Helluva Halloween II Contest: Choose Your Paranormal Character/Story

Mrs. DeRaps at DeRaps Reads is having an awesome contest where bloggers can come up with their own paranormal character and story. Here are the instructions:

Pretend that you are a character in a paranormal YA book. What is your paranormal identity? Are you a vampire? A werewolf? A zombie? Something else? Give a name to your character and a bit of your story.

Here is my story:


I'm a zombie. I don't know my name because stuff like that just isn't really important to zombies. We have more important things to think about, like finding tasty morsels and shuffling around aimlessly. Anyway, I was a normal college girl with normal college girl worries until my university became overrun with zombies. It's really not surprising because of the sheer volume people in such a close proximity. Cursing myself for actually showing up for school that day, I tried to flee, but I'm really clumsy. It didn't work out so well: I tripped and fell flat on my face. The zombie that was shuffling after me took a big bite out of my leg. After screaming in agony, I kicked it in the face and managed to escape. I knew I was a goner. No one ever survives or gets better from a zombie bite. I pondered on what to do: should I kill myself so I wouldn't hurt other people? Or should I embrace my zombification and just go with it? I opted for the second choice, partly because there was really nothing around to kill myself with. Who carries weapons onto a college campus? No one. And letting myself get eaten by zombies seemed like a really painful, messy way to go. So I just sat in the girl's bathroom waiting to become a zombie. Now, I roam around Long Beach with my zombie brethren, looking for tasty people to eat or at least infect. I'm not really sure of the reason for us zombies or if anyone has any clue on how to stop us, but I'll just live in the moment and enjoy being a zombie while it lasts.

* image is a screenshot from AMC's new TV show, The Walking Dead

Guest Post and Contest Announcements

Hello! I just have a couple of announcements:

1) My review of Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth is being featured at Misty's blog, The Book Rat! Plus she's doing the Helluva Halloween event again this year, with plenty of fun activities and prizes! There's the Horror Haiku Challenge, the Caption This! Challenge, the Helluva Halloween Craft Off, and a place for all of you to link your own Helluva Halloween posts. Go check it out!

2) Now, to announce the winners for my first ever giveaway!

Winner #1: Tara W
Winner #2: Mervi
Winner #3: yllektra

Congratulations to them and a big thank you to all of you that participated!

3) Because I was so lame and announced the winners for my giveaway about a week late, I'm going to push back the deadlines for my other two giveaways.

Night of the Living Trekkies Giveaway will now end on 10/15.

Handling the Undead Giveaway will now end on 10/22.

:)

More Lovecraft!

When I did my previous post about Lovecraft in other medias, I forgot two things!

1) I'm sure most of you have seen the Old Spice commercials with Isaiah Mustafa where he's on a horse and making you wish your man smelled like him. Cthulhu saw it too and figured he could sell his own scented products. Here is his commercial:



2) I love Magic the Gathering. In one of the recent sets, Rise of the Eldrazi, a triad of very large evil creatures were introduced that were once worshipped as gods. They were imprisoned for thousands of years, but were awakened by some planeswalkers. Their only motivation is to eat, so they devour the mana and life energy of worlds, kind of like Galactus. These are some of the most difficult creatures to destroy or get rid of in the entire game. The makers of the game were inspired partly by such Great Old Ones as Cthulhu. I see the inspiration especially in the tentacles. Here are the three Eldrazi:

Emrakul, The Aeons Torn

Ulamog, The Infinite Gyre

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth


I totally see the resemblance. :)

The Replacement

Mackie Doyle is a strange boy, but no one around wants to admit how strange he really is. He’s prone to fainting at the sight of blood, which isn’t too odd, but he also can’t stand being near steel or iron and can’t tread of consecrated ground. He is a changeling, left in the place of the human child that was stolen. No one in the town wants to face that these children are stolen by creatures that they don’t want to believe exist. The townspeople aren’t above making Mackie feel like a freak and an outsider. Then two things happen: a mysterious man tells Mackie he’s going to die; and Tate, a girl from his class whose sister had just died, keeps accosting him and asking him where her real sister is. Can he find her sister and save her from a horrific death or will he even survive long enough to try?

This book came highly recommended to me by my sister. She said it was one of the best horror young adult books that has come out in a while and I completely agree. The overall tone of the novel is very dark and descends as it goes along into an inhuman realm of undead children, gruesome murders, and ancient supernatural beings. The city of Gentry is odd and disjointed: there’s the normal, mundane world that regular people live in and then there’s the sinister world of the fae that serves as a constant undercurrent to the normal one. The inhabitants of the town are aware of the fae world and children are stolen from them, but they don’t really know why or for what purpose. It has to be horrible to live in a town where the truth is glossed over and denied while children are put in danger “for the greater good.” The way these two worlds interact and feed off of each other is fascinating.

Mackie is an interesting character because he’s relatable and interesting without even being human. He’s pretty miserable throughout most of the book both because of the physical pain that comes with living in the human world and the emotional pain from being the creature that replaced his parent’s real son. His relationship with his family is beautiful because even though he isn’t really even related to them, they decide to embrace him and make him feel loved anyway. They all work so hard to protect him, especially his sister Emma. It would have been so easy for them to resent and hate him. Mackie expresses his feelings through playing his bass, which I can totally relate to. There’s a scene where he plays in onstage with a band; the music, the way the band feeds off the energy from the crowd, and how the band members interact are described in electric detail. I really loved Mackie as a different kind of hero because he stopped being satisfied with glossing over the truth like everyone else. I enjoyed seeing his growth and change throughout the novel.

The Replacement is a wonderful young adult book that creates a creepy, eerie atmosphere. The world Brenna Yokanoff has created is brilliant, yet disturbing. I would definitely recommend this to any fan of horror fiction.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Lovecraft in Music and Film

While you are enjoying your Arkham Horror, you should check out other ways to get your daily dose of Lovecraft.

