Malasz

A totalitarian state doesn’t just happen overnight. It’s a slow, dangerous slide. 25 Perfect Days chronicles the path into a hellish future of food shortages, contaminated water, sweeping incarceration, an ultra-radical religion, and the extreme measures taken to reduce the population. 25 Perfect Days is a collection of short stories that span 40 years and charts the downfall of the U.S.A. It gets off to a great start with "Five Minutes Alone", a powerful short story that stands on its own as it weighs in on capital punishment. "Fourteen Angry Marchers" is next and highlights a pivotal moment in the history of the Church of the American Way, a fictitious Christian outfit which takes full advantage of President Bush's faith-based initiative and expands its reach through a clever argument. With the separation of church and state erased, it's all downhill from here. The rest of the book ticks off the loss of freedoms as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and a...

Celebrate the Sinner takes place against the backdrop of the lumber trade in Oregon during the Great Depression. The family featured doesn't put the “fun” in dysfunctional: Marie, the mother, is a lonely alcoholic with serious boundary issues; Merle, the father, is an entrepreneurial sort whom the reader never gets to know; Teddy, their son, copes. They move to a house that gives real meaning to the word “ramshackle” when Merle acquires a sawmill. The descriptive writing here is mostly very good; the reader is introduced to the cacophony and grit of living on an industrial site, the constant fear of fire, the broken men who work there. There are intermittent reminiscences by the now-elderly narrator, whose only pride is in his undiminished sexual prowess. He casts off wives and girlfriends when they become ill and just looks for the next hot encounter. These asides are jarring, because the reader is left trying to figure out how he got from here to there. We are witnesses to Teddy...

Black Book, Volume 1, has the first three episodes of the genre-bending Black Book series.  It’s a story that mixes Western, science fiction, and fantasy into a quest that spans centuries. In Part 1: The Devil’s Blood , we find Sheriff Jack trying to keep the peace in a small, American West town during the 1860s.  But Jack is no ordinary Sheriff.  He has almost supernatural skills that help him survive a bloody encounter with bandits that shoot up his town and kill many of its citizens.  He’s quick on the draw, knows how to use his fists…and can time-travel out of town when a powerful adversary leaves him no choice but to retreat. In Part 2: Out of Time , we meet Benjamin Freeman, President of the United States in the year 2308.  Ben has directed his time-travel corps to locate Jack, an old military comrade who has gone missing in the distant past.  When Ben personally oversees the operation, he walks into a trap orchestrated by a deadly faction that also w...