The Mind is a Razorblade

by Max Booth III

Drowning, he wakes beside two corpses. His memory has been wiped clean. He doesn’t know his name, what he’s doing here, who these people are, or even why one of them is a cop. Nor can he explain his strange telekinetic abilities. Questions plague his mind like hellfire, questions that begin a journey leading into the rot of downtown America, a journey that will not end until every one of his questions have been answered, despite who has to die in the process. Even if those who have all the answers aren’t human. Even if the true monster he's hunting for is staring at him through the mirror.

Genres: Horror, Bizarro Fiction

246 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2014

About the author

Max Booth III doesn't exist, and neither do you.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a man wakes on a river bank, half-dead with two corpses, no memories, and unpredictable telekinetic powers, people have a lot of explaining to do...

The guys from Kraken Press sent me this to read at some point and it's taken me two years to finally get around to reading it.

The Mind is a Razorblade is one of those tales where I had no idea what was going to happen next. When you start with an amnesiac protagonist, all bets are off. The book has a noir feel to it much of the time and the what-the-fuckery level is pretty high. Also, spiders. There are a lot of spiders in this book.

Actually, the less I say, the better. As Bob pieces things together, there are a lot of laughs, gore, and unexpected twists. I don't want to spoil anything but the harvesters are pretty creepy and you know you're probably not in the best of situations when someone hands you a cooler with a human heart in it.

At various times, The Mind is a Razorblade reminded me of the movie Dark City and some of the hard boiled classics. Also, I was reminded of Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber, mostly because of the wise ass lead stricken with amnesia.

The Mind is a Razorblade is a fun thriller for those who don't mind excessive weirdness. 3 out of 5 stars.

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're on the fence about buying THE MIND IS A RAZORBLADE, you gotta understand the following points:

1) It's a little frustrating at first, because everybody in the novel seems to connect the dot, except you. The novel is meant to challenge you to find the meaning before it explains it to you, a little bit like a LOST episode. Personally, I'm a sucker for a good literary puzzle, so I enjoyed it.

2) Max Booth III has a very particular style that sits on the crossroads of horror, hardboiled, comedy, dystopia, existentialism and science-fiction, where the fabric of reality itself seems to have been corrupted and if you like that genre-bending approach, you're going to be served a faceful of a it.

3) THE MIND IS A RAZORBLADE doesn't exploit its amazing setting to its fullest though, it's very focused on the protagonist's quest for his identity. I thought it was a little disappointing since you witness crazy shit happening like it's the end of the world. and the novel doesn't invest itself into it.

THE MIND IS A RAZORBLADE is a very unique and trippy novel. It's still fresh in my mind and my perception of it is still evolving. It's definitely worth your time.

[Zakk Madness · Rating 5 out of 5]

*I won a copy from the Author. This is an honest review.


This is my first read from Max Booth III (author of Toxicity & Black), and it's quite a ride. What initially caught my eye was the fantastic cover design, what I found between the covers is something pretty great and very entertaining, something a little outside my comfort zone when it comes to things I chose to read. It's fresh. I'm terrible with labels, but if I wasn't I'd accuse this of being a cyber-punk sci-crime noir, art house piece.

This is not the great American landscape that you're used to, but it feels like it could be, we're just a few failed technological Hail Mary's away, God bless us all. And you, the reader, are trying to find your place in it, traipsing lost along with our hero. This world is filled with interesting and damaged characters. Soulless and vapid wanderers, strong armed tough guys, outlandish baddies, a creepy entity in white with something horrible inside... Here lies vivid visions of what may have once been a magnificent world but is now ashen and desensitized.

And you, the reader, can't help but to sympathize for our hero. He's charming even as the shadows creep up. You root for him, for the person he hopes that he might be, not the person that all clues are leading you to believe he actually is.

There were only a few distractions from the full experience here. The lack of revelation on the events leading up to the opening chapter, for one. We're thrust into this world just after a seemingly important and interesting event. The how's and why's of said event are left unexplored. Our hero has flashbacks throughout the story, and I would have loved to have a flashback of this game changing event. Especially after a revelation towards an at-first seemingly minor character. This revelation also felt like it should have had a bit more emotional impact on our hero. And lastly, we're hit with a pretty abrupt ending, perhaps leaving the door open for a continuing adventure. Sequel, side story or short stories, this new world feels like a fun place for further exploration. My gripes are minor gripes and as a whole this is a very good read. Check it out.


*4.5/5
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[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Mind is a Razorblade is a crazy mix of horror, sci fi and noir that works. The main character wakes up with no memories and so we learn who he is and what he is as he discovers it himself. There is plenty of action and violence with a love story mixed in perfectly. This book felt mesmerizing and I read it very quickly. The book had a cinematic feel to it and I would love to see it turned into a movie. The main characters were compelling and definitely had me rooting for them. The villains were very dark and scary. Overall this was a great story and I recommend it.

[David Keaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Booth has strapped his hero to an excellent "noir" voice here, but although noir also has its share of amnesiacs waking up with guns, corpses, and mysterious adversaries, first-person examples of the genre tend to have a more jaded, weary feel to the narrative than this romp, especially when the POV is held so close to the chest. But this is way more urgent than that. And funny. Reminded me a bit of the plight of the main dude in the film Dark City, and has a similar apocalyptic tone, but (speaking of close to the chest), that guy didn't get any great brain zingers like, "Because holy shit, that was a fucking heart!" The entire thing reads like a chase, even when the mystery man is just pondering shit, which he does a lot, but there's even momentum to the musings. Great-looking book, too. Highly recommended.

[David V.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you were to make a list of initially very pulpy things that have become cultural milestones, noir-fiction would be very high up on that list.

And noir also has infinite potential for weird remixes and re-imaginings. The idea of a character who knows next to nothing in the beginning of a story and ends up figuring out a whole lot of things towards the end is a common theme for spec-fic. Especially more imaginative spec-fic.

Look at Blade Runner.

Look at Dark City.

Look at The City & The City.

You should probably also take a look at The Mind is a Razorblade by Max Booth III.

The story follows a man with know name who wakes up naked and sandwiched between two corpses with no memory of who he is and what he’s doing there. And all he has are his wits and his comfort with pulling triggers to guide him. He questions, hurts and kills his way through a narcotic infused, insane dystopia of a city where the cult worship of a god named Conundrae abound in every street corner.

There’s the transport of organs, whole lots of spiders, perhaps one of the the creepiest army of minions I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading about and of course, gobs and gobs of plot twists and revelations.

You have all the basic tropes that weird-fiction seems to love right on the tin. You have drugs, cults and confusion. But it also has its fair share of noir tropes. The constant sense of mystery that seems to pervade the narrative, the dame, the guns, the mob bosses, the explosions. You do have all that.

And then, you have a cracker of a central mystery. Who am I? Am I the ‘me’ I was before or the ‘me’ I am now, sans memory with the skills and abilities and sins I seem to have inherited? Why does my head hurt so much?

The pacing is done very right. This is one of those Crank-esque roller coaster rides that never really lets up to give you air. Ever since the main character wakes up till the explosive conclusion, there’s next to no breathing room.

Which rather works for this book. All in all, it was a very fast, very fun sort of read.

There are a few problems with it, though. The prose, for the most part doesn’t try to play too many games with you and stays out of the way, letting you get on with the story and immerse yourself. The dialogue, however seemed a little too uninspired at certain places. And when the ideas and prose are so good, that kind of thing sticks out like a sore tentacle.

The foreshadowing is tasteful and for the most part rather effective but a little bit more fleshing out about the lore and backstory would not have gone amiss.

But for the most part, The Mind is a Razorblade was an intriguing, sharp and delightfully spidery little read and I’m excited to read the rest of Booth’s oeuvre.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bizarre, twisty, mystery that for about ninety percent of the book made no sense at all. Told in first person from a man who lost his memory we are led through the streets (of some city, I'm not really sure) where people are rioting and surgeon monsters explode into hundreds of tiny spiders. The reader is just as confused and in the dark about what is happening as the main character himself. Which makes for a very confusing read. It's a book you'll have to stick with even if it never fully explains what the world here is all about.

At first our hero is so amnesiac that he barely even talks normal. The narration sounds like that of a robot or maybe a dog, because it's so simplistic and straight forward. It actually turned me off from the book for awhile, but I eventually came back to it. The second time I fell into the rhythm of the story and it slowly became much more interesting. We learn some of our protagonists past through flashbacks as he regains some of his memory. I thought this was a good addition and a nice way to find out more information about the people around him. (and of course making the book just a little more coherent). It all starts to come together toward the end and kind of, sort of, make sense. If you're wondering whether or not to pick it up I'd say give it a try, but make sure you stick with it.

[David Bridges · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read two Booth III books this year and truly enjoyed both.

I've noticed two common traits between both of the authors books and that is his sense of humor and a strong sense of family. I don't know if the latter is just a coincidence or intended by the author but it's two things i liked about reading his books. The bonds between father and daughter or brothers or best friends are strong in his books. I just looked and one of my favorite quotes I highlighted from Razorblade.

"But darkness isn't so beautiful when I can be holding my daughter instead. So, darkness can go fuck itself"


Razorblade is darker than Toxicity as Toxicity had me LOLing. It's a Sci Fi Noir that gets very dark at parts including the ending, which I really liked. People may make comparisons to Momento and there are obvious nods as in a dude piecing his life back together in reverse but the story is very original

Also this book came with a Zombie novella for free! I will definitely be reading that in 2015 as I wait for the next Max Booth III book to come out so I can buy that shit and read the fuck out of it!

[Jessica Gleason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love an untrustworthy narrator which, by no fault of his own is what you get in Bob. He wakes covered in mud with no memory and the book is his ever evolving quest to find out his truth and then fight for it. There's grit to this take, hard case crime blended with noir blended with balls to the wall weird. And spiders. I enjoyed the ride. It's a nice quick read that exists in a world where every is ludicrous but it's treated as just another day, a crappy day, but another day nonetheless.

[Grant Wamack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the last couple years, I’ve seen Max Booth III’s name floating around the writing community and I’ve been meaning to check out one of his novels especially after reading his excellent short story Fish.

I chose his second novel The Mind is a Razor Blade simply cause the cover was badass (covers are mad important) and the book was praised by the likes of Adam Cesare and Jonathan Mayberry so it had to be worth a read.

A man wakes up in the pouring rain with a couple dead corpses and a helluva memory loss. He struggles to recollect his identity and find some solid footing in a world that has gone to shit. He discovers a cult that harvests organs for a demon known as Conundrae who has the entire city shaking in fear.

The protagonist finds out he has done some terrible things in his past and attempts to piece together his fragile memory without killing too many people.

This first novel could’ve easily become a hot mess in a lesser writer’s hands and I give Booth kudos for attempting this and coming out successful. The first person point of view allows the reader to crawl deeper into the protagonist’s frazzled psyche and try to put it all together.

There are portions of the book where certain people or events trigger pivotal flashbacks. These sections are written in a disjointed sort of prose that works pretty well and gives the reader a break from the main narrative.

It’s hard to go too deep into the book’s plot, but rest assured this is well worth your time. There’s plenty of weird elements such as the spiders, but I won’t go into that. Another point that should be touched on is the humor. Even thought there are some heavy moments in this novel, Booth knows how to lighten the mood. For example, the protagonist is forced to run around in bunny slippers.

Sidenote: good characterization. I didn’t realize how much I cared about the main characters until the last couple chapters. They had me super stressed out.

The Mind is a Razor Blade is a tense, hella dark noir that will keep you on your toes and looking out for spiders well after the last page.

[Brandon Nagel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the hell out of this one. One of the more unique voices I have come across in a long time. Booth takes you on a trippy ride into a world I would not like to be living in. The protagonist suffers from memory loss and Booth makes you turn the pages at top speed to figure out what the hell is going on in the strange world he has created. If you want to read something different and unique in so many great ways, give The Mind is A Razor Blade a spin.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit.

Well first of all I'd like to thank Dan Schwent for making this book available to me.

