User Profile

I don’t read much horror, so of the 20 authors included in this book I had read none and only heard of a few. There are 16 well known authors and 4 that haven’t made it to the big time yet…I was unable to tell the difference, the quality of story telling was high from each author. The range of stories was varied, a well selected mix was picked by Morris, you have sci-fi, gothic, modern take on horror, post-apocalyptic and good old fashioned ghost stories. I got into some more than others, the others weren’t weak, it’s just with a collection like this you are always gonna have your favourites. Here are the ones I liked best.

Starting off at the end BRANCH LINE by Paul Finch, a proper good old fashioned ghost story with a scary lady in a wedding dress. The intensity builds up nicely to a cracking ending, not too many pages long and this story still had time for a nice plot twist at the end.

SWANSKIN by Alison Littlewood. A rather messed up folklore style tale, full of tragic scenes and plenty of beauty, loved it.

SAME TIME NEXT YEAR by Angela Slatter. Story told from the point of view of a ghost in a cemetery and the fun she gets up to once a year, not really scary (well it is for her victims haha) but fun to read.

IT DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT by Michael Marshall Smith. This was the pick of the bunch for me, in the style of Stephen King, taking something you wouldn’t consider to be a scary story and creating something mind boggling…Getting your kid ready for school….nothing scary there right????

All in all this is a fine introduction into 20 authors, each author has a bio at the end so if you want to see what else they have written then this book helps you with that. Highly recommended book.

Oh dear me this was awful. I only picked up this book because it is hugely popular, and the series has got rather large so I thought there must be something good here right?

Things got off to a bad start, a scene where a woman has cut herself and a drop of blood lands on her leg, all quite normal for a book, but for some reason it is described as looking like a firework going off...why do we need that extra-long description? This wasn't enough for Mosse, a bigger description was needed, she specifies the day that the "blood firework" goes off. I couldn't take this book seriously after that, I kept laughing at the many extra words used...cheese kept being described as white again and again and a young lady's hair was tumbling one second and then writhing like a snake the next. The whole thing felt like a school kid doing an English essay and trying to get the word count up so they could go out to play.

I could see there was potential for a plot, but the book was way too slow for me to spot anything of interest happening, into the bin with it.

This is a remarkable book, it has an interesting history, written as part of a series of books for young Japanese nationals, it shows them how to behave in the world, how to become a great human and how you should treat others. I found it really inspiring but at the same time it made me realise how world weary I have become, each time I go on social media there is always somebody showing their worst side and I just wanna sit them down and make them have a read of this book.

The book is centred around Copper a 15 year old school boy, we follow him as he makes friends, deals with bullies and cares for those who are considered outcasts. His Dad has recently died and his uncle has stepped up to be the father figure in Copper’s life, the uncle is the sort of person everybody needs guiding them at a young age, very wise and ethical, it is his diary entries that guide Copper through any tricky situation. As well as giving fatherly advice he teaches Copper about history, we learn about gravity, Napoleon and Buddhist statues and he has a fantastic voice the keeps the reader engrossed.

If I had read this as a child would I have found it interesting? I doubt it, it is the sort of book that needs to be read to you when young for you to fully appreciate it’s message, I reckon if my parents had read this to me I would be less of a troll as an adult

This book wasn't too shabby.

Some books grab your attention and you love them straight away and some you hate straight away, this book kicks the crap out of you and makes you want to respect it.

The language is course and women are treated....well like objects, I would be surprised if it had been banned because of that.

It did feel like it was written by two authors, one writing about what was currently happening, taking a recording of the events and the second author writes and the "heroes" dreams and what he is thinking. The latter is great, everything flows so well and as you read the tempo picks up and the voices in your head get louder and louder (maybe that is just me though)

The type of writing is very similar to Bukowski, all observational, but I prefer Bukowski out of the two, probably because he is gentler.

