Review by Ida Vega-Landow

This book has everything for the reader who loves horror, romance and historic fiction. It’s about Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII’s second wife, for whom he created a whole new church just so he could divorce his faithful first wife, Katherine of Aragon, to marry her. The author supposes that when Henry got tired of Anne and had her convicted on a slew of made-up charges, among them witchcraft, she was not beheaded like a noblewoman, but hanged like a commoner. Or, as the blurb on the back cover of this fascinating book states, “The slightest tweak in history makes all the difference in the outcome…”

One of the ways of creating a vampire is for a person to die a sudden, violent death. Another is for the dying person to deny God with his or her last breath. So when Anne curses God and denounces Him on the scaffold just moments before the trapdoor opens beneath her feet, it allows her to come back as a vampire. And what a vampire! When she rises from her unmarked grave on the grounds of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, in the shadow of the Tower of London where she was executed, she looks like Lilly Munster; her long, black hair is streaked with white, to go with her pale skin and blood-red eyes. She finds a silver urn on her grave filled with week-old dead flowers from her lover, Thomas Wyatt, the man she would have married if Henry hadn’t fallen in lust with her. After reading the tender poem Thomas left tucked inside the urn, she decides to pay him a visit and walks all the way to his home, Allington Castle, with unnatural speed, which is only natural for someone in her condition, “for the dead travel fast”.

It doesn’t take long for Anne to make Thomas her first victim, after which, with his help, she raises the beheaded bodies of her brother George and her favorite musician, Mark Smeaton, both of whom were accused of committing adultery with her. George comes back as a zombie and Mark as a ghost; she sends Smeaton to play his ghostly violin in the halls of Whitehall Palace, the King’s resident, while she and her zombie brother visit their father at Hever Castle. After paying back Daddy Dearest, who wouldn’t defend her against the king’s false charges, by driving him mad with fear, she lays George to rest again, and then she and Smeaton proceed to haunt Whitehall Palace while Henry prepares to marry his third wife, Jane Seymour.

Anne has a good old time discovering her vampiric powers as she torments Henry by leaving daffodils, her favorite flower, all over the castle, usually spattered with blood, turning crucifixes and portraits of the king upside down, and attacking his favorites, like his chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, and Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk. The only people she spares from torment are her sister Mary, who is taking care of her daughter Elizabeth (destined to become one of England’s greatest queens), and the new queen, Jane Seymour, after Mary tells her how Jane is trying to get Elizabeth restored to her place at court, along with the king’s eldest daughter Mary. But everyone else at court is fair game for Anne Boleyn, Tudor Vampire—especially her former husband, King Henry VIII.

This story is short, but intense. Horror is laden upon horror, like layers of fruit filling in a heavily iced, dark chocolate cake. The author displays a good knowledge of history and life during the Tudor period, though she does tend to lapse into anachronisms from time to time. Like when Anne discovers she is able to make drawbridges rise by mentally commanding it and comments that she was able to enter her father’s castle this way “without hassle”. There were also a couple of references to having sex as “getting your jollies”. Not very Tudorian, but quite droll. I suppose if Anne knows that she’s telling this story to a modern audience, her use of modern slang is understandable.

The author also displays a familiarity with instruments of torture that made me feel very uncomfortable, especially those intended for use on women, like the pear of anguish, the breast ripper, and the Judas Cradle. I haven’t been so grossed out since I toured the dungeon at the New York Renaissance Faire and saw the methods and instruments of torture they used back then, demonstrated on dummies. Disturbingly realistic dummies. But at least I had the satisfaction of seeing old Cromwell get his, which I didn’t get from reading any of Philippa Gregory’s Tudorian novels. Then again, this is made-up history, not the real thing, so anything goes, from raising your beheaded brother to calling up an army of zombies to lynch your worst enemy in his own backyard. I never saw Anne Boleyn so happy before in a fictionalized account of her life; as the late Vincent Price would say, “She’s so amusing.”

But all good things come to an end, as do all good books. And this one ends much too soon for me, just as Anne appears to Henry for the last time to take her bloody vengeance, only to be foiled by one whom she considered her ally from the beginning of her reign of terror. Having her reawaken in the present as a ghost was a nice touch, but was it really necessary to have a Boleyn family reunion, including the relatives who had wronged her? It would have been so much more poignant for Anne to haunt the halls of Whitehall Palace and/or Henry’s tomb for eternity. Not just Henry’s tomb, either; think how thrilling it would be for visitors to hear her spirit weeping over Queen Elizabeth’s tomb. My biggest beef with this book is the title; it should be “Anne Boleyn-Tudor Vampire”, so people will know right away exactly which Tudor is meant. (Remember “The Other Boleyn Girl”, her sister Mary, whom Henry also slept with?) I hope that the author will consider this minor change in future reprints. For now, any complaints or compliments should be directed to her website, which is: http://BloodTouch.Webs.com Long live the queen!

Review by Ida Vega-Landow,

Once again we are entertained, or afflicted, by a smartass who has decided to “improve” Jane Austin by adding an element of horror to one of her classic romance novels. As if “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” by Seth Grahame-Smith wasn’t bad enough (and by that I mean good enough to be skewered on “Mystery Science Theater 3000″, if it were still on the air, and if anybody brave enough to film PP&Z could be found), we now have “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters”, in which the course of true love not only seldom runs smooth, but frequently has blood-stained water. You see, in this alternate version of Miss Austin’s novel, dear old England has been afflicted by “The Alteration; which had turned the creatures of the ocean against the people of the earth; which made even the tiniest darting minnow and the gentlest dolphin into aggressive, blood-thirsty predators, hardened and hateful towards our bipedal race”.

