books | Cavalcade of Awesome

Archive for the books Category

AWESOME-tober-fest 2016: Jason X movie novelization by Pat Cadigan

Posted in books, Friday the 13th, Genres, horror, Jason Vorhees, movies, nostalgia, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2016, Book Report, books, Friday the 13th, Halloween, holiday, Jason Voorhees, monsters, Movie Novelizations, movies, reviews on October 27, 2016 by Paxton

Back when I did Movie Maniacs in 2012, I reviewed several 80s horror movie novelizations. They are pretty rare out there in the wild, so it was a treat to be able to cover several of them. If you’re curious, check out my reviews of Nightmares on Elm Street (Parts 1-3), Friday the 13th Part III and Friday the 13th Part VI.

While I’m a fan of both Freddy and Jason franchises, I probably gravitate towards Jason as my favorite overall. And being a fan of Friday the 13th, I’m telling you that Jason X is a very polarizing entry in the franchise. Many people hate it. I’m not one of them. I see some potential in this movie. It goes mostly unfulfilled, but there’s potential there.

Anyway, in 2005, about 5 years after the movie was released, during the media blitz for Freddy vs Jason, Black Flame books got the license to print Friday the 13th novels. They would do two series, one of them being in the original timeline and another series in the Jason X timeline. There would eventually be about five books in the Jason X series and it started off with a novelization of the movie by Pat Cadigan.

jasonxnovel

Picking up this book I should tell you it’s hefty for a slasher movie novelization. The general rule for movie books is about 1 page per 1 minute of action. So a 90 minute movie would generally be about a 90 page book if it was a straight translation. Give or take some flourishes by the author. Well, this book is over 400 pages long. Jason X the movie is 92 minutes long. So there may be one or two flourishes by the author.

I have lots of hopes for this extra 300+ pages of content. I want the futuristic world fleshed out. They barely mention what the future world is like aside from “the Earth has become uninhabitable”. And who are the members of the crew that find Jason? Are they scientists? Explorers? Archeologists? What? It’s not really explained in the movie. And lastly, I’m hoping I get more action and murder with Uber Jason.

vlcsnap-00324

So, I’ve read the book, did it meet any of my expectations? Was it any good? The easy answer is yes, it was good. If not great. As a fan of the movie, I also enjoyed the book. Unfortunately, the page count is due to the author fleshing out existing scenes with more exposition and not creating brand new scenes or subplots not in the movie. Well, the main character, Rowan, is given a definite romantic interest with Brodski who has a larger part in the book. But, it ultimately goes nowhere because he meets the same fate in the book as he does in the movie.

So what new stuff is there? Well, the author does add some very interesting content in the form of character backstories and many ruminations on the nature of Jason Voorhees. We also get a good description of what the universe is like 4.5 centuries in the future which we don’t get in the movie.

vlcsnap-00309

Per the book, after Rowan and Jason were frozen together, the Army did go to the facility to help, but found the entire complex on lockdown and decided to leave it alone as they finally had Jason contained and the world was starting to have bigger issues like food riots and global warming. Things got so bad martial law was declared. One hundred years after Jason is frozen the Earth starts to burn starting at the equator. Surviving humanity escape to biospheres in orbit and we eventually contact alien life and trade them for the blueprints to a “hyper drive”. Rowan and Jason were left on Earth, cryogenically frozen and forgotten for the next 3 centuries. And I guess the power grid stayed “hot” for that long as well since the system stayed on lockdown and frozen for that long. Eventually, using the alien “hyper drives”, humans settled on an Earth II. Earth I would be studied in colleges as history and one college, New Harvard, would send field trips back to the original Earth led by Professor Lowe who is considered the foremost authority on Earth I. It is one of these field trips, populated by the Professor, a team of military escorts and a group of students that discover the frozen and forgotten Jason and Rowan.

