Exponential: A Novel of Monster Horror

Thanks to assigned reading in school, my daughter to this day grumbles about “Flowers-for-freakin’-Algernon.” Wouldn’t it, you might think, be a more fun, entertaining, and satisfying read if the experimental lab mouse turned into a giant protoplasmic blob-monster and went on a rampage of destruction?Well, folks, your wait is over! THIS time, when the none-too-bright janitor smuggles a furry little friend out of the secret facility, he finds out all too quickly that he made a mistake. A big mistake. A mistake getting bigger all the time. Not that the janitor lasts long enough to realize the full implications of what he’s done.But that’s okay, there are plenty of other hapless victims for Felix (no longer little, furry, or precisely a mouse anymore, for that matter) to crush and absorb in his ongoing quest to feed and grow. Poor thing … as giant protoplasmic blob-monsters go, you kinda gotta feel for him.The rest of the cast of people-characters are a great mismatched lot; many of them meet messy ends and several find their paths converging at a bar in the middle of the Nevada nowhere, in hopes of hunkering down to survive or make a last stand.The writing’s breezy, skillful, and clever. The story moves right along, the critter’s an inventive variation on expectations, the gory carnage is great, the action moves along, the banter’s good.Flowers for Algernon meets Tremors … what’s not to love?

I read three books by Cesare this year (The First One You Expect, Tribesman, and Exponential) and thoroughly enjoyed all three. Cesare is quickly becoming one of my favorite horror writers because of his creative approach to the genre. I love horror movies as well as books and Cesare does a great job of blending the two in his writing. His books sort of remind me of a sick hip hop beat. What I mean is he samples an old horror trope like a producer samples an jazz song and flips it into something completely original. There is an obvious nod to something like The Blob in Exponential but it stops there, a nod. The rest of the story is about various unsuspecting people crossing paths with this killer gelatinous amorphous thing that eats you from the inside out and will pop you like a balloon. Another example in his book Tribesman, Cesare writes an ode to the cult classic Cannibal Holocaust. When he writes these stories the essence of original is there but it is made into something completely new and pretty sick. I've never been scared of something that will murder you as bloodlessly as the "monster" in Exponential. I wanted to share this quote I highlighted from the book that made me squirm when I read it."It had no mouth, no lungs that were liquified, so it didn't scream. There was something odd about that, watching the thrashing, the movements of an animal in pain but the animal remaining completely mute"Odd indeed. Exponential is incredibly entertaining and I blew through it in two sittings. The chapters are short but they eventually come together.Cesare definitely got my attention with Exponential and now I am a certified fan!I saw on Facebook that he has a new full length novel coming out in June that I will be checking out for sure. Until then I guess I will have to check out some of his other older novels or one of his collaborative releases with other great authors such as Shane Mckenzie and Cameron Pierce.

Meth-heads versus a monster! What's not to enjoy?In its opening chapters, a kindhearted janitor steals a lab mouse from the animal research division of the biotech company he's working for. And since this is a horror novel, you can pretty well guess how that ends for both the poor janitor and the cute, cuddly lil mousey.As it turns out, the mouse is infected with something akin to the alien monstrosities at the heart of The Thing and The Blob, and once free it goes on a terrific rampage through the Nevada desert, straight for the first signs of life it can absorb. This just so happens to be a dive bar, a setting that author Adam Cesare spends a good part of the book's first half introducing and then driving our characters toward in-between some good, old-fashioned monster mayhem.Exponential isn't particularly deep or meaningful, which is fine for me because it is a heck of a lot of easy, breezy fun and I've been craving a flat-out enjoyable creature feature. This one fit the bill rather nicely! We get some neat-o graphic depictions of sentient biomass wreaking havoc on its human prey, some gnarly flashes of meth mouth, and a few solidly heroic beats for our beleaguered cast, all of which made me pretty happy. The main focus here is on fun, and, as evidenced by past works of his I've read, Cesare is a fine entertainer, one who is well-versed in 80s-style B-movie horror goop and who wears his inspirations proudly on his sleeve. I dig that.