Hello everyone!

It's book review time today.

I believe this is my first actual book review post that I've done for this blog, the first proper one anyway. And the book I'll be reviewing?

Magick by Judith Sonnet.

Magick by Judith Sonnet

Now, I will say off the bat that this is not really a book for the faint-hearted as it can get quite extreme at times.

But, if you were to look at any of Judith Sonnet's work, that is plain to see and she allows you to know what you are getting yourself into before you purchase.

It may be a surprise, but I'm a bit of a fan of a a good old splatterpunk horror and love many of the Troma films and this fits in well with that genre, and you can see that from many of her available books. It very much the case of them 'doing what they say on the tin' - to use an English saying.

Magick is a novella very much in the same vein, full of blood, gore and sex with a crew of pornographers turning up at a seemingly empty, haunted brothel and for everything to go as you'd expect when the ghosts get very much into sadism and letting their tendencies run riot.

There is a satisfying ending, of which I won't provide spoilers, and things are set up for a sequel, should Judith Sonnet wish. Magick in Space anyone? I could imagine it joining the ranks of the Jason and Leprechaun movies that went cosmic and us getting some hellish, gorey orgy, with lasers and anti-gravity. But I'm getting away from things.

From the Lucio Fulci films I've seen, I can well see that Judith Sonnet has been inspired by them, but unfortunately, I'm not an aficionado of his films. Much like with his films, he has a lot of style over function. There are a couple of bits that make no sense, like a ballet school having a room for barbed wire. But they are there, because of drama, and sexy gore reasons. The little bits that back no sense matter little, other than wishing to know a little more about them.

I would have liked to have known a little more about the main character, or the two paranormal investigators that provided and opening to the book, or more about the graveyard near the brothel that seems to be part of the premises, or who the cleaning crew were, but I really am not bothered by them. Finding out about all of that would have spoiled the flow of the story And with them, I probably would have felt that the story was bogged down with minutiae, so its good that explanations were left out. But that really is just me being petty. They would really just be there to satisfy a curiosity. Perhaps they would make curious little pieces of flash fiction for some deluxe or anniversary edition.

To conclude, I really enjoyed this book, its got a style to it that is really engaging and rattles on through the premises, presenting you with a panoply of gore and sexiness. It really is like something that could be made into a Troma film or some Indie Splatterpunk film. I'm kind of reminded of some of the old Grindhouse films from the seventies that Quentin Tarantino is so found of. Any down points to the book are not really noticeable and are a matter of curiosity that would spoil the 'page turner' effect if dwelt on and explained further. If you are going into the mindset of expecting the right things - that it's a stylish, sex filled gore-fest - then this is a fantastic book. Though of course, that isn't for everyone.

Now, for where to find Judith Sonnet. It can be found here for UK readers, and here for readers in the USA.

If you'd like to give her a follow, you can find her here on Twitter and here on Instagram. Any other subsidiary links can be easily found by following the relevant links on those sites. Take a look at some of her other work.

as a side note, I hope to do some other book reviews as and when I finish them. I had thought of doing some rating system, like a five star thing, or an out of ten. In short, I don't really want to. I think most of the time, liking a book is subjective to some degree. So including a rating system sort of goes against that. What I'll try to do is be honest about whether I liked the book or not and to include the whys and wherefores so that if you are have a similar taste in books, you'll have an idea of where it'd be enjoyable.

Anyway, enough blather, I hope you manage to get some reading in and enjoy yourself!

Hello all!

Well, that was a bit of a trial. I had a lot of my social media sites potentially get affected by a virus, but everything seems safe. Its been a while since that happened and nothing bad has happened. So there's nothing to worry about there.

So, welcome to my new blog! Take a look around. There's a little bit about me on  the pages listed down the side. Something that Steven King once said about me which was lovely and there are two short stories as well. Both were done quite a while ago and had been published in the Derby Evening Telegraph to accompany an art exhibition I took part in in 2013. I hope you enjoy them. I went through them once again while uploading them to this blog. Though they aren't my best pieces, I found myself being pleasantly surprised by their content. Can you spot all the references?

Well, what have I been up to otherwise. Well, I now have a new Instagram account and a new Twitter account and you can easily find links to them at the top of the blog or in the About. I recently finished a first draft for a story inspired by a series that I'd long given up on. I think I might take that series up again. Its based on Derby history and folklore. Once I've had it edited, I'll see what's to be done with it.

I am also working on another short story at the moment and I don't want to say too much about it just yet without permission as its for someone. I don't want to put my foot in my mouth about it and say the wrong thing, but more news about it should be let out about it as this month progresses. So watch out for that.

Other things that I've been up to are my involvement with Northworthy Sagas and Stories. It's a YouTube channel specialising in the telling of Dark Age folktales, so that's primarily Vikings and Anglo-Saxons. But they also talk about Dark Age culture and fighting styles as well, so that's all very fun. I've been helping them sort out a blog - more on that to come - and also helping them out with a couple of twitter accounts. They have a YouTube twitter account and a Blog twitter account to check out. They also have an Instagram account as well.

But other than that, I have been exploring a lot of magically processes. There's a lot of meditation involved as well as fiddling around with crystals, pendulums, tarot cards and oracle cards. I even made my own Black Mirror for scrying - just like John Dee hey? though I bet a lot of you will think it's all airy and fairy (lovely beings). I've really got into the concepts of Alchemy and Gnosticism. I may even start up my own blog about it. But I've not properly decided. You'll here about that here first.

But back to more writing based things. I have been mulling over taking up a proper Steampunk persona and have been mulling starting up my own YouTube channel. How I go about doing that and what exactly my content will be, I have made no firm decision whatsoever. But any decision with be updated here.

One last thing. My old blog had a couple of extra pages. Would people like to see their return? One was about curious sections of Thomas of Newburgh's History of English Affairs - a very good history by all accounts, very accurate for its day that also had some acknowledged weirdness included. There was also a section about Derbyshire folklore, history and ghost tales as well that I'd found. And lastly, there was a potted history of my favourite detective book series, Sexton Blake - he is mostly forgotten about but more prolific than Sherlock Holmes ever was. What do people think?

Anyway, that's it for now. I hope to be updating this at least semi-regularly. I'll keep in touch.

Farewell