THE SANCTUARY (Raymond Khoury) - October 24/18

Well I’ve hit rock bottom with this one. TNhis super generic and absurdly padded out thriller contain virtually nothing of interest and honestly, I skimmed through the bulk of it. What a horrible, cash grabbing worthless piece of garbage. No stars out of ****

THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (Michael Crichton) - October 12/18

Yikes. This one was a bit of a slog. Crichton delves deep into the conventions of the time but it's all so tedious. The character stuff kinda sucked and the "heist" was only sporadically engrossing. Bleh. * out of ****

I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM (Harlan Ellison) - October 9/18

I'm a little on the fence with this one. On the one hand, I really like Ellison's style; the dude was clearly very talented, and his prose doesn't really remind me of much else I've read (like I suppose it's similar to Hubert Selby Jr and Jim Carroll but it's probably slightly better). The stories are very uneven, to be sure; the one about the sentient slot machine was interesting, and the title story is quite grim, but there are a few in between that don't really make the impact Ellison was probably striving for. Still, I'm intrigued and will check out further works from Ellison. **1/2 out of ****

THE RIVER WILD (Denis O'Neill) - October 4/18

This short book felt longer than a Stephen King novel (ie it's absurdly descriptive). I can't really say I enjoyed any part of this and I mostly wished I were watching the movie instead. *1/2 out of ****