I should be packing for my vacation, so I only have time to write a short post this week. Luckily enough, I devoured a particulary nasty novel earlier on in the week.
Scribner – 2020 (Originally published in 2017 as Cadáver exquisito)
This book has been on my radar for a few years. It seems to be considered a classic of modern horror. Somebody at work actually recommended it to me last August, and I’ve been meaning to read it ever since. Tender is the Flesh is set in a world where it is now illegal to eat animals because of a virus, so people are eating humans instead. Factory farms are now filled with people instead of cows and pigs. The plot here centers around an employee in one of these farms. I won’t go into further detail because I reckon you’re better off not knowing much about what will happen.
I am happy to report that what occurs in this book is thoroughly bleak and upsetting. This is a massive bummer from start to finish. I loved it. I read the whole thing in a day. I’ve seen people complaining that it’s too much or that it tries too hard, but those people obviously haven’t read Cows. I feel like Bazterrica’s book is what I wanted Stokoes book to be. This novel is emotionally distressing instead of just gross.
I’m sure this book makes statements on the meat industry, misogyny and capitalism, and while I agree all of those things deserve to be critiqued, I know others more knowledgeable on those topics have already discussed them. As a horror novel, this was excellent. You should definitely read it. I plan on reading more from this author soon.
This had been on my radar for a few years. I generally avoid descriptions of books after hearing that they’re good, and apart from assuming it involved a house, I went into Maynard’s House with no idea what it’d be about.
A Vietnam veteran inherits an isolated house from another soldier. He returns to the States and takes up residence there. The house is clearly haunted, and his neighbours are quite weird. He falls in love with a teenage girl who may be a fairy. It’s hard to distinguish between supernatural events and the symptoms of his PTSD.
This book was great. It’s quite funny in parts, and the characters are interesting and believable. This is definitely a cut above a lot of horror novels from this era. Honestly, this was such a breath of fresh air in comparison to the last 2 novels I read. I actually looked forward to sitting down to read this one. If you haven’t read this, you should check it out. I always feel like I have less to say when I enjoy a book, but that’s ok because I have other news for you today!
Weresatan – Infernal Hymns of the Sodomite Cultist
A few months ago, I mentioned that I had been working on a musical project. I recorded 5 songs of ultra-Satanic death metal, and I am happy to announce that tape copies of Weresatan’s first release, Infernal Hymns of the Sodomite Cultist, are now available from Defiled Altar.
I picked this up last week because I wanted a short horror novel to read and this looked the part. There’s a creepy dude with some devilly looking horns hovering above him and a comparison to Rosemary’s Baby on the cover. I started reading it without hesitation. I assumed it was going to be another horror novel about the birth of the Antichrist.
Nope. This is a book about a guy named Herman who gets pregnant. Well, his wife gets pregnant, but she doesn’t have any of the normal symptoms. The dude gets the morning sickness, cravings and mood swings. It’s implied that he has some weird psychological disorder that makes him believe he is pregnant because he is jealous of his wife. This causes a lot of tension between them.
Sphere Books edition retitled Black Marriage
This was a really weird book. It’s not really a horror novel, but I’m not sure what genre it actually belongs too. It’s far too boring to be a thriller or a fantasy novel, but it’s also far too weird to be a straight drama. The writing is dense, and I spent a long time wondering when things were going to pick up, but there’s never any proper explanation given as to what is going on. Also, none of the characters seem as surprised by what’s happening as you’d expect them to. At no point does Herman contemplate how he will actually give birth when the time comes. That’s the first and main thing I’d worry about if there was a bun in my oven. I’d spend hours a day stretching out my hoop in preparation. There is a Psycho style surprise ending here that is pretty horrific, but that horror lasts for 2 short paragraphs. The hardback edition of the book’s cover is far more suitable for this very odd work of fiction.
W. H. Allen – 1972
Honestly, the most horrifying part of this book was how much alcohol the mother drank while pregnant.
