THE HORROR FICTION REVIEW

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PREVIEW:

THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN (to be released 2/7/19 by Tachyon Publications / 432 pp/ trade paperback & eBook)

I’ve read a story or two from Kiernan over the years, but never read a novel or collection (and she has many of both). So when given the chance to check out her latest collection I figured it was high time to dive in. While most of the tales here are dark fantasy or sci-fi, almost all have elements of classic, sometimes extreme horror.

‘Andromeda Among the Stones’ is an apocalyptic Lovecraftian chiller set in California during WW1. An astrologer attempts to bring about the end after studying an ancient book he has taken home from the Middle East. His young daughter manages to keep him at bay with the help of her ghost mother and dying brother. One wicked opener...

In ‘La Peau Verte,’ Hannah turns to alcohol to deal with the death of her sister...or was her sister taken by mythical creatures? A wondrous dark fantasy and one of my faves of the collection.

‘Houses Under the Sea’ is the story of Jacova Angevine, a Berkeley Professor who has been fired after her controversial book is published. A man investigates her story, which leads to romance and an ancient cult. A great Lovecraftian piece to get the chills going.

In ‘Bradbury Weather,’ lovers are affected by a weird cult on Mars, and although sci-fi, this one is a psychological horror novella at its core. Loved it.

‘A Child’s Guide to the Hollow Hills’ is an inventive (and dark) look at a fairie’s fate.

In ‘The Ammonite Violin (Murder Ballad No. 4),’ a serial killer, who also happens to be a Collector, hires a woman violinist to play his new, custom made instrument. A couple of surprise twists made this one of the best of the lot.

In ‘A Season of Broken Dolls,’ a couple living in a post “micro-nuked” NYC manage their loose relationship over an extreme downtown art scene. Interesting but felt like part of a bigger story.

‘In View of Nothing,’ finds an assassin taken hostage during a future war somewhere in Asia. Told in future then past events, this sci-fi thriller is as weird as it is darkly suspenseful.

‘The Ape’s Wife’ features alternate versions of what could’ve become of Ann Darrow, the forced bride of KING KONG. And if like me, you’re a fan of the original film, this will be one of your favorites. Kiernan’s prose here is fantastic.

‘The Steam Dancer (1896)’ is a character study of a dancer and her mechanic husband who takes off one morning with her mechanical leg. Held my interest and ends on a melancholy note, but doesn’t really go anywhere.

In ‘Galapagos,’ a scientist from earth is called to check out a spaceship that has changed its course after encountering a bizarre alien “cloud.” She recounts her experience from a psychiatric clinic and this sci-fi head scratcher ends on an unexpected note.

‘Fish Bride (1970):’ A woman, who is turning into an aquatic being, falls in love with a man she knows can’t come with her. Reminiscent of classic mermaid tales yet quite different, this is a depressing look at loneliness, family and accepting one’s destiny.

‘The Mermaid of the Concrete Ocean’ features an art journalist interviewing an elderly parapalegic woman who had modeled for a series of paintings by a late artist. As much a mystery as a fantasy, the author’s writing sings in this beautifully written collection highlight.

‘Hydrargurous,’ is another sci-fi tale about a drug transporter who’s convinced he keeps seeing people leaking an odd liquid. The ending had me a bit confused but the ride there was worth it.

In ‘The Maltese Unicorn,’ demons battle in Manhattan in an attempt to find a dildo (yes, a dildo) made from a unicorn horn. As funny as it sounds, this one is played straight (although there’s some dark humor—how can there not be?) and makes a way out there noir/Lovecraftian dark fantasy fans of weird tales will love.

‘Tidal Forces’ features my favorite ending of the collection, another dark fantasy about two women who live seaside when one develops a mysterious hole in her stomach that keeps expanding.

In ‘The Prayer of Ninety Cats,’ gothic horror is explored through a film about Countess Bathory who lives in her late husband’s castle. She now seems to prefer women over men, and stranger sexual fetishes, as she tortures victims. Despite her dwarf servant and believing her prayers will help, her destiny is literally sealed by members of the outraged state. Best of all, Kiernan managed to make this one interactive, if you will, putting the reader in the center of the story. Great stuff here.

‘One Tree Hill (The World as Cataclysm)’ finds a science journalist investigating a New England town where a home and its adjacent tree were struck by lightning. One of the spookier stories here, it reminded me a bit of 80s-era small town horror tales ALA Rick Hautala and TM Wright.

In ‘Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No. 8),’ The Southwest becomes the killing grounds for two lesbian sisters in this nasty, sex-charged tale of mayhem.

And finally there’s ‘Fairy Tale of Wood Street,’ perhaps the strangest piece here (and that's really saying something), a dizzying account of a woman, returning from the restroom, observing what she sees from the back of a movie theater’s auditorium. The onscreen images hint the woman may or may not have a tail. Like a David Lynch film, the point of this one may decide to reveal itself to me (or any reader) at some point, but on this first read we’re with this woman and completely engrossed in the author’s odd visions and narrative.

These are 20 previously published stories, so this might not be of much interest to long time fans. But for this newbie, it has made me a fan, and a big one at that. Kiernan is easily one of the best writers of weird fiction working today and I'm looking forward to digging into her catalog.

-Nick Cato

1000 SEVERED DICKS by Ryan Harding and Matt Shaw (2018 Amazon Digital / 76 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

There are the moments you’re about to head out for a doctor’s appointment and think to yourself, “Oh hey I should grab a book-book for the waiting room” and what happens to be next up on top of your literal TBR pile? Sorry, guys, I love ya but needless to say I took along another for that trip.

I did, however, read it pretty much straight through shortly after the appointment … which may have been its own sort of mistake because yeeee-owtch that was brutal! As if I hadn’t already been leery of pizza cutters to begin with!

There’s often community chatter about the hierarchies of various horror sub-genres; who’s king, who’s crown prince, etc. But here, working together, we have princes of TWO nations, in an alliance the likes of which would have turned medieval Europe on its ear.

I’m talking, making the darkest of the Dark Ages and the most violent of the Crusades look like a romp in Candyland. The contents of an inquisitor’s kit or indeed entire torture dungeon can’t stand up to what these guys manage with some simple household tools and kitchen implements.

The title alone should be warning enough, not to mention the cover. Imagine if you will, a vigilante whose one-man mission is to punish adulterers, to hunt down cheating husbands and unfaithful wives.

Out of town on a business trip? Carrying on a clandestine affair with a neighbor? Making use of no-tell motels and hookup apps on the sly? Well, catching his eye will make catching a disease the least of your worries. For a while. Not a very long while, maybe … but much too long a while when it’s actually happening, I’m sure!

-Christine Morgan

NOFACE by Andre Duza (2016 StrangeHouse Books / 296 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

On her way home from work, Erin Hopkins is assaulted until being saved by a mysterious figure whose face she can’t remember...except for the rows of long, jagged teeth which stuck out from its dark hood.

A month after the attack, Erin fights nightmares of her ghastly rescuer, and soon discovers a connection between the sharp-toothed thing and a local government research facility. Everyone in her life, from her boyfriend to her best friend, are now in danger as the strange stalker seeks revenge on those who experimented on him.

Told in multiple timelines, Duza packs this one with several surprising moments, some extreme violence, and a couple of decent twists. Kind of like a blend between Dean Koontz’ WATCHERS and Edward Lee’s MONSTROSITY, NOFACE is another solid offering from Duza’s dark arsenal.

-Nick Cato

GUIGNOL AND OTHER SARDONIC TALES by Orrin Grey (2018 Word Horde / 188 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

A few of the stories in this collection I’d had the pleasure of seeing before in their original anthology appearances (and called them out for special mention, more often than not, as I recall). But there’s definitely something to be said for having them gathered together to showcase the author’s consistently excellent quality and skill.

Various aspects of the Mythos are well-represented, though subtle. There’s not a lot of overt references, no visits to Arkham or Innsmouth. Mentions and shadows, a resonator here, a whisper of tattered yellow there, ominous cults, hints of madness. Several of the tales, written to order for themed calls, rise admirably to the challenges of diverse characters, eras, and settings

You’ll also find a very well-done and amusing choose-your-own-adventure, some dark and disturbing familial legacies, messages from the other side, and a particularly unsettling but beautiful take on a lesser-known fairy tale. Art is often a component, exploring the ever-haunting allure of finding mysterious lost films or pursuing the magic of movie-making, the effect of uncanny or forbidden melodies.

Now, if some of the stories also seem to touch uncomfortably upon elements semi-autobiographical ... it’s probably best not to speculate how much. But, going by my own experiences with the subgenre of weird fiction and Lovecraft fandom, I think I can safely say those are pretty much spot-on.

“Invaders of Gla’aki” deserves special mention for cleverness, not to mention sheer nostalgia factor and fun, deftly weaving together the works of the great Ramsey Campbell with old-school arcade games … we need a remake of The Last Starfighter done Gla’aki style!

-Christine Morgan

KRONOS RISING by Max Hawthorne (2016 Far From The Tree Press / 554 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

If I ever say I’m tired of toothy aquatic monster horror, it’s code that I’ve been kidnapped. And this one, aside from a few issues (one glaring, one minor, one trivial), is solid good high-octane chompiness from start to finish.

Summary-wise, it’s what you’d expect and want: hitherto-unknown hungry critter rises from the deeps, disrupts local oceanic ecosystem, nobody wants to believe it at first and then they have no choice, some want to capture, some want to kill, boats are smashed, havoc is wreaked, people are messily devoured.

Those issues, though … most glaringly, it’s a sausage fest. The ONLY main female character is the gutsy, brilliant, witty science-type, who also happens to be an exotic beauty. Although a doctor and leader of her crew, she’s the object of crass remarks and casual sexism from other characters, even ones who should know better. Then to add in the ugly abusive relationship with the mercenary-jerk baddie who shows up to take over the hunt for the monster is more sour icing on that particular cake than I could take.

As for the more minor issue, I did think there were a few too many conveniences of miraculous coincidences, worsening situations, nick-of-time rescues and narrow escapes to plausibly stretch disbelief. The trivial issue is a personal peeve of author description, in which instead of using a simple name or pronoun, we get ‘the lawman’ / ‘the cetaceanist’ / ‘the young deputy’ / etc. trotted out in the prose.

Must say, though, the havoc-wreaking, boat-smashing, people-devouring scenes are among the best I’ve read, hugely epic fun with no fiddling about. Middle of a press conference, just as everyone’s scoffing at the experts? Whammo, chaos and panic and destruction everywhere; doubt or deny THIS! Tons of marine-monster fun!

-Christine Morgan

SHEPHERD OF THE BLACK SHEEP by Kristopher Triana (2018 Blood Bound Books / 265 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

My previous experiences with this author’s work (particularly BODY ART) had me mentally braced for the most extreme of the extreme … and yet, having this one turn out to be much more quiet, subtle, emotional, suspenseful, and psychological was anything but disappointing.

It opens with two little girls playing in the woods, having whimsical fun, making up stories. Then something terrible happens, and only one little girl makes it home. This tragedy hits on the heels of being recently orphaned and sent to live with her widower grandfather, who’s dealing with his own grief as well as the unexpected challenge of trying to raise a pre-teen.

The last thing he wants is for her to endure more stress and trauma. But the investigation is underway, and she’s the sole witness, being questioned by detectives as well as therapists. There are mugshots and lineups to look at. The other girl’s distraught family is demanding answers, applying social and financial pressures, even making accusations. Then there’s the kids at school, how unkind they can be … and neighbors … people snooping around the house …

I read the whole thing in a single captivated sitting, eyes wide and almost breathless, repeatedly rocked and shocked even when I thought I knew where it was going. The loss and pain, the tension, the frustration, protective love, conflict, helplessness … this book hits strong on every mark.

Now, to be sure, when there are violent bits, they are VIOLENT violent bits, pulling no punches and taking no prisoners, not sparing the sensibilities about raw red horror and gore. And they work just so damn well against the gentler overall tone, making them all the more visceral and terrible.

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

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STORY TIME WITH CRAZY UNCLE MATT by Matt Spencer (2018 Back Roads Carnival Books / 218 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Then there’s the books you’re not quite sure where they came from, no memory of having been sent a review copy or picking one up … it’s just in your e-reader thingie as if out of nowhere, but hey, what the heck, why not? Especially when it’s got a fun title. Got to be worth a try, right?

This was one of those books. But, however it happened, I’m glad that it did, because it proved to be well-written, entertaining, and more than a little bit delightfully wacky. The author makes clever use of a variety of writing styles and approaches, showcasing a range of skills.

A couple of settings feature prominently, with several stories taking place in each – a fictionalized Vermont town in a world otherwise pretty much our own, and a more fantastic realm of warring races (though with dialogue and language use fairly modern/slangy and familiar, giving those tales a “gaming group” kind of vibe; I don’t always enjoy that in otherworld settings, but here it worked).

“Kids Say The Wildest Things” was a particular favorite of mine, doing a good job capturing the way kids really think and talk, not to mention presenting a child’s-eye-view of religious rites in an interesting light. I also got a kick out of the ones that took sudden turns into cosmic horror or other surprise genres.

Interconnections weave throughout the collection: a weird little shop pops up a few times, characters recur in unusual ways across distances and eras. The end result brings everything satisfyingly together, and made for an overall engaging read.

-Christine Morgan

GIANTESS GLOBALIST SPERM WAR by Mandy De Sandra (2018 Clash Books / 102 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I picked up this book before the edition with the really super naughty censored-by-retailers Jim Agpalza cover art, but oh my goodness is it causing a stir! It’s fairly, um, gynecological to say the least … and in terms of judging a book by its cover or not, with this one, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet.

There were these weird bombs, see, and they destroyed most of humanity and civilization, and caused the surviving women to grow to colossal size. Surviving adult males were eradicated, boys rounded up and penned in the ruins of famous Florida theme parks. There, largely left to fend for themselves Lord of the Flies style, they grow up as best they can in loose tribal groups, until the time comes when the giantesses make their selections for food and potential mates.

Potential MATES? But HOW? you might be wondering, and with good reason. Well, basically, in the same way as ever. Just that, instead of having sex, the men themselves go inside and make the dangerous reproductive journey to see which of them will merge with the egg. Competition and cooperation are required, it’s part death race and part obstacle course and part puzzle-room.

I do wish the text had received a more thorough editing treatment before being put into print; it’s a crazy-clever story with an attention-getting cover, bound to upset, offend, and annoy a lot of people (while amusing the heck out of others).

When it’s Mandy De Sandra at the helm, nothing is sacred and nothing’s off-limits; leave your polite sensibilities at the door, and brace yourself for sharp social commentary skewering sexist attitudes and taking vicious swipes at the MRA movement. One way or another, even with therapy, you won’t soon forget this book.

-Christine Morgan

COLD DEAD HANDS by Jeff Strand (2018 Amazon Digital / 73 pp / eBook)

A group of misfits hellbent on making a political statement on gun control enter the local Save-A-Lot equipped with knives, daggers, and battle axes while you’re out on the town shopping for weekly groceries. What do you? Throw the gallon of milk, carton of eggs, and loaf of bread on the ground before you, and attempt to make an inside out breakfast massacre omelet? No, silly. Better guess again. Unless you want your insides cooked up and spit out in a death frying pan, you’d better make that mad dash for the walk-in freezer in the back of the store, am I right? Somewhere cold and dark and safe. Lock yourself in and hide away from the bladed assailants.

