Rating: 
Summary: Eee-yow, baby.
Review: First S&S book I ever read. Captivating writing, a little iterminable about the capers of the Jacob Hamer band but overall one of the best pieces of horror writing I have read next to "It". Their best book is "The Light at The End" but this is a very close second.
Rating:
Summary: Eee-yow, baby.
Review: First S&S book I ever read. Captivating writing, a little iterminable about the capers of the Jacob Hamer band but overall one of the best pieces of horror writing I have read next to "It". Their best book is "The Light at The End" but this is a very close second.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent fun for metalheads and industrial music fans.
Review: I love books written about the nineties in the late 80's - and this is one. I found this tale involving sexual mind control through sound to be a real turn-on here and there, and also an amazingly authentic prediction of one sort of music that ended up turning on the Youth of America - "cyberthrash", as Mssrs. Skipp & Spector coined it. You may wish to look for it at your local used book bin since it seems to be out of print; I found my copy at a Goodwill outlet here in Frisco. Now I regret trashing the poster that came inset at the front of the book the last time I cleaned house...looks like I'll probably never find another one, now. The only thing I didn't like about this story was the many, many slams on fat people. Seems every time the authors wanted to portray someone as stupid, annoying or sexually uptight that person was described as being fat, with one set of words or another. That's the only reason I didn't give it a five star review. Hopefully these two guys have grown out of that lame attitude by now - maybe they've gained some weight themselves in the last 11 years, who knows? Or at least perhaps they've noticed that women don't have to have flat stomachs to be sexually active. Well, one can hope, anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: The Scream
Review: It's Rock Music versus Religion in this shrieking, headbanging horror novel. And no matter which side you, the unsuspecting reader, ally yourself with as you go into it, you may wonder for whom you should cheer. This novel is aptly titled; it's loud, all the way through. Several rock-concerts, including one held as a sort of "save rock'n'roll" protest, are depicted, as a malevolent band called The Scream uses music and the frenzied adulation of its fans to try and pull a demon across from another plane of existence (Cthulu fans take note). Human sacrifices, recordings of pain and passion fused with song, sex on stage, and the creation of hideously loyal (as well as just plain hideous) zombies, as plucked from the cream of Scream fandom--all help to prepare the way for a terrible creature to step into our world...unless the final, apocalyptic show gets cancelled. And who, or what, has the best chance to cork the dimensional portal being torn open by the tunes? Why, another rock band, called The Jacob Hamer Band, that's who!--that is, if they can put their battles with the anti-Rock protestors of The Liberty Christian Village, led by Pastor Furniss, aside long enough to save the world. After all, Jake Hamer is a Viet Nam vet, as are a few of his stalwart, music-making associates. And a little combat experience, a little kill-or-be-killed attitude, is going to come in pretty handy against a legion of Screamers (The Scream's undead, uh, fan base). In fact, Jake discovers he just may have glimpsed the very demon in question, when it first tried to cross to our reality, years ago, right in the jungle of Cambodia. The truth is, I did not embrace this ambitious, overbearing horror novel as appreciatively as I did Dead Lines, and The Light At The End, both by the same authors. The Scream is unfocused at times, trying to tie all sorts of scattered characters together--commenting on religion, rock music, politics, war, and even abortion, all in one loud shout. There's no subtlety, just splatter and gunfire, not necessarily in that order. This means that most of the images are gruesome, effective, delightfully wicked. But all the carnage bursts forth so maniacally, that all the characters get rolled over. Like a rock concert, the noise from this one may leave your head buzzing, your brain overloaded. But, hey, if you LIKE that sort of thing, by all means...!
Rating:
Summary: For the young at heart, and metal fans
Review: Metal fans, and the young and heart, will be drawn to THE SCREAM for its portrayal of the rock and roll lifestyle both stadium and club variety. Obviously inspired by Stephen Davis' HAMMER OF THE GODS and like journalism, Skipp and Spector whipped up a righteous concoction that just bubbles over with greenish lava froth. If Satan really had a say in what metal sounds like, do you think He would have permitted those of little brain power to approach his altar? I don't think so my friends! The suspense gathers in the final chapters, as the members of the SCREAM (the band, not to be confused with England's PRIMAL SCREAM) approach the coming apocalypse with stiff upper lip and a variety of hallucinatory experience.
