Kindle Spotlight -- Another

Today we have a Japanese novel by Yukito Ayatsuji. It is Another.

The story takes place in Japan in 1998. Teenager Koichi Sakakibara has just transferred from Tokyo to the rural town of Yomiyama following a hospitalization. Everyone is friendly at first and the town seems very peaceful. But when he finally arrives at Yomiyama North Middle School, things take a strange turn. First, we are told a legend about a student named Misaki or Masaki (no one is quite sure) who died in the 1970s at this school. Ever since then, unexplained phenomena has been reported.

Anyway, Koichi meets his classmates and they seem to hit it off. However, he then encounters a mysterious girl in his class named Mei Misaki. She's antisocial, says cryptic things, comes and goes at seemingly random, and no one seems to notice her. They do, however, seem to take note of Koichi's attempts to befriend her and issue vague warnings. Koichi is understandably perplexed, but he can't get any answers from the students and faculty.

At first, this is just a confusing annoyance. But when people around him start to die horribly, it gets deadly serious and the people in his class become increasingly distant and terrified. At this point, the only one willing to answer his questions might be Mei Misaki. But the answers she gives won't necessarily make things easier for him, and eventually he will have a choice to make: stand up for Misaki and himself, or accept the status quo for the greater good.

This novel came out of nowhere for me, and I have to say...it's delightfully different. I thought we were just going to get a standard ghost story, but the explanation for the bizarre happenings in this story turned out to be far more cerebral than I could have imagined. It's complicated, but rewarding when you finally grasp what's going on. You think you have Koichi's class and faculty figured out, but then the big revelation comes and you realize you have to take another look at these people.

I should also point out that Ayatsuji wrote a sequel, so don't expect things to wrap up neatly at the end of this volume.

Bottom line: Another is intelligent and freaky.

https://www.amazon.com/Another-Vol-novel-Yukito-Ayatsuji-ebook/dp/B00AFZ5O5Q/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Kindle Spotlight -- Blood Street

Carl Alves recently sent me a copy of his vampire novel Blood Street to review. Without further ado, here we go.

The story takes place in present-day Philadelphia. Low-level mobster Pat "The Goat" Adesso is searching for his friend Johnny Gunns one day. Well, after several stops, he manages to track him down at Gunn's girlfriend's house. To his horror, though, he finds both of them brutally murdered and disemboweled. And to make matters worse, the killer is still there. The Goat finds himself face to face with a pale stranger with superhuman strength and speed. The Goat barely survives the encounter, and reports back to his superiors he's just seen a real life vampire.

The crime family patriarch, Enzo Salerno, dismisses his claims as fantasy. However, when more victims turn up, dispatched in the same sick fashion, the culprit's seemingly inhuman characteristics become hard to ignore. Enzo orders an hunt to find him.

Meanwhile, vampire patriarch Magnus knows the killer is one of his brood named Alexei. He's incensed at Alexei for killing with such reckless abandon and drawing attention to their kind, but Magnus' lover Gabriella is quite fond of him and doesn't want any infighting. Nevertheless, Magnus knows he can't let this continue and must take action before they are discovered.

Also investigating the killings is government agent Mark Andrews. Realizing he and Enzo have a common enemy, he reaches out to the mafioso for a temporary alliance. Enzo, determined to catch Alexei, reluctantly agrees. Together, both sides set out to bring the vampire to justice, but are they about to start a war they can't win?

Blood Street is at its best when it focuses on vampires. They're just about my favorite monster, and I always enjoy stories about them. When this novel focuses on mobsters, it comes across as bad mafia fan fiction. Many of the human characters seem--to me, at least--to be mobster stereotypes. There's a particularly unpleasant mafioso named Big Fat Paulie (Family Guy fans should recognize that name). Then again, I'm hardly an expert on the mob, so Alves' portrayal may be accurate, but it just doesn't seem like it.

But it's not just the mobsters I have trouble buying into. Gabriella is wildly inconsistent in her actions. The author includes a scene in which she punishes a wife-beater, adding she enjoys bringing scumbags to justice. Yet she continually ignores the murderers in her own family. I feel this scene is unnecessary and only confuses the plot.

Fortunately, as I said, the vampire parts (Gabriella notwithstanding) are quite good. I enjoyed seeing them fight the mob to see who was the lesser of two evils, and there are some good fight scenes and a satisfying conclusion.

All in all, Blood Street's a mixed bag. There are good and bad parts, though I think the good outweighs the bad.

 

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Street-Carl-Alves-ebook/dp/B00CSCST5Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1440299843&sr=1-1&keywords=Blood+Street

Revisiting the Classics -- Alien

Today we have the 1979 sci-fi/horror classic Alien. However, in a twist, I'm actually reviewing the novelization of the movie.

The story begins aboard the deep space freighter Nostromo which is transporting oil across the galaxy on behalf of the Company. Nope, it's not Weyland-Yutani yet; it's the Company. Anyway, one day (night?) the ship drops out of hyperspace and the central computer, Mother, wakes the seven-person crew (plus one cat) from cryo-sleep and announces it's picking up a distress signal from the mysterious planet below them. Legally they have to investigate and render assistance if possible. Although cranky from being woken up for this, they reluctantly take the Nostromo down to the mysterious planet, which they determine is somewhere near Zeta II Reticuli. Fun fact: There's another blog which has a page dedicated to pinning down its exact location (http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2010/06/planetoid-zeta-ii-reticuli.html). The captain (Dallas), the first officer (Kane) and the navigator (Lambert) march off across the freaky alien landscape in search of the source of the signal. It isn't long before they find it: An alien ship!

They explore inside it until they come to a long shaft extending down into either the rest of the ship or the planet. Kane opts to repel down it alone, and if you have any familiarity with this franchise you know what happens to him. He finds a fleshy urn. Only it's not an urn; it's an egg. Out pops what looks like a skeletal tarantula with a long tail, and it proceeds to melt through his helmet and give him an extraterrestrial french kiss. This quickly KOs him, and the other two have no choice but to carry him back to the Nostromo. Warrant officer Ripley refuses to let them back aboard for fear of whatever the hell that thing might do to the rest of them, but the enigmatic Ash opens the hatch anyway. Long story short: Kane loses his chest cavity, and it only gets worse from there.

I enjoy both the Alien and Predator franchises because they've given us terrifying and fascinating extraterrestrials, a combination that's missing in more family-friendly sci-fi such as Star Wars and Star Trek. These beasties can butcher you in so many different ways, yet they're so damn cool. Plus, it's fun watching the pitiful humans struggle to survive against the overwhelming odds the aliens bring to bear. The xenomorphs in particular are scary as hell. They're dark, slimy, fiercely intelligent and freakishly agile. Plus, they bleed acid and they have mouths within mouths!

That being said, I do feel as if Alan Dean Foster made some odd choices in the novelization of Alien. For one thing, he gives us almost no physical descriptions of the characters. "Dallas has a beard" is the only detail you get. Also, he frequently switches between characters without warning. For example, Ripley might be running down the hall when suddenly we go to Brett in the computer room. Most authors nowadays at least leave a few spaces between scenes, but with Foster every chapter is one scene. I'm guessing he only had the script to go by when he penned the novelization (which would explain the lack of physical descriptions), but I think he should at least have made an effort to differentiate between scenes.

Nevertheless, I quite enjoy this book, and have already ordered the novelization of Aliens (also by Foster).