30 Days of Night - Steve Niles

I knew absolutely nothing about this story heading in, except that it involved vampires attacking a town up in northern Alaska where the sun doesn't rise for 30 days.  Oh, and that it was made into a movie.

Turns out, there isn't much more to know.  The story itself is pretty simple.  In about eighty pages, Niles tells a story of a town being attacked, and slaughtered, a small group of people hiding for safety, and a random guy flying over in a helicopter to get killed.  There really isn't much more there. None of the characters spend enough time doing anything for you to really care about them at all.  With more pages, maybe something like V for Vendetta, there might have been more chance for a deeper more interesting story.  As is, it's pretty forgettable.

The art doesn't help either.  I'm sure it might appeal to someone, but it was far to blurred and abstract for me.  More than half the panes I couldn't even tell what was going on.  One of the reasons I enjoy graphic novels is for the beautiful art.  And this just didn't work for me on any level.

As for the vampires...  Well they are pretty run of the mill vampires.  With one rather disappointing exception.  Niles does take some time to paint a particular vampire as being a true BA kick butt vampire master.  But apparently in Niles' take on vampires, someone who just turned five minutes ago is just as powerful as an ancient vampire lord.  And can pretty easily kick his butt.  So even the end holds no real suspense or danger.

Overall this graphic novel barely held my interest for the 80 pages it ran.  I can't see myself giving any of the others in the series a shot.  Or the movie for that matter.

Relic - Preston & Child

When I was in college I went with my wife to see The Relic.  We'd seen previews for it and it looked like a great monster movie.  We both loved it.  Not because it was a great movie, but it did have an interesting monster some funny scenes, and some pseudo-science to try to explain everything.  (my wife majored in biology)  It was great fun and we actually caught it at the discount theatre a few more times before it faded away.

So when I saw Relic on our reading list, I was completely stoked.  I've seen Preston and Child's books at work, knew they were best sellers, but never really put the two together until I went to buy Relic.  That of course made me even more excited.

I was not disappointed.

Relic spins a tale about a series of murders at the New York Museum of Natural History that the reader knows are somehow linked to some strange goings on in the jungles of the Amazon.  Some horrific creature is loose, tearing off people's heads and eating parts of their brains.  And of course the police are completely flummoxed.

There were a few things about this that I really liked and helped draw me in.  First, the police are not painted as complete idiots.  D'Agosta is smarter than he looks and competent, he's just in a bit over his head.  Even the arrival of Pendergast isn't so much to compensate for his failures as it is to give him more resources and an ability to cut through some museum red tape.  Second, the science is relatively believable.  Not that surrounding the creation of the beast necessarily, but the equipment and methods they use to perform their experiments are fairly realistic.  Third, the setting is spectacular.  Museums are creepy, and ones as large as this one with so much stuff, are even creepier.

I was particularly fond of Margo.  She is smart, without being a genius, confident, without being foolhardy, and competent, without being a know-it-all.  She cares about her co-workers but also struggles with wanting to further her own career.  She is genuinely someone I could get behind.  Pendergast, while hilarious, was a bit too magically awesome for me.  He instantly notices things no one else does, his wit was a bit too sharp, and of course his aim a bit too good.  But even with those flaws.  I still enjoyed reading him.  But not as much as D'Agosta or Margo.

And of course there's the creature itself.  With just the right amount of 'page time', the creature fills its role perfectly.  Putting aside the dubious way it was created, it makes a great villain.  Combined with the setting, you never know where it's going to strike.  And then it just fades back away.  Once again there is little motivation for the killing, but there IS a thread of one, and it is this thread that makes him more interesting.  Why would a beast eat people's brains?  It gives and clue and a trail for the heroes to follow without making the beast too easy to identify with.

