Fifty Shades of Grey

I write this review following one week relaxing on the sunny beaches of Kusudasi, in Turkey. As per any beach holiday, some properly trashy beach literature was required. I brought with me I, Partridge (the brilliant Alan Partridge autobiography), Double Dexter (reasonable, but not as good as the telly series) and a William Shatner Star Trek novel. This is not a review of any of those books. As I ran out of reading material, I turned to my lovely ladyfriend's collection of digital books. Enter a sweaty, sordid three days during which I read all three Fifty Shades of Grey books.   

Fifty Shades of Grey makes for incredible holiday reading in that it is complete bollocks (fifty shades of bollocks, in fact). It is to mothers what The Da Vinci Code is to your dad. It lends itself to skim reading because one can skip entire paragraphs pages chapters of the book without losing any sense of what is going on. And the reader's brain only has to put up with but a limited number of words, since EL James just uses the same ones over and over again. I don't think I've ever seen anyone's mouth ever "twist into a line" and yet Mister Grey's does this on practically every other page. Ditto, his ragged breath and Miss Steele's repeated acquiescence.

Fifty Shades of Grey is a book about a student (Anastasia Steele) who, after her tenacious journalist friend (we know she's tenacious because she is described as such many, many times) falls ill, steps in to conduct an interview with mysterious multimillionaire Christian Grey.  She falls over and calls him gay (Fifty Shades of Gay); he sneers at her and acts like a dick. It's a horrible interview; mostly because Ana Steele is a moron and Christian Grey is a cunt.  

But if Twilight has evidenced anything, it's that a large proportion of women swoon for fictional shitty men. They'll lust after the likes of Edward Cullen, Mister Darcy, Sawyer from LOST and Christian Grey whilst at the same time complaining that all men are bastards. If the relationship between Ana and Christian seems very similar to that of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, that's because it literally is the same. Fifty Shades of Grey began life as Twilight fan-fiction (titled Master of the Universe), with EL James just changing the names for publication. So Team Jacob is now a character called Jose Rodriguez. Mexican is not the same thing as Native American, but "whatever", James thought, "they're both shades (GET IT) of brown." Ana Steele is a little too reluctant to feel like the wet, naturally submissive Bella completely, but James has the lip-biting and falling over down pat. Grey is supposed to seem cool and desirable - but this is undermined by his listening to The Kings of Leon and owning a Fight Club poster. The attempts at pop culture are laughable. As is Grey referring to Ana as 'baby'.

It becomes clear immediately that Christian and Ana are drawn to one another. But Mister Grey has a dark secret: he's into BDSM in a big way, and wants Ana as his 'submissive' rather than his girlfriend. Where most men would realise that you might want to be subtle with that sort of thing (a girl is more likely to let you tie her up if you introduce the idea in a sensitive, charming manner. Or, er, just ask first), Christian saunters into the shop where she works and gets her to sell him some cable ties, rope and duct tape. But Ana is a naive soul thick shit and merely assumes that Grey is doing some decorating. James tells us repeatedly that Ana is a highly intelligent, smart-mouthed character, but her dialogue and actions suggest otherwise. Grey wastes little time in stalking Ana; tracking her phone, having her followed and pretty much kidnapping her at the end of the night. Christian Grey is Bruce Wayne if Bruce had dedicated his life to wanting to fuck his dead mom instead of trying to avenge her. I can imagine Grey's own personal Lucius Fox, sweating away in the basement, fixing up some neat new stalking tools for Grey. Grey actually calls himself a Dark Knight at one point.

Morally (and probably legally) it's a pretty shitty thing to do to, manipulating a girl's obvious crush on you by dictating that the only relationship she can have with you is an abusive one. And so when Ana 'misbehaves', she is violently spanked. But it's fine to hit your partner when she 'misbehaves', because you're doing it in the name of kinky-fuckery. Grey justifies his physical and emotional abuse by saying "Ana, I'm fifty shades of fucked up". I escaped a boring relationship once by pretending to have a mental breakdown. I'm just saying, sometimes describing yourself as "being fucked up" is an easy way to act like a bell-end without repercussions.

