Shock Totem 4: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

by Shock Totem

  “Dust to Dust” – Backed by the sound of falling rain, the battle is won and the man is human once again—but there is a price to be paid. During the battle, he received a fatal wound that will now lay claim to his newfound humanity. The man has fought so long throughout the ages to return to his human state, only to lose the final battle. The piano highlights this bittersweet mood as the man laments his present circumstance, mixing hope for eternity with the loss of the present. The guitars are much more subdued, exemplifying the somber mood the man now finds himself in. He knows that from dust to dust is the way of life as the slight hint of rainfall closes out the album.

  Heavenly’s Dust to Dust is a progressive, complex effort that defies being grouped as just another power-metal album. The journey the man takes from man to vampire, ultimately back to man shows a richness to the writing, both musical and lyrical. The performance of the band verges on stellar as they progress through the different moods of the vampire. Ben Sotto’s vocals succeed at every turn—from high-pitched singing to growling to narration. Listeners who approach this album with an open mind will find a great reward awaits them.

  Heavenly turns in a fine effort and one that should be enjoyed by lovers of great music and storytelling.

  —Alex Mull

  Burying Brian, by Steven Pirie; Immanion Press, 2010; 260 pgs.

  When I read Digging Up Donald four years ago, I stated that it was the best book I’d read in the last twenty years, and I meant it. I’d known Steven Pirie for a long time through writers’ groups and other online venues, and knew he possessed a wit and charm that few others could match, but never in my wildest dreams could I have guessed that a book written by someone I considered an acquaintance would possibly stand alongside the likes of Douglas Adams, Clive Barker, and the rest of my all-time favorites.

  And yet it did. So when Mr. Pirie announced that he had written a second offering that takes place in the same universe, I eagerly requested a copy for review. As an odd happenstance (at least for me), I never once questioned if Burying Brian, this aforementioned second book, would reach the same heights that Donald did.

  My assumptions weren’t wrong.

  Burying Brian brings us back to Mudcaster, that odd little town sitting snug in the English countryside, where the forces of good and evil perform their seemingly never-ending dance of power. This time God has thrown his all-powerful self into the ring as well, because for some reason known only to God (He does work in mysterious ways), He’s stricken with the urge to head back down to Earth and live amongst the mortals yet again.

  The Mother and The Father, the old (very old) lords of balance in Mudcaster, are aging, with The Mother verging on entering Grandmotherhood, which itself carries a litany of “changes.” Because of this, it’s up to their daughter Maureen and her husband, a ne’er-do-well simpleton named Brian, to set things right and stop the demons of hell from bringing about humanity’s Final Judgment.

  Brian, in particular, has a large part to play, the biggest of all. In Donald he was a rarely seen character, more used to being the butt of brilliantly sublime sexual innuendo. He has come full circle once Brian begins, however, and he’s chosen to go on a quest, to learn all he can about the failings of the human race so he can properly defend the sins of man. His journey takes him from the dart competition at his local pub to the bowels of hell. His trip is long, often times hilarious, and always affecting. Being a bit of a damp lettuce, Brian many times suffers through his trials only to emerge on the other side with his innocence intact. Because of this, I couldn’t help but think of the themes presented in Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut, in which humans are said to have been cursed by their big brains and even bigger ideas. As Brian vividly displays on every step of his journey, when you live in a world of such unnecessary complexity, sometimes the simple answers, those we overlook, are the ones we should be seeking out.

  On the whole, Burying Brian doesn’t just approach brilliance but completely surpasses it. The prose Pirie uses is clever, never dull, and brings about a sense of poignancy that does what the best literature is supposed to do—make you think. The world he’s created is vast, with layers of religious mythology piled on top of everyday existence, creating a setting that is equal parts mundane and fantastic. Common folks and jobs (such as undertakers) are expanded upon, given far-reaching implications and meaning in the history of the universe. He also uses “funny physics” to help drive forward the plot—something as routine as the sequence of the bingo balls at the local old-folks’ home have dire consequences to the order of the cosmos—further illustrating the absurdity of the unnecessary complexity we humans must deal with on a daily basis.

