Beelzebub's library

Novel: Sci-fi, Apocalyptic fiction.  The first review I posted here was for Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson and I suggest you check it out, as it pertains to the subject of telepathy, a major theme in this week's book, The Chrysalids .         The book takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, one which is heavily implied to be the result of an atomic war. Civilization has collapsed and reformed under a new order. The civilization in North America is ruled by a government, but that government must conform to a number of religious rulings, the majority of which regard mutations. The new world order prescribes the destruction and incarceration of all mutations since evolution doesn’t exist, everything was made perfect in the beginning by god. Of course, since there’s a whole lot of radiation hanging around like a bad guest at a dinner party, mutations aren’t exactly few and far between.         Our protagonist is one of these mutati...

Subtly Let’s talk about subtly. As an artist, you can view your job as three different things: 1) It’s your job to create something off an idea, and let the world interpret it, 2) It’s your job to form an idea and present that idea in a compelling enough way to bring joy to others/yourself, 3) It’s your job to create something which will have a clear cut message, which the piece of art might present from multiple perspectives. One could argue that “making something which people will throw money at” is the fourth point of view, but I don’t call those people artists.  I call them manufacturers.  As a writer, your medium tends to leave less up to interpretation. It does, however, give an ample opportunity to present issues from different perspectives and reveal the moral gray area in which most acts in this world fall. This is why it is important to incorporate subtly into your work. This is for a number of reasons really, and if you make it through the reasons...

Novel: Supernatural, Horror, Mystery. Contains violence and disturbing imagery.  This review contains minor spoilers.  I finished this book a while ago, I have just been so busy with my practice writing that I haven’t gotten around to this review. The book is about a secret government operation called Southern Reach who has been sending teams of researchers into a closed off stretch of Florida designated as Area X. It is one-third a mystery, one-third a cosmic horror story, and one-third a mind-blown-makes-no-sense-but-is-cool-anyway type story. The narrator is one of the researchers, who becomes more and more unreliable as the situation degrades.  This helps the atmosphere a lot. First things first, I should mention that I have actually met the author of the Southern Reach trilogy, Jeff VanderMeer. I took several presentations in which he taught about writing. So with that out of the way, if I’m not particularly hard on him at certain points, it...

Novel: Sci-fi, horror. Contains: Violence and disturbing imagery. “The Martians understood doors!” – H. G. Wells That quote is no doubt the most comedic (and I have no doubt unintentionally so) sentence in the book, War of the Worlds, which ends on a rather grim note. Not that a story about aliens invading and causing  destruction can’t end on a grim note , I would be disappointed any other way. But the books beginning isn’t nearly as interesting (or grim) as its end. Of course, you don’t want a book to end as it starts, otherwise the reader will feel that they, the author, and all the characters involved have simply walked around in circles a bit.  But you want some sense of cohesion, and the beginning feels a little bit too “Oh, what wonderful astronomy!” for the rest of the book, which goes into themes of war, madness, starvation, and desperation. Those themes are dived just deep enough to keep the story on track, but Wells can surprise you with the sudden brut...

Novel: Nonfiction THE CHARACTERIZATION. WAS. INCREDIBLE. I jest of course, as this book contains no characters and really isn’t like any books I have previously reviewed. This will make it difficult to review it, as in the end, the purchase really just depends on whether you would buy and read a book SIMPLY to know some interesting facts and get a slightly skewed perspective. Levitt says at the end, that he knows the book won’t make a big difference. It might make you treat a few people in certain jobs differently, it might make you distrust common knowledge more often. But other than that, I can scarcely say that the book will leave an emotional impact on you. It’s not necessarily boring so much as…not engaging. Let me start from the beginning. The book was written by Steven Levitt, an economist, and Stephen Dubner, a writer. Levitt is apparently something of a wild card in the economist biz, as he comes to conclusions which disturb many, and enjoys looking in...

Monsters Throughout history, we have had monsters. First, they were demons and spirits that came in the dark and plagued you with nightmares and brought bad luck to your harvest. Those spirits turned into gods, which people worshiped because they did not understand and considered extremely powerful. With each spreading culture, monsters popped up. Why? Because they are an expression of fear. Fear for the future. Fear of the past. Fear of death, Fear of pain, and one of the most relevant in this day and age, the fear of losing one’s individuality. We will always have these fears, even if we create a paradise, anxiety will remain a consistent reminder of our own humanity. We are mere bodies, easily destroyed by a number of unavoidable circumstances. We face fear every day. As long as we have fear we will need monsters. To assign what fear to what monster would be rather pointless as each person sees something different. For a monster is a piece of art. The majority of monste...

Novel: Sci-Fi.  This review contains spoilers.  Our story starts off innocently enough, with an optimistic man named Joseph Swartz in the late forties strolling down a Chicago street. His fate is quite a tragic one, as moments later he steps over a doll and gets sent tens of thousands of years into the future. Interestingly enough, the book doesn’t really dwell on the fact that he loses his wife and three children in this manner. Later on, he laments over it, but it can’t have been mentioned more than one or twice. After much deliberation, he begins to understand this new world. As it turns out, a great catastrophe since his day has not only caused Earth to become infertile but also for earthlings to be treated as lesser humans.  The Galactic Empire treats earthlings as less-than-humans and they don’t allow them to leave the planet Ior ship goods and products of the planet) because they believe that everyone born of earth carries toxic radiation....

Novel: Dystopia fiction, Political. Contains violence, adult situations, and disturbing imagery.  This review contains spoilers.  Down with Big Brother. I hardly know where to begin. 1984 is as emotionally crushing as it is sickeningly honest, and it is as crushing as an out of control freight train. The beginning was a bit of slog for me, but the middle picked up my interest, and the story being spoiled for me, the ending still took me by surprise. The story quickly robs you of all faith in a happy ending, it starts out cold hearted and grimy and ends in protruding contrast. Which isn’t to say that it ends happily, as the book says, happiness what everyone wants, and they are willing to sacrifice freedom for it. The book revolves around the character Winston Smith who lives in Oceania, a country which stretches from England to the bottom of South America. The book starts in the year 1984 of this alternate universe, in which the world is divided into three supe...

Novel: Horror, Comedy. Contains adult situations, violence, and disturbing imagery. This review contains spoilers.  When I was young, I lived in a small town in South Carolina. There was a library there, it was dusty and cramped, and had a weird smell. And when I and my siblings visited it, we didn’t really read that much. We preferred to play the games on the computers there. But one day, when I must have been eleven or twelve I entered the back room, the “adult” fiction, and I found a treasure trove of Stephen King books. I had already known about him, I don’t quite remember how I had first heard of him, but I had a very definitive idea of what he looked like. In my mind’s eye, he looked like a nonexistent author from a Scooby-doo cartoon, with slick black hair, thick glasses with a thick neck. As it turned out, he was a scrawny fellow with gray hair and a thin face. But I had been quite enthusiastic about writing, and my love of horror was blossoming at the time. So...