This time around, the darling Dashwood family has been evicted from their seaside manor by their selfish half-brother after their father was eaten by a hammerhead shark. Their mother’s cousin, Sir John, offers them a haven on Pestilent Isle, where the two older sisters, sensible Elinor and sensitive Marianne, find suitors who are treasure hunters (in more ways than one), while Margaret, the youngest (who hardly has anything to do in the original novel), becomes obsessed with a mysterious, smoking mountaintop and the chanting she hears coming from it every night through the window of their dilapidated little cottage on Pestilence Island. Colonel Brandon, Marianne’s more honorable suitor, has tentacles on his face due to a sea witch’s curse. Sir John, Mrs. Dashwood’s cousin, is married to “Kukaphahora, now Lady Middleton, a six-foot-two-inch, jewel-bedecked princess of a tribe indigenous to a far-flung atoll” whom he abducted during his days as a pirate. She appears to be a dutiful wife, but she’s just humoring her vulgar husband while planning her escape from England.

This book has more sea creatures in it than Kip Addotta’s song, “Wet Dream”. Every possible form of marine life attacks the Dashwood sisters, along with every other human who goes down to the sea in ships, or even just picnics by the shore (the account of one unfortunate young lady devoured by a giant jellyfish at a bonfire party on Sir John’s beach is both gruesome and funny enough to make Mike, Servo and Crow blubber). Everything in this book has a maritime theme. Even London becomes Sub-Marine Station Beta, four miles under the surface, “some miles off the Welsh coast, just beyond the Cardigan Bay,” where all the beautiful people go for their summer holiday (Sub-Marine Station Alpha having suffered a dreadful fate due to the betrayal of the mermen masquerading as humans who helped design it). Instead of dances and card parties, the most popular form of entertainment at the station is visiting Hyde Park—I mean Hydra-Z, “more properly known as the Hydro-Zoological Laboratory and Exhibition Arcade”, one of the station’s more popular scientific facilities, “where captured monsters were submitted to the most rigorous re-training and biological modification programs…and brought before paying audiences to demonstrate how completely they had been made to do the will of man.”

This sounds just like the modern water parks where seals, dolphins and killer whales are trained to perform tricks for the amusement of humans, like the one in Florida where a female trainer was recently killed by the orca she was putting through its paces. This book was written last year, otherwise I’d accuse the contemporary author, Mr. Winters, of capitalizing on that tragic incident when he gleefully describes how the giant trained lobsters at one such performance gradually turn upon their trainer, then the audience, forcing Marianne to find out that her precious Mr. Willoughby is secretly engaged to another girl, whom he chooses to rescue instead of her as the lobsters start crawling out of the water tank, cutting off hands, feet and heads with their enormous claws as they advance. (Can’t you just hear Mike Nelson yelling “Quick! Throw some melted butter at them!”)

One thing I’ll say for this fishy version of Miss Austin’s novel, things may get clammy, but they are seldom dull. The ending is also a lot more spectacular than the original one; it includes the resourceful Elinor fighting off a pirate attack with only a whittling knife, as well as what happens to young Margaret after she’s left behind on Pestilence Island with their mother to investigate the mysterious, smoking mountain and the hairless, sharp-toothed natives that nobody else ever seems to see, with their mysterious chant of “K’yaloh D’argesh F’ah! K’yaloh D’argesh F’ah!” We are also intrigued by a mysterious five-pointed star that keeps popping up across Elinor’s vision every time she sees Lucy Steele, her rival for Edward Ferrar’s affections. I was starting to think that the girl must be a werewolf, but it turned out to be a lot worst; at least for Robert Ferrar, the fellow she wound up marrying! So, if you’re a good Catholic who’s also given up meat for Lent, put on “Wet Dream” and read this book. I promise it won’t give you a haddock; in fact, it will give your whole life new porpoise. Okay, okay, I’ll clam up, but buy this book, don’t be shellfish!

Review by Kathryn Ramage

“The author is supposed to be chronicling seven generations of a single family, but he tells the same story over and over again. All the characters live lives of selfless duty to the state, get old and die–and then the next generation comes along and does it all over again!”

“That’s the whole point, Doctor. The repetitive epic is the most elegant form of Cardassian literature, and The Never-Ending Sacrifice is its greatest achievement.”

–Dr. Julian Bashir and Elim Garak, in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, The Wire

The classic Cardassian novel, The Never-Ending Sacrifice by Ulan Corac, opens with a dedication “For Cardassia,” and exemplifies the Cardassian ideal of unwavering dedication to the homeworld and placing the needs of the State above personal considerations. As noted by Dr. Bashir’s and Garak’s discussion above, the plot is extremely repetitive and some readers, particularly human ones, might find it a dreadful bore. Fortunately, Una McCormack’s novel of the same name is neither.

McCormack’s The Never-Ending Sacrifice is the tale of Rugal Pa’Dar, a Cardassian boy who made his appearance an early Deep Space Nine episode, “Cardassians.” In this episode, we discover that Rugal was abducted from his family as a small child while his father was stationed on Bajor during Cardassia’s occupation of that planet, left in an orphanage, and eventually adopted by a Bajoran couple. When he is found as a teenager, a custody dispute arises between Rugal’s Bajoran parents and his biological father, Kotan Pa’Dar, who is now an important official on Cardassia. Commander Sisko of Deep Space Nine decides to return Rugal to Pa’Dar.

