Horror List Book Review: The Drive-In

I'm reading through three lists of best horror with two friends (DeAnna Knippling and M.B. Partlow), posting reviews as we go. (For more information, including a list of the books, see this post.)

This week I'm review The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale.

When you scroll down, you'll see that Joe R. Lansdale's The Bottoms is one of my top ten so far in this reading challenge. However, I wasn't overly fond of The Drive-In. I went in prepared to love it, as I love his voice. It just didn't do it for me.

From what I can tell, the primary reason I didn't enjoy it all that much was the fact that I didn't care about the characters. It didn't matter to me. The narrator lost me because he goes into shock and zones out during a portion of the story, and everyone goes off their rockers. In fact, the friend that takes care of the narrator during his shock is the closest I come to caring about anyone. He's a good guy, keeps his head, controls the situation where he can, and lets things go if he can't control them. So I guess I cared about one character.

The Drive-In is about a bunch of people stranded at the drive-in after a freaky comet with a face leaves behind a black substance that surrounds the drive-in like some kind of foam filling agent and burns through anyone that tries to go through it. Chaos ensues, anarchy reigns, and things get crazy.

Super crazy. The Popcorn King is the pinnacle of crazy.

At first, I thought this was going to be a Lord of the Flies-style examination, wherein we observe society breaking down when they realize they only have so much food and they're trapped in this dark world for who knows how long. Perhaps that's why what actually happened didn't appeal to me. I like a bizarro, freaky horror piece as much as the next person (okay, probably more), but I wasn't prepared for it in this case. Perhaps this would have been easily solved had I read the description of the story, but since I've agreed to read this entire list and review it, I usually go in without having read what the story is about. Sometimes this works in my favor. Sometimes it doesn't.

Instead of a gradual breakdown, we speed-surf through the initial breakdown and then we screech to a halt and watch the already crazy antics take place. There are supernatural elements. Aspects of this vaguely reminded me of Stephen King's writing, but they didn't quite fit.

My top ten remains the same.

My Top Ten:

1. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

2. The Girl Next Door (Jack Ketchum)

3. The Bottoms (Joe R. Lansdale)

4. Coraline (Neil Gaiman)

5. The Bridge (John Skipp and Craig Spector)

6. A Choir of Ill Children (Tom Piccirilli)

7. Needful Things (Stephen King)

8. 1Q84 (Haruki Murakami)

9. Those Who Hunt the Night (Barbara Hambly)

10. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)

My next book will be either Bubba Ho-Tep, by Joe R. Lansdale, or Ghost Road Blues, by Johnathon Maberry.

Have you read this? How about the rest of the series? Are you a Lansdale fan? What did you think of this one? 

May you find your Muse.

Horror List Book Review: The Ignored

I'm reading through three lists of best horror with two friends (DeAnna Knippling and M.B. Partlow), posting reviews as we go. (For more information, including a list of the books, see this post.)

This week, I'm reviewing The Ignored, by Bentley Little.

This one gave me a lot of mixed feelings.

I found the idea intriguing, but at times it dragged and felt like the main character was whining endlessly about his own insecurities. And I felt the premise pushed the boundaries too much for me to get behind. Yet I found myself returning to the story each day and having trouble putting the book down, because I wanted to see where Little took it.

The Ignored is about a Bob Jones, a regular schmo. Overlooked by those around us, the only attention he gets is from a boss that seems to have it out for him. He never gets a word in edgewise. No one at work invites him out or talks to him. His job is dull and takes no skill.

His doubts about himself at work extend to his home life, and he starts questioning his significant other's interest in him. Ultimately, he falls in with a crowd of his fellow Ignored, leading to terrorism in an attempt to become visible to society.

Oddly, this story brought to mind the book American Psycho, but combined with Office Space. Instead of discussing the numbness of society and its reliance on consumerism, it addressed feeling lost in life and trying to stand out, plus the generic middle of the road variety of consumerism, where what's readily available is what is pleasing or at least neutral to the average person. Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) disappears behind his grandstanding and brand knowledge (and everyone else's dire self-involvement), despite his violent and narcissistic tendencies, whereas Bob Jones just disappears, because he's every-man. He's nothing. He's forgettable. Given, it turns out there are other reasons for how average Bob Jones is and why he's Ignored, but in general he's representing the average guy, lost in a dead end job, invisible to his peers. 

I was unprepared for the fantastical elements that came into play later in this book, so they threw me. Don't let the premise fool you--there is violence and there are weird things that happen. So, while it may sound fairly mundane, it isn't.

The book makes an impact for sure. I imagine I'll keep waffling on how I feel about it for a long time to come. There's no doubt it's skillfully written, though.

My top ten remains the same.

