Bookstore Saturday: Electric Boogaloo

A Bookstore Saturday happened. 

It almost didn't. We (the missus and I) were two bookstores in and had yet to find a store that suitably fit the requirements. As a reminder, Bookstore Saturday Requirements (BsSR) include the following:

1. Takes place on a Saturday (negotiable)
2. In a used bookstore (smattering of new allowed)
3. Involves 2 or more hours of in-store browsing (is it even possible to do less?)
4. Store must honor Used Bookstore Gods in look, feel and browsing experience

And in case you're wondering, requirement number 4 was the stumbling block. It usually is.

You know what Bookstore Gods hate? They hate when bookstore proprietors don't give horror its own section of shelves in their store. 

You want Bookstore Gods down on your neck, breathing all heavy and wet in your ear, just decide horror is not an actual genre and stick whatever horror titles you have in with "Mystery and Thriller." 

Or worse yet, just sprinkle those few horror titles you bother to stock in amongst your gigantic, sprawling "General Fiction" section that's already taking up half your shelf space.

Bookstore Gods are really pretty easy to get along with, as long as you don't cross them and as long as you don't make a mockery of sacred Genre Law. But if that's how you wanna roll, do it at your own risk. Just saying.

Okay. Harbinger Duty complete; let's get on to all the groovy books I found in this exceptionally groovy bookstore that does indeed honor all Bookstore Deities, major, middlin' and minor and had a horror section with shelves stacked three deep.

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Now I almost named this BsS post's title after this book, it being a sequel to Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain and all, but "Bookstore Saturday: Evolution" just sounded dumb to me. So I picked a sequel suffix out of a hat and went with "Electric Boogaloo" instead. Because "electric boogaloo" is such an amazing word combination that it could never sound dumb. Ever.

Can't say I've actually seen the original Breakin' film let alone its sequel. But my sister has.

So I do have the original Crichton novel on my shelf, but it's been a long time since I've read it and I think I'll be giving it a revisit before I jump into this one.

I think this is the newest one of the haul, this time. 2019, it was published. Clearly the publisher decided to bank on Crichton's name over the fellow who actually wrote this book. Daniel H. Wilson is a readily recognizable name to me, but I suppose Crichton does have him beat as far as whole-world-recognition. For NOW.

Still I might be a tiny bit miffed to toil away at a novel and then have my name down at the bottom in wee font. Probably Mr. Wilson is a better man than I and has no issue.

At any rate, I've read three or four other books by Daniel Wilson and loved them, so I've got no fear in me about whether or not I'll enjoy this once I do get to it.

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Okay, so John Saul is a reasonable bet with most of his books, but then you show me (almost) any book with the word "creature" for its title and I'm on the hook.

That being said, I'll be pretty darn surprised if I don't get into this one and realize I'd already read it back in the day. At first I was thinking it's the novel they based the 80s Watchers film off of, but pretty quickly realized than was Koontz, not Saul.

Still. Looks awfully familiar, front and back. It's older; first published in 1989. But... it didn't ring enough of a bell for me not to slap it into my book basket anyway. So we'll see...

Uh, front cover is giving me... Football Ape-man vibes. Those aren't two words I'd expect to go together... That back cover blurb has me cheering in the stands, though.

For one thing, we got that "rebuild him" bit in there. That appeals to my cyborg-love-ness. Then they've got the "won't hurt him again... they won't dare." Boohwaaauughaaauuughaaauuugh!

Huh. I was going for a kind of maniacal laugh there, but it sounds more like someone is choking or something. Anyway. Next book.

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Oooooh... I love me a good Evil Kid book or movie. And what's better than just a standalone-all-on-his-own Evil Kid? (Why, Evil Twins, of course!)

And bonus points for kids who don't just settle for sociopath-evil but really go the distance to be supernatural-evil. 

Like these two apparently are.

Haven't heard of this author before, even after digging down through the pen names (Rosalind Erskine; Laura Black; Ivor Drummond; Frank Parrish; Domini Taylor; Megan Barker and Grania Beckford) to find one Roger Longrigg. I'm excited for this one, too.

I think this is probably the oldest of what I picked up this time - first published in 1984 although mine's a couple of years newer. Peter and Pandora. I mean, Peter's fine but you'd think the girl's name alone would be enough to warn you off...

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Okay. Next up.

If you know me at all you know it was the word "golem" that got me to pick this one up for a closer look. I love a good (or not so good) man made men story. Before tossing it into my basket, I really just checked to make sure it wasn't some police procedural with some serial killer that some newspapermen were calling "the golem" or whatever. 

That would be lame.

But, between those font and back cover blurbs it seems a safe bet it's got some sweet supernatural shenanigans going for it. This one's more recent, published in 2014.

