| RAVENOUS GHOSTS By: Kealan Patrick Burke http://www.kealanpatrickburke.com |
| It all started one day over the summer of 2003. I recieved an email from the administrator of one of the websites I moderate (www.ghostplace.com) saying that he had been contacted by an author who was interested in having a review done of one of his works. He asked me if I'd be interested in doing it, and I readily agreed because hey, I like books.... Anyways, I contacted the author and we spoke a few times about the review and following interview. He then agreed to send me a copy of the book (which i get to keep!!! free books whooohooo!!), and then I'd write the review and then email him interview questions. Time passed and I finally recieved the book. Much to my dismay, I found out that the book I had been so eager to review was being discontinued due to problems with the publisher. To my knowledge some of the stories are being used in other collections, so atleast his work will not go to waste. For this reason, I will review each story on it's own, so that for future books, there will be some information available. To begin with, the cover art on the book is amazing. It's a very eerie cover, when I first looked at it, my first thought was that it was the picture of a man, with the picture of a mouse or rat overlayed on it. Then I looked again and it looked like an eerie tree instead of a mouse. The art was commissioned to Mike Bohatch (www.eyesofchaos.com), which was funny because just 4 days before I recieved the book a friend of mine had shown me his website and i was awed by it. Extra brownie points on choosing good cover art. What i also noticed was that, even thought the title of the book is "RAVENOUS GHOSTS" there aren't many actual ghost stories in it. It is more of a horror/suspense/supernatural mix than anything else. Familiar Faces - "I found myself itching to write a story that didn't encumber itself with the burden of having to explain everything." A strange tale about a man driving home who seems to go a bit crazy. The story, albeit very creepy and well written, seems a bit confusing and unfinished. When the end of it comes, 8 pages later, you wonder to yourself: "what started all of this?" and "What exactly happened at the end?" While it is understood by the authors note at the beginning of the story that it isn't supposed to make sense, it almost doesn't make enough sense for the reader to even have any sort of understanding as to what has gone on. 3 of 5 stars. The Barbed Lady Wants for Nothing - "I think the whole story has a very pulpish feel to it, as do many of my stories - a trait that is fast becoming a much-derided attribute in certain circles." This story is very eerie about 2 men who attempt to rob a comic book store. In the process of this action, one of the men finds a comic in which their currect actions were being presented.... I won't give away the end of the story, but suffice it to say it is almost sci-fi ish in nature. It is reminiscent of the not-quite-so-old television show on "SNICK" (saturday night nickelodeon) "Are You Afraid of the Dark" (almost like a child's version of the "twilight zone") which was my first thought when I read it. I definatly liked the twists in the story that keep you guessing "who's really in charge?" and "what's behind that damn door??" Any shortcomings found in the first story were definatly made up for in this one. 4 of 5 stars. Haven - "...If you were to meet your childhood self, what would you say to it? Or what might it say to you?" A mother dies. A son is relieved. After a lifetime of problems, he returns home only to meet up with his childhood self... This story is definatly one of the creepier ones. It seems possible enough that it almost makes a person want to check under the bed before sleeping. Returning to the home where you grew up only to have a conversation with yourself not only seems insane, but plain old weird. Wouldn't your childhood self have grown up into your present self? Apparently not. I won't reveal the cool twist of the story, but it is definatly a good one. This is one of the ones that could either stay a short story, or be expanded into a short novel. The way that Burke focuses on a simple event and doesn't stray from that idea makes this one my favorite so far. 5 of 5 stars. The Binding - "...one morning over coffee, the first line of the following story popped into my head and I rushed, nay, raced to the keyboard and wrote it down." Did you ever notice how the subjects of paintings seem to follow you with your eyes? What if the subjects in the paintings were not mearly representations of the real person? This story has an almost Twilight Zone quality to it. It definatly makes me think of the eerie-ness that is inherent in any good twilight zone story. It starts out just find, you know - something bad has happened to a guy and now he's chained to a bed. But the twist at the end (nuh uh..not telling) is something that was definatly not expected. The way he expressed this to the reader was also better. 5 of 5 stars The Wrong Pocket - "Strange indeed. But if nothing else it shows how, when asked to write a crime story, i can't resist adding a little dark spice to the proceedings" This story is hard to brief you on. It's so almost unbelievable and weird that a short description is hard to come up with. I'll try though... A man who picks pockets for a living accidentally takes the "wallet" of a man with no shadow. If i tell you any more than that it gives the whole story away *sigh* When i first read this story, i was a bit confused. How did the man know where they lived? How did he.....oops can't tell you..but you get my drift. It was strange indeed. I had to read it twice before i was able to understand what the beginning meant. Not that i'm slow like that, no i'm not, but it's such a strange story that it sort of takes you by shock, and when you read the end the beginning makes less sense then it did before, so you have to read it again. I very much liked it though, very good job on this one. 4 of 5 stars Sparrow Man - "On the day this story was born, I was walking in a violent