Because apparently being "fucked up" (albeit in a tremendously emo way) will justify any errant or abusive behaviour on your part. Ana accepts that Grey is "fucked up" and lets him repeatedly control, beat and humiliate her. We all have to put up with things we don't like in relationships (I once watched The Tourist), but the use of phrases like "fifty shades of fucked up" is a hard limit for me.    

Compromise in this case means Ana doing whatever Grey tells her to do, and him hitting her slightly less. He even consents to let her have vanilla sex when he takes her virginity, because he's all heart, that man. Approximately two things happen in Fifty Shades of Grey, interspersed with a number of softcore sex scenes and some mildly kinky bits of bondage and spanky-panky. Throughout, the pair speak in atrocious dialogue (the whole thing reads like the script of a particularly dire pornography) as Ana converses with her own subconscious and - most irritatingly - her 'inner goddess'. This is a cheap way of showing that Ana secretly likes what Grey does to her and makes little sense. You can't talk to your subconscious, Ana, because it's your fucking subconscious. The whole point of your subconscious is that you can't hear it.

I suspect my subconscious is a bit of a moron, since I find it hard to dislike Fifty Shades of Grey. Make no mistake, it is one of the worst books I have ever read. It's better than Twilight, though. And much better than Pride and Prejudice too. Is it romantic? Not remotely. It is, however, the funniest thing I have read in a long time. I laughed more at Fifty Shades of Grey than I did my Alan Partridge autobiography. The book actually reminded me a lot of The Frightened Woman, without any of that film's arty weirdness.

Still, I'm hardly the target audience. People evidently like this sort of thing, and if that leads to a flush of kinky moms, then I suppose it's a good thing (aside from the fact that Grey is the worst poster boy for any lifestyle, ever). It's no revelation - it's just a crappy piece of erotica with passable sex scenes but a truly terrible story, characters and writing. For all of Christian Grey's fifty shades, I would argue that Ana is equally fucked up. What sort of imbecile, after all, continues to date a man who forbids her from doing as she wishes, dictates when she should eat (Christian's obsession with food is hilarious) and chastises her constantly for biting her lip? The pair deserve one another.

Cinema Of Shadows

Author: Michael West (2011)

Find it: Author's Website

"The night the Titanic sank, it opened for business... and its builder died in his chair. In the 1950s, there was a fire; a balcony full of people burned to death. And years later, when it became the scene of one of Harmony, Indiana's most notorious murders, it closed for good. Abandoned, sealed, locked up tight... until now."

Professor Geoffrey Burke and his Parapsychology students come to the possibly haunted Woodfield cinema, searching for proof of paranormal activity ghosts. Classy, old-fashioned horror, Cinema Of Shadows will appeal to fans of Derek Acorah ghost hunting programmes and films like Paranormal Activity, as well as those who enjoy supernatural horror and well-constructed, well-written stories of any sort.

Cinema Of Shadows is a good yarn, well structured and enjoyable, with a nice eye for cinematic and literary convention. I particularly enjoyed its "preview of forthcoming attractions" as a prologue and a very, very cute touch after the "credits." The characters are well-written and the story compelling, tense and creepy, building to a fitting conclusion.

It's no slight on the book that my dear old mother picked it from my shelf, read it in a matter of days and loved it (hey, she reads The Walking Dead comic books. Being cool is in the blood). Cinema Of Shadows is approachable, readable horror that even a non-genre connoisseur can pick up and enjoy. Also, I need to put a lock on my door before she finds my Marquis De Sade collection. That's one dinner table conversation I can do without.

Cinema Of Shadows is a cracking read; a page-turner in the truest sense.

Zombie, Ohio

Written by: Scott Kenemore

Find it: Official page, Amazon

College Professor Peter Mellor crashes his car and wakes up a zombie. But not a regular stupid zombie, no. Even after death, Mellor seems to retain his mental faculties. Sure, he wants to eat himself some brains, but he's capable of thinking, talking and regular-person activities too.

I shall admit, I was a little hesitant in picking up Zombie, Ohio. Zombie books are a dime-a-dozen these days, from survival guides to comic books all the way through to classical literature mash-ups. But Zombie, Ohio is none of those things. Zombie, Ohio is a proper novel that was written by one person with no help from Jane Austen or JK Rowling or Stieg Larsson (I made those last two up. I might actually finish The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo if it were to throw a few zombies in).

