Title: Bucket of Blood
Author: Mack Goodman
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9781532009327
Pages: 122
Genre: Fiction / Fantasy / Horror
Reviewed by: Joe Kilgore
Pacific Book Review
Old Testament prophecy meets international terrorism and geo-political turmoil as worlds truly collide in this mind-bending fantasy Bucket of Blood. Author Mack Goodman has dropped the Presidency of Barak Obama into the middle of a clash of races and civilizations that threaten to destroy everything including basic comprehension. Whatever your opinion of the recently ex-president, its likely to be reconsidered after experiencing his role in this fabulist fiction.
The plot, when it can be ascertained, involves the birth of an appointed one who will eventually rise to power and unleash darkness and destruction on the earth in vast quantities. The world as we know it will apparently implode from within. Cultures will clash. Authority will be challenged. Religion will turn ugly and unremittingly hopeless. In essence, the populace will savagely turn on itself and begin to consume one another even as they feel no compunction about what they’re doing. In fact, following the chosen one’s recipe for retribution, they’ll probably quite like it.
As this appointed one begins to grow and prosper, a series of ritual murders begin to rock the city and befuddle investigating detectives. The crimes are beyond horrific and signal both deviant psychosexual behavior combined with unbridled bestiality. Simultaneously, good men begin to go bad as greed, avarice, and lust start to replace moderation, generosity, and love. Before you know it, things turn from frighteningly bad to incredibly worse. A local branch of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan begins to attack black churchgoers with axes. Automatic weapons blow blood and brain matter every which way. Strange starships filled with unidentifiable aliens swoop in and out of dreams and become reality. Or do they? Confusion, calamity, and conflict have taken the world to the brink of ruin. Will all of humanity be toppled? And if so, who and what will take its place—if anything.
Goodman fills his apocalyptic vision with selected Biblical verses to reinforce his descent into dystopia. Prose is used to bring some measure of cohesion to colliding situations and scenes, though not always successfully. His dialogue appropriates dialect and slang and street speech to heighten realism. It also serves to sometimes offend and provoke. A vivid imagination, paranoid tendencies, as well as a strong stomach are the suggested characteristics for readers of this tome. In summary, one should not approach this book thinking that somehow the title is simply a misguided attempt to shock and get attention. It is what it purports to be, a Bucket of Blood.