While I’ve read a lot of horror novels from the horror boom of the 1970s and 1980s, most of these have either been Stephen King novels or relatively obscure texts from authors who only published a few books. I’m actually unfamiliar with the work of most of the popular horror authors of that era. I’ve never read anything by Dean Koontz, Anne Rice, Robert McCammon, John Farris or V.C. Andrews. This is largely because those are the only books I regularly see on charity shop shelves any more, and I’m quite sure all of their work is easily available as e-books. I plan to read them all at some point, but I have been focusing on harder to find stuff because I know those author’s works will be accessible at any point.
The other horror author whose books are always available is John Saul. Like Robin Cook, I had heard that Saul’s work became painfully formulaic as time went on but that his first novel, Suffer the Children was worth a read. It also shares its title with a Napalm Death song, so I decided to give it a go.
Dell – 1977
So the Congers are a weird family with 2 little girls. (This was too close to home for me.) One of the girls stopped speaking because her father assaulted her. The other one gets possessed by the soul of one of her ancestors who was also abused by a parent. This kid tortures some other kids in a surprisingly brutal manner.
I didn’t like this book.
I don’t enjoy reading about kids getting hurt. I get that sometimes this kind of thing is used as a plot device to get the reader to feel a certain way about the bad guy, but when that happens, it usually pays off at the end when he dies horribly. This is not how Saul’s plot works. Here the suffering is the point of the book. It’s truly sadistic stuff.
Some of it’s rather unbelievable too. There’s a part where Mr. Conger tells his wife that he wanted to rape their kid and then tries to rape his wife but his dick won’t get hard. 5 minutes later, the couple are having a friendly chat. The family are cursed, but the curse is never really explained. It’s just a curse that makes people want to rape and murder their kids.
No, I didn’t like this at all. I’m probably not going to bother with any more Saul.
Here’s 2 horror novels about Catholic priests and the roles they play in bringing about the Apocalyspe.
In the Name of the Father – John Zodrow
Dell – 1980
A cardinal finds a little boy in a cave in China and adopts him. The kid, Peter, carries a weird stone idol and speaks of an imaginary friend, but nobody pays much attention to this. People also fail to notice the many accidents that seem to happen to people who get in the kid’s way. When the kid is old enough, he becomes a priest, much to delight of his adoptive father. After being ordained, he begins to work miracles, and anyone who gets in his way soon meets with an unfortunate end. He seems destined to become Pope, and it’s pretty clear from early on that he’s the Antichrist spoken of in the Book of Revelation.
The whole thing is very Omeny, but the difference here is that Peter is actually a good guy. He doesn’t commit acts of violence against anyone. That’s left to 3 teenage girls who taunt and pester him. At one point, he has a dream about one of these girls taking a big shit on his chest. Then he wakes up with a massive boner. This attention to detail really made him a believable character. I’m sure that is a nightly occurrence for Catholic priests.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since I finished this, but I’ve actually forgotten how it ended. I distinctly remember being disappointed though. My goodreads review says that I enjoyed it up until the last 35 pages.
Dark Angel – Sean Forestal
Dell – 1982
When I first read Paperbacks from Hell, I made a list of all the books featured therein that I absolutely had to read. (The Cipher, Feast, Brotherkind, Satan’s Love Child, The Kill Riff and The Satan Sleuth books were all on that list.) At that point, one was still able to go online and find copies of most of those books for relatively cheap. The one exception I found was Dark Angel. The only copy available at the time was more than $1000 dollars. Today, I can’t find a single copy for sale. There has been a scanned pdf version online for years though, and it only took me about a decade to get around to reading it.
This book was really good, and I’m not surprised that it’s sought after. I am surprised that it has not been reprinted. (After writing this review, I saw that Grady Hendrix once listed it as one of his favourite horror novels, so I assume he has tried to get it reprinted under Valancourt’s Paperback From Hell line.)