Music:

* The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets is an indie band based in Vancouver and they sing a lot of songs about the Lovecraftian mythos. They have songs with awesome titles like: Cthulhu Dreams, Sounds of Tindalos, Yog-Sothoth, and Cultists on Board. Here's one of my favorites called The Innsmouth Look.

* Metallica is a metal band based in California that started in the early 80's. They are known for their fast, aggressive music and aren't really known for being nerdy. However, they have two songs based around Lovecraft stories: The Call of Ktulu (which is an instrumental) and The Thing that Should Not Be. This is the latter song, played with the San Francisco Symphony because they sound naked without a whole symphony backing them up.

Film

* Dagon is a wonderfully cheesy movie based on Lovecraft's novella Shadow Over Innsmouth. American tourists are shipwrecked in a small town called Imboca and seek help from the inhabitants. These people turn out to be less than human and worship Dagon, a fish god. Can they escape these crazy people and return home?

* The Re-Animator is also an awesomely cheesy film based on the story, Herbert West- ReAnimator. It's a horror comedy that involves scientist Herbert West returning from abroad to study at Miskatonic University. He discovers how to reanimate dead flesh; chaos, gore, and hilarity ensue. Team zombie enthusiasts should definitely watch this film.

And there is always the adorable video, The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu. It explains the Cthulhu mythos while portraying Cthulhu as an adorable chibi. Thank you to Misty, who set it to me and reminded me of how awesome it is.

Arkham Horror

If you like horror, giant monsters, and very challenging games, Arkham Horror is the game for you. It's a board game made for you and up to seven other players and takes two to four hours to complete. It's excellent for a group of friends that have a few hours to kill. I play this game about every other week and, whether we win or lose, my friends and I have loads of fun.

Here is the object of the game:

"In Arkham Horror, a terrible creature from beyond time and space is waking, roused by the dimensional gates that are opening all over the city. The players must join forces to close all of the gates before this Ancient One awakens. If the Ancient One defeats the players, all of Arkham is doomed.

The players must work together as a team of investigators to close all of the dimensional gates, seal them permanently, of if that fails, defeat the Ancient One when it awakens from its slumber."

This game is pretty hard because it really, really doesn't want you to win, but it's so fun. Every turn, a portal opens at an unstable location accompanied by horrific monster. It's daunting when you first start because there are more little pieces in this box than any other board game I've ever owned and a whole lot of rules. The complex set of stages and rules are a little hard to grasp at first, but it gets easier with repetition and practice. You can choose from a variety of characters that may focus on spellcasting or fighting. Then, as the game progresses, players collect spells, weapons, and other items to help them battle the monsters and the Ancient One.

If this doesn't sound hard enough, you can buy expansions to the game, which can add a separate sections that attach to the Arkham board or just add extra items, events, monsters, and Ancient Ones. The expansion adds other objectives that must be completed in addition to the rest of the things needed to complete the original game. So if the game starts to become too easy for you, there are quite a few to choose from. My favorite is Innsmouth, where there are aquatic locations and you might develop the Innsmouth look (AKA turn into a fish monster)! Everyone should play this addicting and fun game.

The thing I think would be most interesting to book bloggers and readers is that this entire game is based off of the great works of H.P. Lovecraft. He wrote horror he called cosmic horror, where the universe is alien and the protagonists regularly risk their sanity for knowledge. One of the most famous stories is The Call of Cthulhu, which introduced one of the most horrific creatures ever imagined (pictured below). You can download and read it for free in any format you'd like at here. Lovecraft's influential works have inspired music, games, films, and countless sequels or imitations of his stories.

** The quote is from the Arkham Horror rule book.**

Fallen

Luce Price is shipped off to dilapidated Sword and Cross reform school after surviving a fire that killed her boyfriend Trevor and having no memory of what happened. Whenever she’s alone near water or trees, there are these menacing shadows that appear and follow her. If having no memory what happened wasn’t enough, the crazy talk about shadows sealed the deal. The school is outdated and horrible to behold. Plus, since she’s the newest of the students, she can’t seem to avoid being picked on and humiliated. She’s mysteriously drawn to Daniel and feels as if she’s met him before. He exhibits erratic behavior: one minute being nice to her and the next being rude to get her to stay away. Another boy, Cam, is clearly interested and really nice to her, but there’s something odd about him as well. Are these two boys who they seem to be? Which one should she trust?

I had been looking forward to reading Fallen for quite some time. It seemed more steeped in horror like Simon Holt’s The Devouring with the evil shadows that seem to cause accidents and kill people. At the beginning, the mystery about Luce’s reason for being at reform school is hinted at and finally revealed, which is pretty horrific. I was hoping this trend would recur throughout the book, but I was wrong. The story is more about star-crossed lovers and description of hot young men than anything involving horror. Sure, there are a couple of other deaths in the book, but they mostly occur out of the sight of the main character and are described to her later. I was disappointed that this book had more in common with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight then with The Devouring.

The pacing of the novel is a bit weird. The big revealing moment happens in the last 50 pages in a 450 page book. It seems tacked on and it interrupts the flow of the novel. If it had occurred earlier in the book, there could have been a lot more detail and more time to go through the event. I would have preferred that to the back and forth between liking and hating Cam and Daniel. The teen angst and melodrama got a little old after 400 pages.

The book isn’t all bad. I like the colorful characters that populated the reform school, including the fellow delinquent students and insufferable teachers. Luce is an interesting character to follow with her own unique voice. The novel is generally well written and kept me engaged for most of it, but there’s only so much mooning over boys I can take. I did read the entire book in the course of a day, so I’m still going to give the second book a chance.

My rating: 3.5/5 fishmuffins