Strand’s comically dark writing here is top notch as usual. His dialogue and prose, sharp and quick to the gut. His characters are very well developed (there’s a lot of them in this one too), heartfelt, and perfectly executed (pun very much intended), as this book reads like one of those badass super ultra-violent action flicks, you know aside from our favorite horror films, the next best thing since sliced bread (oh, snap, another violent food pun intended).

Put all of this together and mix it with a clever statement about gun control and violence and today’s media, and we have yet again another quick and powerful release from an author who continues to shock and entertain and deliver time and time again.

-Jon R. Meyers

OCCASIONAL BEASTS by John Claude Smith (2018 Omnium Gatherum / 362 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

The first story I ever read from John Claude Smith is in this collection, and it is one I will never forget … it came in as a submission to an anthology call I was doing, and I flat-out could not believe it. Why in the world was someone sending something THIS good to ME? To my rinkydink nothing project? My first impulse, opportunistic and mercenary though it was, was to accept it at once, get the contract signed, and lock it down before the author realized he’d goofed.

The rest of his stories here prove to be of similar artistry and caliber. Why he hasn’t been snapped up yet by the big-name presses is beyond me. We’re talking intricate delicate word use but also a sense of dark grittiness, language like harpstrings and sudden thunder, mood and emotion and raw nerve-ending terrors interwoven.

Several of them touch upon cosmic horror; some do more than touch, they get right down in there and wallow in the weird, plunging the reader into it with a full immersion that would’ve had Lovecraft leaving the bedside light on. The unexplained often stays that way, as it should, as it must; that’s what makes it really work.

As for body horror and gore, even the most seasoned fans of the extreme may find themselves flinching over many of the descriptive passages. Humor has its place here, too; so does some fairly steamy sex. Most of all, though, it’s the use of language that consistently blew me away.

Special mention has to be made of “Personal Jesus,” in which a couple of road-tripping horror fans have the chance to stop in and meet one of their idols. When one asks THE question, their obliging host is all too glad – to their sorrow! – to answer. Anyone who’s been to cons or hung out with writers will likely be grinning and nodding throughout.

So, yeah … get this book, read the stories (maybe take more breaks than I did, to let your mind try to recover), and keep an eye on this guy, because he’s going to leave a definite mark.

-Christine Morgan

DAMNED FICTION by David Kempf (2018 Amazon Digital / 306 pp / eBook)

This book brings you stories within stories, constructed by way of a frame narrative in which the Devil himself challenges two authors – one of erotica, the other of extreme horror – to a writing contest. The ultimate prize will go to whoever proves their genre is the most sinful and corrupting.

So, not only do you get to witness the bargain and the interplay between the competing characters, you get to read the contest entries themselves. Which is more wicked? Graphic dirty kinky sex, or graphic bloody gory violence?

Unfortunately, fun though the premise is, the book itself doesn’t fully live up to its promise and potential. The writing’s on the rough side, fairly heavy on ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’, and the whole thing’s in need of some editorial polish … for stories in an ultimate-prize competition, neither the erotic nor the extreme entries seem all that erotic or extreme.

Plus, as someone who’s always been a little nitpicky about the whole issue of wishes (fine print, loopholes, letter of the law, sneaky interpretations, general rules-lawyering; what do you want, I was a gamemaster for many many years and ya gotta watch out for this stuff!), not to mention paradoxes, I did hit a pretty big stumbling block with a major plot element at the very start of the book. But maybe that’s just me.

-Christine Morgan

MAGAZINES

BLACK STATIC no. 67 (Jan-Feb 2019)

Opening commentary finds Lynda E. Rucker digging into how loss, in horror, can explore the human condition perhaps even more soberingly than the graphic stuff, and Ralph Robert Moore’s personal account of not fitting in at the workplace hit home with me on a grand scale.

This issue’s fiction features 2 short stories and 3 novelettes, the first being ‘Do Not Pet,’ also by Ralph Robert Moore. Karl is a suicidal older man, upset over the suicide of his son. When he takes an odd ghost-sighting tour, the people running it give him a most extreme option. Moore brings the chills in this original take on the afterlife and depression.

In ‘Shore Leave’ by Mike O’Driscoll, Nick Baptiste is third mate on a container ship currently ashore in Manila. He’s attempting to forget about a horrible incident that led to the loss of his son and separation from his wife and daughters, and manages to find supernatural help through a tricky Djinn. A somewhat familiar yet emotionally powerful and engaging entry.

Kristi DeMeester’s ‘The Silence of Prayer’ looks at devotion and worship through the eyes of a woman who finds a man in the woods. He becomes her God and she finally sees him for what he is when he brings her a young girl to be part of their congregation. Spooky and well written, this religious terror tale is my favorite this issue and another in a growing line of excellent DeMeester appearances in BS.

In Michele Ann King’s ‘In the Fog, There’s Nothing But Grey,’ a woman arrives at a bar that’s populated with suspicious patrons. Outside, a mysterious fog and noises dare anyone to investigate. Is this woman a protector or part of the unexplained situation King vaguely hints at? A brief but thought provoking piece.

Finally, ‘All We Inherit’ follows David and his young son Brad as they respond to reports of a break-in at David’s late father’s farmhouse. A buck visits Brad late at night, attempting to lure him outside. Despite a phone call from his aunt warning them to leave, David assures her they’re only staying until the break-in situation is resolved, but in the meantime David learns the dark truth about his father’s passing, a truth that could affect his son. I loved the atmosphere here as author Eric Schaller delivers a solid chiller.

Among the book reviews (now being handled by seven reviewers) are in depth looks at the latest from Stephen King, Rio Youers, Gwendolyn Kiste and Simon Bestwick, as well as a collection and anthology which both sounds like best bets.

In Gary Couzen’s Blu-ray/DVD reviews we find a 4-film box set of William Castle titles, new Blu-Rays of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and Argento’s OPERA, plus newer films such as CAM and LOST GULLY ROAD, both of which are now on my must see list.

Black Static’s first issue of 2019 continues to deliver some of the best short horror fiction around, and although I am a big fan of shorter works, the longer novelettes appearing lately have been outstanding.

Grab a subscription or single issue here: BLACK STATIC

-Nick Cato

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COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're reading this on a cell phone you're probably not going to see it. Break out the laptop, baby...

THE BELLY OF PROVENCE by Ray Zacek (2018 Zhombre Publishing / 134 pp / eBook)

A fun four-pack of exotic destinations, taking hapless travelers far off the beaten path.

The first, “Bird of Wonder,” follows a couple having one of the classic age-old arguments … whether or not they need to stop and ask for directions. A touchy enough issue at the best of times, it becomes even touchier in a foreign country where language is an extra barrier. After some difficulty, Steve and Carmen do find their way to the exotic animal sanctuary, though they’ll soon wish they hadn’t.

“Strega” brings us to Tuscany, where another couple is attempting to enjoy a belated honeymoon. Elliot’s older, a professional, previously divorced, prides himself on his intelligence and education; Jen is almost half his age, a former dancer, more interested in shopping than history and archaeology. After an unpleasant encounter with an old local woman and a day trip with their handsome tour guide, Elliot isn’t sure if he’s being cheated on or cursed.

“Rogue Travel” sends a travel show crew on location to Belize, to film an episode of arrogant celebrity John Waite’s adventure series. He, along with his latest girlfriend/producer and their camera guy, accompany a guide to an enormous unmapped cave believed to have been a sacred site to the Maya. When things go wrong, Waite gets some harsh reminders about the difference between his on-screen adventuresome persona and reality.

Title tale “The Belly of Provence” is the last and also the longest piece, taking up about half the book. When a young woman who’d been kicking about on her own in France wakes, immobilized in traction at a quaint country estate, she has to sift through the fogs of pain and traumatic amnesia to retrace her steps. There was the elderly gentleman on the train, the one who claimed he was a sorcerer, who suggested she visit a particular village … and the more seasoned travelers who say they’ve never heard of the place … and how strange it seems when she gets there … and the charming Bastien … and something about an accident … but why isn’t she in the hospital?

-Christine Morgan

THE SPLITS by MV Clark (2017 Shark Claw Books / 299 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

There are zombie books that are your typical zombie books, following the formula, laden with the classic tropes. Then there are zombie books that aren’t your typical zombie books, twisting the formula, playing with the tropes.

And now there’s this one, which is unlike any other zombie book I’ve ever read. I’m not even sure it should technically be called a zombie book … or even a pandemic/infection/outbreak book … although that’s what it’s about.

Set mostly in England of a similar but alternate timeline, it involves a condition that comes to be referred to as “the Splits” … partly because of the way it causes the skin of its victims to split and ooze, and partly because of its ultimate (and scarier, more profound) effect.

The first documented attacks take place in 1969, with feral behavior, crazed biting, and fast-spreading contagion. Not so fast, though, that all society collapses etc.; the authorities are able to mobilize and get some procedures set up in time. Soon, there are government agencies, response teams, cleanup (and disposal) crews, quarantine facilities, and bevies of scientists investigating possible causes and cures.

There’s also the fear, and the stigma, and people trying to hide or deny their condition, or not report infected loved ones. And the dreams, and the claims of seeing ghosts, as if the spirits of the affected victims have somehow ‘split’ from their deteriorating bodies.

The story spans the next several decades, following a handful of primary characters whose lives become interconnected by the unfolding events. It’s presented in a variety of forms, from straight narrative to interviews, articles, and case file notes.

So, yeah, it IS a zombie book, but with a broader scope and wider, more long-term focus with build-up and slow-burn repercussions. If you’re looking for a chaos-fest of carnage and headshots and braaaaaain-eating, this won’t be for you … if you want something more psychological, sociological, and thought-provoking, you’ll likely be very satisfied.

-Christine Morgan

THE HUMAN ALCHEMY by Michael Griffin (2018 Word Horde / 305 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I’ve seen Michael Griffin’s name circulating for a while now among the weird fiction community, and read a couple of the stories from this collection when they originally appeared in anthologies. His work’s impressive in its smooth polish and subtle textures, always doing an excellent job involving the senses (physical and metaphysical as well).

Many of them are set in Portland, Oregon, and it really works. If there’s a west-coast version of Lovecraft country, it could well be that area. May not have as long a recorded history, but it’s got the grey and gloomy weather, peculiarities in its past … and not for nothing is the motto “Keep Portland Weird.”

These are also often ordinary-seeming people, these characters who find themselves dealing with uncanny mysteries as well as the normal troubles of everyday relationships and life. As is also the frequent case with Lovecraftian tales, many of the characters are troubled artists seeking (and finding) disturbing truths … unusual architecture and strange rituals abound … quests for ancient and obscure knowledge lead to dangerous paths …

“The Smoke Lodge” is extra fun for anyone involved with the weird fiction scene; not unlike in “I Am Providence” by Nick Mamatas, any similarities or resemblances to actual events or actual persons living or dead sure doesn’t seem purely unintentional.

The prevailing mood and tenor throughout the book is of a sort of beautiful doom. The vast cosmic horrors of emptiness and impressions of matters beyond human comprehension suggest that, however awful the state of ‘not knowing’ might be, sometimes getting answers actually can be worse.

If I have one minor silly gripe here, it’s that the name of one character kept throwing me off balance. Whenever I read “Noone,” my mind wanted to mispronounce it, thinking of Odysseus in the lair of the Cyclops. If I have a larger but more diffuse gripe, it’s how many of these stories end with a tantalizing vagueness, leading to inner wails of what-happens-next?

-Christine Morgan

CONTRITION by Deborah Sheldon (2018 IFWG Australia / 244 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

How far would you go to make up for past wrongs? What would you endure to atone for something terrible that happened long ago? How strong is the binding power of love … and guilt … and shame? Is it worth upending your whole life to save someone else’s? Where’s the line between duty/obligation and self-preservation? What would you put yourself through to keep a secret?

When he discovers his high-school sweetheart homeless, John Penrose goes above and beyond. He doesn’t just try to help her. He takes her in. But, as he quickly learns from her disturbed and disturbing behaviors, he also has to keep her hidden. Hidden from his landlords, his neighbors, everyone.

And there are a succession of landlords and neighbors; Meredith has particular dislikes for traffic noises, yard work, neighborhood pets, kids, etc. Although she’s supposed to stay inside, she always eventually slips out, and there are only so many incidents people can overlook or pass off before they start getting suspicious.

They can’t stay in any one place long, frequently moving, hopping from one rental property to another as John struggles to hang onto his job and make ends meet. He has no social life. He can’t have anyone over. Maintaining his carefully-constructed story is its own challenge.

Also, more and more, he’s having a hard time getting past just how weird Meredith’s become. Spooky. Even dangerous. Her eating habits, for instance … the boxes she doesn’t want him to look in … the gaps in her memory … the peculiar scars.

The latest move brings a new complication. Her name is Donna, the friendly, attractive, single mom who lives across the street. John likes her. Meredith doesn’t. Plus, John is piecing together more of Meredith’s missing years, as well as confronting his own memories about their school years, and what happened to her brother.

Instantly intriguing, brimming with building psychological dread and tension, it’d be a gripping thriller even without the horrific creepy paranormal elements. Really enjoyable, if not entirely comfortable, making the reader look inward to wonder what he or she might do.

-Christine Morgan

THE FIVE SENSES OF HORROR edited by Eric J Guignard (2018 Dark Moon Books / 313 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, & eBook)

As someone who was a psych major and has always been aware of the effectiveness of the use of sensory description in writing, I was all over this one and as interested in the scholarly introductions as by the stories themselves.

Dr. Jessica Bayless presents several excellent essays on the psychobiology of horror and the various senses, not only explaining how they function but how and why they affect our emotions – particularly relating to fear – the way they do. It’s brilliant stuff, not just informative but entertaining.

Although there are far more than five, those five are the biggies, the main ones we know about and rely on: touch, hearing, taste, sight, and smell. The book’s divided therefore into five sections, one for each, with three stories per. Not just stories about the senses, but the absence or loss of them, or ways they can go awry.

And what a lineup spread among those five sections! Ramsey Campbell’s in here, and Poppy Z. Brite. Richard Christian Matheson. Lisa Morton. Kathryn Ptacek.

As great as the rest of them are, picking my top fave was no contest this time: Lucy Taylor’s “In the Cave of the Delicate Singers,” in which a young woman with an unusual way of perceiving sounds ventures into a cave in search of missing explorers. I love stuff about caves and caving, it’s something I’d want to do if I were, y’know, young and fit and brave and athletic. This one does a fantastic job bringing the entire experience to life, trapped claustrophobic anxiety and all.

Lisa L. Hannett’s “Sweet Subtleties” is an exquisite decadence of dark fantasy, combining aspects of Pygmalion and Frankenstein with artistic confectionery and people of particularly demanding and distinguished tastes.

Editor Eric J. Guignard also contributes a preface and a follow-up essay, as well as handy lists for further reading and/or academic study. There’s an afterword by Dr. K.H. Vaughan on the connections and differences between sensation and perception. Illustrations by Nils Bross add the perfect final flourish throughout.

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're reading this on your cellphone there's a good chance you're not going to see it. Break out the Mac, Jack. Or the Dell...