I'm not even going to try and explain the plot, let's just say it's a kinky mindfuck. All I can say is when that first guy spontaneously exploded into millions of spiders, I knew this book was special.

[Rhuaraidh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very simple and short read that doesn't require much in the way of intellectual thought for the reader. None-the -less, that doesn't take anything away form the imagination & creativity of the author that's on show, which is considerable. As with many other dystopian type book fans, I'm always interested in post-apocalyptic type scenarios, ranging from Stephen King's The Stand to Justin Cronin's Passage trilogy, or Huw Howey's Silo books (any many others), but this book is on a scale of "less depth" if that makes sense.

So "not my cup of tea" personally, too quick/short & not requiring much of me by way of intellect or imagination. The sort of book I'd devour at the beach over a couple of beers or on a short haul flight. But that's not to say others would find it very enjoyable. I think readers who have read, or still read, graphic novels, would be a fan of this writing style, and probably this book in particular.

The writing style is gritty and fast-paced, and the creativity by Booth in imagining a dystopian world with outer-worldy twists is obvious, perhaps unique in places. Also, probably uncomfortably true around how us horrible humans would behave in such a scenario.

Very difficult to give an overview of the content without spoilers.

Thanks to BookSirens for sending me an ARC of this book. I'd be interested to see how this author progresses, as I've no doubt he's got the potential to add more depth in future works, given the imagination on display in this book.

[Augustine · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Mind is a Razorblade" takes readers on a profound journey through the protagonist's struggle in an unforgiving environment, grappling with both physical pain and mental confusion. The narrative unfolds through a gripping stream-of-consciousness style, utilizing fragmented sentences and vivid imagery to immerse readers in a world marked by resilience and hardship. A notable strength lies in the author's adept use of sensory details; descriptions of rain, mud, and darkness create a palpable sense of unease and discomfort, enhancing the overall reading experience.

However, a clear weakness emerges as the narrative lacks context or a well-defined plot, immersing readers abruptly without a comprehensive understanding of the narrator's identity or unfolding events. This may hinder complete engagement for some readers. Despite this drawback, the book fearlessly explores profound themes related to mental health and the human experience. The repetitive refrain, "the mind is a razorblade," intensifies the narrative's urgency and tension. As a psychology student, I found the exploration of these complex themes intriguing, even though the lack of clarity may pose a challenge for some readers. Overall, "The Mind is a Razorblade" is a thought-provoking read that successfully navigates psychology and human resilience.

I received an ARC of this book, and I'm writing this review voluntarily.

[Meredith Livingston]

"The Mind is a Razorblade" is a dark, mysterious and suspenseful story about a guy, Bob, who can't remember anything. It's dark and suspenseful with lots of surprising twists, scary moments, and spiders are a big deal in the story. As the main character figures out who he is, there are elements of horror, sci-fi, and suspense that make it a truly engrossing read. The characters are fascinating, and the antagonists are truly menacing and sinister. Getting to see the main character's past and how he starts to remember things adds more layers to the story and helps us understand the people around him better. As you read more, things start to come together and make more sense, even if it's a bit unclear sometimes. If you're thinking about reading it, I'd give it a shot but be ready to stick with it. The story can be perplexing at times and leaves many questions unanswered, but I really enjoyed it and would recommend it.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kudos to Max Booth. In The Mind is a Razor Blade, his second novel, he could have written a follow up to his debut novel Toxicity by doing more of what he did so well in the first book. Toxicity is a dark but raucously funny crime novel with three or four intersecting plot lines, and as its story jumps from character to character, it gets inside the heads of several people. It is told in the third person throughout. By contrast, The Mind is a Razor Blade is a first person narrative, a novel that locks you from its opening line inside the brain of one man. That he's a man utterly confused, lost, is clear from the get-go. He's disoriented because of memory loss, and since everything in the book is told through his perspective, we're as limited in our understanding of the events happening to him as he is. We look for clues and search for meaning as he does; we try to make sense of the world he inhabits. It's a violent nightmare world that he moves through - a world Hieronymus Bosch would be proud of - and the whirlwind of bizarre incidents has some particular significance for him. What is that significance, though? That's the question the narrator and the reader need answered.