  In all, I can once more say that Steven Pirie has done it. Burying Brian is more than an equal to his last book; it’s an indispensable companion to it. To this reviewer’s eyes, Pirie is the greatest writer of his generation. Burying Brian will excite you, make you laugh, and cause you to question all those mores we all hold as law, be it in regards to religion, science, sexuality, or marriage. Burying Brian is the best book I’ve read in a long time, and this author needs to be placed in the pantheon of other greats, alongside the likes of Bradbury, Vonnegut, Adams, Pratchett, and Robbins. This novel is well worth anyone’s time, and I give it fifteen thousand enthusiastic thumbs up.

  —Robert J. Duperre

  Harbor Moon, Ryan Colucci, Dikran Ornekian, Pawel Sambor; Arcana Studio, 2011; 140 pgs.

  Let’s make one thing clear: Werewolves are probably the coolest things ever. Monsters who know how to party under the full moon? That’s made of win. They tear stuff to pieces and wake up without a lick of remorse—just a wicked hangover and body parts stuck in their teeth, just like us at Shock Totem. Okay, I’m a liar: My hangovers are mild at worst (cry for help!). I mean, watch this:

  Interviewer: Ryan, if you could be any—

  Ryan Bridger: A werewolf!

  See that? I don’t even know what the QUESTION was! Werewolves rule!

  So you can picture how excited I was to receive a copy of Harbor Moon, the new graphic novel headed by Ryan Colucci (with the help of writer Dikran Ornekian and artist Pawel Sambor, along with others). Word had it the werewolves populating this tale were different from the wannabes plaguing pop culture for the last decade, so I was geeked to see what lycanthropy Colucci had in store.

  First off, Harbor Moon in a sentence: Timothy Vance’s search for the father he’s never met leads him to the titular town, where everyone shares a common secret. (Bet you can’t guess it has something to do with werewolves—wait, I gave it away? Pffft! Your mom’s a werewolf—how’s that ending?)

  Normally I’d talk more about the plot, but that would be ruining the fun. See, Harbor Moon plays out like classic film noir with Vance in the role of a grizzled private eye. Mash up all the noir tropes you can think of and add a dash of B-horror movie dialogue, and you start to get what this book is going for.

  And that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s pretty entertaining.

  So what about the art? In a word: Awesome. You’ll find dynamic coloring, fantastic splash pages, and depending on the page (see below), some solid penciling.

  So basically what I’m saying is, Harbor Moon is perfect, right? Well, not really. It has a few problems that combine to make the book a very confusing read.

  For starters, most male characters look identical, and throughout the book I found myself flipping back pages and cross referencing haircuts to make sure who was who in any given scene. Adding to the confusion is an ever-changing art style, where the same character can take on a completely different appearance from one page to the next (again, haircuts were helpful in most situations). Most jarring is the lack of smooth transitions between scenes. In fact, many times panels seem disjointed or completely unrelated, making it difficult to figure out what was going on—especially during the action.

  A lot of the time, it reads like this:

  “Uh oh! He’s gonna get in a bar fight! Wasn’t he just in a
forest? No, I mean now he’s—wait…what? Dammit!” (Flips back to make sure who’s who.) “Hey, he’s not in a bar anymore, now he’s in…a police station? OH GOD HE JUST ROUNDHOUSE KICKED A WEREWOLF IN THE FACE!!!! AWESOME!!!!”

  Bottom line is, if you’re a big werewolf fan like I am, you’re going to dig this book by default, because the werewolves look and act like bad-asses—which is how they’re supposed to act. If you’re a more casual comic-book fan looking for an easy read, then Harbor Moon might prove frustrating. If you decide to skip it, I can assure you you’ll be missing out on a really solid premise that can lead to some great stories in the future.

  I just hope if they tackle a sequel they can manage to clean up the page layouts, just so we can keep up with the awesome ideas they’re reaching for.