And it's not crap either, which is always a nice surprise. A crap book is worse than a crap film because by the time you fully decide that it's crap, you're generally too invested to stop reading. Also, you can't burn a crap book without someone accusing you of being Hitler or an idiot. Crap DVDs make good frisbees for throwing at your Mom's head or funky coasters or even little things you can hang above your baby's cot if you're a cheap fucker. Crap books are good for nothing except taking up space.

Anyway, Zombie, Ohio follows Mellor as he adjusts to life as a zombie. He's something of an oddity in that his fellow zombies are your more traditional slow, stupid shufflers. As Mellor turns his back on his own humanity, he begins to embrace his zombie side. Yummy, brains. Zombie, Ohio takes a shocking turn that I really didn't see coming. A less talented writer than Kenemore might lose his audience at this point, but the witty, touching first-person narrative keeps the readership on board even at the story's grislier touches. A zombie novel from the zombie's perspective, Zombie, Ohio reminded me a little of the Dexter books crossed with Max Brooks' World War Z. Kenemore's descriptions of apocalyptic America are a joy to read, vividly describing a society in decay; fully living up to the standards as set by Brooks and his peers.

I thoroughly enjoyed Zombie, Ohio. It's packed with humour, gore and mystery aplenty. It's the best zombie movie George Romero never made.

The Official Zombie Handbook (UK)

Written by: Sean T Page (2010)

Find it: Official site, Amazon

At last, a zombie survival guide that caters for us Brits. I was beginning to worry that, come the zombie apocalypse, I'd have to watch my beloved country fall beneath the raging hordes. Not so anymore, with Sean T Page's Official Zombie Handbook (UK). I fear that it'll fall on deaf ears, since no-one reads books anymore. But it's very nice to have the option.

And it's very nice to have The Official Zombie Handbook too. Especially with a cover image like that. Straight from The Ministry Of Zombies itself, The Guide covers everything every English zombie survivalist should know, from the effectiveness of our police force to the availability of good weapons on Z-Day. Anyone who's seen Shaun Of The Dead will go straight for the cricket bat, but the Guide gives us a handy number of viable alternatives, just in case.

The book is well-written, well-illustrated (I would put that cover image on my wall) and comprehensive. It's certainly food for thought, and everything builds to help put together a 90-day zombie survival plan. Even to someone as well-versed in zombie cinema as myself, I found the book informative and useful. It's wickedly funny too, which is always a bonus.

Even if you're not UK bound, The Zombie Handbook is worth a read. Come the apocalypse, it's nice to know how the rest of the world will be tackling things. Beyond that, it's a fun bit of cultural anthropology and an all-around good read.

Pat The Zombie

Creators: Aaron Ximm, Kaveh Soofi

Find it: Official site, Amazon

If you thought that Pride And Prejudice And Zombies was the height of the zombie mashup spoof, think again. Pat The Zombie is quite possibly one of the more awesome things I've ever been sent and, crucially, is a lot more fun than Pride And Prejudice And Zombies.

Pat The Zombie is a touch-and-feel style book, the kind you might have read as a child. Only with zombies. Zombies would have vastly improved my childhood. Now it says on the cover that Pat The Zombie is an adult spoof, but I'd definitely let my spawn read it. After all, their future survival might depend on it. It's every bit as informative as The Zombie Survival Guide.

Just like all of those crappy books you giggled over as a brat, Pat The Zombie is made up of of sections to titillate the senses; stroke the (zombie) rabbit's fur; scratch & sniff through the (zombie) remains*; look in a mirror for infection; poke your finger through a hole in (zombie) mummy's skull. All this is accompanied by some delightfully gory artwork that spoofs the original piece wonderfully.

Pat The Zombie had me laughing like a fetish model in a czech tickle video all of the way through. It even comes in a neat little display box. A perfect gift for the morbid child or immature horror fan in your house.

* The scratch & sniff bit is actually horrible. Inhale at your own peril.