Which of course brings me to its death.  The beast is so cool, so powerful, and then so dead in so few words.  And off screen!  And by Pendergast shooting it in the eye while its bounding at him in a full charge!  From mere feet away?  Did it really take Margo suggesting it for him to think about shooting it in the eye?  And after all his talk about how hard it would be to shoot it in the knee or leg?  And then he just casually pops it in the eye?  This really irked me, and the fact that it happened off screen irked me even more.  It just seemed like a huge cop out after all that build up.

Still, overall, I really enjoyed this book, and will likely try to grab some others by these authors.  I just hope they come up with better endings in other books.

The Blob (1988)

The Blob is a classic.  I don't think there is anyone who hasn't at least heard of the movie, even if they haven't seen it.  While I initially thought we were going to be watching the original (and was supper excited about it) I wasn't too disappointed to find we were doing another remake.  It was fairly well reviewed and I'm not so beholden to originals to not give a remake a chance.

I'm glad I did, because this movie actually surprised me.  Of course I wasn't expecting much, after all even the original isn't exactly an Oscar winning tour de force.  But what worked for me was that this movie never took itself seriously.  The fact that it was set in the '80s definitely helped.  I'm not sure how well this monster would do in modern society with cell phones and internet.  It really relies on people not knowing where it is or even that it exists at all.  So the time period was crucial.  Not to mention that it set up a lot of the jokes.

And for a movie that unashamedly pulls a full grown man down a sink drain (hilarious by the way) it really had very little gore.  On the flip side, the creature effects were surprisingly good.  The way you could see people through it as they were being digested was very well done for the budget they obviously had.  The only times when it started to look really bad where the full shots of the entire monster at the end.  But the initial shots rode a perfect line between campy and creepy.

The Blob itself is an interesting monster villain.  Like the Alien, it exists for a single purpose.  Eating.  It has no conscience, no far flung motive, and no deep plans.  Eat as many people as I possibly can then move to where I can eat more people.  Of course it does make some odd decisions based on this for plot purposes (chasing a girl and three kids into the sewers while a crowd of people is hanging in town square) but for the most part it does what it does.  This doesn't make for a very deep villain, but as we've discussed, sometimes the best monsters are those whose motivations are either unclear, or very simple.  And so the Blob works for me on a sort of slasher level.  I really can't see making a serious horror film out of it, but it works in the context the film puts him in.

As for the film itself, the humor saves it.  I laughed through most of this movie, and it was obvious I was supposed to.  I appreciate dark humor, so the idea of a guy's girlfriend suddenly devouring him as  he tries to grope her, or a man being pulled down a drain pipe, are hilarious to me.  Not to mention some of the over the top dialogue.  The acting is mostly average at best, with no character deep enough to root for on anything more than a superficial level, but it worked for the movie.

Would I watch it again, probably not.  But I certainly enjoyed watching it once and it definitely had some images I will never forget.

Twighlight at the Towers - Clive Barker

With one story I didn't like at all, and one story I very much enjoyed, I was eager to see just where this tie-breaker from Barker would land me.  Unfortunately, it really didn't do much decide me either way on his work.

First off, I love the title of this piece.  Just reading it gave me a little chill and sense of foreboding.  Great set up.  Of course, it also set my anticipation for some towers.  Every page I thought, surely there are going to be some towers coming soon, right?  But no.  Unless I missed something completely, the only object that might be construed as a "tower" is the ruined building Ballard goes to at the end.  A shame.  Of course he could have been going for something more symbolic, but if so it was lost on me.

The story itself isn't a bad one.  I was completely thrown off guard by the spy thriller set up, it wasn't what I was expecting at all, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  After all, I like spy thrillers so I settled into it pretty easily.  Barker's prose is solid, as usual, and he spends a lot of time letting us get to know Ballard.  For all that time, though, I really didn't feel anything for him.  In fact I never grew attached to any of the characters.  Perhaps this was due to Ballard's own detachment.  Everything felt as if it were being held off at arms length.

