The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough

Title: The Language of Dying
Author: Sarah Pinborough
Genre: Magical Realism
Publisher: PS Publishing
Pages: 88
ISBN: 9781906301828

        In short: Brillant!
        In long: One of the great things of being a reader is to watch a writer you admire grow with each publication. Usually, with books coming out between biannually and semiannually, the change is subtle. But every so often, a writer finds a story, or needs to write a story, that goes beyond the subtle. It is a story that take the writer to a new place in their craft, which every story after it will be affected by it. The Language of Dying is Pinborough's landmark tale.
        You may come across this review in a myriad of ways, but I'm sure a number of you are looking at the genre line and doing a double take. Magical Realism? Yes, it is the closest I could come to a genre with out giving Ms. Pinborough her own. I say that because at the heart of the story, it is a clean, eloquent fiction piece told through the eyes of of a middle child who is taking care of her father dying of lung cancer. But, and this is a very significant but, to each reader it can be a different kind of tale.
        For those that have had to deal with the lose of a love own to any kind or wasting illness, be it cancer or something else, it is tale of affirmation that the complex emotions you feel through the whole process of watching a love die. Pinborough's honesty and realism in the emotions of not only the Point of View character, but her four siblings as well are the driving force of the story. It reminded me of when I read the last chapter of Ulysses and how I thought the stream of consciousness writing lent a more honesty to the character of Molly Bloom. I was wrong, Pinborough proved that it was just great writing and great talent that creates that kind of honesty in a story.
        For those unacquainted with death, it can be an almost Borgesian horror tale. Pinborough's style has matured in this novella. And I say matured for a specific reason, and it is not to be condescending or patronizing. As I writer I have seen the growth of my own writing over the years. But for many writers, it takes a long time to get out of the process of learning, adding, and refining your style though a multitude of tales and only in later half of your writing career to find not just the voice of your writing but the voice of where all your stories come from, the voice of your Muse. Pinborough has achieved, at the very least, the first stage of writing her Muse's voice. A part of that voice is always going to be a little bit frightening in her tales. Like all that start in horror, she sees the darkness not as purely evil, but a universal constant.
        For those that have a desire for freedom for the lives they are in and have lived for so many years, it is a tale where dreams and fantasies can come true. That endings, while not emblazoned with "Happily ever after," can still be happy endings where dreams do come true. Some dreams just take longer to be realized because one must live through nightmares first.
        Three very distinct tales, all be told at the same time. It is real. It is wise. And, it is magical to read and experience. How much closer to magical realism can you get.

The Jigsaw Man by Gord Rollo

Title: The Jigsaw Man
Author: Gord Rollo
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Leisure Books
Pages: 289
ISBN: 0843960124

        Anyone who was able to take a ganger or learn bits about my novel will understand that when I saw the title of the book, I freaked out. It was also why I took a long time in getting around to read it. Nothing like shattered hopes and dreams to give a writer pause about his own book. Luckily, I finally have read it. 1.) while elements are similar, both books are completely different; but second, and most important, I learned a lot that will help me with my on book that I didn't know before.
        The Jigsaw Man is not only a great addition to the monster story collection within horror literature, it also does something that I wish there was more exploration of within the monster story. Namely, looking at the monster as a protagonist. While it is not the main purpose of the novel, it is a glimmer of something I always found lacking. In horror, there are many types of monsters. But much of the time, they are used for a scary antagonist. Sure those are fun stories, and some truly great stories are writing in that form. But I'm surprised no one want to learn the monsters side of things. Does he except what he is? Has he always been a monster? Is there a part of him that agonizes over the way he has to exist? Now there is an interesting story!
        Rollo does just that and it is a strong addition horror literature because of it. In a way, it harkens to the origins of the monster: monstrum. In Latin it mean "omen," and the Jigsaw man is an omen. Created by a sadistic doctor, the monster of the Jigsaw Man is an omen of two things. The first being the perversion and deification that the medical profession bump up against. There are stories that run through out time of insane and sadistic practices by those who said they did in in the pursuit of knowledge and the betterment of mankind. This story is no different. There is a strange allure to finding out the unknown, especially when it comes to extending out mortality or fixing conditions that are deemed irreparable. But it that ethical choice of knowledge or humanity that is something that we can all struggle with, just as Mary Shelley noted in Frankenstein.
        The second, though, is what such a creation would be like. In Frankenstein, Shelly delves into the mind of Frankenstein's creation, but never from his PoV. It is is that way that Rollo pushes the envelope of the monster tale by making the main character, a normal man at the start (albeit having lost everything in his life, but still a man) into the monster and what that process does to the human mind and spirit. For that reason, this is a book that all aspiring horror writers should be made to read and established ones will hopefully pick up before the pen the next monster story so that they can keep pushing that boundaries.

The Taken by Sarah Pinborough

Title: The Taken
Author: Sarah Pinborough
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Leisure Books
Pages: 323
ISBN: 0843958960

        This review is going to be completely different than every other view I've done and possible will do after this one. I struggled with trying to figure out how to write it. Why? Because for me to talk about the writing of the book as as both a reader and a writer, it would mean I would have to get incredibly personal. Now, I have no qualms talking about myself in a conversation with a person who asks intimate questions about who I am. But there is difference in my mind when a person posts those same personal details on an impersonal web page for any passerby to read. It makes it seem needy and attention seeking. And that's not what I want this review to be about, because this book is an amazing accomplishment by a brilliant writer and it deserves all the attention. But if I don't talk about those personal aspects of myself, no words I write will do justice to the work or the writer. So, when you read this, please remember that I'm talking about the book and it just happens that my history adds a layer of Technicolor in my experience that I can't separate. Remember that this is a conversation between you and I, not myself and the whole of the internet.
        When you read The Taken, I would be willing to bet many seasoned horror literature fans could see this as simply a interesting take of the classic ghost story. And on the surface, they are right. Pinborough takes the convention and makes it her own. A trait as important to any writer of any genre as the ability to craft ordinary words in new and exotic ways. But there is so much more to that. In this book, she reveals to us why, of the horror stories that can be written, only "ghost story" is ever paired with "classic."
        Horror is a genre of fear. While you may be quick to quote Lovecraft and is "greatest fear" line from "Call of Cthulhu," I ask you to wait. Yes, the unknown is greatest fear, but that isn't the point. The point is, "what is the greatest unknown?"
        Death.
        In a way, that is why zombies and vampires will never have "classic" pegged next to them. They are undead; they have a get out of jail free from that great unknown. And that is why they will be so popular. We live in a world that doesn't want to look at death anymore. And that is a shame because at some point we all end. Horror, as a genre, can talk about all kinds of fear, but what most people have forgotten is that all fears stem for the fact that we fear death because we know nothing of the moment after we draw that last breath.
        That is where Sarah Pinborough and The Taken are in a class from so much of what constitute horror literature today, if not in a class of it's own.
        The main character of the novel, Alex, is a woman dying of ovarian cancer with only six months left to live. I have read many books and watched many movies with other characters with terminal illnesses and, to be honest, none them were as real as Alex. So many of them are either used as inspirational symbols of the power of the human spirit or give this "fatal flaw" to add a realism to the character. But as Pinborough so astutely weaves through the plot, themes, and symbolism through out the book, it is not just one or the other, but something in between.
        I know that feeling all too well. I was born with a genetic disease called Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency. Not only born with it, but born with the worst possible gene pairing of the disease. Back in 1982, when I was born, no doctor Knew of the disease. The few years of my life was only life in the base definition of the word. And for any other child at that time with severity of the case of the disease, I should have died by the time I was two. And most doctor's thought I was in fact going to die at that age for, at that time, unknown reasons. But somehow, I didn't. And for the next eleven years, I was blissfully unaware of that fact. It wasn't until I was thirteen and a doctor ran a blood test to that showed I had this disease that I was let in to that in between world. I can remember when I walked through that door into it. When that same doctor said, "You should be dead," but was really saying "You can't be alive, yet you are." Since then, every day I have live the fact that I never know when my time will be up. That every day I wake up is one more day of borrowed time. Life changes when you know that you may not many tomorrows left, but that there are enough that you have to live with a wasting condition. People like to say they live as if there is no tomorrow. And that is good for them, but I bet if you quizzed them enough, they would admit to knowing they still have a tomorrow. But tell some one they have forty, a hundred fifty, a thousand tomorrows, and see if they can be as carefree. I doubt it. I think they will become just as Alex is, just as I am. Everyday is a fight with the realization that there is one less tomorrow.
        It is funny existence, one I still struggle with. And that is where the true brilliance of The Taken resides. In every moment that Alex exists on the page, Pinborough describes the existence just as it feels to live it. All that Alex feels and believes are the same ones I have grown into living in that existence. As Pinborough wrote, "Unmeant to be." And it is that visceral and emotional truth few understand that not only drives Alex through the plot, but also is essential to story itself. Because this in not just any ghost story. What Pinborough does is use the ghost story to tell a secondary story: the creation of the ghost story.
        As I said before, the ghost story will be called "classic" because it it makes us face that ultimate fear of death. The Taken takes us on Alex's journey towards death and on that journey, Pinborough shows doesn't just make use face death and the afterlife, but experience it without having to die ourselves. In Alex, she recreates the first ghost of the horror genre, and possibly of humanity. With The Taken, she records the first ghost story for every generation after her to read and experience. Sarah Pinborough accomplishes the goal of every writer of the horror genre: Make us face our greatest fear and help us learn not to be afraid.
        At the end of the story, Alex is able to help children who have been lost in the "in between" world of not alive or not dead find their eternal peace, to no be afraid to die. As a person who knows his time is shorter than everyone he knows, by everything from years to days, that is a fear that no matter how much you fight against, you never defeat. It no matter how much you beat it back, there is always a small molecule of it left, waiting to propagate and attack you when you least expect it. I have always envied those that can believe in a religion so much that death, while still a fearful time, has a joyous purpose in the end. But now I sort of understand it now, because The Taken, and to an extent Sarah Pinborough herself, have become Alex at the end of the book for me. I know that someone understands what I live with and this story has taken some of that fear away for me and for once I can say the words that Alex says in the middle of the story, "I'm alive. Here and now, I'm alive and that's all that matters."
        For that I will be eternally grateful I read this book and to Sarah Pinborough for writing it.
        This book is an exmplar of horror. Read it. Live in the story. Learn what horror truly is because you won't find many examples as pure as this.

