Chris Coppel

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: The Lodge

Past and present storylines blend together with different types of horror written between them. Readers will experience emotionally devastating events in the past, while also bearing witness to body horror and gore in the present. Unease will creep its way into the reader's mind as they begin to reveal the horrifying truth behind the lodge and its animals.

The level of detail given to the body horror was spot on. This is not a book to read if you are squeamish. The souls lingering on past death certainly have revenge planned, and they will not hold back their anger or resentment when they strike. What starts as small actions easily ignored escalates into full-blown attacks and mauling by the end.

While the acts of horror were thoroughly shown to the reader, the impact on the characters was not displayed as well. Characters certainly reacted to the horrific events when they saw them, but there wasn’t enough emotional connection. Adding more depth of detail to how the horror was affecting them would have brought it full circle. However, each incident escalates and adds to the tension, making the reader wonder if anyone would make it out alive in the end.

This is a quickly moving story and a bit of a puzzle builder as Chris Coppel weaves the meanings of the past into the present. The Lodge is for those who enjoy horror novels and a setting characters are trapped in.… (más)

When I think of Christmas stories I think most of them fall into one of a few of well worn categories.

First are the modern Christmas stories that are meant primarily for kids - they give simplistic backgrounds to our customary holiday traditions and end with happy smiling faces under the Christmas tree. These stories typically involve some magical elements (think The Polar Express).

Then there are the tales meant primarily for adults. Many of these are thinly veiled romances, usually with the hero, caught up in the demands of big city life, returning to the place they came from only to discover their true love - right back where they left them - as they reconnect with their small town roots and discard their big city cynicism.

Of course, you also have the moralistic tales, which may be aimed at adults or kids - from Dicken's A Christmas Carol right up through Seuss's The Grinch.

If I had to pick one of the above categories, I would say that Chris Coppel's Logistics: A Christmas Story fits right into the adult romance Christmas story tradition, but with its own unique twist. I can't think of another Christmas story that throws in science fiction elements to explain Santa, his elves, and their ability to deliver all those presents on just one night.

This is the story of the emotionally walled off logistics company CEO Holly Hillman. Raised by two different sets of adoptive parents, she has no connection with, or remembrance of, her biological family - having been discovered as a baby in mysterious circumstances on Christmas morning in 1981, underneath an unsuspecting young family's Christmas tree.

Now in charge of one of the largest logistics companies in the world, Holly is in the midst of finalizing negotiations to take over a Chinese company in a bid to leap to the front of her industry. But the contract requires all of the top executives, including Holly, to undergo DNA tests, purportedly to ensure their good health and ability to continue to lead the firm in the five years after the merger.

Holly's desire to safeguard the privacy of all of the executives leads them to engage a small privately run DNA lab in Greenland. To ensure complete privacy, Holly and her team fly to the lab for testing. And here begins the real adventure of Logistics.

Logistics is simultaneously full of modern anxieties (with even a mention, though in passing, of the pandemic), and light hearted whimsy. It's the perfect 2021 holiday fable, and one that's sure to put a smile on your face.

Self published author Chris Coppel has eight books to his credit so far. The son of Alec Coppel, who was co-author of the screenplay for Hitchcock's Vertigo, Chris has spent a career behind the scenes at major Hollywood studios, and has penned a number of screenplays himself. His career in film is evident in this book - I couldn't help imagining who would be playing the lead roles in the movie version of this book.

For it's light hearted science fiction-ness in a holiday tale, I give Logistics: A Christmas Story Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐.… (más)