What I did like was the way he worked werewolves into a spy story.  Sort of a Jason Bourne deal with the government using subdued werewolves as super spies.  I liked that premise a lot.  I actually think it would have made a much better novel than a short story.  But Barker handles it well.

What didn't work for me was the ending.  Ballard just wanders off to an abandoned building that seems to be a werewolf hangout and... what?  I really got no sense of what Barker was going for here.  It seems there are a lot of werewolves, but I'm not sure if they have full control over their forms.  It seemed like they didn't.  If not, how are they surviving here on their own?  Is the out of context passage from Genesis supposed to be a call to action?  Lets go subjugate the world?  It just fell flat for me.  I needed more.

Overall I couldn't really like or dislike this story.  It wasn't bad, but it didn't garner any kind of emotion from me at all.  Certainly not fear or horror.  And so my opinion of Barker remains neither high nor low.  Unfortunately, that means I likely wont read any more of his works.  There just hasn't been enough to inspire me to do so.

Godzilla (2014)

While I would not consider myself a huge Godzilla fan, I have seen all of the movies.  In fact I have also seen all of the original movies lampooned by MST3K.  Really, I think that is the best use for a Godzilla movie, and in that vein I love them.  There is just something so entertaining about sitting back and watching some mindless monster action that really pays little attention to real character development or even really making a whole lot of sense.

That said, I did try to approach this new entry into the movie series a bit differently.  After all, it touted itself as a more serious installment.  Something that would really try to bring home the suspense and even a bit of fear.  Maybe?  But in the end it really comes down to the source material.  A giant lizard rampaging through a city.  And no matter how much I try, I can't suspend my disbelief enough to make that even remotely believable and scary.  It just doesn't work.  It doesn't matter how real they make him look.  It doesn't matter what they pit him up against or how much destruction he causes.  It's Godzilla.  And, to me, that name is synonymous with laughter.

Even going in with all of that, though.  This movie has got to be one of the worst I've seen.  I mean, what is the main draw of any Godzilla movie?  Why does anyone really go to see it?  Is it for deep emotional characterization?  Mind opening philosophizing?  Nope.  Godzilla.  That's what we want to see.  And that is exactly what this movie does not give us.  We are forced to wait until the last twenty minutes to really get any good footage of Godzilla doing anything destructive.  And even those 20 minutes are so dark that you really never get a good view of what's going on.

I could go on, this movie is just chock full of logical flaws, poor direction, bad writing and cheesy effects, but really it all boils down to the king of monsters himself.  He may not be scary, but he has a certain personality after all these years.  You expect certain things.  And this movie fails on every front to deliver.  Just an immense disappointment.  Pacific Rim was a better Godzilla movie and that is just...  Sad.

Snow - Ronald Malfi

There were only a couple books in the reading list this semester that I was truly looking forward to reading.  Snow was one of them.  I don't know why.  I hadn't heard anything about the book, or read anything by Malfi before.  I vaguely remembered seeing the book in Barnes & Noble when it came out, but that was all.  Still, there was something about about the idea, about killer snow, that got me excited.  After all, I love snow.  In all amounts and any time.  I chalk it up to growing up in south Florida but ever since I've moved to Colorado I just can't get enough of it.  So taking that thing I love and turning it into something deadly?  That was a great hook.

And all that waiting paid off.  First, Malfi does a great job developing characters that I actually care about.  Todd is far from perfect, but he is painfully aware of his faults and trying to make himself better.  I found myself actually rooting for him.  And all of the other characters, no matter how long he gave them to live, were developed and human.

