Horns

One thing I'm realizing about writing reviews for every book that I read is that you all are going to see how narrow my reading list has become. 99% of the books I read are either about monsters or criminals. If werewolf noir was a genre, it would be all I'd ever read.

Anyway, I've never read anything by Joe Hill but have heard nothing but amazing things about Lock and Key. Maybe now that that's finishing up, I'll read it when I'm done with Scalped. I figured I'd start with a non-graphic novel. Horns is really good. The basic premise is that a guy wakes up hungover with a pair of devil horns growing out of his head, and everyone he encounters acts pretty fucked up. It's funny but also dark and uncomfortable. I liked it a lot. Check it out.

This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It

I figured I'd review this book since I've reviewed everything else related to John Dies at the End. But then I thought: maybe I'll just review every book I read. I don't have as much time to read anymore, so it won't be a lot. Why not start a new column and review some novels without graphics? I couldn't come up with a title I liked, so I'll just use the book's title until I come up with something better. Or maybe I won't. Who knows?

I'm going to be vague while discussing plots, because I don't like to know too much going into a book. I even consider people who read the copy on the back to be Philistines. I go into that stuff with comicbooks a bit more, but that's more so I can nitpick. And also, they take about 10 minutes to read. I don't want to spoil something that you may be invested in for a couple weeks.

And I'll also review books I can't finish. Don't tell me it gets better after page 200 or in the next book. No one told me that before I started Game of Thrones or Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It wasn't until I mentioned how shitty those books were until people started saying, "Book two is where it gets really good. You have to stick with it." Fuck you because (1) I don't believe that every book I read coincidentally gets so much better after the page I left off, and (2) even if that is the case, there are literally hundreds of books that are great from page one. If I need to suffer through hundreds of pages I don't like to get to something tolerable, it's not worth it. I don't care how many movies they make.

Anyway, on to my review of This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It, the sequel to John Dies at the End. I'm going to say that if you liked JD@TE you should like this. The horror and humor are similar. The structure's a bit different as Wong probably knew this would end up as a novel going into it. JD@TE debuted as a short online story that got several additions due to its popularity. Eventually it got published in book form. Because of the way it was written, it was naturally a lot more episodic. This one's more of a cohesive story line. The first one was probably a little more terrifying and exciting because everything was new, not only for the reader but the characters as well. Even so, I still loved this book and hope for more stories of Dave and John.

Buy My Book!

On more time I'm going to mention The Indie Cred Test, the book I worked on as a Major Contributor with Chunklet Magazine. It was picked up by Penguin earlier this year and this orange second edition was released today.

Top Ten

No. I'm not giving you yet another yearly top ten list a month late. But instead occupying someone else's list. Although it's with a shared endeavor, and at the bottom of the list, it's still a personal milestone.

The Indie Cred Test (in which you can find me in the credits as "Major Contributor") was ranked 10th in SPIN magazine's book list last year. I'll take it.

On top of that, Penguin Press will be publishing new editions this fall. So if you don't have this already (and I don't know why you don't. I've mentioned a few times that you should) you can get the current editions cheap at Chunklet.

Plug Time

OK. About a year ago I worked on this book with Chunklet Magazine, and it's now available for preorder on www.chunklet.com. I haven't yet seen the finished product, but I hear it has been printed, so I should get a copy soon. From what I remember, there should be some pretty funny if you get jokes. Check it out.

First Impressions

Super Mario Galaxy 2 and The Passage are two things that were recently released with unbelievable unanimous positive praise.  I picked up both about a month ago, but have unfortunately been way too busy to really put a dent in either of them.  However, I figured I'd post early reviews while it would still be relevant, mostly because I feel very early on that both items live up to the hype.

I'm on the third world in Galaxy 2, and I can say that it is already much better than it's predecessor (which I loved and thought had the most imaginative use of 3-D in any video game I've played).  The game play is a bit smoother.  The power-ups are cooler.  It's more challenging.  The objectives are clearer.  All in all, its a lot like the original, but with improvements where you didn't realize that they were necessary.

I'm only a little over 100 pages into Justin Cronin's The Passage, and early on, I'm really liking this book.  I was sucked in right from the first chapter.  The characters are great, and the story (which is still being set-up at this point) is really interesting.

Really, both are way better than my progress suggests.  I might get up actual reviews when I'm done.  As of right now, I give strong approval.

Book of the Week

You may have noticed that I haven't picked a Book of the Week in a little while. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to pick up my books weekly anymore. However, I'm going to try to keep track of when books come out and keep the column going. I should get my books in a few days and have two Book of the Week pics in the coming week. That's pretty much how I'm hoping this thing progresses.

Anyway, I figure that since I haven't read any comic books in a couple weeks, I'll recommend a novel with no graphics. I read John Dies at the End a couple years back and liked it so much that I'm still telling people to read it.

It's gone through a few incarnations. Originally published online at http://johndiesattheend.com/, it later found a softcover printing through Permuted Press. It recently got a hardcover printing through a larger publisher with bigger distribution. Don't quote me, but I think that all three versions differ slightly.

I'm not really going to divulge much of the plot, but the book is both really funny and really disgusting and terrifying at the same time without any awkwardness. I think Don Coscarelli (who owns the movie rights) described it as Stephen King meets Douglas Adams. So, go check this out and I'll get back to the regular Book of the Week soon.