EARTHBOUND BY RICHARD MATHESON
(Tor Books paperback, 224pp, $4.99)

David and Ellen Cooper return to the beachside community where they spent their honeymoon more than twenty years before in an attempt to rescue a marriage placed under severe stress by David’s infidelity. But whenever Ellen is away David is visited by Marianna, a young and beautiful woman to whom he is powerfully attracted. He finds himself drawn into a passionate affair, the very last thing that he needed in the circumstances. David’s undoubted love for Ellen plays in deadly counterpoint to his desire for Marianna, as their bouts of frantic lovemaking leave him drained physically and mentally, deepening the rift between husband and wife. Another resident of the area warns David that Marianna is not what she seems to be, and slowly doubt gives way to the realisation of who, or rather what, he has invited into his bed and life. (more…)

Tags: Black Static • Book Reviews • Earthbound • Peter Tennant • Richard Matheson

BANQUET FOR THE DAMNED by ADAM L. G. NEVILL
(Virgin paperback, 410pp, £7.99)

The author of several works of erotica under the pseudonym Lindsay Gordon, Nevill moved into the supernatural arena with this superbly crafted novel of terror, which previously appeared in hardback from P S Publishing Ltd in 2004 (this review originally appeared in The Third Alternative #39 at the time of that publication). (more…)

Tags: Adam L. G. Nevill • Banquet for the Damned • Black Static • Book Reviews • Peter Tennant

NIETZSCHE’S KISSES by LANCE OLSEN
(FC2 paperback, 244pp, $15.95)

This short novel chronicles the last hours of the great German philosopher’s life when, after many years’ illness, he had retreated into a solipsistic fantasy world and his literary heritage was in the hands of his fascist sister Elizabeth. (more…)

Tags: Black Static • Book Reviews • Lance Olsen • Nietzsche • Peter Tennant

THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE BY MAX BROOKS
(Duckworth paperback, 254pp, £8.99)

This book has an intriguing concept. Subtitled “Complete Protection from the Living Deadâ€�, it operates under the premise that zombies are real, the victims of a virus called solanum, albeit their existence has been covered up by the authorities, and that an outbreak could happen near you at any time. In themed chapters Brooks details how to recognise when an outbreak is occurring, the best weapons to use against zombies, how to run from them and hunt them down, the difficulties posed by various types of terrain, the best structures to offer protection from zombie attack, surviving in a zombie world, should the worst case scenario ever come to pass. And so on and so forth, all of this delivered deadpan and with a potted history at the end of various zombie outbreaks during the course of history (more…)

Tags: Black Static • Book Reviews • Max Brooks • Peter Tennant • Zombie Survival Guide • zombies

NO-MAN AND OTHER TALES by TONY RICHARDS
(Pendragon Press paperback, 340pp, £9.99)

This collection of four novellas will be reviewed in Black Static #3, due out later this month, but one of the novellas, Postcards From Terri, was previously reviewed in The Third Alternative #39 back in 2004, when it appeared as a hardback from Sarob Press. Rather than repeat myself, I’ve decided to post the original review of that novella on the website (more…)

Tags: Black Static • Book Reviews • No Man and Other Tales • novellas • Peter Tennant • Tony Richards

THE PAST IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY by GIANRICO CAROFIGLIO
(Old Street Publishing hardback, 288pp, £12.99)

Giorgio is a young man with a promising future, but then he falls under the spell of the charismatic Francesco, who lures him into a life of debauchery. Francesco teaches him how to cheat at cards, and at first they only swindle those who deserve or can afford to be gulled, but then as easy marks become hard to find anyone is a target. In other areas of his life Giorgio is persuaded to compromise on his own standards, abandoning his studies to be a lawyer and cheating on his girlfriend, getting drawn ever deeper into a life of crime and lulled by the ease with which everything falls into his lap. Concurrent with this is another plot strand in which a lieutenant of caribinieri is investigating a series of attacks on women, with the violence mounting each time. As the two strands near each other, Giorgio faces hard choices about his future and must question where his own boundaries lie. (more…)

Tags: Black Static • Book Reviews • Crime fiction • Gianrico Carofiglio • Italy • Peter Tennant • The Past is a Foreign Country

INCUBUS DREAMS by LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Orbit paperback, 736pp, £7.99

The vampire has always exercised a strong attraction for female writers, with Anne Rice and her Vampire Chronicles the most obvious success story. But with the Queen of the Damned’s discovery of Jesus competition for her crown is intensifying, and Laurell K. Hamilton seems to have edged ahead of the pack.

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Tags: Black Static • Book Reviews • Incubus Dreams • Laurell K Hamilton • Peter Tennant

THE BLOODSTONE PAPERS by GLEN DUNCAN
Simon & Schuster paperback, 405pp, £12.99

There are two main strands to this novel, each intercut with and informing the other. One strand is set in India in the 1930s through to the 1950s, taking in all the major events, such as WW2 and Independence. The main character is Ross Monroe, an Anglo-Indian and thus part of the race who helped the British run the Raj, but now marginalised in the wake of Independence. Ross is a talented boxer with dreams of going to the Olympics and making a career for himself as a fighter, but his chances are squandered when he is drawn into the schemes of British fraudster Skinner, the man who engineers the theft of Monroe’s family heirloom, his mother’s treasured bloodstone ring. With his boxing career in ruins and facing criminal charges, Monroe’s only hope is to escape to Britain. Part of this story is told from the viewpoint of Kate, the woman Monroe loves and comes to marry, detailing her unhappy childhood and the steps she was forced to take to avoid the attentions of an abusive uncle.

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Tags: Black Static • Bloodstone Papers • Book Reviews • Glen Duncan • Peter Tennant

THE JOURNAL OF PROFESSOR ABRAHAM VAN HELSING by ALLEN C. KUPFER
Forge paperback, 204pp, $9.95

With The Journal of Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a book being deliberately marketed to cash in on the success of The Historian, Allen C. Kupfer falls back on the old trick of the fake document, in this case a spoof diary, allegedly left to the author‚Äôs grandfather Daniel, who was a friend of the vampire hunter and disappeared in mysterious circumstances years after coming to America as an immigrant, and found in the attic after the death of his grandmother. Kupfer is blas?© about this, cheerfully owning up to the fact that it contains inconsistencies with the text of Dracula and anachronisms, such as Van Helsing‚Äôs use of the word ‚Äòinfrastructure‚Äô, giving the impression that he doesn‚Äôt much care if we believe in its authenticity or not, simply wanting to be spared the unwelcome attention its publication has brought him.

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Tags: Allen Kupfer • Black Static • Book Reviews • Peter Tennant • Van Helsing

TAMING THE BEAST by EMILY MAGUIRE
Serpent’s Tail paperback, 317pp, £6.99

This is the story of Sarah Clarke, fourteen years old when we first meet her and enthralled with the romance of literature, so much so that she enters into an affair with English teacher Daniel Carr. She is being abused, though Sarah doesn’t see things that way. She’s in love with Carr and when he leaves her, moving with his wife to another city, she falls apart. As the years go by and she grows into womanhood, Sarah gains a reputation for promiscuity, moving from one meaningless relationship to another, using men in the same way that they use women, with best friend Jamie the only person she feels close to. And then Carr returns into her life, as haunted and damaged by her as she was by him, and the two of them embark on a no holds barred sexual relationship, S&M without a safe word or safety net.

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Tags: Black Static • Book Reviews • Emily Maguire • Peter Tennant • Taming the Beast