Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

 

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero is a love it or leave it kind of book. So much of the reader’s feelings about this book will come from the emotional attachment you have to the original characters that Meddling Kids is based upon. For me this is definitely a love it kind of book and may just well be my favorite read of the year.

In 1977, in Blyton Hills, Oregon; the teenage detectives who call themselves the Blyton Summer Detective Club solve their final case. They uncover a two bit criminal acting as a monster to scare people away as he searches for a long lost treasure. There is even a picture in the newspapers the next day, the four kids and their faithful dog, the criminal tied up on the ground in full costume. Except for his mask that they are holding up. The criminal says, that he would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids.

Only Andy, Kerri, Nate and Peter know that there was a lot more to that night they spent stranded in that house all by themselves. That everything that happened could not be explained away by a small time crook with a mask. The Blyton Summer Detective Club has been hiding from a dark secret that has haunted them the rest of their lives. Now they have to face the truth about what happened and what may still be waiting for them.

For Andy, the tomboy of the group. The memories of that night have turned her into a drifter, never settling down or able to maintain a commitment or relationship. She is on the run and wanted in two states. Kerri, the brilliant kid genius is now a bartender in New York. Her life wasting away and her potential gone. She holds onto a drinking problem and Tim, the lovable Weimaraner; a dog descended from the original canine member of the Detective Club. Nate, the young boy fixated on horror novels has checked himself into a mental institution in Arhkam, Massachusetts. The only friend from the Detective Club he still sees is Peter, their fourth member with the boyish charm and movie star looks. Only Peter is dead. He committed suicide. Peter has been dead for years.

Andy knows that the time has come to get the gang back together. That they have to face the fears of what happened to them and uncover the real mystery of Blyton Hills. But they’re not the same people anymore. They are broken and damaged. First she will need to convince Kerri and then they will have to break Nate out of the asylum and then, she has no idea what is waiting for them. Because it knows, she is sure of it, it knows that they are coming. This time there won’t be a man in a mask, no this time the monsters will be real.

Okay, four meddling kids and a dog playing teenage detectives; you would have to be from another planet to not see that this is a variation on Scooby and the Gang. No Scrappy Doo so that is definitely a plus. But Cantero takes his characters into a deeper world, a far more real emotional world of lost hope and damaged psyches. The underlying theme is what if Scooby and the Gang had come across real monsters. A real with and warlock or a real sea creature? What if, for once, the legend was true. But Cantero doesn’t settle on just any legends for his bad guys, no he goes full blown Lovecraft here.

This is a fun read, disturbing on some levels, but just a whole lot of fun.

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson is a very well written fantasy novella that blends into Lovecraft tales of the Dream world. It is lyrical and the prose quite haunting, told anew from a female perspective.

At the prestigious Ulthar Women’s College, Professor Vellit Boe is awaken by the shrill cries of her students. One of them has gone missing. Clarie Jurat has run away with a man she had been secretly seeing. But this act has ramifications far beyond an elopement. Clarie’s father is on the Board of Trustees and is likely to push to shut Ulthar Women’s College down over this. Worse, the man Clarie ran away with is a dreamer from the waking world. He is taking Clarie out of the dream world to the world beyond, where those who are awake live.

“…When Vellitt Boe was young, she had been a far-traveller, a great walker of the Six Kingdoms, which waking-world men called the dream lands. She had seen Irem, that pillared ruin, and she knew that it was not the fantasia of the Academician’s pretty painting above her desk but-like the rest of the world-dirtier and infinitely more interesting…”

As Vellitt sets out on her quest to retrieve her wayward student, she begins to see her world in a light. Her role as a professor at a women’s college versus the earlier life she led. A life of exploration and adventure. She begins to understand how Clarie could make such a decision to run away to a world so unlike her own. But Vellitt also begins to see that there may have been far more than an elopement involved in the disappearance of Clarie. For outside the safety of the college, Vellitt is reminded that there are powers at play. Gods and demi-gods whose whims can destroy or make a world. Vellitt begins to understand that it is not only Clarie she is out to save, but perhaps her own home as well.

Johnson’s writing is haunting and very reminiscent of the Lovecraft work this novella is based upon. It pays homage to the earlier classic while veering off into its own plots. Besides being a tale of fantasy, it is also a tale of a women, of whom little is expected, who tries to live beyond the constraints of her world. This is a journey of self-discovery that both Vellitt and Clarie take, but for Vellitt, it is one of re-discovery.

A terrific novella.

