Should Eldritch Horrors Be Forgot (Santa Saves Christmas, Book II) by Ben Wolf

The Santa Saves Christmas trilogy ends with the inclusion of Atlanteans and characters from the mind of H.P. Lovecraft. 

Thanks to the many time portals and fractures left open during Santa's battle with Father Time, ancient Atlanteans are coming through a wormhole in the Caribbean wing of the Atlantic. Along with their arrival, the ruins of Atlantis are rising to the surface, causing catastrophic flooding around the globe. Called in by the United Nations to assist in negotiations with the king of Atlantis, Santa Claus and old friend Vladimir Putin seek to find a peaceful way for all races to coexist without sending a large chunk of dry land into the bring deep. 

However, all chances for peace are off the table when a new object begins to emerge off the coast of Australia: the evil elder God, Cthulhu! As nothing in the present day is able to defeat the Eldritch horror, Father Time's predecessor, the Time Raptor travels through time and the multiverse to assemble a ragtag team of warriors, assassins and a dragon or two to defeat the ancient evil once and forever!

Yes, the mystery character that I've been trying to not spoil in my previous two reviews of Ben Wolf's Santa Saves Christmas series is Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Since all 3 books were written before Putin began his lengthy and seemingly endless assault on Ukraine, he's sort of like an anti-hero. He's bad and has done evil things, but he's also willing to save not only Christmas, but his beloved Russia from countless crises. Plus it helps to have the leader of the largest country in the world in order to gain unprecedented access to top secret technology or to get your foot in the door of the UN Building.

Should Eldritch Horrors Be Forgot was my least favorite of the trilogy. I still liked it. It just that it really felt like Ben Wolf was being really self-indulgent here. They're be these scenes where a character, very tongue in cheek would reply 'Who writes this stuff?' Once was clever. Twice was an inside joke. But at a pace of about once every 3 chapters felt really out of place; especially since neither previous book did this.

Something Ben Wolf adds at the end of each book is a 'shameless plug' in which Santa and other characters rave about the author's other works. At about page 200, one of the new characters brought over by the Time Raptor, was using a weapon that sounded really familiar. Yet, it's not something from What The Frost? or It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Raptors. So I grabbed my copy of this book and headed into our office and consulted Amazon. Sure enough, all of these new characters are from other books written by Wolf. Thus, the author wasn't just being immoderate. He was also giving readers a clue about how his other works tie-in.

I'm not sure if some of Ben Wolf's other books are my cup of tea. Many are more fantasy heavy for my taste. However, his standalone Western, Unlucky, about the gunslinger Dalton has peaked my interest. 

Also, thanks to my Amazon research, I discovered that there's a new book in the Santa Saves Christmas series. It's digital only. However, it promises to address the elephant in the room with the presence of Putin in these books. Especially as Russia's current political situations has made their president's role in these books a little more troubling. hey, I've got something to look forward to next Christmas reading season!

Lastly, I got to talk about my favorite character in the series, the cowardly but entrepreneurial Snoot. I almost replaced him as my favorite character with Putin of all people because he got ultra slimy. (Also, if an author can make a sadistic tyrant likable, he must be a good writer.) Snoot now has a girlfriend in the Uber rich business woman Gen. They're obviously having a physical relationship. But Snoot kept making everything with her about sex, even when she's trying to help save the world. It got as annoying as Wolf's love of having every character respond to Snoot's comments with eye rolls. Folks can show disgust in other physical ways.

Thankfully, Gen puts Snoot in his place before the book's end. Hopefully, we'll see a little more character growth in the online book and hopefully further adventures of Santa saving the world. Just take it down a notch with the repetition. I would hate for a great thing to become stale.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Raptors (Santa Saves Christmas, Book II) by Ben Wolf

Book 2 of Ben Wolf's 'Santa Saves Christmas' trilogy starts off almost immediately after the events What The Frost? It's Christmas Day. Dinosaurs are running amok in Moscow and Santa Claus might have something to do with that. As he arrives in Russia with his trusty triple barreled shotgun, a whip made of a strand of holiday lights and his genius tech-savvy elf Snoot, Santa comes face-to-face with a new terror: a talking Utahraptor with the ability to bend time called the Time Raptor. 

Feeling strongly that dinosaurs deserve another chance as the dominant species on Earth, the Time Raptor has opened a series of quantum portals back to prehistoric times, herding dinosaurs of all shapes, sizes and levels of death and destruction to make sure that this is mankind's last Christmas ever!

All of the main characters from the last book are back. Mrs. Claus and several of the elves have bigger roles this time around. And it doesn't read like book 2 is a rehash of the first volume. But it sure started that way. 

While dinosaurs are not the main antagonists of the first book, they do play a big roll in the third act. Having Santa Claus and his allies battle the thunder lizards again felt stale. I would have liked the opening 30-40 pages of this book a whole lot better if we hadn't already had dinosaurs already. The Time Raptor was an interesting twist. However, there's a scene where the new villain goes to Jamaica in order to feed and what the Time Raptor does or more specifically doesn't do, pretty much told how the book was going to end.

What really saves this book is the banter. Snoot is hilarious. Santa's unlikely ally in the battle against the dinosaurs is a great character as well. But I don't want to spoil who that character is. New developments in Santa's time piece which allows him to slow down time in order to make all his deliveries in a single night where pretty cool and we've yet to see everything that specialized stopwatch can do.

I liked what I read enough, despite the slight repetitive nature of the presence of ancient reptiles (or birds, depending your school of thought), to order the third and final book before I finished this one. I had about 120 pages to go and I didn't want to waste a day or two waiting to know what happens next. Though at the time of this review, I've not read as much of that last book as I'd like as holiday happenings and a couple of unexpected events have eaten into my reading time the past couple of days. But at least I've not been left in the cold unable to see what comes afterwards. I'm just going at a much slower pace than I want right now.

Another fun book filled with holiday laughs and Jurassic Park level gore.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

What The Frost? (Santa Saves Christmas, Book I) by Ben Wolf

The holidays is a time when I try to read a couple of prose books along with my annual assortment of seasonal comic books and graphic novels. Usually those books are non-fiction volumes that dig deep into the history and lore of the season. But then I came across an ad for this series of books on Facebook. Needless to say that the images on the cover left me intrigued.

The painted cover by Kirk DouPonce (in a style that reminds me of Robot Chicken) shows Santa Claus battling zombies. With a whip made of Christmas lights. And a shotgun... Triple barreled. Okay, you've got my interest.

The ad describes zombified reindeer. Exploding sea birds. And a foe in the form of Father Time. Alright. Shut up and take my money!

Ben Wolf crafts an insane story that combines elements of horror, time travel, and Lord of the Rings with the legend of Santa Claus. There's heavy doses of humor, surrealism and satire that make for the wildest representation of life at North Pole since the first 5 minutes of Richard Donner's Scrooged!

A couple of scenes were meant to be shocking. Normally, I'd feel those moments like a gut punch. However, since I had seen the covers of all 3 books in the Santa Saves Christmas trilogy, my level of disappointment and sadness was lessened. In other words, I knew that someone who dies in this book doesn't really die permanently. But you'll have to read the book to find out who.

My enjoyment with this first volume resulted in something I rarely do when reading a prose novel. With about 60 pages to go, I went on Amazon and ordered book 2! And that was after the spoiler!

If your view of life is a tad askew. If you like your Christmases to be a mix of both traditional and contemporary. If you root for the Grinch to make it an un-Merry Christmas to those Whos of Whoville, this is the holiday novel you've been waiting for.  

If they ever make a movie of this, you can guarantee it won't appear on the Hallmark Channel!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.