The trope of the amnesiac struggling to find out who he is and why he's so capable of certain actions (killing, for example, like our guy in this book can do easily) is an old and familiar one. But Max Booth gives it fresh life. The Mind is a Razor Blade opens in media res, with the narrator coming to consciousness naked in the woods, lying in the mud, near a corpse marked with bullet holes. Within moments of realizing that he must've killed the dead man, the narrator shoots and kills a cop. All this while he's trying to get his most basic bearings about himself and why he is in such a tense predicament. In its immediacy and noirish mood, the feeling of a mind bursting awake but still befogged, this opening reminded me of the film Memento. But where the author takes his story from this dramatic start goes well beyond mere noir or any one specific genre. Our narrator, later called Bobby, is living in a world that's somewhat futuristic (in a post-industrial, anarchic, dystopian kind of way), but it's a world that also has soul-takers, demons, telekinesis, and spiders that live in people's necks. All sense of civil, organized society seems to have collapsed; every conceivable type of degenerate has full access to the streets. The police may exist, as the first scene showed, but chaos and violence predominate. Destruction, fear, and rottenness are everywhere. And over the entire insane spectacle hovers a chilling and mysterious word, carried by bums on cardboard signs, spoken by others to the narrator, a word that rings in our narrator's head - Conundrae. What is Conundrae? Who is Conundrae? And why do people refer to that name in tones of awe and terror, like the haunted people in a Lovecraft story whispering of the entity Chulthu?

In The Mind is a Razor Blade, Max Booth concocts a tale that is part crime story, part horror novel, part science fiction, part psychological thriller. He fuses these genres effortlessly into a coherent whole, an energetic and engaging work. The pace is brisk; horrific and revolting imagery mix with black humor and moments of surprising tenderness. And through it all, Booth takes a big risk. It's extraordinarily difficult to craft a novel that for most of its length provides few answers to the myriad questions posed. The reader really is in the dark as to the overall shape and meaning of what is happening, though the characters around the narrator all seem to have an inkling, or definite knowledge, of the general pattern. At times, you feel as frustrated as the bewildered protagonist. When will we get some clear answers? you wonder. Why do all those people know something, while I know virtually nothing? Is the narrator in a half-dead, half-alive state, a twilight state like the hanged man's in Ambrose Bierce's "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"? Or maybe he's merely getting closer to death and everything is happening in his mind like we saw happened to the woman Mary in the horror film classic Carnival of Souls. These were among my thoughts as I read, and to be honest, I don't think I've read such a sustained exercise in hallucinatory mysteriousness since reading Iain Banks' great book The Bridge. Razor Blade has a mood and feeling similar to that Scottish masterpiece. It is both visceral and intellectual, and you never get the sense that the author doesn't know where he's taking us. He is the true master of this universe. He's got the chops and the confidence to pull off the prolonged mysteriousness, and he trusts the reader to go along for the ride.

The Mind is a Razor Blade is not as reader friendly as Toxicity. It makes you work harder. Its payoff, ultimately, is bleaker. But what comes across is a person writing what he wants to write, what he feels he must write come hell or high water. And no matter how harsh things get in the world depicted, Booth never slips into despair. His narrator and the small band the narrator connects with have too much energy for that. Friendship is always possible, even love. A joke made in a difficult moment can work wonders. The struggle here, at bottom, is existential: the question is how to survive in a world so degraded, and how to retain some humanity. Fantastical as Booth's world is, it feels oddly enough like our own. All that pain, suffering, and torture, all that madness...How to deal with it? Through his narrator's actions, Booth ventures a tentative answer that seems to be akin to Italo Calvino's in Invisible Cities: "seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mind is a Razor Blade cuts deep, I finished this book in a couple of days and it kept me hooked until the very end. Max knows how to tell a tale that defies classification, he mixes different genres together into his novels to form a very smooth style that he can lay claim to and call his own. This one had that going for it and then some, it's a page turner that keeps you guessing and gets you just as determined as the main character is to figure out what is going on. I am glad this book was republished so that I finally got a chance to read it. I'm definitely going to check out some of Max's other books and I highly recommend this one to anyone who loves a good mystery and books that aren't of the norm. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Dex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
What did I just read?
I fully expected a wild time and that is what I got. Max Booth III work is always on point with the off-kilter vibes and The Mind is a Razorblade is no exception.
We begin with the Kill Bill vibes - the amnesia in a first person perspective was well done.
I will say it was jarring to go back and forth between the now in story and Bobby's memories but I believe that was on purpose to help the reader feel a lil like him - disoriented and grasping for cornerstones to keep steady in what is going on.
All that said, this was bizarro fiction with heart. I started out fully expecting Bobby to fuck up and take the world with him but then began cheering for him as he found and fought for his family.
A good read if you're looking for something to pull a rug out from under you.

