May 7

A Dangerous Climate by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

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*Reviewed for MonsterLibrarian.com
Tor, 2008

ISBN: 9780765319814

Available: New and Used

Yarbro’s cultured, enigmatic, vampire Saint Germain is back. This time he’s in Russia during the construction of St. Petersburg, as a spy in the Russian court, pretending to be a duke, a husband and a human. As Saint Germain tries to uncover the fate of the man he is impersonating, a man claiming to be Count Saint-Germain comes to town, threatening the real Germain and all of his entanglements.

Exquisitely detailed and smooth, A Dangerous Climate is a vivid, complex tale of political intrigue, led by a fascinating character who is almost harder to figure out than the full scope of Yarbro’s plot. Yarbro is the author to go to for historical fiction. She packs amazing detail into the world, so that readers open the book and feel as if they are there, in the middle of a completely different time and culture, enthralled through Germain’s voice and intriguing stories. Highly recommended for permanent personal and library collections.

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May 1

Vampires & Zombies: A Zombie Book by Rose Lee

Rose Lee is a precocious five year old who likes playing Monster Rancher almost as much as she likes her Mom. She thinks ghosts and vampires and zombies are scary, “but only a little bit”. Vampires & Zombies is her first sale. (Editor’s Note: Yes, in the spirit of publishing I paid her for it.)

* * *

A zombie came into the room, but he was a good zombie. Then a scary bad zombie came in.

“Jackass!” he said.

The scary zombie went over to AnneMarie and started poking her in the head with a pencil.

AnneMarie got poked in the head by a pencil and a bad zombie. She screamed.

The vampire was in his blood bath and heard her scream. He jumped out of the bath and went and rescued her.

He had a real sharp pencil and poked the bad zombie into the ear, and it came out the other ear and it hurt real bad. The bad scary zombie fell to the ground and was dead. And they covered him to the death.

AnneMarie was so glad that she said, “Thank you!”

He said, ” You’re welcome.”

AnneMarie gave the vampire a hug.

Then AnneMarie went over to the vampire’s house and they took a blood bath together. They blew lots of blood bubbles. A really big one popped over them and it was like raining blood.

The End

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April 30

Afraid by Jack Kilborn

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Paperback: 9780446535939, $6.99

Governmental experimentation on U.S. citizens is nothing new (in the fictional world). In Afraid, the debut from Jack Kilborn (alias of JA Konrath, author of the excellent “Jack” Daniels mystery series) the products of these experimentation, an elite, psychotic team tagged “Red-ops” have crash landed in the small U.S. town of safe haven. Worse than the thought of deranged, programed killers carrying out orders on a town of innocent people is the thought that they might not have landed on accident.
Compared to his other work, Afraid is just as brutal, but the tension is less over the top and nail biting and more of a complex reveal, not slow, but building on itself in levels until the full depth of the situation (and the plot) is realized. There is less humor involved, almost because there isn’t time for the characters to begin to adjust to facing their own, painful, deaths and get cynical.
Kilborn makes a solid showing in the horror/thriller genre with a tale that’s genuine and engaging enough to keep people reading, but neither over the top, or stodgy with attempts to build up the characters to make the audience sympathize with their plight.
Fans of David Morrell and Michael Crichton should take note, Kilborn is capable of holding his own against thriller veterans, delivering a solid, tension filled book that rates high on the readibility scale.
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April 26

Bestial by William D. Carl

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Trade Paperback: 9781934861042, $19.95

Bestial is a Permuted Press title which means zombie apocalypse–or not. Bestial begins with a bank robbery in Cincinnati which goes terribly wrong when the people on the street and a few of the people in the bank suddenly turn into horrible monsters.
Present is a disease outbreak that turns most of the city into flesh-craving, near-mindless dangers, and a plucky bunch of mismatched almost-heroes who must battle through the ruins of a city, maybe find a cure and (hopefully) find salvation in the military blockade set up to quarantine the city. But this nasty end-of-Ohio tale spawns ravenous bands of pseudo-werewolves, the results of man’s screwing around with nature.
Carl writes with both devotion to the end of the world outbreak tale and a mastery of it that allows for tongue-in-cheek word and character play with familiar (very familiar to citizens of Southern Ohio and Northeastern Kentucky) themes. There’s something that’s pure fun about watching an area you know fall to the zombie werewolf apocalypse, but even non residents can enjoy this one with some truly clever writing. Lines like: “Then there were the bodies. They were scattered, dotting the landscape like punctuation, commas of ruined flesh.” make Bestial a surprisingly well written romp through the Apocalypse.
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