Digging up corpses

Title: Digging up corpses
Author: James L. Grant
Published: 2007 by Stonegarden.net publishing
Genre: There's zombies and vampires and the whole works in this baby.
Pages: 148


I bought this collection of 13 stories about as soon as it came out, I think, and read a few back then. Picked it up from the shelf after finishing Sherlock Holmes and going a few days without reading anything. Those were some damn scary days, man. And busy: the last three, four weeks have been the busiest at work since... fuck, ever? So I've quite overfried my brain and have been at a loss at what to read. This? Was just what I needed.

Short bits with interesting or kickass or interesting and kickass characters, like the two zombie armageddon survivors or the macho man who did bite off more than he could chew with the hot redhead. Mr. Grant sets up a story effortlessly and quickly, creating within a few pages both a good scenario and real characters to play it out. And there's no cliched bullshit happy Hollywood endings. Nope, but there are endings that make you grin like a mad pedestrian wolf.

(See what I did there? If not, you really should read some James L. Grant. It'll be good for you.)


He sat down in the chair, opened a side drawer of the desk and pulled out a tan shoebox. The cardboard lid hit the floor like a tiny dropped coffin, and one of Robbie's meaty hands retrieved a big, shiny hunting knife. He held the seven-inch blade between his forefinger and thumb, and turned the handle toward me. It looked sharper than a midnight wind in December. "You know what to do, Danny," he murmured, and a lone bead of sweat rolled down his cheek.
I grabbed the knife. "You ready?"
He nodded, and leaned forward in the chair until his face was pointed at the carpet. I had a perfect view of his hairless pate.
"Okay, go ahead," he whispered.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: Haven't the foggiest.
Genre: Detective stories!
Pages: ...881.


This one was a first in many ways! First time I read Sherlock Holmes -stories, and first time I read a book on a mobile phone. Okay, that's just two firsts, actually. But I bet Sir A. C. D. didn't imagine as he wrote these stories that one day, 100+ years in the future, you could read his writings on this small thingie that fits into your palm, and sometimes makes turning a page a pain in the ass.

This bunch was a collection of 12 (I think...) Sherlock Holmes -stories, and I don't think they were in any particular order. The narrator, doctor John Watson, would start with a story, and in the beginning of the next one would say how this one happened yeaaaars ago. But then again, I don't know if this is how it was supposed to be, if this really is the real order the stories were written in.

Anyhoo, yeah, I was hooked. Both by the brainteasers and the thrill of newness of reading a book. On my mobile. I'm sure I remembered to mention that I can read books on my mobile to everyone I know about three times. I've been averse to getting a Kindle or something like it since I love the feel of an actual book in my hands, and also because of th price, but after this experience, maybe it wouldn't be such a horrible thing...

The stories? Yes, I definitely want to read the rest as well. I've seen both recent Sherlock Holmes -movies and became an instant fan when I saw the BBC Sherlock-series set in modern times. Other than that, my reason for not picking up these classics before is probably due to my slight aversion to classics, thinking them long-winded or boring. This is a silly aversion, as I've quite enjoyed the few classics I've read. So I shall be checking those out one day, trying to figure out what's going on before Watson gets it.