The House of Worms

        Since the inception of the Kindle, I have read many self published books. Most are sorely in need of an editor. Harvey Click's THE HOUSE OF WORMS, however, is not. It is smoothly written, as professional work of fiction as I have ever read.

       Kindle offerings at this price are usually only 10-20 thousand words at most. This novel is a whopper, 120,000 words.  And unlike , say, some tome by King, there is no padding. This adventure moves quickly and is lean and lithe when it comes to verbiage.

I felt the influence of a great number of pulp and SF writers of the past as I read this. Especially H.P. Lovecraft. What better place to start a novel than in a spooky curio shop with exotic trinkets , then a crumbling mansion on the Hudson River? An eerie mausoleum  under the full moon? A backyard in suburban Cincinnati?

      Click moves locale with sometimes dizzying speed. But, as I said, there is little fluff involved. Every sentence in this tale has its purpose. At times I was reminded of one of the whirlwind adventures of Doc Savage as he and his crew romped across the Depression midwest battling evil. Doc only met this type of evil once, at the end of his (written) adventures.

     Splatter horror fans, there is plenty here for you. While you won't need the king-size Vomit Bag required for some others in the genre,  there is enough here to make you winch. There is also loads of dark humor. For some reason I pictured Forrest Ackerman for the image of   Grimes and Bub from "Day of the Dead" as his son. The book has a lot of the feel of Philip Jose Farmer's "Blown", and perhaps, more contemporarily , Neil Gaiman's "American Gods"

    House of Worms covers some of my favorite themes:

~dilapidated old spooky house, creepy mausoleum (That whole thing reminded me of an early HPL story, The Tomb) .

~Location other than the expected glamour spots such as NY or LA.

~Native American spiritual cues

~Near immortal restless soul

~Secret society or cabal

~some quite brutal and innovative torture scenes

~gateways to other realms

~disorientation

A lot of the action was very pulpish (in a good way), and also to some extent in the “modern noir” of thrillers such as Pendelton’s Executioner books. It flowed easily in real time .

I also liked the ambiguity of the characters’ “goodness”. Kept me guessing the whole time.

The novel is available for Kindle from Amazon. It's only 3 bucks. Quite easily the best entertainment value I've ever had using the Kindle. This book is worthy of a paper edition.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO AMAZON AND READ THE OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION.