harrietj's reviews
227 reviews

This is a well-written and unsensational overview of graverobber Ed Gein's infamous crimes. I thought it was carefully and respectfully written. 

This is a generally readable thriller with horror around the edges.

The book has a quote from Stephen King on the front cover - 'If you like my stuff, you'll like this'. I'm not sure if this was meant as a compliment or a sideways accusation of blatant plagiarism. The best parts of this book were lifted so directly from It that I almost couldn't believe CJ Tudor got away with it. I recently read Tudor's The Taking of Annie Thorne, and made obvious comparisons to King's Pet Semetary, but this was shameless. Entire scenes, like the rock fight by the stream, are taken directly from King's bestseller - how is this allowed? One of the characters has the exact same habit of doing impressions of American talk show hosts that Richie has in It. And at one point, Tudor uses the EXACT analogy regarding unfair resolutions to cliffhangers in media that Annie Wilkes does in Misery - 'he didn't get out of the cockadoodie car!' becomes a whinge about cliffhangers in Doctor Who. This entire book is barefacedly rehashed King, and it's distracting and bizarre to read. Additionally, outside of the King rip-offs, it's just not very well written.

But, the good: I really liked the very final twist, right at the end. It tied up a loose end, it was creepy, and it was original. Liked that. Also, the descriptions  of Alzheimer's throughout the book, and that zinger right at the end, were really effective. By far the most terrifying and sad parts of the book, and absolutely responsible for one of the stars in this rating.

I liked being able to identify real locations, having been in NYC not long before reading this. The story was fine.

This is a novel set in the expanded universe of a board game, and you can tell. The plot is transparently a series of fetch quests across which each character gets to demonstrate their unique skillset in combat. It absolutely feels like listening to a battle report of someone's playthrough, but that's kind of fun. I like board games and I am the kind of person who will happily watch other people playing them online, so that absolutely wasn't a problem for me.

The board game in question is Zombicide: Black Plague. I love Zombicide, but I haven't played any Black Plague, so I wondered if much of this novel set in the Z:BP universe would go over my head. Either it's a simple enough concept to grasp or the author manages to make it feel that way, because I had no trouble.

I'd say it's more of a fantasy novel than a horror, the same way that Zombicide: Planet Havoc was more sci-fi. It had more mythical creatures and medieval-style settings than you can shake a crossbow at. I liked Ratbag's Orcish dialect. I found myself much more attached to Malicious the little lizard creature than I expected to get.

It's not great, and I probably won't read it again, but this was a fun read and if you like spending time in the Zombicide universe then you'll definitely have a good time with it.

This is an anthology of zombie-related comic strips, mostly only a page or two long, that take a humorous approach to the undead. It's in black and white.

Some of the art in here was really good, but style- and writing-wise it was so of its time. It's crazy how long ago 2009 feels in terms of comics. Honestly, I'd say the strips here even feel older than they are, maybe more 2004-05. The book was really a throwback to the kind of edgy internet humour that I was never that interested in at the time, so it really didn't do a lot for me, but I imagine if that was your bag it'd be a fun read.

It's really small in format which I'm sure helped keep the price down but some of the better art suffered for being scaled down so much, and a lot of the detail was lost. A couple of the strips had clearly been formatted for presentation on a larger page or screen and were a bit hard to read.

I am an absolute sucker for zombies, and there were two or three really great zombie artists included in this collection, so I didn't hate it, but I'd be hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone. There's just so much great zombie stuff out there, and this unfortunately isn't it.

Mara Wilson has a really conversational. easy to read writing style, which makes it easy to blitz through this collection of short essays about her life. There really isn't much to them - a lengthy chapter on choir club drama when Mara was at college, another on this one time she was really horny but then she had a one night stand and felt better - all pretty unremarkable stuff. But the chapters were light and competently written, and fun to read. I certainly came away from the book having enjoyed the author's company.

 Zombicide is one of my go-to all-time favourite board games. It's sprawling, ridiculous, action-packed trash. So is this novel - but it's also set in space!

I've never played Zombicide: Invaders before but this tie-in novel had me itching to. I didn't think I'd like it as much as the standard earthbound universe - this is aliens rather than zombies - but I loved every minute. It was wild, non-stop action, nothing deep or clever, just fun and guns. Aliens exploding left and right, cool spaceships, and androids who became my favourite characters. It's a fast, fun read with little depth but a lot of action.

Basically, if you don't like silly tie-in novels, you will definitely hate this, as it reads like a slightly beefed-up version of a gameplay review, but if you're happy to spend a few hours getting carried away by a derivative but fun story, you'll probably love it. The Aliens influences are clear to the point of making me raise my eyebrows a couple of times, but they story is a solid one and it's not taking itself too seriously or trying to reinvent the wheel.

I have a couple more Zombicide tie-ins to read, and I think there's another Invaders novel set to come out this year, and you can bet I'll be snapping it up. 

 For some reason I enjoyed this much less than the Zombicide novelisation of the game set in space, despite thinking I'd like this one the most. I think that because the characters mostly felt safe and overpowered, and the zombies didn't seem much like a real threat, the stakes felt very low and it just didn't hold my interest.

It was fun to see the different types of zombies from the game. Fatties are referred to here as 'brutes', and the Abomination goes by the name he had as a human, but the types are clearly described and I liked that the methods of dispatch are the same as in the game.