Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Wednesday Review-- Michael Patrick Hicks

FINALLY!  At LAST!  I've been turned loose on my laptop, and it feels so good to put ass-to-seat and fingers-to-keys.  It's my last day off before working through the rest of the week and weekend.  As promised earlier this week, I've got a MASSIVE TRIPLE-THREAT MICHAEL PATRICK HICKS REVIEW!!!  Sorry about the caps, but it's a pretty big deal for me.  It took forever for me to get my thoughts together on this, but not for any reason involving the subject.  Life has required more attention than usual the last few days, so I had to let this gestate.  Without further ado...

MICHAEL PATRICK HICKS--THREE STORIES, ONE CUP, I mean, REVIEWER.

This weekend was a weird one for me.  I actually got some reading done--multiple stories!  Horror of horrors!  Yes, it's true.  Thanks to a mild cold, which my baby boy was more than happy to share with old Dad, I had some down-time.  No time like down-time, for trying to chip away at the TBR Mountain that is slowly absorbing this house, room by room.  Becoming sentient.  Looking suspiciously like '80s and '90s horror paperbacks.  Smelling like old, woody vanilla.  Am I turning you on yet?  I'm a little sweaty, myself.
    ANYWAY, speaking of '80s horror and getting sweaty (King of Segue, fuckers,) let's get into the meat of this thing.  Michael Patrick Hicks.  Hell of a guy.  Hell of a writer?  Let's find out!
    Mass Hysteria was the first title of his that I jumped into, with little to no expectations of how this was going to go.  I know Mike, we chat pretty often over on Twitter, and he's a really nice guy.  I filed this info away because, as history has shown us, the nice-guy horror writers are the ones you gotta watch.  Richard Laymon and Jonathan Janz are the two immediate examples.  Nice guys, give you the shirt off their back, but their prose?  Jesus.  Brutal, merciless, humor as black as the night.
    Mass Hysteria finds the town of Falls Breath under siege from a strange meteor shower.  Something virulent has hitched a ride from space and has infected the local pets, livestock, and wild game.  The animals rise up in a frenzy of attacks, no longer concerned with observing the natural order of things.  Sheriff's Deputy Matthew Scott and his daughter Lauren find themselves thrown into the middle of this quickly-spreading panic and violence.  After overcoming vicious dog attacks, Lauren and her dad begin to discover that the virus may be able to make the jump to human hosts, which spells doom for humanity as they know it.
    I'm pleased to report that Mass Hysteria delivers in the same way that James Herbert's The Rats delivers, or Shaun Hutson's Slugs, or JF Gonzalez's Primitive, Clickers, and on and on.  Breakdown of society?  Check.  Numerous gory attack scenes, sexual perversions, twisted psychopaths stepping forward to mutilate and terrorize?  It's all here.  There were certain scenes in this novel that made me wince, and I'm fairly jaded these days.  Every time I found myself reading something pretty lurid, the author found ways to push it further and further.  I was particularly entranced by the "sex and death" scene with Lauren and Jacob.  It was worthy of early Clive Barker.  Beautiful, lush brutality.
    Let me be clear before we go any further.  You don't read a novel like this expecting deep characterization, or complex themes, or literary symbolism.  Mass Hysteria is the book you take along to the beach, or crack open along with a few cold beers on a cool spring evening.
    It got full marks from me, because it's solid pulp-splatter and it doesn't pretend to be anything more than that.  My only gripe, which I've already raised with the author, is that the ending was abrupt and unsatisfying.  I wanted about 150-200 more pages before the ride should've been over.  This story was like a roller coaster that kept going up, and up, and up, building momentum, and then we're cut off right before the big drop, before everything goes REALLY BATSHIT, know what I'm saying?  Oh well.  If that's the complaint that I've got to offer for a story, that's not much of a complaint at all.  Another tenet of the pulp aesthetic--always leave them wanting more.  Oh, and that ending scene.  What a twist of the rusty knife in the reader's soul!
    After the total madness of Mass Hysteria, the reader is treated to a bonus second story, titled Consumption.  It is a different beast than the first tale, yet they share a common ancestor.  It's the story of a world-renowned chef, Heinrich Schauer, who invites six guests to his Swiss lodge for a twelve-course tasting menu of unearthly delights.  This story was propelled along mostly by the gruesome descriptions of the chef preparing different courses from the strange monster whose flesh he has chosen.  I flew through this one, still pissed about the ending to Mass Hysteria, but I absolutely loved how when the gruesome shit started to fly, it happened so suddenly.  One moment, our characters are (mostly) fine.  The next, all hell breaks loose in a fever-dream, absurdly violent way.  I'd recommend sticking around for this one after the main feature of Mass Hysteria.
