Book Review: The Sound of Midnight (Oxrun Station #2) - Charles L Grant (Horror)

 

I just finished the second book on the oxrun station and interestingly I thought about getting into the third book, even if can consider I enjoyed this book but it's not perfect or very good - allow me to explain.

This book follows two main characters Dale a female owner of a toy store ( I am saying she is a female because to me Dale it's a men's name) and Vic who is a professor.

Charles L Grant writes slow pace horror. Nowadays there is a name for it, quiet horror. I've read the book in two days so I Can't consider it slow although nothing really happens for pages at end.

First is just a child being killed, Dale is in the mist of it as she tried to save the boy from drowning - without success. Then there is a car explosion of the father of the child. Dale feels something is off but she can't understand what. After selling a chess piece made by the person who died on an explosion she starts to connects the dot.

One thing I will say is that Vic, although the man he is there to help Dale on her quest, never really overshadowing her or take her protagonist. She needs to man. This is how you write a good female character without being a girl boss. She has problems and can't handle everything but she is still fighting.

The love interest of them both is so cute and it reeks of 1970's so expect conservatism behaviour and not hippies. By the end it changed and we see them getting in love which was as I've said - cute.

My first complain is the pace of the novel and some parts were a bit confusing. I mean that at times they start talking about things and I thought , what a heck? When did that happen. The first time it happen was with the explosion and then the fire and the arrows. I thought what? I had to reread.

The ending is also a bit anti-climatic as it was over so soon. You may enjoy it, btw. Me I hoped for more.

If you enjoy quite horror, folk horror with celtic background I believe you enjoy it. Don't worry is not the first oxrun station because it's not connected - although there are some cameos from characters of the first book at least - BUT believe if you didn't knew you wouldn't lose anything. 77/100 or 3.5/100

Book Review: The God of the Razor - Joe R Landsdale (Horror)

 

The Nightrunners within this novel is probably one of the best horror novels I've seen. I've made a couple of reviews on youtube and I will say I Really enjoyed it. We follow a woman who has been abuse and her husband as they try to overcome the issue one year prior. Landsdale touches some topcis here like sexual intimacy after the act and husband\wife support.

In other hand we follow a young boy part of the gang who abused her (he was not directly involved) and then we have a flashback about the fall of this boy and this deals with other interesting topics like child crimes, where does it come from and how can children be used (or use themselves) as minors to escape crime sentences. I know that this is not the main focus but it's there for you to think about it.

The novels it's gory when it needs to be, slice of life (kinda) when it needs to be. There is no description of violence just for the sake of it. There is animal cruelty , but with a book with r*pe, death, mutilation - this is where people draw the line? OK.

Throughout the book you get the feeling is this supernatural or mind psychology only - it's very cool. The short stories probably hint to the supernatural.

There are some interesting good illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne that really enhance the tale.

There are also some short stories, some connected to that world, some not - at least one and half. I really enjoy the Not from Detroit short story.

Overall it's a very good book with 93/100 for the novel itself and 73/100 for the remaining short stories. 90/100 is my final rating.

Book Review: Steel on Target (The Buzzer War #1) - Kevin Ikenberry - Military Sci-Fi

I enjoyed so much of this book that I want to read the next two at least to fully commit.

This story is not easy in the beginning. There is a lot militarist jargon thrown and sometimes you get the feeling you are not understanding. As I've read the last 200 pages in a couple of days, the terminology became easier and that's why I Want to read the next two in the next few months so I don't lose myself.

In this book humanity has expanded throughout space and colonized other worlds. One of these worlds is invaded by an alien beings - sure look like Tyranids in some way or Zerg. Unfortunately that's something I was not very glad which was the lack of information we had on them. Maybe that's conscious but I didn't enjoy as I love to hear more about the factions and where we are. Aliens invaded and humanity throw some of our infantry against it - and they were massacred. Our main protagonist (Sandhurst) is saved by a tank regiment and taken back. Of course top dogs in the military want a spacescapegoat and so the solution is going into armour. He returns Earth where he quickly (a bit too quickly as we never really know if it took one day or three months) learn the art of tanks.

At the same time our other main protagonist Llewelyn is switching up as well. She is pilot and she understand that the air force needs to help more the infantry with CAS and having a good connection (via direct line) with them.

Everything I am saying here takes hundreds of page due to the politics in-between the armed forces and battle scenes.

I am not going to delve much more or else I would enter the spoiler territory but I enjoy they fighting back and how the new combination worked - to be fair reminds me of Hearts of Iron IV where everyone says CAS is king. And here in this world is the same thing. Without CAS the infantry suffers a lot.

Looking forward for the second one.

End of the Year 2025

 I've been neglecting my blog for some months now - almost a year and it's a shame but it was due to choices. I wanted to start something on youtube and I will continue but probably less than today. Like a video every two weeks. Here I am going to try to return to this  a bit more.

This year is almost done but let me just tell you about my year. 

