**spoiler alert** Given the title "The Freakshow" and according to the synopsis on the back cover the plot would center around The Flaherty Brothers T**spoiler alert** Given the title "The Freakshow" and according to the synopsis on the back cover the plot would center around The Flaherty Brothers Traveling Carnivale and Freakshow and the horror it brings to town when it arrives- I thought mayhap I would be in for a good Halloween week read. Alas, the latter was not to be as it turned out there was very little freakshow in this book, and all in all I was in for an awful read and severe disappointment on all counts. I can offer you no reasons why you should read this book- not a one. Please realize the only reason there is one star above this review is that goodreads does not allow for a zero star rating- which they should for books like this.
I have never read any Bryan Smith before and after this outing I will be staying far away from any book that bears his name, as quite simply he is quite the talentless writer. Mr. Smith's writing lacks even a rudimentary style, no nuance, and was so heavy handed I found it a chore to turn the pages. The plot and the pacing were also both poorly executed. The only time that Mr. Smith manages to write with anything even resembling style or flair is when he is handling the many scenes of gore porn that far too often populate the novel(most of these scenes are highly misogynistic as another reviewer on the site quite accurately stated). One scene involves attempted necrophilia, there are two scenes of savage rape involving the female lead (once by a car's gear shift turned monster snake and another by a freak's detachable head) in both scenes as her mind is being controlled she is also forced to enjoy the rape (so it is a psychic rape as well)- I found the latter to be particularly tasteless. I am all for horror and violence and am rarely bothered by them, but herein they were the very definition of gratuitous- all the violence existed for the sake of violence and nothing else. To my way of thinking violence is only effective when you on some level care about the characters involved, when there is some sort of emotional resonance, but these scenes of violence occur to cardboard character cut outs, so there is not one iota of emotional impact. Hence, I feel the term gore porn is exactly the right one to describe the vast majority of this book- as this book is the equivalent of a porn film but instead of meaningless sex between people you have no connection to, you are treated to scenes of meaningless, over the top, and often sexualized gore involving characters you have no connection to.
The plot of the novel was actually one of my largest complaints because when I opened this book I was expecting a creepy tale of a freakshow full of the oddities of nature that Tod Browning populated his classic 1932 feature with. Instead I was given something all together different, which is often a good thing, but not when it came to this book. The freaks as it turned out were few and far between, and the ones we get are pretty pedestrian in nature. I'm sorry a two-headed lady (one head gorgeous and one head hideously deformed), a really tall man that looks devilish, deformed giants, men who look like pirates, and metal spiders do not a freakshow make.
Freak example number one: "A big man who looked like a seventeenth-century pirate grinned at them, displaying a mouth full of bleeding gums and rotting teeth. He was tall, well over six feet, and had to weigh at least three hundred pounds. He wore a ratty shirt that might have once been white, and a black leather vest over it. A black eye patch covered his right eye."
Wow, so a dirty pirate with bad dental work, how utterly scary that is Mr. Smith, please oh please give me more.
Freak example number two: "It looked like Quasimodo on steroids, a huge, hulking, humpbacked thing."
Oh, how scary! I'd also like to mention Mr. Smith it is rather redundant to use Quasimodo and humpbacked in the same sentence, as in case you were not aware Quasimodo was... oh nevermind!
Freak example number three: "The little clown looked more like some horror show nightmare than a jolly circus performer. He was freakishly round through the middle. Not fat, but round, as if someone had shoved a beachball down his throat and into his stomach...the red, white, and black clown paint obscuring his true features wasn't really paint... The colors looked fainter, bleached into the flesh, as if they were the natural colors of the clown's face."
Okay, so a fat round clown with a painted face, okay I am now scared... well I would be if I suffered from Coulrophobia.
Mr. Smith dreamed up a plot that was one part ridiculous, one part hackneyed, and one part daft. The one part ridiculous: the freaks are actually creatures from another dimension hell bent on taking over the Earth after years of warfare have reduced their homeworld to an uninhabitable nothingness. The one part hackneyed: one freak feels bad for no apparent reason and aids his human pet so that she can bring about the downfall and utter destruction of all freaks by taking the security robot craft on an interdimensional trip to destroy the freak's home dimension. One part daft: the plan of world domination by the freaks involves arriving in a small town, killing everyone in town, and then installing clones to take their place. That's right one small town at a time is how they plan to take over the world, and once all the clones are in place the "freaks" will rule- in about a thousand years (if no one catches on that is). I'm certain that Mr. Smith thought this all sounded really good in his head, and obviously there was a publisher who believed in this concept enough to publish it, but damned if I can figure out why! I mean Ed Wood's "Plan Nine from Outer Space" is a brilliant plan compared to the one featured in this book, and one that had a better chance of a success as well.