Also, these guys are a father and son writing team. On the father's end, I wanna say I've maybe heard of his Alex Delaware character? But can't say I've read anything from either of these fellows before.

Oh, and if this one IS a good read, there's a sequel...

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Nature does make mistakes. And Big Bird says that is a-okay.

Not sure why I grabbed this one. I mean, I picked it up because it looked like some kind of creature feature and I'm a sucker for 'em. But I'm not as big on cryptids as I am on more standard fare - killer regular animals or killer giant regular animals or animals being messed with by science-hubris with terrible results. 

Still, this could be a good read. It's fairly recent - got a 2016 date on it.

Actually, cryptid-wise, I took this guy to be Mothman at first. Don't know too much about Mothman, but he's my pal River's favorite cryptid, so I know a little about him. 

Know next to nothing about the Jersey Devil.

Ohhh. Hunter Shea. Thought that name sounded familiar. I've totally read at least two others of his books. Pretty good.

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Well, I'm always on the lookout for a decent werewolf novel. I say "decent" because, like werewolf movies, there are fewer out there than other classic monsters enjoy, and what there is tends (also like their film counterparts) to run a little subpar. 

So decent is good enough; I'll take it. Here's hopin'.

This one was actually the third or fourth werewolf novel in the horror section, but damned if the others weren't all of the paranormal romance variety, of which I am not a fan. Not a fan of romance in general (book-wise - I do love a quality film romance or rom-com) let alone paranormal romance novels.

But this one looks to be pretty romance-free so I'm giving it a try.

Hadn't heard of Ray Garton, and looking him up it seems he died fairly recently. Also seems he had a long and prolific career as a horror writer. So this pick-up is looking better and better.

And speaking of werewolves getting short shrift, the author himself feels just about like I do on the subject.

This one is from 2008, and it also has a sequel, so if it hits the spot I can seek out the followup.

Well then.

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Sea Horror. Mmmmmmm. 

This one was another no brainer to put in the cart. It was published in 1999 - just squeaking by as a 90s horror novel. Can't really tell much about particulars from the cover and blurbs, but I'm happy to take my chances it'll be at least fair and hopefully more than.

James Powlik apparently is an oceanographer who also writes! Good combination, I say. Ooh, and he has a giant tsunami thriller as well. Guess I'll be giving that one a try, too.

But. Only a slight downer - while looking up the author's details, I inadvertently discovered this book is about deadly algae blooms. Which doesn't sound very exciting. But I'm still down to give it a go. I still am.

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More Sea Horror! Mmmmmmm.

Look, I'm not gonna just assume that algae bloom up there isn't a good read, but this next sea horror (from 2003 in case you wuz wundrun) has an eyeball, which probably means it has teeth and wants to eat us. 

So that's good. Kind of looks like an otter eye. I didn't just buy a book about killer hairless otters, did I? Probably not. Anyway, we shall see once I get to this one.

Ooh. This author looks like he might have some other stuff to check out as well. Bunch of sea thrillers. Bunch of regular thrillers. Bunch of mysteries. Sweet.

Oh. Author research also gave me the sea horror's identity here - sounds like it's an unknown species of dolphin. Which sounds more exciting than algae. Or otters.

It shall be interesting...

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And, we finish up with the good old tried and true man of steel. Hard to go wrong, here. And this is the only nonfiction book I picked up this time around. I've actually got... probably several... Superman histories of one kind or another, but I'm always down for one more.

This is from 2012, and author Larry Tye looks to also be a journalist, and has a pretty eclectic bibliography. I think this one'll be a fun read too. Maybe give me some info not already rattling around my head on the subject.

Wow. Looks like the book has endorsements from no less than Noel Neill, Jack Larson and Richard Donner. ( ! ) 

That's sayin' somethin'.

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And that about wraps it up. Bookstore Saturday Success (BsSS)! 

If you like books, or bookstores, or are just super bored, you can read some other Bookstore Saturday shenanigans here. 

You are lucky.

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Frankenstein: The True Story (1973)

Well, not really.

True, I mean. If you assume "true" refers to things happening the way they do in Shelley's original novel. And granted, the film never comes right out and says it's going to be especially faithful to the novel, even if one of it's main characters weirdly breaks the fourth wall a few minutes into the film, takes you to Mary Shelley's supposed (modern day, with cars and buses zipping by) grave site and implies what you're about to see is Shelley's original vision. Nobody comes right out and says it. So I guess the "true story" here is more like "hey, not even Shelley told you the true story, but we're about to, so hold on to your hats!"