And then he pits them against "snow elementals" and skin-suits.  I loved the idea of snow monsters that could just rush up out of the snow and stab you, or carry you off into the sky and drop you through a church ceiling.  Their powers were interesting and frightening, and he only explained what he needed to.  The addition of the skin-suits was a mix for me.  They were basically zombies and I'm not fond of them.  But it did give the characters something more tangible to fight against.  Something they could kill more easily and see more readily.  And that was important for building the tension in a lot of scenes.  (Like the handprints on the window of the church)  So I can see why he did it.  And the fact that he explained why they needed to enter the skin-suits was critical

There really was too much about this book and the monster it featured that I liked.  I could go on for a long time.  But I'll focus on the end.  Breeding Grounds failed me completely at the end, but Snow delivered.  It was a bit predictable, but at least it kept the tension high and all made sense.  (Well, aside from the military arriving so soon after they were called)  And I was very happy to see that Todd did not end up with Kate.  That final scene, where he finally gets to see his son, and his ex starts to see that just maybe he could be a different person...  That made the ending for me.

The Thing

The Thing is a classic '80s horror flick.  We have average acting combined with bizarre special effects trending closer to grotesque then scary, and, to cap it all off, a climax that doesn't make much sense but has plenty of action and explosions.  And yet, somehow within all of this we find a sort of guilty pleasure enjoyment.

The idea of the monster in The Thing is definitely frightening.  An alien that can kill and then imitate anything.  You never know who or what it could be.  So you have to be suspicious of everyone.  This idea works great as long as you don't scrutinize it too closely.  (like how does it get all the memories of the person it imitates?)  And of course the movie has a lot of fun in the '80s playground of communist suspicion.

The actual reveals of the monster, however, just don't stand up to time and the movie doesn't have the atmosphere of Alien to fall back on.  When we do see the Thing, which is fairly early in the movie, we are treated to something truly bizarre, but not really frightening.  I would much rather have had a longer lead up to the reveal, with people disappearing one by one and us trying to guess what was going on and who was responsible.  But then, that would have been a different movie.

 And then there's the climax.  An explosion fest that would make Michael Bay happy, but that provides little in logic.  So you think the alien wants to just freeze and wait for a rescue mission, so your plan is to blow everything up and die?  Cause that prevents the alien from freezing and waiting for a rescue mission how?  The shining light to this is the final scene, where MacReady and Childs are left freezing in the snow, neither sure the other isn't going to kill him.  I have to say, that is a great ending.

The Wolfman - Jonathan Maberry

I've never seen either the original Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr. or the remake with Anthony Hopkins, so I had no idea what to expect from this book.  Except of course that it would be about a werewolf.  Fortunately, in a way, I was sick when I sat down to read this.  So I had nothing else to do but sit and read the books through in about a day.  And to my mild surprise, it actually held my attention the entire time.  Werewolves being so done lately, I wasn't sure how interesting I would find it.

The key to this story for me was the time Maberry took to establish the characters.  Done a certain way, werewolves are immediately sympathetic.  A person's free will taken away, forced to do horrible things they never would on their own, and then forced to live with that knowledge and the consequences.  Maberry, and the original screenwriter, compound this by creating a sympathetic character right from the start.  Lawrence isn't perfect.  Far from it.  But he is painted as someone who has endured some horrible things and already feels as though he doesn't belong.  From a certain perspective, you could see how the power of the werewolf would be an allure to him.  This is then countered by Sir John.  Who is completely unsympathetic for most of the book, and welcomes the power and savagery of the werewolf.

This characterization is what made the book imminently enjoyable.  The actual scenes of the Wolfman causing mayhem fell a bit flat for me.  I did think it was interesting that Maberry built weaknesses into the Wolfman.  Such as being confused by all the possible targets in London, or being mesmerized by the singing.  But in the end he was an invincible killing machine and he did what you would expect.

And then the ending.  I actually thought this was very well done.  I particularly liked Maberry's decision to use Werewolf and Wolfman as names for the two beasts.  It felt like a stroke of genius to me, though I suppose it might seem obvious to others.  It allowed me to easily tell who he was talking about through the entire fight.  The fight itself was good, and I was glad the walking-stick came back to play a part.

And of course the Inspector gets bit and the cycle continues.  Excellent.

And speaking of the stick, am I the only one who felt like a vampire gave it to him?

Over all it was a very fun read.  Definitely far better than I expected.

