Lee Hunts

I just finished reading The Devil All the Time, by Donald Ray Pollock. This is my second book by this author, having read Knockemstiff, which is a short story collection. All of his books fall firmly within the southern gothic tradition, with a gritty, stripped back prose used to tell the various stories of what are essentially villainous characters. These people have no self control, no compunction, and they all represent the worst of humanity. Just like the short story collection, this novel puts it all on display: we see everything from pedophilia to serial killers to necrophilia to animal sacrifice and worse. Pollock sits you down in the filth and makes you nestle in it. If that's your thing, then this might be worth checking out. Experience I thought for a moment about what I wanted to write in this review because I did not think I had all that much to say in a traditional sense. The characters are not the most interesting or deep. They are described easily in the beginning, a...

I just finished reading A Dark and Hungry God Arises, by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is the third book in the Gap Cycle, a dark SciFi series set in the wake of humanity spreading out into the void beyond. The series started out small, and is progressively scaling up the complexity. The second book took that first step, keeping the focus tight, while introducing some of the players pulling strings in the background. This third entry has taken yet another step, introducing yet more players and more plot from this higher end of the story. Even still, the focus of the main story line with all the main characters from the original entries has not been lost. Donaldson has proved his ability to balance the higher level complexity with a smaller scale story that keeps the reader focused on a personal level. Overall (No Spoilers) The book opens in the perfect way. The master string puller, the Dragon, the man who basically controls the whole of space, is introduced for the first time—and in the ...

I just finished reading The Real Story by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is the first entry in The Gap Cycle, which is a five book science fiction series that apparently expands massively in the next volume. As I implied, this story is smaller and rather simple. It involves three main characters: Angus Thermopyle, Morn Hyland, and Nick Succorso. Most of the focus is on Angus, however, as this nasty and even monstrous man shows up at a bar with Morn at his side. This draws attention from almost everyone, but especially Nick Succorso. And theories naturally come along, with events seeming to unfold in a particular way. But that is apparently not the real story. What follows is quite literally the real story, outlining the events as they actually occurred. No Spoilers The Prose The first thing that stood out to me in this story was the prose. In particular, the perspective that Donaldson used was fascinating and worth mentioning. The beginning of the book opens with what I ended up calling ...

I just finished reading The Prince of Thorns, by Mark Lawrence. This is the first book in The Broken Empire trilogy, and it follows Prince Jorg Ancrath, a decidedly nasty protagonist who is about to return home after multiple years of raping and pillaging the landscape with his band of outlaws. You get a sense of the kind of character you are dealing with from the very first chapter, where Jorg steals, rapes, and kills people with his troupe of men for no reason but loot. And this is the crux of the book, the major selling point. Jorg is the most unlikeable character imaginable, treating everyone around him like they are pawns in his schemes. The cherry on top is that this story is told from the first-person perspective, giving the reader a close telling of his actions and psychology. Also, he just turned fourteen. No Spoilers Character I was drawn into this story from the very beginning. And I am happy to say that I was satisfied with the story throughout the course of the novel, and ...

I just finished reading Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn. I have already read Sharp Objects (and I have a review of that), and I rather enjoyed that book for its atmosphere and its characters, even if the twists at the end were rather predictable. That motivated me to pick up another book by Flynn, and this is the next one on the block. This book is primarily about Libby Day, the sole survivor of a massacre of her whole family by her brother. She was the witness that helped put her brother behind bars. Now, she is pulled back into case twenty-five years later when a member of a true crime club contacts her. What follows is another novel steeped in dark emotions, disturbing sexuality, and violence, complete with a twisty plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat. As usual, for mysteries, I think the story is best consumed with as little information as possible. That the author is Gillian Flynn should be enough of a pitch. As such, I will only be doing a spoiler review. Overall, I loved ...