Night Music: Nocturnes Volume Two by John Connolly

Night Music: Nocturnes Volume Two by John Connolly is the horror/fantasy short story collection we have been waiting for. There are tales of monsters and Gods that are as subtle and well written that for a moment you would think this is not a John Connolly tale but a missing manuscript of Lovecraft. There is a library where the famous characters of all the books we love go to live when their authors die. There are also booksellers that gather and collect those written words that are better off lost for all time plying their trade in the dark alleys of the city and our minds. There is also one of the best written, best felt, emotional tales of grief, love lost and the endearing salvation that is love itself. A ghost story that would leave Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze envious.

“…Quayle seized the handle and twisted it. He opened the door outward, revealing the naked man who hung suspended before him, seemingly unsecured, floating against the blackness of space beyond.
Lionel Maulding never stopped screaming, but he made no sound in that place. Quayle watched for a few moments as a section of skin unpeeled itself from Maulding’s scalp and slowly tore a narrow strip through his forehead, along his nose, then his lips and his throat, moving steadily and evenly down his chest and belly…
Quayle looked away. He had seen the show before. He had even timed it. It took about a day for Lionel Maulding to be reduced to muscle and bone, veins and arteries, and then the process of rebuilding would commence. It seemed to Quayle that this was at least as agonizing for Maulding as the mutilation that necessitated it, but Quayle was entirely without pity for the man. Maulding should have known. There was nothing in the occult volumes that were his obsession to suggest the end to his explorations would be a pleasant one…”

“…Had he any enemies?’ I asked.
‘Lord, no,’ she said. ‘He had no friends, neither-not because there was anything wrong with him,’ she hastened to add. ‘He just had all that he needed here.’
She gestured to the house, which was now looming above us.
‘This was-‘ She corrected herself. ‘This is his home. He didn’t want to go out into the world, so he found a way to bring the world to him.’
It was an odd thing to say, and I didn’t comprehend her meaning until I entered the house itself, and then I understood.
There were books everywhere: on the floors, on the stairs, on furniture both built for that purpose and constructed for other ends entirely. There were bookshelves in the main hallway, in the downstairs rooms, and in the upstairs rooms. There were even bookshelves in the bathroom and the kitchen. There were so many volumes that, had it been possible to extract the skeleton of the house, its walls and floors, its bricks and mortar, and leave the contents intact, then the shape of the building would still have been visible to the observer, but constructed entirely from books…”

“…I dreamt that you were dying, and there was nothing I could do to save you.’
I am dying, he thought to himself. At last, it has come.
‘Hush,’ said his wife. He looked at her, and although her eyes were still closed her lips moved, and she whispered to him: ‘Hush, hush. I am here, and you are here.’
She shifted in the bed, and her arms reached out and enfolded him in their embrace. His face was buried in her hair, and he smelled her and touched her in his final agony, his heart exploding deep within him, all things coming to an end in a failure of blood and muscle. She clasped him tightly to herself as the last words he would ever utter emerged in a senseless tangle.
Before the darkness took him.
Before all was stillness and silence.
‘Hush,’ she said, as he died. ‘I am here.’
My god, I love you so.
Hush.
Hush.
And he opened his eyes…”

A decade ago the first book of Nocturnes by John Connolly was published and became an international sensation. It cemented Connolly as far more than the author of the Charlie Parker series and opened him up to a whole new fan base. Not since Clive Barker’s original Books of Blood have I come across a collection of horror tales that have done far more then disturbed me, they have made me wonder about the fabric of the reality around us. There are ancient Gods here, onced revered and spoken only in hush tones, but now forgotten. Gods that still demand their tribute.

This collection contains two novellas, the award winning, The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository and the terrifying The Fractured Atlas.

These tales are reality bending glimpses at the world around us through the cracks and the reflections of the mirror of our fears. Connolly opens up these horrors with ease and prose that you are led into this path and before you know it, are lost to whatever dwells within.

An amazing read!

Revival – Stephen King (Review)

Title – Revival

Author – Stephen King

Summary –

A shadow falls over young Jamie Morton as he is in his front yard in a sleepy small New England town. Blocking the sun is the new minister, Charles Jacobs. He is young and vibrant, and along with his wife and son, will change the face of this small New England town. Everyone loves the new minister and his family. But one day tragedy strikes. A car accident horribly takes the lives of Rev. Charles Jacobs’ wife and child. Despondent, he sermonizes, cursing God and mocking religion. The town sends him away.