Alien

There are few movies that really stand the test of time, but Alien is definitely one them.  I watched this movie for probably the tenth time last night, and it was still just as good as the first.  There is so much good to talk about with this movie, but as this is a class on monsters, I'll stick to that.

Half of this movie (at least) doesn't even have the alien in it.  Unless you count the face-huger that doesn't do much.  But while this bothered me to no end in the new Godzilla movie, Scott makes it work.  He spends this early time getting us fully immersed in the setting.  While there isn't a ton of characterization, we do get to know most of the stereotypes each crew member represents.  This is a horror movie after all and I'm not really expecting deep thoughtful characters.  The mood is what is important, and this is developed beautifully.  This is really a movie you have to watch in near total dark to get the full impact.

The Alien itself boils down to the same thing as most other monster movies.  He sneaks around, killing people, and either leaving no trace, or a bloody mess.  Standard.  His kills even exhibit that unknowable inability to make even the slightest motions to attempt to save themselves.  (Only Ripley and Parker seem able to take any actions in the Alien's presence)  So there is nothing about the Alien itself that really serves to terrify any more than any other monster movie, especially from the '80s.  (unless maybe it is Geiger's superb creature design)

So what makes this a great monster movie?  The atmosphere and the pacing.  Scott accomplishes both so perfectly, that you forget (even on the 10th viewing) that this is just another monster, and you worry.  The claustrophobia of the ship (even one as big as the Nostromo combined with the refinery) keeps the action tight, and the single monster keeps the suspense high.  Additionally there is almost no time wasted in this movie.  Every scene serves the purpose of creating an even better atmosphere.  Even the long into helps to do this.  Add in the excellent score, and it all makes a very enjoyable movie.  Is it perfect, probably not.  I would like to know a bit more about the characters perhaps, and seen a bit more action on the part of the victims, but that is all secondary.

As an aside, I also recently re-watched Predetor which was released 8 years later.  It uses a more action take on a similar story.  But as much as I like Predator, I feel Alien has the better idea.  Perhaps somewhere between standing helplessly and unloading 500 rounds into a swath of jungle?  Or right, that's Aliens, one of my favorite movies ever.  But that's not a horror movie anymore.

World War Z - Max Brooks

World War Z takes a different angle on Zombie stories.  Rather than tell us the story through narration, Brooks organizes the events as a series of accounts as told by the people who lived through them.  It is unique, and for this reason I was really looking forward to reading it.  After all, I'm a big fan of using diary entries and first hand accounts in fiction.  And who better to hear about a zombie war from than the people who lived through it.

Unfortunately this gimmick is really all World War Z had going for it for me.  And like most gimmicks, it ran thin pretty quickly.  Because the "interviews" are all separate individuals, there is no main character.  No characters at all in the traditional sense.  We are given a brief intro, that person shares an account, and then we move on.  There is no one to root for.  No one to care about.  No one to be concerned for.  Even within the mini stories we can't become too concerned, because obviously they lived through it.

Don't get me wrong, there is some poignant stuff in there.  The story of the Russian soldier describing the "decimation" of her unit was very well done.  But in every tale that starts to nudge some emotion, there is the fact that you know the person lived, and you know you will never see this character again.

Then there are the parts that just made me shake my head.  Now I'm not huge on zombies as a villain regardless.  They just aren't scary.  Especially slow, stumbling, moaning ones too stupid to open a door or unbuckle a seat belt.  I mean really at that point the only real danger is starvation.  The villain might as well be a blizzard.  The effect is the same.  But certain parts of this book just made it obvious Brooks couldn't think of reasonable ways to make this threat really threatening.

