Resident Evil #01 - The Umbrella Conspiracy

Resident Evil is arguably the greatest survival horror media franchise of all time. The Capcom video game, known as Biohazard in Japan, began its life in 1996 on the very first Sony Playstation. Countless sequels were created across multiple generations of gaming systems. Six live-action films were produced, a television show, animated films, comic books, and novels. With novels as our primary focus, I picked up a Pocket Books paperback called The Umbrella Conspiracy, the first of a seven-book Resident Evil series published between 1998-2004 and authored by S.D. Perry, daughter of Steve Perry (Conan, Star Wars, Matador).

The first thing you need to know about The Umbrella Conspiracy, and this book series, is that you don't need a Resident Evil education to read and enjoy this. This series starts at the very beginning and mostly consists of novelizations of the video games. This first book is a novelization of the very first game, so those of you unfamiliar with the franchise can start right here. Don't be intimidated.

Raccoon City is a small town with an urban area, lots of dense forest, and rural fields. But, this quiet little community is experiencing an unusual number of vicious homicides. People are found dead in the Victory Lake area, mutilated as if mauled by a savage animal. Rumors run rampant, the police have no solid leads, so a special force is brought in to help solve the case - S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics and Rescue). This division is made up of highly trained, paramilitary specialists that are privately funded.

The S.T.A.R.S. unit is divided into two teams, Alpha and Bravo. While there are a lot of members in the unit, the ones that really matter to this series are Alpha's Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Rebecca Chambers, Barry Burton, and Albert Wesker. If you enjoy all of those 70s and 80s team-commando paperbacks, then this group should be easily likable. The members realize that everything has been searched at Victory Lake, but there is a large abandoned mansion, the Spencer Estate, at the foothills of The Arklay Mountains that may hold some answers.

Wesker sends the Bravo team in by chopper, but soon they radio back that the helicopter has crashed in a secluded area. Alpha team is sent in by chopper and immediately discover that some of Bravo have been attacked and mutilated. Soon, the team is attacked by ravenous, skinless dogs. In an effort to stay alive, Chris and others flee through the forest to the Spencer Estate. Inside, they find that it isn't abandoned at all. Instead, the mansion is filled with research equipment, labs, and evidence of hideous experiments. When Chris is attacked by a zombie, the proverbial sh#t hits the fan.

I absolutely loved this book. I immediately finished the last page and hopped online to order the second installment, Caliban Cove. From an action-adventure stance, this book is loaded with firefights in all parts of the mansion. There's the undead to contend with, a traitor in the group, and monsters galore as the team navigates the cavernous house in search of clues. As a horror novel, it works on a violent, gory level as the survival horror introduces puzzles and traps for the squad to solve. 

While there isn't much to really complain about, I did get confused often as the point of view changes to different squad members throughout the house. Rarely are they all together in the same room. Instead, the book feels slightly “epic” at 260 pages due to the constant change in characters. I really enjoyed both Rebecca and Jill, and from what I understand they make a big impact in future books. In researching the series, it appears that Wikipedia has the series listed as:

1 The Umbrella Conspiracy (1998) Novelization of Resident Evil (1996) video game

2 Caliban Cove Original novel (1998)

3 City of the Dead (1999) Novelization of Resident Evil 2 (1998) video game

4 Underworld (1999) Original novel

5 Nemesis (2000) Novelization of Resident Evil 3 (1999) video game

6 Code: Veronica (2001) Novelization of Code: Veronica (2000) video game

0 Zero Hour (2004) Novelization of Resident Evil: Zero Hour video game 

Buy a copy of the book HERE.

Conan - Conan the Hunter

Sean Moore's Conan The Hunter is thrust into the life of Conan chronologically after the wretched Steve Perry novel Conan The Defiant. Some argue that Conan The Indomitable, also by Perry, would be next, but I'm not terribly certain. I don't know that it really matters in the grand scheme of all things Conan. Conan the Hunter was published in 1994 by Tor and is one of three Sean Moore installments in the series.

I can't say Moore is any worse than Perry, but he certainly isn't miles better either. Conan The Hunter would have been a much better book if it wasn't written in phases. We get a huge cross section of this book that plays out like an urban thriller. Then, Moore stretches the thin plot thousands of miles across a desert wasteland to eventually culminate in a finale inside yet another desolate temple.

This book begins with Conan drunk and gambling in the area of Zamora (he does say at the end of Conan The Defiant that he is headed here). He has picked up a night wench called Yvanna and has made arrangements to pay for sex by giving her a jeweled bracelet. The bracelet was stolen from a murdered princess and now all fingers are pointing at Conan as the killer. After a few chase scenes, some treachery and intrigue we see Conan trapped in a dungeon courtesy of the deceitful Mutare.

Moore keeps a brisk pace and provides ample battle scenes to increase the excitement. It is once Conan teams with Salvorus, Kailash and a priest named Madesus that things really became too bogged down. I thought the chase scene across the desert in pursuit of Mutare was unnecessary. We could have skipped thirty pages here and just put the band of heroes right in the temple. But, the climactic battle is decent and Conan fights temple gargoyles! Who can argue with that?

I'm not dreading Moore's next two entries, but Conan's chronological life includes four more Perry novels as well as two titles from Leonard Moore before the next Moore title. 

Conan - Conan the Defiant

Where does on even begin to discuss the Conan contributions of author Steve Perry? Where L. Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter's collaborations and novels are written fairly well, Perry is just flat out lifeless. His scenes go off into so many tangents that I had to jot down notes. I had no idea which character was alive, dead, or somewhere in between. At the end of the day none of it really mattered as Conan the Defiant went absolutely nowhere.

Conan The Defiant was originally published as a paperback original by the Tor brand in 1987. The book finds our hero shortly after he has left the cave of "The Thing In The Crypt." His wandering path leads him to the aid of Engh, an Oblate priest who is fighting off enemies using only a staff. Conan is intrigued and eventually the two are friends back at Engh's temple. There is a tussle, Engh is dead and Conan is off to right the wrong in the predictable vengeance formula. This is where things get bizarre. 

A necromancer named Neg The Malefic has a small army of zombies, one of which is a beautiful woman named Tuanne. Neg also employes a vile henchman named Skeer. Why? Because he needs an amulet/charm thing called The Source Of Light. Apparently, if he has this amulet he can make even more zombies than he has now. Neg is basically trying to become Evil Ernie and rule the world with his corpse companions. In the way is Conan, the recently escaped zombie Tuanne and another beautiful wench named Elashi.

Perry goes on the deep end three-fourths into this book. He has an army of tarantulas hunting Skeer while the main characters are searching for Neg and an armed assassin and his crew are pursuing Conan. Neg himself has a crew of a dozen or more blind zombies trailing Conan. Who can keep up with this nonsense? To make matters even more confusing, Conan, Elashi and Tuanne become lovers of each other along the way - relationships, partners, enemies, heroes, etc. 

The end result was a battle that was quickly dispatched and disposed of in less than five pages. The absolute worst part? Conan actually cries at the end of the book. Crom be damned. There are at least four more Perry novels in this list and I'm not sure I can read another. This was absolute rubbish with a pretty cover. Hall of Shame was built for books just like this one.