...the Soul of Wit - Short Reviews

Enjoy the latest short reviews!

Le locataire chimérique / The Tenant by Roland Topor

Roland Topor's existentialist, panic inducing psychological thriller The Tenant / Le locataire chimérique revolves around unassuming everyman Trelkovsky, who unexpectedly finds a good Parisian apartment to rent, and accepts the lease even though the former tenant has thrown herself out of the window – unsettling, but the things we big city people won't do for a nice apartment... What Trelkovsky accepts and does in order to keep the place gradually weighs on him and affects his mental health, until he cracks under the collective societal pressure and a full-blown identity crisis.

The building of suspense ad the fine humor in this book is sublime to say the least. Trekolvsky's initially slight and gradually more intense metamorphosis leads to a quite tragic and devastating ending, making this a fascinating read.

Cold by Drew Hayden Taylor

I just wanted to listen in on this audiobook a little bit while doing some work around the house with no strings attached, and even though I currently have difficulties concentrating on stories, it caught my attention immediately and kept it.

The story starts off with a plane crash in the northern parts of Canada which has a rather mysterious outcome and the only survivor, journalist Fabiola Halan, goes on to write a book about surviving in freezing wilderness with a broken leg and go on a book tour. Meanwhile university professor Elmore Trent successively loses the two most important women in his life and Paul North, one of the “elder” (he’s just 35) player at the Indigenous Hockey League, tries to keep up with his game and life in general. Their paths will cross in rather unexpected ways.

Leaning on an indigenous myth, I really liked the surprising supernatural turn this story took. I also enjoyed the outcome, the lesson of the story, greed generating more greed, and most of all the energy between the characters. Nice one.

WereCage by Ian Fortey

The idea that Nic Cage was spreading like a virus should have been the greatest absurdity in the world.

There's an outrageous danger lurking the streets and parks at night – Nicolas Cage. He attacks unassuming people and whoever is attacked but survives, turns into Nic Cage the next night. The transformation includes looking like Cage, doing adventurous stuff like breaking into museums and stealing dinosaur bones, sometimes injuring and killing people and all the while talking in Nic Cage movie quotes. If the attacks continue, the whole world is going to turn into Nic Cage in less than … only three years. This needs to be nipped in the bud.

Stanley, who is recently attacked, is determined to find the Alpha Cage and kill him in order to all WereCages return to normal. Who he finds at the end of the chain, is not very surprising, honestly.

Critical infrastructure. Low income housing. Wind farms and solar panels. An end to crime. It's an army of powerful Nic Cages, Stanley. Try to think outside the box.

As a fan, I absolutely loved the references to An American Werewolf in London and the whole book was just a very fun read with lots of hilarious details. I'm not feeling very good at the moment, and even though this book didn't succeed in picking me up completely, it certainly helped put a smile on my face.

Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror, ed. by Jacob Steven Mohr

Everyone and their mother knows I'm a big fan of the assorted horror anthologies of Crystal Lake Publishing. My usual enthusiasm gives way to a cautious esteem in the case of Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror, which I enjoyed reading, but didn't adore as I do any other CL anthology. Two stories especially stood out for me;

Next of Kin by Sandra Henriques
Famous author Madeleine Jones passes to her estranged daughters she hasn't seen in years an unsettling inheritance – her diary. What's written in there saddened even me, and scared me.

The Behavioral Patterns of the Displaced Siberian Sirene by Amanda M. Blake
Mind blowing!
This scientific document issued for the Miskatonic University reports the death of a research team who fell prey to the titular Siberian Sirenes. Who knew deafness and loud music can save literal lives? The sirenes were described so biologically matter-of-factly it gave me the chills.

Still recommended for fans of found footage horror!

My Vice is Your Unfathomable Agony by Otis Bateman

[...] but one of the biggest flaws in the human psyche is the notion of clinging to hope even when there isn’t any.

A DVD/VCR player delivery goes wrong and the truck driver ends up dead. What the thieves didn't know is that he was the son in law of the town's head mobster and he isn't happy at all. Only the worst revenge will do and its name is... Hardware Tony.

Tony displays a new level of extreme mafia violence with various hardware equipments he keeps in his garage. There are no rules at all here - even women and children aren't spared and they are all killed in wild and nauseating, yet creative ways.

A torture fest for hardware fans. I've read this with the lovely Gore Whores.