Take the initial spread.  Somehow, with internet and social media (yes this was released in '06 but social media was well on its way even then) with email and the 24 hour bored out of their brains news cycle, this zombie plague manages to spread across the world with virtually no one knowing or caring.  Until it's too late of course.  The CDC, US government, and general populous go insane over a few cases of bird flu but zombies?  Meh.  This was obviously a construct Brooks created to ensure there could actually be a story.  And don't even get me started on the chapter detailing how hard it was for someone to make propaganda films.  Really?  Like every government in the world wouldn't be jumping all over propaganda films?  Cause they've never done that before during... I don't know...  WW2?

And then there's the "Battle of Yonkers".  For all his research into what weapons we have, Brooks obviously doesn't think much of the military.  Now I'm not saying the military doesn't do some dumb stuff, I was in it, I know.  But when it comes to actually prosecuting a straight up fight.  They know exactly what they're doing.  Seriously, by then they would obviously know they needed to blow brains out.  And no one does that better than snipers.  Lots and lots of snipers.  With lots of ammo.  That's a no-brainer. (pun intended)  All of the things the interviewee mentions as having been done wrong, were exactly the obvious things the military would do.  But then, if the military was competent, there wouldn't be much of a book either.

In the end, though, it was the repetitive nature of the interviews and the lack of anything to really engage me that killed this book for me.  If Brooks really wanted an epic world spanning zombie war, I think he would have been better served with something closer to Red Storm Rising meets Outbreak.  With characters we can get to know and care about and a threat that is more logically a threat without needing to throw common sense out the window.  Now that book would be epic.

The Yattering and Jack - Clive Barker

After my last experience with Clive Barker, I wasn't really looking forward to this one.  But I've been surprised before so I took a deep breath, plugged my nose, and just went for it.  And to my relief it tasted good.

The Yattering and Jack is a great comedy horror piece.  The way Barker describes the frustration of the Yattering as it tries so hard to get any kind of response from this completely mellowed out man is hilarious.  One of my favorite parts was when he was desperate enough to call his superiors for help begging to be reassigned.  The entire premise is a great turnaround on guardian angels and an even better reverse on the typical haunted house.  We get to see the "haunting" from the other side of the curtain and the effect great.  We even get an exploded cat.

Only two things didn't really work for me in this story.  One was the way Barker would switch PoVs from the Yattering to Jack.  Several times this happened without preamble of any kind and I had to backtrack to understand who I was with.

The other was how easily duped the Yattering was.  I understand that it was just a low level demon and not ment to be super bright.  But I just felt it was a bit easy.

That said, I loved the interaction with the daughters and the way Jack had to force himself to ignore one just loosing it.  The entire story was good enough that I actually told my wife and in-laws the entire story one night.  I was that excited about it.  This kind of story is right up my alley, and it gave me hope for the third Barker story we have to read.

Cycle of the Werewolf - Stephan King

Coming off of Rawhead Rex, I was a bit eager to sink into something more familiar.  I've only read one other King story (The Shinning from last semester) but I was curious to see what he could do with a traditional monster like werewolves.  He didn't disappoint.

First, the formatting.  This is probably my favorite aspect of the book.  The twelve short chapters following the twelve months.  The artwork.  Even the way he played with moon cycles to line them up with important days of each month were great.  And then there's his writing.  It sucked me in just as effectively in a few pages as it did in a few hundred.  Though he doesn't spend more time with most of his characters than Barker does with his in Rawhead Rex, he does eventually pick one.  Which makes the story infinitely more interesting.  Marty becomes that main character, the one you can get behind and root for.  He's immediately endearing, both in the way he needs the 4th of July and in his pure determination.  The fact that he is handicapped and still manages to fight off the beast is just icing on the cake for me.

But this is a class on monsters.  So how well is the werewolf done?  In the end he is pretty typical.  Slain by a silver bullet, shifting with the moon, all the usual tropes.  The one twist I found that interested me was the way it began to make the Reverend feel.  He didn't want to get rid of it.  Even after he knew what was going on, he made excuses to himself to keep it.  It was God's will after all.  This emotional twist was great.  As was the cause of the change in the first place.

