Book Review: Sadie Walker is Stranded by Madeleine Roux

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Hi all!

Yes, zombies are everywhere. But the stories that are the most compelling are of normal people facing extraordinary odds of survival. Whether you’re talking about The Walking Dead or Jonathan Maberry‘s Rot & Ruin YA zombie series or Sadie Walker is Stranded, it’s the “Average Joe” forced to step up in the face of certain doom that I want to read about. Sure, Milla Jovovich is stunning in the Resident Evil movies, but her character there is more a superhero than the girl next door. I’m much more likely to identify with the flawed heroes of The Walking Dead and Night of the Living Dead.

So back to Sadie… Author Madeleine Roux manages to capture the insanity and dark humor that may in fact make the apocalypse bearable, but does it so deftly that you only notice when she deflects a horrific event with a popular media reference or witty response to get a rise. Mix that with the fact that this is the first zombie book I’ve seen that uses a boat to great effect and you get great paragraphs like this: “Finding privacy on a sailboat is like finding a Starbucks in the desert. You might desperately want it to happen, you might wish upon a star, but you’re better off accepting that you’re going to die, and not with a soy latte in your hand either.”

I’ll be shocked if this book doesn’t get optioned for a movie within a year or two. It has a heroine who manages to be both brave and flawed at the same time. It involves hordes of the undead underwater and above it. And it details a world that seems much closer to the beginning of such an apocalypse than one that’s learned to live with it.

After the zombie apocalypse happens, graphic artist Sadie Walker finds herself living in a besieged Seattle, WA, trying to live a normal life and raise her nephew in relative safety and peace. Fate apparently has other things in store for her. When her nephew gets kidnapped by a radical group of “Repopulationists” seeking to repopulate the earth through copious copulation where children are prized above all else, Sadie goes off the deep end. She must fight her way to her nephew amid the chaos caused when a group of zombies breaks through the barrier around the city. Can she not only save the kid, but keep them both alive?

If I had to sum up the book, I’d say it’s a bit like Gilligan’s Island crossed with The Walking Dead, but with more references to popular culture and humor. Sadie Walker Is Stranded was a quick read and a glimpse into an interesting zombie-infested world. I hope Roux decides to follow-up with another book set in the same world. The book is in bookstores now and if you like a good zombie yarn, I’d definitely encourage you to check it out!

This article first appeared at BlogCritics.org here.

–Fitz

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Book Review: The Hammer Vault by Marcus Hearn

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Hi again!

From the time that I was old enough to understand what I was seeing on screen, I’ve loved the movies. Star Wars was the first movie that really made me sit up and take notice. But it was the Saturday afternoon “Monster Mash” marathons on our old black and white TV set that kept my attention after that. Movies like The Blob, the original The Thing (with the walking vegetable), all of the Godzilla films, Planet of the Apes… I could go on and on. I watched with my sister and the two of us often talk about those happy weekend afternoons to this day.

But even with my love for those classic monster movies, I’ve never really focused on film history. Every now and then I’ll watch a documentary or read a book on some of the history involved, but that’s about it.

So when I was given an opportunity to check out The Hammer Vault: Treasures from the Archive of Hammer Films by Marcus Hearn, I jumped at the chance. Though I was only familiar with a handful of the 80+ movies detailed in the book, it’s truly a treasure trove of information about how some of these films were made starting with 1954′s The Quatermass Xperiment all the way through 2010′s Let Me In based on the Swedish-language version of Let the Right One In in 2008. The trials and tribulations of the production company coupled with licensing for certain properties, actor disputes, money troubles, and more really offer an intriguing glimpse behind the curtain of some of these classic films.

Each film covered in the book offers a peek at some of the photographs, posters, scripts, and publicity materials used to make or market it. Looking at the black and white photographs as compared to the colored posters and lobby cards makes for a unique view at that time in film history. We’ve come a long way from handing out little booklets at movies like they do for theater productions today, but I was amazed to see the work that went into not only encouraging moviegoers to attend shows, but to get the films shown in movie theaters in the first place.

