Note: This is one of a few posts written back in 2010 that have been sitting in my drafts folder forever. In lieu of much else to say lately, I’m going to start slowly clearing out the folder and posting the entries that have been waiting so long to see the light of day, starting with this one. (Originally written in May 2010.)

Flavour:
Aftertaste:
Caffeine:
Value:
Overall:

I’ve been meaning to branch out from the territory of energy shots and cover full-sized energy drinks on this blog for a while now, but the right time never seems to come. Well, it’s about that time now, and I’m going to start off with something fairly basic but also one of my personal favourites: The standard, green variety of Monster Energy.

First and foremost, it should be mentioned that Monster is not for the faint of heart — and I mean that quite literally. While the shot version contained a whopping 141mg of caffeine (the highest by far I’ve seen so far in a shot), the canned variety hits a new level with a stunning 160mg. It’s also loaded with taurine, panax ginseng, L-carnitine, D-glucuronolactone, inositol, guarana, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamins B6 and B12. Monster truly lives up to its name, and in a 500ml can, that’s a whole lot of energy to go around.

With that kind of potent mix of chemicals and vitamins, experience might show that the flavour would be impeded. How does one go about mixing such a smörgåsbord of compounds without the result tasting like something from the waste pipes of an ICI chemical factory? I don’t know the answer to that question, but Monster sure as hell do — this behemoth of an energy drink is head and shoulders above the crowd as my favourite, with the energy shots and the full-size cans of various flavours (I’ll cover the yellow, blue, and orange variants in future posts) all winning a place in my heart. The energy-providing effects are nothing to shake a stick at, either, though I honestly think that’s a given with caffeine drinks — they all work just fine, but some of them are nicer than others.

Speaking of flavour, Monster never fails to provide in spades: The standard (green) variety I’m looking at today is an extremely sweet mixture with a slightly sharp edge, clean and refreshing without being too cloying, though it may be a tad too sweet for some. It’s hard to really make out any distinct flavour in the pandemonium, though; it’s clear that they’re making an attempt at some kind of fruity mixture, but the sweeteners tend to form the core aspect of the flavour. This is not particularly helped by the cryptic inclusion of “natural flavourings” on the ingredients list, among a long list of sugary sweeteners — sucrose, glucose syrup, sucralose, maltodextrin.

Let this not sound like a criticism, however, as there’s a good reason why I consider Monster to be the king of the energy drinks throne, its mysterious and yet thoroughly delicious flavour trumping the competition time and time again. The only thing that truly perplexes me is the way it seems to make an effort to appear powerful and badass, like it’s the kind of drink that a grizzled biker would chug down before going on a drug-addled rampage; Relentless and its more sober flavours suit this image far more, and Monster is just left looking awkwardly out of place like the one goth kid in a room full of Mormons. Perhaps the sheer, condensed experience of the imbued chemicals makes it worthy of the image, but it still feels like a tiger-striped kitten trying to be fierce.

Metaphors aside, Monster Energy is a tasty and effective energy drink that I’d recommend to anyone whose digestive system can handle the maelstrom of molecules. If you need energy and you need it fast, this is the place to look!

In a fit of insomnia-derived boredom last night, I read through the entirety of Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber, one of many novels based in the Star Wars universe. This book had been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for some time now, and while I was well aware of what to expect from the cover art — a bloodied and broken Stormtrooper helmet hanging by a shattered eyepiece from a meat-hook — I’m utterly unsurprised to say that it was exactly what I expected; no more, and no less. As a warning, there will be some spoilers in this review.

To begin with, I’ll say that this could only loosely be considered a Star Wars novel at all, aside from a loose association with the universe and awkward inclusion of some characters from the movies, and could easily have fit just as well into any other space sci-fi setting. Rather than being game-changing canon, it opts instead to be a simple yet entertaining, trashy novel about everyone’s favourite over-used cliché: zombies. Unfortunately — though perhaps predictably — Schreiber opts for the Scott Sigler approach to horror, which is to say, little to no actual “horror” elements, nothing in particular to make the reader frightened or unsettled, but instead simply a relentless influx of brutal, putrid gore. In fact, there was barely a single element to the story which made me have any reaction at all, aside from one particular part involving an orphaned wookiee child which managed to tug at my proverbial heart-strings a little, and an eye-roll-inducing scene later, where the abhorrent, sociopathic, murderous Imperial officer has a last-minute change of heart for the greater good. Not at all clichéd or out of place, Joe.

With the obligatory bashing aside, it was still a novel worth reading once — albeit only for the trashy entertainment value — though I doubt it’ll take up permanent residence on many peoples’ bookshelves. The writing was solid, the setting was largely believable (within its fantasy universe) with a few genuinely unexpected twists amidst the tropes, the visceral gore was enough to satisfy most fans of that particular brand of horror, and the whole thing is lightweight enough to churn through in one evening, or one particularly long train journey. For successfully walking the line between Star Wars sci-fi and visceral horror, it deserves at least some recognition; just don’t expect a literary epic that you’ll re-read time and time again.