Monday, October 25, 2021

SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror

A Weird Western painting of three gunfighters with a skull in the background and a raven flying
Blank White Page by James A. Moore ★★★★½ 
“Whatever makes you think a few buildings brings about a civilized human being?” 

I have a soft spot for weird westerns. I enjoyed this story of mysterious monsters facing off against mysterious monsters. The backstory of the albino mulatto cryptozoologist who is transforming into an unknown creature is a great story of its own. And is Crowley some kind of Faust? This story deserves a book or at least a novella.


Painting of soldiers panic fighting giant spiders with webbing all around and the caption It's moments like this that make you want to seriously freak out
Bug Hunt: A Joe Ledger Adventure by Jonathan Maberry ★★★★★ 
That was everything I wanted: humor, action, adventure, combat, an unexpected kinship. It was cinematically entertaining! Now I need to read some Joe Ledger. 
*I subsequently read three Joe Ledger books but only liked the first one.


Dramatic red light photograph of an asian supernatural with glowing blue eyes and a darkly stained mouth the caption reads You Americans always think you're so good but that's because your memories are so bad
Cold War Gothic by Weston Ochse ★★★★☆ 
A supernatural MIB story with more bureaucracy than style. Still, there was some memorable imagery, vampires with heads that can bail by floating away?!?! 
Pen drawing of heads floating away from a farmhouse
That was freaky goodness!


Detailed image of a Zombie Elephant
A Tide of Flesh by Jeff Hewitt ★★★★☆ 
An army of the undead colonized of India taken on the English and Scottish troops devastating their land. Exciting stuff! 


Drawing of a Nazi group of occult archeologists
The Shrine by David W. Amendola ★★★★☆ 
Himmler’s special SS occult team unearths a secret beneath a Russian monastery and unleashes a wrathful baby Cthulhu! It was over too soon, the baby needed to grow more.


Green on black badge of the Esoteric Order of Dagon
Blackwater by Neal F. Litherland ★★★½☆ 
A fast and furious beginning as a covert team attempts to rescue a young woman lost to the mysterious cult ripped from the early work of H.P. Lovecraft!


Paintings of Thunderbirds
Ptearing All Before Us by Steve Ruthenbeck ★★★½☆ 
A glory hound cavalryman faces off with a thunderbird. He won’t live to see the fortune in peddling the hide.
 
Little Johnny Jump-Up by Christine Morgan ★★★☆☆ 
That was an ok story of a ghost who became the mascot of Civil War detachment.

Special Operations Interview PTO-14 by Wayland Smith ★★★☆☆ 
That was sad. You just saw a man do something amazing, heroic, and you shoot him. It was war. just doesn’t cover it.

Making Waves by Curtis C. Chen ★★★☆☆ 
Lovecraft, magic, war, and Kaju meet in a SyFy Channel historical fiction. Needless to say I loved the world building but did not like the characters.


Photograph of tree roots growing around ancient moss covered ruines
Thela Hun Gingeet by David Benton and W.D. Gagliani ★★★☆☆ 
A ghost in an abandoned temple in Laos traps all the soldiers who come to her.


Painting of a Supernatural entity coming alive above Stonehenge
A Time of Blood by Kirsten Cross ★★★☆☆ 
A training mission at Stonehenge goes wrong when the dark god imprisoned beneath the stones awakens.

Covert Genesis by Brian W. Taylor ★★½☆☆ 
Read yesterday forgotten today. Something bad happens, there no ending, the characters just throw their hands in the air and say I guess we try and survive. Lame.


Crazy evil smiling baby with a knife in the background is his mother in the kitchen
The Fossil by Greig Beck ★★☆☆☆ 
100,000 year story of violence over a small misplaced object. The world-building was non existent, but it was interesting to see a future where we have shrunk possibly due to climate change and scarcity. 

Death at 900 Meters by Tyson Mauermann ★★☆☆☆ 
Sort of a zombies (or vampires?) in Gulf War story that was not enough.

Holding the Line by Eric S. Brown ★★☆☆☆ 
A fast, hard, and empty rabid Bigfoot story.

Average rating 3.18 stars.

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