So the group that discovers Jason is just a class field trip? I did not pick up on that. Anyway, the other new things Cadigan adds includes lots of insight into the nature of Jason. We learn that Jason’s existence is elemental. He’s not evil per se, but anti-life. An anti-life elemental. Living things had many purposes but the basic one is life itself. By contrast anti-life had one purpose. Cancel out life. KILL. We also get a kind of explanation to why bawdy teenagers set Jason off. Life stimulates survival instinct in many ways, one of which is sex. Sex makes humans feel more alive and it helps create more life. This is what Jason, as an entity of anti-life, is drawn to. This is why Jason’s urge to kill becomes more apparent when these things are happening. I like how this book is trying to explain some of the nature of Jason’s existence. It doesn’t go too far, it goes just far enough. I like it. Cadigan also describes Jason’s senses and how he hunts his victims. He has a “life radar”. He can sense the life around him. Once someone gets on his “radar” he can track them. Again, I like these types of explanations.

Another thing I like about this book is it deals with Jason being captured and studied scientifically. It makes sense the government of course wants to figure out how Jason does what he does. And it makes sense the government would want to weaponize those talents. This movie sort of touches on those ideas. We see Jason being tested in the beginning but we also see lots of cell testing on the space ship Grendel after he’s been taken out of cryo-freeze. I don’t want the government to figure anything out, I want them to think they have everything under control, see results of their “tests”, get confused and then Jason “unexpectedly” comes alive and ruins all their plans by killing everybody. That’s what I want. And we get that here.

So, yes, the book delivers as a solid adaptation of the movie itself. It fills in some holes and adds some interesting back story to many of the characters. If I have to say anything against it, it does feel a bit long. Four hundred pages is a lot for a slasher novel and it kind of feels long. But I was rarely bored.

Like I said, this novelization was the beginning of a series of novels based in the Jason X universe. The novels sound interesting, but all of them are around 400 pages which is a little too long for a Jason Voorhees novel. However, Pat Cadigan did followup the Jason X novelization with the next book in the series, Jason X: The Experiment.

jason-x-2

The gist of the plot involves the government using skin grafts from Jason to create a super soldier who then goes rogue. It sounds kind of cool having Uber Jason vs a super soldier. It seems the other four books in the series also deal with the government’s attempts to weaponize the unnatural abilities of Jason Voorhees. I liked this novelization enough that I would consider reading Cadigan’s followup book.

Unfortunately, this book series is pretty hard to find. Actually, all of the Friday the 13th books are pretty hard to find. I got lucky when I found this particular book on PaperbackSwap.com several years ago. I’ve only ever seen one other book in the series in the wild. It was the third book, Jason X: Planet of the Beast by Nancy Kilpatrick. I found it in an old used bookstore in Auburn, AL back in early 2010. But I’m always on the lookout and hopefully someday I’ll find that second Pat Cadigan Jason X book.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

1 Comment »

AWESOME-tober-fest 2016: The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice (1989)

Posted in books, Halloween, holiday, horror, monsters, mummy with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2016, Halloween, holiday, monsters, mummy on October 17, 2016 by Paxton

Anne Rice is known for her vampire books, but she’s written a slew of other supernatural books featuring other things like witches, werewolves and, more relevant to today’s article, a mummy.

The Mummy - Anne Rice4

Per Anne Rice’s bibliography, I was aware of the Vampire Chronicles as well as a few of her other erotic tales that she’d written. I had read Interview with the Vampire and tried to read The Vampire Lestat back in college but gave up after twenty pages or so. I hadn’t been aware of this mummy book until I started researching for AWESOME-tober-fest.

The premise is thusly; an archaeologist discovers a long lost tomb, presumably to Ramses the Great. He opens it up and begins cataloging everything and notices several weird details like lots of Roman and Greek influences as well as Latin inscribed on the tomb itself. However, before he can finish translating the tomb’s scrolls, the archaeologist is killed, seemingly by a curse on the tomb. And when the mummy and artifacts are brought to London to be displayed in the archaeologist’s home, strange things begin happening, not the least of which is that the mummy itself has risen from its sarcophagus.

That’s a quick, elevator pitch to what’s going on. I’ll say this, I liked the plot of the book. It was interesting. The titular character was interesting as well. In fact, Ramses himself seemed like a variation of Rice’s vampires. He’s immortal, he has a “thirst”, not for blood, but for satiating his physical senses with things like eating, smoking, drinking and sex. However, instead of existing only at night, Ramses is fueled by the sun. He’s like a “sun vampire”, if you will.