Dr Dale's Zombie Dictionary: the A-Z Guide to Staying Alive

If you've ever questioned how useful Lorraine Kelly or a sheep would be in the midst of a zombie apocalypse* - or find The Zombie Survival Guide a little dry - then Dr. Dale's Zombie Dictionary is most surely the book for you. If you want to survive the forthcoming zombie holocaust, I'd fully recommend this be on your reading list. Written by zombie survival guru Dale Seslick, The Zombie Survival Guide comes on the back of a Fringe show and podcast. It's a service for the good of humanity, when you think of it. The Good Doctor's A-Z takes in topics you'd expect (Armour & Weapons) and a lot of ones you really wouldn't (the YMCA, um, Lorraine Kelly). The advice given is useful, informative (it's helped me no end in Dead Rising 2) and very funny. Despite there being a lot of jokes, Doctor Dale never sacrifices good advice for a punchline. Should it get the audience it deserves, this book will save a lot of lives. Horror fans will dig references to their favourite movies too - Dawn Of The Dead, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus - whilst I really enjoyed the very British sense of humour and mentions of Emmerdale, of all things.

Unlike The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z or some of its ilk, the book doesn't take itself too seriously. Take note Apocalypse 2012; just because the world is facing its Final Days doesn't mean we can't have a few laughs too. It's well illustrated throughout and a lot of fun. Everything a bit of good zombie literature should be, in fact.

Best of all: it comes with a full money back guarantee should you die by zombie within 30 days of its purchase.

* I would have said the sheep more than the Scot, but we won't hold that against the Doctor.

Apocalypse 2012

Never judge a book by its cover. This one will make you LITERALLY SHIT YOURSELF

Another book review? I'm afraid so, fellow cinephiles. One of the perils of working a full time job means less time spent watching movies and more time either working or commuting. But don't worry - Apocalypse 2012 is perhaps the most terrifying book I've ever read. If that sounds a bit hyperbolic then it's quite apt. Apocalypse 2012 is the most hyperbolic book I've ever read. I'm still not entirely convinced it wasn't written by Roland Emmerich or that Woody Harrelson character from his movie adaptation. Thank you, Lawrence E. Joseph for ruining my lunch break and making me want to jump on a super boat and hide behind a mountain or whatever the hell was going on in that movie.

That said, if the world does end in 2012 then I suppose it makes this blog amongst the pinnacle of human achievement. Bear with me here... look, if the world ends very soon, then that makes my writing in 2012 as like the very thing millennia and millennia of humanity have been building towards. Fuck Shakespeare and Mr. Dickens; my shitty movie reviews might very well be the last thing you ever read. And the first thing re-discovered by future generations/aliens when our Internets are discovered by future generations. Relax, I'm being at least 20% ironic here.

Lawrence Joseph's affable yet whiny prose takes in Mayan calendars, solar flares, grey goo, the Yellowstone supervolcano, nuclear oblivion and practically every other world-ending possibility you can imagine. Despite touching on religious apocalypses, Joseph's emphasis is on the science of it all. His findings: yes, it is entirely likely that we might all die in 2012. Thanks for that Joseph, way to put me off've my cheese salad baguette. He ends one chapter with the epithet "Have a nice day". Fuck off, I've just pissed all over my work trousers.

I hope for Joseph's sake that the world does end in 2012 though. After all, he's put a lot of work into his Apocalypse, and if this is as much of a dud as the year 2000 was, then he's gonna be left with egg on his doom-mongering face. Do I think that the world is about to end? Apocalypse 2012 is scary and convincing but no, I don't. I don't think the universe is stupid enough to take its cues from a terrible Roland Emmerich movie. I'm far too small-minded to even concieve of the world exploding while I'm still on it. And I hold no water with old Mayan prophecies or religious bullshit. Mind you, it's always good to be prepared. So my advice is to start building the Ark, stock up on the bottled water/tinned goods, obsessively play Fallout 3 and invest in a really good motorbike. Get John Cusack on speed dial too. Dude's got some hella good driving skills.

