THE ASSISTANT

AUTHOR: S.K. TREMAYNE | PUBLISHER: HARPER COLLINS | FORMAT: PAPERBACK | RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 6TH (AVAILABLE NOW ON KINDLE)

It sits there in your kitchen or in your bedroom or in your living room. It’s a little plastic disc and it lights up and perkily responds to your every demand, whether it’s finding the nearest takeaway restaurant, playing your favourite music, or updating you on the weather forecast. It gets a bit sniffy sometimes; ask it to tell you an off-colour joke and it’ll haughtily respond “I don’t know any of them, I don’t think they’re very funny”. So we’re told. The likes of Alexa and Siri have changed our lives… but what if they suddenly started behaving a little more sinisterly? What if they started making threats, encouraging you to kill yourself because “I know what you did”. What if your handy little device suddenly decided to ruin your life and turn everyone you know and love against you and used a foolish mistake you made in the past to completely destroy your comfortable 21st-century existence?

In S.K. Tremayne’s latest enjoyable, if slightly hysterical, page-turner, struggling recently-divorced journalist Jo Ferguson, sharing a flat in upmarket Camden with her best friend, finds her life disintegrating when the flat’s Electra devices start tormenting her with memories she has tried to consign to history. Her life becomes a living nightmare, and it’s only a matter of days before she has no idea who she can turn to and who she can trust as Electra conspires to push her over the edge by completely dismantling her existence and forcing her to question her own sanity.

It’s tempting to dismiss The Assistant as a ‘guilty pleasure’ pot-boiler, the sort of book you pick up and thunder through for a bit of undemanding light relief, but there’s actually a bit more meat on the bones than you might expect. Tremayne’s writing is urgent and compelling – if a little histrionic at times – and Jo is a believable, deeply-flawed but ultimately likeable and sympathetic protagonist. The same can’t be said of many of the supporting characters, irritating self-obsessed London-centric egos with names like Arlo, Gul, and Tabitha and they quickly become as unbearable and unlikeable as Jo is endearing despite her own pretensions and shortcomings. Tremayne clearly knows the book’s real-world locations well, and they’re brought vividly to life (even though the book takes place in the sort of Antarctic, blizzard-bedevilled winter we just don’t get in this country these days), and there’s a stifling sense of Jo’s world collapsing around her as Electra – or whoever is manipulating Electra – closes the net and closes down Jo’s life.

The Assistant is a brisk, busy read, an old school thriller with a determinedly modern world setting and you’ll quickly find yourself revelling in the twists and turns of the plot (however unlikely) and groaning at the slightly perfunctory tying-up of certain loose ends (especially one which very much drives the novel, wrapped up with an offhand ‘Oh well, it was a long time ago, why rake over the past?’). Flawed but fun, The Assistant is ideal summer reading guaranteed to help you while away a few lazy summer afternoons.

THE ORACLE CODE

WRITER: MARIEKE NIJKAMP| ARTIST: MANUEL PREITANO | PUBLISHER: DC INK | FORMAT: PAPERBACK | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

DC Comics release of its young adult graphic novel The Oracle Code is a timely one, albeit inadvertently. As our world changes beyond recognition we may find ourselves asking questions, not only about events unfolding around us, but about ourselves, about our very identity, about the person we thought we were and what we actually are, and how will this change us when our world returns to some semblance of normality. These are essentially the themes of novelist Marieke Nijhamp’s first foray into the comic book world.

After being shot, teenager Barbara Gordon is admitted to the Arkham Center for Independence, a rehabilitation centre for Gotham youngsters. Here she will receive help and training to physically and mentally prepare her for her new life, a life in a wheelchair. As Barbara angrily comes to terms with her situation she questions her identity. Is she the same person as before the shooting, who is she now that she no longer has the use of her legs, and who will she be in the future? When a patient disappears, and a mysterious child’s voice echoes through the building throughout the night, Barbara becomes determined to discover the centre’s sinister secrets.

