The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs and the Currently Accepted Habits of Nature
by David Niall Wilson
Narrated by Joe Geoffrey

Published by Crossroad Press and Springbrook Audio

(Disclosure notice: I received a free copy of The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs and the Currently Accepted Habits of Nature from Crossroad Press for review purposes. I really need to write a generic disclosure notice.)

You know, in the end, I really have only one complaint about this book, its title is way too long: The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs and the Currently Accepted Habits of Nature. It’s fifteen words long! Come on. But that being said, I am starting this review by saying the only thing there is to say about it, “go buy a copy.” Buy it now. Right now. You will not be disappointed. It is the most fun I have had reading/listening to a horror novel in years.

The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs and the Currently Accepted Habits of Nature (which I will refer to as CletusJ. Diggs for the rest of this review) is the story of good ol’ boys, perversion of science, and ancient religion. It is set in Old Mill, a small town in North Carolina. It stars, as you’d guess from the title, the Reverend Cletus J. Diggs (who is also a common law attorney, private investigator, tabloid journalist, and anything else he can learn via a correspondence course). Cletus is drawn into the strange going-ons in the back wood of North Carolina when his friend Jasper enlists his help in removing a dead man from his “secret” fishing hole. Things for Cletus, Jasper and Sheriff Bob go down hill from there.

Now I lived in South Carolina for a couple of years, and I currently live in small town Minnesota. I am sure I have met some of the people in this story, or at least there distant cousins. Although the characters depicted in Cletus J. Diggs are humorous, many of them are as real as the guys who live in the trailer park on the other side of town.

This audiobook is humorous, but its humor masks a deep seated dark horror that, in the end, made me squirm. The characters are fun and odd, but they are real. They may act odd, but they feel the same horror and the same fears we do when faced with perversion and evil and “the things that man was not meant to know”. The characters reactions to these are real and not just played for laughs.

And yes, Cletus J. Diggs is laugh out loud funny in places. But it is also dark and disturbing others. Very disturbing. In fact this story reminded me of what made Lovecraft’s work so brilliant.

I am impressed by David Wilson’s ability to keep the humor alive without dispelling the underlying sense of dread. I wish I could write this well.

In fact, it is the end of this novel (which I will not spoil for you) when Cletus comes face to face with the truth, that stuck with me. How Cletus reacted to that truth made me love the story all the more. The ending was disturbing and left me with a true sense of dread. And I think that dread felt by both Cletus and myself is well described by my favorite quote from Lovecraft’s work:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” – Call of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft

The narration by Joe Geoffrey definitely enhances and compliments the story. The voices he did for each character are unique. He captures the pace and style of life of a small town well in his inflections and accents and easy going style. It is pleasure the listen to.

I give The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs and the Currently Accepted Habits of Nature five out of five snark bites overall (four out of five snark bites for the audio and six out of five snark bites for the story). Go pick up a copy right now.

I will freely admit I am a fan of the Resident Evil series of movies, games, novels, and comics. I have seen all of the films in theaters on opening weekend with the exception of the original, Resident Evil. I’ve played some of the games including the original (including the original Japanese version of the first game Biohazard.) I’ve read about half of the novels. And I am following the comic series being put out by Wildstorm. So I’m kinda into the whole franchise. (In fact, I would love to write a novel for the series once my writing gets a bit better.)

Needless to say, I saw ResidentEvil: Afterlife the weekend it opened, and since I review a lot of stuff I figured I would give my thoughts on it here. (Note: I do not intend to give out any spoilers for Resident Evil: Afterlife, but in talking about it I might end up giving out details about the earlier films that might spoil them if you have not seen them.)

Resident Evil: Afterlife is a direct follow up to Resident Evil: Extinction, and begins with an army of Alice clones kicking some serious ass at a secret Umbrella base in Japan. (There is a nice nod to the franchises original title in Japan during this.) During which the original Alice (played by Milla Jovovich) is stripped of all her “super powers”. After the destruction of the Umbrella’s “final” base, Alice goes on a journey to find her companions with whom she parted company at the end of Resident Evil: Extinction.

The film get’s pretty introspective at this point, but retreats back in the zombie and monster killing action fairly quickly as our hero, newly reunited with Clarie Redfield (played by Ali Larter), find her way to a group of survivor trapped in a prison in Los Angles. And it is a bloody and violent, yet predictable, toboggan ride through the end.

