Category Archives: Books

Mark Gatiss: Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Arguably Doctor Who is at its best when it steers clear of the stars and takes its rightful place in the Victorian folk horror and the melodrama which accompanies it. After all, the era itself lends itself perfectly to the idea of the supernatural investigation, the race memory of what the destructive pursuit of empire has wrought in the landscape and the name of progress, and the terrors that have been faced by the aspirational working class as lives were pushed to limit, and the soul of humanity forsaken in the grabbing hands of capitalism, and the quest for the new Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.

Mark Gatiss: Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror. Book Review. full post

(494 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Stephen King. Later. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

There is nothing wrong with an author plying their trade and their name across more than one genre, in fact, it should be urged of them frequently less they become comfortable in their approach, and stale in their delivery.

Variety is not a spice of life, it is the very condiment to which inspires and keeps the writer echoing the likeness of death, and if you can’t change the scenery that you physically see because you are forever tapping away behind a desk, your fingers becoming numb, your mind racing with words, then the least you can do is alter the perspective of the narrative, vary the image, take part in your very own revolution from a foot away from the screen.

Stephen King. Later. Book Review. full post

(530 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

D. E. McCluskey, Time Ripper. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There will be those that look upon the events in Whitechapel during the summer and autumn of 1888 as the gift that keeps giving. A morally objectionable standpoint in which to view the murder of five or more women during the reign of fear imposed by one or more individuals as a sideshow, a ghoulish fairground in which many take delight in the detail without ever seeing the truth of the women at the time who were slayed, and the plight of the working class in a city that was at the heart of Empire.

D. E. McCluskey, Time Ripper. Book Review. full post

(574 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Archive. Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The power to transcend your initial boundaries, your formative experiences, which like dogma you clung to and preached as your only guide in life, is such that if you can appear in more than a single place or reference at once, truly shows just how impossibly universal you have become.

The point of such illumination is to be a presence for others, not to stumble through life as though you are here but for a short while, but to know that what you learn, you can teach, and in that lesson learned you can be seen as influencing more than just one section of society, but across the whole spectrum of humanity.

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Archive. Graphic Novel Review. full post

(603 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

Stjepan Sejic, Harleen. Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

When you are young you want to identify as the hero, to be the one who catches the criminals and be seen as a warrior in the war against evil, to be Wonder Woman or Batman, Spiderman or She-Hulk; when you are young you want to be the hero, as you grow older, as you lose the ability to be optimistic and heroically naive, the more you understand the villain, the more you can see the world through their eyes.

Stjepan Sejic, Harleen. Graphic Novel Review. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

D. E. McCluskey, Crack. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We are quick to condemn the guilty for the crimes they have committed, the awful acts of ruin and despair they have brought to people’s lives, we seek to justify calling them evil, even when it is clear that their actions originate in the complex and dark recesses of the mind, a trauma, the after effects of PTSD; it is just easier to label all who cross a line of civility and humanity as evil.

D. E. McCluskey, Crack. Book Review. full post

(656 words, estimated 2:37 mins reading time)

Stephen King, Let It Bleed. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Follow the trail, check you can still see the breadcrumbs that once lined your way on previous occasions you walked through the forest of words, and don’t forget your lamp which casts a thousand shadows, which brings you face to face with the nightmares and ogres of repression, those beings that take delight as they taunt you as sleep, as you live in your bleak desires and dreams; for If It Bleeds, then let the trail lead, let it escort you straight to the crossroads of Heaven and Hell.

Stephen King, Let It Bleed. Book Review. full post

(632 words, estimated 2:32 mins reading time)

Bob Stone, Perfect Beat. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

When good things end, there is not much the reader can do except think back over the enormity of what they have mentally digested and rejoice in the life they have witnessed being unveiled, or weep silently at just how privileged they have been to be allowed time in someone else’s thoughts and reasoning.

Bob Stone, Perfect Beat. Book Review. full post

(464 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Andrew E.C. Gaska, Death Of The Planet Of The Apes. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision rating * * * * *

We live for the moment which leaves us breathless, stunned and awed, the moment in which you can physically feel the jaw drop, the mouth salivate, the senses work overtime, unless you cling to the life of the ordered monk, the embittered human of little necessity and dull unenquiring mind, then the wow factor is an emotion to which the world loves to share, to see our eyes blaze with sheer wonder.

Andrew E.C. Gaska, Death Of The Planet Of The Apes. Book Review. full post

(668 words, estimated 2:40 mins reading time)

Alan Parry: Neon Ghosts. Poetry Collection Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Bright lights attract the eye, the Neon Ghosts that blazes on the side of buildings, that pound at the door of the part of the brain that insists on stimuli, the advertising that entices you to investigate, the invitation highlighted by the texture, the colour and the magnetism that has been orchestrated into shape to make you see the radiance that is held within.

Alan Parry: Neon Ghosts. Poetry Collection Review. full post

(428 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)