And with that in mind, this little film mostly does alright for itself. Little as far as budget and screen size go--it was a 1970s TV movie after all--it's not small in terms of running time, clocking in at a hefty 3 hours and 5 minutes. It was originally broadcast as one of those two-night TV "miniseries" that were particularly popular in the 70s.

(I've personally always maintained that "two parts does not a miniseries make"--you gotta get at least three or four broadcasts in to call it a miniseries. But that's just me.)

So anyway, I really did watch this last night (subtitle on the site's banner is literal this time 'round), and as I started writing/image-hunting this morning, I was totally compelled to use that VHS cover above as a lead-in for the post, 'cause it's so not what the movie is. At all. I seriously laughed out loud when I came across it. Rest assured, at no point in the film does Jane Seymour, dressed in an ornamental Japanese vest and flashing side-boob, seductively eye the camera with a "come hither" expression on her face.

The movie really takes itself pretty seriously as a dramatic-with-horror-overtones period piece, but I guess the whole point of VHS and paperback cover art is to (mis)represent, with as much titillation as possible, what's actually contained inside the associated video cassette/book, and based on that this cover does it's job well. If you ever bought or rented the movie based on it, though, you'd be sorely disappointed. Granted, it is Seymour in the vest there, and at one point in the film her character is (more completely) dressed in similar Asian attire, so I'm guessing they used a publicity still or some other non-film thing to make that VHS cover.

This DVD cover is much more representative. Anyway. Let's see if I can give you the gist of this movie.

Here's a list of the main cast and who's playing who:

James Mason as Dr. Polidori
Leonard Whiting as Dr. Victor Frankenstein
David McCallum as Dr. Henry Clerval
Jane Seymour as Agatha/Prima
Nicola Pagett as Elizabeth Fanshawe
Michael Sarrazin as The Creature

Story-wise, Frankenstein is not the brains of this outfit. He's a doctor, who's partial to the idea of restoring life (his brother having recently drowned), but he's got no idea how to go about doing that, and isn't even looking to find out how, when he meets up with fellow doc Henry Clerval. Clerval is the one who's experimenting with the creation of life from death, but even he didn't come up with the idea on his own--he stole it from yet another doc by the name of Polidori. Neither Clerval or Polidori are very nice fellows, by the way, and Polidori is downright sociopathic.

So Clerval kind of pushes Frankenstein into helping him with his work (Clerval has a bad ticker and can't maintain the pace he needs to by himself), and the two of them end up with a stitched together corpse they're all set to bring to life come the next morning. After lamenting to each other about having to make due with only a peasant's brain for their creature, Frankenstein heads home, but Clerval sticks around the lab long enough to figure out his process still has some major flaws and anything they create will most likely start coming apart at the seams before too much time passes.

Well, this is important news, but before Clerval can let Frankenstein know about it, he keels over dead from a heart attack. After Frankenstein shows up the next morning and grieves (for a minute), he wastes no time pulling Clerval's brain out of his head and sticking it into the creature's (always a silver lining, right? last night's peasant brain dilemma: solved). So, when the creature comes to life, he's handsome, intelligent and good-natured to boot, and all seems right in the world.

UNTIL said creature does start deteriorating, causing both Frankenstein and creature much pain and suffering, culminating with the creature throwing itself into the sea, at which point Frankenstein (naturally) assumes it's dead and gone.

Time for Frankenstein to move on and marry Elizabeth, who's been impatiently waiting in the wings for just that to happen since the movie's very first scene. But this being a Frankenstein tale, we know what they do not: the creature's NOT dead. It's washed ashore, and has been hanging out for the last while with the story's requisite blind peasant fellow, mostly having a nice time, which niceness goes to hell when blind peasant fellow's daughter and son-in-law end up dead due to freaking out over the creature's (supposed) horrifying disfigurement.

Let's see, this is taking too long. How can I make this long story short(er)?

Okay: Dr. Polidori, who's been keeping Frankenstein's creature locked in a cell ever since it brought blind peasant fellow's dead daughter to him, uses the fact that it's still alive to blackmail Frankenstein into helping him resurrect blind peasant fellow's daughter as a she-creature. Polidori plans to turn her into ( ! ) a high-class prostitute and use her to gain international influence, what with all the state secrets she'll weasel out of her rich and powerful clients. (Okay, things are starting to go a little off-rail, plotwise, here.)

Well, during she-creature's big-introduction-to-london-society-ball, he-creature busts in and tears off her head, along with murdering a bunch of other people (he being pissed, and rightfully so, since Polidori had just tried to burn him alive a few hours prior). Next morning, Frankenstein and Elizabeth are wondering what would be a good next step. They're several months married at this point, she's got a baby on the way, and they really just want to get on with life by pretending none of this craziness ever happened.

