The Year of Cemetery Dance 2018

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Neesy

Neesy

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May 24, 2012
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Dana Jean said:
22. Gwendy's Button Box

by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

About the book:

"The little town of Castle Rock, Maine has witnessed some strange events and unusual visitors over the years, but there is one story that has never been told... until now.

There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974 twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strong (if time-rusted) iron bolts and zig-zag up the cliffside.

At the top of the stairs, Gwendy catches her breath and listens to the shouts of the kids on the playground. From a bit farther away comes the chink of an aluminum bat hitting a baseball as the Senior League kids practice for the Labor Day charity game.

One day, a stranger calls to Gwendy: "Hey, girl. Come on over here for a bit. We ought to palaver, you and me."

On a bench in the shade sits a man in black jeans, a black coat like for a suit, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat..."


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My thoughts:

Well, that was quick! Super little story. Pretty darn seamless between the two authors. Only once did I feel I sensed maybe an author change happened, but it quickly moved off my radar. I cared about the characters, even the ones who made a quick appearance, and I felt the anxiety of the box. The story had me immediately and it held onto me.

The cover artwork by Ben Baldwin is vibrant and interesting. And I enjoyed the drawings inside the book by Keith Minnion.

Pretty little book totally worth the price of admission.
Click to expand...
Read this one last night - very good story and I enjoyed it a lot.

It whet my appetite for more Stephen King so I followed it up with Mile 81 from the Bazaar of Bad Dreams.
 
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Dana Jean

Dana Jean

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23. The Prophet

by Michael Koryta

About the book:

"Adam Austin hasn't spoken to his brother in years. When they were teenagers, their sister was abducted and murdered, and their devastated family never recovered. Now Adam keeps to himself, scraping by as a bail bondsman, working so close to the town's criminal fringes that he sometimes seems a part of them.

Kent Austin is the beloved coach of the local high school football team, a religious man and hero in the community. After years of near misses, Kent's team has a shot at the state championship, a welcome point of pride in a town that has had its share of hardships.

Just before playoffs begin, the town and the team are thrown into shock when horrifically, impossibly, another teenage girl is found murdered. When details emerge that connect the crime to the Austin brothers, the two are forced to unite to stop a killer-and to confront their buried rage and grief before history repeats itself again."


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My Thoughts:

When I started this book, I thought I was in for a long, uninteresting read because the "soundtrack," if you will, of this story is football. And I am not a football girl. I was a cheerleader, but I didn't give a crap about the home team. I wanted to wear the cute outfit. So I jumped when the other girls jumped and I clapped when they clapped -- not caring one bit if we won or lost all those Friday night games.

So, I start reading about a community with 2 dead girls and deep roots in football and as the story unfolds, we're given detailed plays and drills and formations along with information about the tragedies -- and I was hooked. Mr. Koryta deftly took a book heavy with football stuff and made it a story that I cared about, characters I cared about and a mystery and murder that needed solved. I invested myself because his story development and writing skills demanded no less from me.

Anyone who lives, loves, breathes football will love this story. And those of you like me? Who don't give a rat's left nut about the gridiron? You are going to love it too. The murder that needs solved will keep your eyes moving across the page. The last couple chapters were hard to get through, watery eyes and a choke in your throat will do that sometimes. And yes, even a strong wash of nostalgia from my own days of the big important game tugged just a little bit.

Tomislav Tikulin did the cover art and while it is very beautiful, I'm not sure what it has to do with the story. A detail I must have missed somewhere as I was quickly devouring the book.

I am very upset that I have probably missed many Cemetery Dance editions by this guy. I will definitely seek out more of this author's work.
 
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Dana Jean

Dana Jean

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24. Shivers VI

About the Book:

"Cemetery Dance Publications is proud to announce the sixth entry in this award-nominated and best-selling anthology series! Shivers VI is by far the largest volume to date and the first volume in the series to be published as Limited Edition and Lettered Edition hardcovers signed by the editor for the collectors in addition to the affordable trade paperback edition for general readers!

