Book Reviews by Ehlen Administration

Dark Shadow of Babylon by Julian Speed My rating: 4 of 5 stars Spanning centuries, a dark shadow is buried beneath the ground, waiting for his chance to rise again. It comes in the form of naive college students who, guided by a dark hand, begin to excavate his tomb and let him out to feast once again. As soon as he reunites with his conspirators, a hell so tormented will be released that no one will be beyond his grasp, not on this earthly plane or others. Only those who put him in the ground once can put him back, and only if they can reunite reincarnated. Dark Shadow of Babylon is a paranormal chiller, and those with weak stomachs should note the gore content. While the bones of a good story lies in the book (hahahaha) it is really in need of editing. There are a lot of characters - some reincarnations of other characters - and there are so many types of paranormal activities that it’s hard to reconcile them all in the same space. In fact I think that a character named Pamela...

The Screaming by David Graham My rating: 3 of 5 stars Teenagers are mysteriously and creatively coming up with ways to murder their parents and commit suicide, and no one can figure out the impetus. When officer Dale Franklin with the Kansas City Police Department walks in on a gruesome scene and finds himself an unwitting extra in the deceased’s YouTube video, a multinational whirlwind investigation leads to his partnering with the CDC, MI5, and a boy genius from Kenya to uncover the reason these teenagers brains are shrinking and causing them to commit vile acts. The Screaming is a thriller that is fast paced and graphic (for those of you with weak stomachs, this might be one to preview first.) Both the murder-suicides are written in gruesome detail, but also the scenes inside the teenager’s heads depict an awful environment that leads to their own destruction, which is necessary but intensely sad. While well written, I still found myself having to willfully suspend my disb...

Pazuzu Unbound by Saurav Dutt My rating: 4 of 5 stars Supernatural horror pervades the story of the demon lord Pazazu, who has recently awakened from centuries long slumber and is building his army once again to spell humanity’s doom. Several seemingly unrelated people meet up unbeknownst in a hotel horror that they may not be able to escape. Pazazu Unbound is intense and has a lot of graphic imagery, so if you have a weak stomach it may not be for you. If you are a fan of Evil Dead style horror though, this is right up your alley. The characters are well developed and the supernatural aspects are very descriptive. The one thing I would have liked to see more of is back story on the actual demon and why he was unleashed now, and why he was bound in the first place. While I assume most people know that any slumbering demon will wake up hungry and bent on world domination, it’s nice to have a back story on this particular demon and maybe some vague notion of how to defeat him, eve...