'Jack's Magic Beans' – Brian Keene (Deadite Press)

Well, as of tomorrow, I'll be trying to catch up with work from last week as well as all the stuff that is already building up for the week ahead. That'll teach me to take a half day of sick... dammit :o( I think it's fair to say then that we'll be looking at shorter books and a couple of films over the next week then. Lets see how we do.

Short reads don't come a lot shorter than Brian Keene's 'Jack's Magic Beans' collection which weighs in at just below the hundred page mark. Don't let that fool you though. This is a book that packs a hell of a punch and ended up being just what I needed (and not just because it felt like the natural 'next book' to read after having a lot of fun with 'The Complex', a great example of an apocalypse not needing a concept to make it work, sometimes shit just happens). There is a lot to be said for short stories that come in, do their job and leave you feeling like you need to check over your shoulder every few minutes; which is pretty much what 'Jack's Magic Beans' did for me.

It happens in a split-second. One moment, customers are happily shopping in the Save-A-Lot grocery store. The next instant, they are transformed into bloodthirsty psychotics, interested only in slaughtering one another and committing unimaginably atrocious and frenzied acts of violent depravity. Only Jack, Sammi, Angie and Marcel seem immune to the insanity that has infected the rest of the town. But can they stay alive long enough -- and trust each other long enough -- to unravel the secret of Jack's magic beans...

'Jack's Magic Beans' kicks the book off and we're almost back in 'Complex' territory, society suddenly going batshit crazy with only a few people seemingly immune. If they can work out why they're immune, they might (just might) stand a chance of making it through. This means as much gore and craziness as you can fit in forty eight pages, coupled with a creeping dread as our players realise that sometimes, all having answers means is that you end up with more questions. Not good when you don't know the people you're with and all of it combines to give us one of the bleakest endings I think Keene has come up with. 'Jack's Magic Beans' fully deserves to be the lead story here.

'I woke up this morning and shot myself twice...'

Keene doesn't just do killer endings, he can open a story in style as well and that's very much the case with 'Without You', a cautionary tale about the promises you make without even thinking of it. 'Without You' is a much shorter tale, very straightforward and to the point but with an evil little twist that I enjoyed (even if our lead didn't, although I suspect he will...) That's all I can really say without giving the game away and I don't want to do that so...

We move onto 'I am an Exit' and 'This is not an Exit', two stories about your favourite serial killer, The Exit, and... We don't find out much at all but then we were never meant to. These two stories are more about tantalising hints, than solid character development, and that works just fine. You don't know why The Exit does what he does, only that he believes he must carry on with his work and he will not hesitate to do his job. The Exit does have a code of sorts though and we get a hint of that too. Having read the first two books in 'The Seven' series, I now know exactly why The Exit does what he must. These two short stories will make you have you wanting to pick those books up as well.

And finally, we reach the end of the book with 'The King', In: Yellow, a story that I'll be honest, I suspect I'd have got a lot more out of if I'd read the source material. I really need to do something about that (and now I've written that, I'll have to). It's not that 'The King' didn't work for me, far from it. It does everything it needs to in all the right places and is a very effective slice of cosmic horror for it. It's properly creepy, I just can't get away from the fact that it would be even more effective if I had that context. Don't let that put you off reading this story though, you'll regret it if you miss this one.

'Jack's Magic Beans' is a short sharp dose of a range of horror pieces that all hit the mark. Pick it up if you get the chance.