From Publishers Weekly
Like "The Narrative of Dr. Shackle and Mr. Lye," an invented tale of horror described in one of this book's 13 stories, the contents of Schow's latest collection (after Zombie Jam) seesaw between "elbow-jabbing one-liners and almost clinically detached slaughter and corpse disposal." Most unfold events that are grim and ghastly, but never so bad that Schow can't tease a thread of graveyard humor out of their horrors. In "The Absolute Last of the Ultra-Spooky, Super-Scary Hallowe'en Horror Nights," marauding gangs crash an amusement park's Halloween theme night and get their comeuppance when real monsters pop up among the actors and props. "Expanding Your Capabilities Using Frame/Shiftâ„¢ Mode" mixes chills and chuckles in its portrait of a voyeuristic video-hound undone by a DVD remote with supernatural circuitry. The darkly funny "Obsequy" suggests that having lived a dead-end life is good preparation for returning from the grave as a zombie. In all, this is a solid and imaginatively varied outing from one of horror's most dependable writers. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Lucky 13! Schow's thirteenth book, containing 13 stories, shows him, among other things, matching and exceeding nearly every other horror hand at bringing sex into the act. Previous weddings of sex and horror have tilted into sadomasochism and other paraphilias with results more stomach-turning (and often sexist) than anything else. Schow introduces quite ordinary sex to advance plot and tone, not for wallowing's sake. Just as in normal life, sex mostly flutters at the edges of things without becoming explicit, as in "Size Nothing," in which a woman's attempt to erotically surprise her cooling longtime lover backfires; the blowback is the horror, the sex what gooses the suspense. In "The Absolute Last of the Ultra-Spooky, Super-Scary Hallowe'en Horror Nights," casual teen boffing elicits sleazy chuckles and then bloody hell--just like in the movies, but much more craftily. Aside from using sex well, Schow freights his work with world--weariness and graveyard humor that stops just this side of true tastelessness. "Obsequy," "What Happened to Margaret" (both of which have their share of sex), and especially "Scoop vs. Leadman" risk going over the top and down the drain but finally just knock your socks off. This is flat-out exhilarating reading, the kind that Robert Bloch, whom Schow admires, never wrote enough of. On the basis of these stories, if the pulps were still around, Schow would be their king. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