So we have a plot that is laughably stupid and no freaks to speak of, but even that could be overcome if the interdimensional beings and human protagonists had been crafted with any skill, but unfortunately they were not in the least. All of the characters were wooden and shallow with absolutely no life. The main female protagonist, Heather and her abusive would be serial killer boyfriend Craig, are Z movie quality bad. Heather we learn only stays with Craig, who has threatened to cut her into little pieces if she was ever unfaithful, because the sex is dynamite. We also learn that he loves to watch crime specials on A&E and mumble to himself that he could do better. All I can say is that must be some amazing sex to stay with someone who is clearly mentally disturbed and mayhap homicidal. We also come to find out that Heather has a deep dark secret from her past with Craig that she fears will come to light, and when it finally does at the end of the novel I laughed out loud at the reveal (a liquor store robbery, oh the horror, the horror). There are some other human characters in the book, and they are drawn in the same inept manner as Heather and Craig, i.e. crude stick figures on a napkin. The "freaks" are just as crudely drawn as the human protagonists the only exception is there are really few that are developed at all, and by few I mean one. Again we really don't have that many freaks, the few we meet make an occasional shock appearance, but they usually fail at even that. None of the freaks are given anything but a thumbnail sketch of a description and zero in the characterization department- not even the one with a heart of gold who is working with his human pet to bring the freakshow down. The only "freak" truly given any page time is the two-headed woman, rather simply described as "something from a Vargas painting, an exaggerated man's idea of the feminine ideal," with the exception she has two heads- one that matched her beautiful form and another "withered and hideous." This freak is an artlessly handled caricature of a villain which is unfortunate as with some care and planning the latter could have truly been interesting (but the latter could be said time and again about many elements of this or any other bad book). As it turned out she was simply like all the other freaks just a simple vehicle for the violence Mr. Smith relishes in painting the book red with.
Another main issue I had with the book was the dialogue as it was painful to read when it was good, and laughable when it was bad. Truly, the dialogue was some of the worst I have ever encountered, and the best way to put it was that it felt as if all the characters had the same voice, but it was just coming out of various mouths- simply unbelievable:
Craig degrading Heather: "And that tedious f**kin' shit you read, like David Foster Wallace, like you're some kinda f**kin' intellectual. You're so godd**ned pretentious."
Alice, Heather's senior citizen mother: "I shot it, Heather." She choked out a sob. "I shot the godd**ned thing and it blew apart like a f**king helium balloon. How can that be?"
Heather, after she has killed a man with a chainsaw and stumbled upon a truly gory scene, takes the time to lament to a new found friend: "Lovely. It isn't enough that we have to be running for our lives from a bunch of godd**ned monsters. Now we've stumbled on a real life Texas Chainsaw scenario." She sighed. "It's just not fair."
The two-headed villain monologuing: "We've been at it for centuries already, dear. We are a patient race. In the fullness of time your world will be ours. And when that glorious day comes, we will step out of the shadows and assume control of everything." She breathed a wistful sigh. "Your kind's illusion of normality will be shattered, and those who are different, freaks, will no longer be objects of derision or ostracization. You're all so afraid of anything that threatens your fragile sense of the way things should be."
Characters in high tension situations would ramble out long sentences that no one in their situation would even have the piece of mind to form. At other times characters would simply speak in such a staged and stilted manner (i.e. the above monologuing of the two-headed villain) it was the very antithesis of natural sounding dialogue.
I am not sure if Mr. Smith is aware that often when people are talking they do not use proper names, and this was a major source of annoyance throughout the book. An example from one page, paragraphs apart: "Are you okay, Josh?" "You're an awful trusting lady, Heather." Please keep in mind in the latter example they are the only two characters in the scene and they have by this point already established their identities to each other, so the use of names is even more inept than one might think.
Another issue I had with the dialogue was the overuse of expletives, for example- "Bulls**t, nothing. You stop being such a f**kin' c**t and tell me now what's on your godd**ned mind, b**ch." or "How in the name of sweet living f**k can you say that!? That's f**king insane!" Granted people in high stress situations are likely more prone to expletives than those in everyday life, but when it is executed so often and every time without style it becomes banal rather quickly, i.e. there is one passage of dialogue spoken that is seven sentences long and it contains the f-word six times, and this was not even in a stress inducing situation.
