Day: August 9, 2023

Shelf Control Wednesdays: August 9, 2023

/ E.A. Hoffmann / Leave a comment

Shelf Control is hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Instead of always looking ahead to upcoming new releases, I thought I’d start a weekly feature focusing on already released books that I want to read. Consider this a variation of a Wishing & Waiting post… but looking at books already available, and in most cases, books that are either on my shelves or on my Kindle!

Title: Leviathan Wakes

Author: James S.A. Corey

Published: 2011

Length: 592 pages

Brief Synopsis from Goodreads: Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

How I got it: I bought this book from Thalia, which is a chain bookstore in Austria similar to Barnes & Noble in the US.

When I got it: 2020

Why I want to read it: My boyfriend raved about this series, but I never got around to reading it yet.

BOOK REVIEW: Cthulhu Comes to the Vampire Kingdom by Cameron Pierce

/ E.A. Hoffmann / 1 Comment

Title: Cthulhu Comes to the Vampire Kingdom

Author: Cameron Pierce

Book Length: 172 pages

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Bizarro Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Lovecraftian, Vampires

Read Start Date: June 17, 2023

Read Finish Date: June 22, 2023

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: Franz and Lola are vampires in love. They live in a cottage near the sea with their little vampire baby.

Burn Girl is a lonely girl who walks along the bottom of the sea, constantly on fire. The water doesn’t put her fire out or soothe her burns. It only makes her feel like she’s wearing an itchy wool sweater.

Bruno is the buffest vampire. He is building Muscle Island, a floating fortress comprised of mussels.

The Vampire Science Council has been working for centuries to prevent the depletion of their arctic planet’s blood supply, but the blood has finally run out.

Cyrus Lugosi’s friends want to slaughter him as part of a ritual sacrifice that will raise Cthulhu from his tomb at the bottom of the sea. There are just two The closest thing to the Necronomicon they’ve got is a unicorn coloring book, and Cthulhu is more interested in his quest for the perfect hamburger.

Their fates will converge when Cthulhu Comes to the Vampire Kingdom .

My Review: This is a hard review to write. I got this book from the library, having never heard of it before. What called my attention to it at first was the name Cthulhu in the title. While I have several Lovecraft books on my shelf, I have not yet read them, and was intrigued about the author’s take on this Lovecraftian character.

I was pretty quickly turned off from the moment I started reading. Franz and Lola are a vampire couple, who have a vampire baby. In the first few lines, the baby is dead, Lola has drunk his blood, and the pair have dismembered the baby’s corpse. There was no emotions felt from either parent, and as a parent myself, I was not amused. I know its supposed to “bizarre” or whatever, but it just didn’t sit well with me.

Then they decide to use the baby’s body to summon Cthulhu in hopes of saving their dying planet. The results of the summoning are not what they expected, which leads to even more superfluous scenes of violence (like cutting up dozens of vampires to make one large mega vampire to fight Cthulhu).

There were many such scenes where I wanted to gag.

I am not a person who can put down a book once starting it, so I reluctantly kept reading, but it was slow going.

Stats: As of writing this review (August 8, 2023), this book has a 3.81 rating on Goodreads. My 2 stars therefore falls rather far from the average reader of this book. So, while I will not recommend it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good book, or that you might feel differently upon reading it.

Recommended? No.