Book review – Savior Gaming

The Flies Inside

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and Yippie ki ay motherfuckers one and all! I bet this ain’t what you pictured a Savior gaming Christmas special, but here it is. On a day of love, family, and glad tidings, I wanted to talk about our own Torsten’s book, which debuted back in 2021, and in many ways, is the opposite of everything I just mentioned. So let’s look at The Flies Inside.

Charles Porter’s world has been shattered when his love, Remy Wade, commits suicide. Charles had never seen so many flies in his life. Riddled with guilt and longing, Charles descends into madness, unable to leave his shabby apartment for fear of the Vultures outside, leaving his only company to be the unending hordes of flies that promise him the impossible. But is Charles a victim or simply an evil getting his just desserts?

So Flies is Torsten’s debut as an author, and to his credit, he does do some things incredibly well. The book starts with a hard-hitting opening. The body horror is really damn gross and unnerving at times, and I genuinely wanted to know what the hell was really going on. He said he was inspired by Resident Evil 7 and The Shining movie; I can believe it. As for flaws, well, most of it is in the design of the actual book. There are no page numbers. The formatting is cramped, and the printing is small, so it’s physically hard to read. You can also see where the interior needed more work, as when it was printed, more care needed to be taken. The book is short, at roughly 160 pages. I’m torn on the length; I can see it being better if it were a little bit longer and drew out the relationship a bit more, and developed the pretty vanilla detective investigating Remy’s suicide. In the end, it’s a pretty solid first go at writing a book that I recommend checking out. You won’t find many books for $10 with this much heart despite its flaws. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Vaesen: Castle of Gyllencreutz

As some of you may be aware, not long Free League Publishing sent me a PDF of their Starter set for Vaesen. If you want more details about what is in that, you can read about it here. A few weeks after that, I got home from work to a package on my doorstep, and it was the physical version of that same starter set and the core rule book. Now it is an excellent starter set, but I got to wondering, can someone with no experience playing this game, truly get a group together and play this game? So I gathered the women in my life together, a case of our prefered alchol, and got started.

Beautiful cover art for the core rule book. I didn’t use this for my experiment

The first thing I did was have everyone blindly choose one of the 5 playable characters that the set came with. My daughter decided to play as a rugged Soldier named Fronz who couldn’t read. I don’t know why she decided he couldn’t read, but I just went with it. The other ladies chose the 2 ladies in the group; they have names, but admittedly, that isn’t important. By not important, I mean I forgot their names.

Now, the Castle of Gyllemcreutz story that comes with the set is a great starting point that introduces you to the basics of the game. I don’t want to get too in-depth with what is involved with this story because it is easy to give too much away. Much of the story involves investigating a large castle to find clues on how to solve the mystery involving ghostly lights and missing people.

Dice rolls are all based on rolling a D6; players need to roll a certain number of 6’s to succeed. How many completely depends on how difficult the task is. There is also very little combat in this module, but the person running it could easily change that if they chose to. Nothing is stopping them, and all the information needed to do it is included.

But how did my players do? Well, they never were confused on how to play; they made their way through the castle with very little coaching besides trying to get them to stop goofing off, and the big finale of the whole thing was figured out before we figured out how to finish off a case of alcohol in 2 hours between the 4 of us.

I would absolutely say this starter kit provides everything you need to get you started playing Vaesen with limited or no experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Salem’s Lot (2024)

You know, this is one of those damn movies I never thought would see the light of day (hehe lame vampire pun). It was announced, delayed, then disappeared for a few years before getting dumped on HBO Max like a dead carcass at the slaughterhouse. Years ago I reviewed the novel for Salem’s Lot and since then I’ve read it at least twice and I can say it is a damn good book and a pretty solid vampire tale. While I never saw either mini-series, the trailer for 2024 was enough to make Savior and I at least excited for a flaming dumpster fire. Did we get it?

Sadly no. Salem’s Lot 2024 is not a garbage fire. That’s not to say it’s particularly great or even good. The cast gives decent performances given a pretty crammed script. Much of the soul, the suspense, and characters of the book are crushed, compacted, and repackaged into a forgettable vampire romp. It’s the kind you can forget the same day you watch it which honestly is a shame given how good the book was. The vampires are more like zombies. Barlow isn’t a nightmarish ghoul like in the 79 mini-series but a parody of that memorable design. There’s not even as much gore or hilarious jumpscares as I thought there’d be in the trailer. In the end, read the book or seek out another vamp movie because good or bad, you’ll remember it more than this thing that should’ve stayed in the development grave. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Fisherman

Grief is a terrible thing everyone needs to overcome in their lives. For widower, Abe, fishing is his great release. After losing his wife, fishing helped him get his life back on track. When his coworker, Dan, goes through an unimaginable tragedy, Abe extends a hand of friendship and offers to fish with him. While a quiet friendship blooms between the widowed men, Abe can’t help but see Dan drowning in despair…until they stop for breakfast on a rainy morning, going towards a spot Abe never heard of that Dan seems all too eager to fish at. Almost obsessively so. During this breakfast, they are treated to a folktale of the river, dark magic, the impossible, and Der Fischer who may have opened the gates between life and death. Desperately the men are on a course that might not just cost them their lives, but also their souls as Dan is willing to sacrifice it all for what he lost? Will Abe make the same choice?

So immediately when reading this I thought of a more Lovecraftian take on Pet Sematary . In many ways, I can see it but Langan weaves a pretty solid story telling the folktale of Der Fischer in between the main story. His writing story is very easy to get into and flowed very smoothly to me. Some will get put off by the story within a story aspect of the novel but he neatly pulls it off and neither story feels overstayed. I like his depictions of Dan’s rising mania and Abe’s internal battle against the abominations they face. I found myself wanting to know more about what Der Fischer unleashed and got to see more horrors from the other world. In the end, if you liked Pet Sematary and wished there was Lovecraft in it or wanted to get into cosmic horror but wanted something more modern, the Fisherman is a quick, well-written read I’d recommend. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mary: An Awakening of Terror

Mary is a nobody in every sense of the word. Banking on the dreaded 5-0 and wading into menopause, alone in the world except for her “loved ones” (tiny little porcelain figurines she talks to, her life turns upside down once she loses her job. A job that barely pays her enough to get by as is. A sliver lining comes when her loathsome, dying aunt Nadine calls begging for help. After pissing off Mary’s cousin, Nadine is alone and unable to care for herself. Mary is soon left to journey from New York to the eerie desert town where she grew up. Returning home resurfaces not only her repressed hatred for her crass, despicable aunt by the layers of trauma she spent her life hiding as well as what might be the secrets of the town itself? With bodies piling up, visions playing Mary, and an obsession with a hospital that had been converted from an infamous serial killer’s home, the question becomes who and what is Mary?

So I read this book for my book club, going in completely fresh. I knew nothing about the book or author and was even kind of surprised it came out in 2022. As someone who sucks at socializing, suffers from a host of mental health issues, and is just awkward as hell, I felt for Mary. I found her to almost be an updated Carrie, someone shy, frumpy and pathetically beaten down who just wanted to matter. This story takes a lot of crazy ass turns from being a ghost story, to a psychological thriller, to some bizarre Midsommar levels of WTF. The book deserves to be experienced because it is fun as hell trying to figure out where its going. However fun that particular aspect is, it causes some issues towards the end. A character I hated got a half-assed redemption and the ultimate conclusion, while being fun and over-the-top gory, didn’t really satisfy me. The ending couple of chapters felt unnecessarily open-ended, but given how weird of a ride this story was, I can’t tell you if a sequel would work.

In the end, I enjoyed this book a lot but I didn’t love it. It’s very well written and really engaging but the ending as well as some plot choices fumble it from being great. Absolutely a good read worth checking out if you want a weirder kind of horror book. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Playground

Hey kids, have you ever heard of splatterpunk? Have you ever watched Willy Wonka and wished there was Saw in it? Well, Aaron Beauregard has you covered. Before I begin, the cover of this book tells you exactly what you’re getting into. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, fuck that, here’s a good exception to the rule. This book is gnarly so if you have a weak stomach and the idea of children dying triggers you at all as well as some really, really WTF sexual stuff involving poop at one point, this book is absolutely not for you.

3 low-income families receive the chance of a lifetime from the reclusive billionaire and philanthropist, Geraldine Borden. She and her adopted son, Rock, have invited the families with their total 8 children to come and test some new state-of-the-art playground equipment in exchange for $3,000 per family. Not a bad deal, right? The parents even get to relax in their own private theater and monitor their children at play…until things go violently wrong. Ambushed by ravenous dogs, the children are chased through a razor blade-laced chute to a dungeonous series of macabre games where survival is the only reward. The parents, captive in places, are forced to watch there beloved children fight not only the horrific games but also themselves as Geraldine’s twisted games unfold…

Holy shit this book gave me whiplash. Is it a fun read? Hell no! Is it an exciting read I literally couldn’t put down? I really couldn’t. The kids are the superstars of the story and a lot of praise to Beauregard for writing thoughtful, authentic children instead of angelic Hollywood kind of kids. I felt for quite a few of them on their reactions and grisly fates while also cheering when the villain of the eight gets his just deserts. The games are eerie and pretty imaginative with some incredibly disturbing outcomes. I like that Geraldine is in no way a sympathetic or redeemable villain in a modern world of tragic villains. Rock is a really tragic character and his redemption at the end is well-earned. The flaw in the book is the parent sections which do drag the pacing down. The book is organized into 3 POVs: the kids, the parents, and Geraldine. The parents are literally locked in place and most of their sections revolve around reacting to what just happened to their kids. It makes the pacing a bit bumpy, especially around the middle.

