Dane Cobain

Meat by Dane Cobain is a creature horror with its fantastic atmospheric plot. The book has an interesting start with its absorbing storyline. Although, the plot has its Ups and Downs but eventually it pulled off with a great climax. The author has tried to give us a message on animal cruelty and, definitely it was evident from the plot. I loved the setting of the book which was so descriptive that it felt like I was living in the story.

There are no special characters which I can talk about as all of them had distinct roles to play. Each character was given a different mindset which added more to the excitement. The most amazing fact is the story tries teach us about how humans are encroaching the Earth. I would live to watch a movie adaptation of the book. Definitely, the book deserves 5 stars.… (más)

I’m not one to sit and read the dictionary, but The Lexicologist’s Handbook by Dane Cobain intrigued me with its subtitle: A Dictionary of Unusual Words. Of course, what makes a word “unusual” is entirely subjective. Dane Cobain chose these words, and he considered them unusual. Some of the words were unusual to me (interlard), and some were not (lint). I found it fun to see how many words I already knew in each section. Chapter “F” contained sixty-two entries, and I knew 39 of them.

In The Lexicologist’s Handbook, the author would give a word entry which was followed by the pronunciation, grammatical part of speech, definition, and an example sentence. The pronunciation guide appeared to be Canadian or British English – similar to, but not the same as American English. The author noted that some words may act as more than one part of speech, depending on the sentence. In such situations, multiple sentences demonstrated the different uses. As for definition accuracy, I looked up some of the words in the Oxford English Dictionary, and Cobain’s definitions were in line. The example sentences were adequate, not particularly witty or entertaining. Learning new words and their definitions was what held my attention.

Content-wise, I must note that this book is intended for the adult general market. I noticed a tendency toward unnecessary sexuality in the example sentences. For example, leitmotif (p. 184) – a theme that recurs throughout a musical composition or a literary piece. The example sentence: “The main leitmotif in Jeremy’s short story was his desire for animalistic sex.” Is animalistic sex something I want to read about? No. Could a non-sexual sentence have been used? Yes. Will other readers feel the same way as me? Maybe, or maybe not, but I am mentioning such content for readers who may have feelings one way or the other.

When I finished The Lexicologist’s Handbook: A Dictionary of Unusual Words by Dane Cobain I felt like a bit of a word-nerd, or a lexicologist, if you will. I marked many entries in the book as interesting words. Some of my favorites: flapdoodle, googlewhack, jeremiad, knurl, marmoreal, skald, and spondulicks.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I was provided a copy of this book by the author or publisher. All opinions in this review are my own.… (más)

Meat follows veterinarian Tom Copeland’s new job at Sunnyvale, a factory farm with poor operational practices which leads to a deadly viral outbreak which causes its thousands of animals to eventually attack its staff. As the survivors remain trapped at the facility, morale breaks down, especially under CEO John MacDonald. And as they grow desperate to survive, the staff becomes as dangerous to each other as the animals, especially once the virus starts to affect them as well.

Meat is a cautionary tale about our dependence on animal products and how our mistreatment of them can literally come back to bite us. It has all of the classic elements of a traditional zombie outbreak story with this unique, topical angle. It’s a little long and drags in the middle, but it’s well written, incorporates a significant death count and gory, horrific situations, and contains a diverse set of well-developed characters who convincingly populate this story of speculative fiction.

A full review will follow.… (más)

I was given a copy of No Rest for the Wicked by the author, Dane Cobain, in exchange for an honest review.

No Rest for the Wicked is a horror/fantasy novel centering around creatures of light that many have dubbed ‘Angels,’ who wander the earth and punish those they deem sinful. Caught up in the mess is Father Montgomery, a weathered priest, and his son, Robert Jones, who has no idea his oldest friend is also his father. The story is told through many points of view, and often incorporates newspapers, articles, and television broadcasts to show the range and scope of the angels’ invasion.

The author does an excellent job of building tension, partly through the varied points of view used. The angels do an excellent job of being a foreboding monster who, while claiming to be working for the eradication of evil, are obviously only seeking their own satisfaction. Through random murders, tension builds. What are these things? Where did they come from?

The author also has a pleasant flow to his writing. The descriptions are vivid and each scene moves with a steady pace. It was just descriptive enough to give me a taste of the setting without slowing the reader down with too many flowery prose. The book also managed to hook me in quite well, and starting off with the ‘creatures’ killing definitely caught my attention.

While the tension starts fast and mounts steadily, I found there was little payoff to the tension. Instead of giving the reader some relief from mounting tension with action from the main characters, the book focuses mostly on mounting tension by killing previously unmentioned characters. We’re introduced to randoms who are then killed, which did succeed in building tension, but after the fifth or sixth scene without any sort of action or payoff, the scenes had lost effect.

The characters were another place where I had an issue. So many POV characters was pretty disorienting, especially when those characters never returned or were killed off in the scene they were introduced. I wish the story had been nailed down to the points of views of the main characters and their experience. While the articles and side murders added depth, there were too many and thus became ineffective and took away from the main conflict. The characters themselves, from Montgomery to Robert, felt horribly flat and without much motivation. Montgomery’s backstory was the most interesting part of their characters, and even then his love affair was flat and at times didn’t make sense. The biggest emotional reveal of the book—Robert discovering his parentage—was reduced to one sentence, which made me feel cheated of the payoff.

Finally, the climax, in my opinion, fell very short. After such a buildup with murders and people panicking across the globe, it all felt resolved too easily. It also felt like a solution that could have been applied way earlier, and thus saved many more people in the process. Partly because of that, I felt incredibly unfulfilled as a reader.

All in all, 1/5 stars. This book reads like an action movie without any of the action.… (más)