So, they decide to hop a ship to America and start a new life there (extreme solution, but okay). Surprise! Both Polidori and the creature are also on board! (Will this nightmare never end?) Again, this being a Frankenstein tale, we know it won't. And sure enough, Elizabeth eventually ends up dead, strangled by the creature, who now has (wait for it) Henry Clerval's personality and speaks in his voice. (Because after all, that's his brain in it's head. Only a matter of time, right?)

Let's see... to hurry things up even a little more, I'll just say that Polidori ends up dead, too, and we wind up in the same arctic wilderness the novel used for it's final scene (hey, this really is the true story!). So Frankenstein and his creature end up standing face-to-face in an ice cave, Frankenstein begging forgiveness for all the evils he's visited on the creature and the creature forgiving him, just as the cave roof collapses on top of them both and so they're dead.

The End

Unless you go off the scripted-but-unfilmed epilogue, which reportedly involves an ice floe-encapsulated creature drifting into warmer melt-y waters and showing signs of life just before the credits roll.

Wow. That movie definitely started off stronger than it finished. But you know? I gotta say I liked it, in spite of all that last-act weirdness. Far from being a faithful adaptation of Shelley's novel, it's as much a mashup of previous efforts as anything else. Let's see.... Hammer did the handsome creature who deteriorates physically/mentally in 1958, and Polidori was an obvious take on Dr. Pretorius from 1935s Bride of Frankenstein. (Oh wait, maybe it's supposed to be a fictionalized version of this guy....) The ideas of Frankenstein not being the tragedy-instigating one, and being swept up in the obsessions of others are pretty unique, though.

So overall, I'd say the film's worth a few hours of your time, especially if you're a Frankenstein's Monster fan in general. And as usual I spoiled quite a few surprises here in the post, but I also left out plenty of details and even a subplot or two, so you'll have plenty to raise your eyebrows at if you decide to give the movie a go.

One thing that bugged me (besides that plot falling apart towards the end) was the movie's lack of creature-scariness. It just wasn't horrific looking, to the point I kept wondering what all those characters were carrying on about whenever they'd lay eyes on him and then start screaming or trying to kill him.

Here. I'll show you what I mean. Here's a creature pic from early on, one mid-show and one from the movie's finale (the idea was that the creature was supposed to be getting more and more hideous as things went along):

Handsome Monster

Mild Brow-Jutting and Messy-Haired Monster

Burned in a Fire Monster

See? Granted, that mid-plot pic has the creature looking a little nutty and dangerous (mostly due to expression rather than features), but horrifying to the point of running, fainting or trying to kill it just for it's looks? Nope. Even end-of-movie creature seems more pitiable than horrifying. Which would have been fine if they hadn't kept playing him as horrifying every single person he met to the point of them losing their senses. If you want to see a horrifying rendition of the creature, look no further than the square of Plainpalais in Geneva:

See? I would totally buy people losing their senses if that thing was popping out at them, but not the mild looking fellow we had in this movie. So anyway, that's my thoughts on that.

Brain count? I believe I'm gonna have to go with...

TWO AND A HALF DAVID MCCALLUM BRAINS

Oh yeah, and this would be the first official half-brain count on deadmans. You might've noticed half-brain language has been creeping in for awhile, now: "this one's a a three, but a higher three versus a lower" or "it's a two, but kind of a two-minus" and so on. So I finally decided to just go ahead and go with half-brains, to give me a little more maneuvering room and avoid 75% of my brain counts ending up as threes. (Maybe now it'll just be 65%.)

Probably I'll make some half-brain icons to go along with the current set at some point, but I'm not sure I want to mess with figuring out half-brain song lyrics for that brain count side bar. We'll see, though.

In Case You Were Wondering What Happened

Remember Bookstore Saturday?

Well, I just finished reading the last book from that particular day's adventure (not quite true, but the two leftovers I won't be reading anytime soon, so here we are). At any rate, this is what happened, expectations-met-or-expectations-not-met-wise.

In case you were wondering.

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My second reading of this one, and it's actually held up pretty well, given the fact that even a 100 foot giant squid isn't nearly as scary as a 20 foot great white shark. (amiright?) And like it was in Jaws, Benchley's writing style here has a bit of a flat affect, so what could potentially be terrifying comes off as less than pulse pounding. Still, a decent read. If I were doing brain counts for these (not sure if I am or not yet), Beast would probably get a solid three.

So, um,

THREE SOFT CORE CSI BRAINS

(brain count added after the fact and makes sense as you keep reading. probably).