So in the end I really enjoyed the book, though all be damned if I didn’t need a hot shower and a hug after. No, there’s no happy ending and yes this book is depressing and horrific but the ending lands and is self-contained which is cool. It’s honestly well worth a read and well written if you can get past the grotestuque subject matter. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Blood Meridan

What do you think of when you hear about the Old West? Cowboys, Indians, covered wagons, and dusty saloons where a shootout is a shot of whiskey and a whore away? John Wayne? Clint Eastwood? John Marsten? Well, like most people I did too. I heard many tales that this novel was one of the darkest, if not the darkest westerns ever written with one of the most fascinating villains in literature. Does it hold up to the claims?

The story begins with a young runaway referred to as The Kid who finds his way into the Glanton Gang, a crew of scalp hunters roaming across the west near Texas and Mexico in the 1850s. Normally I’d go deeper into the story but Blood Meridian doesn’t have much of a coventional plot. Much of the book is an experience in haunting philoshy and depravity. For real, this book is grim as hell so if you are easily triggered by racism, violence to people or animals, gore, or rape stay away from this book.

Cormac McCarthy (Rest in Peace) beautifully illustrates a hellish depiction of the Old West and the horrors of man left his own devices. There is some truly horrifying imagery and the way the book is written, I felt strained as the gang does getting worn down after dozens of bloody raids and losses in a unforgiving desert. Could this be a second hand horror story? I can see it in the way Dante’s Inferno could be seen that way. I really like that the Kid is not a good kid corrupted by the debauchery or even has anything close to a redemption- nope- he’s just as cutthroat and ruthless as Glanton and the rest. The standout, the man who does steal the show of the book, is the mysterious Judge Holden. He’s a huge, hulking hairless albino man that is almost inhumanly intelligent and depraved more than the rest; the sermons he gives are legendary and off putting as hell. Whenever Holden appears I was instantly griped and I think the praise he receives as a villain is well earned.

So is this book a masterpiece, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. First, this is not written like a modern book. McCarthy is a novelist in the true sense of the word; ten pages in I said “oh shit this is one of them smart people books we don’t get anymore”. He won’t hold your hand. He has a pretty impressive vocabulary. You have to pay attention. One thing I admit irked the shit out of me was that there are no quotation marks but an awful lot of dialogue; do you see why I said pay attention? He also loves giant sentences with little punctuation so if you are trying to rush, things will blend together. The pacing is a double edged sword. 350 pages doesn’t feel like it.

In the end, this book is a masterpiece of dark fiction but be warned it’s not the easiest read and if the book didn’t hit you hard enough, the ending will. May the gaming gods bring you glory and like the Judge, you keep dancing on and on gleefully.

Book Sale and Pre-Order announcement

As many if you know my first book Ghost Stories of America has been out for a bit,and if you haven’t had the chance to pick it up yet it will be on sale soon. From November 26th until November 30th it will be on sale for the low low price of free. So please check it out.

And if you happen to like it, you can check out my newest book releasing December 1st More Ghost stories of America. Up for pre-order now.

Ghost Stories of America (Book)

For those of you that remember not long ago @torstenvblog wrote a book and released it. Now I have done the same and it is called Ghost stories of America. It is a short e-book about various ghost stories from across the United States. It’s available on Amazon for 2.99 and Amazon select for free. So please consider supporting me and Savior Gaming as a whole and picking up a copy or reading it on Amazon select and leaving a review. I don’t promise the best written book, but I do promise some entertainment. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B5NNHBN8?ref_=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=7ce166bf-3a76-4ff6-bce9-5a5920dc5966

The Devil’s Whispers, By Lucas Hault

First and foremost, I don’t do a lot of book reviews but TkPublishing asked me to take a look at this one and as a gothic horror book, it seemed like something I would enjoy. Plus we all know how much a love an up and comer in anything. So huge shout out to both of them for hooking me up with this.

We start out like many books, with our main man Gerard Woodward being summoned to an old castle. Our new British friend wasted no time getting settled into his room and doing what the average person would do, second-guessing his life decisions.

The life decision at this point is not listening to his wife and coming to this castle that he is now clearly locked into. Things aren’t exactly normal back home in London where he left his wife, I will however leave that for you to figure out as it is quite interesting.

Obviously, as you guys know I don’t like to spoil too much about the story of these things and that will be more true here than normal so I will talk more about the style of writing here. If you remember those old classic horror books written in the time period style of old letters and journal writings. This is a lot like that, and it is extremely well done. You can read this and feel the picture Hault paints with his pen.

All that being said there is a sort of mystery to the whole thing, and that mystery is would it be better to classify this book as an homage to Dracula or more of a retelling. I don’t mean this as an insult, I feel like it is very well done in fact. The story doesn’t revolve around a simple vampire and it isn’t as simple as silly name changes in a quick cash grab. There was time and effort and love put into this novel and I truly think fans of the classic monster tails by the likes of Bram Stoker and Mary Shelly will find a lot to like here.

If you are interested in checking out The Devil’s Whispers, and I recommend you do, you can pick up a copy here.