The episode ends there. McCormack follows Rugal’s life through the next eight years as he comes of age on that militaristic, oppressive world that bears a close resemblance to the one portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984; everyone is closely monitored by listening devices and the Obsidian Order, Cardassia’s intelligence agency, for signs of seditious thoughts or acts. Unquestioning loyalty to the State is of primary importance. And Rugal is as rebellious as a boy who considers himself Bajoran and hates all things Cardassian would naturally be. His father’s repeated refrain is “Try not to get us all killed”–a warning that Rugal ignores at first, since he resents Kotan for taking him away from his Bajoran family and the world he considers his true home.

As the years pass, Rugal does not learn to love Cardassia nor the ideals it upholds (he tries to read Ulan Corac’s novel once, but falls asleep during the first chapter). He does, however, learn to care for things and people on it: his father, an orphaned girl who is being brought up by her relatives, some of the older traditions of the Cardassian people, such as the moving chant his father and girl-friend perform at his acerbic grandmother’s funeral. He understands something of how their world came to be the way it is, and seeks to change it.

For a DS9 geek, this story is a fascinating retelling of almost the entire series, as viewed from someone living on Cardassia during that same time. The episodes related to Cardassia are well-researched, and the story is full of characters and incidents from them. Rugal and his father are acquainted with dissidents who appeared in other Deep Space Nine episodes, and of course have repeated confrontations with Gul Dukat (who stole Rugal from his father in the first place). The Klingon invasion of Cardassia, the Dominion War, and its aftermath are seen through Rugal’s eyes. While I was reading, I kept saying to myself, “Yes, I remember that! That happened in [episode name].” There is little to be seen of the major characters from Deep Space Nine except for Dukat, but Miles O’Brien and Elim Garak both have important parts to play near the end of the story. But it is the development of Rugal’s character as he grows from surly teenager to political activist to unwilling soldier to one of few surviving Cardassians in a war-shattered galaxy that makes this story more than a catalog of previously seen DS9 characters and events. In the end, Rugal comes full circle when he adopts an orphaned human child he finds on a colony world and fights to keep her over the objections of people who believe the child belongs with her own kind. He realizes then that he too is part of a never-ending sacrifice, and not “For Cardassia.”

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

If you’re looking for a good mystery to read during this Season of the Witch, I recommend “Roanoke”, which is about the first, failed English colony in America. Nobody really knows the ultimate fate of the little group of Englishmen and women who settled on Roanoke Island back in 1585. It’s now a thriving city in the state of Virginia, but back then it was a backwater island up the windswept coast of the Carolinas, past Cape Feare, inhabited by the Secota Indians.

Queen Elizabeth granted the charter for Roanoke to Sir Walter Raleigh, her favorite at the time, to explore the new world and bring back any treasures he found, because the queen needed money to pay for her war against King Philip of Spain, who was mounting an armada to invade England. But within five years the colony was abandoned; every single white person in it had disappeared. Even the Secotas weren’t sure what had happened to them.

The plot of “Roanoke” revolves around the premise that the poor little colony was meant to fail. Most of the colonists were just common folk, pressed into service in the British Navy, newly released from jail, or respectable merchants who had fallen on hard times. All of them thought they could get a fresh start in America, living off the fat of the land and skimming enough off the top to send back to Queen Liz while they lorded it over the local savages, which is how they referred to the Indians. I assumed that the colony was meant to be an experiment, that if these poor commoners managed to survive, then it would be safe to send some important people there.

In fact, the queen’s advisors have planted a couple of spies among the colonists, a handsome young fellow named Gabriel North and his mentor and friend Robert Mowbray, who have orders to make sure that the colony will pay off financially. To that end, Gabriel has orders to seduce the Queen of America; a widowed Indian princess named Naia, whose father Wingina is the ruling chief of the Secotas, to get information about the Indian’s pearl beds and mythical gold mines. The Secotas liked to ornament themselves with long strings of fresh water pearls and jewelry made out of copper. Foolish, greedy white people who saw these brightly polished necklaces and bracelets mistook them for gold, and were determined to have it. But all Gabriel got out of Naia was love, and all the rest of the colonists got was the shaft.

It was painful reading about the clash of Native American culture versus English “civilization”; while Gabriel and Naia are busy making friends and eventually making love, the other Indians are busy trying to teach these silly white people how to survive in the rugged Virginia wilderness. But the settlers feared them as much as they depended on them, perhaps fearing for their Christian souls if they started mimicking the ways of the “savages”. So they kept fishing with a line from a single boat instead of using nets to catch many fish, and going on shooting parties to chase down one deer or boar at a time instead of setting snares to catch many rabbits. Then they started splitting up to look for the nonexistent gold mines, while their fearless-and senseless—leader Captain Lane ordered his soldiers to raid the Indian villages, first to steal their food, then to kidnap and torture the inhabitants to force them to reveal where their gold was. Then the other local tribes, who were not friendly to the Secotas or the English, began raiding the settlement, which kept the English too busy to bother their erstwhile allies.

Eventually Governor White sailed back to England, promising to return with more supplies and soldiers, but by then the Spanish Armada was headed toward England, so everybody kind of forgot about Roanoke in the excitement. Except for Robert Mowbray, Sir Walter and the other investors in the colony, all of whom kept demanding an accounting of their missing money and their missing relatives and friends. By the time Her Majesty’s government got around to sending relief ships in 1890, there was nothing left of Roanoke but abandoned buildings.