Blog review of my second reading of this book: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/03/17/tropic-of-cancer-by-henry-miller/

I am one of those annoying people who has done things the wrong way around, I watched and loved the series before I found out it was a graphic novel and because of that there is no way of reading this volume without comparing it to what I saw on the TV.

I didn’t enjoy the graphic novel much, it feels very disjointed, more a collection of adventures there is no smooth transition between the events and for some reason things don’t seem to be explained very well. The spiritual force known as Genesis has escaped and some heavenly beings…not quite angels…are trying to get it back, they talk to a cowboy and then that’s them done for this volume….this left me thinking what’s the point? The characters on the TV were miles better, Tulip is rubbish, Ruth Negga truly made the character her own.

Jesse feels very whiney, Cassidy though still rocks, I thought he was awesome in both book and TV, Ennis and his team have created a brilliant character here. The plot and scenes are violent and shocking and some of the subject matter will make a fare few people raise an eyebrow.

The graphics are top notch, it is amazing how old these books are now and they don’t look at all dated, some brilliant looking full page scenes and everything is laid out well so that it is easy to follow. Trying to decide if I’m going to continue on to volume 2 as I’m just going to keep comparing and picking at faults. If you are interested in this series then I highly recommend reading this before turning on the TV, I think the whole thing always works out better if you do these things in the right order.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/preacher-volume-1-by-garth-ennis/

I was a big fan of Gibson’s virtual light so thought I’d give the second book in the series a go and it was a huge disappointment. It is like a completely different person has written it, Gibson’s voice in virtual light was fantastic, a really gritty noir style whereas this feels like a cheap imitation. It’s tough to give this a low rating because the idea is there, social media has almost a life of it’s own, big companies are able to mine your data to find out what you plan to do and probably know more about you than you do, and a rock star has taken things a step further and plans to marry a being that only exists in virtual reality. Ya see, it does sound interesting and I’m impressed that Gibson came up with this in 1996 and it all feels pretty accurate.

So the concept is good, it’s just let down by the book. Laney is dull and I struggled to see what he brought to the story, a bit like Indiana Jones and that film where they open the melty-face-ark, the outcome wasn’t influenced by Laney and would be the same if he wasn’t there. Chai is a more interesting character but is very young and Gibson didn’t do much with her. Then we have my biggest issue, a human is marrying a virtual reality character, there could have been so much done with this, does she really exist, does she have the right to marry, does she has other rights, could they have kids virtual/real? It felt like a missed opportunity. Gibson does a good job again of predicting future technology and then he gets something wrong which makes me chuckle, still using faxes in the future.

An interesting idea for a story but it falls flat in the end, maybe it was written before it’s time or maybe it is just me being grumpy. I still recommend reading virtual light but would give this one a miss.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/02/01/idoru-by-william-gibson/

I have mixed feelings about this book, it has it’s good moments but there is a lot of weak writing and I can’t decide whether I liked it or not. The setting in the Swiss Alps was a fantastic idea, you can tell the author knows this landscape well, the descriptions are stunning and you could almost be there yourself. The plot itself is interesting enough to have kept me reading to the end, the idea behind the Sanatorium’s history was quite chilling.

The characters though are rubbish, nobody is developed enough to get you interested in them, Elin has a lot of baggage from an event in her past and it is dragged out for two thirds of the book, maybe if it was dealt with quicker she would have become the strong character that this book needed. The rest of the characters left you thinking they could be the killer and also not the killer at the same time, they were tough to get a read on, rather wishy-washy. A lot of the issues could be down to the very short chapters, the tension will start to build and then the chapter ends and you are left to start again, so many of the chapter breaks seemed unnecessary to me.

So it all came down to the ending would it be strong enough to make me want to recommend it to others…it wasn’t half bad, the reasoning behind the murders was very good, the final scene was very intense….and I have to admit I can’t remember if it was spread across loads of chapters or not, the flow was kept up well and I got caught up in the moment.