Nijhamp does a masterful job of combining a haunted house mystery with a story about a young girl adapting to life after a horrific incident. Although Barbara initially rejects friendship and help not once does Nijhamp give us any course to dislike her. We are taken on Barbara’s journey, a journey of rage, guilt, fear, and acceptance. As a novelist, Nijhamp also excels at keeping a tight rein with exposition and being overly wordy. The dialogue and internal monologue is enough to keep the reader informed without being intrusive.

Artist Manuel Preitano’s art is exquisitely beautiful in its simplicity and yet it’s also deceptively detailed with lots of little details Bat-fans will appreciate. Jordie Bellaire’s colour palette is suitably subtle. Patients are shown in a single colour whilst the main characters are in full colour, which automatically draws the eye to them. It’s a technique that hacks back to the comic books of yesteryear. Bellaire creates an effective atmosphere for the scenes at night, and particularly for the ghost stories that are told to Barbara, which serves to notch up the sense of tension.

The Oracle Code is a tale of identity, adversity and revelation. Barbara reclaims her sense of self, she will not let her tragedy define her. Instead, it makes her stronger shaping her into the hero that she will become.

REBORN

DIRECTOR: JULIAN RICHARDS | SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL MAHIN | STARRING: BARBARA CRAMPTON, KAYLEIGH GILBERT, MICHAEL PARE, RAE DAWN CHONG, CHAZ BONO | RELEASE DATE: MAY 11TH

Even considering factors like minimum budget and atrocious casting, Reborn is a revelatory, even uplifting experience: if this bunch got to make a movie someone thought was worth distributing, surely anybody can!

A Hallmark family drama at heart, the ‘creative’ team borrows freely from Psycho and Carrie, down to that seminal jump scare. But they botch the execution so badly it becomes laughable. Just imagine hiring Chaz Bono to play a Norman Bates-type. The movie seems to spend its entire budget in the first five minutes: Chaz Bono is a creepy morgue attendant who likes to take photos of naked corpses. He’s interrupted mid-session by a crying baby believed a stillborn. Predictably, creepy Chaz takes the infant home (small mercies: it’s not A Serbian Film situation.) Cut to 16 years later. The baby is now a teenager (Gilbert), anxious to find her mom. Chaz Bono is not very forthcoming, so a confrontation ensues. In low-rent X-Men fashion, the girl discovers she can control electricity. This spell bad news for store-brand Norman Bates.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Lena (Crampton), a washed-up actress angling for a comeback, is told psychological trauma is keeping her from stardom. Her shrink identifies the cause as not having mourned the stillborn baby she had sixteen years ago. Wait a minute… Having grown up without role models or human interaction beyond a psycho and his ‘mother’, the girl doesn’t take rejection well and acts out every time a supporting character gets in her way.

Crampton singlehandedly turns Reborn into camp. The actress – who has been elevating genre films since the ’80s– takes her role seriously and provides the modicum of credibility every camp movie requires. Michael Paré as the only detective in Los Angeles (all murders are assigned to him) is presumably in on the joke. That, or he’s doing a bad impression of Nick Nolte.

The killings, often the saving grace of terrible horror films, are poorly staged to the point of hilarity. Two rely on fade-to-black and another hopes you are gullible enough to buy a young actress’ spastic movements as electrocution. 

There’s little about Reborn worth your time. The only real mystery is how director Julian Richards convinced an iconic (if past his prime) filmmaker to make a cameo. The scene is so hokey, it doesn’t even reflect well on the famous auteur; which is typical of the whole movie – nothing works as it should.

NIGHT TRAIN

WRITER: DAVID QUANTICK | PUBLISHER: TITAN BOOKS | RELEASE DATE: JUNE 9TH

It would be difficult to herald the premise of David Quantick’s new fantasy thriller Night Train as groundbreaking. A narrative that opens with a character waking up aboard a moving vehicle, with no memory of how they got there, or even of who they are, will win few awards for originality in genre fiction.

That sense of familiarity is offset in part by the atmospheric and intriguing setting. The story unfolds aboard a mysterious train, thundering along the tracks through an endless night, rarely slowing or stopping. The train is littered with corpses, explosions erupt in the skies above and a monster tries to tear its way into the carriages to slaughter the remaining passengers.