Shivers VI weighs in at 410 pages and contains more than 110,000 words from today's most popular authors of horror and suspense including Stephen King, Peter Straub, Al Sarrantonio, Jay Bonansinga, Lisa Tuttle, David B. Silva, Melanie Tem, Brian Hodge, Brian Keene, Alan Peter Ryan, Blake Crouch and Jack Kilborn, Bev Vincent, Brian James Freeman, Norman Prentiss, and many others.

Two of the longest pieces are "The Crate" by Stephen King, his long lost novella that has never appeared in any of his collections, and "A Special Place: The Heart of A Dark Matter" by Peter Straub, a novella that is "creepy to the core" and "shines a terrible light on the backstory of Straub's acclaimed A Dark Matter" according to the coveted Starred Review from Publishers Weekly.

Featuring original dark fiction with a handful of rare reprints, Shivers VI is available only from Cemetery Dance Publications."

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My Thoughts:

Gail Cross is our artist on this one, well done. I can't tell if this is a photograph or an actual painting. I think painting and if so, the details are very nice.

Lots of great authors in this book, many I have never read before. Talented, interesting imaginations -- but as I read, it is really starting to bug me that more women aren't represented. This is not a scolding to Cemetery Dance by any means. I just don't think there are that many women in this field. Or, there are but their work isn't good enough to make it into these horror anthologies. Of 22 entries, 2 were from women. Both gave us chilling little stories.

I certainly don't want some affirmative action thing to happen here, bwhahaha! I want the best stories. I don't want things dumbed down for women just to increase the numbers.

I don't want men horror writers to have to lift a 200 pound corpse and crawl through a cemetery full of goatheads (the plant, not actual goat heads), while the women only have to carry that zombie arm that dropped off. I want to read more women horror writers! Come on ladies, represent!

Okay, rant over.

Because this is Mr. King's site, I will mention that The Crate was included. Good story, but I'm sort of sentimental to the movie version. In the written story, the thing in the crate is described as something "as dry and brown and scaly as a desert reptile." Then later, it's described as something "furry...like a lynx." So much for eyewitness accounts.

My shout out story goes to Brian James Freeman. And the reason why? Without saying too much, I was involved in a situation like this at 3:00 in the morning, texts and phone calls from my friend -- should they or shouldn't they and how macabre is it? Devastating moment for her and her family and for me, too. He writes with a brutal clarity about this situation.

And, I'm just going to say this. Peter Straub is a g** d*mn card-carrying serial killer.

Just -- he has to be!

His stories almost always make me feel very dirty and gross. So disgusting. But they are always well written like he's been there, done that and stripped the t-shirt off the victim. The next award banquet he attends, someone grab his red solo cup and get that DNA so we can put some of these brutal murders to rest.

I have many other Shivers anthologies to read, so looking forward to what awaits.
 
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Dana Jean

Dana Jean

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25. Backshot --2012

by Tom Piccirilli

About the Book:

"Only one gig had gone bad in Royce's twenty-year career, but it had ended just about as badly as possible, with his back broken and him in jail.

A specialist said it would be a year before he'd walk again, if then. Royce took this news as a personal challenge and let his concentration begin to harden. He fixed his will and figured he'd be on his feet in six months. He set a clock inside his head and started the countdown.

At night, when everyone else was asleep, Royce practiced with the two-inch blade he had smuggled in with him. He'd always been good with a knife.

Now Royce just had to get back on his feet and stay alive, and then he could have his revenge..."

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My Thoughts:

First off, don't confuse this with the book by Ed Gorman: Backshot -- 1902

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I find the marketing of this interesting and baffling at the same time. Both books with the same title, different authors, same publisher, same cover artist and connecting ancestors as characters. I wish I could've read Mr. Gorman's book first given the timeline and all. But, I don't own that one, so can only discuss the 2012 Backshot by Mr. Piccirilli.

It was a good story. Good writing. Plot kept me engaged and it was a quick read. It definitely left the door open for another book:

Backshot 2018 -- Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Guess how many times Royce gets backshot and win the life-sized Pikachu!

Great covers for both books by Caniglia.
 