I think the book was ok in the end, it is a debut after all. There is a sequel, I’m hoping that Elin’s past has now been dealt with and that the readers can now get to see her in her element and start to solve some interesting cases. I think if you are a big reader of crime novels then you’ll like this one, I’m just a fussy old git.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/01/04/the-sanatorium-by-sarah-pearse/

In the words of Grace (Hungry Paul’s sister) “Well now, that was nice”. When I tweeted that I was about to start this book it got a huge amount of love from so many people, I was quite surprised…can it really be that good that people were jealous of me reading it for the first time? The book really is that special, I am now officially in the gang who will get jealous when somebody else gives this a go. A friend of mine saw the book and asked what it was about, I was at a loss for words to describe it, I settled on “It’s a really nice book about two lads who still live with their parents, these two lads are the wisest people you’ll ever meet” and then I said she should get her own copy and snatched my one back.

Leonard is the more outgoing of the two (only by a bit), recently his world has been turned upside down by events and he is struggling to cope with these changes. Hungry Paul is far quieter and so very wise, he offers some very sage advice and if he starts up a cult, I’ll be there signing up fer sure. There was something about Paul that felt familiar to me and it took the scene with the roses for me to realise what it was, he comes across as a un-obnoxious version of Ignatius J. Reilly from The Confederacy of Dunces, he has the same sort of sage advice to give and will stand up for what’s right. The rest of the characters were lovely, how they acted around Leonard and Paul was heart-warming. The story itself was well written and easy to follow, a sort of coming of age type book, throughout the whole book I had the feeling that things were gonna come undone for the duo and that Hession was gonna sucker-punch me, I guess the pandemic years have damaged me a bit for always expecting the worse.

This book is bloody fantastic, I laughed loads, I’ve learnt things, I’ve had my outlook on life altered and dammit! I also welled up a bit, the teeniest tiniest bit, was probably just raining on my face or something…anyways give this book a miss cos I’ll only get jealous!

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/12/26/leonard-and-hungry-paul-by-ronan-hession/

It’s one of those sad things in life that so few people have heard of Dervla Murphy, I went around mentioning her to people at work and not one person knew her name and when I explained her achievements a couple of people didn’t believe me. If you want to get an idea of what sort of person Murphy is then this is perfect book for you to read, the introduction describes how she got a bicycle and an atlas for her tenth birthday and it was there and then that she decided she was going to cycle all the way to India, this is a crazy idea for an adult let alone a 10 year old girl…this book is her bringing that dream to light.

In 1963 Murphy was 31 years old and her bike was called “Roz”, she comes across as planning the bare minimum and also taking with her the least amount of stuff she would need. During the trip she was to face her fears about strangers, face wolves and fight the elements (extreme cold, insane heat, sand storms and the Monsoon). I found it incredible what she was able to endure, the lack of food in the mountains, the lack of water in the desert, the lice/flies/fleas/bed bugs and the intense smell in some of the areas, this is most assuredly not an adventure for me. By far the most interesting thing to come out of this book is the trip would have been impossible without the generosity of the people she met on the way, anybody she met was willing to chat and feed her and put her up for the night with nothing wanted in return. She met some very interesting people, both rich and poor and the treatment was the same no matter their station.

The book is not really your standard travel book, Murphy wrote a journal and this book is that collection put together with no further elaboration, it did take me a while to into this style, most of Europe gets missed out with the focus being on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Each section has been written at the end of a long day’s ride and how much you get told all depends on how that day went, there is plenty about the scenery which from these pages sounded stunning, what is lacking is the people. She shares her overall opinion of the village but only really goes into detail about those she stayed with a few nights…I’m guessing this was mostly down to pretty much being a figure passing in the night as she had many early starts (another thing to put me off this trip…up at 4am to ride my bike, no thank you).