Trying to make sense of this bewildering situation is a young woman who comes to know herself as Garland. As she begins to make her way through the train, in the hope of finding answers and other survivors, Garland encounters a series of bizarre, macabre and alarming sights. Each carriage appears to have a unique layout and purpose, although the train designer’s intent remains unclear.

Quantick has clearly had fun thinking up the different freaky phenomena that Garland uncovers. He ensures that what’s hidden behind each new door remains genuinely hard to predict. There are some well-evoked surprises along the way, as Quantick reveals the on-board shenanigans with a good deal of creative ingenuity.

Yet even as Garland learns that she is not alone, many of those discoveries come across as somewhat arbitrary – distracting attention from the business of solving the central mystery.

The book’s setting is intentionally claustrophobic and, as the train clatters along the tracks, there’s a rhythmic sense of motion towards some final destination. All of which gives the story a strong sense of drive and of tension. But Quantick seems determined to continually slow the pace. Too much time is spent depicting his characters’ reactions to the endless succession of weird and dysfunctional rolling stock they’re passing through. The three flashback ‘interludes’ tease at a wider backstory, but there’s still too little urgency about moving this railtrack conundrum towards an endpoint. Some 250 pages in, there is a settling of accounts through some careful exposition. This unearths some inventive world-building shocks, but at a point when there’s no time left to make anything much out of them.

Quantick’s novel is very far from being a train-wreck, but as anyone who’s found themselves endlessly wandering through the carriages of an InterCity 125 in search of the buffet car or the ticket inspector will attest: sometimes it really is about the destination and not the journey.

WE SUMMON THE DARKNESS

DIRECTOR: MARC MEYERS | WRITER: ALAN TREZZA | STARRING: ALEXANDRA DADDARIO, KEEAN JOHNSON, LOGAN MILLER, MADDIE HASSON | RELEASE DATE: MAY 11TH

Travelling to a heavy metal concert in the country, three naïve young friends befriend a gang of fellow revellers and head out to an isolated mansion for the afterparty. Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll? Two out of three ain’t bad, but there’s no sex here: drugged up and knocked out, the chums awaken to find themselves the human sacrifice element of a satanic ritual. But is all as it seems? Kind of, but not really.

Director Marc Meyers’ retro slasher flick boasts reasonably high production values and an enjoyably manic performance from star Alexandra Daddario (better served here than she was by the horrendous Texas Chainsaw 3D). Last year’s Satanic Panic did the whole thing better, but We Summon the Darkness is a fun diversion; a cross between Red State and Knock Knock. Its big twist will be obvious to anyone who is even half paying attention, but that doesn’t make the film any less enjoyable.

We Summon the Darkness is well-directed and shot, with great performances from its young cast. It also has the bonus of one Johnny Knoxville, in a bit-part role as the local pastor. It’s packed with cliché and its pacing is sluggish around the midsection, but it’s devilishly fun – if a touch on the light side.

GRIMVALOR

GRIMVALOR / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: DIRELIGHT / PLATFORM: ANDROID, iOS, SWITCH / RELEASE DATE: 7TH APRIL

Souls-inspired 2.5D hack n’ slash platformer GrimValor received near-unanimous praise upon its 2018 iOS/Android release, earning many plaudits for bringing console-quality action to mobile platforms. But with its release on the Switch, GV finds itself with the unenviable task of having to convince players that this mobile title is still worth experiencing on an actual home console that has an abundance of similar games…

GrimValor‘s fantasy setting – and some aspects of its gameplay – show heavy Dark Souls influences. The story follows a knight on a quest to discover what happened to the fallen king of Vallaris, a crumbling gothic city filled with unwelcoming monsters. The various levels are connected to a central hub where players can upgrade their character’s stats and weapons using currency gained from defeated enemies, and resting at statues gives the opportunity to refill your “mending flask” (health potions).

Given the similarities to the Souls games, you’d be forgiven for thinking GrimValor might also borrow some combat mechanics from the same series. This isn’t the case though, as most enemies are slow enough that they can be easily dealt with by a few sword slashes, and there’s no stamina meter (hooray!) to prevent you from dealing as much damage as you need. Most enemies – both standard ones and bosses – flash red when they’re about to attack, making them easy to dodge past, although things can get quite hectic when faced with larger packs of projectile-throwing baddies.