2003 - 2019

THE HORROR FICTION REVIEW

SWEET SIXTEEN!

NOW IN OUR 16th YEAR!

WOLVZ: WHISPERS OF WAR by Toneye Eyenot (2018 Luniakk Publications / 129 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

The reputation of vampires may have taken some severe hits in recent years, what with the sparkly angsty tormented stuff … but at least werewolves have for the most part been spared. Even the surge in urban fantasy and shifter romance lets them still, overall, be beasts (however sexy). Hungry, violent, often moon-ruled beasts.

In the were-world according to Toneye Eyenot, there are pure-blooded Lycans and mixed-blood Werewolves, living in packs according to strict hierarchies and laws. There may be power struggles, territorial disputes, feuds, rivalries, but for the most part they’ve been content to lead their mostly secret lives alongside humanity. Humans are prey, food, sometimes useful as thralls, and occasionally recruited into the change by tooth and claw.

For the most part. Until now. Until Claude, alpha of the Wolfhaven pack, decides the time has come for Wolfkind to take their undisputed place at the top. Driven partly by revenge for the death of beloved wolf matriarch Pharo, he rallies his pack and their nearest allies for war.

Shona, one of Pharo’s daughters, is all too eager to join the slaughter. Even in her grief, she’s able to enjoy finally unleashing the full fury of her wrath and hate, killing with impunity, feasting to her heart’s content, making the humans suffer for what they did to her mother.

As word spreads, neighboring packs put aside their disputes to join the cause. Nothing less than total domination will do. They must strike hard and fast before their hapless enemies have a chance to organize. It’s thousands of years of folklore nightmares made real as the growing army moves from town to town.

And it is a bloodbath. This is not a sexy-beast werewolf story. This is carnage, particularly when some opportunistic packs and pack-leaders have their own ideas of how things should be done.

-Christine Morgan

A GOD OF FLIES AMONG THEM by Philip LoPresti (2018 Dunhams Manor Press / 82 pp / trade paperback)

LoPresti's latest novella finds Jessop Thorn returning to his childhood home to deal with a seriously dark past: his entire family had gone missing, one at a time, over the years, yet he was the only one to get out of his small town. Now trying to find answers and closure, Jessop gets help from an old crush (now prostitute), an old friend, and a local witch, although he senses everyone is hiding something from him, and is worried the dead children who haunt his dreams may actually kill him...

Like his previous novella WYTCHCULT RISING, LoPresti's strength is in hinting at potential terrors, making us form our own understanding of what has been going on in the small town of Cedars Parish. With ghosts, incest, and a possible cult or ancient religion at large, A GOD OF FLIES AMONG THEM is a tight read that delivers chills and will leave you checking over your shoulder.

-Nick Cato

THE FOREVER BIG TOP by Jeremy Thompson (2019 Necro Publications / 59 pp / eBook)

I can just imagine the elevator pitch … Dante’s Inferno with clowns. Boom. Mic drop. Sold.

Clowns are already bad enough on their own. Clown Hell? Descending through the worsening levels of it, witnessing hideous torments and punishments? The concept is just so twisted and wrong, even readers who aren’t fond of clowns (though, is anyone, really?) will get a kick out of this.

Okay, yes, the cover’s creepy, almost creepy enough to be off-putting on its own. Flip past that quick and you’ll be okay. Jump right into a concert with clown-rappers Sirkus Kult, fronted by Freshy Jest and Criminal Prankstah. They’re riding high, doing shows, making money, taking their pick of the clowngirl groupies.

It’s certainly better than Freshy’s ‘real life.’ As Franklin Jasper, he’s a scrawny loser. As Freshy, he’s got it all. Then he meets up with a hot little harlequin called Sally Slitz for some post-show R&R, only to learn the hard way that Sally’s got some strange ideas about bonding with her perfect man.

Ideas that include double-suicide. Or, when he hesitates but she won’t be denied, murder-suicide. Next thing Freshy knows, he’s waking up in the circus tent to end all circus tents, the first level of the Forever Big Top, a hell of and for clowns.

Partly by accident, partly out of a desire to find an escape back to the land of the living, Freshy undertakes a journey lower and lower through the levels, encountering every type of clown from mimes and mummers to modern mascots. It’s a carnival of craziness, wackily entertaining, wildly envisioned, wickedly clever, tons of fun.

-Christine Morgan

PUNKTOWN by Jeffrey Thomas (2018 Forma Street Press / 244 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, eBook)

Okay, folks. Here’s the scoop. I had the pleasure of speaking with the author to better clarify a couple of things before diving into the review for this kindle re-release of the original 2005 edition with just under twenty stories of the author’s epic Horror and Science Fiction and Cyberpunk-esque infused masterpiece that is PUNKTOWN. In which, the prior genres seem to compliment each other so well, unlike anything else available on the market, with a beautifully written introduction by Michael Marshall Smith and an introduction to the Punktown mythos and city by the brilliant man himself. PUNKTOWN is a place where only the darkest and wildest dreams may spark to life whether you want them to or not. So, what exactly do we have here before our glowing and radioactive eyes set to kill and murder and create so dark and beautifully on the grimy streets of electric oblivion? The answer… well, what we basically have here is the definitive version of each of the stories collected prior in print from yesteryear. This is exciting for a number of reasons but mainly because the universe, prose, and characters, and alienlike creatures created in the Punktown universe are just so highly enjoyable and unforgettable within themselves and now we can enjoy them even more, so on the electronic platform, as we as the reader impatiently keep awaiting the forthcoming Omnibus’ set for release with Centipede Press, in which, all Punktown stories are being collected and put into one hot spot to restore faith in humanity within. I also thought now would be an appropriate time to put out a little shout out for the new ‘Transmissions from Punktown’ anthology edited by Brian M. Sammons, as this anthology was a collection of stories inspired by the revolutionary world and vision created by Jeffrey Thomas’ beautifully surreal, dark, enigmatic, and extremely versatile sci-fi megalopolis known as ‘PUNKTOWN’. You’ve been warned. Proceed with caution. What happens in Punktown, stays in Punktown. If you’re even able to make it out alive.

There’s too many favorites to list here so let’s start at the beginning to give you a little taste of what’s in store. ‘The Reflections of Ghosts,’ a unique tale where a squatting, hopeless romantic street artist engage in a different sort of art form. His works of art are far more personal as his blank canvas refers to cloning versions of himself, selling them to high dollar clients, and is currently sitting on a beautifully rendered female version of himself, so much as to where he is unsure of wanting to give her away to the client as they begin a more hot, steamy, and intimate relationship that eventually spirals into madness and chaos and out into the grimy streets of Punktown, where one can see dead clones hanging in the gutters, laying on the streets covered in graffiti. The tale touches on some deep and sentimental undertones that are almost too hard to try to explain but we get a deep sense of abandonment and love and the power an intimate and emotional relationship can grab hold of someone when sharing with someone else, and thus even more so when trying to love one’s self, being a prisoner in your own mind, demons under your own skin, and don’t forget about those bony skeletons piled up to the ceiling in your closet. In ‘Pink Pills,’ a woman with a mysterious tumor seeks medical attention unlike anything you’ve ever seen befor. Not everything is as it seems as her dreams spiral out of control and onto a conveyor in a factory where there’s way more than meets the eye going on. Think aliens. Think eggs. Think national pandemic and pandemonium on the mean streets of Punktown as the slow jazz blares up through the soils of this vast sci-fi metropolis of corruption and wires and the sound of static drowns out all hopes of making it out alive. Other favorites, ‘The Library of Sorrows’, ‘Dissecting the Soul’, and ‘Precious Metal’.

If you haven’t already read this book or any other works by the author, do yourself a favor and check them out. This would be a great place to start. This would be a fantastic place to end it all.

-Jon R. Meyers

a HFR second look...

THE FIREMAN by Joe Hill (2016 Harper Collins / 768 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, eBook, audiobook)

I did not read this whole book in one day. But I came close. 690 pages in one day, the rest on the next day. Now, I always read obnoxiously fast anyway, but even for me this might’ve been a record. I freakin’ devoured this tome, hooked from the very first line. (it probably helped that I took it along to the hospital for my most recent surgery, to pass the time in pre-op and recovery; it also made me all the more determined not to croak under anesthesia and leave it unfinished!)

Storywise, it’s a global end-of-days civilization-breaking epic, but with pinpoint focus. We don’t get, and we don’t need, a cast of thousands or scenes from everywhere else as the outbreak unfolds. What we do need to know about the rest of the world is conveyed naturally, expertly, almost seamlessly.

The outbreak is of a terrifying condition which causes people to spontaneously combust. Society disintegrates into fear and paranoia; someone might ignite and burn at any time. The main outward indication is a blackish-goldish tattoolike patterning on the skin (hence, dragonscale, the name for the disease).

Harper Grayson is a school nurse when it begins, then attempts to aid the response teams. She and her husband have a pact in event of infection – given her line of work, a foregone conclusion. But, discovering she’s pregnant causes her to rethink that plan. Trying to escape her husband, she encounters a group who claim to be not just surviving the illness, but mastering it, learning to harness and use its fiery powers.

For all the heft, for being a tome with the hardcover of which you could club someone to death, let me assure you … it’s all muscle. No fat, no bloat, no padding, no sprawl. We’re talking rock-solid powerhouse muscle here, a tank of a book, a warhorse of a book. My favorite thus far of Hill’s longer works. I kind of wish I’d read it sooner, but I’m also glad I didn’t because it helped me sail through an otherwise rough day.

-Christine Morgan

THE FEN by Michael Baeyens (2018 Independently Published / 522 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Initial impression from the synopsis made this seem like one that should’ve been right up my alley … an academic-type paranormal thriller linking back to Viking times, I mean, come on … that hits several buttons.

The prologue, in which two surviving raiders are fleeing through the woods so terrified of what pursues them that they eagerly seek refuge at a Christian abbey, does a good job with atmosphere and ratcheting up the tension. I was ready to see what happened next, expecting some grisly historical horror.

Unfortunately, then the story jumps ahead to modern day and loses a lot of its promise and momentum. There’s too much mundane detail of routine activities, bogging things down, making what could have been interesting very dry and even dull instead.

Hanna Stevenson is a PhD student of early medieval history, focusing on the eventual distribution of wealth from Viking attacks on the Church. She visits abbeys, looks at manuscripts, uncovers some intriguing leads about an ancestral family that doesn’t seem to appear in other records from the era, and is gradually drawn down the trail of investigating.

Then weird stuff starts to happen; there’s a mysterious old mansion that clearly isn’t what it seems, remnants of that family are still around and have a strange power over the locals, people snooping too closely have fatal accidents, etc. When Hanna becomes too involved, a colleague picks up the trail and finds himself also enmeshed.

Occasional action scenes – particularly inside the mansion – are spooky and well-done but all too brief and lack follow-through, which makes the rest all the more disappointing because the potential for cool story is there, just lost amid the rest of it.

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're reading this on a cell phone you're probably not going to be able to see it. Bust out the laptop, baby...

NOW IN OUR 16TH YEAR!

BLACKER AGAINST THE DEEP DARK by Alexander Zelenyj (2018 Eibonvale Press / 376 pp / hardcover)

Zelenyj’s 3rd mammoth collection features 31 stories, 19 presented here for the first time. Having read and loved his first 2, I was eager to see what else he could come up with. Turns out, plenty.

Among my favorites were ‘The Priests,’ which is the name given to a conjoined triplet male, who finds sanctuary at an isolated church and friendship with its pastor. We hear some of its stories of surviving in freak shows, but learn of its miraculous nature when it aids a baby in desperate need. A familiar trope but given heartfelt new life by Zelenyj. ‘We Are All Lightless Inside’ finds a group of secret scientists and magicians locating and battling otherworldly manifestations of diseases. I think this could make an interesting novel. In ‘Loneliness the Hunter’ a boy manages to call an odd being into our world, changing his own life—and those around his—for good.

A counselor has an incredible affirmation among the people in his group in the emotion-driven ‘Angels, and the Daggers of Darkness,’ then the sci-fi novella ‘Journey to the End of a Burning Girl’ follows two detectives as they seek the origin and suppliers of a mysterious drug which causes users to vanish to another dimension. Reminded me of a psychedelic version of BLADE RUNNER yet offers much more.

A bookstore employee meets a most unusual customer in ‘The Bloodmilk People,’ a wrestler named Monster Rollinski befriends a young fan and discovers his destiny in the wonderful ‘From Parts Unknown,’ and ‘The Terror of Broken Places’ looks at sadness and overcoming through the eyes of three humans and two aliens who meet in a place that allows them to understand each other.

‘Kill Them and Kill Them (and Pray for Something Good) is one of the best here, as a controversial comedian rises to Messianic status. Things get extreme in ‘Hush Honey, and Give Daddy Back His War Hammer,’ a ghoulish piece that will make you squint. ‘Christ on the Sun’ gives a depressing (and frightening) look at religion, then the short but terrifying apocalyptic tale ‘The Sky Was a Window All Along’ delivers the end-times goods (or bads, depending on your world view!).

Two tomboy friends meet for drinks to discuss their careers and reminisce over an unusual sighting they shared as kids in the wondrous ‘The Children Who Saw the Universe,’ while ‘Private Poison’ follows a platoon and their miraculous takeover of an enemy stronghold during the Vietnam War (has the feel of a classic WEIRD WAR TALES story).

Think you’ve read enough creepy crawly tales? The humorous element in ‘Spiderpartment’ may change your mind. Demons contemplate humanity in ‘This Lustful Earth’ and Charles Chekpak’s extreme sex life takes him to godhood (and beyond) in the show-stopping ‘We, The Burning Stars.’

‘Engines of Forever’ takes a strange look at two young, reluctant terrorists, then a young girl is tempted by a demon in ‘Flowers of Heaven,’ a great, classic styled horror tale.

The collection concludes with the thought provoking ‘Love in Uncertain Times,’ as a young boy, watching his little sister, becomes enchanted by an amazing Time magazine article.

Horror, sci-fi, bizarro, fantasy, and some unclassifiables are on display here as Zelenyj delivers yet another barrage of tales, and while I’ve listed my personal favorites, every story is solid and enjoyable. BLACKER AGAINST THE DEEP DARK is yet another stellar collection from a seriously talented writer.

-Nick Cato

CURSED BY CHRIST by Matthew Warner (2018 MW Publications / 228 pp / eBook & audiobook)

Almost like an odd mix of brooding Southern Gothic, CARRIE, and mutant-power-origin-story, this book is about a girl named Alice growing up in the oncoming shadow of the Civil War. All she knows at first about her “difficult time” is that she inherited it somehow from the mother who believes she was cursed for stealing from an angel … while her father attributes it to a ‘poison rock’ that they saw fall from the sky when the were young.

Either way, Alice is the only one of their children who’s been able to survive, and as she reaches maturity, the episodes of ‘sickness’ have made her something of an oddity to the extended family. A series of tragedies puts her at the mercy of a predator, and escaping turns out to be its own frying-pan-and-fire situation.

Suddenly married, the mistress of a plantation in another state, Alice finds herself more and more discontented and alone. The closest she has to friends are among the slaves, and their secret religions and rituals help her control her abilities. Try though she might to have a warm relationship with her husband, her inability to produce a child drives them ever further apart … and then he’s called off to war.