I think what Dervla Murphy achieved in this book was incredible, a woman on her own in these countries where you are only told the bad things that happen, it blows my mind what she did, I was constantly shaking my head at how well she handled each situation. She is one of my heroes no doubt about that.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/11/28/full-tilt-ireland-to-india-with-a-bicycle-by-dervla-murphy/

This is one of those books where it is hard to do a review that does justice, there is no way I can put together enough coherent words to show you just how powerful this book is….but I’m gonna do it anyways. As a person who has led a safe and sheltered life it really does blow my mind how some people are able to take so many hits in life, be witness to so much trauma and still be standing on their own two feet at the end of it. Kerri was born to a Protestant parent and the other parent was a Catholic, in the time and place she was born this was not a safe combination. Humanity’s ability to be so cruel always amazes me, neighbours can so easily turn on each other with (to me) no logical reason. Growing up in and around Derry, Kerri was witness to a huge amount of violence and hatred and once there was peace in Ireland, the world managed to find new ways to traumatise her.

I think Kerri has been very brave in writing this book, being at a stable time of her life this must have brought up so much darkness and pain and to then put it out there in the world where any Tom, Dick and Harry (all 3 are well known trolls) can read it and then potentially deal with abuse over it’s content shows you just how strong this Lady is. I can’t say I’ve “enjoyed” this book, I was mesmerised by it, the honesty almost sweeps you away and you forget this is someone’s memoirs. The writing is poetic, at times it even feels like a chant, I know that sounds weird but when Kerri stops for a moment and directly addresses the reader, a chant is exactly how it felt to me. My favourite part was the bits about nature, when Kerri is at her darkest moment, when her grip on life is at it’s weakest nature steps in and pulls her back from the edge, it is only fleeting but enough for Kerri to know she has been seen, it’s only at these times you realise you’ve been holding your breath for the last 5 pages. It was great to see that she still has so much for the island even though she has faced so much there.

This is a book everybody needs to have a read of, maybe it will give you some hope, Kerri has faced so much and is still here. I loved the little dedication to M in the acknowledgments, some fine words there.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/10/05/thin-places-by-kerri-ni-dochartaigh/

Oh dear this was a "did not finish" book for me, I have tried 3 times to read it, this time I made it half way before getting bored and giving up. It's a very bleak book, which I have no problem with, I think my problem is I was unable to connect with the characters and one thing kept bugging me, the detail, if you had gone through what McCourt did as a kid would you be able to remember every single little conversation? Even the times he chats with his mates you get the whole conversation, (a conversation that quit often leads nowhere and doesn't add to the flow of the book), surely that can't all be recalled? Too much embellishment for me.

I haven't seen the film, a lot of reviews on here have done the film before the book, maybe that might help you feel more towards the characters.

This might not be a 1 star book but this reader gets 1 star for his attempt.

When you think of the world today you always assume that we have discovered everything, each piece of land is owned and there aren’t any unknowns left for us to discover. What this book shows us is that those thoughts are wrong, whether it is a strip of land between buildings, floating pumice islands, no-mans land or an abandoned gun platform out in the sea, there are still many remarkable places for us to discover and explore.

I found the psychology of what a place means to us the most interesting part of this book, Bonnett would start talking about a type of place, strips of unused land between building in cities for example, I would instantly think you can’t include that in the list but each time he convinced me that it deserved to be included. Once you start using you imagination these sorts of places really come alive with potential, imagine what you could witness happening around you whilst the world moves on….hmmm starting to sound like a peeping tom now. My favourite weird place in the book was a sandy island that had always been included on maps but when somebody went looking for it there was nothing there, google maps did the only logical thing and did an awful photoshop jobbie of removing the island from existence, look it up, hilarious.

There was only one location included that I had heard of before, Sealand, an incredible story of a breakaway English nation living on an abandoned platform at see, the self proclaimed king stood his ground against English law and foreign invaders. Each time I read of Sealand in a book I always end going off on a google adventure reading up on the tiny nation.

I have to admit that I found this book rather frustrating, it is jammed packed with so many interesting and strange places but Bonnett seems to get bored quickly and rushes onto the next location, I would have loved some photos, or interviews of the locals, or just more info about the place to answer all the many questions I had, for a while I did spend time on google but gave up as I was spending more time looking at the screen and not at the book.