Some light Metroidvania influences come into play too, with levels occasionally branching off to areas containing hidden treasure. You won’t be backtracking too much though, as there’s no way to revisit previous levels once you’ve moved on to the next. GrimValor is largely a linear adventure that pushes you in the right direction with objectives given by characters you meet along the way. It’s all very straightforward, likely due to the limitations of designing a game for mobile platforms, making this a good choice for newcomers to the genre. Hack n’ slash veterans might note the lack of challenge (especially in the opening areas), but they’re still likely to find an enjoyable experience.

MEXICAN GOTHIC

mexican gothic

MEXICAN GOTHIC / AUTHOR: SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA / PUBLISHER: JO FLETCHER BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 23RD

When Noemi’s father receives an unexpected letter from her cousin, Catalina, all does not seem well. Little did she know what she was getting herself into when Noemi agreed to visit her cousin and her newly-wed husband to investigate…

Inspired by the classic American Gothic genre, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s latest novel certainly wears it’s gristly, bleeding heart on its sleeve. A tale of madness, intrigue, and unspeakable horrors, set against the backdrop of mid-century Mexico. It should have been a fairy tale wedding for her cousin, Catalina. Being swept away to a romantic, old mansion to live out the rest of their lives. But what she found was a creaky, old, forgotten Victorian house, full of secrets and curious family rituals.

When Noemi arrives at the Doyle house to investigate this mystery she comes to discover far more than she could ever have imagined. As she encounters tales of a curse amongst the family, a terrible rot that befalls upon those who inhabit the decaying mansion. As she begins to dig deeper, she discovers that this once prosperous family have endured loss and grief over the decades. From the closure of their silver mine, to the curious deaths that have greeted their nearest and dearest. But when visions of this grim past starts to haunt her dreams, she begins to wonder if there’s something far darker behind those stories. What hidden horrors lay deep inside the Doyle household? Could her nightmares hold the key to the mysterious secrets? It’s almost as if there’s something that keeps her tied to this place, is it her longing to help her cousin, or something far deeper than that.

This is a story that’s teeming with darkly twists and turns, which will certainly give you goose bumps and a few good scares along the way. A fitting example of a new American Gothic novel, as Silvia Moreno-Garcia re-imagines this classic genre. You’ll certainly find yourself caught between gasps of horror as you start to unravel this mysterious story, just remember to leave the light on as you sit down for a good read.

HYPERPARASITE

HYPERPARASITE / DEVELOPER: TROGLOBYTES GAMES / PUBLISHER: QUBIC GAMES / PLATFORM: PC,PS4, SWITCH, XBOX ONE (REVIEWED) / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

In HyperParasite‘s (incredibly timely and relevant) story, an alien parasite has invaded earth, spreading itself across the planet on a mission to take over one of the world’s deadliest nuclear arsenals. Special forces have been dispatched to track the parasite down, and every single citizen has been authorised to carry weapons to help the fight. The twist in this tale is that you’re not a military commander or a soldier, or even a regular civilian – you’re the parasite, a tentacled little bugger with the ability to take over nearby bodies and use them to further your quest.

HyperParasite is a fast-paced roguelite twin-stick shooter, set in the 1980’s with all the blinding neon visuals and super synth-y soundtracks that you might expect from the era. Starting off each run inside a random host body, you’ll move through randomly-generated configurations of interconnected rooms filled with waves of enemies trying to halt your progress. If your host is killed, you’ll return to parasite form where a single hit will finish you off for good, but you can quickly enter another body to keep yourself alive. Each enemy type has their own weapons and attacks, and you can enter and leave host bodies at will – figuring out which hosts work best together when linking your attacks between them is definitely recommended!