Again, I truly wish I could apply zero stars to this book, as one star is far too generous as it had absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. For those out there wanting to read a masterful horror tale about a traveling circus may I point you in the direction of Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes," which is as a superb a book as "The Freakshow" was an awful one!...more
For the most part I enjoy Star Trek in all its forms (with the exception of Voyager), and I thought a book that was a sequel of sorts to the fourth StFor the most part I enjoy Star Trek in all its forms (with the exception of Voyager), and I thought a book that was a sequel of sorts to the fourth Star Trek feature film might be fun. As it turns out this book deals with events that take place sometime prior to "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," and deals primarily with the entity called the Probe which was established in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," and a Romulan/Star Fleet Peace Conference. The book itself is rather divided between the peace conference and the Probe, and I felt that was the major downfall. I feel that either the mystery that is the Probe would have made a fine novel if expanded properly, as would the story of the Romulan Peace Conference, but both crammed into the same nigh 350 page novel simply put did not work. The Probe sections were done in a first person perspective- supposedly to give the reader an insight into the Probe itself. The Romulan Peace Conference sections were full of intrigue and were further convoluted by Erisian ruins on the planet below the Peace conference.
Now let me become tangential for a moment, it would seem that Margaret Wander Bonanno who is credited with writing this book, actually did not, and when you pick up Probe and read it according to her you are reading about 7% of her original words which were part of a manuscript entitled, "Music of the Spheres." It would seem Bonanno got royally screwed (and was not the only Trek author to be bent over without aid of lubricant) because she was a writer for hire. If you are interested in reading more of the story or the novel she intended you to read instead of this one, I recommend visiting her website as both are provided for free:
You see when you read this book it seems thrown together in a rather pell mell fashion, and mayhap that is the result of Bonanno writing one book and Gene DeWeese writing another- then these two somehow being melded together into a version that was 7% Bonanno and 93% DeWeese. The latter could hardly be good for any work, and I dare say that is what likely could have made this one less than a joy to read. All in all I would say avoid this one at all costs, and if you are really interested in reading what Probe could have been jump on over to Bonanno's website using the link above! ...more
If zero stars were an option that is what this book would warrant. Nigh on one hundred pages in, and I simply put could not suffer through anymore becIf zero stars were an option that is what this book would warrant. Nigh on one hundred pages in, and I simply put could not suffer through anymore because I am a Star Wars fan and this book was doing as good a job as Lucas and his recent film outings to extinguish that love permanently.
I have never read any Dave Wolverton before, and given the poor quality of writing exhibited in this book he is an author I will stay away from in the future. Not only did I not care for him on a craft level as it pertained to style, but he also failed utterly in his portrayal of Han, Leia, Chewbacca, Luke, C-3PO (the only characters I encountered before throwing this book out) which astounded me. I mean did Wolverton watch the same Star Wars movies I did? Because if he did his book clearly does not show in his portrayal of the characters as they bare at the best of times only a passing resemblance to the characters you grew to love in the movies. In glancing at the other reviews on here, I am shocked that this book has any ratings above one star, but often fans have blinders on. Trying not be tangential, but what the hell is up with the cover art for this book (the quality is fine), but why does it feature Return of the Jedi imagery, I mean it has been four years since those events, and I for one would have enjoyed some sort of here they are now artwork versus what we have on display. The latter is especially true given the fact the artwork does a far better job of bringing that movie to life beyond the screen than Wolverton's uninspired writing could ever do....more
It was on page 15 of this book that I realized that this simply would not be a book I enjoyed reading:
"During the previous year of violent strife, LuIt was on page 15 of this book that I realized that this simply would not be a book I enjoyed reading:
"During the previous year of violent strife, Luke had been whisked away to the resurrected Emperor's stronghold in the galactic core, and there he had allowed himself to learn the dark side. He had become the Emperor's chief lieutenant, just like his father, Darth Vader."
You see I really enjoyed the Star Wars movies of my childhood, and also really enjoyed Timothy Zahn's Trilogy of books that began with Heir to the Empire. I wanted an expansion of that Universe, and I thought Zahn delivered because he crafted a trilogy of books that was true to the movies and true to the characters. What I did not want was a series of books that took the characters in a direction I did not wish to see them go, and Luke joining a resurrected Emperor was just to hokey for me.
I kept reading for awhile, but eventually had to put this book down, and made the realization that The Jedi Academy Trilogy would simply not be more me.
When it comes to further reading in the Star Wars expanded Universe, I believe I'll read the rest of Zahn's output and call it a day....more
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