A Succubus rapes a Vatican Cardinal and gets pregnant. Only Father Joe O’Meara knows about this, and he leaves the Vatican to hunt her down to prevent the end of the world. The problem is that she is a total babe, and he soon falls in love with her. Soon after he loses her virginity to her, he discovers a side to himself that he has long suppressed. This dude loves feet, and pretty soon he is sucking his girlfriend’s toes to warm them up at every given opportunity.
The problem here was that I was invested in this as a romance. (I can’t remember what it was, but I remember experiencing similar emotions when I was reading some other novel about the devil.) I was genuinely happy for the guy. This girl is so dirty that he has to mutilate himself to stop himself from cumming. Imagine being celibate for decades and then finding a partner who satiates all of your kinky desires. They made such a cute couple too. This fucking idiot has to go and ruin his relationship with a rich, extremely horny babe just so that he can save Catholicism. What a stupid loser!
I found this quite well written. It’s long but entertaining, and I genuinely enjoyed the story. It gets into the psychology of Catholic attitudes toward sex, and I wasn’t quite sure what side of the argument the author comes down on. I don’t really think the book is pro Catholicism.
Even though the book doesn’t end as I would have liked (the priest and Succubus riding into the sunset to destroy the Vatican with kinky sex), I did find some satisfaction in the final chapter. I wanted a romance, but this ends as a horror novel should. Honestly, I really enjoyed Dark Angel, and I recommend you read a copy if you can.
The Pinnacle edition of Graham Masterton’s Feast is one of the more sought after paperback horror novels. This is largely due to the awesome stepback cover art, and party due to the full page write up it received in Paperbacks From Hell. When I read about a book that contained a machete wielding dwarf, self-cannibalism and a flaming dog, I knew I had to read it. I immediately ordered a copy of the Graham Masterton Omnibus, a collection containing Ritual (the British title for Feast) and Walkers, a different Masterton novel. To this day, that edition is available for fairly cheap online. Luckily for me though, I soon thereafter found a copy of the Pinnacle edition for just a few dollars in my favourite thrift store. Both lay on my shelf for 8 years until I downloaded an ebook version recently and read that.
Pinnacle – 1988
Feast is about a restaurant critic whose son joins a cult of religious fanatics who are trying to resurrect Jesus Christ by cutting off parts of their bodies and eating them. I had totally forgotten the description of the book that made me want to read it, and I was quite surprised as how similar some of the plot elements here were to those in Brian Evenson’s Last Days.
Inside cover – This is not actually a scene from the story.
The plot is quite ridiculous. The cult gets away with what they’re doing because it contains high ranking government officials. Apparently taking children away from their parents and eating them isn’t technically illegal. I’m no law expert, but I am pretty sure that in the late 80s, parents would have had a strong case to have the police/healthcare officials intervene if their child was posing a danger to themselves by cutting off and eating their own dick. Also, the ending of the book, while satisfyingly gory, really pushes the boundaries of believability. I had just read 350 pages of ludicrous, violent horror, but having Jesus Christ make a personal appearance felt a little excessive.
At the same time, Masterton’s willingness to go all-out was quite refreshing. The last time I read a novel this crazy was probably Masterton’s contemporary William Johntstone’s Toy Cemetary. Masterton’s stories are just as mad, but they’re a little more cohesive.
WALKERS
Time Warner – 2002 (Walkers originally published 1991)
I actually read Walkers a few months ago, and I had similar feelings about how mental it was. There’s no time wasted trying to justify the premise. It’s just thrown at you and you’re expected to roll with it. In this one, a man buys an old mental hospital. The only problem is that all of the old patients of the hospital were involved in a black magic ritual that turned them immortal and forced them into the walls of the building. They can now reach out and pull people into the walls or floors, and when they do, things get messy.
The plot was actually fairly similar to Feast. Both books are about a man who is trying to get his son back from a bunch of weird loonies who are intent on a blood sacrifice. Both also include fiends that are at some point mistaken for newspapers. Walkers was ok, but I definitely liked Feast more.
