Review: Vanilla Sky meets Eraserhead, directed by Tool guitarist Adam Jones
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 26, 2014
I liked this book. And I didn't. It's really as simple (and as hard) as that.Let's get what I didn't like out of the way.Xane's writing is a bit repetitious. One paragraph in particular used "wall" so many times I thought I'd turn into one. Then you have these two sentences back to back. "Filthy fingertips hung from the bottom of frayed coat sleeves. His nails were long and dirty." The image one gets after reading the first line is junk-punched into oblivion by the banality of the passive second sentence. Xane can write his ass off, but his editor needs to be a little more liberal with the red ink.The dream sequences lost their flare after the first one. That's personal opinion, not fact. All sense of suspense and horror escaped me because I knew that any time something weird happened it was only Frank dreaming. I have no idea how or if this could be fixed, it's only an observation I had while reading.Now for the confusing part. I took a break at chapter ten, and when I returned to the book a day later, I had no idea that Steve wasn't the guy with the dead spots. This is probably half my fault because of a crappy memory, but the reader is in one character's head for nine whole chapters then suddenly we're thrown into his brother's head. I read on for a while thinking that Steve was Frank. I ended up having to jump back several chapters to get things straight again. That's the only reason it took me three days to read this novella. Oh, and we have a single chapter from Cliff or Charlie's POV, which felt tacked on. I couldn't keep the two bag boys separated in my mind or on the page. Other than Frank acquiring the bicycle (which he could have gotten anywhere) I saw no need for this jarring switch to a completely out-of-left-field POV.Things I loved:Xane has one hell of an imagination. Had he been able to conceal the fact that the later sequences were dreams, I think this would have been a solid four- to four-and-a-half-star read. A lot of my enjoyment was gained through visualizing Xane's wacky imaginings. The incubus reveal was rad, as was the creepy faceless girl with the razor toward the end. Helluva mind you have there, dude. I half expected Frank to poop out a polar bear and join it in a interpretive dance of Schindler's List. That's how wild this book is.The ending is perfect. To explain why I believe the conclusion more than fitting I would have to spoil a majority of the book. And this is one of those stories that is better the less you know about it. I loved - L-O-V-E-D - watching Frank come apart.Though it could do with a little more red ink where the repetition is concerned, SIX DEAD SPOTS is an entertaining mind screw. If you have a thing for David Lynch's films, Tool's music videos, or LSD fantasies involving porn stars wearing strap-ons in the shapes of baby arms you'll probably wet yourself with glee while reading this book. I do wish to read another Gregor Xane book, so the author should probably get busy fulfilling that request. Like yesterday.