to shedding the fleshly coil in one way or another. All throughout the book I kept thinking "This would make a fun movie."

Beyond the overall great storytelling in Skin Game, what really stood out for me is how Butcher fleshed out Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a centuries old, demon possessed, atrocity committing jerkface of the highest caliber, but his course of actions that occur in the book and how he responds to their consequences don't make him a sympathetic character by any stretch of the imagination, but they make him a bit more real. Butcher pulls a depth out of Nicodemus that puts him beyond the cookie cutter "I'll wear a coat made of live puppies" villainy that has become too common nowandays. It's disturbing, it's uncomfortable, and it's wonderful reading.

All in all, five out of five stars. Also: PARKOUR!

Book review: Equoid- Charles Stross

Equoid is a short story in Charles Stross's Laundry series, an fun horror-espionage series that seethes with the horrors of Otherworldy evils threatening humanity's existence and British bureaucratic process in equal quantities. This story revolves around suspicious deaths in very,very rural England and the true nature of Unicorns...they're not happy, bouncy things you'd want your daughter playing with, not by a long shot. The plotline does get muddy at a couple points insofar as who is doing what and why, but overall Stross does and excellent job of weaving a tale filled with mystery, horror, and no little bit of humor that culminates in a disturbing, action-filled ending. I give extra kudos for the innovative Lovecraftian tie-in and the Cold Comfort Farm (one of my favorite movies) references. The story is a good stand-alone if you've never read anything in the Laundry series before, otherwise I recommend picking up the first book in the series The Atrocity Archives.  Three out of five stars.

State of the Aaron Address

It's not that I don't like blogs, I love 'em. I love having different fonts of information and news from people who as passionate about the subject. I just hate writing them. Going to try to work on that.

So here's what's been going on:

*Back in April was the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, an annual event centered around the celebration of films inspired, or not-so-inspired-just-really-weird, by old Howie Lovecraft. This year they held a microfiction contest where ten lucky submitters of a story 500 words or less could have theirs included in a chapbook made especially for the festival. Yours truly made the cut with the story "The Altar of Sixty and Five Hundred Years". I might publish it again one day. In the meantime, check with the contact email at the HPL Film Festival website about the possibility of acquiring a copy.

*My story "Temping" was published in the anthology We Are Dust and Shadow from JWK Publications, an excellent collection of stories involving the afterworld ranging from disturbing to downright horrible. It can be bought on Amazon in hard copy or Kindle format.

*One of my older stories "The Gloaming Sisters" is included in The Terror Train anthology, also from JWK Publications in Kindle format currently with a hard copy version coming up shortly.. "The Gloaming Sisters" is a story I wrote years ago as part inspired madness, part writing exercise, part exploratory literary surgery. It was part of a collection of pieces I wrote around a central reference point that would make the most erudite hipster blush at the obscure reference. I was originally going to publish the collection as an anthology, but now I'm seeing if I can fulfill the challenge of getting all the stories published in different publications. It's so mad that it just might work. 1 down, 22 to go.

That's it for now, soon to be followed by a slew of book reviews. Watch this space.

Stray Souls- Kate Griffin

Stray Souls is not necessarily a sequel to Kate Griffin's earlier Midnight Mayor trilogy, but more of an extension into the same dark, wonderful urban fantasy world of London that the Midnight Mayor storyline occurs in. Stray Souls can be read without reading the Midnight Mayor trilogy, but I'm going to make a safe bet that if you like Stray Souls, you're going to wind up reading the Johnathan Swift trilogy anyway, so we're good there.

Stray Souls is for the most part the story of Sharon Li, a young woman of London who hates her job as a barista, is as unsure of where life is taking her as anyone is, oh, and she's a shaman. At least that's what different individuals and thingies keep telling her, and they seem to have an idea of what that means much more than she does, which leads to all sorts of problems. Imagine if Luke Skywalker lived in London and Yoda was a jerk,you get an idea of how the whole shaman business goes for her. Combine her new involuntary career choice with the challenges of handling a support group for Supernatural beings that look to her for guidance she's not particularly sure she can give, and you have the beginnings of a fantastic story. The dangers that come after her and hers, even more fantastic.

Griffin does a wonderful job of continuing the urban mythos she started with the Midnight Mayor, and anyone who enjoyed the previous books of hers, or anyone who likes to see the bar of quality regarding urban fantasy get knocked up a few pegs will not be disappointed. Four stars.

Review: The Faceless One- Mark Onspaugh

The Faceless One is apparently Mark Onspaugh's first book, a fact that brings me no small bit of jealousy. I marvel at people who knock it out of the park with their debut. The Faceless One is a horror story set with Alaskan shamanism as the backdrop with tendrils that reach into present day.An ancient evil (You had me at ancient evil) is released from its eons-old imprisonment in the Alaskan outback, then makes its way across America to cement its power, wreaking havoc and very imaginative bloodshed as it goes. The only ones who can stop it are a backsliding elderly ex-shaman and his best friend who follow messages from the spirit world, and the full picture gets bleaker and bleaker for them as the story goes. Onspaugh has a great gift for writing characters that you feel deeper and deeper sympathy for, especially when they're performing atrocities against their will. He also has a great ability to tie everything together in a 

climactic ending, if this book is any evidence. An excellent first time. Four stars.