In this installment of Page 69,
we put Stephen Kozeniewski's The Ghoul Archipelago
to the test
Ok Stephen, set up page 69 for us.
Okay, well, Papi and Mr. Kurtz are members of a low-rent
freighter crew. They're essentially paid
to be blind and stupid, so while they may not know exactly what they're
hauling, they can probably guess it's something unsavory. In the deep backwater of the South Pacific, a
band of pirates attacks their ship. As
the senior officers, like Pepper, attempt to negotiate with the pirates and
deal with the sudden discovery of a stowaway, they send the crew to hide
belowdecks. That's where Papi and Kurtz
learn the shocking truth: they're hauling corpses stuffed with drugs and
money. Oh, and did I forget to mention
the dead just started rising to feast on the flesh of the living?
A power struggle is brewing in the Curiens. On one side, the billionaire inventor of the mind-control collar seeks to squeeze all the profit he can out of the apocalypse. Opposing him is the charismatic leader of a ghoul-worshipping cargo cult. When a lunatic warlord berths an aircraft carrier off the coast and stakes his own claim on the islands, the stage is set for a bloody showdown.
To save the remnants of humanity (and himself), Captain Martigan must defeat all three of his ruthless new foes and brave the gruesome horrors of...THE GHOUL ARCHIPELAGO.
Do you think this page gives our readers an accurate
sense of what the book is about?
Ah, believe it or not, it's not a bad sample. I don't know if the Page 69 test is supposed
to work or fail, but this has a nice, solidly gruesome beginning that set the
tone for the rest of the book, and segues into introducing some of our most
important characters. So, yay team!
Page 69
THE GHOUL ARCHIPELAGO
He pressed the nail-removing end against the roof of its
mouth and pressed upwards.
“Give me a hand, Papillon,” Kurtz said.
Papi leaned on the gooseneck of the crowbar, adding his
weight to Kurtz’s strength until the hollow-breasted thing lifted up into the
air, and the crowbar plunged through its soft pallet and into its brain. Only
then did it stop twitching.
The outside hatch began to thump, as someone from without
pounded. The things in the crate joined in the pounding, forming a chorus of
thumps and groans.
“Don’t open it,” Papi whispered.
Papi felt sure that if Kurtz gripped the crowbar any
tighter, he would’ve snapped it in twain.
“Kurtz!” Pepper’s muffled voice drifted through the
hatch, “Let me in!”
Papi heaved a sigh of relief. He couldn’t tell whether he
was more worried it would have been a pirate or a monster.
Kurtz thrust the hatch open. Pepper was standing there
with a strange young boy, dressed in ridiculous puffy clothes.
“Out of the way, Kurtz,” Pepper said, “we’ve got to get
in.”
Kurtz shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wright,” Kurtz said, “one doesn’t want to
come in here. It’s dangerous. We all need to leave.”
Pepper stared up at him like he had a dick growing out of
his forehead.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” the second mate asked.
“There’s a god-damned battle going on out here.”
As if to prove his point, a bullet whizzed by, sending
Pepper pressing past Kurtz’s frame in the doorway, and wrestling the stranger
in with him.
“Close that hatch!” Pepper shouted.
Reluctantly, Kurtz obeyed. He had clearly hoped to
discuss the matter further, but the men surrounded Pepper instantly, and began
to barrage him with different, disparate elements of their tale from below
decks, such that Pepper was staring at them all as though they were crazy
within thirty seconds. Papi watched it all in silence.
“Mr. Kurtz!” the second mate bellowed, silencing the
myriad voices in one go.
Stephen Kozeniewski (pronounced "causin' ooze
key") lives with his wife and two cats in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of
the modern zombie. During his time as a Field Artillery officer, he served for
three years in Oklahoma and one in Iraq, where due to what he assumes was a
clerical error, he was awarded the Bronze Star. He is also a classically
trained linguist, which sounds much more impressive than saying his bachelor's
degree is in German.
No comments:
Post a Comment