My Top Ten:

1. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

2. The Girl Next Door (Jack Ketchum)

3. The Bottoms (Joe R. Lansdale)

4. Coraline (Neil Gaiman)

5. The Bridge (John Skipp and Craig Spector)

6. A Choir of Ill Children (Tom Piccirilli)

7. Needful Things (Stephen King)

8. 1Q84 (Haruki Murakami)

9. Those Who Hunt the Night (Barbara Hambly)

10. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)

My next review will be of Joe R. Lansdale's The Drive-In.

Now for some links. Bear in mind I'm not endorsing them, merely passing them along. Always do your own due diligence before submitting.

Accepting Submissions:

Subprimal is seeking poetry and flash fiction. Pays $20. Deadline June 15.

Independent Legions Publishing is holding a horror novella contest. The winner gets published with a $600 advance. 45,000 to 50,000 words. Deadline June 15.

Lamplight is seeking literary dark fiction. Short stories and flash fiction. Up to 7000 words. Pays $.03/word. Deadline June 15.

Spider Magazine is seeking fiction, poetry, activities, etc. appropriate for ages 6-9 with the theme of Monsters. 300 to 1000 words. Pays up to $.25/word. Deadline June 15.

Have you ever read The Ignored? How about other works by Bentley Little? Do you ever feel ignored/invisible? Are any of these links of interest? Anything to share?

May you find your Muse.

Eat Your Heart Out: Romance in Horror

I figure since it's the day after Valentine's, it's as good a time as any to discuss romance in horror. Horror is one of the few genres where romance isn't necessary, but that doesn't mean it's never involved. In fact, I realized that comedic horror tales seem to have a higher rate of romance in them than other types of horror. Hm.

Romance is used in different ways throughout horror. For instance, if we go to the slashers first, romance is often the cause of their downfall, spreading the message that premarital sex is bad...mkay? Of course, I'm stretching the definition of romance here, when it's really usually lust. Still, lust is plenty appropriate for the day after V-Day, too, right?

Premarital sex getting a person killed can't be mentioned without bringing up Scream. The final girl is always the virgin...until Scream flipped that on its head. Eventually. Watching anything with Jason, Michael, or Freddy means knowing who will die next. The moment they crawl into bed (or the back of a car, or a sleeping bag, or whatever else), it's go time. WAIT FOR MARRIAGE, KIDS!

Forbidden love isn't uncommon, likely because much of horror reflects real life, amplifying common issues as a coping mechanism and a way to ratchet up the tension. For instance, Candyman is based on a black man seeking revenge after being brutally murdered because he fell in love with a white woman. And what about Let the Right One In? A vampire's feelings for a human boy underlie the story line, even as brutality occurs. A lot of people can identify with falling for the wrong person.

But what about loving a monster? Dracula, Frankenstein, Cat People, and The Fly all involve a Beauty and the Beast sort of premise. In one, a vampire, another a shapeshifter, and in two of them, science experiments gone wrong. Valentine is along these same lives, but he's a psycho, plain and simple, not an actual physical monster. Be careful who you love. You know who else was a psycho? An American Psycho? Patrick Bateman. But he was charming, and he had nice business cards and groovy music choices.

In comedic horror films, the love story may be a major part of it - Shaun of the Dead, Warm Bodies - and the basis for their mission, or it may just be an underlying character development tool or cause for humor, such as in Tremors, Lake Placid, and Eight-Legged Freaks. It creates an impetus for the main character to rescue the damsel in distress, in many cases. At the very least, it gives the character more conflict, and adds tension to the story. Shaun must find his way across the city to rescue his girlfriend and get her to safety, giving him a reason to leave his house. Conflict = amped.

Love gone wrong is all over Hellraiser in disturbing ways. Need I say more? (By the way, Candyman is also based on a Clive Barker story.) And in Teeth, a young girl being taken advantage of repeatedly, thinking she's maybe with the right guy, discovers the error of her ways. In turn, the boys who wrong her discover the error of THEIR ways, often fatally. Speaking of which, in Jennifer's Body there's a similar story line, only there are no teeth in weird places. Just the normal ones.

And if you consider Anne Rice to be a horror writer (I don't, but she's usually classified that way), romance is oozing out of the pages of her books. Was she the first one to hearken back to Dracula with the attractive and seductive vampire? Probably not, but she sure brought that trope back to the forefront in her vampire novels. And, again, it's more lust in her tales than love or romance, but not always. Wasn't Louie always conflicted about love?

Finally, there are collections of stories combining love and horror. I Shudder at Your Touch and Love in Vein are the two that come to mind. And I've seen calls for horror erotica, though I've yet to read one.

The Stand exhibits the power of love for some of the characters. In fact, it's a strong component on the good side. There's romantic love, but also the love born of friendship and hard times. Their bonds keep them strong in the face of the bad side. If anything, the love and romance shown in this book are the most real of any of the ones I've mentioned above. A story with heart. A perfect read for Valentine's Day.

What's your favorite horror romance? Can you think of one I didn't mention here? Why do you think romance plays a part in some horror stories? Would you like to see it more or less?

May you find your Muse.

Heart by OCAL, clker.com