I've been reading a lot , I read around 160 novels - 154 to be precise but the year is not over and so without further ado let's go with some numbers

1. Necropolis by Dan Abnett was my favourite book with 98/100
2. Never Die by Rob J Hayes with 96/100
3. The Other (Book 1) by Troy Young with 95/100
4. Psycho - Robert Bloch 94/100
5. Vernis, Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods - Plastibook 93/100

And then with 92 closing the top ten you've got

Black Tide Rising by Chuck Dickson (Comic)
Night in the Lonesome October by Richard Laymon~
Sex Slaves of the Dragon Tong: a Yellow Peril Triptych by F Paul Wilson
The Book of Zog by Alec Hutson
The Keep by F Paul Wilson

The worst book I've read were the below ones:

By Author:

By Genre

Now in terms of Television I don't have much to say since it has been a slow year, in terms of games I still focus a lot on Hearts of Iron IV and music, without any suprise I've been hearing a lot of Trhã.

TBR February 2025

 Month of February is the month of the self-published. My goal is to read as much of self-publish novels  as I can. I Will put here 20 novels but my goal is to read at least 10/12. Is it possible? I guess so.. but I will have to read more than 150 pages per day. 

1. Murder on the Lamplight Express Morgan Stang 262
2. The Book of Zog Alec Hutson 233
3. Norylska Groans Michael R Fletcher & Clayton W. Snyder 391
4. Never Die Rob J. Hayes 301
5. City of Hunger Jon Athan 211
6. The Angel of Vengeance Wade H Garrett 416
7. Night of the Blood Sky Jeremy Robinson 106
8. Darkness Falls Jeremy Robinson 140
9. Lost in the Echo Jeremy Robinson 129
10. Ashes and Dust Jeremy Robinson 109
11. Bonefires Burning Bright Jeremy Robinson 134
12. 3zekiel Peter CawDron 312
13. The Crimson Queen Alec Hutson 419
14. Dark Oak Jacob Sannox 305
15. The Enceladus Mission Brandon Q. Morris 432
16. Under Darkness Jasper T. Scott 457
17. After Arrival Massimo Paradiso 445
18. The Other Book One Troy Young 216
19. Kenai Dave Dobson 396
20. Contagion Michael McBride 418

TBR January 2025 Analysis

 Hello,

This month was a very good month. I read almost 4000 pages this month. More than 100 pages per day. I focus as you know on smaller books and some audiobooks and in total I've read 18 books.

1. Ashfall Mike Mullin 466
2. Murder at Holly House Denzil Meyrick 359
3. Strange Fruit James Cooper 71
4. Conan The Barbarian L Sprague de Camp & Lin Carter 219
5. Descent of Angels Mitchel Scanlon 412
6. The Once Yellow House Gemma Amor 215
7. Psycho Robert Bloch 165
8. Missile Gap Charles Stross 99
9. Camp Concentration Thomas M Disch 158
10. Old Moon Quarterly: Issue 1; Summer 2022 Anthology 49
11. Them W H Chizmar 297
12. Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures 1,1 Anthology 128
13. Goblins Charles L Grant 277
14. The Last Astronaut David Wellington 361
15. Black Tide Rising Chuck Dickson 64
16. Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures 1,2 Anthology 128
17. The Howling Ghost Christopher Pike 144
18. The Haunted Cave Christopher Pike 144

My favourite novel this month was Psycho with 94 points, Black Tide Rising with 90 points and Conan the Barbarian with 85 points. My least favourite were Missile Gap with 40, Camp Concentration 40 & Strange Fruit with 45.

Overall it was very good month. I will try to put here the reviews that I made. Of course everything is within goodreads.

TBR January 2025

 Hello again,

No I didn't die but life really caught me up these last few months and I had to decide what to do. So the blog suffered. But I am going to return here. At least make a post a week. Let's see If I can return to that. So here are my 

• Strange Fruit -James Cooper - 71pages (Fantasy?)
• Conan The Barbarian - Sprague de Camp & L. Carter - 219p (Sword & Sorcery)
• Road of the Patriarch - R. A. Salvatore - 375p (Fantasy)
• The Mad Trinkets - Cameron Scott Kirk - 340p (Fantasy)
• The Hour of the Oxrun Dead - Charles L Grant - 215 pages (Horror)
• The Once Yellow House -  Gemma Amor - 215p (Horror-Lovecraftian)
• Psycho - Robert Bloch - 165p (Horror)
• The Shuddering - Ania Ahlborn - 281p (Horror)
• Murder at Holly House -  Denzil Meyrick - 359p (Mystery)
• Descent of Angels - Mitchel Scanlon - 412p (Horus Heresy SF)
• Missile Gap - Charles Stross - 99 pages (Alt History)
• Camp Concentration - Thomas M Disch - 158p (SF?)
• Them - W H Chizmar - 297p (SF)

So we've got 4 Fantasy, 4  Horror, 3 SF, 1 Mystery & 1 Alt History

Overall this is quite interesting take, since I am going to change a bit on what I normally do. My goal for January was to read shorter books but all types of it and at the same time trying to go forward on some of my series (Road of Patriarch & Descent of Angels). 