First Chapter Fail Club: Kiss of Fire by Deborah Cooke

Title: Kiss of Fire
Author: Deborah Cooke
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Signet
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9780451223272

        As I have already had two books within a year that I have stopped after the first chapter, I decided to start a new section of reviews for just those books, The First Chapter Fail Club. Kiss of Fire is the inaugural book for this new section of my blog. Though, I have been questioning my decision on this. Not that I now think it wasn't that bad, more that I never even got to Chapter 1 because I had to stop during the Prologue. Is that a deeper circle of the literary hell?
        Kiss of Fire is a great example of what not to do in a Prologue and when a Prologue may not even be needed. The First problem was that there were too many characters introduced and done so poorly. Numerous times a new name was added but never go beyond that and we don't hear or see from that person again. Especially for the setup of the book, this is damaging for the story. It doesn't let the reader focus on one character. It's the extreme opposite of an info dump, an info vortex where instead of being down, the reader's attention a attachment is being suck away.
        Another problem was that the descriptions made almost no sense what so ever. Fantasy isn't a excuse to be lazy or realistic. The appearance of the setting and characters were so awkward that I couldn't even imagine any of it. For the first time in my life, my over active imagination shut down while I was awake.
        Lastly, it didn't give me anything that even remotely seemed important to know at that point in the book. If that Prologue was cut and slowly revealed in the book itself, it would have such a bigger impact on me as a reader. After reading it, I almost felt as if there was no point in continuing the book.
        By the by, don't the the were-dragon idea get you too excited. They are just out right dragons. I don't know if it was missed in the research of the book, but dragons are known to take human form. When I saw were-dragons on the back of the book, I thought we would see interesting lizard men. Nope, just big ol' dragons, being dragons.
        

SHU WPF Spotlight Series: AltDeath.com by Lynne Hansen & Sally Bosco

Title: AltDeath.com
Author: Lynne Hansen and Sally Bosco
Genre: Young Adult, Horror
Publisher: Hard Shell Word Factory
Pages: 144
ISBN: 0759945721

      I'm really glad I read this book after I read Twilight. I just wish that Stephenie Meyer read it before she wrote Twilight. While I am not sure if it came out before the hugh teen vampire crazy that is slowly seeping into movies and tv, I know I picked this up before I heard about it. It was then lost in my selves of books for a few years until I finally did a clean out a few months back. I'm not a big YA reader, I guess cause I never read much YA when I was around the age range for these books. Usually it was either comics, Star Wars, or some "grown up" spec fic. But I test the waters now and then, especially when I want a quick read.
      AltDeath.com was a quick read, but not because of a lack of anything, but because it did have that page turner quality that, honestly, I have yet to find in any YA. While the setup chapter felt more like the outline of the initial murder and the action at the climax felt a l little to fast for me to keep everything straight, I was never bored with he book and I never felt at a loss of information. If anything it was more like action packed movie sequences that, over repeated watchings, you catch things you missed the first time around. The information was dolled out at an excellent pace that kept me guessing on what was going on. Sometimes I was write, but more importantly, I was wrong equally, if not more so. And this is the guy that can figure out every most mystery books as soon as the last character is introduced.
      Speaking of the characters, while I thought that, with an ensemble cast as large as this one, I wanted to know more about each of them to better understand their motives and actions through the story, I never felt that they were cardboard cut out or cliche characters. I was worried when I first started reading the book, because the almost did seem like stereotypes, but as AltDeath.com went on, Hansen and Bosco created moments and situations that let the inner personalities of the characters to bloom and dominate over the stereotypes.
       What I enjoyed and appreciated the most was the use of a monster, specifically a vampire, in the story. It is used as a monster should, whether as an antagonist, protagonist, or supporting character. They used it as and over all metaphor for the story. You start to wonder, because of the great POV detail of the characters, if this is going to be another "sexy vampire" story with more of a malicious intent than you see these days in books. But as the goes on and you find out that its not just any vampire, but a energy vampire, you see what the role the monster plays in not just the characters lives, but every aspect of storytelling.
       If you want a good horror YA book, pick up this book.