False Memory

So I’m not quite halfway through this book and still don’t know what to make of it. Yes, I’ve been on a bit of a Dean Koontz tear lately, and have enjoyed greatly the last few novels of his I’ve caught up on. Maybe I’m Koontzed out. But I think there’s more to it.

The book itself begins slowly, but before too long you understand it has to do with hypnosis, and an evil doctor who uses his patients as playthings in some kind of gruesome game. I confess as well to being absolutely turned off by the realistic sadism revealed in parts of the book.

However, I think the major problem with the book is that it’s overwritten. Not overwritten like so many authors do, to pump up the word count, making lists of things, items, objects, substances, to enhance the situations, affairs, and concepts, that the writer is talking about . . . you know what I mean. Though there is plenty of that in this book.

But what Koontz does here (and maybe he has done it all along and I’ve just never noticed) is that he says the same thing over . . . and over . . . and over again. Honest. It was on page 298 (of 751) when I had my epiphany after reading this:

“Who would have programmed Skeet? When? How? Where? For what possible purpose? And why Skeet of all people: self-admitted feeb, druggie, sweet loser that he was?”

Fascinating he was able to get the entirety of the newspaperman’s credo (who, what, where, when, and why?) into that passage (and don’t think I didn’t notice it took three adjectives to describe Skeet.) But it was the next sentence that sealed it for me:

“The whole thing smelled-smacked-reeked of paranoia.”

Ya know, as someone who has tried his hand at fiction, who often has trouble finding enough words and plot points to flesh out an entire novel (generally thought of as 50,000 words or more) I never even thought of not selecting the most precise word for what I mean to say, but simply using all of them and letting the chips fall where they may.

As noted previously, it might just be that I’m Koontzed out. Nevertheless, I’m going to move on from this book and on to something else. I only hope I can return to both this book and to Koontz someday, and not suffer for having (perhaps) glimpsed the wizard behind the curtain.

The Second Messiah

I wonder if it’s getting harder to write biblical thrillers. I mean, think about it. The Ark of the Covenant is safely lost in a government warehouse. The Robe Jesus wore was won in a dice game. And the Holy Grail wasn’t a grail at all, it was something called “the sacred feminine” . . . or some such thing.

Undaunted by all that, into the fray comes Glenn Meade, with his new novel The Second Messiah.

Our story begins with the discovery of an ancient scroll, near Qumran in Israel, where the Dead Sea scrolls were found forty years before. Shocked by the revelation contained within, on his way to share his discovery with the world, the discoverer and his wife are killed in a car wreck. Happening upon the scene is a young Catholic priest, who manages to salvage the scroll from the burning vehicle, only to have it disappear forever behind the walls of the Vatican.

Twenty years later, the son of that discoverer, following in his father’s archaeological footsteps, makes a similar discovery, a scroll very much like the one his father found. But even he doesn’t have it more than a few hours before history starts repeating itself, people turn up dead, and the scroll goes missing.

On a simultaneous track is the election of a new pope, an American who promises to open up the Catholic Church by revealing all her ancient secrets. Needless to say, there is an old guard within the Vatican that doesn’t think that’s a good idea at all. The new pontiff, who is haunted by something in his past, will not be dissuaded. By then, we readers know that the new pope might very well be the same man who rescued the scroll from the car wreck twenty years before.

Now if all that sounds a bit of a mess, it might be. But it’s a delightful mess, one you need to get through before the real action begins, that takes our somewhat bloodless hero on a journey through the deserts of Jordan, beneath the ancient streets of Rome, and into the rarefied sanctuary of the Vatican’s secret vaults.

Of course, the payoff to any story of this type is what exactly is the SHOCKING REVELATION! contained within the scroll, one that would ostensibly crack the foundations of Christianity and cause otherwise good men to kill? Meade does a good job keeping that under wraps for a few hundred pages or so.

And though I won’t tell you what it is, I was impressed by both its simplicity and believability. Perhaps the highest praise I can give is to say that when I read it, I said to myself, “You know what? That – or something quite similar – probably did happen.”

The book is written in very short chapters, most every one a cliffhanger. As previously noted, lots of information is crammed within the first few chapters. But my advice is to just go with it. It pays off in the end.

Another thing that struck me is how squeaky clean it is, with nary a D-word or an F-bomb in sight. I suspect that’s done purposefully, with a specific audience in mind, however I’m not sure it’s the way gritty men on archaeological digs actually talk.

In a similar vein, our hero is surrounded throughout by beautiful women, two of whom have obviously fallen in love with him, yet he remains single-minded in his quest. Not sure how believable that is either. In fact, I was about to give up hope for him until the last few pages, when he finally shows an emotion other than bitterness at his parents' deaths. Score one for Jack!

Hope to see more of him.

Summer of Night

In Dan Simmons’ Summer of Night, an ancient and forgotten evil comes to life in the small town of Elm Haven, Illinois, where a close-knit group of recently graduated sixth graders are among the few to realize it’s happening, and soon understand they are the only ones who can deal with it.

Though a terrific work of horror, Summer of Night is much more than that. It’s a coming-of-age tale that deftly recalls what it’s like to be eleven-years-old, no longer a kid, but yet not truly adolescent either. It affectionately captures hot, sweaty summer days of riding bikes, playing sandlot baseball, camping out, long days spent in the woods, and a nascent and budding interest in the opposite sex.