Apocalypse 2012 is well-written, well-researched and entirely effective in its aims. That is, if its aims are to scare the shit out of one's readers. There's hardly a jot of reassurance or optimism (no, "we'll evolve into a better form of humanity... but you'll all die first" doesn't count as optimism) in the book, nor any real underlying point to it aside from rampant scaremongering and over-the-top metaphors about sharks and such. Books and movies theorising about 2012 are all a bit pointless, when one stops to think about it. After all, we'll find out for sure in a couple of years anyway. Have a nice day.

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

"Jane Austen is the Stephenie Meyer of her generation."

If that's not a pull quote, I don't know what fucking is

Yes, it's a book review. But shut up ignorami, books will make you well proper clever like what I is. Seth Grahame Smith's update-with-zombies of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice bills itself as being a version of the classic that "you'd actually want to read." And in all fairness, this is the first time I've ever made it past the sixth chapter of the book. Zombies and vomiting definitely help, although it's still not a book you can actually power through in a quick way. In fact, Smith's undead inclusions only make it mildly more tolerable - the characters are still horrible and there's far too much of Jane Austen's original prose. It's actually a remarkably faithful adaptation if you swap the dancing for zombie attacks and the Darcy/Elizabeth flirting for silly dialogue about Katana swords, ninjas and middle eastern martial arts' training. And vomiting. Lots of vomiting. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies made me realise that I'm about 3.5% less immature than I thought I was. Smith's additions make the source material more readable, but it can come across as childish and even a little obvious. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is not a horror novel. It's full on comedy, and not a particularly rip-roaring one.

The forthcoming movie adaptation should weed out some of the problems. Namely, less of Austen's leaden prose and more of the grotesquerie as realised by the book's wonderful illustrations. It's a project which has the potential to be great, but is neither gruesome nor funny enough to work. Perhaps if I didn't hate Jane Austen's original so much I'd have enjoyed this book more. As it stands, there's far too much Pride And Prejudice and not enough zombies. Before you call me a heathen and an idiot, I should point out that I'm allowed to hate P&P - I'm English and have a literature degree. If this book had existed a few years earlier, then maybe I'd have actually finished Pride & Prejudice in at least some incarnation. As it stands, it says a lot about my character that the only version of the novel I've ever managed to finish reading is one with added zombie action and puking. With her stulted dialogue, dull, repetetive prose and unlikeable, sulky characters, Jane Austen is the Stephenie Meyer of her generation.

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is worth a look, if only as a literary curiosity or if you find puke, zombies and ninjas overtly hilarious. As it stands, Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is a version of the novel "you'll actually want to read". But not more than once.

Happy World Book Day: 20 favourite horror books.

Books: not just for twatty geeks, honest.

It being world book day today, what better time for the Porkhead to leave his lonely Hole and visit a library. Yes, it's list time; 20 of my favourite horror books and novels. In no particular order (so don't flappin' whinge about, say, Lovecraft being above Poe). And, because this list would otherwise read like a love letter to Ketchum, King, Barker and Herbert. So only one selection per author (damn, what a choice... The Fog or Rats?) Read on to find out...

20. Dearly Devoted Dexter (Jeff Lindsay) - Well yes, the TV series is massively better, but the Dexter books are still cracking reads. But since the first book is quite close in terms of plot to the series, it suffers by comparison. This sequel however, offers something I really, really wish the series had picked up. Doakes, kidnapped by the book's villain (the one that isn't Dexter) has his hands, feet and tongue cut off. Oh, but how I would've loved to see that play out in series 2.

19. 30 Days of Night (Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith) - An idea so simple is wonderfully executed in Niles and Templesmith's cool little comic. It later became a movie, which is just as good.

18.The Walking Dead (Robert Kirkman) - An enormous zombie epic that began in 2003 and still isn't finished. Due to become a TV series soon, which is something to look forward to. More soap opera-ey than one might expect, but a seminal read, all the same.

17. The Silence of the Lambs (Thomas Harris) - A great book which later became an even better film. Shame he went and ruined it with the ending to Hannibal and then really, really ruined things with Hannibal Rising.

16. Slugs (Shaun Hutson) - Yes, a horror novel about slugs. And it's properly horrible. There's a sequel (also good) and a movie, apparently. A fun, gruesome litte addition to the animals-run-amok subgenre.

