Book Review: Brian Keene's Terminal

Logline: What would you do if you found out you had one month to live? This is the question Tommy O'Brien must answer before time runs out.

After reading Brian Keene's Castaways, I have quickly become a
big fan of his. With a combination of horror, suspense, action and
gore, Keene's books are either original or an original take on an
age-old theme. Terminal is no different.

Tommy O'Brien didn't have much in his life besides his wife, Michelle, and his son, T.J. Living in a trailer park in Hanover, Tommy, like his father, worked at the Foundry with his only friends, John and Sherm, producing patterned metal moldings for minimum wage. After being diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer and told he has one month to live, Tommy's meager existence is sent spiraling out of control. He cannot bring himself to tell Michelle of his diagnosis for fear of crushing her and, when his employer is downsized and he is laid off, decides not to reveal this either.

With unpaid bills piling up and a desire to ensure that Michelle and T.J. will be better taken care of after his cancer has ended his life, Tommy decides his only option is to rob a bank. Along with his dimwitted friend John and wreckless friend Sherm, Tommy sketches out the details of the robbery while trying to hide everything from Michelle.

As soon as things are put into action and the bank robbery begins, things go awry almost instantly. After guns are drawn, hostages are taken and a boy with supernatural abilities is discovered, Tommy, John and Sherm's friendship is tested like never before.

Jumping right into the plot, Terminal grabs the reader from the very first page. Keene's characters are given enough depth to empathize with some and despise the others. The dialogue is believable and the characters' relationships with each other are given enough foundation to make them credible. While Terminal lacks the gore typical of Keene's other books, it makes up for it with a more believable plot and a cast of more 'real world' characters.

Book Review: David Wellington's Monster Island

Logline: Set in New York City and full of blood and gore, Wellington's Monster Island is zombie novel creatively written, in part, from the perspective of the zombie.

While I might be 30-years old, my literary intellect oftentimes does not reflect the maturity assumed in one who has just left his 20s. There are occasions where I find myself wondering whether a book I have just completed was indeed meant for a man of my age or was rather intended for an audience who still leaves cookies by the fireplace on Christmas Eve. David Wellington's Monster Island is just such a book that had me reflecting more on the appropriateness of my having read the book than on the book itself. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised to feel this way given that one of my favorite genres of fiction is the zombie book replete with hordes of the walking dead who can think of nothing else aside from the consumption of the living.

Other than Max Brooks' World War Z, Monster Island was the most enjoyable zombie genre book I have read.

The Epidemic has ravaged the Earth, leaving the majority of the world's population dead but still moving and hunting for any persons unaffected by the virus. Dekalb, a United Nations weapons inspector, had been stationed in an African village when the Epidemic strikes and, together with his daughter Sarah, are eventually detained by the Free Women's Republic of Somaliland, a Somalian military-style gang of young girls led by Mama Hilama who have thusfar been successful in staving off attacks from groups of infected zombies. When Dekalb is told that Mama Hilama is suffering not from The Epidemic but from AIDS and that he, as a UN officer, can either procure AIDS medication for the dying leader or watch his daughter killed and then be killed himself, he has little choice. Knowing that the United Nations Building in New York City has a medical repository with the necessary medicine, Dekalb along with Ayaan, Hilama's first in command, and a group of teenage girl warriors set sail for New York.

What separates Monster Island from the more typical zombie books is its telling of the story not only through the eyes of the living but also through the eyes of the zombie as well. Before The Epidemic hit, Gary was a doctor living in New York City. As The Epidemic began its worldwide spread, Gary began to hypothesize that the cause of the zombies' mindless wandering without any sort of mental capabilities lay in the fact that in between the host's death and their coming back as a zombie, the brain was rendered useless from the lack of oxygen once the body's internal mechanisms shut off. Understanding his inevitable fate, Gary utilized his medical skills and infected himself with The Epidemic virus while ensuring that his brain would survive the time between his death and 're-birth'. When he emerges as a zombie, Gary is still able to think and talk like a human and, through his character, we are able to understand the feelings and thought processes that guide zombies. In allowing Gary to acquire the power to control all other zombies, Wellington has creatively established the two waring factions whose trials and tribulations guide the rest of the book.

Monster Island is not a complicated book wrought with character building or relationship formation. Predictably, once Dekalb's group arrives in New York, they engage in a number of battles with the now-organized group of zombies all leading to the final battle at the climax of the novel.

Not surprisingly, Monster Island is not a book for everyone. Those looking for an intriguing, thought provoking novel should look to pretty much any other book. However, for those who, like me, devour (pun intended) zombie books, I would certainly recommend Wellington's book. While the gruesome attacks are nothing new and the dialogue is not particularly interesting, the novel is short, the action begins pretty much on page one and the pace will make you want to continue reading.

Turning To Page 1

Back in my more formidable years, when I was but a freshman in high school, my good pal BS loved to read. He would read before school, during any free periods we were lucky enough to have and at night instead of watching eight hours of television, my preferred form of entertainment back then. I never used to understand what he found so interesting in those pages of text that he thought were more entertaining than my quick wit and sharp sense of humor. It got to a point one day when - and I'll always remember this - I said to him, "BS, you're such a loser with how much you read." As BS was uttering some nonsense about Shakespeare loathing those who dost read so little, I grew tired of his sonnets and headed home to watch the new episode of Charles In Charge.

Fast forward 15 years to the present and oh how the tables have turned! Well, not really turned so much. More like, oh how I have switched my seat at the table. While BS and I are still good friends and he continues to be as much a fan of the written word as he was back in the day, I have followed my buddy's role and have switched from a loather of all things book to a lover of anything bound. I can't get enough of reading. For about the last 8 years, I have been an avid reader. Finishing 2-3 books a week, I will pretty much try any genre of book. Although my preference is heavily tipped towards mass commercial fiction with an emphasis on the mystery/thriller sort (i.e. Lee Child, Michael Connelly, etc...), I have been known to read anything from literary fiction to science fiction to gay detective novels (though I did not much like this last one, not because of the gay-oriented theme but simply because it was predictable and uneventful). I have even incorporated reading into my other passion in life: running. Since learning about books-on-tape and their availability for download on Audible.com, I am now able to listen to a book being read to me whilst out for a jog or two everyday.

Anyways, I have set up this blog as the companion to my running blog, Runners Write. In this sphere of my life, I hope to provide reviews of books I have recently read as well as recommendations as to my favorite books within given genres. You will be able to see what book I am currently reading and listening to as well as the stack of books I cannot wait to begin. I plan to also write about current events as they pertain to reading, authors or other publishing related issues and, possibly, about how books have played a role in my personal life. I hope to write at least 4 posts per week, but I cannot guarantee anything as I am but one man. I hope that you, dear reader, will provide me with your reviews of books I have written about and encourage you to disagree with me where you may and praise me where justified.

Reading means something different to each person. To some, it is simply something you must do while in school. To others, it is a way to kill time. But, to those of you like me who love reading at any opportunity, it is a way to escape reality for even the briefest of times. It is a way to meet new people and hear about their stories (though these people tend to seldom interact with you in a physical way). It is a way to laugh. It is a way to cry. It is a way to smile. It is something that moves you. It is something that makes you think. It is something that is simply to vast to list. It is never the same and can always surprise even the most veteran reader.

But, in my mind at least, that's what makes reading so enjoyable. That's what makes reading so popular to so many people. In the end, that's the great thing about reading.