The Bad Weather Friend

tags: horror, humor, mystery, sci-fi. supernatural, suspense

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

Benny is so nice they feel compelled to destroy him, but he has a friend who should scare the hell out of them.

Benny Catspaw’s perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée, and his favorite chair. He’s not paranoid. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn’t know who or why.

Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he’s never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time. How strange—though it’s a blessing, his uncle promises. Stranger yet is what’s inside the crate. He’s a seven-foot-tall self-described “bad weather friend” named Spike whose mission is to help people who are just too good for this world. Spike will take care of it. He’ll find Benny’s enemies. He’ll deal with them. This might be satisfying if Spike wasn’t such a menacing presence with terrifying techniques of intimidation.

In the company of Spike and a fascinated young waitress-cum-PI-in-training named Harper, Benny plunges into a perilous high-speed adventure, the likes of which never would have crossed the mind of a decent guy like him.

Amazon Prime First Reads for the first time ever offers one great book and possibly one good book to start the year.

Dean Koontz's The Bad Weather Friend is superb. The usual sci-fi, horror, humor, mystery, and supernatural are all present, with a little romance added to the mix. It has a fabulous happy ending and I laughed out loud at the parts where Dean Koontz poked fun at almost everything from "climate change advocate"(Greta), pronouns (he/she/it/they/them), smutty fictions (A Game of Thrones), industrial cheap home decor (Ikea), EVs, artists with no actual talent (Francis Bacon, Edvard Munch, Jackson Pollock), and so much more.

Nice Benny never gets angry and doesn't get shocked by anything. When he was a small child, his abusive and drunkard father was shot and killed in front of him. He was spared by the killer because he didn't go into hysterics nor manifested fear. He instead proudly showed the LEGO he was building, a staircase to heaven, and the killer probably thought he was a retard. 

His most horrible experience was in a private school out in the remote mountains when he was 13 years old. The demented wife of the school principal seemed like a descendant of Dr. Moreau, experimenting on unsuspecting children of wealthy parents. She was actually infected by aliens and was being used by nefarious secret government agency to study how to subdue the citizens but she had a more sinister plan which was to rule the whole universe. 

When he was a 23 year old successful realtor, he received a shipment from his weird Uncle and the box contained an 1800 year old 7 foot tall alien being called a craggle. Spike, the craggle reminds me of a golem or a jinni. He has super powers and is staying with Benny to protect him from evil people, AKA the elites, who cannot stand nice people and want to kill them all to prevent more nice people to multiply.

I like the humor, the political jabs, and Odd Thomas vibes, although I find Dean Koontz inserted too many metaphor.

I love the book and recommend it to Dean Koontz fans. (Leftists will find themselves being ridiculed in the book so avoid if you are a humorless leftist.) 😁

The Big Dark Sky

tags: horror, mystery, sci-fi

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

A group of strangers bound by terrifying synchronicity becomes humankind’s hope of survival in an exhilarating, twist-filled novel by Dean Koontz, the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense.

As a girl, Joanna Chase thrived on Rustling Willows Ranch in Montana until tragedy upended her life. Now thirty-four and living in Santa Fe with only misty memories of the past, she begins to receive pleas—by phone, through her TV, in her dreams: I am in a dark place, Jojo. Please come and help me. Heeding the disturbing appeals, Joanna is compelled to return to Montana, and to a strange childhood companion she had long forgotten.

She isn’t the only one drawn to the Montana farmstead. People from all walks of life have converged at the remote ranch. They are haunted, on the run, obsessed, and seeking answers to the same omniscient danger Joanna came to confront.

All the while, on the outskirts of Rustling Willows, a madman lurks with a vision to save the future. Mass murder is the only way to see his frightening manifesto come to pass.

Through a bizarre twist of seemingly coincidental circumstances, a band of strangers now find themselves under Montana’s big dark sky. Their lives entwined, they face an encroaching horror. Unless they can defeat this threat, it will spell the end for humanity

Dean Koontz has written another satisfying novel - science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and horror. 

It has almost all the things I like in a novel - aliens, AI, resourceful good people, evil villains, and as a bonus, a hilarious young couple for comedic relief. A little romance, albeit one-sided. The 2 year-old AI falls in love with her creator, the handsome and elegant genius Ganesh Patel. No dogs in the novel but plenty of wild animals.

Highly recommended for Dean Koontz fans.

Jimmy Two Eyes

Quicksilver

tags: fantasy, horror, mystery, sci-fi, supernatural

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From GoodReads

Quinn Quicksilver was born a mystery―abandoned at three days old on a desert highway in Arizona. Raised in an orphanage, never knowing his parents, Quinn had a happy if unexceptional life. Until the day of “strange magnetism.” It compelled him to drive out to the middle of nowhere. It helped him find a coin worth a lot of money. And it practically saved his life when two government agents showed up in the diner in pursuit of him. Now Quinn is on the run from those agents and who knows what else, fleeing for his life.

During a shoot-out at a forlorn dude ranch, he finally meets his destined companions: Bridget Rainking, a beauty as gifted in foresight as she is with firearms, and her grandpa Sparky, a romance novelist with an unusual past. Bridget knows what it’s like to be Quinn. She’s hunted, too. The only way to stay alive is to keep moving.

Barreling through the Sonoran Desert, the formidable trio is impelled by that same inexplicable magnetism toward the inevitable. With every deeply disturbing mile, something sinister is in the rearview―an enemy that is more than a match for Quinn. Even as he discovers within himself resources that are every bit as scary.