The war years go by with no word; he’s missing and presumed dead. The end of the war brings drastic changes. Alice is just about to finally take control of her own life when her husband’s surprise return throws her plans into chaos. Not only that, her husband’s return is followed by rising tension between landholders and their now-freed workforce.

I found it a good read overall, historically interesting, though Alice’s passivity as a character got on my nerves pretty quickly. Was really hoping to see more about her abilities come into play, and some more satisfying resolutions.

-Christine Morgan

ERIE TALES VIII: HOLIDAY TERROR edited by Michael Cieslak and Nicole Castle (2015 Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers / 92 pp / trade paperback)

This time, the capable crew of the GLAHW take on holidays, and not just the usual big traditional ones you might expect. With the entire calendar to choose from, including observations of various countries and faiths, they were able to come up with some new and interesting takes on the theme.

The year opens with Peggy Christie’s “Brothers of Death” in which medieval monks deal with a particularly grim January holy day, then reminds us that the season doesn’t technically end in December with Shad Kelly’s fae masquerade “On the Thirteenth Day of Christmas.”

In “The April Fool,” editor Michael Cieslak contributes a comitragedy as an unlucky and inept would-be suicide picks the wrong day to try to end it all, while Cassie Carnage’s “Walpurgisnacht” shows the dangers of trying to ignore the old ways and rituals.

One of my favorites here is “The Boy Who Knew The Ending,” by Justin Holley. The frustrations of a budding teen romance is set on the 4th of July, though in this instance that doesn’t much seem to matter; it could just as easily have been done on any of a number of others.

Ken MacGregor turns in a dark look at the hidden truths behind the origins of a November feast in the nicely done historical piece, “Giving Thanks.” Montilee Stormer brings the winter chills with a cold night’s observance of St Lucy’s Day in “It Came Upon.”

Finishing things out, because it wouldn’t be the holidays without goodies, is Heather Kapusta’s “Granny’s Christmas Cookies,” with their special secret recipe. Yum!

-Christine Morgan

SAINT SADIST by Lucas Mangum (2019 Grindhouse Press / 98 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Alright, folks. Here’s that scoop. That good ole fashioned four-one-one, I think some like to say. But, there’s a catch, go figure. There’s always a catch, right? Well, I think I said it last time that this was an author we all needed to keep our eyes and ears peeled like paint on, and with this very new release from the fabulous folks over at Grindhouse Press. I couldn’t be any more enthusiastic and happier to have said that some number of months ago, and not to toot my own horn or anything like that, BUT I was right, and I told you so. Lucas Mangum is good, guys and gals. I can and will not say it enough. His writing is well-crafted and unique and original and just overall super powerful. He’s one of the few new greats out there who just seems to get it right and pull off whatever it is that he sets out to do. We saw this last time with ‘Gods of the Dark Web.’ The author built this dark and glitchy underworld of filth and perversion that was beautifully executed and ended up being one of my favorite books of yesteryear.

This time around, the author takes on a different approach, and, trust me when I say it: It’s honest. It’s dark. It’s compelling. It’s brutal AF. It’s well written. It’s unique. It’s powerful, in a more transgressive and violent sort of way, putting us in the shoes of a young girl going through some serious shit as she leaves home impregnated by her father and back into the arms of a religious cult leader. Mangum parks us right inside her head as she searches for happiness and survival in a world full of past demons and terrible role models where she doesn’t want to be any longer. The heartbreak, pain, and suffering bleed out of every word on the page perfectly. The author deals with gruesome subjects that are often hard to write about with a shockingly admirable, creative, and honest ease that is the real and true art to be found in this book.

Definitely recommended. Proceed with caution.

-Jon R. Meyers

MURMANSK-13 by Richard-Steven Williams (2018 Amazon Digital / 419 pp / eBook)

In this ambitious but struggling mega-book of sci-fi horror, it’s Aliens meets the zombie apocalypse, with shades of LIFE FORCE and GHOST SHIP and PITCH BLACK thrown in … a mysterious space station appearing on none of the charts, secret experiments gone wrong, survivors of a crashed prison transport ship, another ship with the crew awakening from cryo-sleep to find they’ve been taken way off course on an unknown errand … it’s a lot to tackle, a lot to take in.

Kind of like a big sprawling video game with several intersecting objectives and side-quests, and multiple playable POV characters as well as NPCs with intricate backstories. There’s the troubled captain slowly losing his grip, the tough chick, the newbie cadet, the trash-talking wise guy, the noble loner rogue, the damsel in distress, the shady scientist, the sleazy bad guys.

And plenty of perils, from supplies and survival to spacewalks to crawling through ducts, fighting the infected, fighting each other, dealing with sudden disasters, isolation, no way to send for help, dwindling resources, betrayal, romantic entanglements.

I did have some problems with the way certain issues were handled (sexism, icky rape stuff, unrealistic emotional aftermaths, for instance). The editing, as well, needed definite work. I found myself wondering several times if the book had initially been written in another language and then translated. Many wrong words and mistakes, further knocking me out of the story.

Overall, entertaining enough if you’re into that sort of thing, but not particularly innovative or gripping to me; and yeah, a LOT of it. 400+ pages, made for quite a trudge.

-Christine Morgan

GAME CHANGERS OF THE APOCALYPSE by Mark Kirkbride (2019 Omnium Gatherum / 299 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

You think YOU’RE having a bad day? Try being Greg, who, in a moment of waking-up grogginess happens to admit to his fiance he’s not all that excited about or involved in the actual wedding plans. Just the sort of thing you want to say to a stressed-out bride-to-be with the big day looming.

Next he knows, he’s out on his ear with a bag of his stuff. All he can do is go to work, and hope a friend will give him crash space while he figures out what to do. He loves Polly, he wants to be with her; it was poor phrasing, that’s all. Maybe he can find a way to smooth things over?

A nice idea in theory, except he’s not through screwing up yet. An email goof and some ill-chosen words later, he’s also out of a job. And accidentally locked out of his friend’s place. And the weather takes a sudden nasty turn.

And all that? All that’s still only the first chapter, only the beginning. It’s about to get a whole lot worse. As in, suddenly, everyone else is just … GONE. He’s alone in a deserted city of abandoned cars, as if all the people simply *poof* vanished.

What follows is a frantic adventure that gets weirder and weirder, as Greg searches for any sign of what happened (and, desperately, for any sign of Polly). Eventually, his search brings him back to his former workplace, where the fax machine seems to be printing drafts of what’s happening even as it happens … even before it happens … predictions, faxes of the future, dire warnings … and each time he changes his actions, a new draft appears.

Too much more would be spoilers, so, you’ll just need to read it yourself. I found it fresh and fun, well-written, highly enjoyable.

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on a cell phone you're probably not going to see it. Bust out the laptop, amigo...

FULL BRUTAL by Kristopher Triana (2018 Grindhouse Press / 264 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Three for three now … three Kristopher Triana books I’ve read each at one awestruck sitting. My initial prediction that he’s destined for the extreme elite sure is proving true. I am just jawdropped. This book may very well be the most evil thing I’ve ever read in my entire life.

It’s perfect. The perfect evil, the perfect exploration of utter sociopathic monstrousness. Most evil of all, it could totally happen. Nary a breath of the paranormal to be found, either; it’s pure human nature at its most horrible.

Take every ‘mean girls’ movie or story throughout history, distill them down into a single droplet of ultra-concentrated nitroglycerine plasma MEAN GIRL, and that’s what we have here. Have said it before, will no doubt say it again … girls can be vicious. Spiteful, destructive, lethal, and cruel. Never mind simple serial killing. I’m talking sheer, absolute, utter destruction.

Meet Kim. Kim seems like she should have it all going for her. Pretty, popular, permissive single dad with adequate money, a good student, a star cheerleader, squad of friends, bevy of interested boys. But she’s not happy. She’s bored out of her mind. She wants to make a big change, and decides that losing her virginity is the way to go.

Only, she doesn’t want it to be the same dull story as everyone else, so she sets out to seduce an older man. A teacher. Then she discovers maybe sex isn’t such of a much, but the possibility of outright ruining lives and destroying people is a serious turn-on.

Soon, she’s deftly masterminding and manipulating, taking things further and further, playing people against each other, using the full dangerous powers of social media … there’s blackmail, murder, rape, cannibalism … you know, your basic classic tale of the tender sexual awakening of a young lady.

Most evil thing I’ve ever read. And that’s saying something. Wow.

-Christine Morgan

THIS IS A HORROR BOOK by Charles Austin Muir (2019 Clash Books / 140 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Okay, confession time, shame on me, I still haven’t seen Mad Max: Fury Road. But, after reading this book, I know by the time I eventually get around to it, the experience will now be weirder than the filmmakers perhaps intended. Thanks to Charles Austin Muir and his naughty obsession with Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, which features prominently throughout these interlaced tales.

First off, take any regular rules of expectation and reality and chuck them out the window. You’re in for a wild, clever, convoluted ride of fourth-wall breaking, author insertion (in more ways than one, see Furiosa reference above), second-person, genre references, names and in-jokes, and all kinds of craziness.

The first story is about a couple of guys who, while drinking and watching horror movies on Halloween, decide it’d be a good idea to read from this ominous old book one of them found outside the convenience store. Gotta love it when even people who by rights should know better go and do stuff like that, don’t you? At least then they don’t have the gall to act surprised when it all goes hideously wrong!

It’s followed by sinister goings-on at the local library, pop-culture slasher and action heroes on a mission that takes a different-kind-of-slashy turn, some uncomfortable insights into writer critique groups, creepy-guy obsessions, alien invasion, and more.

Definitely a book where the more you know / the closer you are to certain circles, the more fun you’ll have … but raucous and raunchy and fun either way!

-Christine Morgan

PREVIEW:

SECOND LIVES by P.D. Cacek (to be released 4/11/19 by Flame Tree Press / 304 pp / hardcover & trade paperback)

It has been a few years since the last full length novel from Cacek, and with SECOND LIVES she makes a powerful return to the form.

In this deep look at reincarnation, Cacek introduces us to four people (eight, technically) who have been declared dead, yet wake with new personalities. Nearly half the book is spent not only on the recently deceased, but we get backstory on the past lives whose souls are about to be brought into modern times. I think some will find this first half a bit confusing, but stick with it as Cacek manages to keep the reader interested and I found myself emotionally invested in each one.

I love how the author handled one character in particular, a Jewish man who had died back in the 1920s, and now has to deal with living as a person whose life wasn’t exactly in agreement with his own strict beliefs. Kudos for each of the other reincarnated souls, dealing with modern technology, illnesses, and other issues I’ve never seen dealt with in similar stories before. This here is no 70s b-movie...

While not scary in the traditional genre sense, the story’s third section is heartbreaking and forces you to consider some life and death issues that may not have occurred to you before, and hence makes SECOND LIVES one of those rare reads that becomes more than a standard horror novel. And for that, this is not only one of Cacek’s finest works but one any fan of supernatural fiction will savor.

-Nick Cato

THE QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS by Matt Maxwell (2018 Broken Eye Books / 120 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Amateur historian-type that I am, I was hooked right away by the notion of a story about someone who’s not merely a restorer, copier, and translator of old tomes, antique books, and manuscripts … but a forger as well.

Cait, our protagonist, has kind of a Remington Steele gig going on with her career (talk about history, showing my age there, egads), playing ‘assistant’ to a reclusive expert who doesn’t actually exist, so her work will be taken seriously by the musty boys’ club of academia and collectors.

Heck, I would’ve gladly read the whole thing as a thriller, even if it hadn’t then gotten into the paranormal weirdness. But hey, paranormal weirdness is also good! Cait’s current project is her masterpiece, the rare Smoking Codex, about a mysterious Mesoamerican deity.

It’s so rare, in fact, that nobody’s ever heard of it. Which makes sense, because, like Cait’s mentor/boss, it doesn’t actually exist. Cait’s creating the whole thing herself, with an eye toward stirring up rumors of the discovery of a one-of-a-kind relic, to land the big sale and secure her reputation.

The problems really start when members of a gang/cult called No Tomorrows want the book before it’s finished, and know details from it they shouldn’t possibly know. Things Cait hasn’t even written yet. They want her, too. And, despite their scary reputation, despite a series of ritualized murders, Cait can’t help but be curious. Is she somehow predicting the future, or creating real magic? What is this power, where does it come from?

Neat characters, fascinating concept, solid writing. It did feel a little sparse and rushed overall, though. I wanted more detail, more depth, more fleshing-out and backstory. Really nice to see something in this vein that wasn’t yet another medieval relic!

-Christine Morgan

TWISTED TALES FROM TORNADO ALLEY by Stuart R. West (2018 Grinning Skull Press / 304 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Have never been to Kansas, and it’s perhaps just as well because just the very idea alone of tornadoes scares the everlovin’ heck out of me. The random capricious destruction! How could anyone stand to LIVE there, where it happens often enough to be seasonal??? Then again, I grew up in earthquake country and could never understand why people who didn’t were so freaked out. All what you’re used to, I guess!

This book, thankfully, is not about killer twisters. It is, however, about Kansas, as presented in short-story collection form from the mind of Stuart R. West. It opens with a folksy chat introduction, kind of like what King does in Needful Things to help set the stage and give some teasery previews of what you’re in for.

Though, after reading “Bagworms” I might almost have preferred killer twisters … a nice drive in the country when everything’s covered in cocoons and silken webbing? Eek yikes nope. Took forever for my skin to stop crawling, and that was even without considering what came out of those cocoons …

The other tales run a gamut of madness and murder, family tensions, small-town witchiness and wickedness, indignant local legends, purgatorial hauntings, the trials of adjusting to vampire life, strange things that grow in the basement, a quick dental checkup, and a journey into the depths of an underground city where terrible creatures do terrible things.

“Husk” in particular deserves special mention; it’s a powerful gut-punch beware-of-what-you-wish-for exploration of racism and privilege, teetering between uncomfortable humor and all-too-real painful unfunny.

As a bonus, it includes a peek at the opening of the author’s novel “Dread and Breakfast,” which is also a good one! Well worth checking this out.

-Christine Morgan

a HFR second look...

ALL HAIL THE HOUSE GODS by Andrew J. Stone (2018 Rooster Republic Press / 134 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This genre certainly does produce some peculiar post-apocalyptic settings! In this one, the remains of humanity exist in a strictly-structured society designed around couples producing children … not families, since the children are taken away to be raised in the Offspring Oasis … only seeing their parents during brief monthly visits …

… or when one of the children is chosen by lottery to be sacrificed to the House Gods. Which are, well, houses. Animate, living houses. That eat people. How? Why? Backstory? Never really explained, and, doesn’t really matter. It just is, that’s the world, that’s the way it works, that’s one of the neat things about bizarro.

Not all of the humans are happy with this arrangement. Kurt’s wife Katie is one of them, or becomes one following the sacrifice of their eldest son. She organizes a small group of resistance fighters with two main objectives: stop having babies, and find a way to destroy the House Gods.

Kurt, meanwhile, isn’t so sure. He doesn’t want to lose any more children, but he doesn’t want to get in trouble with the authorities for failing to couple. He’s also met Devin, a guy who believes there is another way to end the hostilities. There are, Devin says, GOOD House Gods, who could be convinced to stand up against their fellows.