storm, contemplating abandoning the sojourn, no matter how sanity restoring it might be, when i cam across two sparrows dead on the raod.... ....The image of a man, standing in the road looking down at the dead birds mutated into the story." This story was definatly amazing. I want to say it was my favorite, but to do that would probably offend my OTHER favorite stories from this book - they are all very good. Anyways, this one is about a boy who is given a warning by the Sparrow"man" (i say it that way because it's not quite clear if he's a man at all..or something else...). The warning is that the next morning, a dead sparrow will appear at his house, and whoever touches it will die - but it is only meant for one person. The boy tries to save his family, but in the end the person the bird was ment for dies. It is a sad story, death usually is sad. The reader isn't really given enough information about the family to make a judgement either way as to the morality of the death. On the one hand, they are told that the person is abusive to the boy, and on the other hand, the boy does not want this person to die regardless of their actions. I very very much liked this story, and almost hope that it would be made into some sort of novel some day - in which case i would like a copy :) 5 of 5 stars The Room Beneath the Stairs - "My grandmother loved, and still loves to tell a story and no matter how wild and fanciful they are, she insists they are true. I'm relieved she never told me this one; thought it's posssible I might have blocked it out of my brain..." My first thought when i read this story was that i had heard it before. It is about a boy who goes to his grandmothers house because he is forced to spend time with her. It is here he learns that his grandfather, who is dead, was very much into carving figurines in the locked room under the stairs. As much as i would love to tell the ending, and ask if anyone else has heard this story before, i won't do it. That would almost be rude. The story itself, even thought it reeks of being heard before, is a good one. It fits in well with the rest of the stories in the book, and even though i'm posivtive i've heard it that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. 4 of 5 stars Symbols - "The location was a place called Joe's Gas and Gulp, which in the anthology has been long abandoned. The following is a pieces that does not appear in Brimstone Turnpike. It was written for the sole purpose of helping me discover what exactly did lead to the ruination of that little diner." This story definatly sparked my interest. As it began i though "what a dumb idea.." but then i actually got past the first two paragraphs and couldn't put it down until i was done (forsakeing two phone calls from my mother just to finish it). This scraggly character walks into Joe's Gas and Gulp and proceeds, though a very VERY strange sequence of events, to kill the proprietor and chef, while at the same time striking the narrator dumb. This i think is the favorite of them all. 5 of 5 stars Editors Choice - "Few things are more irritating to a writer than submitting a story to a magazine that claims to publish all genre's but snubs the one you happen to have chosen... ...Hardly encouraging, but i took the hint, in which, addled by frustration, i made snide refrences to the magazine in question and sent it to them. To my amazement they published it." This story almost seems like it happened to the author himself at one time, and he was trying to convey his aggrivation. The narator of the story, a writer, constantly writes to a magazine and gets his manuscripts rejected time after time - all the while neglecting his wife. The end made me laugh more than anything else, and while i do think that this story has a good background and idea behind it, it doesn't fit will with the book idea and the rest of the stories. 2 of 5 stars From Hamlin to Harperville - "I've always liked reading alternate versions of our beloved fairy tales..this is mine." This is an "alternate" version of the story of the Pied Piper...or so it seems. The Piper gives up being a piper, which doesn't become apparent until midway through the story, and becomes a mortal. In the town he is in, a new piper comes to bring him back to the 'profession' to which he doesn't care to return. This second piper brings rats with him to attempt to persuade the original piper to come back. The rats end up devouring the people in the town in which he lives....and that is all i'll say. I really liked this story. It could be my affinity for rats that did it, or it could just be the fairy tale aspect that pushed me over. I, too, enjoy reading the darker versions of fairy tales, and this one just seemed like it fit in so well with the original that it HAD to be good. It also fit very well with the essence of the book - being spooky and slightly eerie. 5 of 5 stars Cold Skin - "I have dreaded the moment when I would be asked to explain where this particular story came from. So I have decided to come clean. I have no idea, I'm not even sure what it's about." Those few sentences sum up the basic idea of story. I'm not sure either what it was about, and i think in my interview that will be one of the questions that I ask the author. It was a very jumpy and choppy story, and i think that if it had made a little bit more sense I would have liked it better. It kepts switching between one scene and another - which is fine to do - but the problem was that there was no consitancy and the jumps made no sense. A wife lying in bed with someone "cold" next to her while she should have been alone? A husband cheating on that wife? A boss/lover who murders the cheating husband because he wants to call it off? The only thing i can thing of is that the wife was having some sort of premonition about the murder...but who knows. If this story made more sense, of if it had some sort of explination included, it would have gone over better. 