The Monsters of New York City!
354031
Monsters are living among usalthough these particular monsters prefer to remain in the shadows.  After being hunted for centuries, the monsters of the Monstofelldosis Anonymous (MFD) support group meet several times a week to discuss any current problems or issues, chief among them being the best way to remain hidden and conceal their monster tendencies among the population of New York City.

Unfortunately, someone has managed to figure out who they are, and that someone is now hunting down the monsters of their little group one by one, killing them in the same way they were finished off in the book or movie that made them famousInvisible Man Ellis hunted down by an angry mob, and Bob the Blob found locked in his freezer.  Now, if they wish to remain among the "living", the remaining monstersNatalie, "daughter" of Frankenstein, Alec the Wolf Man, Kai the Mummy, Drake the Vampire, and Linda the Swamp Thingmust discover who's behind these crazy murders before they become the next victim.

This was a funny and engaging read, fairly quick at just over 200 pages.  Unlike most of the fantasy books I read, the monsters in this book keep their identities secret from the general population out of fear of persecution; monsters are not very well received in their society.  The characters were all likeable for the most part and the story was fast-paced and entertaining.  I look forward to reading the sequel, <i>The Monsters in Your Neighborhood</i>, next.
4109990
What a cool new take on Zombies, or zombie type human monsters!  NYPD officer Moon gets up close and personal with these monsters, and somehow manages to stay alive!  Matthew James has another exciting series started and I can't wait to read more!
1380779
This is a NYC 90's punk classic!!! Straight out of the Lower East Side of NYC, these guys played with everyone from Agnostic Front, Murphy's Law, The Business, Bad Brains, Vice Squad and many more!!!  This album brings you back to when NYC was gritty and raw!
3773712
This is a must for SF B-movie lovers! Peter Graves (of TVs MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE fame) against a horde of giant grasshoppers which try to invade Chicago. Now that's a lot of fun! But, by all means, don't watch the MST3000 version, use the included uncut version instead!
919966
This was fun and very well written! It was more fun for me because I lived in NYC during this time and was aware of many of these players. Definitely worth reading even if you weren't there!
3400576
Just take Sharknado and move it to New York. Still a good change from the "normal" horror movies.
183271
A macabre Jurassic Park combined with the final act of Joss Whedons Cabin in the Woods and monster hunter reality shows such as Monster Quest, E. Stuart Marlowes Menagerie is a non-stop, gore-packed thrill ride which will leave you on the edge of your seat, simultaneously shuddering with horror and laughing with sadistically manic glee.
Gomer Horsenick travels the world with his ragtag team of monster hunters, seeking out the things that go bump in the night. Whenever a town or village becomes plagued by a mysterious beast of the unknown, Horsenick and his team arrive on site with their high-tech array of sensing/trapping gadgets and gizmos to capture the monster and bring it back to be displayed in Horsenicks grisly zoo.

But when a small renegade group of monster rights activists unwittingly unleashes the motley menagerie loose upon the city, chaos and terror ensue.

Packed with enough monsters and gore to guarantee nightmares for at least a month, coupled with moments of tension-relieving humor (the tsukyogo, in particular, had me cackling fiendishly), and even some surprising moments of tenderness, Menagerie is a must-read for any horror enthusiast.

Menagerie is the debut novel of author and filmmaker E. Stuart Marlowe, a resident of Southern California.

Mark Sheldon
2321416
I am a fan of the Sisters of Slaughter, and had a great time reading these two short stories, as I knew I would. The redoubtable team of Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason have a knack for conjuring up interesting, down-on-their-luck characters who are suddenly confronted with extreme horror, giving them an appreciation that maybe their previous life wasn't so bad after all. While their stories are intense and horrifying, I often detect a sly wink of humor lurking just behind the action. I remember a Gary Larson Far Side comic depicting an airplane traveler heaving a sigh of relief that a monstrous looking co-traveler has passed by the vacant seat beside him, heading for the rear of the airplane. What he doesn't see is a larger, doubly monstrous co-traveler coming up the aisle behind the first one. It is just this kind of "well, you think you have it bad now? We'll show you!" suggestiveness in the tales of the Sisters of Slaughter that I find delectable.

