Book 40: The Policy by Bentley Little

I think I need to take a break from the straight horror books for a while.  This book was a good story, but it didn't make me enjoy it.  It was uncomfortable to read, especially in the first half.  I don't know exactly why.  But, once again, Bentley doesn't disappoint if you want flat out horror.  There is a huge insurance company that runs all the other insurance companies in the world.  They have a supernatural aspect to it, and they end up destroying the lives of this group of people in Tuscon.  The finale was pretty cool in a large scope sci-fi/horror way.

Book 39: The Inhuman Condition by Clive Barker

This one is a collection of short stories. A couple were good like The Inhuman Condition and The Body Politic. Both of those had interesting main plot points. The first had a string of knots that when unraveled unleashed a problem. The second was all about people's hands rebelling against their bodies. However the last couple of stories in the book pretty much were perfect examples of my problems with Clive Barker's writing. He's too literary. Down, Satan! was very short which was good, but he's commenting on man and our ability to be evil and it's just too deep for my shallow mind. The same with the last story, The Age of Desire. It's all about a man who is experimented on and the drug he takes amps up his sexual desire beyond belief. Sort of an interesting hook, but there's a little too much introspection and thinking about it. I'm more of a Blockbuster kind of guy. Just show me what happens and hit the action points quickly. Philosophical I ain't.

Book 38: The Ruins by Scott Smith

This book was pretty awesome. I ripped through it quickly which says something since it seems to take forever for me to get through a book anymore. Four Americans go on vacation in Cancun and they end up in trouble when they go to an old ruins/mine in the jungle. It's pretty straight-forward horror, but the language and style that the author uses is pretty unique. I don't know how to describe it - simple, but descriptive maybe. The ending was also unexpected. I didn't really expect it to wrap up like that, but it was well done. There was a movie made in 2008 and 'll have to rent that eventually and see if it compares.

Book 37: The Barrens and Others by F Paul Wilson

14 short stories here with a couple being a play and a TV episode script. I enjoyed this book. There's only one Repairman Jack story in here, and it's pretty short and simple. A few other stories stood out. Batman's enemy, the Joker, is featured in a solid story. The Barrens, the main story, is modeled after a Lovecraft tale and it is probably the highlight of the book.

Book 36: By The Sword by F Paul Wilson

More Repairman Jack. It's slowly getting toward the big ending. Very slowly. The books are good, but they're getting pretty repetitive. I'll keep reading them though. I am looking forward to the updated version of Nightworld that will supposedly follow after all the Jack books are finished.

Book 35: Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card

Ender in Exile is the story of Ender right after the events of Ender's Game. It deals with why he can't go back to Earth and where he does go. It also ties up some loose ends from the Shadow series about Bean. I have a hard time with the Ender series in general. I love Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. Those two are awesome. I've read Speaker for the Dead once or twice and also the Shadow of the Hegemon. But, I can never get any further. I've owned Xenocide and Children of the Mind for years and years, but every time I try to start in on Xenocide, I give up after 50 pages. It just doesn't grab me the way the first book does. Anyways, Ender in Exile was good. Ender is a hard character to relate to. He's so inhumanly smart that it seems like he can accomplish anything. He manipulates people all over the place in this one. On the other hand, he's an emotional mess and it gets a little old. I got through it fast and there are a lot of interesting points to it. The handling of Quincy Morgan and Achilles II were very well done.

Book 34: The Revelation by Bentley Little

A good little horror book. It doesn't try to do too much and it's pretty freaky in some parts. In this small town in Arizona, every few generations weird stuff starts happening and a travelling preacher appears and guides a few town folks to stop the evil from coming in. The preacher is an odd character. It's hard to tell if he's a protagonist or not. The plot revolves around miscarriages, abortions, and deformed babies, which was a little unsettling to read with my wife being currently pregnant. I really should read more Bentley Little. I've only read 2 or 3 books of his, but I've never been disappointed. You generally know you're going to get a straight forward, well told scary story.