They used to be the two authors you could really count on to really scare the living daylights out of you, but then something happened--something twisted snd sick--something that broke the bonds which it had been thought no man was born strong enough to put them asunder. And ever since then, there really hasn't been a good thrill book and we've taken to watching old re-runs of Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Come back you guys, reunite, everyone else has done it, you can too!
Rating:
Summary: This is the book Skipp & Spector were born to write.
Review: Out of all of their books, The Scream remains my favorite work by these two authors. I bought this at a used book store, not expecting much more than an afternoon's entertainment. To my delight, I discovered a thought-provoking treatise on censorship, Christianity (and this book *isn't* anti-Christian), abortion, and demonically inspired heavy metal music. The plot is pretty straightforward, and follows three main vectors: 1. The protagonists, all part of a heavy metal band, are fighting the extreme censorship attempts of fundamental Christian televangelists. 2. The antagonists, a heavy metal band inspired by a demon from another dimension, are trying to bring their matron through to this reality. 3. One of the protagonists, Jesse, finds herself accidentally pregnant and must wrestle with her beliefs, dreams and desires over whether to terminate her pregnancy. In the hands of less skilled authors, these plots could have become sophomoric and boring. Guided by Skipp and Spector, they are instead intense, exciting, horrifying and enthralling. It was especially nice to see a book on this topic that didn't just mindlessly bash Christianity (a topic I'm fully sick of, even though I'm not Christian), but instead approached the subject with a true understanding of the problems of narrowmindedness and greed. Don't worry, splatterpunk fans -- there's also a lot of blood and gore, violence and insanity. My only regret is that Skipp and Spector didn't do a soundtrack for The Scream -- I'd love to hear the music in their heads.
Rating:
Summary: You may never go to another rock concert
Review: Skipp and Spector are rock and rollers at heart and this is their rock and roll horror novel (with a nod towards heavy metal). Like the music, it assualts your senses and in the end you know you've had one heck of a ride. This is the boys at their best.
Rating:
Summary: You may never go to another rock concert
Review: Skipp and Spector are rock and rollers at heart and this is their rock and roll horror novel (with a nod towards heavy metal). Like the music, it assualts your senses and in the end you know you've had one heck of a ride. This is the boys at their best.
Rating:
Summary: THE SCREAM LIVES!!! EEEEEAAAAAOOOOOWWWW!!!
Review: The Scream contiinues to be my favorite Skipp and Spector book, right up there with The Light at the End and The Bridge. It shows an excellent balance between the different storylines as well as dishing out the splat in the ways that few can. My one complaint when reading the book was that I didn't have a soundtrack to listen to. A CD by The Scream would have been perfect companion material. Well, going by how they were described, there is a band who is strikingly similar to The Scream. The band's name is Crisis. Karyn Crisis is not Tara Payne exactly but close. Exotic-looking with a voice that can bounce between melting butter and shattering steel, backed up by a band with it's own dark, heavy feel with touches of the beautiful mixed in. Check out the Strangeland soundtrack for an excellent cover of Twisted Sister's Captain Howdy, exhibiting Tara's...I mean, Karyn's, vocal ability.
Rating:
Summary: THE SCREAM LIVES!!! EEEEEAAAAAOOOOOWWWW!!!
Review: The Scream contiinues to be my favorite Skipp and Spector book, right up there with The Light at the End and The Bridge. It shows an excellent balance between the different storylines as well as dishing out the splat in the ways that few can. My one complaint when reading the book was that I didn't have a soundtrack to listen to. A CD by The Scream would have been perfect companion material. Well, going by how they were described, there is a band who is strikingly similar to The Scream. The band's name is Crisis. Karyn Crisis is not Tara Payne exactly but close. Exotic-looking with a voice that can bounce between melting butter and shattering steel, backed up by a band with it's own dark, heavy feel with touches of the beautiful mixed in. Check out the Strangeland soundtrack for an excellent cover of Twisted Sister's Captain Howdy, exhibiting Tara's...I mean, Karyn's, vocal ability.
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