The story loaded into the first barrel is "Just a Few". A junkie tries to convince police that during a residential break in to steal some percocet tablets he saw a hideous monster roaming through the home of an 80-year old church deacon and his wife. The excitement starts when he convinces the police to investigate. The second barrel is loaded with "Tenant Rights". Down on her luck newly divorced Sharon can't get any sleep in the low-rent Arizona house that she has leased from a slum lord. The lights and air conditioner keep malfunctioning, something keeps making scratching sounds in the ceiling, and she is getting covered by bites from vermin. She has put in 15 calls to her "lazy fat-ass" landlord Neal to no avail. She finally gets a call back from the repentant Neal, who offers to break the lease. Unfortunately for Sharon, while Neal is explaining to her the  horrors of the house that he somehow forgot to reveal to her before she put down her money, Sharon is experiencing those very horrors in person.

This book is highly recommended to readers looking for an hour or so of extreme horror and fun.
3180688
This long-awaited sequel to RETURN OF THE WOLFMAN (1998) is a campy tour de force that harkens back to the days of the old serials and pulps, yet with a modern twist. Mad scientists, mad labs, Countess Marya (Drac's  daughter) out to rule the world with a cartel of satanic-Scientists...PLUS  the Bride of Frankenstein AND the grandson of the Werewolf of London...Holy  Moley! Saturday afternoon creepies at their best! Enjoy! CAN'T WAIT FOR THE  THIRD INSTALLEMENT(and hope I don't haveta wait 2 more years! ).
2248283
This was such a fun read!  I can't wait to go back to New York with this book as a guide -- dressed in black, and no big white sneakers of course!
3183179
This was an awesome read.  A true description of the pioneers of this great city. It was well researched, funny and moving!  Who better to tell the tales of this Great City than one of it's very own Sons! Learning about the precision of the construction of the Empire State bld.  How it finshed 45 days early, under budget and out of the 10,000,000. bricks ordered to build it there was only one left over. It can be viewed in the lobby of this bld.  How Robert Moses the master mind of roads, tunnels and bridges was himself afraid to drive and never had a license.  And how a young boy only 15 from Staten Island found a different way to make money other than woking on the family farm.  Cornelius Vanderbilt started out with saving his money to buy a boat and transport people to work accross the river.  That boat lead to ferry's and then to the railroad.  The third richest man of all time went from rags to riches.  It was such an inspiring book. This book is full of many more interesting stories like these.  I loved it!
1310140
Being a fan of the T-Man, I naturally got around to MONSTER ZOO. This offering is introduced--glowingly--by Todd McFarlane (a name familiar, doubtlessly, to comics lovers).

As usual, we get nifty art, humor, scary things one needs to fight (ya know, good versus evil), humor, characters you can root for, a bit of romance, and humor. :D

In MONSTER ZOO--well, you can guess the setting, right?--we have two best pals, kids you know are tagged as losers in high school--the fat and farty one with the skinny and shy one--who visit the zoo. Also present this day, however, is a new exhibit of this huge monster idol from Africa called "Ungabe," the name the natives called it as they fled in terror once it was unearthed. The zoologists hope it will bring in moolah to get the zoo in the red. (They totally ignore that "flee in terror" part, but we know something's up.)

Also at the zoo as the story is set up we see a girl our hero has a crush on, and her goon-idiot boyfriend (who bullies the hero early on).

Things get much worse than wedgies when animals start transforming into delightfully weird monster versions of themselves (freaky walrus thing, zebras with giant maws on their haunches, razor-toothed monkeys attacking in tandem) as the Ungabe gets its killer act in gear.