I have a couple more novels by Masterton on my shelf, and I am sure I’ll get around to them at some point in the future. I actually went shopping for books this week. I haven’t done so in a long time, but I picked up some really good stuff. Let me know if I should be rushing any of these books to the top of my queue.
I was going to start this post by saying that it’s been a long time since I read a Shaun Hutson book, but then I checked and realised that I read both of his terrible Uninvited books only a year ago. They were unbearable garbage, but I quite enjoyed Renegades when I read that in 2024, so I decided to give him another chance. I chose Relics because it’s old. I had no idea what it was about going into it.
Some archaeologists come across a Celtic burial site containing a huge number of decapitated children. This happens near a town where a local group of drug addicted Satanists is commiting a series of horrible animal sacrifices and a local scumbag is breeding violent pitbulls for dogfights. Somebody starts a killing spree. I expected the three different plots of the story to come together into a cohesive whole, but that never happens. I remember having a similar complaint about the plot of Spawn when I read that.
This is fairly graphic stuff. There’s lots of gouts of blood and steaming intestines. Somebody gets their face melted with acid, and a woman is raped in a pile of dogshit. There’s also a few romantic sex scenes. They were perhaps the most uncomfortable parts. Honestly, I can imagine 13-14 year old boys being really impressed with this, but as an adult it was excruciating.
This is not a good book. I wasn’t remotely invested in the plot or characters. I’m not going to say that I won’t read another book by Hutson, but it will probably be a few years before I revisit his work.
Life has been very busy recently. I’ve been finishing up my coursework and working on music stuff, and consequently, there’s been a few weeks that I haven’t updated this site Sorry. I’ve still been reading quite a lot, but much of what I’ve been reading doesn’t really fit in with this blog. I finished Scott Smith‘s A Simple Plan and Kenneth Cook’s Wake in Fright during the week. Both were good books, and just as dark as anything I’ve reviewed here, but neither comes close to horror in the Nocturnal Revelries sense of the word. Here’s a novel I read a few weeks ago. While not as depressing as the 2 books I just mentioned, it at least contains a haunted house.
PS Publishing 2024 (First published 2015)
Wylding Hall is a good book, but it’s barely a horror novel. It’s about a folk rock band that goes to a remote mansion in the English countryside to write and record an album. Unfortunately, their singer runs away with a ghost. There’s a couple of creepy moments, but overall, it’s not scary. It has a few elements of gothic fiction, but the narration is a little too upbeat for it to seem creepy for long. It’s like horror-lite or sugar free horror. At the same time, I really quite enjoyed reading it. I love those old those classic album documentaries, and this feels like reading one of them. This would be a good book to read on a plane or a bus. I thought it was good fun.
I have some more straightforward horror novels coming up soon, and I recently got my hands on some ridiculous conspiracy theory books, so stay tuned.
I’ve been thinking about doing a post on Brian Evenson for quite a while. I read Last Days about 3 years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s more of a thriller than a horror novel, but it’s about a cult who like to amputate their own body parts. Cool! It’s quite messed up. Although I’ve definitely forgotten most of the plot, I have not forgotten how much I enjoyed reading it.
The next thing I read by Evenson was Altmann’s Tongue, his first collection of short stories. I read this shortly after finishing Last Rites. Part of its appeal was that I had heard the contents were so extreme that it led to the author having to leave his job at a Mormon university. In truth, I remember almost nothing about this collection. I can’t say I was overly impressed, and I didn’t read anything else by Evenson for a while.
In December I read Father of Lies. I had seen this one described as a more straight forward horror novel than Evenson’s other books. It is truly fucked. It’s about a paedophile priest who is either insane or possessed by the Devil. I read it in an evening, and it almost pains me to admit that I really enjoyed it. It’s a horrid book, real feel-bad fiction. It was so unpleasant that I picked up and read another book by Evenson a few days after finishing it.