Anyway, like I said, I enjoyed the book’s overall plot but the page to page events were too exposition-y with a bit too much of the Harlequin melodrama. I don’t need to be hammered over the head with how evil cousin Henry is. Or how “in on it” Uncle Randolph is. I don’t need to hear how much the daughter is falling for the bad boy Ramses despite her feeble attempts to ignore her yearnings. You got a good plot, let it run, Anne, don’t bog it down. There are too many characters with too many less interesting stakes in what goes on and it bogs down what could be a nicely paced action yarn.

The action does pick up a bit in the last third, but honestly, by then, I was prepared to tap out. I didn’t really care for any of these characters and I was only mildly interested in the conclusion to the story.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2016: Lot 249 (1892) – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Posted in books, Classic literature, monsters, mummy with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2016, Book Report, books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, reviews, The Mummy on October 10, 2016 by Paxton

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story, Lot 249, was originally presented in a collection of medical stories called Round the Red Lamp.

Round-the-red-lamp

Published in 1892, this collection of short stories created a scandal when first released. Doyle’s fans were expecting more Sherlock Holmes-type detective and crime stories but this collection featured mostly harrowing medical stories about disease and amputation.

The story I read is called Lot 249 and is about an Oxford college student whose downstairs neighbor may or may not have reanimated an ancient Egyptian mummy through some type of dark magic. This story was written during a late 19th-Century fascination with Egyptology and was the very first to use a reanimated mummy as the antagonist and would influence horror stories for years afterward.

It’s a short, quick read. It reminded me a lot of Lovecraft’s Herbert West story in style, which wouldn’t be published for another thirty years. Lot 249 is mostly three characters interacting over the course of a few days. We get the details of the events through dialogue after the fact. We don’t really see any of the mummy attacks. We actually don’t really even get to see the mummy walking around. There are a few quick glimpses in the coffin, but that’s about it. And surprisingly enough, the story is wrapped up completely with no “will the mummy actually come alive again” type cliffhanger ending. You could almost argue that there’s no definitive proof that the mummy did in fact come alive and start killing people. Like I said, a lot of the eyewitness testimony is coincidental and hearsay. Doyle leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks however he wants.

It’s an interesting story to read from the perspective of that this will influence the “creeping mummy” horror genre for so many years to come. I’m glad I included it here, even if it isn’t the most exciting story I’ve ever read. I’m a fan of Doyle and was glad to be able to include him in this year’s AWESOME-tober-fest.

In 1990, Lot 249 would be adapted as one of the chapters in the Tales from the Darkside: The Movie. The adaptation in that movie would be written by Michael McDowell who also wrote the movie Beetlejuice and the movie novelization for Clue: The Movie. It would star a very young Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore and Christian Slater.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2016: The Mummy: Dark Resurrection (2007)

Posted in books, Genres, horror, monsters, movies, mummy, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2016, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, The Mummy, Universal Studios on October 5, 2016 by Paxton

Back in 2006-2007, Universal Studios commissioned a series of novels that would update their classic monsters in a series of more adult horror tales that also worked as sequels to the classic movies. I discussed one of these books back in 2010 for my werewolf AWESOME-tober-fest (The Wolf Man: Hunter’s Moon by Michael Jan Friedman). Today, I’ll talk about another one, The Mummy: Dark Resurrection by Michael Paine.

The Mummy -Dark Resurrection

While I didn’t like The Wolf Man novel, I thought it had potential, so I picked up this Mummy book hoping it would do a little more with the subject. Did it? Let’s see.

First of all, it’s really tough to place the book in the mummy movie timeline. I assume it is a sequel to the very first movie from 1932 with Boris Karloff as Karloff’s character, Ardath Bey, is the main antagonist. But no other characters from any of the Mummy movies either show up or are even mentioned in any way. Plus, many of the characters that do appear in this book are given a backstory that sound similar to people in the original mummy franchise which just confuses the entire issue.