But really this book is about the town, and the way the beast changes them.  Especially Marty.  And in that sense, King did an excellent job.  A really great read.

Rawhead Rex - Clive Barker

I've never read any Clive Barker, nor have I seen any of his movies.  So I didn't know what to expect going into this story.  I think it was partly because of this lack of preconceptions that it was such a roller coaster ride of love and hate for me.  First off, let me focus on the things I loved.

Barker's use of language and particularly description were exceptional.  I definitely felt like I was there with whatever character he was using at the time.  His initial descriptions of Rawhead himself were great and painted a very vivid image in my mind.  I also really enjoyed the entire opening sequence, with the man trying desperately to get this stupid rock out of his field only to awake the ancient evil and succumb to it.  It's a bit of a trope, but it is one I enjoy.

Unfortunately there was probably more about this story I didn't care for than things I enjoyed.  For one, I was just never really scared, or even creaped out by Rawhead.  Well I guess I can't say never.  Initially, I was.  He was a giant elder evil thing.  I had no idea what he knew or what he was capable of but he was obviously violent and hungry.  That was intimidating.  But the longer the story went on, the more I just didn't care about him.  After all, he was just a stupid giant that eats people and can't control his own urges.  There really wasn't anything frightening about that.  Barker seems to confuse disgusting, with horrifying.  And while Rawhead is certainly disgusting, even repulsive, he's really not very terrifying.

Then there is the way Barker brings about his creature's demise.  Burned by the fire that he caused.  And off stage at that.  Sure he's mobbed by people he could easily toss around like pillows before.  And sure he's somehow debilitated by a statue he admits has no real power.  But none of that would happen if he hadn't already, by his own stupidity, burned half his body.  It just wasn't satisfying.  I suppose you could say that his own ignorance of fire did him in the same as his first victim's ignorance, but it doesn't make it any more satisfying as a climax.

There was some good here, a lot of it actually, which caused me to enjoy whole scenes before just sighing my way through others.  For instance, the scene where the little girl screams and you just know its because Rawhead is there.  But wait, no.  He's at the car eating the boy.  I really liked that turn about.  Barker did an excellent job setting that up.  In fact I'd have to say that was my favorite part of the whole story.

Breeding Ground - Sarah Pinborough

     I love giant spiders.  I don't know what it is about them but I've always enjoyed watching movies about them.  Even regular sized spiders actually.  There is just something creepy about the long legs and multiple eyes and sucking the fluids out of people.  Not to mention the webs.  They just make great villains for me.



     So needless to say I was stoked about reading Breeding Grounds right from the moment I saw the cover.  Spiders, score!  And that enthusiasm carried me through most of the book.  I loved how the spiders came about.  Not the explanation of it, which I'll get to that in a bit.  But the way they were birthed out of people.  That was a bit original and suitably gross.  The way Matt was too preoccupied to notice the slow collapse around him was a nice touch that kept things hidden from me until just the right time.  And there were other aspects of the setup that was nice.  The image of Chloe standing in his living room eating raw meat, dribbling the blood down her chest, and "talking to Helena" was great.  I'll never forget that.



     Then we get to what effectively was part two.  Survival.  Scrounging for resources, meeting new friends, typical apocalypse survival stuff.  Again I thought Pinborough did a fine job here.  All of the actions made sense for the characters and their states of mind.  They keep Nigil around which is obviously a bad call but you really can't expect them to abandon him.  And most of all, the creepiness of the spiders just amps up.  They don't rush Katie, they can impede electricity in the vehicles, and they even follow them to wreck the vehicles as they cower inside a building.  They can even read minds!  I'm getting more and more interested.



     Then they all get to Hanstone.  And it all just falls off.  The tension Pinborough developed for over half the book just dies as they enjoy weeks of just hanging out safe behind electric fences.  Sure there's some bickering, but what happened to the awesome spiders!  Aren't they the villains?  Instead we shift gears to developing Nigil as a villain.  It just didn't work for me.  Sure, he's a jerk and I liked it when he finally snapped and the final showdown and all, but I just wanted more of the spiders she spent so many pages making me love.



