Happy Hour of the Damned -- by Mark Henry
Briefly this book is about our poor little newbie zombie Amanda Feral - rich, snobby, a fashionista to the max with a vocabulary like a long shoreman, a socialite with no conscience, the morals of a dog and clothes like a hooker but done in haute couture (think Betsy from MaryJanice Davidsons series, but even younger, meaner, and with a worse mouth). I've actually I've met long-shoreman that swear less and with much less color than Amanda and her "friends" do. Turned against her knowledge into a zombie, the book opens without our knowing just what happened to her. We are soon thrust into a "mystery" (and I use that term loosely) and then we are treated to a lengthy detailed description of how she was turned. Make-up to cover her very new complexion being foremost on her mind. Also we are treated to some really interesting prose about how zombies eat and it ain't pretty! Think jaws unhinging and faces being ripped through and eaten off..
Amanda's mystery starts with a text message on her phone from a friend, a succubus. Just one word "help". That gets the ball rolling. Sort of. We don't really see Amanda working too hard, until the final quarter of the book, to find her friend.
This book is [i]not [/i]anything we've never read before, that is if you've actually spent any time reading Urban Fantasy at all (again think Betsy From MJ Davidson) . There are many claims of it being fresh and new (see reviews at Amazon.com and the fact that most (all) of the early reviews are from newish authors. If you consider that the only thing I can see as being new, is the authors attempt at humor by using foot notes, then you have something new and fresh. Frankly I found the use to be annoying, it kept pulling me out of the story (what story there was) and I felt that this attempt at humor did more bad than good. I might have been more willing to over look the fact that Mr Henry seems to have an anus fixation, and a disturbing knowledge of haute couture.
This book is another book, that may not know what it wants to be when it grows up and perhaps FRESH is the new term for books that try too hard to cross too many genres at once and in my opinion fail.
This book should be classified as Chick Lit/Urban Dark Fantasy/Horror/Mystery. But alas, I'm afraid there is no such thing...yet.
If you are in the the age bracket of 13 -2o, you may find that this is what you've been looking for. A book about zombies and other creatures of the night (and day) that prey upon the humans of the world. A book that speaks in your language, with the slang of a new (old, read it you'll see what I mean) generation. This book is getting amazing reviews on Amazon...Anything that gets another generation to read and off the computer is a good thing.
The only reason why I'm not slamming this book against the wall is that I may just be too mature for it. Like I said, if you are in a certain age bracket you may find this wildly funny and super duper fresh. Then again, I find so many of my youthful friends have very good taste and intelligence.
No comments:
Post a Comment