A desperate Gabriel finds himself stranded in America with rapidly dwindling supplies and fellow colonists when two Spanish ships show up at Roanoke, to see what the English have left behind and if it’s worth stealing. So Gabriel ends up betraying Naia to the Spanish, in order to save her and her two young children from starvation. Meanwhile, back in England Robert nearly loses his life trying to find out who is responsible for abandoning the colony. By the time these two old friends and spies meet again, they’re both fugitives on the run from Her Majesty’s justice, but they have managed to track down the man whose jealousy of Sir Walter Raleigh led to the destruction of Roanoke. They’re not able to kill him, but they do manage to get the attention of Queen Liz, who takes care of the matter herself, more discreetly. So Mr. Big gets to keep his life and his position, but his influence at court is greatly reduced, while the ones who actually did his dirty work—spying and assassinating-are executed. Such is the usual fate of minions who serve ambitious men.

History does not say whether the survivors of Roanoke colony, most of them women, ever made it back to England. But Margaret Lawrence comes up with a convincing explanation for how they could have survived, along with their sole protector, Gabriel North, who has to go up against a jealous Indian suitor of Naia’s as well as the Spanish soldiers who come poking around after the English have abandoned Roanoke. It’s not a pretty story, but most stories of political finagling aren’t, and there was a lot of finagling going on over Roanoke and its’ inhabitants, the Native Americans and the unlucky English. So much so that I’m surprised that the local Indians didn’t turn on the English when they sent another group of settlers to Plymouth Rock some years later, but that’s another story.

Avalon: Web of Magic – All That Glitters (Book Two)

Review by Kris

Before I jump into the synopsis and review of this book I have to thank the fans of this series. When you read the comments posted after my review for Avalon: Web of Magic – Circles in the Stream (Book One) you’ll see that I got thoroughly spanked because of my idiocy and ineptitude. I did make some mistakes and I am very sorry for that. Emily does follow some of the dogs that she is taking care of into Ravenswood when she runs into Adriane. When I initially read the book I thought she wanted to ask the girl who brought in the cat if she knew what was hurting or killing the local animals. Another thing I made a mistake on was the fact that Ozzie was never a magical creature and his spell didn’t backfire. It was the Fairimentals (very magical creatures made of air, earth, water or fire and live in the magical world of Aldenmore) who disguised Ozzie as a ferret to protect him. When I read these books, I read them all together so many things mushed together in my brain and I misrepresented some of the story. So I must apologize to both the author and the fans for my mistakes and I hope I get this review right, and if I screw it up again don’t hesitate to straighten me out! Also to the one reader who was upset I didn’t mention Stormbringer, I had planned on doing that in my review for the third book, so have no fear, she’ll get her time to shine.

Now on to the synopsis and review of Avalon: Web of Magic – All That Glitters (Book Two)!

The Fairimentals of Aldenmore, to save the magic of the universe, have found their three mages in Pennsylvania. Those mages are the Healer, Emily Fletcher, the Warrior, Adriane Charday, and the Blazing Star, Kara Davies. The Fairimentals also sent them a helper named Ozzie, who happened to be an elf but is now disguised as a ferret. Each of the girls were given a gift, a gemstone that helps them harness their magical abilities. But only Emily and Adriane were given stones and Kara is beyond jealous. She wants a fancy jewel and one that is more powerful that either Adriane’s or Emily’s. One day at the Ravenswood Preserve Kara stumbles upon just this stone. Not only is it beautiful but she can sense that it is very powerful.

School is just about to begin when Kara’s world turns upside down. She has clothes that turn up missing, slimy banshees seem to be foretelling of doom all because of her, she seems to be attracting actual dragonflies (tiny, flying, magical dragons), and a wild cat seems to be watching her. It’s so hard to be popular with her fellow students and magical creatures alike. She is at a loss with what she needs to do. She has this magical ability but she can’t talk about it with her friends, and the two girls who understand what she’s going through aren’t popular enough for her to associate with in public. Will Kara be able to manage her popularity with both the magical world and the regular world?

When I first started this series I have to say that I immediately knew that I wasn’t going to like Kara. I then started the second book and almost immediately began to despise her. I was always able to relate to Emily and Adriane (they resemble me quite a bit when I was their age) but Kara was always the type of character that I always disliked. She suffers from a ginormous superiority complex and feels that because she’s the Blazing Star she deserves to be the best. It’s because of that attitude that is now causing her all of these problems (namely the banshees). If she continues with the superior attitude it is foretold that she could become like the Dark Sorceress. She is the witch that is stealing all of the magic from the magical web that she can find, taking the magic from the animals of Aldenmore, and is also looking for Avalon so she can keep the magic for herself. She eventually does redeem herself and I found myself feeling for her, at least a little. I still am not a huge Kara fan but she seems to be trying a little harder to accept Adriane and Emily as friends.

So far I’m finding this to be a great series. It not only has a great message about saving animals and saving the Earth but it also shows that girls are awesome! I feel that this is a good series for late elementary to middle school readers, unless you’re like me and love to read books for all ages on the spectrum (one of my favorite books is ABC and 123 by Colin McNaughton, a book aimed at early readers and I’m 30!) Seven Seas is doing an excellent job with the publishing. The books are aimed to spark interest with manga readers and so the illustrations have a very cool look to them. Not only are they publishing this series but they’ve also started publishing a manga series featuring the Avalon: Web of Magic characters. These are aimed at all ages. I love the idea of expanding the series beyond just the books and I found the manga to be just as fun as the novels.

I recommend this series to girls of all ages because of the awesome message contained within these pages.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

As a longtime lover of Regency Romance, I thought I would hate reading this satirical version of “Pride and Prejudice”, after Seth Grahame-Smith finished adding his touch of Gothic Horror to the well-loved romantic classic. Surprisingly enough, it turned out to be readable; not only romantic, but funny! Especially in parts where Grahame-Smith expands upon Austin’s sometimes overblown prose to the point where you suspect him of having watched one too many episodes of “Month Python’s Flying Circus”.

