jmanchester0's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Blues, metal, punk.
Music is magic.
And Tony McMillen is genius.
thomaswjoyce's review against another edition
5.0
Tony McMillen is the author of the novel Nefarious Twit (Branch Hands, 2013), a book LitReactor selected as their Book Club Selection for March 2014. A wonderful achievement for a debut novel. The author and artist has made us wait almost four years for his follow-up, a book that McMillen himself described as “Black Sabbath meets The Thing”. Published by the ever-reliable Word Horde, a publisher whose name has become synonymous with quality and excellence, An Augmented Fourth is Tony McMillen’s much-anticipated second novel.
The book opens with an introduction to the first-person narrator, Codger Burton, the bassist for British heavy metal band Frivolous Black. He awakens in a hotel room, in the middle of his latest attempt to go cold turkey, to get off of the cocaine and alcohol. Codger is an almost-stereotypical rock musician from rock music’s heyday, but McMillen does a great job of developing the character, showing us the trials and tribulations Codger has faced from a difficult childhood to dealing with fame and dealing with the news that John Lennon was murdered three days previous.
The setting, a Boston hotel in the midst of a snowstorm, helps to set the tone of the book. There has been a mass evacuation and the cold weather along with the isolation brings to mind horror stories set in the barren, mostly empty Arctic and Antarctic. But Codger isn’t completely alone, as he soon encounters three fellow guests; John, an employee of the hotel and a huge fan of Frivolous Black, Rikki, feisty frontwoman for a punk band leading the charge to sound the death knell of rock, and Marcus, a bodyguard who used to work for Codger’s band but who now protects a pop star called Frankie Gideon. The interplay between the members of the group is well written and very entertaining, especially between Codger and John (“this fucking kid”) in the early stages of the book. But, given their circumstances in the hotel, the creeping paranoia soon sets in and it isn’t long before strange things begin to happen.
To read the full review, please visit This Is Horror.
The book opens with an introduction to the first-person narrator, Codger Burton, the bassist for British heavy metal band Frivolous Black. He awakens in a hotel room, in the middle of his latest attempt to go cold turkey, to get off of the cocaine and alcohol. Codger is an almost-stereotypical rock musician from rock music’s heyday, but McMillen does a great job of developing the character, showing us the trials and tribulations Codger has faced from a difficult childhood to dealing with fame and dealing with the news that John Lennon was murdered three days previous.
The setting, a Boston hotel in the midst of a snowstorm, helps to set the tone of the book. There has been a mass evacuation and the cold weather along with the isolation brings to mind horror stories set in the barren, mostly empty Arctic and Antarctic. But Codger isn’t completely alone, as he soon encounters three fellow guests; John, an employee of the hotel and a huge fan of Frivolous Black, Rikki, feisty frontwoman for a punk band leading the charge to sound the death knell of rock, and Marcus, a bodyguard who used to work for Codger’s band but who now protects a pop star called Frankie Gideon. The interplay between the members of the group is well written and very entertaining, especially between Codger and John (“this fucking kid”) in the early stages of the book. But, given their circumstances in the hotel, the creeping paranoia soon sets in and it isn’t long before strange things begin to happen.
To read the full review, please visit This Is Horror.
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