Review – The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

I was very excited about reading The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane for my Halloween reading fest this year. From the premise, this novel seemed to have all of the ingredients for a great Halloween read…a story based upon the Salem witch trials and present day Salem, Massachusetts…a graduate student researching the history of an undiscovered Salem witch…sounds promising, doesn’t it? All in all, I found the novel disappointing. While the writing wasn’t “bad”, it wasn’t great either. Given the subject matter, the writing was far from being engaging or bewitching. I was expecting a Gothic thriller more along the lines of The Historian. An engaging novel chock-full of history, horror, and suspense. Overall, there was no real magic. No real suspense. The characters were generally flat, the protagonist increasingly dense and obtuse, and the storyline predictable within the first hundred pages. And I truly wanted to love this book but could barely bring myself to finish it.

‘Tis now the very witching time of night…

(picture by HeroinForMyHeroine)

“It was a fine morning, bright and dry, though with a distinct feeling of impending autumn in the air. The street was unusually quiet, but for the dying chimes of a nearby church clock and the rustle of a few newly fallen leaves drifting along the pavement and gathering beside me in a little twirling heap. ”
Michael Cox – The Meaning of the Night

Ah, September.  I can feel Fall just around the corner.

I love Fall. Fall is the turning of leaves, that brisk, crisp feeling in the air – you can smell it. Fall is legend and lore, magical and bewitching. Fall is pumpkins, pumpkin spice latte, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, candy corn pumpkins, the Great Pumpkin, and the Pumpkin King. Fall is Jack-o’-lanterns, corn stalks, ravens, and black cats. Witches, mummies, Draculas, and Frankensteins. Elves, fairies, piskies, trolls, and goblins. Fall is hot apple cider and funnel cake. Fall is bouquets of sharpened pencils and You’ve Got Mail. Fall is the prelude to the holiday season.

“…they told of dripping stone walls in uninhabited castles and of ivy-clad monastery ruins by moonlight, dank charnel houses and overgrown graveyards, of howlings and shriekings, groanings and scuttlings and the clanking of chains, of hooded monks and headless horseman, vampires and bloodhounds, bats and rats and spiders, of men found at dawn and women turned white-haired and raving lunatic, and of vanished corpses and curses upon heirs.”
Susan Hill – The Woman in Black

And with September begins my traditional two month Halloween reading fest. I first began this tradition in 2004 and I eagerly anticipate it all year long. Have I mentioned how much I love Halloween and Fall?

Here are this year’s Halloween reading picks to choose from (in no particular order and subject to change). So many choices and so little time…

1. Isis – Douglas Clegg
   
2. The Gates – John Connolly
3. The Man In the Picture – Susan Hill
4. Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman  (reread)
5. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane – Kathrine Howe
   
6. Salem’s Lot – Stephen King
7. The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye – Robert Kirkman  (graphic novel)
8. The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova  (reread)
9. Hell House – Richard Matheson
10. Her Fearful Symmetry – Audrey Niffenegger
11. The Stress of Her Regard – Tim Powers
12. Dracula – Bram Stoker  (reread)
13. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde  (graphic novel)
    
14. House of Mystery Vol. 1: Room and Boredom – Bill Willingham & Matthew Sturges  (graphic novel)
    
15. House of Mystery Vol. 2: Love Stories For Dead People – Bill Willingham & Matthew Sturges  (graphic novel)
    
16. The Angel’s Game – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

And what Halloween would be complete without a reading of Sleepy Hollow and Dracula’s Guest? I hope to fit in several short story readings – my favorites as well as a couple short story collections.

1. Nocturnes – John Connolly
   
2. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet – Richard Matheson

Review – Deepgate Codex by Alan Campbell

“The Church of Ulcis rose unchallenged from the heart of Deepgate, black as a rip in the blood-red sky…”

For nine hundred generations, the city of Deepgate has hung suspended by giant chains over a seemingly bottomless abyss. In the unfathomable darkness below is said to reside the dread god Ulcis, ‘hoarder of souls’, with his army of ghosts. Outside the city extend the barren wastes of Deadsands, inhabited by the enemy Heshette, so that safe access is guaranteed only by a fleet of airships. At the hub of the city itself rises the Temple, in one of whose many crumbling spires resides a youthful angel, Dill, the last of his line. Descendant of heroic battle-archons, yet barely able to wield the great sword he has inherited from his forebears, he lives a sheltered existence under the watchful eye of Presbyter Sypes, who rules the Temple. For despite his sense of purposelessness, Dill has a destiny about to unfold – one that will take him down into terrifying depths of the pit in a desperate quest to save the teeming but precarious city from total annihilation at the hands of a cunning and resourceful traitor.

“…stained glass blazed in its walls. Rooks wheeled around its spires and pinnacles. Gargoyles crowded dizzy perches among flying buttresses, balconies, and crenellated crowns. Legions of the stone-winged beasts stared out beyond the city, facing towards the Deadsands: sneering, grinning, furious. ”
Alan Campbell – Scar Night

Alan Cambell’s Deepgate Codex is a dark, grimy, Gothic fantasy with elements of dark humor and horror. This thrilling saga is consistently anything but predictable or mundane. It is a madcap tumble through bizarre, lunatic landscapes. Just when you think you know what is coming, guess again!

Scar Night drew me in with descriptions of a city suspended by chains – all crumbling walls and leering gargoyles. The stunning imagery quickly brings the city and characters to life. The story was gripping, with brilliantly developed characters, great concepts, and a spectacular cliffhanger ending. Each character is likable in their own way, and, if not likable, then certainly intriguing.