The Warren is more of a science fiction novel than the ones mentioned above, but it’s gloomy existential science fiction rather than Star Wars or the likes. This was another book that took me less than a day to read and has encouraged me to venture outside the realms of straight horror recently. It’s definitely worth a read if you’re interested in contemplating the limitations of identity and what it means to be a person.
So Brian Evenson has also written novels for movie and video game franchises under the pen name B.K. Evenson. I presume this is about separating his “literary” work from the more commercial stuff that he writes. I have no real interest in this books about video games, but after searching my local library’s database for audiobooks by Evenson, I found Feral.
Anchor – 2017
Feral is a collaboration Evenson did with James DeMonaco, the author and director of The Purge movies. I haven’t seen any of those films, but I have a general idea of what they’re about. When you think about it, a story of violent survivalist action/adventure put through the filter of a literary author with a penchant for nastiness could turn out very well. I am happy to say that Feral pulls it off quite successfully.
A pandemic hits the world and turns all men into fast zombies that really hate women. After 3 years, only a few small armoured settlements of women are left. Allie is a scout in one of these settlements, and she spends her days looting abandoned stores for food and goods while dodging, incapacitating and sometimes kidnapping the feral male zombies. She rides around on a motorbike and carries guns and machetes and is basically a total badass. Things get worrying when she notices that there are far more males skulking around her territory than usual. To complicate matters further, one of these males doesn’t seem to be infected.
This is not the kind of horror I usually enjoy. The most similar thing I’ve read was probably Brian Keene’s The Complex, a novel that I wanted to like but struggled to enjoy. Feral was better though. I don’t know the story behind it, but given DeMonaco’s work in film, I assume this was originally an idea for a movie. I think it would work well as a movie, but I understand that the zombie film market was probably oversaturated in the years prior to 2017 when it came out. Also, I can see how the pandemic element to the book may have discouraged studios from considering the idea in the few years after it was released.
Feral is definitely more typical of the horror genre than Evenson’s other works, but it was fast paced and entertaining. I quite liked it. I don’t know if I’ll discuss them here, but I am quite certain I will read more of Evenson’s books in the future.
You may have noticed that most of the books I’ve reviewed this year have been relatively recent. This is because I am back studying part time and relying on audiobooks as I do the dishes to get through any reading at all. For the last week, I’ve been listening to James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia. It’s a bit older than the other stuff I’ve read recently.
Grand Central Publishing – 1998 (first published 1987)
The Black Dahlia is an excellent book, and the subject matter is truly horrifying, but I’ve been on the fence as to whether I should post about it here or not. It contains horrendous acts of cruelty and depravity, so it kind of fits the bill, and it was previously reviewed on the toomuchhorrorfiction blog, so I reckon it’s fair game. While it’s not a horror novel, it is so dark that I imagine most people with an interest in horror will likely be interested. It’s also really good.
I didn’t know what to expect going in. I had seen people saying this book was great, but I didn’t know what kind of a book it was. It’s a novel. It involves a crime that really happened, but it’s not a novelisation or even speculative fiction. Most of the characters here are made up. The book is described as “neo-noir”. I’ve only read a few books of “noir” fiction, but Ellroy’s writing was far grittier than those. This was written in the late 80s, and it doesn’t hold back on any fronts. Everyone in this book is a piece of shit, but it’s this element that makes it believable. It’s also what makes the book very funny in parts.
After reading the book, I had to do a little research in the case. It’s truly horrible stuff. There’s a heavy metal band named after it. I remember I bought a ticket to see them once because Cephalic Carnage were opening for them. When I got to the show, I realised I had left my ticket at home, so I had to buy another. I left after a couple of the headliner’s songs. Not my thing. I wouldn’t cross the road to see Cephalic Carnage at this these stage either to be honest. I wish I could go back in time to save my money.
I reckon I’ll read more books by Ellroy in the future, but I doubt they’ll get reviewed here. This one was great though. Read it if you haven’t already.
Nocturnal Revelries 