It was amazing to see actors like Peter Cushing, who I first saw in Star Wars and Christopher Lee, whom I’d seen but didn’t really recognize until the late 1990s in films like Sleepy Hollow and The Lord of the Rings films. Cushing and Lee looked so young in films like The Curse of Frankenstein in 1956! Even Oliver Reed, who I wasn’t familiar with until Gladiator in 2000 after his death looked extremely young in his first starring role in 1960′s The Curse of the Werewolf!

If you’ve ever been curious about some of the classic horror movies of the 1950s and ’60s, The Hammer Vault is an amazing way to learn about them. Even though each film only gets a page or two in the book, you get a quick glimpse at the past to see how these films have had a lasting effect into the present day. Plus, it’s a beautiful coffee table book!

This article first appeared at BlogCritics.org here.

–Fitz

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Music Review: Sugar & the Hi-Lows – Sugar & the Hi-Lows

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Hi there!

If you listen to R&B from the 1960s, there’s a smoothness, optimism, and energy to it that modern artists aspire to but rarely achieve. Super groups like the Temptations and The Isley Brothers and artists like Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye all had that “it factor” that not only made them instantly recognizable on the radio, but gave fans the confidence they could buy damn near anything they produced and not be sorry. I think many of the artists of the era could sing the phone book and it would still be a hit.

Today’s R&B seems to focus more on trying to engineer that “it factor” more than letting the artists find it on their own. The biggest exceptions I can come up with these days are artists like Adele and Duffy, with a bit of that throwback sound mixed with modern sensibilities. However, it’s mostly solo artists hitting that groove and not duos or groups finding that niche.

So I was pleased to find a group like Sugar & the Hi-Lows, who just released their self-titled, full-length album on Ready Set Records. This duo out of Nashville featuring Trent Dabbs and Amy Stroup manages to channel not just that ’50s and ’60s vibe, but work in a collaborative sound that hits me a little like Robert Plant and Alison Krauss‘s Raising Sand from just a few years ago. Seamless, effortless, with a soul and happiness that grooves with simple arrangements that never take away from the harmonies at the heart of it all.

That’s not to say that the album doesn’t vary from song to song, slow tempo to up-beat. Opening with the gliding “Show and Tell,” you quickly slide up to an almost Elvis-like “Two Day High” and then slip smoothly into the ballad “I’ve Got You Covered”… There’s an ebb and flow to this well-constructed release that reminds me that there are artists still treating album construction as more than a way to slap a bunch of tracks onto a CD. I love it from start to finish!

“Show and Tell” is the first track, which sets the album off on a great footing with a slow, steady romantic song. A steady drum beat, bass line, and rhythm guitar gets things off as the love song gets under way… “Loving me without a reason / Chased the meaning not the feeling / You followed through / so did you…” How many relationships does this sound like? Like any good love song, it’s immediately applicable to just about any couple with just a little personal interpretation. And with that beat throughout it never gets ahead of itself, instead reminding me of some of the mid-tempo songs to which folks could dance for hours on the dance floor.

But it ends with a rock/rockabilly song – “Skip the Line” – that would blend beautifully from “Show and Tell” or any other song on the album. Another love song, but this one more upbeat about a couple ready to head out into the world, “skipping the line” as it were and avoiding the regular grind. “Got an open sky / Got you by my side / Yeah I, I’ve got a big old heart…” but ultimately “Everyone is waiting, worried about they problems / ‘cept you and I / gonna skip the line.” It just grooves along happily with a great rhythm guitar and drum keeping the beat with the duo singing their troubles away. What more could you want?

And in-between you have ballads, up-tempo, and more to keep you entertained. Eight tracks in all and one of the most up-beat albums I’ve heard in ages.

If you want a feel-good album to drive away the blues, you can’t beat Sugar & the Hi-Lows’ self-titled album. Be sure to pick up the album and enjoy the ride.

Be sure to check out their website at SugarAndTheHiLows.com for details about the group, their tour schedule, and more!

This article first appeared at Blogcritics.org here.

–Fitz

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