15. Through a Glass Darkly (Sheridan Le Fanu) - Who knew, University reading lists occasionally yeild something worth reading. Sure, I'd read Dracula, Frankenstein and the other classics years ago, but Uni introduced me to Le Fanu. If you like Poe and the other Victorian Gothic stuff, Le Fanu's stories are well worth a go.

14. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems (Edgar Allan Poe) - Enough said, surely? A master of the short horror story.

Poe: master of the short horror story

13. The Fog (James Herbert) - Nope, nothing to do with the Carpenter flick of the same name, James Herbert's The Fog sees a small English village go crazy after being beset by a thick green, mysterious fog. It's a bit like The Crazies, only Herbert's knack for carnage and insanity really brings out the horror of it all. A fantastic, barnstorming read.

12. The Toxic Avenger (Lloyd Kaufman/Adam Jahnke) - Yes, the people at Troma done wrote a book. And not just any book, an adaptation of undoubtedly its finest movie; The Toxic Avenger. Whereas most adaptations of movies suck, this is a brilliant, hilarious little read. Chapter 4 is entitled "Featuring the Full Head-Crushing Scene".

11. The Strain (Guillermo Del Toro/Chuck Hogan) - Like CSI, only with vampires. And that's as good as it sounds. Bring on the rest of the trilogy.

10. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) - You know the story. And if you don't, fuck off and get down the library. I'm not talking the Robert De Niro version either; read the book.

9. Dracula (Bram Stoker) - You know the story. And if you don't, fuck off and get down the library. I'm not talking the Keanu Reeves version either; read the book.

8. Jaws (Peter Benchley) - Actually better than the movie, believe it or not. Man vs Shark: superbly depicted, with a fair bit of gore and sex thrown in for good measure. The final showdown between the humans and the Jaws is excellently done, and shark-hunter Quint is just as awesome in book form.

7. American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) - Even more disturbing than the movie, which is quite impressive. We all know the story of Patrick Bateman, but it's a shame no-one included that scene were Bateman tricks someone into eating a urinal cake. Reading this, you can see why it was declared "unfilmable" for a while.

6. The HP Lovecraft Collection (HP Lovecraft) - A collection of his best stories. I do love me some Lovecraft. Not bad for a massively racist crazy person (one story has the protagonist's cat named "Nigger-Man"). Still, if you can get over the xenophobic undertones and the stories' relative lack of form & grace, Lovecraft is up there amongst the best.

5. IT (Stephen King) - Damn, choosing my favourite King novel is a difficult one, but IT manages to grab the gold. The story is fantastic (I really dig the multiple timelines), the characters are sympathetic and the villain is perhaps King's best.

4. The Books of Blood (Clive Barker) - Barker always shines in his short stories, and The Books of Blood are amongst my favourite. Ranging from odd (In the Hills, the Cities) to violent (The Midnight Meat Train) to cruel (Dread), Barker's Bloody Books offer everything you could possibly want from a horror author.

3. Off-season (Jack Ketchum) - Forget Offspring (itself a sequel to this novel), Off-season is where all the real fun is at. Jack Ketchum might be my favourite horror author out there, and this book showcases him at his best. It's backwoods horror, and sees some nice familes fall afoul of cannibal nasties. Ketchum rises above the chaff with his talent for depicting gruesome, visceral violence and creating properly evil villains.

2. Haunted (Chuck Palahniuk) - Simply put, the most horrible thing I have ever read. And I once tried to read Twilight. Haunted is a novel of short stories. A gaggle of wannabe writers travel to a dilapitated, locked-up house where they will all try to beat their writers' block. But , locked in as they are, craziness soon begins to set in and people begin to die (not to mention all the mutilation). And that's the overarching story. But the real meat lies in the short stories which punctuate the main narrative. There's a story about murder via foot massage. A disgusting little thing about a sex doll. And then there's Gut, which has to be read to be believed. A short story so horrible it made my manhood ache quite painfully. Once read, very never forgotten.

1. Let's Go Play at the Adams' (Mendal Johnson) - Yeech. Tied with Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door as the second-most disturbing thing I've ever read. A gang of young children one day decide to play tie-up with their babysitter. But the naughty little shites seem not to know when enough's enough. A traumatising, unforgettable book and amongst the finest I've ever read.