Absurdity abounds in this book, where 18th Century England has been overwhelmed by a plague of zombies, transforming all the dead into carnivorous predators who attack at any hour of the day or night, forcing young ladies and gentlemen to learn martial arts in order to defend themselves and their people from the unmentionables, as they are politely called. But despite all the carnage taking place on England’s roads and in lonely places–sometimes even in one’s own drawing room, or in the kitchens, through a back door carelessly left open–there are still some traditionalists like Mrs. Bennet who firmly believe that it is a girl’s duty to be married. Her more practical spouse, after having his five daughters trained at a Shaolin monastery in China (how he can afford it on such a limited income from an entailed estate is never explained), believes their duty should be to battle the undead menace that threatens all England. Or as Austin/Grahame-Smith put it, “The business of Mr. Bennet’s life was to keep his daughters alive. The business of Mrs. Bennet’s was to get them married.”

The Reverend Collins, who winds up dumping the independent Elizabeth for her more passive friend Charlotte, comes off as even stupider than he was in the original book, as he is blissfully unaware that poor Charlotte, having been bitten by a zombie, is slowly turning into one of the undead. Upon learning of his daughter’s rejection of Collins and his wife’s displeasure thereby, Elizabeth’s father had me in stitches when he informed her that “Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do; for I shall not have my best warrior resigned to the service of a man who is fatter than Buddha and duller than the edge of a learning sword.”

In addition to the more purple prose, there are also the most delightfully gruesome illustrations, as well as a front cover showing a blood-spattered lady with half her face and part of her throat eaten away, her blood-red eyes giving away her zombified condition. The disagreeable Mr. Darcy has been transformed into a warrior, trained in the Japanese tradition, who admires the heroine’s Shaolin Chinese training as well as her dark eyes, while deploring the vulgarity of her family. This is enough to make Elizabeth determined to teach him a lesson, preferably at the point of her sword. The rest of the book is filled with accounts of their mutual sparring, verbal and physical, and frequently interrupted by hungry zombies, which they are forced to dispatch in a manner more appropriate to a low-budget horror film than a Regency Romance.

Yes, you’ll howl with laughter to see one of the classics of English Literature rewritten as a Gothic horror story. Even guys will enjoy this traditional Chick Lit novel, now that it’s been transformed into something they’d actually want to read, to quote the blurb on the inside cover. If you are squeamish or easily offended, by all means avoid this book. If you do choose to read it and are offended anyway, remember that it’s a satire, not to be taken seriously. But ardent Austin fans may be forgiven for hoping that Miss Austin rises from her grave in Winchester Cathedral to teach Mr. Grahame-Smith a painful and well-deserved lesson.

The Unit

Review by Ginger Mayerson

Sometime in the not so distant future, in Scandinavia (I assume), laws regarding human usefulness based on age and station have been passed. Women over fifty and men over sixty who are childless or have no dependant family members who “need” them are moved into Units where they are useful for “humane experiments” and spare parts. The Unit is the story of Dorrit Weger who has just turned 50 years old and is obeying the democratically enacted laws of her land.

Dorrit enters the Unit and the greatest care is taken, by the staff and the other inmates, to make her transition to complete dependence and obedience easy and successful. It is successful: she even meets some old friends, and only gradually do the horrors of the uses of surplus humanity become clear to her (and to us). She and her friends are enrolled in human experiments, usually the last stages of drug testing or cosmetics, but they also start donating whatever they have two of. These donations go to the “needed” population on the outside. The inmates even know that their organs are going to mothers or young people who have not had children yet. One inmate has a cornea taken, another a kidney, another bone marrow, then this, then that, until the final donation. The final donation is usually a heart or liver, and then the rest of the useful organs are harvested. The final donation is a polite euphemism for death by medical execution. Dorrit seems resigned to her fate, but then she meets an old acquaintance and falls in love.

The heroine, Dorrit, is a writer and tells her story in the first person. Once she settles into the Unit, she begins a novel, makes friends, and adjusts to life where all her material and some of her emotional needs are met. She’s lived her life without being a burden on society and has contributed as an artist. In the society that voted for the creation of Units, artistic contribution is not enough: past a certain age one must be changing diapers on a baby or a geezer to merit being needed enough to escape the ultimate redundancy. And yet Dorrit is a good citizen to the end: she respects her democracy and its laws even when it’s stripped her of her personhood and dehumanized the society she used to live in. She and other characters in the story mention that they live in a democracy where they have free speech so they are allowed to say anything they want in the “luxury slaughterhouse” as one inmate calls it.

The use of first person point of view makes this a powerful book. Ninni Holmqvist writes in a soothing style appropriate for her character’s cheerful, productive fatalism. Dorrit is on death row writing a novel that will probably be published by the Unit after she’s dead. Nothing is wasted in this efficient new world, except people who don’t fit the utilitarian criteria.