It also quite cleverly captures a time, the year 1960, with black and white background images of Democrats nominating Kennedy and the first satellites being sent into space; and a place, the dying town of Elm Haven, Illinois, which doesn’t know that it’s dying.

The source of the horror both stretches credulity and is quite clever. Then again, it doesn’t matter what causes the World War I soldier to come out of his grave and stalk one of the character’s grandmothers. It doesn’t matter how the lamprey creatures can burrow and surface and dive into asphalt as easily as a dolphin in water. And it certainly doesn’t matter what caused the interior of Old Central School to become ensconced in viscous fluids, pulsing eggsacks, and fleshy tentacles. What matters is it has happened, and must be dealt with.

One of the things I find interesting about reading an obviously semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale is trying to determine exactly which character is the author. In this book, there are many to choose from. There’s altar boy and all-around good guy Mike O’Rourke, earnest Dale Stewart and his younger brother Lawrence. There’s wiseass Jim Harlen, and quietly strong Kevin Grumbacher. And in the background, hovering over them all, is the bookish and brilliant (and doomed) Duane McBride.

Though it becomes obvious toward the end which character most resembles Simmons, I’m struck upon every re-reading just how fully drawn each of the characters is, and can’t help but think there’s a little bit of Simmons in all of them.

What strikes me most upon each re-reading of this book is the universality of it. Though I wasn’t born at the time this book takes place, it captures my own perhaps romanticized memories of my youth, hot summer days playing baseball and hanging out with friends, of riding bikes and camping out and playing in the woods. That may be why I re-read this book every few years or so.

It’s always good to catch up with old friends.

"Adamson's Rock" Reviewed

My short story collection "Adamson's Rock and Other Stories" is featured today on Red Adept's Kindle Book Review Blog. I'm delighted to report that she gave this effort 5-stars, saying among other things:

I have enjoyed this author’s writing style in his previous work, and he does not disappoint with this newest publication. His sentences flow nicely; his descriptions are terse, yet adequate; his dialogue is realistic . . .

Sometimes, the sum really is greater than the parts. All I can add is that when finished with this collection, I felt satisfied, and I knew that a few of the stories would come back to me now and then at odd moments.

A frequent contributor to Kindleboards.Com who specializes in reviewing "Indie" author's work, I first came to Red's acquaintance when she reviewed my novel Sumner Gardens. Since that time, she has set up her own Wordpress blog as well as begun making her reviews available as a Kindle subscription service.

Along the way, she has made many friends among Kindle readers and authors, and more than a few enemies -- authors who have been unhappy with her sometimes unflattering reviews or her strong opinions about the way some authors package or price their books.

At any rate, I couldn't help but notice she gave Dan Brown's latest a mere 2 ¾ stars. She gave "Adamson's Rock and Other Stories" 5-stars.

Take that, Dan Brown.

Adamson's Rock Reviewed

You bite your nails . . . you wait . . . you hope . . . and then it appears. The first Amazon review:

They remind me of some of Stephen King's short stories . . . In my opinion, "Adamson's Rock," the final story, was superb, a definite five-star read, and by itself would be worth the price of the book.

You can read the entire review here.

Sincere thanks to the reviewer for taking the time to compose their thoughts. It really means a lot.

Nice Review of "Hope Town"

My novel Hope Town is featured today on Red Adept's Kindle Book Review Blog. You can check it out here.

Among the kind things she says:

The plot of this novel is absolutely terrific. Mr. Myers has an imagination to rival many top authors of today.

This book will draw you in to the point where you will not want to put it down. So, make sure you have plenty of time to read it when you get started.

And then she goes on to talk about a plot hole or something. (:>)

Sincere thanks to Red for taking the time to both read and review it.

Another Malpractice Review

Poking around the 'net today and stumbled across another review of the Malpractice anthology (featuring my story "Ohrwurm") in the latest issue of The Monsters Next Door. You can read the review here.

The review includes much deserved individual shoutouts to Felicity Dowker for her tale of a nurse gone bad, titled "Recruitment," and to Jeremy Kelly for his story of two hikers whose day takes a very, very bad turn in "Post-Procedural Care on the Bloom Memorial Line." Congratulations to them both.

You can read my own no doubt biased thoughts on the anthology here.

This issue also contains a sparkling review of the Tainted anthology edited by Aaron Polson which you can read here.

Congratulations to Aaron and to all the authors included in that one.

Malpractice Reviewed

The first reviews for the Malpractice anthology are starting to trickle in, today's coming from HorrorNews.Net. Couple of excerpts:

"I'm not shitting you when I say that there isn't a single bad story to be found, or even one that left me indifferent . . ."

"This book is also about as tight as you can possibly get, not allowing for a single wasted page . . ."

". . . it creates the effect of a single tale instead of the usual buffet style sampling that comes with most of its ilk . . ."

"I loved the crap out of this book and you would be a moron not to be willing to drop $16 for something this good."

I'm not really sure . . . but I think he liked it.

Read the full review here.

And thanks to the folks at HorrorNews for taking the time to review it.