This is another goal for me, at least one Warhammer each month.

So let's us see how I go... My first post is going to be on the 3 of January I guess... Let us see.

BTW, these are in no particular order :)

15/31 OktoberHorrorFest - Movie Review - Infinity Pool (2023)

More than horror this is a weird movie... 

While staying at an island resort, in a weird\madeup country we've got James and Em are which are enjoying a perfect vacation of pristine beaches, exceptional staff. They meet a seductive and mysterious Gabi (Mia Goth - I've seen her in X or Pearl - both a bit on the weird side) and they venture outside the resort grounds and find themselves in a culture filled with violence, hedonism, and untold horror.

Stuff is explain as it goes, sometimes not in a continuous normal way but most stuff is indeed explain. But it's quite weird, the way tit is filmed, he way Em & Gabi look (those big lips, how can anyone thing that's beautiful... )

There are some sex scenes, you get to see Mia Goth naked and she has a nice body. It's violent but not overly done. It's more on the weird side so if you would like to watch psychedelic weird stuff then this is the movie for you.

14/31 OktoberHorrorFest - Movie Review - Full Circle (1977)

 Full Circle is a rather boring movie about a woman who is trying to live after her children has been killed right in the beginning of the movie. So, they are all eating and the child gets something stuck in the throat and unfortunately she  tries to get it out but isn't sucefull. It's never really hinted if it was her (She was with a knife and trying to cut her throat like medics do).

Soon afterwards she leaves her husband and go to a new house that she things is haunted. But unfortunately is so badly done in every way that you get hour of boring movie where nothing happens. Not even Mia Farrow could save it.

13/31 OktoberHorrorFest - Movie Review - Mercy Falls (2023)

 So this is a hiking horror movie set in Scotland where a group of hikers meet a young woman and seeing that she knows a lot about the place they travel all together. It's a very interesting beautiful in terms of landscape and right at half time things start to go sideways... first was just a thing go wrong but then we see this young woman doing stuff that looks like her being a psychopath and a killer. 

Unfortunately the story then goes where it's expected to go with a normal woman defeating this killer which is well prepared, accustomed etc. Very weak.

There is some nudity, a pair of breasts and that's it.

12/31 OktoberHorrorFest - Movie Review - Evil Dead Rise (2023)

 So this is a sequel of evil dead 3, not connected in any way, apart from the same evil being. It's on a city on contrary of all others and follow the same logic but poorly.

This kind of block apartment are under siege and that's it. The main character is boring and all he sexes are just wrong that you may be confused who is a man or woman. Yeah it's full of woke nonsense and messages. They basically turn main character into a woman version but instead of having a story and plot and character development it's because the writers wanted to be . No difficult like our main character in the first three movies... They try to make it funnier but it feels flat. Highly unadvisable. 

11/31 OktoberHorrorFest - Movie Review - Evil Feed (2013)

I have to say this movie was indeed very fucked up. It's very confusing movie where we've got this motley crew filming a action movie or something like that and they become embroiled a kidnpapping by a bunch of asian dudes that work on a different kind of restaurant where the meat is peculiar to say the least.

The story is confusing... it was dark and full of violence. The gore is there but never really the upfront. There is nakedness and some of them pretty nice looking. Advisable but you won't take much from it.

10/31 OktoberHorrorFest - Movie Review - Blumhouse's Truth or Dare - Extended Director's Cut

I've watch this movie twice now and I enjoy both times. To be Honest I didn't remember the ending which was better to my liking. So we've got this group of friends that go to some forgotten town in Mexico resort and meet a guy who suggest them to go to a small cavern beneath a church. There they play a game of truth or dare that goes terrible wrong. Each time they play the game but don't' tell either the truth or do the dare they will die. 

From the beginning truths are uncover and the friend(ship) will suffer from it. It's very well done and really good on characterization. Although there may some strange stuff or plotholes but that will lead a bit of spoiler.  So we've got this bunch of kids who are playing Truth or Dare and as soon as all play the guy that makes them play explains what is happening - but strangely enough he doesn't have to do it. Then it seems that this ghost will take each in turn... Hmm but we learn that there are two extra people playing the game - the person who made them play and another survivor. BUT there is a rule, for each two truth one must play dare automatically.  Hmm but they were playing in the cave and three play Truth... weren't the "rule" applied? Why not? Then there is all the ideas of truth or dare... and the ending was the crappiest one and at the same interesting since it seems you have no real power of the game since right before she was going to play she records a video where she asks the world word via video Truth or Dare making implicit that  everyone that heard it had to play, well fuck!

It's a good thriller, a good movie BUT some stuff really weren't cut out for me.