  —Ryan Bridger

  PLAYLIST AT THE END

  by Weston Ochse

  The closet was three feet wide and four feet deep. I’d removed all the jackets and hangers, so they wouldn’t get in my way and make noise when I shifted position. I’d muffled the hangers by shoving them under the jackets. Silence was absolutely critical. I didn’t want to be discovered. I couldn’t be discovered. Not at least while I waited.

  So I settled in. I’d managed to grab a bottle of water and a Styrofoam to-go container from Lucky Dragon Pizza Company with three slices of kung pao pizza. The smell of the Chinese-Italian fusion cuisine usually drove me mad, but I was too nervous and scared to care right now. So I pushed it back into the corner, pulled out my MP3 player and slid the ear buds into my ears.

  I’d made a playlist. I always made playlists. I had one for mowing the yard, for driving to my mother’s house, for grocery shopping, for the doctor’s office, for the dentist’s chair, for eating breakfast. I had playlists for just about everything. They set the tone for things. They prepared me. They helped me cope.

  I’d made today’s playlist last night. Like all the others, it was very special to me. My taste in music was necessarily eclectic, drawing from classical, heavy metal, independent, grunge, glam, punk, R&B, rap, reggae, techno, industrial, trance, jazz, Broadway, blues, rockabilly, new wave, disco, international, and country. Sometimes it was the words that caused me to use a specific song for a specific playlist. Other times it was the melody. Time was important as well. It had been a long time since I’d done anything without a playlist. When the music stopped, usually so did I.

  I checked my watch and waited for the interminable digital arm to sweep to twelve. When it hit the top of the hour, I pressed the play button on my MP3 player, then locked the controls in place. I focused my eyes on the slice of light between the bottom of the door and the floor, wondering when I was going to be discovered.

  Muskrat Love, by Captain and Tennille. The warm sounds of Toni Tennille’s voice filled my ears with a song that held the promise of summer. My mother used to sing it to me and my sister, Muskrat Suzie and Muskrat Sam becoming our nicknames, especially at bedtime. The song reminded me of how bright and pure everything had been before they changed. My mother liked to tickle us before bed. My tickle spot had been my ribs. My sister’s tickle spots were her feet. Suzie and I were only two years apart. At six and four years old, we slept in the same bed, and it was to our mother’s singing of “Muskrat Love” that we coalesced into one multi-limbed tickle ball every night before bed. As the song faded to nothing, I was reminded how pretty my mother had been then.

  Dirty Deeds, by AC/DC. The guitar slammed the repetitive beat, banishing thoughts of my sister and mother. I was transported to the basement of my former idol and drug dealer Roddie Archie, who sprawled in a papasan chair in front of his giant screen television like the King of Absolutely Everything. AC/DC played on the screen. Bon Scott, way before he drank himself to death, bounced one jack-booted leg off the floor to the beat Angus Young pounded on his guitar. Annalisa Scaggins held Roddie’s blue and yellow glass bong on her lap, ready to light it at Roddie’s command. I was twelve and looked up to Ronnie like the big brother I’d never had. When he liked something, so did I. I liked Annalisa, too. She was a cheerleader at our high school and always wore a short skirt. Roddie kept telling me she didn’t wear any underwear, and I couldn’t stop trying to see for myself. She knew it, too. She’d catch me staring, and as I’d look away embarrassed, I’d catch her grinning. “Dirty Deeds” was our favorite song. We got to where we sang it together, rasping the title over and over until it bridged to my favorite line: “Concrete shoes, cyanide, and TNT.” Then we’d smoke from the bong until midnight. Roddie and Annalisa would make out. I’d find my way home to check and see if my sister was doing okay, since mom worked night shifts as a nurse’s aide at the hospital.

  Shadows darkened the slice of light at the bottom of the door. I held my breath, and only released it as the light returned. Someone had been close. It could have been someone coming in the house, or it could have been someone coming to open the closet. I was lucky it hadn’t been the latter. I could have catalogued what might have happened if the door had opened, but the next song had already started.