Don’t worry ladies there is some eye candy for you as well in this film. Wentworth Miller plays Clarie Redfield long lost brother, Chris, and Brois Kodjoe plays the athletic and handsome Luther. I think they do a nice job of balancing out the sexy between both the male and female characters.

Unfortunately, Resident Evil: Afterlife really bring nothing new to the table except 3D, which adds nothing special to the film, and a new breed of T-Virus mutants. And as my wife pointed out, this one felt more like a video game, that any of the other films in the series: solve a puzzle, fights some monsters, reveal a plot point, defeat a boss, move on to the next level, and repeat.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it. Milla Jovovich is hot. I love Alice’s “over the top” bad assery. And some of stunts and fight scenes were pretty impressive. But, in the end, it still felt like the sequel to a sequel to a sequel. I’m only going to give it three out of five snark bites.

So should you see it, well, if you a fan of the Resident Evil franchise, then yes. Otherwise, this might not be the film for you. If you do go remember stay through the first part of the credit for a glimpse into what’s instore in the next Resident Evil film.

The Holy Terror
by Wayne Allen Sallee
Narrated by Jeffrey Kafer

Published by Crossroad Press and SpringBrook Audio

(Disclosure Notice: I paid for this book myself, but I have received other audio books from Crossroad Press at no charge for review purposes.)

The Holy Terror is a hard book. It depicts the hard lives those trapped in the rolling prisons known as wheelchair being stalked and killed by a serial killer who believes he is following the will of his dead “father” and helping his victims enter Heaven. It depicts those stricken by disease or injury or metal illness or all three trying to make their way in late 80’s Chicago. It depicts people heroic and horrible in an era that is in our past, but that we haven’t really progressed beyond in many ways.

The base story of The Holy Terror revolves around Frank Haid. Frank Haid, dubbed the Pain Killer by the press, kills crippled men and women living in downtown Chicago. He believes he is commanded to do so by his dead “father”. He kills through a supernatural method of unknown origin that actually draws his victims bodies into his own. Frank is pitted against the residents of the Marclinn, a residence hotel for the handicapped, who have lost many of there number to Frank’s killing spree. These men and women are led by The American Dream, Evan Shustak, a self-styled superhero suffering from both mental and physical illness. The American Dream, with the help of his friends, has sworn to bring the Pain Killer to justice, and hunts for him on the unforgiving streets of Chicago.

As I said above, The Holy Terror, is a hard book. It is gritty and bleak. I felt sympathy for all of the characters, including the villain, in one way or another even though many of them were repulsive as well. Seeing the character’s day to day struggle to live even the semblance of a normal life stirred me emotionally and nearly brought me to tears at times. Yet at other times I laughed out loud (earning me strange looks at the gym a couple of times) or chuckled silently to myself at their antics. Yet the end of the story left me unsatisfied and vaguely depressed.

This book brought into conflict my compassion for those who are suffering and my horror at seeing them hunted and killed. One moment, I am cheering on The Pain Killer, the next I am praying for his capture. Sallee is masterful in handling that juxtaposition.

Sallee’s descriptive prose (and attention to detail concerning the era and location The Holy Terror is set in) and Kafer’s “just the facts” style narration worked to bring The Holy Terror to life for me in a way few audio books have. I was there on the streets and in the subways with The American Dream. I was in the back alleys with Frank Haid. I was there at the pool table in the Marclinn. I was there freezing on the bridge by the empty wheelchair.

And I applaud Jeffery Kafer for making all the Polish terms sound like Polish and the Spanish like Spanish. I don’t know if they were all pronounced properly, but they sounded great to me.

The audio edition contains two introductions along with the unabridged story. One of the introductions was written and read by the author himself. Those introductions give some background on Wayne Allen Sallee, the author, and the story. I suspect based on them that there is a lot of Salle’s own life wrapped up in The Holy Terror.

All that being said, I give the audio for The Holy Terror five out of five snark bites, and the story itself four out of five snark bites. This give The Holy Terror an overall score of five out of five snark bites (the story might deserve more than four snark bites but something about the end still nags at the back of my mind), and I recommend it with these cautionary words, “this book is not for the faint of heart.”