It's gonna be an "animal apocalypse" if the foreign and very short "witchy woman" and the kids don't survive and prevail.

I have to say, as a gal with a soft spot for romantic subplots, that I always appreciate when TenNapel does that little, gentle bit of romance magic (like in Creature Tech, Black Cherry, et al). He does it with a very sweet hand given the surroundign wackiness, so it's like a bit of tender calm in the storm. I like that.

There were a couple spots where I had to reach for the tissues cause I was laughing to tears. But then, Doug does that to me. :)

Bring it on D.T. I'm ready for the next wild ride.

Thumbs up!

Mir
2658110
I have read all the books in this series and each and everyone of them did not disappoint!  It was so interesting reading about the era when New York City was just a wild and rugged land, habitated by American Indians.  Each page was an interesting saga that led me back in-time and as that was happening I could see what a total mega city like New York must have been like back in the earliest days before even one street or lane was thought of!  I have never read such well prepared novels, and City of Promise can take us back to the beginning of the Big Apple!
1742087
While rough in places, Clickers is a fast-paced enjoyable read that is a throwback to the kind of novels I read as a kid. You know, The Rats and Slugs and books with icky monsters that tore things up and ate people. Clickers is obviously a tribute to that kind of story.

Rick Sycheck is a horror writer who moves to a quaint little village on the coast of Maine. No sooner does he arrive but he runs over a giant crab. Within hours, hundreds of these "Clickers" are invading town. They have venemous stings that reduce their victims to bubbling mush, and they eat everything in their path. Rick and the villagers band together to fight them off and...as they say in those old movies and commercials...but wait there's more! Something is hunting the Clickers!

To go further would spoil the story further. I loved this book. I rate it four stars because it could have used better editing, but don't let that distract you. Clickers is good, solid fun all the way around!
2839768
This movie and the characters in it are so real. It describes exactly the grittiness, people and energy of the New York that I love. They are rude, in-your-face, and therefore incredibly fascinating to be with. Having lived there for 10 years, I felt like the characters are my neighbours and friends.

Some reviewers thought this is about poverty or limited resource or the rough life of an urban hispanic youth. I don't think you will feel that way if you ever tasted life in the Big Apple. This is about the incredible cauldron of human beings living densely on a small island. While I lived a life of relative affluence and privilege while in New York, I know many friends who live in the Lower East Side and in homes not very different from the one in the movie. But their lives are not improvished, or limited, and they don't feel that way themselves. They are incredibly interesting, romantic and full of sparkle and energy. I guess that is the reason why the Lower East Side is now becoming yuppiefied!
2051282
A mere week after the San Francisco events, Adrian and Josh are heading east, toward Pittsburgh. That is where the murderer of his family is now entrenched as the local mob boss. As Adrian fights the inner demons that have been occupying his mind since that fateful day eight years earlier, he must keep his head on straight and thats where Josh is most helpful. Together they formulate the best way to eliminate Trent, but as expected, the unexpected keeps rising up and thwarting all their plans. Throw into the mix the return of Jimmy Manhattan, and it becomes even more of a tangled mess. Typical of this series is the mass carnage and shootouts and fighting, although I felt this book had a little too much of each. (And I did get a chuckle out of the image of our boys using a Winnebago as their main vehicle. Yeah, that wouldn't stand out TOO much, LOL!) But intermixed with the plot is the double-crossing by more than one of Adrians enemies, and those help weave a monstrous web of intrigue and deceit, adding to the suspense. With guns a-blazin and fists a-flyin, our heroes deal with all that is thrown at them, even from unexpected sources. If youve read the first two then you already know what to expect, and you won't be disappointed. I love this series!
3640875
I've been living in NYC for over 14 years and it's great to discover yet  another kooky place in the city. I've actually wondered where you learn how to groom dogs, and then this documentary appeared. The film is a great view into their world and some very interesting history of the grooming school business. I agree with Timothy Schadt's review - I want to see more!