So, Kurt and Devin undertake their own clandestine missions to find and talk to the good House Gods, while Katie and her cohorts are building weapons and planning their attack. And the time for the next lottery draws ever nearer …

Well-written and disturbing, taking some sharp and insightful pokes at various social issues, this is a book that will entertain but unsettle, and make you think.

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on a cell phone you're probably not going to be able to see it. Bust out the laptop, amigo...

POLYMER by Caleb Wilson (2018 Eraserhead Press / 82 / trade paperback & eBook)

Easy to see why this one made the cut for the New Bizarro Authors Series … it’s bizarro, all right, but it’s bizarro of the more elevated, experimental, avant-garde kind, while also being contemporary and current, with cutting observances on modern issues.

We already have reality shows, gameplay livestreams, and nonstop social media drama on tap 24-7. We can sit back and watch other people play video games, risk their necks in stupid stunts, ruin their love lives. We’ve always had the thrill of sporting events, gladiatorial combat, and larger-than-life celebrities.

Caleb Wilson takes all of those to the next level here, in a world where the entertainment-craving masses eagerly follow every move of their favorites to the point of hardly caring about anything else.

Favorites such as Polymer, the latest darling of the monster-hunting scene. With his shiny white jumpsuit, his sleek hairstyle, his expressionless blue neoprene face, and his deadly rapier, he’s a rockstar among rockstars. No one else can work the synth and destroy the withrons like Polymer. He’s hotter than the latest mutated-potato craze.

His fans will drop everything to follow and watch through the glass as he progresses through Sickleburg Castle. And, when new vents open between there and the outside world, his fans are pulled further into the adventure than ever before.

Like much of the genre, the more you try to logic and reason the setting, the less it works … but you don’t have to, and if you just roll with it, then the magic happens. It doesn’t need detailed explanations of the tech and such. It just IS, and what it is, is a whole lot of fast-moving fun.

-Christine Morgan

TEETH OF THE WOLF by by Lee Murray and Dan Rabarts (2018 Raw Dog Screaming Press / 236 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I went into this one somehow not having realized it was the second in a series (of which I’d also somehow missed the first!) but that quickly became very apparent as I read. Despite it being clear I was stepping into an ongoing story mid-stream, the characters were presented well enough to allow for mental filling-in of the blanks.

Scientist Pandora “Penny” Yee does some independent contract work for the local police, which lands her in the middle of some peculiar cases. Like this one, with bog bodies and mysterious tattoos and links to possible cults.

Given her life already has its peculiar aspects, mostly courtesy of her brother Matiu and his connections to underworldly and otherworldly elements, Penny’s pretty used to taking things in stride. Well, most things. She’s still at a loss whenever her parents are involved, especially when her parents are involved trying to play matchmaker at her. Or her erratic aunt goes off the rails in a family emergency.

Or Matiu, who’s got his own inexplicable events unfolding on the side, continues NOT TELLING HER STUFF. That was my biggest problem with the book (aside from the title never quite clicking for me for some reason), and it was purely interpersonal. A whole lot of trouble could’ve been avoided if they just TALKED. Kinda made me want to smack them both.

A fun read, but I recommend starting at the beginning if you can. Not necessary, but probably makes for a more satisfying experience overall. (important note, btw: it’s near-future, 2040s; took me a while to catch on. The first time I spotted a reference to the date, I thought it must be a typo; oops! my bad).

-Christine Morgan

100 WORD HORRORS: PART 2 edited by Kevin J. Kennedy (2019 KJK Publishing / 138 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Alright, folks! Step right up, read all about it. That is, if we’re talking about some of those little one-hundred-word long pieces of violent and macabre flash fiction called drabbles. That’s right, boys and girls. The first book of drabbles did so well it came back for round two and I’m not going to lie ... I’m drabbling a little bit out the side of my mouth right now, as I’m staring at that beautiful, sexy vintage horror paperback cover from yesteryear. The only difference in the concept of this anthology from the first one is this was invite-only, and I have to admit the lineup here is nothing short of admirable. I also found myself enjoying this installment much more than the first because I found it to be more fun and versatile overall, as well as a bit more violent and gruesome. From violent murder to exquisite mayhem, tough love and tragic tragedies, erotic sex and well also some not so erotic corpse sex, money, power, and fame this book of drabbles is sure to leave you wanting more, gasping for air from within your own grave, and the drabbles within are powerful enough to leave a blood-lasting imprint on the top of your mind for some time to come and then some.

Some of my personal favorites were 'On the Second Date' by Mark Cassell, 'The Rash' by Justin Boote, 'Snow Angel' by Michael A. Arnzen, 'Instant Messaging' by Billy S. Juan, 'Haunted' by Amy Cross, 'Out of Tune' by Chad Lutzke, 'Just Like Your Grandma' by Pippa Bailey, 'My Pet Unicor'n by Sarina Dorie, and 'Laid to Rest' by Derek Shupert.

-Jon R. Meyers

THE PROSTITUTE'S PRICE by Alan M. Clark (2018 IFD Publishing / 244 pp / trade paperback, eBook, & audiobook)

Alan M. Clark’s beautifully bleak, haunting series about the victims of Jack the Ripper does something different in that it doesn’t focus on the killings or killer at all. The focus here is the women themselves, their stories and histories, their real lives, and what led those lives to the point where they crossed the maniac’s path to reach an untimely end.

And this one does something even more different; it’s got a companion piece, a book called THE ASSASSIN'S COIN by John Linwood Grant. I’ve not yet read that one, but I very much need and want to. They go together, facets of the same darkly fascinating historical jewel, presenting events from differing perspectives.

On this side of the story, we have Mary Jane Kelly, believed to be the Ripper’s final victim. Mary Jane Kelly, who also helped her sisters of the streets look out for each other, who became involved with some illicit activities, and who made the acquaintance of an ordinary-seeming but very dangerous man. He comes across almost as some sort of Victorian vigilante, putting the information Mary gathers for him to use.

It’s Mary Jane’s story, though, all the way from her struggling childhood and short-lived marriage through her introduction into her new trade and its rises and falls. It’s Mary Jane’s life, the friends and rivals she makes, the romances she doesn’t think she deserves. It isn’t about the terrible, bloody conclusion. It’s about the real person, and the tragedy of a desperate life.

Clark writes historical well, he writes women well, he does an excellent job capturing the atmosphere of the times and the emotions of the characters. Really good stuff, tragic but beautifully done.

-Christine Morgan

THE ASSASSIN'S COIN by John Linwood Grant (2018 IFD Publishing / 280 pp / trade paperback, eBook, & audiobook)

This one is the companion piece to Alan M. Clark’s most recent (and excellent) THE PROSTITUTE'S PRICE. Separately, they each weave compelling tales of life and death in 1880s Whitechapel. Together, they make a full, rich, complex story set against the backdrop of the Jack the Ripper killings but not focused on the Ripper himself.

Other people, other lives, are center stage here. While Clark’s books involve the often-tragic pasts of the victims, Grant’s protagonist is a struggling working woman of another sort. Catherine Weatherhead, estranged from her domineering father, makes her way as a practicing spiritualist.

Calling herself Madame Rostov, she isn’t into the table-rapping or ectoplasmic manifestations or channeling spirit guides, like many of her professional peers. Unlike them, however, she isn’t a total fraud. While she does rely on information and psychology, she also has a modest but legitimate psychic gift.

Modest, until she telepathically taps into the mind of a killer … not the infamous Jack, but another mystery man who also appears in Clark’s book. The Deptford Assassin, Whitechapel’s own anti-hero, is like an uneasy cross between Dexter and Daredevil, part vigilante, part killer-for-hire.

This connection is a serious distraction to her regular work, most of which involves doing sittings with grieving widows or young ladies curious about what lies Beyond the Veil. It then leads Catherine into an encounter with the assassin himself, and almost before she knows it, she’s engaged his services to help right an injustice.

From there, she continues bearing clairvoyant witness to his deeds, including his developing interest once the Ripper killings begin. That a cousin of Catherine’s is among the victims only leads to the logical next step – if it takes a thief to catch a thief, maybe it takes a killer to catch a killer.

Compelling on its own, totally enthralling when paired with its other half, great characters, great writing, excellent story, well done!

-Christine Morgan

DEVOURING DARK by Alan Baxter (2018 Grey Matter Press / 320 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Maybe it was because I’d recently finished binge-watching THE PUNISHER, but wow did this book make me think the Netflix people should get right on it right quick! Had all the elements for a perfect series in that format and style, only, set in London instead of New York.

Matt MacLeod is anything but a hero. He’s just a loner, trying to get by, living with a guilty secret and a terrible dark power. Although using it takes a toll on his health, letting the darkness build up is also dangerous. He tries to deal with this by, vigilante-like, only going after the worst of the worst, and so far has managed to not leave too many incriminating bodies in his wake.

One night, though, he’s spotted by a kid who works as a runner for local crime boss Vince Stratton, and Stratton is all too eager to add a new weapon to his arsenal. Matt has to play along if he’s going to protect his estranged family and friends. In the course of trying to find a way to fight back, he encounters a young woman with a similar ability.

Amy Cavendish, a hospice nurse, sees her darkness more as a gift. She’s far from the ‘angel of death’ type, easing the passing of her patients and then using what she collects from them to dispense retribution her own way. Soon, Matt and Amy are in a desperate rush to stay a step ahead of Stratton’s schemes, as Matt’s power nears its limits and Amy’s threatens to spiral out of control.

The characters are fantastic and fun, great evil-but-enjoyable villainy, excellent and compelling side characters, excellently believable supporting cast. The action moves right along, shifting angles from good guys to bad guys to police investigation. I read the whole thing in a single night, which only further proves my initial point: this story here is made for bingeing!

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on your cell phone you probably won't be able to see it. Boot up the 'ol laptop, baby...

NO GIG IS TOO SMALL by Andre Duza (2018 Deadite Press / 148 pp / trade paperback)

Almost four years ago, I read and reviewed Duza’s shock-jock radio show zombie apocalypse book, WZMB, which presented the end of the world and the collapse of civilization through an assortment of clips, transcripts, eyewitness accounts, and other unusual narrative approaches.

Picking up NO GIG IS TOO SMALL and realizing it was a sequel, with a similar hodge-podge of nontraditional styles, made for a delightful surprise! This time, in a VH1-esque Behind the Music format, we follow the megastar 80’s band Serpentine on a reunion tour like no other.

Rockers Graeme, Jules, and Hollister are hitting the road in a doomsday prepper’s kitted-out ride, getting it all on video as they brave the dead-shambling ruins. It could be the biggest comeback ever. It could get them torn apart and eaten.

Or it could turn into something even weirder, as they notice the same figure appearing again and again … a woman in a Serpentine concert shirt, whose behavior proves strikingly unlike the other undead. She was a big fan who never got her fondest wish, and now someone is hoping to make her post-mortem dreams come true.

Told through video footage and voice-overs, descriptive fragments, script-like dialogue, flashbacks, omniscient camera overview, and so on, it isn’t the smoothest read … but it doesn’t have to be. Nor should it be. Like WZMB before it, the style works great for the story, and again lends a fresh, different take to the zombie genre.

-Christine Morgan

THAT WHICH GROWS WILD by Eric J. Guignard (2018 Cemetery Dance / 296 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, & eBook)

Prolific and excellent editor as he is, it’s sometimes easy to miss that Eric J. Guignard is an accomplished author in his own right. This gorgeous sixteen-story collection (blurbed by Ramsey Campbell no less!) certainly proves it.

The somewhat cumbersomely-titled but immediately gripping “A Case Study in Natural Selection and How it Applies to Love” starts things off with an all-too-plausible near-future where global warming has done just that, raising temps (but it’s a DRY heat!) to the point struggling survivors have to deal with spontaneous human combustion as well as chaos and drought. I’d happily read an entire novel set in that world!

Another favorite of mine was “Last Night ...”, which speculates what would happen if the planetary rotations and revolutions just suddenly stopped, tidally locking half the earth toward constant sunlight and the other under the sway of an eternally full moon … dire enough, even without a werewolf problem …

I also enjoyed “A Curse and a Kiss,” presenting a much darker-than-Disney take on Beauty and the Beast from the house servants’ point of view, with a different sort of Beast and a very different sort of Belle.

The others span a wide range of eras, settings, and styles. We get gritty gunslingers, debt and decadence, a run-in with Bigfoot, the remote horror of war, a dying mother’s dutiful son, Prohibition-era grim undertakings, a plane crash in the desolate desert, ominous sinkholes, strange plagues, love and loss in the fog, the risks of that business ‘power lunch’, a tsunami’s legacy returning from the sea, and an under-the-rainbow visit to Oz.

Some of these, I’d seen before in their original appearances. Others were brand-new to me. I found them all well-written and entertaining. Solid good stuff!

-Christine Morgan

WOUNDS: SIX STORIES FROM THE BORDER OF HELL by Nathan Ballingrud (2019 Simon and Schuster / 289 pp/ hardcover, trade paperback, eBook, audiobook)

Ballingrud’s second short story collection deals mainly with men who find themselves in dark, desperate situations, starting with ‘The Atlas of Hell,’ where a shady bookstore owner is forced by a crime lord to steal a book that’s reputed to be the gateway to hell itself. A suspenseful blend of horror, noir, and southern gothic gets this show off to a solid start.

In ‘The Diabolist,’ the daughter of a mad occultist learns the history of a summoned imp, as well as her and her father’s fate, then ‘Skullpocket’ delves into a town’s dark secret in a fairy tale-type style. Ghouls, a strange cult, child sacrifice and charnel houses are just part of what’s in store in this wickedly addictive tale.

‘The Maw’ finds an elderly man hiring a young girl to guide him through a city that has become a doorway to hell. Some images here will immediately get under your skin. I had read ‘The Visible Filth’ back in 2015 when it was released as a stand alone novella, and it made me an instant fan of the author. A bartender in New Orleans finds a cell phone that sets a creepy-crawler thriller into motion. Excellent.

WOUNDS ends with ‘The Butcher’s Table,’ a novella-length pirate tale featuring cannibal priests, Satanists, demons, double crosses, and enough schism to make even Blackbeard shudder. As someone not interested in pirate stories, this one ended up being my favorite here, and my favorite piece from the author so far.

With this and his previous collection, Ballingrud is well primed for take off.

-Nick Cato

THE BLOOD IN GUTHRIE by Kira McKinney (2018 IP / 218 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Ah, small Southern towns, their secrets, their struggles, their scandals! Some of the issues remain the same, whether modern or back in 1934. Clashes between the bible-thumpers and the roadhouse revelers, racial tensions, corrupt or incompetent officials, grisly decapitation murders …

Okay, that last one may be a little outside the curve, but, there it is. Welcome to Guthrie, where, lately, a lot of severed heads have been turning up. Just the heads, positioned at various points around town, and not much to go on in the way of clues.

Sheriff Elmer Avant, widely regarded as a bumbling idiot, is far more concerned with stuffing his face, taking it easy, and making passes at pretty blondes at the bar. His new deputy, recently relocated from the big city, is another matter. Jack McMann, overcoming his own troubled past, is determined to solve the crimes.

The problem is, hardly anyone else in town seems much to care, even as the death toll rises. Neither are they too keen on outsiders meddling in their business. Jack’s job is further complicated when suspicion and attraction collide in the form of diner-owner Minnie, a black woman with no patience for racist talk.