[Nisar Masoom · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I were to pick a cinematic counterpart to this book it’d be Deadpool (2016). The slapstick comedy sequences coupled with action and gore are akin to the R-rated superhero flick—if only this novel’s protagonist was as interesting as the Merc with a Mouth. Also, the writing style is also amateurish compared to that of Everywhere You’ve Bled… though it comes as no surprise seeing how that was published three years after The Mind is a Razorblade.

Read my full review here: http://literaryretreat.com/the-mind-i...

[Cyndi Gacosta · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Mind is a Razorblade" is an enthralling rollercoaster ride through the depths of dystopia. The protagonist's journey, waking up surrounded by corpses with no memory except for his inexplicable telekinetic abilities, propels us into a whirlwind exploration of America's decay. Blending elements of noir, science fiction, and horror, this psychological thriller is a masterclass in atmospheric storytelling, crafting a hellscape that lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned.

[Lyndsey Gollogly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was bloody bizarre and to start with I was completely baffled but I actually really enjoyed it especially the ending. Definitely different to anything I’ve read. Also spiders really? I suppose it could have been worse like centipedes!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Jason M · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual MB3 delivers.

A chaotic dystopian future with a madman tyrant. Page turning SciFi Horror

[Cherry Nox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it… TBC

[Kristopher Triana · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a writer, I can tell you that beginnings are extremely important. You want to grab the reader’s attention right away. But this is not to say that you merely wish to shock them. Shock is good, but it also has to have a lure behind it that pulls the reader deeper inward.

The beginning of a book can make a reader decide whether or not they’ll bother going forward or even buy the damned thing. So it is crucial for a writer to perfect the art of opening with a bang… or, with a f**k.
Max Booth III’s new novel, The Mind is a Razorblade, opens with everyone’s favorite curse word, but knowing shock isn’t enough Booth sinks in his meat hook and reels us in right away. Our protagonist is not only cursing, he is drowning, and he’s also swimming with a dead man.
This is what I mean by a luring beginning.

Meet Bob. He’d certainly like to meet himself. He can’t seem to remember anything, except how to fire a gun. He’s naked and half-dead and that’s just the start of his problems. He is lost in a city of raving derelicts, criminal kingpins and spider-burping, marauding ghouls. He’s searching for his identity but has nowhere to turn except for a burlesque house he found on the back of a soggy matchbox.
Bob’s amnesiac adventure begins in dank pits and dive bars that swarm with lowlifes who slowly help him to put the pieces back together, albeit vaguely and even hesitantly, as if they enjoy torturing the poor guy. But maybe they have good reason to. Seems Bob has been mighty naughty, given the organs he’s been transporting around town.
But Bob doesn’t want any part of that now. He just wants to find the redhead in his frazzled memories who makes his heart stop hurting, and he hopes that when he finds her everything will be all right again.
Not quiet, Bob, not quiet.

Razorblade moves forward in a steady pace, never losing steam or letting go of the curiosity that haunts both the protagonist and the reader. It’s world is a bizarre bastardization of our own – a drug-fueled fever dream that pulsates with violence and depravity. Booth has a colorful style and he knows how to keep us glued, teasing us with the end of each chapter so we can’t resist diving into the next. The book is reminiscent of the paranoid cat-and-mouse stories of Philip K. Dick (We Can Remember it for You Wholesale comes to mind) and the surreal, junky playgrounds of William S. Burroughs’s Interzone. At times it even reads with the fast, frantic pace of a graphic novel, Booth painting elaborate pictures, making it all feel very cinematic (head’s up, David Lynch).