You know, I don't think I've actually read anything of Benchley's other than Jaws and this one, but both those books have a kind of low key feel to the writing that tends to keep my heart rate down, even in the sticky bits. (Quick internet check: Oh, I also took in White Shark back in the day. I guess we all know where my Benchley-esque interest starts and stops, then. Speaking of heart rate though, if memory serves and who knows if it does without a reread, White Shark had a little more pep to it than these other two killer sea creature yarns.)

The other thing with this book is that I kept remembering its TV movie with William Petersen, which reminded me of him playing Gil Grissom in CSI (which I loved), which then reminded me of seeing him in some godawful late night cable sexy romance thing, and I was forever scarred because I could never look at CSI's Gil Grissom quite the same after that. Nothing to do with this book. That's just what I thought about.

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And speaking of Benchley's White Shark, if you ever find yourself needing to choose between reading that half-man-half-shark novel and the one Steve Alten did, go with Benchley's. Please. Trust me on this. And it's a shame, 'cause I've enjoyed everything else Alten has done. Sharkman is definitely his odd man out and I don't know what happened, but it's terrible. It's the only book of his I've read that is done in first person; maybe that has something to do with it. I don't know.

But we're not talking about that book, we're talking about Meg, the first in his Meg series, which is mostly a fine read. Except for its ridiculous climax, where the hero gets swallowed by a giant shark and, using his lucky fossilized megalodon tooth to cut his way through its various body cavities, slices its heart open and kills it dead. (Then escapes to tell the tale!) This book was a second read for me as well, but trust me that ending was as hard to take the first time around.

Well, like I say, the rest of the book is fun, and it definitely does get the old pulse rate up along the way. We get two (count 'em--two!) giant sharks and plenty of mayhem to spread around. Alten writes his characters a little on the one dimensional side, on purpose I think, and as a result you pretty much always know who's gonna end up shark food by the end of things.

Anyway, this one's a solid four on the brain count (I guess I am doing them). Let's see...

FOUR CARTILAGINOUS SKELETON BRAINS

Damn, now I have to go back and make up a clever brain count descriptor for Beast....

There, done.

Huh. Now I'm reading Jason Statham might be involved in the upcoming movie version of this book. Could be it turns into a decent-ish film after all. (Statham always elevates, amiright?)

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Well then. What else can I say about this one that I didn't already say in the initial post? It was good. Four brains good? No, probably not. But three solid brains (methinks I sense a brain count theme in the works for this post). You know, I thought this one was a first time read, but I was getting major deja vu as I read, so I'm thinking not. Must have read it as a kid. Anyway, characterization is the word of the day, here. Seltzer does a great job writing these characters in a full-fledged way. The monster is cool, and the end is ever so much more satisfying than what the movie came up with. (I'm talking the epilogue, not the main monster's death, although honestly everything monster related works better here on-page than it does on the screen).

I don't know that Seltzer did anything other than this and The Omen, novel-wise, but he's pretty good at it. Wish he'd done more. That being said, I bet I won't pick up The Omen anytime soon--those kinds of stories totally creep me out. (Blech!)

THREE UNBENEVOLENT BEAR BRAINS

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Also a second read-through for me, and another solid three brainer. I'll tell you this much, James Herbert does the whole British killer animal shtick better than Richard Lewis ever did. This was Herbert's first novel, and he ended up writing over twenty more, including two or three rat infested sequels to this one.

Anyway, this has plenty of action and 70s gore (fairly stomachable these days), several edge of your seat scenes (that school siege and the hero's last minute race to the rats' nest, in particular), and just enough characterization and commentary to keep the boredom away. My general target for a four brainer is will I seek it out more than once over the years (not counting the occasional second read after decades, like most of these have been so far). And... this one doesn't go quite that far. But it's definitely a high-end three:

THREE RAZORED INCISOR BRAINS.

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Yeah, this really did remind me of The Andromeda Strain. Both really good books and both written in a purposely (unlike Benchley's efforts, I think) informational, news item-like style. Pretty much the polar opposite of Herbert's ratty sensationalism, too. You know, stuffy-scientist-point-of-view and all that. But fun and intriguing, hard to put down in spite of its not being a pulse raiser. I thought I might have read this once before, and yep, I surely did remember it once I dived in.

Where are the killer bees, anyway? I totally remember this being in the news when I was a kid. We were supposed to have just so many years before they'd be spread all across the U.S. and we'd be dying by the thousands. Huh: Wikipedia check (we know it's true!) tells me they've been here since the eighties and currently account for a couple of deaths each year. I guess the threat was over-hyped, back in the day. The end has come and we haven't noticed.

Anyway, the book is a good read, but it doesn't break the four brain barrier:

THREE AFRICANIZED ROYAL JELLY BRAINS (shrug)

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Oh. Skip this one, if you want. I was originally hoping for something cyborgy, what with the title and all. Then reading the back, I figured "genetically enhanced superman" of some kind, so I bought it anyway. Meh. A guy finds out he's got a genetic predisposition toward violence and ends up killing himself and some other people. No wait, he only puts himself into a permanent coma at the end, so he's not actually dead.