Another 5 star sci-fi mystery thriller with a touch of Koontz' political slant which is slightly right leaning so if you are a screaming leftist fascist democrat, you might not like the novel.

Quinn and Bridget see alien-like monsters the trio encounter and eliminate whom they dub "Screamers". The "Screamers" don't have facial features like eyes and nose. They have a large toothless maw that looks like Edvard Munch's The Scream. Reminds me so much of this screaming woman upon learning Ultra MAGA King President Trump won the 2016 presidential elections. Dean Koontz probably was thinking of this screamer when he started writing the novel.😁😁😁

The trio's first priority is getting rid of a false prophet whose victims are abducted and made into slaves to work for his organization's rich elite members. Think NXIVM, an alleged sex cult covered up as a self-help group. The "Screamers" they further encounter will have to wait after the rescue of the victims.

This is interesting:

The 3 men who found 3 day old baby Quinn Quicksilver in the middle of a highway have similar names to the Three Kings or magi who visited the newborn baby Jesus Christ - Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. After finishing reading the book, I was wondering what the significance could be and if this would be a series just like Odd Thomas. Quinn, Bridget, and grandpa Sparky went to see Kaspar only; the other 2 did not appear again in the book.

Squid Game

 

tags: gory, horror, Korean drama, Netflix streaming, violent 

Episode 1 streams on Sept 17, 2021

Similar to horror books and movies Battle Royale, As The Gods Will, The Hunger Games, The Circle, Liar Game, etc, is a new gory drama series from Korea based on a children's game. Can't wait to see it.

The Beast Must Die

tags: British movie, horror, mystery, werewolf

⭐⭐⭐⭐

A millionaire big game hunter gathers six people at his remote English mansion, announcing that he suspects one of them is a werewolf.

I have the DVD of this 1974 British movie but I can't find it. It is streaming on Amazon. IMHO it is cheesy because of its 70s soundtrack, leatherette outfit of the main lead, his stiff acting, and the goofy looking werewolf, but is good enough to grant a 4 star since I enjoyed it very much. Two familiar faces among the guests are Peter Cushing and Michael Gambon.

The story is a mystery but instead of whodunnit, the question is, who is the werewolf among the 5 guests and the hosts, 7 people in all. Tom is a big game hunter and millionaire who wants the biggest of them all - bagging a werewolf. He invites 4 people whom he suspects of being a werewolf, to his mansion in England where he and his wife live. The 5th guest is the wife of one of the guests, a concert pianist played by Michael Gambon. The wives are friends and so she is included in the party. The set up feels like an Agatha Christie mystery mixed with cabin in the woods slasher horror movie where you are waiting who gets killed first. Only 2 people survived.

At the start of the movie viewers are invited to guess who the werewolf is and there is a 30-second break just a few minutes before the end of the movie for the viewers to do exactly that. It is not easy to pinpoint the werewolf although I guessed correctly after the silver bullet test.

Watch it on Amazon streaming.

The Call

tags, fantasy, horror, Korean movie, Netflix streaming, thriller

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

form AsianWiki

Two women live in different times. Seo-yeon (Park Shin-hye) lives in the present day and Young-sook (Jun Jong-seo) lives in the past. They connect with one phone call.

I've been waiting for this movie since the start of the year and was surprised to see it on Netflix this morning available for streaming. It's another satisfying thriller from South Korea and starring one of my favorite actresses, Park Shin-hye. 

2 women from different time lines connect via a land line phone call. The woman from 1999, Young-sook pleaded to Seo-yeon, the woman from 2020, to save her from her stepmother who tries to exorcise her by flogging. The 2 women became friends over the phone and Young-sook changed the past by saving Seo-yeon's father from dying by a fire accident in their house. Changing the past is never a good idea because it unleashed a serial killer, and the evil past of one of the women.

The almost 2 hour movie never lets you relax for even more than 2 minutes as you don't know who's going to die a bloody death next. Park Shin-hye and Jun Jong-seo (Burning) are both very good in the movie.

Highly recommended for Korean movie fans 

Devoted

tags: Dean Koontz, gifted dogs, horror, mystery, thriller

from GoodReads

From Dean Koontz, the international bestselling master of suspense, comes an epic thriller about a terrifying killer and the singular compassion it will take to defeat him.

Woody Bookman hasn’t spoken a word in his eleven years of life. Not when his father died in a freak accident. Not when his mother, Megan, tells him she loves him. For Megan, keeping her boy safe and happy is what matters. But Woody believes a monstrous evil was behind his father’s death and now threatens him and his mother. And he’s not alone in his thoughts. An ally unknown to him is listening.

A uniquely gifted dog with a heart as golden as his breed, Kipp is devoted beyond reason to people. When he hears the boy who communicates like he does, without speaking, Kipp knows he needs to find him before it’s too late.

Woody’s fearful suspicions are taking shape. A man driven by a malicious evil has set a depraved plan into motion. And he’s coming after Woody and his mother. The reasons are primal. His powers are growing. And he’s not alone. Only a force greater than evil can stop what’s coming next.

Kipp is a Golden Retriever and one of the main protagonists in the book; yes protagonist. There are other adorable gifted dogs in the book, Bella is a favorite. She has her own Bellagram to communicate with other dogs. Oh, and she also reads books and sometimes walks on hind legs like a human when nobody is looking. So cute.

Dean Koontz has once again delivered a bone-chilling thriller, a fight between good and evil, but at the same time full of tender Disneyesque moments with Kipp and his humans.  

Highly recommended for Dean Koontz fans and dog lovers.