Book Review: "Comorbidities" by James C. Harberson III (2022)
Comorbidities Book Review
Written by Stuart D. Monroe
Published by Markosia Press
Written by James C. Harberson III
2022, 290 pages
Published on June 1st, 2022
Review:
If my reviews haven’t clued you in by now, then I must confess I have a deep and abiding soft spot for the truly weird- narratives that don’t follow a linear path, more quirkiness and outright lunacy than you can shake a stick at, and characters that surprise you with their humanity and heart despite being strange as hell. I guess you could say those qualities are embodied to the letter in me. Does my affinity for stories as weird as I am make me some kind of egomaniac? I can’t say…I just know I love the weird stuff.
And when your collection of novellas involve a cheerleader trying to rescue her crush from a hospital under siege in a town overrun by weaponized cats, a Hollywood spiritualist trying to save his famous crush from a reincarnated serial killer against the backdrop of a paranormal reality show, and a Hollywood super agent teaming with a pair of celebrity grave robbers and a cult deprogrammer to save her friend and client from a con-artist guru with a fetishist flare, it’s safe to say that weird and quirky will be the order of the day. And I’m here for it.
“Cat Problem” - In Felix, Colorado, the cats outnumber the people. They’re revered like it’s ancient Egypt, but not everyone is crazy about them. Large numbers are disappearing, and reality is starting to get decidedly weird and furry. As a parody of cat-obsessed people (and we all know a couple of those folks), it’s a damn masterpiece. The sense of humor is turned up to eleven here in the manner of the best cinematic horror comedies. Is it all over the damn place? Sure, it is. The overabundance of all caps onomatopoeia and emphatic screams are all part of the charm; the energy and action is a frenetic as you’d expect from a story about love-struck cheerleaders battling weaponized cats. “Cat Problem” is a heady mixture of wild energy and gleeful abandon held together with spunky characters and slapped into an apocalyptic tale of feline fuckery. It also contains the line, “Jesus is a pussy”, which tells you a lot about the tone of this one. It’s the highlight piece of the collection.
“Ghost Problems” - Ajax Reynolds is a Hollywood medium who’s literally besieged by the dead (famous and anonymous alike) at all times. This includes his own recently deceased ex-wife, Miranda. She’s the least of his problems, however, as he falls for a starlet on a dark path with an infamous serial killer’s spirit. It’s a story that takes a while to get going and introduce all the players, living and dead. Once the pieces are in place, the pace picks up nicely and everything takes off like a rocket. There’s complicated history, twists, and deliciously sleazy Hollywood flavor. Also, the premise of summoning a serial killer to haunt a paranormal reality show is a ripe one. “Ghost Problems” is one of those novellas that would play well as an episode of Creepshow. It’s easily the story that had me chuckling the most.
“Lost and Found” - Another Hollywood set tale, “Lost and Found” throws a mish-mash of zany characters (including the wonderfully inspired celebrity grave robbers, Spooner Roy and Sylvester Davies) into a big pot and boils the living shit out of it. The result is more uneven than the other two novellas, though it contains arguably the darkest sense of humor of any of the stories- the robbery of Liberace’s grave is a thing of fucked-up beauty! It’s a bit of a hot mess overall, but the flavor of that hot mess is still superb!
James C. Harberson III’s control of the weirder side of Hollywood horror is indeed masterful. This collection has a penchant for the rescuing of crushes as a plot device and the use of especially raw and real verbiage to drive home both the drama and the humor (with an emphasis on the humor). Comborbidities is a tasty triple shot of weird whisky for those times when you want to blast through a story that really makes you stop and say, “What the hell did I just read?” And there’s always a place for that in the genre.
Grade:
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