    Next up on the butcher's block is Broken Shells.  Also by Michael Patrick Hicks.  I feel like I made that clear at the beginning of this, but fuck it.  This was recommended to me by Glenn Rolfe, a fine fella in his own right, and also, pretty much everybody on social media has read this book except me.
    Broken Shells tells the story of Antoine DeWitt, shit-luck ex-convict (hey, I feel ya, brother), newly-jobless, whole lotta hyphens there, who receives a promotional lotto ticket in the mail from an auto dealership.  Five grand if he shows up to claim it!  Antoine is no sucker, but his girlfriend talks him into it, and he wants to do the right thing for his infant son.  Jon Dangle, the owner of the auto dealership, does have an ulterior motive here, but it's nothing like Antoine could ever conceive of.  Plus, I've gotta say, with the last name "Dangle," the whole time I was picturing this guy as Lt. Dangle from RENO 911!, which definitely enhanced the story-pictures in my head. 
    This novella was an interesting creature feature.  I'll say interesting because I've never come across the Ba'is in anything before, and I do love it when an author borrows from Native American legends.  Even though Hicks admittedly took liberties with his depiction of these monsters, it works.  Bug stuff and cocoons and claustrophobia, it gets the skin crawling.  Another aspect I really enjoyed?  Dangle was given more depth than the usual cardboard prop-ups that authors can get away with in this particular subset of horror fiction.  His motivation for capturing and sacrificing people was done for the greater good, but ultimately, his work is undone.  Such a balance between man and nature was never meant to be. 
    Another thing that Hicks did well with this story?  Inserting a bit of sly commentary on racism and police shootings, without being heavy-handed with it.  It was more like a slight nudge and a wink.  If you see it, then it informs everything you perceive about this character and the predicament he's in.  That was the message at the heart of this for me.  Broken Shells' verdict?  Worth it!
    Finally, I checked out the short story Revolver, framed as a standard "dystopian thriller" piece, cut from the same cloth as The Running Man, Hunger Games, etc.  Or...IS IT?  No, honestly.  I checked out some reviews of this story before I bought it, and a lot of people talked about how "shocking" this story was.  The author himself has said it lost him some potential readers, in an intro/fair-warning to the story.  It definitely whet my appetite.  I dug in.  And you know what?  It was great, and provocative, but the sad thing here?  None of it was shocking to me. 
    Hicks has said he wrote this story in a fit of anger, and it shows.  Most of the stuff he depicts in Revolver doesn't qualify as "dystopian" to me, only because it's shit that's happening more and more EVERY DAMN DAY.  In real life.  Right-wing rape-culture, reality shows that degrade and debase people while rewarding them with money and fame, and on, and on, and on.  I don't want to turn my review into a rant on what's going on with American culture and society today.  We'll get stuck in the bushes, lose sight of the forest for the trees.  Just know this: you NEED to read Revolver.  I could cheapen this part of the review and give you the standard "synopsis and a haircut, two bits," but I won't.  I'd never cheat you, beautiful readers.
    We've come to the end.  My overall perceptions/verdict/summary of the writings of Michael Patrick Hicks is as follows: a year in the stocks, followed by twelve years' hard labor.  No, I'm just kidding.  Dark humor.  I'll actually steal from myself and reprint the blurb I already gave MPH: "He's like Dick Laymon and James Herbert got together for coffee, then made a titillating snuff film with Graham Masterton."  Oh yeah.  He's not a one-note player, either, showing off in a variety of genres and writing styles.  I'd surely as shit recommend you seek out his writings, today.  Now, were you really surprised by that?  No way in hell I'd waste my weekend on reading a bunch of a guy's stuff and then write this much of a review if I didn't like what he wrote!  Ain't nobody got time for that.
    Until next time, catch me on Twitter, @TheRealJohnBend, and be on the lookout for more reviews and stuff here on my blog, along with over at the Ginger Nuts of Horror site.  In fact, just go check out the site now.  It's got a lot of great piles of words to look at!  Bye now.

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