My biggest side-eye overall has to do with the relationship between Jack and Elmer. The level of insubordination Jack displays seems way out of place / out of line, even considering. However much a bozo Elmer might be, to put up with all that? I had a hard time buying it.

Jack’s investigations often strain suspension of disbelief, conveniently letting him overhear conversations or make huge CSI-type logic leaps. The tone strives for dark comedy but falls flat in places. Still, it was entertaining and held my interest, and I read the whole thing.

-Christine Morgan

a HFR second look:

RABID HEART by Jeremy Wagner (2018 Riverdale Avenue Books / 194 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, eBook, & audiobook)

I’d not been acquainted with this author’s work before, and was a little weary/apprehensive about yet another military-vs-zombies book. That it featured a female protagonist, however, and was billed as much as a love story as a shoot-’em-in-the-head, intrigued me.

Turns out Rhonda Driscoll is far from your typical soldier. She’s a hair stylist whose father is in charge of a last-stand stronghold military base. Although she’s learned a lot in the months since the ravenous bitey undead rampage began, although she’s capable with guns and gear and all that, the prevailing vibe is more of a ‘Take Your Daughter To Work Day’ gone too far. She’s certainly not above using Daddy’s name and rank to get around the rules when necessary.

Of course, even Daddy has limits for how far she can push it. Limits that don’t include bringing her zombified fiance back from a search-and-salvage mission to her old neighborhood. The colonel didn’t like Brad much even when he was alive. He’s not about to accept a ‘Cujo,’ as they’re called, for a son-in-law. No matter how much his little girl insists Brad is not like the others.

So, Rhonda and ball-gagged Brad make a break for it, out into the hectic, devastated remains of civilization, where they not only have to worry about Cujos and unfriendly human survivors but whether Daddy’s going to give chase.

I did have a few issues with the ‘female character written by a dude’ vibe here; some of the word choices as well as Rhonda’s thoughts and reactions gave me that familiar yeah-no kind of eyeroll. Plus, the tech/military jargon sometimes felt tell-y and overdone with more detail than needed.

It was fun, though; the action scenes high-octane bang-bang-bang entertaining, the gore plenty splattering.

-Christine Morgan

BOOK HAVEN AND OTHER CURIOSITIES by Mark Allan Gunnells (2019 Crystal Lake Publishing / 219 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Welp, folks. Hot off the press is a new jam from author Mark Allan Gunnels, and this time it's in the form of the highly creative and unique title novella, ‘Book Haven’, as well as a barrage of various short stories to follow, showcasing the author’s versatility. As a personal fan of Gunnells’ previous work I knew I was in for a real trick and treat. Gunnells’ is the real deal, a wordsmith of sorts, who possesses the power of crafting unique stories time after time that continue to whole-heartedly shock, entertain, haunt and captivate. The author also excels in creating unique characters that the reader is able to fully empathize with throughout the entirety of his work, feeling their personal tragedy and triumphs, as if they were someone we’ve already personally known for a very longtime, or we’re sitting right there dying with them on the sidelines.

Some of my personal favorites were the title novella, ‘Book Haven’, a futuristic landscape where the world’s literature has been lost, and a group of government agents are on the hunt for a vast secret library, ‘Book Haven.’ ‘C U Soon,’ a girl dies in a car accident while texting with her boyfriend, but after her funeral he continues receiving mysterious messages from her. ‘Human Bones in a China Cabinet,’ a young man has an unusual collection hidden away. ‘When Gas Was 52 Cents Per Gallon,’ a couple of friends on their way back to college stop off at an abandoned gas station with more than just car problems. And, ‘The Farm,’ a horror movie buff is in town and wreaking bloody havoc, while visiting a list (and checking items off another) of some of his favorite filming locations to some of his favorite horror movies ever made. A true gem to the horror community right here, folks.

Check it out!

-Jon R. Meyers

AND HELL FOLLOWED compiled by Jarod Barbee and Patrick C. Harrison III (2019 Death’s Head Press / 244 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

If you’re gonna blaspheme, at some point it might as well be “go big or go home.” For the fiendish folks behind the newly-established Death’s Head Press, ‘at some point’ equaled ‘right from the get-go,’ because they decided to launch with an anthology of extreme horror, bizarro, and splatterpunk based around / inspired by the Book of Revelation.

The TOC includes some of the wildest, wickedest names in the genre. Wrath James White (who also does the intro), the Sisters of Slaughter, John Wayne Communale, Wile E. Young, K. Trap Jones, the distinct depraved horror-comic stylings of Jeff Strand, and many more!

(yes, including me, though after reading all the others I feel a little weird; they mostly went hardcore and I’ve got this sweary little brat of an angel because one part of Revelation always seemed so weirdly random and out-of-nowhere to me)

These stories do not hold back. Nothing is sacred. Much is savagely desecrated. The Four Horsemen make their appearances, so does the Whore of Babylon. So do the doomed sinners and damned souls by the millions. Devils and archangels, minions and monsters, the Mark of the Beast … the biblical prophecies of the end of days provide plenty of fodder for apocalyptic atrocity.

As for production value, weathered-looking matte cover gives the book a striking appearance and texture, Don Noble’s cover is a stark/sleek dash of evil. If the print’s maybe a little smaller than my aging eyes would have chosen, and it could’ve used one more proofread, it’s still one Hell of a debut, pun totes intended.

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're reading this on a cell phone you're probably not going to see it. Break out the lap top, amigo ...

THE PANDORA ROOM by Christopher Golden (2019 St. Martin's Press / 320 pp / hardcover, eBook, audiobook)

Golden's 2017 novel ARARAT made my top ten favorite horror novels that year (and won a Bram Stoker Award, too), so I was thrilled to hear he had written a sequel featuring its main character, Ben Walker. This time Walker is called to check out a find made by archaeologist Sophie Durand and her crew in Northern Iraq. Sophie has discovered a jar in an underground city that may contain either ancient curses or blessings, and hence their site is not only put under tight security but the crew are rushing to get their find out of there before anyone can intercept their work. The fear is this "Pandora's Box" may contain a plague of biblical proportions. As Walker arrives from a mission in Greenland, Jihad terrorists attack and all hell breaks loose.

The action and suspense begin on the first page, as Sophie is trailed back to the dig site by two mysterious figures. Golden wastes no time delivering a fresh twist on the Pandora's Box myth, and this time instead of demons, our explorers face a deadly plague while trying to stay safe from ISIS soldiers … while trapped below ground. If you're claustrophobic, THE PANDORA ROOM will freak you out as much if not more than the 2005 horror film THE DESCENT. Yep, this one captures that same sense of dread (and throws a mysterious disease into the mix for good measure!).

While it was nice to see Ben Walker back in action, I really liked Sophie's extreme yet serious nature. She's not afraid to risk life and limb for her passion and we believe she'd do just about anything to find out just what's in that ancient jar she has unearthed. Here's hoping we see more of her. I also liked the classic monster movie-type post-ending.

I've mentioned it many times, but it bears repeating: Christopher Golden is one of the most consistent writers out there, and THE PANDORA ROOM is one of those novels you hate to put down. It's fast paced, suspenseful, full of fantastic characters, and reads like a popcorn-munching summer blockbuster. A best bet for a beach read this summer.

-Nick Cato

THE BONES BENEATH THE FLESH by Shain Stodt (2018 IP / 177 pp / trade paperback)

Went into this one without knowing anything about it, certainly without knowing it was the origin/prequel … I really need to start paying more attention sometimes, because then certain elements might not come as such a "wait, what?" surprise.

It starts off with a Native American woman who’s a retired military general, a wendigo attack, and a helicopter rescue, okay. Then the storyline jumps to a girl whose brother is turning into a monster (well, he always was a monster, just, now it’s literal). More, he’s at the epicenter of an outbreak, but it’s no normal outbreak. Combining viral-infectious stuff with possession/supernatural stuff, it’s starting to look like the beginning of the end. Which it is.

From there, things jump again to Liz and her pal Bennie, who realize bad stuff is seriously going on. The cast of characters grows rapidly, with Liz’s sister, and their lesbian neighbors, one of whom’s a witch ...

Then the jumps become cosmic quantum leaps, as suddenly there’s this whole other fantasy magic world Harry Potter thing where Liz has to go to find out about her true parentage, and meanwhile all these other mythic beings from various cultures are joining the fray, and … yeah.

Nit-picky, not sure if a formatting glitch or what, but apostrophe issues throughout also made me half-crazy. The writing was lively and energetic, could have used a little more editorial love. The violent gory scenes are quite gooshily violent and gory.

There’s a whole lot of everything at once going on here, thrown at the reader’s face in a dizzying barrage. Heavily feminist, heavily LGBTQ and POC, and vegan, etc; soon I could only think of all those “this is the future that liberals want” memes you see around the internet.

-Christine Morgan

ERIE TALES IX: TRANSFORMATION edited by Michael Cieslak (2019 Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers / 99 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

The GLAHW crew return again, this time with ten tales of transformation with a twist.

In “Feathers,” Montilee Stormer starts us off with an adult after-dinner take on a game normally reserved for tween slumber parties, in which the familiar ‘light as a feather, stiff as a board’ turns out to be just the start of a complicated and dangerous ritual.

Christian Klaver’s “Day of the Blood Tigers” feels like an odd fit for the theme, not so much about actual shapeshifting as it is about weird paranormal hunters and disappearances.

“The Howling Wolf” by Peggy Christie flips the werewolf legend on its head in a fun way, though I had some trouble with the logistics of it all with the moon phases and just how it was supposed to work.

The always-entertaining Ken MacGregor opens “The Grunt” with the line “You had sex with a WEREWOLF?” and really, what more do you need? Well, stronger condoms, maybe …

“Uninhabited” by Wayne C. Wescott presents a grim future where our new shapeshifting alien overlords frown on people eating their dead, and with good reason, as one hungry guy finds out.

H.R. Boldwood’s “The Good Life” has a drifter after a rough night at the bar make the acquaintance of a wise stranger with a secret, offering a new opportunity.

Next up is “Tadpole” by Janice Leach, for a quick, poetic, oddly pretty change of pace, with nicely done descriptive elements.

“Sanctuary in a Small Town” by Essel Pratt looks at the homesick loneliness of being separated from your pack, and the struggles of trying to lead an ordinary life … until the past catches up.

Cassie Carnage’s fun “Of ‘Squatch and Men” explores what can happen when a weekend camping trip goes badly awry for a bunch of beer-drinking buddies.

Closing the book out is “The Shifter of Shapes” by Justin Holley, a cautionary lesson on the we-never-learn dangers of messing with magic.

-Christine Morgan

UNDER ROTTING SKY by Matthew V. Brockmeyer (2019 Black Thunder Press / 342 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

So, with the month of May being International Short Story month in mind, this was a first for me by the author as I usually like to read short story collections and various horror anthologies throughout the typical work week, and I couldn’t be happier to have spent the time to have checked out this collection recently available from Black Thunder Press. Overall, the stories were extremely versatile and well versed for fans of Dark, Extreme, Horror, and Transgressive Fiction, leaning more towards the extreme side of the above-mentioned genres as far as the prose and content itself is concerned. As with most collections not every story is going to be a homerun but, out of the twenty or so stories there’s actually quite a lot to offer inside this monster of a collection.

Some of my favorites were ‘Joyride’, a delve into a homeless couple living under a bridge, whilst suffering from heroin addiction and withdrawal, as the ghost of a little girl haunts one of the main characters to his hopeless plummet into the depths of his own demise, darkness, and despair. This was a great display of the author’s extreme versatility. ‘Nightingale’, the last known survivor of a notorious inferno that took place in 1910 gets interviewed and unleashes the dark and grim secrets of what really happened on that fateful night. In ‘A New Man’, a man has the internet to thank in more ways than one for teaching him the ways of transorbital lobotomies as he himself becomes an entirely new man.

Other honorable mentions: The Gym Teacher, Under Rotting Sky, Have a Heart, Bubblegum Cigarettes, and The Number of Darkness.

-Jon R. Meyers

KILLING POPPY by William Perk (2018 Apocalypse Party / 147 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

So I’m just standing there and this guy comes up and slips me something, no charge, first hit’s free. Turns out it’s a book about addiction, and if that isn’t one of the most fitting things ever, I don’t know what is.

Unlike many bizarro books that are their own wild drug trip, Killing Poppy is a brilliant and troubling journey through a junkie’s struggle to get clean … though certainly not by any of the usual therapeutic ways. No clinics here, no meetings and step programs. But there is, in a sense, involvement of a higher power.

Gust Ivey lives rambling around the urban weirdness of Portland, Oregon. I haven’t lived here long or spent much time in the areas described, but even so, his random encounters with fellow denizens as described ring true enough to me.

Then he meets an old guy who’s peculiar even by Portland standards. Calling himself Salo, the old guy claims to be an angel whose current assignment is to get Gust off the stuff, one way or another, Gust has two choices: LIFE or DEATH. Ironically, the LIFE choice still involves death, in a way. Gust needs to symbolically kill his dependence by killing it personified.

He names her Poppy, this representation, and at Salo’s instructions carries on writing a letter to her about their shared history. Only, there’s a catch. If Poppy is a stand-in for addiction, at some point a real person is going to have to be the stand-in for Poppy.

What follows is an increasingly hectic semi-accidental crime-spree scramble, with robberies, street-fights, gun-fights, goats, severed heads, social media, breaking news updates, and more. Oh, and the scene with the turtle? Just about broke my heart. I’m seriously upset about the turtle.

The book itself is an artful experience, with illustrations and unusual use of typesetting and many other break-the-rules things to make it far more than a simple bunch of text on a page. It’s also the author’s first book, and as such, is one doozy of a talented debut!

-Christine Morgan

PREVIEW:

IMPOSSIBLE JAMES by Danger Slater (to be released 6/15/19 by Fungasm Press / 224 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

There’s a lot of bandying-about right now of the term “elevated horror,” which, like with “literary,” just seems to me like a silly face-saving way of letting regular people not feel ashamed of enjoying what’s usually and should-be seen as wrong tacky lowbrow trash. (for the record, I love wrong tacky lowbrow trash and am proud to say so)

Can something similar apply to bizarro? Is there “elevated bizarro”? So it’s ‘okay’ somehow to get a kick out of the weird [bleep], because it’s not all Nazis and dildos and talking butts? (again, not that there’s anything wrong with those, either!) The answer is yes, of course. Authors like Violet LeVoit and Jeremy Robert Johnson have been doing it for YEARS.

And so’s this Slater guy. Didn’t I say last time he keeps getting better and better? Well, it’s true, and he’s proving me right yet again with this new one. If anything, Impossible James takes his work to an even higher level than his previous achievements.

Yes, okay, the story’s about this terminally ill dude who gets a screwdriver stuck in his head, impregnates himself with his own clone, bloats into a weird house-sized behemoth, and destroys the world while survivors try to escape through pandimensional folding geometry, but … y’know, in a brilliantly written, seamlessly logicked (I’ll make up words if I want, hush), insanely insightful way.

Astute readers may notice some familiar names and places; I asked the author outright if he was going to carry on for an entire Sycamore Lane alternate reality trilogy after this, but he just did one of his puckish devious grins.