Anyway, the book is bleak, nihilistic, excessively dark, containing not a smidgen of hope between its covers. Nothing against its author, he writes well, but I kind of felt like dying myself after finishing it. And not in a glib "it was so bad I wished I was dead" way; it was just horribly depressing to read. So, if that's your thing, go for it. I'll be steering clear of this guys work in the future, though.

Ugh, just remembering the read has me feeling low. I kept reading, hoping things would finally turn around for, well, any of its characters. But no. Lives ended or otherwise ruined, and not in fun, over the top genre ways--just darkly depressing horrifying real-life type stuff. And I think we know how I feel about this one now.

ONE DEPRESSINGLY GENETICALLY ABNORMAL BRAIN

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Ah. I think I'll be doing a fuller review of this one, along with the movie that came from it. I also think I originally said it was published straight to paperback, but that might not be true (well, it isn't); I'll look at the various covers and formats when I do the full review. For now I'll just say the book is basically a zombie love story, and mostly works as that, even if it does have a few spots where the plot stretches uncomfortably, mostly due to having a 13 year old protagonist.

What I mean by that is there are spots, plot-wise, where the 13 year old might have worked a little better as a slightly older character. Then again, a lot of the book's charm comes from the fact its main character is a precocious kid, so I'm not really complaining. Overall, I'd say the author did a reasonable job working out the storytelling kinks inherent when children are doing adult-y kinds of things.

In fact, she handled the whole shebang well enough for me to give this book the post's second (and last) jump into upper-level brain count territory, with:

FOUR CYBER-ZOMBIE BRAINS

So there.

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Hmm. I fear we're ending on a downer, here. If you remember from Bookstore Saturday, I was assuming this book was all ready to give me some genetic-experiment-man-in-ape's-body joy. I mean come on, look at that cover: it's a man's eyes and an ape's eyes and an in-between-man-ape's eyes, right? Right? And it was in the shops horror section, for crying out loud. This thing's got Altered States written all over it!

Nope. It's a soap opera that takes place in a research facility. As in, who's gonna sleep with who and who's gonna make a power play at the office, etc. Oh. And there's an ape in one scene that parrots the word "cup" after hearing it played over and over again on a recording. That's the entire science fiction/fantastical element of the story. "Cup." Sigh.

Well written, no qualms there. It was just so not what I was hoping for. And sure, there's subtext commentary being made by the author about how human beings aren't really all that different from apes, that we're all basically a bunch of clothed beasts running around with a thin veneer of civilization separating us from them, yada yada.

TWO NOT-EVEN-APE-MAN BRAINS

Sigh. Only two books out of these eight that I hadn't already read, and they both turned out to be bummers. Whatta ya do, right? (You go back for another Bookstore Saturday, get more loot and try again, that's what you do!)

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As for the two books from that day's haul that I haven't read yet, one of 'em (Barnabas Collins) I honestly doubt I'll ever get to. Maybe If I'm bored and feeling unusually curious, one of these days. The other was the "illustrated" horror film history, which I just haven't gotten around to. Well, I have but it's more of a pick-it-up-now-and-again-for-a-few-pages-of-reading-until-it's-finally-done-months-later kind of book. I'll finish it eventually and probably give it a write up then.

Well, they say good things come in threes (do they say that?). If they do, it bears out here, since half of these books ended up as three brainers--with a couple of standouts and letdowns thrown in the mix. All in all, it could have been worse.

Okay then. Now you know what happened with that Bookstore Saturday.

Bookstore Saturday

So this last weekend a Bookstore Saturday happened.

As you may know, a Bookstore Saturday is a lot like a regular Saturday, sandwiched there between Friday and Sunday, and so on. What's different about a Bookstore Saturday, though, is the Bookstore Visit that occurs in the middle of it.

Now, I'm not talking about just any bookstore, or any visit. This is no quick dash to a local Barnes & Noble, no sir. There are rules about these kinds of things. A Bookstore Saturday, to warrant the term, pretty much has to include the following:

1. It takes place on a Saturday (obviously).
2. It involves, at the very least, 2 hours in-store (preferably 3 or more).
3. The store must primarily be a used bookstore (smattering of new books allowed)
4. It should be a used bookstore that looks like this...

...and not like this:

Now there's not a thing in the world wrong with that second type of bookstore; it has its place in the book world. It just doesn't qualify for a Bookstore Saturday, since Bookstore Saturdays always include losing yourself in mazes of somewhat-but-not-entirely-well-organized stacks of books.

