‘That Time I Got Drunk And Saved A Demon’ by Kimberly Lemming. They call it a palate cleanser. Not that my palate particularly needed to be cleansed, but because this book is SO different to The Dark Tower. It’s short, sweet, funny and spicy, with plenty of very consensual sex and a lot of fairly gory violence. I picked it up at a charity shop along with its sequel, ‘That Time I Got Drunk And Yeeted A Love Potion At A Werewolf’, which is pretty much along the same lines. Reasons why I loved these books – funny, lovely male demons looking for love in the local village (ahem), roaringly physical sex scenes, and brilliant, smart female protagonists.
I’m enjoying a mostly full re-read of Stephen King’s novels and short stories at the moment, and I considered leaving Pet Sematary out, because I knew I didn’t enjoy it first time around. I thought I didn’t enjoy it because a cat died, but oh. my. god. there are so many reasons to not enjoy this book, and they all boil down to one thing. Louis Creed. The protagonist. The guy who knows he has a baby boy who will soon be toddling, and knows he has a unneutered tom cat, and STILL buys an unfenced house just yards from a road that’s busy with heavy traffic. The guy who responds to any woman in distress with a quick pill or injection to sedate her. The guy who absolutely ignores clear warnings not to do something and does them anyway because he thinks he knows best. He’s too clever to be wrong. He is so irritating that when he injured himself DOING SOMETHING STUPID it made me actually cheer.
I promise myself, I will never read this again.
Thank you to Lancashire Libraries for the loan of this book.
Three stars because that’s my minimum.
Sticking with the 80s horror theme, I picked up ‘Stinger’ by Robert McCammon which 80’s sf horror from a popular author of the time.
I keep going back to McCammon, because of The Wolf’s Hour and because of Swan Song, both of which I loved when I read them.
When ‘Stinger’ arrived on my shelves as a hand-me-down from a late neighbour of mine, it didn’t take too long for me to get round to reading it. By and large I enjoyed it, but it didn’t grab me. I didn’t care enough for any of the characters to rush back to it, but I didn’t dislike it enough to not finish the book. And in that situation, the best thing to do is keep going back, finish the book, and start something else.
This book has a good alien and a bad alien. The bad one is very bad. The first alien crashes their spacecraft just outside a small ex-mining town in Texas, and within a few hours is joined by the second alien in a much bigger spacecraft; that lands in the town with scant regard for parking regulations. Over the space of 24 hours, an impressive amount of violence is unleashed on the citizens, who do their best to fight back against greater firepower and gory alien tech.
There are some nice sub plots, nobody is safe just because they’re nice, but redemption is there for those who need it.
To my delight, the next Dungeon Crawler Carl book that I read mentioned ‘Stinger’, and I realised that McCammon’s book could easily be a prequel to Dinniman’s series …
And then to something completely different, ‘The Hotel Avocado’ by the brilliant Bob Mortimer.
The story of hapless Gary and his pretty girlfriend whose name I’ve already forgotten continues. Their misadventures at the hands of the criminal classes, that began in The Satsuma Complex, continue. They’re not out of the woods yet, although Girlfriend has taken over her late father’s hotel, and with the help of a gifted and willing ex boyfriend, and an equally gifted and willing childhood friend, she’s getting it ready for opening. She deserves the win, to be honest.
Meanwhile, Gary is cluelessly pootling around Peckham, trying to keep his lonely neighbour Grace happy whilst knowing deep down that he should be with his girlfriend in Brighton.
When he realises that his nightmare at the hands of dirty London cops isn’t over, he is left with very few choices, especially when his new colleague Roma gets a bit overfriendly.
This book was borrowed from a relative, thank you J!