This was a very disturbing book for me for many reasons, primarily that I just turned 49 and am a textbook candidate for a Unit, if such things existed. As I’ve gotten older as a single, childless woman who doesn’t work in a glamorous or powerful profession, I’ve felt a certain amount of distain from the “needed” types out there. Being sent to a Unit next year isn’t going to happen to me, but Holmqvist is exploring something that is and always has been the dividing line between families and childless adults. This book asks, who is necessary to a healthy society and future? Who is allowed to live and why? What is best society for children to be raised in? I ask, who gets to decide these fucked up questions? These are good questions, hard questions, and The Unit only really explores the three. And then doesn’t explore them very much, but enough that I was unsettled as I read it. This is a low-key, thoughtful book with a leisurely pace that underscores the mounting horror of what the main character’s society has become and what this means to what’s left of her life. Unlike The Island or Logan’s Run, The Unit has no chases or hot blond babes. There is no revolution, justice, or triumph of humanity at the end, just the sad hopeless horror of societally approved democratically installed institutional cruelty against a particular category of people. Near the end of the book, one of the Unit inmates mentions news stories of fifteen year olds getting pregnant so they will be “needed” and the soaring rates of sexually transmitted diseases as fertile women desperately try to save their lives past 50. And so, I must also ask, if it’s still a democracy, why don’t they all – women and men – start voting with their heads instead of their reproductive organs?

But as I was reading, a disturbing (to me) question began to form: if a luxurious life free of material want and strife in exchange for obedience and tissue were available to anyone who understood the terms and conditions enough to make an informed consent, how many hopeless, helpless, burned-out, down-and-out citizens would voluntarily exercise this option? I wonder. And I hope we never find out.

Real World

Reviewed by Budd

Natsuo Kirino, a well known author in Japan, releases her second English translation with Real World. Real world follows four Japanese high school girls as they assist a boy that has just committed matricide in his escape.

The book is a really quick read and you actually care about the characters and start to sympathize with the “Worm” character. You almost understand why the girls are helping him. The characters are the lifeblood of this novel and Kirino fleshes out what seem to be stereotypical Japanese students into something a little more.

This is ultimately a book about consequences. Actions and inactions have consequences. The characters, still young, learn this throughout the novel the hard way. Well, at least the female characters do.

This isn’t a great book, but it is a good book. I haven’t read any of Kirino’s other works so I don’t have anything to base it on. The book does have an edge to it and can get very dark in places. I would suggest this book for high school age and up do to darkness and sexual content.

Mystic Investigators

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

Well, what do you know, here’s another collection of short stories by my homeboy Patrick Thomas! This one was published by Dark Quest Books instead of Padwolf, so you’re going to have to go to www.darkquestbooks.com and click on “Fiction” to get your hands on it. But it’s worth it, believe me! Within this slim volume are eleven tales of terror, most of them with a lighter side to leaven the horror. But not all of them. Be warned, you may find some of these stories a little too much for your psyche, especially if you’re the type who believes in government conspiracies about the paranormal—Area 51, men in black, the Jersey Devil, and so on. Our boy Patrick goes into some deep, dark waters here, the kind where a lot of creepy things are swimming beneath the surface, most of them eager to chew your legs off. But more often it’s just your mind they feed upon, infesting your imagination to the point where you’ll find yourself sleeping with a nightlight on, or keeping a flashlight under your pillow to investigate those strange noises you hear at night when you’re home alone.

You’ll find some old friends here from past publications, like Terrorbelle, the half-pixie, half-ogre warrior gal from Nemesis, Inc. In “Attack of the Trouser Snake”, which also appears in her own compilation, “Fairy With A Gun”, T-Belle takes on a private case for a friend of hers, who runs a hotel where the last five people who checked into room 914 all died mysteriously. It’s a locked room mystery, but the thing that’s doing the killing isn’t in the room. Something from outside is being brought in by one of the hotel’s employees. Which one? The least likely one on a short list of suspects, and that’s all I’m going to tell you.

“Cardiac Arrest” is a Department of Mystic Affairs case file, starring Agent Karver, who was once a serial killer in a past life. He couldn’t help it, he was possessed by a homicidal demon. (So the devil really did make him do it!) In this story, he and his partner, Agent Mandi Cobb (a lovely empath who reminds me of Counselor Troi on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”), are trying to find a heartless bank robber who can’t be killed. This guy has robbed fifteen banks in eight months, he’s been shot at in six of the robberies, even headshot twice, but he just walks away with the money. Why? I already told you he was heartless. It’s an old mage trick; remove your heart and hide it somewhere, then your body can’t be killed. Catching the robber is easy, finding his missing heart is something else. For the first, Karver has to be the bait and go into a gay bar to lure the guy out. For the second, he and Mandi have to do some heart-searching in the guy’s hometown, where a crooked coroner and a lonely little boy who’s being abused at home and bullied at school have both used the mystic powers of the criminal’s evil heart for revenge.

One of the most poignant stories is about Frankenstein’s monster, whom Patrick postulates is still among us, passing as a mortal. In “Spawn of Lightning”, which takes place during WWII, we learn that Captain Adam Frankenstein has lived quietly among the German people since WWI, even served as a decorated fighter pilot, which helps him pass off his many scars as war wounds. Seeing the Nazis rounding up the Jews and the Roma, along with the other “inferior” races, brings back bad memories of how he was once hunted and persecuted by torch-bearing peasants with pitchforks, who also wanted to kill him for being different. That’s why he’s now with the German Underground, helping to rescue people from the prison camps. One camp in particular interests him; that’s where, according to a drunken Nazi scientist he met at a bar, they’re putting together pieces of Jewish corpses in an attempt to duplicate his creator’s experiment. It seems the Nazis want to create a secret weapon, a super soldier to help them win the war. One that is strong, impervious to pain, able to kill many people at once. Frankenstein is determined to spare this new patchwork man the same suffering he has endured, knowing that if they are successful, the Nazis will create an entire army of patchwork men from the bodies of their victims, to commit mass slaughter in the name of the Fatherland.