Jamie, years later finds the banished preacher acting like a carny in a traveling fair. Jacobs is developing a machine, using electricity to heal and take photos of his customers. He soon returns to religion, using people’s faith and his devices to perform miracles. But Jamie soon learns that Jacobs is after something altogether different.

But Jamie has his own hell to sort through. Drug addiction and lost love. A failure in life, with a debt owed to Charles Jacobs who cures him of his addiction with one of his devices. But Jamie knows first hand that Rev. Jacobs’ miracles come with a price. A toll enacted on those he heals.

“…You can’t see it. It’s small and covered with ivy. The ivy is dead. She waits on the other side, above the broken city. Above the paper sky.’
Blood can’t turn cold, not really, but mine seemed to. Something happened, I thought. Something happened, and Mother will be here soon.
‘Who?’ Jacobs asked. He took one of her hands. The half-smile was gone. ‘Who waits?’
‘Yes.’ Her eyes stared into his. ‘She.’
‘Who? Astrid, who?’
She said nothing at first. Then her lips stretched in a terrible grin that showed every tooth in her head. ‘Not the one you want…”

Now Jacobs has one last act. One final experiment and Jamie must be there. Because it isn’t enough for Rev. Jacobs to heal the sick, now he must do more.

Review –

I came so close to giving Revival 5 stars but in the end I couldn’t. Really, ant like creatures herding the dead about in the afterlife? King did much the same with the finale in “It”, having a spider creature be the monster in the end. Revival, much like It, builds in suspense and terror until the end and then the payoff doesn’t quite do it. But don’t let that dissuade you. Because there is something very awesome about Revival. Something that took a few moments to click but once it was there. It was really there.

“…Once I heard him call it a piece of shit, a phrase I treasured then and still use now. When you want to feel better, call something a piece of shit. It usually works…”

There are not a lot of scary moments in Revival. There are not great buckets of blood and dead bodies piling up. No, what King brings here is a sense of unease. An underlying sense of terror that creeps up on through the reading. Like the shadows in the room that keep growing even though you know the light hasn’t changed. King builds the character of Jamie Morton, you will live with him in his moments of triumph and his fall into despair. His friendship with the Rev. Jacobs and the realization that his old friend is not what he seems. Jamie sees the truth in the lie of Jacob’s faith, the lie he was so ready to accept in his time of need. You will strap yourself to Jamie Morton and you will live his life with him.

“…One night, after some white boy sang something about how his baby left him and he felt so sad. Hector the Barber snorted and said, ‘Shit, boys, that ain’t the blues.’
‘What do you mean, Grampa?’ Ronnie asked.
‘Blues is mean music. That boy sounded like he just peed the bed and he’s afraid his mama might find out…”

Do you see it yet? Okay I’ll keep it moving. The story of Jamie Morton is what is first in Revival. Rev. Jacobs, his rise in the church and his fall after the tragic death of his wife and child, his experiments with science and his return as a false minister, are secondary. It is Jamie and the holes in his own life that make him malleable for Jacobs to use when the time comes. It is Morton, his narrative, his fear and his betrayal. Morton, who sees beyond the door and understands that what Rev. Jacobs is trying to do with science, what he could not do with faith, will result in something far more horrifying than any of them can deal with.

Morton who drives the story. Character. Story. The darkness and evil come second to the story.

And just some really good writing.

This is old King. The emperor has tossed his new clothes away and reached deep into his closet for that shirt. You know the one. We all have one. The old torn up shirt. Its comfortable. Its worn. It reminds us of who and what we were. For Stephen King it is story and unpretentious writing.

The writing that made the novellas Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body so good. The writing that made The Stand and Salem’s Lot and oh my freakin’ God; The Shining the classics of what Horror once was.

Story and good writing. That is what Stephen King and he has returned to it. This is the Blues and its mean, really, really mean. King also adds some clever little moments. One of Jacob’s patients, a woman named Mary who had a son called Victor. Mary Shelly and Victor Frankenstein. Cool and smooth and if you blink you will miss it.

Revival is also a tip of the hat and therefore I sort of have to forgive the ant creatures. Revival is an acknowledgement of the master who has gone before. The only one that is better than King at Horror. Better than Poe, better than Straub, just better.

Lovecraft.

The vision of the afterlife in Revival, the ant creatures, Mother, the old Gods; that is Lovecraft. It smells like it and tastes like it. So in that I do have to forgive.

Revival is good. It is very good. And it is my hope that King has returned to the old worn shirt that was true work and has left the emperor’s new clothes aside.

A very good read.