Dark & Twisty

A new author I read recently was Bryan Smith.  He is from Nashville, which intrigued me.  My wife is from Nashville.  The story to introduce me to writer was Depraved.  I don’t want to call this book a novel.  It was more like a loose connection of related short stories that really never made much sense.

The overall storyline involves a town in Tennessee where they celebrate a thanksgiving-like holiday with human for food.  There isn’t really ever an explanation as to why.  All the characters in the story are captured for this feast, which never comes. 

The most intriguing part of the “novel” was a storyline about a demon-man trying to take on a new body.  This part of the story reminded me of a old B-movie from the 1970’s called The Messiah of Evil.  Everything else in the story could be left alone. 

The only thing that made this story depraved was that all the characters ends up being made evil due to rather minor issues.  I hated this book.  I’m placing it right up there with The Ruins.  If you’ve read many of blogs you know how I felt about that piece of “fiction”.

Posted by Jared at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yet another wonderful book by Christopher Moore.  This one deals with the story of King Lear, but told from the point of view of the Fool.  There are great liberties taken in this text.  At one point, Pocket, the fool, ends up talking with the witches from MacBeth, but the story was gold.

The best part about this tale is that it reads like a good British sex farce, which is great because Moore is American.  Americans usually don't possess the ability to pull of very British humour. It's difficult. The Brits have such a different take on what is funny and how to present it.  Moore did excellent research on British humour, and I bet he enjoyed every minute of old Monty Python and Benny Hill episodes.

This tale is more sophisticated than a Benny Hill skit, but you can still here the music playing in the background while the characters move around. 

Of all the novels I've read so far by Moore, this one is my second favorite so far.  The only thing it needed was a blue prostitute.

Posted by Jared at 07:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)