After all, the search is (at least) half the fun.

So. Here's the loot-haul I left with when last Saturday's adventure concluded. Some I've read before, some I haven't and most will probably show up here as a review at some point in the future. I don't think any single book cost me more than 2 or 3 bucks, and the search itself was divine....

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...FROM THE CUTTING EDGE OF TODAY'S SCIENCE
AND THE LOGS OF MARINER LEGEND
COMES AN IMMENSE HORROR--
A CREATURE THAT RISES UP
FROM THE WELL OF AN OCEAN GONE MAD,
WITH AN INSATIABLE HUNGER
AND AN ENDLESS LUST TO KILL.

Well then. This giant squid tale was published in 1991, and I vaguely remember reading it back in the day. It was eventually adapted into a 2 part TV movie (in 1996, starring William Petersen), which I also vaguely remember. But I don't remember enough of either one to keep me from enjoying a fresh take. Also, I'm pretty sure it was the first time Benchley had gone back to ocean horror since doing Jaws, so I'm looking forward to seeing/re-seeing how it compares....

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WAY DOWN IN THE COLDEST,
DARKEST, MOST FRIGHTENING DEPTHS
OF THE OCEAN, AN ANCIENT CREATURE,
DEADLIER THAN ANY OUR MODERN
WORLD HAS ENCOUNTERED,
BEGINS TO STIR.

No, you're not just imagining the beginnings of a theme here--there really is a lot of animal attack/creature feature stuff lurking in this weekend's haul. Originally published in 1997, this novel was the first in Steve Alten's mostly fun to read Meg series, which (so far) includes four sequels and a prequel for a total of six books. I've read this and the others as well, but got rid of 'em in one of my Book Thinnings. Thought I'd pick this first one up and (eventually) add its review to the sh-sh-shark! series. There's supposed to be a movie version in the works, which could end up anywhere from extremely cool to horrifyingly lame on the cool-to-lame-book-to-movie-conversion-scale (but let's face facts, it will probably come out closer to the lame end). Ah, who am I kidding? I'll be seeing it regardless. But I hope it's at least moderately cool.

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...IN MANATEE COUNTY, MAINE...
BIOLOGICAL CHANGES ARE BEGINNING
TO OCCUR. PEOPLE ARE SICK, THEIR MINDS
ARE CONFUSED. CHILDREN ARE BORN DEAD...
BORN DEFORMED.
AND A FAMILY OF CAMPERS
HAS BEEN FOUND DEAD, MUTILATED BY SOME
INDESCRIBABLY BRUTAL FORCE...

Moving along from big things in the ocean, to a big thing (mutated grizzly bear) in the forest, this book was actually a novelization of 1979's Prophecy, which film I watched again recently and may (or may not ever) get around to reviewing here. The same guy wrote both screenplay and book, and it shows: you can tell he "knows" the film's characters, and has plenty of good stuff to add as he pads out the screenplay. It's really a well done novelization (so far--I'm only a few chapters in) of a well done film. And I know the film gets laughed at quite a bit, but really it was just those 1970s practical effects with the monster that didn't work, there. The film itself was nicely done.

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FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS
MAN AND RATS
HAD BEEN NATURAL ENEMIES.
BUT NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME
--SUDDENLY, SHOCKINGLY, HORRIBLY--
THE BALANCE OF POWER HAD SHIFTED TO--
THE RATS.

Continuing down the size-of-threat scale (ooh, if I'd put Meg before Beast, biggest to smallest totally would have happened! oh well, it still mostly works) from really-big-in-forest to not-quite-as-big-in-city. I totally read this one when I was younger too, probably in the late 70s (published in 1974) or early 80s. But I haven't picked it up since, so it's time for another go. This was also made into a movie, in 1982, but I'd have to say not much (other than giant rats) survived its adaptation from page to screen. James Herbert: what's not to love about that guy? amiright?

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BUT THEN THE DEATH TOLL BEGAN TO MOUNT--AND TERROR
ERUPTED INTO NATIONAL PANIC AS GREAT SWARMS OF
SAVAGE BEES, DEADLY KILLERS, BLOTTED OUT THE SUN IN
THEIR SPREAD ACROSS THE COUNTRY.

Another 1974 release, here. I think I've probably read this at some point in the past. How could I not have? But if so it's buried in the mists of time (what does that even mean?), so it'll feel like new along with the others. Good book by great author, made into (yet another) failed movie. I think that happens a lot. This'll be a fun read, though. Bzzz...

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[A] GENETIC ABNORMALITY IN HIS BLOOD... MADE THIS... MAN
ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS CREATURES ON EARTH.