Iron Angel expands on the original world, through an array of new and fascinating characters and the vast, surreal landscape of Hell. Campbell’s vision of Hell is detailed and stunning. Hell is a labyrinth of walls dripping blood; feeding off of, and consuming, the souls of the dead. It is ever-changing and never what it appears; filled with demons and horrors unimaginable. Yet, in all the nightmarish darkness, there is much more humor in this story and in God of Clocks. One standout scene is of a doorway chasing a certain someone around the labyrinth of hell. Remembering this scene always brings a smile to my face.

God of Clocks picks up where Iron Angel left off and sets off at a madcap pace into what should have been a brilliant conclusion to an incredible trilogy. The ending, unfortunately, felt very rushed. It was building to this amazing climax and then it was…over. It just ended. More questions were left unanswered than answered. Plus a whole new set of questions came up! I truly hope that Alan Campbell is not through with these characters and this world.

Despite the disappointing, befuddling ending, Alan Campbell’s Deepgate Codex is still a strange and brilliant trilogy. I’ve left so much out of my review for fear of saying too much. Read it!

I highly recommend this trilogy for fans of Scott Lynch, Patrick Rothfuss and George R.R. Martin. Like Martin and Lynch, Campbell is not afraid to kill off main characters… although they do not always stay dead…

“Hidden among the temple spires, an ivy-strewn tower broke free from a nest of rooftops. Its once arched crown had crumbled, but gargoyles still squatted between the remaining fingers of stone; beasts with lion feet, wings and tusks. Lichen scarred their soft scowls, moss furred their wings, and tiny white flowers sprouted from cracks between their toes, but the gargoyles kept their endless watch undaunted.”
Alan Campbell – Scar Night

I would love to see this trilogy adapted into a movie(s) under the direction of Tim Burton or Guillermo del Toro. The vivid imagery throughout is very cinematic and would be perfect animated in the style of 9. I picture Carnival played by Helena Bonham Carter; Ricky votes for Tilda Swinton. John Anchor should definitely be played by Michael Clarke Duncan, and Ray Stevenson would be perfect for Mr. Nettle.

Review – Once by James Herbert

Once by James Herbert was more than a little disappointing. Yes, I had read other reviews first and they were all pretty consistent about this book… sucking. Yet I still hoped for more. The synopsis sounded great and I really liked James Herbert’s Haunted. And from the synopsis, I was hoping for something more like John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things or Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. Faery with some horror elements. My expectations were set way too high.

Horror master James Herbert serves up a blend of faerie, supernatural chills, eroticism, and identity quest in Once…–a fairy tale with a darker side.

Thom Kindred suffers a stroke and returns to his childhood home to heal. Castle Bracken seems like a pastoral paradise, but almost immediately, Thom begins to experience strange things, both beautiful and frightening. Soon, he finds himself the inexplicable target of hostile magic, even as he begins to recover his childhood ability to perceive the creatures of faerie that inhabit the land. As he struggles to heal, Thom finds himself at the center of a cataclysmic struggle between good and evil that demands all his physical and spiritual strength to survive.

Herbert’s fans may find this story, with its bare-bones plot and extended descriptions of the faerie world, slower-moving and more predictable than his more energetic works Others and The Fog). Explicit sex and scenes of Herbert’s trademark disturbing horror (including every arachnophobe’s nightmare) make this a fairy tale strictly for adults.

The story initially drew me in and had me quickly turning the pages, but it wasn’t long before the descriptions of Faery became tedious rather than magical. The horror was gross rather than creepy. But I think what irritated me the most and put me off was the unnecessary sex that did absolutely nothing to further the plot. 300 pages in and I no longer cared about any of the characters; who lived or who died.

So, if you are looking for some great dark fantasy and adult fairy tales, skip this one and read instead John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter, or any of the fairy tale collections edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.  Just to name a few…

First Look: Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat, ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland

Here is a link to the first promotional photos for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The concept art is absolutely gorgeous! I can’t wait to see this adaptation.

First look: What a weird ‘Wonderland’ Burton’s made by Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY

You might have gone down the rabbit hole before. But never with a guide quite as attuned to the fantastic as Tim Burton.

Those who have grown curiouser and curiouser about what the offbeat reinventor of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory might conjure up in his version of Alice in Wonderland can feast their eyes on this array of concept art and publicity images, due to hang in movie theaters this week to promote the March 5, 2010, release.

“It has been Burton-ized” is how producer Richard Zanuck describes the director’s vision of the Lewis Carroll classic. Many elements are familiar, from the enigmatic Caterpillar (Alan Rickman) to the fierce Jabberwock (Christopher Lee). But none has been presented in this sort of visually surreal fashion.

“We finished shooting in December after only 40 days,” Zanuck says. Now the live action is being merged with CG animation and motion-capture creatures, and then transferred into 3-D.

The traditional tale has been freshened with a blast of girl power, courtesy of writer Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast). Alice, 17, attends a party at a Victorian estate only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types. Off she runs, following a white rabbit into a hole and ending up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before yet doesn’t remember.

Among those who welcome her back is the Mad Hatter, a part tailor-made for Johnny Depp as he collaborates with Burton for the seventh time. “This character is off his rocker,” Zanuck says.

Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska, 19, best known for HBO’s In Treatment, has the coveted title role. “There is something real, honest and sincere about her,” Zanuck says. “She’s not a typical Hollywood starlet.”

There is the usual Burton-esque ghoulishness (Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen, whose favorite retort is “Off with their heads,” has a moat filled with bobbing noggins), but Zanuck assures most kids can handle it. “The book itself is pretty dark,” he notes. “This is for little people and people who read it when they were little 50 years ago.”

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is scheduled to hit theaters on March 5th 2010. Let’s hope that it doesn’t get pushed back like so many other movies of late!