The Story Behind Monster Town (the Novella) and The Butcher of Box Hill Book

‘Monster Town’ and ‘The Butcher of Box Hill’ was a 1950s Ace style flipbook limited-edition signed and numbered double novella published by Bad Moon Books out of Anaheim, California. And if you don’t know what an ‘Ace style flipbook’ is, it’s a hardcover book that has one story when read from the front, then (if you flip the book upside down) you have another story which you read from the other side (which is now the front as you’ve ‘flipped’ the book around’).

Monster Town was SET UP AT SONY STUDIOS (in Hollywood) via Thunder Road Films, with Basil Iwanyk (the guy who produced all the John Wick movies) attached as producer.

Sony dropped $300k US on developing the book as a TV show (in the vein of True Blood), but after the writer hired by Thunder Road to adapt my book RUINED it ( I kid you not, he BUTCHERED THE SOURCE MATERIAL SO BADLY AS TO MAKE IT COMPLETELY UNRECOGNISABLE FROM THE BOOK BEYOND THE TITLE), the project wasn’t picked up for pilot and sank into Development Hell.

Hollywood ruining a good book by IGNORING the source material that people fell in love with in the first place? Shocker, I know. Who would’ve thought they’d be so idiotic as to do that…

Anyway, Monster Town the novella is now a thing of memory, but here are a couple of reviews, before I get into updating you on the full-length novel version.

MONSTER TOWN REVIEW / THE BUTCHER OF BOX HILL REVIEW – Robert Brouhard – horrordrive-in.com

“Monster Town,” written by Brian M Logan under the pen-name of ‘Logan Savile,’ feels like a private detective noir story at first. Complete with the mysterious hot dame hiring a man (JD Enron-Monster Wrangler) to do a job so dangerous nobody else will touch it. JD knows he shouldn’t say yes to the job. He knows the hot dame is lying about something. But he says yes anyway…

From here, the story evolves into what could be interpreted as a horror version of a Mission Impossible movie. It has a LOT of action and some very snappy writing! I laughed a little too loudly on more than one occasion while reading this tale. Some of the humor is just plain fun. Some of it is very un-politically correct. You want an example of the humor? Sure, here you go: JD runs into a couple of hookers in an alley… zombie hookers who offer him a ahem “good time.” JD responds to the offer-he-can-refuse with, “Thanks ladies, but I prefer my women to have a pulse…Though having said that, I did have sex with my ex-wife… so what the hell do I know.”

You may choose to read these stories as an allegory of some modern political prisoner news story or even the concentration camps of the Holocaust, and that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing to do…. But please don’t get bogged down in that. It is not the purpose of these stories. This book is F-U-N, and not a High School literature class assignment. I really enjoyed the fast-pacing and irreverant tone of this book, and I am very happy that there’s a full-length novel coming soon (details are unknown at this time). Stories that you experience almost more than just read are particular favorites of mine. “

MONSTER TOWN REVIEW / THE BUTCHER OF BOX HILL REVIEW – Colleen Wanglund – The Horror Fiction Review

“THE BUTCHER OF BOX HILL and MONSTER TOWN are written as two separate stories, but follow a clear, single thread. BOX HILL was a good tale, but I would’ve loved it to be incorporated into the larger, more interesting novel version (which apparently is in the works). MONSTER TOWN is about a city like no other, a prison town where all the monsters are locked up. But one with a mixed population, tourism, crime, gang warfare, poverty, and racism—in Monster Town, the humans don’t like the monsters, but even different races of monsters don’t like each other.

Overall, I thought the story was excellent—full of monsters and a lot of fun. Brian M Logan tells a good story without taking the tale too seriously, evidenced by the use of a well-known (at least by my generation) movie quote that is cheesy, but funny. The book also contains some beautiful artwork by Darryl Elliott.”

MONSTER TOWN REVIEW / THE BUTCHER OF BOX HILL REVIEW – Unbound!

“I just wanted to say, in fairness, folks, it’s really good fun and delivers on entertainment.”

Is Monster Town the Novel in the Pipeline?

Yes… kind of. I’m currently finishing the 8th and final draft of my novel, DC (real title and cover reveal happening in July 2026 when pre-order is set up). With DC published on September 1, 2026.

From that point, I’ll be working on the 2nd draft my next novel (TAW), which will be due out on September 1, 2027. The first draft is already locked off, and this one should only take a couple more drafts before it’s ready for publication.

It’s once TAW is out in the world, that I’ll be focusing on Monster Town (the novel). I’ve already got about 40,000 words of the first draft written, and naturally (as I’ve already written the novella-length version), I know exactly what happens and when, so it’ll be a breeze to write. And quite frankly, a real joy to write, as the world of Monster Town is just plain FUN!

Anyway, Monster Town, the novel will happen. It’s on the conveyor belt! I just have to get DC and TAW published first, and then it’s all guns blazing on Monster Town!