I did enjoy the book but it would have been far better with less places included and more time spent on those that did make the cut.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/07/03/off-the-map-by-alastair-bonnett/

A mesmerising read, the beautiful writing by Castro is sure to pull in any fan of folklore horror stories. Most people must have heard of Bloody Mary or The Candyman, the La Reina de Las Chicharras myth is similar, say her name into a mirror three times and you’ll see her, an event you’re sure to regret. I recently saw the TV series Penny Dreadful City of Angels and was really looking forward to seeing that Mexican/American Folklore come to life on the screen, in the end I was disappointed, a very flat story that was rather muddled…. The Queen of The Cicadas meets everything I wanted from that series. It is dark, devastating and sexy, the myth of La Reina de Las Chicharras was absorbing and I could hardly put down the book, I was always telling myself “one more page”.

The story follows Belinda and Hector in present day time experiencing a paranormal event, their research pulls them into the history of a farmworker, Milagros, who is brutally murdered in the 1950’s and a series of vengeance attacks on those responsible and on them that ignored the crime. I found myself siding with the Queen which is not something you usually expect when dealing with these Urban Legends, the punishment she deals out seemed perfectly reasonably to me. As the story progresses I really liked how Castro uses modern technology to enable the existence of the Queen to go viral, it made her feel more life like, one day there might even be videos of her on Twitter.

The writing is impeccable, the violence was graphic just enough to make the point, and the violence dealt to Milagros had me sitting there with my mouth open, even the scenes with sex were very tasteful, a lot of books can make you cringe with awkward sex but there is none of that here, each scene was beautiful. The book builds up your fear ready for big reveals, there lots of things happening out of the corner of eyes, which keeps you on the edge of your seat.

I have really enjoyed this, it has left me wondering why I don’t read more horror, I really need to get out there and look for more, V. Castro has moved onto my favourite authors list and I’ll be looking at what else she has.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/06/29/blog-tour-the-queen-of-the-cicadas-by-v-castro/

This is such an interesting and unique style of writing, a book where fiction and non-fiction merge, Erskine makes clever use of the two voices. A factory is being demolished and during the destruction a body is discovered surrounded by ten objects, each one is a clue to the identity of the corpse. There is one man who can help, a man who may be able to piece together the clues to figure out the identity, a man called John.

Each clue sends John down memory lane, it is intricately tied with a chemical and it is here where Erskine’s second voice kicks in, the history of the chemical, it’s discoverer and how the chemical is created…..and more importantly for readers like me, you get told all the morbid details about how destructive it is. The changes between John’s memory trips and the non-fiction is seamless and if you are worried that you might not understand the science, don’t worry as Erskine explains it all really well, her enthusiasm for this subject really grabs you. The relationship between John and the detective was interesting, the witty back and forth and the conversations over meals left me expecting more from them, it makes me wonder if maybe we’ll be seeing the detective again in another book as it feels like we’ve only just started to get to know her…which also makes me wonder will we meet John again???

The plot kept me interested throughout, I did guess the identity early on but the reveal was still moving and tied up things perfectly. I also liked how as the story headed towards it’s conclusion we witness the slow death of a factory, from the risky health and safety incidences to the stunning incompetence’s of the upper management all the way to the all too common final outcome for a factory. Another interesting aspect of the book, which adds another dimension to the plot, is a lot of events narrated by John are based on real life instances, the dodgy things the characters do are so easy to imagine happening.

This is the first book by Erskine I’ve read and it is a good’un, I’ll definitely be checking out more of her writing. I’ve tried to come up with another name of somebody who writes like this and I’ve drawn a blank, for me Erskin has a truly unique voice. Roight I’m off to the kitchen to see what I can create from this book using the kitchen aid.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/06/22/blog-tour-phosphate-rocks-a-death-in-ten-objects-by-fiona-erskine/