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Dana Jean

Dana Jean

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26. Retribution, Inc.

by Geoff Cooper

About the Book:

"Retribution, Inc. is a hardcore band struggling on the club circuit. Shortly after their guitar player leaves for Florida to attend recording school, they get a call from Brackard's Point's most prestigious venue, The Electra Complex, to open for Your Kid's On Fire — a national act currently touring to support their new major-label release.

The race to find a stand-in guitar player becomes desperate, and they must choose between Joey Donnatello, a virtuoso with a massive ego, and Ernie Shiel, whose skills eclipse even Joey's, but his image is wrong for the part — and he has a secret: his hands bleed every time he plays.

Chuck, the bass player and singer, doesn't want Joey.

Mark, the drummer, doesn't want Ernie.

Apathy becomes anger, and anger turns to violence, with deception, betrayal, and manipulation running rampant through every action, every word. Chuck and Mark see their band tearing itself apart in front of their eyes, as each does what he believes is for the good of the band.

Someone must give in, if they are to do the show — which is drawing ever closer. A decision must be made, but is there one that is right — that could preserve their humanity without destroying that which they have built, or are they doomed to become like all those bands they despise, run by greed and ambition rather than words and music?

There is blood on their hands, and not all of it is Ernie's..."

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My Thoughts

Great cover for the book by Chad Savage plus the additional pencil drawings inside are a nice addition.

This is a novella from Cemetery Dance's Novella Series which many of my reads have been a part of this series. I love that they do these pretty little books for these shorter stories.

In Retribution, Inc., I felt we didn't get a lot of explanation for why things were happening. I was just expecting more -- I kept waiting for it, but it just never happened.

As a writer, Mr. Cooper took this story down a road that did it no justice in my opinion. And we all know what they say about opinions, they're like uvulas, everyone's got one. Okay, maybe that's not the saying. His writing skills are good but the plot execution stumbled.

The premise of the story is intriguing, but we don't end up with a lot of answers and the ending is disappointing and dismal. I so wish Mr. Copper would have taken another route. I spent the whole book feeling nervous and uncomfortable for the geek and as the title suggests, I wanted real Retribution, not an elbow to the chin.

And what was going on with the Telecaster? There was more going on with that guitar! Tell us! Show us! Explain to us! And use that information to make this the story it should have been.

Even though it didn't give me what I wanted, I still enjoyed what I did get.
 
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Dana Jean

Dana Jean

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27. The Other End

by John Shirley

About the Book:

"Do you ever think that the human world is hopelessly out of balance, blighted, off track, and the only hope is some kind of apocalypse, some sort of end of the world that would allow the human race a new beginning, a fresh start without...ah...certain people?

You know you don't want — and can't believe in — the usual "End Times" scenarios that are predicted and ballyhooed by hysterical, superstitious people.
But when you look around at the world as it stands — you see Darfur, you see Somalia and the Congo, you see the modern slavery of indentured servitude, you see children sold into prostitution, you see millions starving, you see mindless wars, you see people you care about dying of Alzheimer's and children dying of cancer and millions of others trapped in schizophrenia or living lives of media-hypnotized desperation...

You see a planet beset by a loss of biodiversity, a depleted ozone layer, slash-and-burn destruction of rainforests, and the onset of global warming...
And you know that because the population of the Earth is increasing, it's only going to get worse. This can't go on; something has to change.
What if you could change it? What if you could design your own Judgment Day?

What if there were another end rather than one based on childish interpretations of religion, bias, bigotry, exclusion, and cultural narrowness?
What if Judgment Day came for the whole world and offered true justice?
It would be THE OTHER END."

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My Thoughts:

There isn't a lot for me to add to this. The synopsis above says it all. I will say, this book was published in 2007 and its subject matter continues to be relevant today. Maybe even more so and more urgent. And it sort of made me wish that this End Time could just happen. Get rid of the scum that has crawled out of the woodwork. Let me choose the world I want to live in.

There is even a small mention of Trump. Okay, so it's about one of his buildings but the fact Trump's name was even in this story was a very bad sign. From God. The real one. A forewarning of our hateful, out-of-control world.

Well written. Interesting take on End Times.

And while the cover fits the story, it's not wildly exciting. But I'm familiar with Gail Cross's work and she always does a good job so the artwork fits.
 
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