     There is one other issue that irked me as well.  Questions.  The ones she answered that she shouldn't...  GMOs?  Really?  Deaf blood?  Really?  were bad enough.  But there were a slew that were never answered.  Why did it take so long for Katie to be affected?  If they can impede electricity, why didn’t they do so to the fence?  Why were the spiders so terrified of one dog?  I mean granted it's blood was acid to them but these spiders are smart enough to know to take out vehicles, I'm sure they could find one of their number prepared to sacrifice for the greater good.  And if all the men are erupting into spiders, aren't George and Matt hosed anyway?



    All of these just stole my enjoyment out of the ending and made it flat.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got.  Which really disappointed me because the first half fed my every spider horror desire.  Now I need to watch Eight Legged Freaks to make up for it.

The Funeral - Richard Matheson

The Funeral is easily the most enjoyable piece by Matheson I have read.  I think a large part of that is the fact that it doesn't take itself seriously.  I mean, it's hard to when you have a vampire arguing from out of his casket with a witch who can't help poking fun at his eulogy.  Right from the beginning this story was fun.  Which is what this story showed me.  Monsters can be fun.  It reminded me strongly of the movie, Hotel Transylvania.  Both approach monsters with the idea that they really aren't that bad, and they're just trying to make their way in the world same as us.  This is a refreshing change and works especially well as a way to use monsters as comedy.

At the same time, Silkline certainly doesn't see his position as comedic.  He is terrified.  To the point that he passes out and misses the fun of the monster fight.  And this makes sense.  Matheson does an excellent job in the first scene of painting Asper to be intimidating.  He is very serious about the funeral and his anger at Silkline thinking it is a joke helps to lend him that air of gravitas.  And it is this gravitas that makes the funeral so amusing.

Over all, this short story was a nice departure from what I've come to expect from Matheson, and gave me a bit of interest in reading more of his short stories to see what other gems I could discover.  Although it will be hard to beat a vampire fighting at his own funeral.

I am Legend - Richard Matheson

I was very excited to see this book on the reading list.  I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and so was expecting to enjoy the book even more.  Because, lets face it, that's just how these things work.  And, having read Hell House last semester, I felt I had a pretty good idea going in as to what the story would be like.

But these two stories couldn't be more different.  I am Legend is all about isolation, and the mental effects of it.  There are few cheap thrills in it.  No 'boo' scares.  No shocking revelations.  Just a look at the path one man treads from human to monster.  Because, really, Robert Neville is the monster here.  But more on that later, first the obvious.  The vampires.

I really enjoyed the way that Matheson worked vampires in this story.  It isn't terribly original any more, but I imagine it was at the time.  I like the idea of vampirism being a biological disorder.  It brings a logical explanation into a thoroughly mythical and magical concept.  In fact, my favorite parts of the book by far were those where Robert was trying to explain all of the myths of vampires with science.  The systematic way Matheson goes about this appeals to the science lover in me and it makes the middle portion of the story interesting.  The idea that there were living and dead vampires was also an interesting twist.  It makes sense with the scientific explanation, and allowed Matheson to create the arc we have for Robert.

Unfortunately, at least for me, the middle portion of this short novel dragged.  I understood early on just how isolated Robert was, and just how close to crazy he was getting.  But Matheson seemed to feel the need to pound this nail home for far more pages than I felt was necessary.  An example is spending seventeen pages on Robert trying to befriend a dog, to kill it in one line.  I understand why Matheson did this, and what he was trying to show, but the pacing dragged significantly as a result.

But the end made up for it.  The conclusion, showing that Robert has become the monster brought a smile to my face.  I love irony, and how much more ironic can you get than the monsters becoming the new normal, and what was normal becoming the new monster.  The new legend.  It was clever and very well done.  Not surprising, but still satisfying.