The phrase that irrevocably came to my mind while reading it was “ominous maturity.” I’m not entirely sure what that’s supposed to mean, but, I’m more eager than ever to see where Danger Slater goes from here.

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on a cell phone you probably won't see it. Break out the lap top amigo...

PREVIEW:

SCUM OF THE EARTH by Cody Goodfellow (to be released 7/1/19 by Eraserhead Press / 164 pp / trade paperback)

The latest offering from the always wild Cody Goodfellow is a sex-charged, post-apocalyptic sci-fi romp wheremost of humanity has been exterminated save for small groups who are hiding across the galaxy on strange planets. We learn aliens have been stealing human brains for hundreds of years and selling them (apparently our brains/imaginations give a better high to extraterrestrials than super crack). Mankind's only hope is a motley crew of space pirates, led by a former stripper (and insatiable nymphomaniac) named Callista Chrome, and MAN does she like to get busy in the sack regardless of who it's with (there are a few great gags with her shape-shifting first mate that had me laughing out loud).

Our crew travels on a gigantic ship that's actually a starfish, and getting it to go in certain directions requires some witty planning by Callista and co. And as they try to rescue the remaining humans, they come up against some of the craziest obstacles in the universe, including space Vikings, intergalactic drug dealers, sex-charged platypuses and a host of characters who'd make George Lucas blush and possibly commit suicide.

Goodfellow's writing (if you've never read him) is frantic (in a good way) and never lets you rest. The humor level is fantastic and I cracked up a few times, even during some of the more disgusting sexual situations. SCUM OF THE EARTH is definitely not for everyone, but those with a taste for dark humor, bizarro and some great meta-style jokes will eat this up as fast as I did. If you enjoyed Christopher Rowley's "Pleasure Model" trilogy, you'll probably enjoy this, but be warned this one's a lot more extreme … and weird.

Grab this on July 1st and try reading it on the beach … those sunbathing around you will definitely hear you laughing (or gagging).

-Nick Cato

THE BONES OF THE EARTH by Scott Hale (2015 / 308 pp / trade paperback, eBook, audiobook)

This book – the start of a series, I’m pleased to see – nicely manages to meld post-apocalyptic with paranormal, sweeping dark fantasy, and touches of cosmic horror. It’s our world, but well into the future, after humanity’s crossed the inevitable destructive border. Although relics and language (including slang) and ruins have survived, new societies and beings of various types have developed.

Most of surviving humanity has become what’s called Corrupted, marked by a tell-tale discoloration of one arm. Vrana is not one of them. Her people, though largely human in appearance, take on masks and characteristics of various other creatures. Vrana is the Raven, and has just come of age to undertake the trials of adulthood set to her by the village elders.

What follows is an epic adventure of exploration, discovery, stirring up ancient evils, uncovering hidden truths, the classic hero’s-journey with strong overtones of semi-YA dystopia. There are monsters to fight, menaces to overcome, mysterious places to venture into, strong action scenes, and cultural references that don’t feel as out of place as they otherwise might.

Vrana as a character is gutsy, believable, and fun; she doesn’t suffer from most of the annoying YA heroine traits; her capabilities and flaws are nicely balanced, and her relationships with other characters ring natural and true. We get just enough backstory and tantalizing foreshadow to hint at further story developments as the series progresses, but without any sort of chosen/destined one vibes.

The writing style is particularly well-done, lavish and beautiful, featuring some truly stunning turns of phrase. On several occasions, I’d have to take a moment to just sit there and silently wow. I was reminded more than once of the gorgeously-turned prose of Damien Angelica Walters. Definitely a potent start to what’s sure to be a solid series.

-Christine Morgan

TOXIC LOVE by Kristopher Triana (2019 Blood Bound Books / 164 p / eBook)

Remember the show DIRTY JOBS? Mike Rowe’d be out there doing stuff all eew and gross and disgusting and awful? Septic stuff, veterinary, hoarders, cadaver farms? Well, even that show didn’t tackle the job THIS Mike has.

Mike Ashbrook cleans up places where bad things happen. Messy, biological, terrible things. Crime scenes, accidents, the home of that neighbor nobody’s seen for a few weeks, you get the idea. Worst of the worst, bodily fluids and rot, mangled corpses, etc. But, the pay’s good, and he’s pretty good at dealing with the horrors, and at this point in his life he’s feeling too old and burned out to change careers yet again.

Then, along comes Sage, his new partner. She’s young, vibrant, gorgeous, smart. Her family’s got money; she doesn’t even need the job. But she enjoys her work. REALLY enjoys it. A lot. A LOT a lot. We’re not just talking mildly turned on. We’re talking full-blown sex-maniac fetish. This is the only way she can satisfy her cravings, and she’s not adverse to sharing her fun.

And Mike, though initially hesitant for a variety of very good reasons, can’t resist the temptation. Soon, they are right down there wallowing in it, each new job pushing them to wilder and freakier extremes … until they get caught, and fired, and lucky not to land in jail.

By then as hooked on Sage as she’s hooked on gore, Mike is desperate to find a way to continue their relationship. Even if it means breaking a few laws, and not just the laws of common decency. Even if it means shedding some blood, or worse.

What follows is a fast, slippery (very slippery) slope into absolute depravity. No level of hazmat suits will help. No amount of showers in scalding bleach will let you feel clean again. The final scenes will stain your brain in a way that is NEVER coming out.

Each book I read by this guy only further convinces me he’s one of THE names to watch, an extreme horror superstar in the making. Can’t possibly say enough good things!

-Christine Morgan

DIRTY ROTTEN HIPPIES AND OTHER STORIES by Bryan Smith (2019 Grindhouse Press / 256 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This new collection by Bryan Smith is jam-packed with unique short stories, the novelette ‘Some Crazy Fucking Shit That Happened One Day’, and a mini-collection referred to as ‘Seven Deadly Tales of Terror’, both previously only available in eBook format. The first thing I noticed upon reading was the author can spin a unique and original zombie tale, a once highly over-indulged sub-genre of horror fiction, but there’s no worries in that department here, folks, because he’s just that good of a writer and he pulls it off with ease and then some. From EC and Creepshow comic book-esque horror, creature features, and unique tales of the undead. This highly universal collection has a little bit for everyone.

‘Dirty Rotten Hippies’, the main novella in this collection, is an action-packed Woodstock-era NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD but with more sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. A mystery drug sickens the entire crowd, and it’s not just the classic tunes of The Grateful Dead that start to rise from the ground that keep these groovy fans screaming for more.

‘Some Crazy Fucking Shit That Happened One Day,’ my personal favorite from the entire collection is a novelette that features a guy stepping outside for a smoke, when a mysterious bus full of Satanic cheerleaders stop to pick him up. After, realizing this wasn’t just another strange trip, the main character fears for his life as they are heading to the cemetery to summon Nazi era zombies, and this far out groovy tale of terror only gets much weirder and more enjoyable from there. A good old-fashioned blood-soaked hoot and holler.

Other honorable mentions: 'Chainsaw Sex Maniacs from Mars', 'We are 138 Golden Elm', and 'Bloodsucking Nuns for Satan.'

Do yourself a favor and check this one out!

-Jon R. Meyers

A HAWK IN THE WOODS by Carrie Laben (2019 Word Horde / 270 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

A HAWK IN THE WOODS takes the ominous atmosphere of dysfunctional families with secrets, combines it with a mysterious half-rustic kind of southern gothicness, add in supernatural abilities and ties to cosmic horror / eldritch magic, and then modernize the whole deal with a good social media kick in the pants.

Abby Waite is even more of an attention-junkie than everyone else on Twitter and Instagram. As a kid, she realized she not only had a knack for making people do what she wanted, but she could feed off their attention. Positive or negative, didn’t matter; as long as they were thinking about her and directing emotional energy her way, she’d get that needed rush.

She comes by it naturally – well, sort of. Her mom and grandfather and Waites going back as far as their New England roots have similar abilities, up to and including fully taking people’s bodies over, or coming back from the dead, or summoning things best not summoned.

Her twin sister Martha, however, takes more after their grandmother, with a different sort of gift. Martha can alter the flow of time, making hours or days pass in a flash, resetting and altering events … as long as she can hold onto it.

Thing is, for Abby, time is suddenly a concern. She’s been diagnosed with something terminal, and her only hope is to unlock the rest of the family secrets. To do that, she needs the help of her sister, whom she has to bust out of prison. And there are other forces at work that don’t want them to succeed.

It’s a strange sort of chick flick sister adventure, paranormal THELMA AND LOUISE on the road and on the run, trying to stay ahead of the powers out to stop them, while working out the issues in their own relationship. An odd mix, but it works very well!

-Christine Morgan

THREE DAYS IN ASHFORD by Ty Tracey (2018 Bowker / 349 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I’m sorry to say I had a hard time slogging through this one. The writing’s fine for the most part, but it is very detailed and precise, particularly for something done mainly through first-person perspective as well as letters and transcripts … the expected immediacy and intimacy is not much to be found.

The dialogue, as well, comes across as really stiff, stilted enough to be dressed as Uncle Sam in a 4th of July parade, rarely sounding like the way real people would talk, except for the occasions when characters attempt banter, but even then tend to come off as arrogant or unreal.

That’s all even before getting into the plot, which is on the face of it promising enough: the crew of a popular paranormal-investigation show get invited to a town that, although it apparently doesn’t exist on any map or in any legal record, has multiple disappearances and a long history of weird occurrences.

So, naturally, they decide to go check it out. Despite things going off-the-charts bad wrong before they even GET there, things like being tracked by a total men-in-black rig, or like, oh, one of the team suddenly shouting in Sumerian and trying to bite the face off another of the team …

Daniel Hollowell, the show’s lead, is the one relating most of the story, though other parts are brought in through later court transcripts and what he reads in an old journal. While the descriptions are strong, the best bits of the book are the bits not even directly connected to the main storyline – flashbacks involving other cases, and Daniel’s relationship with his wife and daughter, for instance.

It then basically goes full Twin Peaks / X-Files / cults / government conspiracies / meta-religion / time displacement / legal drama, as if an entire fall lineup from one of those documentary channels was crammed together. I suppose, under the right circumstances, it’d make for an interesting backdrop or setup for a roleplaying campaign, but as was, the dryness and blandness sucked the life out of the story.

-Christine Morgan

MOONLIGHT SERENADES by Thom Carnell (2018 Macabre Ink / 306 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This collection spans several years, including pieces previously appearing in various issues of Carpe Noctem Magazine as well as several until-now-unpublished tales. In the author’s foreword, he’s open and candid about the loss of his mother, his resultant writer’s block, and eventual return to the page. Each story also features a small introduction, and mood-setting/amplifying quotes throughout to enhance the impact.

From organized crime in exotic foreign cities to teens at a small-town carnival to an old woman on her lonely mountain … from poignantly beautiful tales of love and loss to the perils of self-pleasure in a post-apocalyptic world … from a couple of cleverly-twisted takes on a familiar horror classic to a parent’s nightmarish revenge … they run a strange but engaging gamut. With lots of zombies, but not all zombies!

Many of the stories, particularly those involving recurring character and general tough guy Cleese, showcase the author’s extensive studies and practice of martial arts. While I appreciate the technical aspects of this, I’ve always found too much detailed precision and play-by-play choreography somewhat tedious and off-putting in combat and other action scenes. Important for the author to know, maybe, but for the reader it can often bog things down and turn what’s meant to be exciting into a skim-past-it or a slog.

My personal favorite of the collection is the gleefully-imagined “Clown Town.” It’s clown noir. Yes. Clown noir. In which society is structured of every type of clown you can think of, from the elite Harlequins at the top down on through rodeo clowns, keystone-cop clowns, and mimes.

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on your cell phone switch to "Request Desktop Site" or you probably won't see it.

ONE FOR THE ROAD by Wesley Southard (2019 Deadite Press / 100 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I’d only recently (and finally!) gotten around to watching the excellent movie GREEN ROOM, so as soon as I started reading this book, a set of expectations built themselves up in my mind. A struggling indie band going from gig to gig, ending up in deadly trouble … well, can you blame me?

But I got much more than I bargained for from this fast, fun, headbanging wild ride. Much, much more. Told up-front-admittedly unreliable narrator style in the form of a crayon-scribbled journal, guitarist Spencer chronicles the final tour of metalheads Rot in Hell as their situation goes from bad to worse to downright unthinkable.

It doesn’t help that the six of them are already having problems amongst themselves … personality clashes, jealousy, dislikes, secrets. Spencer and Vinnie are planning to quit, just as frontman and all-around jerk Steve announces a big career-making opportunity … Steve’s girl Shelly has the hots for Spencer and woe to them if anyone finds out … add in spoiled rich-kid bassist Les and the silent, violent D-rail, and the drama’s approaching full boil even before they find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere.

But this is no ordinary middle-of-nowhere. This is a place that changes from sandy desert to dense jungle to frozen wasteland without warning. And forget merely running afoul of an enclave of violent, heavily-armed skinheads in the remote backwoods; there are nightmarish creatures here that would make heavily-armed skinheads look cuddly.

So yeah, those initial expectations and comparisons to Green Room are pretty quickly right out the window. The members of Rot in Hell all too soon find themselves at risk of living up to their actual band name. Or maybe ‘living up to’ is the wrong phrase. Living at all might be optimistic!

-Christine Morgan

THE MURDER OF JESUS CHRIST by John R. Little (2019 Bad Moon Books / 309 pp / trade paperback)

This one came to me as an uncorrected proof, and was still cleaner than a lot of finished final editions, so, start off with mad kudos to everyone involved on that! I’m kind of curious to see what the eventual cover design will be, but, weirdly, at the same time, this stark and plain no-frills look works surprisingly well.

The story is a strikingly weird mix of genres, hard to classify. A paranormal religious thriller with sci-fi, historical, and psychological elements … a time-travel “what if” with repercussions changing everything for two thousand years.

Photographer David Abelman has always been a science guy. He’s never gotten into his ancestral Jewish faith, he broke up with his astronaut girlfriend over matters of her faith, and he certainly never would have expected to experience first-hand proof of past lives.

Yet, when his grandmother bequeaths him a host of family lore – including how many relatives met their fates in concentration camps – and shares a magical secret, he’s compelled to investigate despite his skepticism.

He discovers he can visit his previous selves, going back through the ages. He can change things. He can change history. Now, the classic question is usually to do with Hitler, obvious choice would seem obvious, but David takes it much further. If no Christianity, no Holocaust, right?

But, of course, as is the way with changing history, sometimes even with the best of intentions, you make things worse. That’s what happens to David, who then also discovers his deed coming back to haunt him in an entirely new way – a teenage black girl claiming she’s the messiah, with modern technology and social media to spread her message.

I love extrapolatory stuff like this, where the author’s clearly given thought to the fallout and repercussions. My main nit was that I wanted to see more of it, such as, what about the various other polytheistic faiths displaced by Christianity? (okay and a very minor nit about the reference to Santa).

Wowser of a book; fascinating and well written. Dan Brown should eat his heart out.

-Christine Morgan

BROKEN SHELLS by Michael Hicks (2018 High Fever Books / 124 pp / trade paperback, eBook, audiobook)

Sometimes, you just know it’s a scam, it’s a deal too good to be true, but you can’t help looking into it anyway. For Antoine DeWitt, it arrives in the form of a mailbox scratch-off ticket from a local car dealership, suggesting he’s won five thousand dollars.