Still, despite its bloodshed and palpable horrors, Razorblade is also comedic and it has a tender side that celebrates the love between a man and woman, as well as the unbreakable bond between parent and child. The book is not overly dark or nihilistic the way the title might make some assume. Bob, for all his faults (which are plentiful), is a man we can all relate to. We just have to ride the nightmare with him and wait to see if he’s limping towards redemption or ruin. Either way, it’s a free fall worth braving.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got a copy of this from Max himself and in all honesty I can't say that I simply read his latest novel, I devoured the damn thing in two days. Hands down this is easily one of my favorite books and if you've never heard of this guy you should just stop reading for a second and just buy the book. The influences here are too many to name but if you like dark noir fiction, or ever wonder what Dark City would look like if David Lynch directed it you have a pretty good idea of what you're in for. Booth just doesn't write in one genre. He experiments in many and it all flows seamlessly. You have elements of bizarro and splatterpunk making out with science fiction, but it never bogs down the plot. If anything all of these different genres make the overall story that much better, and stronger.

The strength of Razor Blade is Booth's writing style. You are sucked into the story and truly get a sense of what Bob is feeling. We all know that Bob has no memory but the detail that he puts into it makes you feel the frustration and as he slowly begins to get his memory back you feel the same relief that he does. The action is well placed and as the story gains momentum the pages begin to fly by as Bob begins to discover who was. There are quite a few surprises here and the pieces in which Bob begins to regain his memory you begin to see that Bob isn't a perfect guy, He is a bit flawed but he has a chance to redeem himself and start fresh.

For the reader this is the perfect novel that we all want to read, It balances the action and while there is a bit of violence it's not enough to detract from the story. If anything if you were Bob you would do the same thing too. It's also a bit dark but that's exactly what you want from a book like this and for those that like bright happy shiny fiction you're going to probably turn your nose up at this and hit the the light fluffy section. This is the perfect beach, or front porch novel and if I had to pick 5 books to take with you on summer vacations this is one that I would recommend. Now that you've read my review go buy the book already.

[Jeremiah Israel · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you start this book, you're as clueless as the main character and it's awesome. While reading from the perspective of someone with no memory, you find yourself walking arm in arm with a lost character you can't help but love because they can't hide anything from you, even if they wanted to. The stark honesty and jarring developments are what keep you reading until the end where you'll be tricked, dumbfounded and left with little else but profanity to express how you feel. Not in anger but in appreciation for the gnarly underground world, the bizarre and looming presence of Conundrae and the seriously disturbing and mysterious harvies. This is a book you should read if you want to be surprised and satisfied with serious horror that doesn't take itself too seriously. Definitely stoked for the author's next work.

[Steve Isaak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mind is an excellent, heady genre blender of a novel, bringing together quirky humor, science fiction, horror and pulp-noir. Some of its twisty elements and revelations, taken singly, are familiar, but Booth's pulp-to-the-marrow, fast-paced and character-relatable writing makes this surprisingly warm-toned word stew come off as a fresh, often laugh-out-loud read that's worth owning. Get this, already.


(This review originally appeared on the Reading & Writing By Pub Light site.)

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bizarre, strange, interesting, disturbing... be prepared for all this and more! So many stories become somewhat predictable at least half way in, not this one the surprises just keep coming! This is a blast to the senses, and will keep you guessing! By all means, read it... but only if you are open minded!

[Taco Banana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Screaming oddity from beginning to end.
A fast-paced, meat-fisted, sharp and sour thriller that flies by neighborhood without mentioning the shit piling up on lawns, the blood flowing in the streets or the reason behind a gang of machete wielding nudists.
Pretty fucking great and doubly fucking strange.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

This young author improves with each work, and this, his latest, kept me entertained and fascinated with the world and characters he created. Lots of twists and turns. Actually, this could be continued in a later book, maybe even a series. Very much recommend.