I could go on and on about the other weird wonders from Patrick’s fertile imagination, like the fedora-wearing gorilla P.I. with a human brain, the high school student who discovers her favorite conspiracy theories are not only real but deadly, and yet another denizen of Murphy’s Lore, Negral, a forgotten sun god who acts as Hell’s Detective. He’s a real character, dresses like Humphrey Bogart and tends to burst into flame whenever he’s ticked off. But I’m not giving away any more freebies; you’ll just have to get your own copy of “Mystic Investigators” and savor it slowly, like hot chocolate on a dark and stormy night, with only one reading lamp on and the door doublelocked, preferably with the dog and/or your significant other asleep nearby. That way, if anything does get in, chances are it’ll go for one of them first.

Fairy With a Gun

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

Here’s a new book by my favorite male horror/fantasy author, whose body of work rivals Stephen King’s in volume. Unfortunately, he’s just a hometown phenomenon here in NYC, otherwise he’d be giving Mr. King a run for his money. And two for the show, as Patrick himself would undoubtedly add. Okay, so he’s addicted to corny puns. He’s also a bit careless about his spelling and grammar, and occasionally slips in his continuity. I try not to let little things like that bother me when I’m reading something I enjoy, and I do enjoy anything by Patrick Thomas, though it does bother me that he’s practically an underground writer. Maybe someday he will be given the respect and fame that he deserves. As well as a vigilant proofreader!

In the meantime, you can enjoy this latest collection of stories about Terrorbelle, the half-pixie, half-ogre who works as an agent of Nemesis, Inc., avenging wrongful deaths, punishing the guilty and protecting the innocent. I love Terrorbelle; she’s six feet tall and built like a brickhouse, with shoulders like a linebacker. She also has pink hair and pixie wings that are razor-sharp, which she usually keeps concealed under a hot pink trench coat. She’s one badass fairy gal and no bad guy or gal can stand up to her without getting knocked down like a bowling pin. Of the ten stories in this slim paperback volume, I found it hard to pick my favorites. Some of them were reprinted from Patrick’s past works. I enjoyed them just as much the second time around. But for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Terrorbelle—or T-Belle, as her friends call her—here’s a short rundown of her best adventures:

“Endgame” shows our badass fairy up against a real badass. A not unattractive woman whose face wouldn’t win any beauty contests, but who’s got a killer bod, and I mean that literally. In T-Belle’s own words, Badass’ posterior “could chew up other butts and spit them out”. You could say the lady has some issues with the male half of the human race. Most rape victims do. But how many rape victims go as far as dabbling in dark magic to get a Dark Maw attached to their hinder, so they can bite off whatever gets stuck in there? Badass does her Lorena Bobbitt bit on at least ten guys before T-Belle busts her ass, which tries to bargain with our heroine while it’s tied down waiting for the sun to come up and dissolve it like a bad dream. And you thought that comedian Jim Carey was the only one good at talking out of his ass!

“Up, Up, and Away” is about a relatively peaceful night spent at Bulfinche’s Pub, where Nemesis takes her agents for a bit of R&R after a particularly strenuous mission. Here we get to see T-Belle interact with the other gods and heroes of legend, as well as with her favorite human bartender, John Murphy. There’s a sad but sweet sideline about one of T-Belle’s coworkers Ganieda, the twin sister of Merlin, mage of Camelot, who runs into her old beau Sir Dagonet, King Arthur’s former jester, at Bulfinche’s. Dagonet, also known as the Infinite Jester, is a sweet little dwarf with snow-white hair and beard, like Paddy Moran, the leprechaun owner of Bulfinche’s. He has been a stable boy, a juggler, a jester, a knight, and a healer, a mystic power granted to him by the Holy Grail, the sacred relic of Christ that so many of Arthur’s knights tried to find and so few actually did. But one thing he’ll always be is Ganieda’s faithful knight, with or without shining armor.

As the only woman on King Arthur’s council, with power to rival her famous brother’s, Ganieda is a formidable mage, but in the face of true love she’s as helpless as any other woman. She and Dagonet have an on-again, off-again relationship; every time they meet, they’re drawn together like magnet and steel, even though they know they can never be together for all time. It’s just too dangerous for a hero and a mage to spend too much time together, where all their enemies would have an easy time finding them and trying to slay them. But like Katherine Chandler and Vincent in “Beauty and The Beast”, they know that even though they can never be together, they’ll never really be apart. Which also describes T-Belle’s relationship with Murphy, who likes her very much but is still too hung up on his late wife Elsie to think of her as anything but a friend. This doesn’t stop Murphy and T-Belle from working together to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

In “Paying The Pink Reaper”, T-Belle tells us about a lunch date with Murphy in Hell’s Kitchen, where she lives. Yes, T-Belle lives in Hell’s Kitchen, where the rents and life are cheap, but her own neighborhood is practically crime free, thanks to her one-woman security program (which most people would consider vigilantism; those of us from the hood prefer to think of it as DIYS, or Do It Yourself Security, since even the muggers there walk in pairs). While on his way to meet T-Belle, Murphy stops along the way to help a pregnant girl being attacked by a vicious girl gang. It turns out these skanks are the Pink Reapers, who serve the Bandearg Anbhas, or Pink Death, a female soul feeder from Faerie that sucks the life from her followers. As T-Belle explains to Murphy while he’s shielding the pregnant girl, “They try to have enough stupid people around them so their followers don’t die off too quickly. It’s not unheard of for them to demand the occasional sacrifice. What they do to them ain’t pretty.” As we soon see when the gangbangers sic a husk on them, a reanimated baby’s corpse that’s already had its soul eaten by the Bandearg Anbhas and turned into a vessel of her power. It’s the child of one of the gangbangers, who sacrificed her own baby for power, if you call being the leader of a girl gang in Hell’s Kitchen powerful.