  I Feel the Earth Move, by Carole King. One night, later that same year, fire took my sister. I’d been hitting the bong hard with Roddie and Annalisa. I’d staggered home through the woods, just as I always did. Exiting the pine trees into our back yard, I found the inside of the house glowing orange. At first I thought it was my buzz informing reality, but my mother running screaming through the front door into the house broke the spell. I broke the locked sliding glass doors with a piece of cinderblock. Smoke poured through, surrounding me, making my lungs erupt. I was able to make one step towards the house before I fell to my knees. Then I heard sirens. Soon a fireman found me huddled on the ground. He ushered me around to the front of the house and sat me on the back bumper of the EMT van. Carole King was on the radio, singing about the earth moving, the sky tumbling and her heart trembling. I knew she was talking about sex, but as my mother was rushed from the house and deposited on the cot next to me, her left arm and the side of her face burned beyond recognition, the words took on an entirely different meaning.

  Separate Ways, by Journey. Carole King’s song slid into static for one brief moment before a synthetic orchestra began a driving electronic piano anthem to love lost and found. No one survived that night of fire and smoke unscathed. My sister had tried to light a candle when the power went out and had burned in her own bed, Disney characters cavorting frantically on her linens as they engulfed her. My mother was scarred for life. She never smiled again. She never laughed. She hated me. Even when I told her I was sorry, her ruined voice cracked bitterly, informing me that the “Only reason you aren’t on your own is because you’re too young and the law won’t allow it.” Later I found out that she’d been at the bar with a new boyfriend instead of work and that the reason the power had gone out was because she hadn’t paid the bill. But it was all my fault. I always thought of my sister when the words “I still love you, girl” hearkened the end of the song. And I was never, ever able to listen to it without crying.

  I unlocked the controls to my MP3 player and hit pause. Checking my watch, I allowed myself ten minutes. The emotions from the last five minutes and twenty-four seconds were still strong. My heart was up against a lump. I needed to eat anyway. I pulled the Styrofoam box out from the corner and set it on my lap. I grabbed the water, opened it and set it on the floor by the door. I inhaled the first piece of pizza so fast I barely tasted it. After a shot of water, I ate the second more slowly. I marveled at the taste of the spicy peanuts and chicken fused with the mozzarella and crispy pizza crust. A layer of basil slid in at the end of the bite, complimenting the already intense flavors. I took a long slow drink and decided to save the last piece. After all, I might be hungry later.

  After sliding the box and the bottle back into the corner of the closet, I resumed my vigil. It wasn’t often that I perpetrated such a state of melancholy. Most of my playlists transported me to other places, other times, where I could be other pe
ople, doing other things. But for today’s playlist, the playlist at the end, it was important for me to remember what made me. It was necessary for me to reaffirm the efforts of the others who helped me in my time of desperate need. When all things seem to be going against you, you can embrace the barrel of a gun or the compassion of another. Both can be vicious endings, but the latter at least promised a rehabilitation of the spirit, something which I was in dire need, something I could do for others if given the chance.

  Girls on Film, by Duran Duran. His name was Abe and he had pictures of girls covering the walls of his cell. During my first week of incarceration he took me under his wing and protected me. After my probationary period of adjustment, I was allowed to move in with him. At four hundred pounds, he was the biggest, blackest man I had ever met. His muscles and tattoos pronounced his football-then-bouncer heritage. No one, and I mean no one, ever fucked with Abe, which meant that they never fucked with me either. To be honest, Abe was a lover, not a fighter. There wasn’t a woman he didn’t meet that he didn’t like. He loved to follow them, take pictures, and sometimes introduce himself. But he didn’t take rejection well. Into the nights, he’d wax poetic about this or that girl, providing me an encyclopedia of knowledge about someone I never met. Then he’d break down and cry, not understanding why they didn't want to be with him, singing Girls on Film in a perfect tenor voice that only cracked a little when he sang the words, “take me up ‘till I’m a shooting star.”