2 of 5 stars Not While I'm Around - "This is one of my favorite pieces. It's short, sharp and dark and is probably the most blatant pulp story in this collection. Which is why I'm so fond of it, i suppose." This one almost makes me think of an eerie "friday the 13th" style urban legend. The woman gets married, and everyone she gets close to is murded by the spirit of her dead lover....who has a secret twist i won't tell. It definatly has the possiblity to be expanded into a short novel or something of that sort, but the way it is shown in this book works well for it. It does seem sort of run-of-the-mill ghost story though, the type people tell around the campfire to scare eachother. It lacks a distinctive uniqueness that some of the other stories had. 3 of 5 stars Someone to Carve the Pumpkins - "It seems that most horror writers are obliged to tackle ye Olde Halloween Tale at some stage in their careers." A story of two young boys who sneak up to a 'haunted' house to see the ghost of an old woman sitting out front knitting. They dare eachother to go up and see if she's really a ghost and finally one of them attempts it only to find out that he can't make it - he's just too frightened. The twist at the end of this story had me giggling of shock. I definatly did not expect what happened, and therefore this story makes it to my "good story" list. Burke blended a sense of reality with a strange, almost twisted, sense of the unknown. This story, while you expect it to be written from the point of living humans, turns out to be the viewpoint of the dead, which definatly gives it a spooky halloweenish feel to it. 5 of 5 stars The Man Who Breaks the Bad News - "This tale came about after I got to wondering what zombies would be like if they turned out to be a lot more than George A. Romero's vision of mindless savages, and were instead intelligent and dismally aware of their own decay." I had to read this story a few times through, only because the second time made it that much better. It is about a man who, one day, answers the door to find a man standing there from an agency that he has never heard of. This stranger tells him he has died, and that he will bring him to a place where he can live out the rest of his...death i guess....in somewhat comfortable surroundings. The main character doesn't believe him, and from then on the story goes to explain how he died, what the agency is and such. My first thought, when i read this, was that it was histerical. This is the part that made me giggle (slightly trimmed a bit because i don't want to type the whole thing...and you don't need it to see why it's funny): "Well, there's this guy at my door harrasing me. He's an old guy, dressed in black. Says he's from something called the United States Recuperation Department or something." "yes?" Sam frowns, "He says I'm dead!" There was a long pause... ..."Are you dead?" "Well, I...what?" Stapler clears his throat, "if someone from the U.S.S.R.D. is at your door, then i suspect you may have expired, Sam. Sorry" ... "But I..." "Be sure to give my condolences to your wife." When i read that, i started laughing hysterically, to the point where my roommate came in the room to ask if i was going to make it through. It's slightly morbid to laugh at that point, but it really is funny. Imagine walking up to your spouse and saying "sweetheart, Bob sends his condolences. Oh, and by the way, i'm dead." The thought of it brought the giggles... This story is definatly a good one. One of the best in here i'd say. If all of Burkes stories turned out like this you can bet your ass i would have every single one of them. Right now. 5 of 5 stars The Defenseless - "...Although I don't generally consider myself a miserable person, I do tend to slip into moods that I'm sure would send a psychiatrist running for his prescription pad..." This story was not so much a horror story as much as it was a crime story. It did have a little bit of a horror/supernatural twist to it, but the characters own doubts about it made it seem almost like it was a false sense of it. I will say I thought it was a little less of a crime story than the main character thought, but not as much of a horror story as Burke thought. Mainly it is a girl who, by some slightly supernatural sounding means, kills her father. She is one of many, called the Defenseless - those who cannot help what is happening to them. They were all beaten, raped, or abused in some other way, and they killed their abusers. The only supernatural part was that they were supposed to, once they embraced this "gift", become invisible and get away with their crime. I did like the story. The plot could have been done differently, but i still like the way it was done. It makes you think a lot, without being overly scholastic and brainy. 4 or 5 stars Haunting Ground - "This story is my homage to Shirly Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House' and Richard Matheson's 'Hell House.'..." A woman, alone in an old mansion room. Her husband and his companions, presumed asleep in other rooms - either that or hovering over their beloved meters, cameras, televisions screens and E.M. gauges. They don't expect her to see the ghost....but she does. Far too much. The end of this story is slightly confusing, but that doesn't take anything away from it. It's from the point of view of the woman, writing in her diary as the whole encounter happens. The end just leaves you wondering, wanter more, almost ready to stalk down the author and demand to know what happened next. This is the best suspense story in the book. It leaves you hanging, but gives you enough to draw you in first... 5 of 5 stars All in all i'd say this book was excellent. Other than a few minor details that could have made it better, it definatly had an eerie feel to it. The fact that there are only a few ghost stories in the book, when the titles leads to to believe otherwise isn't really that big of a deal. It still gives you chills to read it, as any good book should do. Despite it's rather small shortcomings in the individual stories, i'd give this book: Creativity: 5 of 5 stars Originality: 4 of 5 stars Spook-factor: 5 of 5 stars Interest: 5 of 5 stars Back to Book Reviews Page Author's Website Ghostplace.com EyesofChaos.com |
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