The game is split into five acts, with between 10-15 different hosts to commandeer in each. Most of these are initially locked, requiring human brains and a cash donation in the laboratory to make them available for use. You’ll want to unlock as many as possible, as access to host bodies during gameplay increases your chances of survival. It can be insanely tricky to make progress at first, but once you get going (unlocked hosts are saved, so each run gets a little bit easier, in theory), it all becomes incredibly addictive. On the downside, starting each subsequent act restricts you to a limited amount of hosts once more, and the need for grinding begins again…

Tough but fair, with an eye-catching aesthetic and a blinding 80s soundtrack, HyperParasite is definitely up there with the better roguelites. Those of a persistent persuasion should investigate as soon as possible!

ONE PIECE: PIRATE WARRIORS 4

ONE PIECE: PIRATE WARRIORS 4 / DEVELOPER: OMEGA FORCE / PUBLISHER: BANDAI NAMCO / PLATFORM: PC,PS4, SWITCH, XBOX ONE (REVIEWED) / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Warriors games seem to be released at an alarmingly fast rate, with several brand new instalments and reissues appearing every year. Just a couple of months ago, we loved the heck out of Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate, and now we’re equally enamoured with the latest in the long-running series, One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4.

Each Warriors game usually has a handful of features to differentiate it from the others in one way or another. Being based on an anime, PW4 leans heavily into the cartoon vibe, making it immediately stand out from its more realistic Warriors counterparts. While the gameplay doesn’t deviate from the usual Warriors formula – it’s your usual musou affair, running around large battlefields, completing objectives, battering hundreds of enemies with over the top weapons and special moves, racking up combos that run into the thousands, all that sort of business – there are still a few bits and pieces that are rarely (if ever) seen in similar games. For one, characters are able to jump and perform combos in mid-air, which might not sound like much but certainly gives scope for plenty of insane attacks. Destroying buildings can cause damage to nearby enemies and sometimes reveals hidden items, and giant “titans” change up the gameplay slightly, requiring players to break through their shields before the boss can be attacked directly.

PW4‘s story mode restricts players to using specific characters during play. Completing these story missions, which are based around familiar locations from the anime, unlocks additional characters (more than 40 in total) that can then be used to replay missions in free mode. There are also a generous amount of standalone “Treasure Log” missions which reward players with currency to spend on the game’s various upgrade trees (one to enhance your entire roster, and additional ones for each individual character).

Chances are you’ll already know whether you’re a fan of Warriors games or not. If this sort of frantic button-bashing gameplay appeals to you, One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 is an absolute treat for One Piece fans and Warriors aficionados alike and should be added to your collection immediately!

BUBBLE BOBBLE 4 FRIENDS

BUBBLE BOBBLE 4 FRIENDS / DEVELOPER: TAITO / PUBLISHER: ININ GAMES / PLATFORM: SWITCH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

First released in 1986, the original Bubble Bobble has undeniably become something of a cult classic. Starring bubble-blowing dragons, Bub and Bob, its challenging action-packed gameplay was a huge draw in the arcades, and home console ports proved equally successful. Countless re-releases, sequels and spinoffs appeared over the following 30+ years, ensuring Bub and Bob’s addictive multiplayer madness has never been too far from gamers’ minds.

Fast forward to modern times, Bubble Bobble 4 Friends was released exclusively in Europe in late 2019 and has now been available in the US and Japan. Developed by the original series creators TAITO, BB4F takes everything you know and love from the old days, refines and polishes the gameplay, gives the whole thing a shiny graphical overhaul and attempts to bring the series bang up to date with modern expectations.

If you’re familiar with the originals, you know what to expect – 100 single-screen platforming levels filled with monsters that need to be trapped in bubbles and then popped to destroy them for good. BB4F allows up to four people to play together, although it’s entirely cooperative – you’re all fighting to clear the screen together – but there’s a slight competitive element in chasing for power ups like lightning bolts and bombs, and grabbing all the food that rains down at the end of each level makes for a mad dash to get the highest scores.

It’s likely that you’ll be able to run through the game in an hour or two, but BB4F adds some longevity with the inclusion of the original Bubble Bobble arcade game, and there’s some free downloadable content on the way which is set to add some extra levels and new / returning characters. BB4F brings a huge dose of comforting nostalgia, something that many are no doubt looking for right now. If an updated blast from the past might help you through the coming days and weeks, Bubble Bobble 4 Friends might just hit the spot!