Moving out of natural horror now, I confess this 1996 title had me hoping for something killer-robot related. No such luck, it looks to be more violent-genetically-altered-superman, but I picked it up anyway and will give it a read at some point. (It's one I actually haven't read in the distant past!) We'll see how it goes. I also confess I'd never heard of Brian Hodge, but he's still writing and looks to have a decent fan base going. So like I said, we'll see.

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HE LOVES HER SO MUCH, HE CANNOT LET HER GO.
AND WHEN SUDDENLY, TRAGICALLY, SAMANTHA IS LOST,
HE MAKES A SOLEMN VOW--
TO USE ALL HIS GIFTS OF GENIUS TO KEEP HIS BELOVED SAMANTHA.
FOR JUST A LITTLE WHILE LONGER....

Getting a little closer to killer robot territory here, with a computer chip controlled reanimated corpse, this is also one I've read back in the day. I actually read this one after seeing the movie it spawned (usually the other way around). Not a bad (though much maligned) little movie, but this book is a lot better. And really different from the movie. As they generally are, but apparently Craven wanted to honor the book a lot more than he got to. Would've been nice to see his original vision for the film. Book was published straight to paperback in 1985, and the movie was (briefly) in theaters by 1986, so someone was hot to trot for movie-izing the novel.

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THE SCENE: A RESEARCH LABORATORY SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND....
...A RESEARCHER WHO DEPARTED UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES,
AND... OTTO, A REMARKABLY INTELLIGENT CHIMPANZEE WITH A SECRET
THAT SEEMS TO HOLD EVERYONE IN ITS SINISTER GRIP.

Hmm. It's gotta be a guy turned into a chimp, right? Or maybe had his brain transplanted into one? Something like that's what I'm hoping for anyway. I don't know, since it's another new one for me. Looks interesting. It's from 1973, and that vintage always lends a special something only late 60s-early 70s sci-fi/horror novels can.... I don't know Philip Oakes, but my guess is this one is a bit of Thinking Man's Science Fiction. Great cover....

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YOUR BLOOD WILL GROW COLD AS YOU READ THE
NEVER-BEFORE-TOLD STORY OF THE FOGGY NIGHT IN
1899 WHEN BARNABAS COLLINS FIRST ARRIVED AT
COLLINWOOD. YOU'LL CHILL TO THE FULL HORROR OF
THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT BARNABAS--A SECRET SO TER-
RIBLE THAT IT COULD NOT BE REVEALED UNTIL NOW...

Even more vintage, this is number six in a series of thirty three ( ! ) Dark Shadows novels written by William Ross, between 1966 and 1972, under his pen name Marilyn Ross. This one was written in 1968 and I might never actually read it (but then again I might). I mostly got it because it was old and cool and Dark Shadowy. The missus and I are, after several years trying, still somewhere in the midst of our quest to watch every single episode of the old TV series, and this book just bumped up against that in a good way, so I picked it up. Truth be known, I'd be more likely to read it if it didn't take place pre-1960s (it takes place mostly in the early 1900s). I've never been a huge fan of the show's "olden times" story-lines. The book could surprise me, though.

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IN THIS BOOK CARLOS CLARENS BRINGS HIS ENCYCLOPEDIC
KNOWLEDGE OF FILMS AND FILMMAKERS TO THE SUBJECT OF
HORROR FILMS OF THE CLASSIC ERA. WHETHER DISCUSSING
THE EROTIC ASPECTS OF KING KONG, EXAMINING THE WORKS
OF VAL LEWTON, CONTRASTING THE DIRECTOR'S ATTITUDE
TOWARD THE MONSTER IN FRANKENSTEIN AND THE BRIDE OF
FRANKENSTEIN, ACCOUNTING FOR THE SPECIAL GENIUS OF LON
CHANEY, OR COMPARING THE VARIOUS VERSIONS OF DR. JECKYLL
AND MR. HYDE, CLARENS ENTERTAINS AS HE ENLIGHTENS.

Well that blurb about says it all, doesn't it? The only nonfiction of this week's haul, this book promises to be a good one. It's vintage, originally published in 1967, although my copy's a 1968 edition. Carlos Clarens is noted as "a film historian and writer," although my quick search didn't dig up much but this book. Could be he did magazine or newspaper work, for the most part. Great cover photo, even if the "illustrated" aspect of the book is just a few film stills inserted at front and back. As for the cover photo, it's from Night of the Demon/Curse of the Demon. That's a great movie to watch both versions of, back-to-back, to pick out and enjoy their differences. Just saying.

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And there you have it: Bookstore Saturday.

(After-the-fact-addition-at-end: If you're as curious as I was about how these reads played out, you can find out all about it here. Just saying.