Genre: Horror
Publisher: The Sinister Horror Company
Publication Date: 2nd May 2016
Pages: 236
MY REVIEW:
A copy of The Bad
Game, by Adam Millard, was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the publishers,
The Sinister Horror Company, in exchange for an honest review. This is said
review.
One thing you will know about me is my love and affection
for the guys at The Sinister Horror Company, and the work they do. They produce
some wonderful books, both in their presentation and how they read. It is very
clear that they put every ounce of effort they have into doing the very best
they can for any author they publish.
This is highly commendable in today’s
world where you hear so many horror stories about how some presses behave.
One thing you won’t know about me is a fact that I am,
quite frankly, ashamed of. This is the first time I have read anything by Adam
Millard. No need to send the peasants round with the torches and pitchforks. I
have put myself through two days of self-flagellation as punishment and I swear
it will never happen again. Want to know how I can be so sure of that? Read on!
This hasn’t happened in a while! It’s two for one time!
Review One:
Like easy to read horror? Fun Horror? Horror in the
classic style of Richard Laymon? Horror that will make you cringe, squirm and
squeak? Just buy this and thank me later.
Review Two:
Jamie lives in the mostly quiet seaside town of Hemsby.
Not much for a fifteen-year-old to do during the summer other than spend the
days in the local arcade playing video games. Jamie likes a particular type of
game though. He is a retro expert and is close to completing every single level
on Pac Man in one sitting!
Scottie runs the arcade and has a soft spot for Jamie and
helps him out with his problem with bullies.
When Scottie takes delivery of a new game, dealing with
bullies for Jamie is going to be a walk in the park compared to what is coming.
The game proves to be a huge hit with the kids even
though no one can understand it. There is evil at work though, and what happens
next turns Hemsby from a quite seaside town into a town of unknown horrors and
bloodshed.
OK, straight to it. Characters. Jamie and Scottie are the
main ones. Jamie is a typical fifteen-year-old. He is quiet in one sense but
not so in another. He is an all-round decent lad but can still get himself into
bother now and again. Scottie is a man with more than one problem and a past he
would rather not talk about. He likes the booze but doesn’t turn into a nasty
person with it. He just wants to work, drink, sleep. Put them together and
there is a definite connection that is quite endearing. Other people that would
play main roles would be Liza, a girl visiting Hemsby that has caught Jamie’s
eye. Barry, a quite unassuming lad that is going to explode onto the scene.
Angela, the local barmaid with more to offer than she believes herself.
Then we have a host of other kids that all come to the
fore as the story progresses and the evil breaks out.
The most stand out thing about every single character in
this book is that they could be you. They could be the boy or girl next door or
the man or woman down the street. They are so natural that they do not read as
made up characters in a book. It’s almost like this is a biography of real
people going through real stuff.
The plot? This is where my comparison with Richard Laymon
comes in. This has that distinct 80’s feel to it. That easy to read style that
Laymon was so good at in all his tales set in America. The fact that Mr Millard
has so successfully transferred this style to a small seaside town in England,
to me, is superbly fantastic. I don’t think I have read anyone else recently
who has managed to do that. It’s sort of B movie style but on a big budget if
that makes sense.
Given the title there is no doubt that the story centres
around the game. The Bad Game. I am
telling no more though about what happens or how it happens. When it does
though, this story kicks off in the biggest possible style. It is two hundred
miles an hour with blood and guts and flying eyeballs galore. But it isn’t over
exaggerated. If it was a movie there wouldn’t be huge, slow motion explosions
and lots of CGI used in the death scenes to make it look as gruesome as
possible. It’s just told in a way that gets the point across with no frills but
still gives you the huge effect and makes you cringe all the same.
Adam Millard has a writing style that I fell in love with
after about ten percent of this story. People talk about the words flowing
across the page. These words don’t flow across the page. It’s more like the
laziest day you could ever think of, lying on an inflatable bed on a swimming
pool with your eyes closed, feeling the sun beat down on you as you just gently
float along. Not a care in the world and giving you the most wonderful settled
feeling. But then when it needs to kick off it does it at a speed, and ferocity,
that would be like one of your damn kids jumping in the pool and knocking you
flying off the inflatable, sinking and gasping for breath. The run to the
finale will leave you floundering in the water for ages until you finally drag
yourself to the edge of the pool and catch your breath.
His characters are superb. His story is superb. The idea
behind the story will have every person who loves horror of old smiling from
ear to ear while reading this and for hours after finishing it. It’s horror
that is frightening and sickening but at the same time horror that is fun to
read and the sort of story that, when you finish it, you feel deflated, because
you wanted it to be much much longer.
But then you smile again because it was
so much damn fun.
I absolutely loved this book so much, I am going to
invent my own category for it in my end of year round up so it definitely wins!
To summarise: just read the above and buy it. Or if you
come to the end first, don’t bother reading the above, just buy it.
Highest possible recommendation.
General rating:
★★★★★ couldn't possibly get any less!
Horror rating:
★★★★★ and again!
If you would like to help support Confessions of a
Reviewer, then please consider using the links below to buy The Bad Game or any other books from Adam.
This not only supports me but also lets me know how many people actually like
to buy books after reading my reviews.
Thanks.
Book Synopsis:
YOU DON'T PLAY IT... IT PLAYS YOU.
Hemsby is thriving; a
seaside town on the up. The holidaymakers are flooding in, and so is the money.
For the majority of those who live there, the resort is idyllic. But not for
Jamie Garrett. Fifteen years old and bored to tears, Hemsby is the last place
he wants to be. Aside from the occasional sea rescue, nothing exciting ever
happens. That's about to change as a mysterious new game arrives at the
beach-front arcade. No one knows of its origin, or the rules of the game, but
soon it is the talk of the resort, attracting children far and wide with its
complex gameplay and surreal graphics. When the children of the resort become
the perpetrators of uncharacteristic and brutal violence, Jamie realises that
it is a side-effect of the game, and sets out to pull the plug on the machine
before it is too late.
Dare you play THE BAD GAME?
Adam
Millard is the author of twenty novels, ten novellas, and more than a hundred
short stories, which can be found in various collections and anthologies.
Probably best known for his post-apocalyptic fiction, Adam also writes
fantasy/horror for children. He created the character Peter Crombie, Teenage
Zombie just so he had something decent to read to his son at bedtime. Adam also
writes Bizarro fiction for several publishers, who enjoy his tales of
flesh-eating clown-beetles and rabies-infected derrieres so much that they keep
printing them. His "Dead" series has recently been the filling in a
Stephen King/Bram Stoker sandwich on Amazon's bestsellers chart. When he's not
writing about the nightmarish creatures battling for supremacy in his head,
Adam writes for This Is Horror, whose columnists include Simon Bestwick and
Simon Marshall-Jones.
And
for more about Adam, visit his site or find him on social media:
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Goodreads – Amazon Page
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