The book’s protagonist is Josh Brandt, a rich guy from a rich family who funds an archaeological dig that is trying to find the tomb of Ankh-es-en-Amun, the betrothed of Imhotep. It is revealed that Brandt’s father and grandfather both funded digs for the exact same tomb and both men were lost and presumed dead while at the dig site. When the current dig seemingly discovers the tomb’s entrance, strange things start happening to the Brandt family and a mysterious stranger, Ardath Bey, seems to be at the center of it all.

Like I said, Brandt’s father and grandfather’s disappearance is a big part of the back story. And the way it’s written, it feels like those two men’s stories would have been told previously, like in a mummy movie. But there are no Brandts in any of the previous movies, which confuses me. Plus there’s no mention of any previous dealings with Ardath Bey by characters in the book. I guess this story is just continuing many years later with no other links to the movies except Ardath Bey.

The book is written competently, but antagonist Ardath Bey isn’t utilized enough. Josh, his crazy family and the supernatural events that happen to that family’s members are the focus of the book with Ardath Bey showing up once or twice menacingly and then again at the end to wrap things up.

Honestly, it was kind of a struggle to finish the book. Part of my problem could be that I’m not a huge fan of “the mummy” as a monster since it’s so similar to zombies (which we know I don’t like). Also, for a “mummy book”, there’s a surprising lack of mummies in it. Bey seems to possess the power to make recently dead bodies come to life and kill, which he does throughout the book, but those are zombies, not mummies. Ancient Egyptian mummies are practically non-existent in this story.

Put all of that together and I can’t say I really recommend this book unless you are already a fan of mummies.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

2 Comments »

AWESOME-tober-fest 2016: The Ring of Thoth (1890) – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Posted in books, Classic literature, Halloween, holiday, monsters, mummy with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2016, Book Report, books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, reviews, The Mummy on October 3, 2016 by Paxton

Here we are! Day 1 of AWESOME-tober-fest! Welcome to my daily celebration of all things spooky. As you can tell, my theme this month is “mummies”! So I’ll be looking at books, comics, movies and TV shows that feature mummies. It should be a lot of fun. Today, we’ll start with a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In 1890, Cornhill Magazine published a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle short story called The Ring of Thoth.

thoth056337

While this story has a mummy in it, it isn’t technically a “mummy story” like you’d expect. However, it has elements in the story that will clearly influence mummy movies in the many years to come afterwards.

The story is about an Egyptology student who falls asleep in The Louve and winds up locked in overnight and witnesses a bizarre sight. The overnight caretaker unwraps one of the mummies from the collection, embraces and kisses it, then rummages through some of the jewelry in the Egyptian collection clearly looking for something. The student is discovered in hiding and the strange looking caretaker reveals his story about living in ancient Egypt, discovering a long living chemical serum and losing the love of his life to a plague.

This story is short, obviously, and very concise with much of the backstory filled in by exposition from the museum’s overnight caretaker. However, the way the story is written you feel a sense of wonder at the caretaker’s tale as well as a sense of urgency at what he plans to do that very evening. These two things make the story breeze by. It’s also interesting and it keeps you reading along with its fantastical story ideas. Plus, as I mentioned, there are elements within the story that have clearly influenced many successor mummy movies but also the original Karloff Mummy movie.

First of all, the strange looking caretaker, Sosra, is described as being a very tanned and overly wrinkled person. Someone with much wisdom and experience in his eyes. From the description, I immediately got an image of Karloff in his Ardath Bey disguise from The Mummy. There’s even a scene in which Sosra threatens the protagonist with a knife, much like in the picture below.

vlcsnap-00100

Second, the trinket that Sosra is looking for is the title bearing The Ring of Thoth. Thoth is the God of Knowledge in ancient Egyptian culture. His name would be used in countless mummy movies, however, this story would be one of the first. Universal’s The Mummy used it as well in describing, not a ring, but a scroll.

vlcsnap-00089

Like I said, while this story doesn’t necessarily involve a reanimated mummy it does carry several things that would influence mummy stories and movies in the years to come. Including a story Doyle would write just two years later called Lot 249.

Overall, this is a really enjoyable, short read. The timeline is very compact and you feel like there is some urgency in the main characters. It keeps the action moving along despite that the majority of the story involves backstory exposition. This is definitely a recommend.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.