Forced to take refuge in a tattoo parlor, whose owner flees when he learns the score, T-Belle and Murphy fight for the life of the mother and unborn baby in their own ways. She uses her warrior’s skills, acquired as a Daemor in Mab’s resistance army during a war in Faerie, to hold off the gangbangers, while Murphy grabs a tattoo gun and tries to change the Pink Death tattoo on the mother-to-be’s arm, to break the Bandearg Anbhas’ hold on her and her claim on the baby, before she can turn it into another husk.

“Dead In Red” is about a rapist-murderer who is a werewolf; he sets up women he meets in personal ads with an ad about fairy tale love, in which he offers to play the Big Bad Wolf to their Little Red Riding Hood. T-Belle co-stars in this one with Agent Karver from the Department of Mystic Affairs, who also appeared in “Empty Graves”. Somebody has to provide her with backup when she goes to meet Big Bad at Oma’s–a restaurant in the Village whose name means “grandmother” in German–wearing a sexy red dress and a red hooded cape, and carrying a picnic basket with her gun in it.

The last story in the book, “Girls Knight Out” (which should have an apostrophe after that “s”, Patrick!) teams T-Belle with Dagonet as he tries to find a missing Ganieda, who along with Nemesis and Rudy (aka Thrud, Thor’s Valkyrie daughter)) has been taken prisoner by a rogue demigod who eats babies. Murphy shows up to rescue her when she’s in over her head, literally, after she jumps into the Thames River to pursue the escaping cannibal demigod, forgetting that ogres can’t swim. Murphy has no magic, but he’s surprisingly resourceful, especially when there’s a friend in need. And while T-Belle can usually manage to take down a bad guy or gal by herself, she’s not ashamed to ask for or accept help when she needs it. A good thing too, because this particular bad guy has such strong magic that she needs a little help from her friends to defeat him.

Reading any of Patrick Thomas’ books is bound to brighten your day. Too bad they’re not available in stores yet. You’ll just have to go online to www.padwolf.com or www.patthomas.net to get your hands on “Fairy With A Gun”. Just be careful where you put your hands, ’cause those wings of hers are sharp enough to cut them off!

Review by Budd

Felix Gomez was just your everyday soldier. Then, while fighting in the Iraq war, he is turned into a vampire. Now his guilt about the war keeps him from drinking human blood. Adapting to his life as a vampire, Felix becomes a private detective. His vampire abilities give him a distinct advantage. Felix’s next job is finding out why the women of Rocky Flatts have become nymphomaniacs. Oddly the Vanatori, a group of vampire hunters, shows up while felix is working this job and starts killing vampires in the Denver area. Felix’s vampire abilities are starting to fail him as he rushes against the clock to stop the Vanatori and solve the mystery.

Mario Acevedo looks to be an up and coming writer. There are moments in this book that the words just blend into a picture and suck you in. These times happen to be when Acevedo is writing about the military. The writing rocks back and forth from the very well done war scene that opens the book to some really campy vampire stuff. There are glimpses of real promise in this book.

Unfortunately this book is only okay. The story is quite predictable and the vampires, although not all powerful, are pretty powerful. Maybe the story just blends too many genres into one. This book is a war, vampire, mystery, science fiction, and conspiracy novel. I mean, I wonder why there were no cowboys. It seems that Mr Acevedo is going to be continuing on with the character of Felix as he takes on more assignments.

The title of this novel is rather misleading as the nymphos only take up a small fraction of the book and although the word sex is used quite a bit, there are no graphic descriptions. This book hits on so many different genres that a very wide range of people could enjoy this book, but will probably only think it is okay. Because of the repeated references to sex, I would recommend this book to those high school and above. Do yourself a favor and read the first chapter of this book as it really is very good writing, you may find yourself sticking around for the end.

Mortal Temptations

Reviewed by Tissie

This review originally appeared at 3 Girl Group.

Patrica Lake’s world is turned upside down when she finds a winged, demi-god unconscious on the floor of her antique store. Her unexpected visitor is Nico, a powerful deity cursed by Hera to be a slave to female sexual desire. As punishment for chasing after one of Hera’s priestesses, he is sentenced to an eternity of heartbreak as he is used by one female after another and tossed aside along with his partner in crime and demi-god Andreas. Patrica, of course, holds the key to ending their enchantment…

I really wanted to like this book. Yes, the story is pretty cookie-cutter – our tortured and cursed hero must commit some great act of sacrifice to save himself and his one true love. Mortal Temptations had all the potential to really be an unique, yet heartwarming story; but it totally fell flat almost from the beginning.

Patrica is psychic and can read the auras off of people and objects, hence her profession as an antiques dealer. You would think her abilities would be almost vital to Andreas and Nico’s quest for clues on how to break the curse. But her psychic abilities are introduced in the beginning and then are almost forgotten over the course of the story.

Nico and Andreas are described as essentially high class gigolos who are tortured by their fate. However, throughout the story, they honestly don’t seem more than slightly annoyed by the whole situation. Andreas seems almost giddy to have a new toy to play with. And Nico doesn’t seem plagued by bouts of depression or melancholy over being a god reduced to a sex slave.

The ending was also nothing special with Nico’s final “test” incredibly uneventful and really not that difficult. Happily ever after was attained a little too easily for me to really feel any emotion for the characters.

Overall this book was a bust. If you are looking for a good tragic hero type, you are better off checking out Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter’s series.