He sure could use it. Not only is he already struggling to make ends meet, not only does he have a kid and baby-mama depending on him, but he just lost his job (for, btw, reasons that make him an immediately sympathetic and satisfying protagonist). So, he decides to go check out this offer, even though he figures it’ll only lead to a big sales pitch.

It leads to something much worse than a sales pitch. Turns out, the guy who runs the dealership is also custodian of a deadly ancient evil hive of monsters. When hopeful candidates show up to ask about their five grand, he determines if they’re likely to be missed … and he makes that determination about Antoine.

Next thing Antoine knows, he’s waking up bruised and battered in the dark, cocooned into some horrible nightmare. He manages to break loose, only to find himself surrounded by previous victims, and hellish creatures ready to eat him … or worse.

With overtones of Lovecraftian/Aliens and tons of good ol’ gonzo creature-feature skittering bloodbath action gore, it’s a fun quick wild ride of a read. Definite treat; I will be on the lookout for more from this author in the future.

-Christine Morgan

DARK RIDE by Iain Rob Wright (2019 Amazon Digital Services, LLC / 203 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

DARK RIDE: A Novel of Horror & Suspense? Check. Yep. You can say that again. And it’s funny because I wasn’t sure at first because we started out with some pretty stereotypical horror tropes in the beginning, but, let’s face it, for a successful story an author needs to deliver us the story goods, and, as the reader, we need to be able to engage with our characters, relate to and have empathy for. Love, hate, or even worse loathe entirely. Once the story is setup this is where the author really begins to shine and he knocks it out of the park, so to speak. This book pretty much has it all, as well as one of the most intense endings I’ve read in a while. I could honestly actually see this being a decent new wave horror movie and I really enjoyed the latter parts.

A pro wrestler has more than a secret to share with his friends when they embark on one last trip of a lifetime together. The crew packs up without a spare tire, heeding all warnings, and visit an old, abandoned amusement park, where one ride specifically has a more than tragic history. The notorious Frenzy, a Viking helmet shaped water-ride like a rollercoaster. But, there’s a catch. There’s always a catch, right? It’s haunted as all get out years after a crazed employee set fire to the building, leaving nine people dead, and nothing is quite like it seems. After the ride was condemned and the amusement park closed, the building has sat vacant and overgrown in the middle of the woods. That is, until now when AJ and his friends cut the fence, climb through, and have a terror filled anti-party of a lifetime. Is their friendship strong enough to make it to the end of the Dark Ride?

Do yourself a favor, check it out and find out for yourself.

-Jon R Meyers

TWIN LAKES: AUTUMN FIRES by Melissa Lason & Michelle Garza (2018 Sinister Grin Press / 238 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

It is, of course, very fitting that the Sisters of Slaughter should have a setting called Twin Lakes … and that it should also be a rather Twin Peaks kind of place: a small, remote, quaint Washington town where things aren’t always as they seem.

AUTUMN FIRES takes place as everyone is gearing up for the annual harvest festival, but alongside the old traditions, a new evil has cropped up. Several mutilated bodies have been discovered out in the surrounding woods, with evidence suggesting ritualistic natures to the murders.

As it happens, though, whispers of the paranormal are nothing so strange around here. Bring in a consulting medium to help with the case? The local sheriff himself secretly being no ordinary lawman? An entire secret town council of elders with their own long histories and uncanny gifts? Maybe the everyday citizens of Twin Lakes have no idea, but the inner circle is ready to take a supernatural threat in stride.

Liz is neither. Liz is a rambling young hitchhiker who accepts a ride from a not-so-nice guy, only to escape and stumble onto the scene of an even-worser guy. Thinking she’s found help at a campfire, instead she finds a body, and horrible dark tentacles intent on claiming her next.

Overall, the story’s entertaining, the descriptions are good. There’s a bit much telling rather than showing for my tastes, a lot of background info and a lot of sometimes-hard-to-distinguish characters, and the dialogue at times feels fairly stiff and lacking personality. The potential’s still there, though, and each book I see by this duo gets progressively better.

-Christine Morgan

LASER HOUSE ON THE PRARIE by David W. Barbee (2019 Excession Press / 164 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Every geek on the internet is going to feel personally attacked in this book, and it’s hilarious. I’m not sure if the author used a random fandom generator or what, but, as absurd as everything gets, it’s really only holding a funhouse mirror to what we already have.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, because that wackiness comes later … and the wackiness the book starts off with is also deserving of admiring note. Whatever you might expect from the title, trust me, you have NO idea. It’s SO much further out there. I mean, the kind of thing that would have to be animated by the Futurama team or illustrated by Phil Foglio, and either way cranked past eleven.

On the surface, it’s sunset Western meets sunset heist, when a retired former-badass gunslinger is approached for one last big job. He doesn’t want to take it, he’s happy now with his quiet new life on the prairie with his husband. But his old associates aren’t going to take no for an answer, so he must once again strap on his guns and saddle up (figuratively speaking).

About that ‘surface,’ though? This is a neon dayglo garishly bright world where laser energy powers everything from nature to weapons, where sharks swim through laser grasslands and ramshackle buildings float above it. The colors will make your eyes hurt, even just reading the plain black words.

Our reluctant gunslinger, once known as Sexy Jeph, goes along with Classic Bill’s plan to retrieve the super-powerful Red Orb (gave me Brisco County Jr flashbacks, that), even fully realizing that the other members of the team will kill each other and/or destroy everything to get it.

What Jeph’s not prepared for is their quest to take them far from the prairie. To another dimension, in fact. To the fabulous city of Obscuria, where opinion is everything, everyone’s a cosplayer, grognard, gatekeeper, raging nerd, true-fan warrior, faddish bandwagon jumper, you name it.

And THAT is when Barbee just kicks open the saloon doors of internet fandom culture to start some s***, with riotous if-the-shoe-fits results.

-Christine Morgan

MAGAZINES:

BLACK STATIC no. 69 (May-June 2019 / 96 pp / print and digital editions available)

Before this issue's 5 new stories and headlining novelette, Lynda E. Rucker flies the flag high for the future of horror, discussing both fiction and two recent, original films, and Ralph Robert Moore gives an encouraging and uplifting message for horror writers using his own background as an example. Both commentaries will leave fans excited and refreshed about the state of the genre.

This issue's fiction begins with 'Where it Ends, Where it Begins' by Erinn L. Kemper. Mac runs a sea side salvage shop where he sells hand made items. But his serene life has a dark side, which is fueled when he finds an amputated body on the beach. Kemper brings the chills and shows a gruesome story can have a lot of redeeming value.

In Joanna Parypinski's 'Beach People,' Carmella is still mourning the death of her brother as her parents try to get her mind off it with a trip to her aunt's lakeside home. She refuses to join them at the beach and watches her parents interact with others from the house, eventually taking notice of a girl about her age talking with them. But her parents act as if there is no other girl there, and Parypinski takes us on a disturbing ghost ride (of sorts). Easily my favorite story of the issue.

A brother goes in search of his sister on her 18th birthday in 'Hunting by the River,' Daniel Carpenter's look at discovering who your sibling really is. I love shorter pieces that pack a wallop, and this one delivers a real punch to the gut.

'Pomegranate, Pomegranate' by Jack Westlake is an apocalyptic tale ALA 'The Silence' or 'Bird Box,' this time following a girl looking for her sister in a world where speaking can have dire consequences. Familiar, but well done with a heartbreaking conclusion.

'When You Decided to Call' by Daniel Bennett is a subtle, haunting look at a man reconnecting with his father, with the latent help of his neighbor, in a most unique way. Much of Bennett's prose had a dream-like feel, giving the story a surreal edge.

In Simon Avery's 'Messages from Weirdland,' we meet Franklyn, a widower for the past year. While walking his dog Luna on the beach he finds a bottle with a note inside, and is startled to see it is written in his late wife's handwriting. Stranger yet, the note is a short story that reads like his own published fiction, and he soon discovers a couple of more bottles also written by his wife. A lot of stories in BLACK STATIC have dealt with loss and grief, and here Avery gives the subgenre (if you will) his own flavor. Excellent.

In this issue's book reviews, Gary Couzen looks at three film books from Electric Dreamhouse (John Connolly's tome on 1972's cult classic HORROR EXPRESS looks especially promising), Daniel Carpenter has me psyched for Georgina Bruce's debut collection 'This House of Wounds,' and Laura Mauro sold Alma Katsu's take on the Donner Party, 'The Hunger' to me by the third paragraph.

Among Gary Couzen's blu-ray reviews is a detailed look at Arrow Video's box set for the original 'The Ring' series, New Zealand classic 'Death Warmed Up,' a couple of third world cannibal films, and the Second Sight release of Fassbinder's 'World on a Wire' (which was released here in the US a few years ago in a beautiful edition by Criterion).

Another solid issue wrapped in great cover art by Joachim Luetke, order your copy (or subscribe) here: BLACK STATIC

-Nick Cato

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COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on a cell phone you probably won't see it unless you click "switch to desktop" or break out your actual desk/laptop. How's THAT for mansplaining?

PREVIEW:

THE PLACE OF BROKEN THINGS by Linda D. Addison and Alessandro Manzetti (to be released July 19, 2019 by Crystal Lake Publishing / approx. 50 pp / eBook)

In this team-up collection of 35 poems, Addison and Manzetti cross genres, pay tribute to some of their influences, and create verse where the haunting, the beautiful, and the sublime often become one.

Among my favorites, the title story 'The Place of Broken Things' which examines the haunted thoughts of a parent contemplating their child's death in a car crash. I read this one a few times and it managed to dig itself deep under my skin. 'City Walkers' gives a slick look at the werewolf mindset, while 'Animation' plays like a cyberpunk version of an apocalyptic scenario. 'Cathedral Lane' humanizes the plight of the homeless while keeping things mysterious, and 'Like Japanese Silk,' one of several pieces dealing with faith and religion, excels in its use of suggestion to create irresistible atmosphere.

Like all good poetry collections, THE PLACE OF BROKEN THINGS is full of short but powerful prose, each author showing off their skill as a team and on their own, with everything gelling together incredibly well. A fine, highly enjoyable collaboration that will hold up well to repeat readings.

-Nick Cato

STRANGE COMPANY & OTHERS by Peter Rawlik (2019 Gehenna and Hinnom Books / 224 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

“Is Lovecraftian pulp-punk a thing? Because that’s what Rawlik’s doing here, at its action-packed, cinematic best!” – Christine Morgan, author of Lakehouse Infernal

Yes, that’s me, blurbing this book all official and stuff! An honor to be asked, a pleasure to do. I’ve shared many a Mythos anthology TOC with Peter Rawlik, and his stuff has always been among the books’ bests. He’s got a way of taking a genre that’s normally overbloated with dense stuffy wordiness and making it both accessible and entertaining without losing any of the cosmic horror feel.

This collection proves it beyond any shadows-over-innsmouth of a doubt. The stories are grouped into three sections – “Mainstream Mythos,” “Other Horrors,” and “Alternate Mythos,” each encompassing a different sub-style but all carrying the same skill, immersion, and talent.

The opening tale deftly combines a classic carnival freakshow with a familiar name in reanimation circles … repercussions and characters of which also appear in some of the subsequent stories for that nice same-universe feel. Connections to certain famous works, including Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde, appear throughout, as do references to others of the author’s projects.

Some are done epistolary-fashion, told via letters and journals, transcripts, statements, etc., as is fitting for the genre. Setting-wise, there’s everything from the dusty Old West to the gritty noir city streets, from sleepy seaside towns with secrets to the post-Biblical-apocalypse, from the cold Arctic to airships on high. There are monsters galore, eldritch and indescribable (yet wonderfully described!)

My favorites include “Things Change” (cosmic on a cosmic scale and timetable indeed!), “The Gumdrop Apocalypse” (an odd departure into twisted fairy tales, another I always enjoy!), and the truly outstanding “The Nomenclature of Unnameable Horrors.”

-Christine Morgan

MIDNIGHT SOLITAIRE by Greg F. Gifune (2019 Bloodshot Books / 156 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This author’s work has become a favorite over the years. Book after book, Gifune’s dark words crawl from out of the woodwork and continue to shock, torment, and entertain us. This rerelease of Midnight Solitaire from Bloodshot Books tailored with a more fitting cover is no exception to this.

There’s a sadistic serial killer on the prowl amidst a massive snowstorm in New England when four strangers become a part of something much more horrific and sinister than their typical day-to-day. How does this stranger know so much about the killer on the loose? That’s easy as he’s been following him around for a longtime. Why not stop him? That’s where things begin to get a little more interesting. Simple answer, because he can’t. The Dealer is far more powerful than that. Think blood sport. Think demonic rituals. Think how do you even kill something that is not essentially alive? A little different than the author’s other work. It’s kind of a dark, psychological thriller that puts you alongside the main characters as they’re running from their own personal hells … and they’re kicking and screaming along the way.

Check it out!

-Jon R. Meyers

GARDEN OF ELDRITCH DELIGHTS by Lucy A. Snyder (2018 Raw Dog Screaming Press / 184 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This collection from Lucy A. Snyder demonstrates her range of genre-hopping talent, often with a cosmic/Lovecraftian twist (as the title suggests) but also including more standard horror, sci-fi, fantasy both traditional and dark, and expert meldings of all of the above.

There are a dozen stories in all, drawn from an impressive list of anthology appearances and including a Year’s Best honorable mention nod. Reading them, it’s not at all hard to see why.

Particular favorites of mine included: “Fraeternal,” a tale of twins and experiments and uncanny abilities and insidious twisting destiny, a truly outstanding piece of work, one of the best short stories I’ve read in quite some time;

“The Gentleman Caller,” in which a disabled phone-sex operator has the opportunity to reinvent her life, only to find that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side;

“That Which Does Not Kill You,” a graphic and grisly bit of betrayal body horror told in rare and unusually well-done second person POV;

and “Executive Functions,” where a callous corporate sleazeball gets a rude awakening to the true nature of reality.

From small-time crime with a touch of witchery, to high-stakes crime with a cyberpunk edge … from the intimately personal to the end of the entire world … from the alternate past to possible futures and other places far removed … this book has a little something for everyone, all well worth the read.

-Christine Morgan

HORNWOLF by Evan Romero (2019 Blood Bound Books / 112 pp / eBook)

The third entry in Blood Bound Books'"Redline" series will be of interest to fans of the extreme stuff, this time with plenty of twisted humor thrown in.

When mutilated bodies start popping up around the small town of Ashwood, Cynthia Carver figures they're nothing more than animal attacks. Is a bear on the loose? Maybe even an unusually irritated, malnourished coyote? But when our lovely police chief discovers one of the bodies has been sexually assaulted, Carver takes a closer look into things and quickly realizes whatever is doing this is unlike anything that's ever been reported...

HORNWOLF is written at a lightning fast pace, it seeks to offend at every turn (and does), yet despite the hardcore nature of the narrative we're right there with Carver as she ends up fighting for her life against one of the more bizarre versions of a werewolf story to come down the pike in quite some time … or I should say, to come down the sewer. Loaded with redneck humor, some inventive transformation scenes, and enough splatter to satisfy even the most jaded of gorehounds, make sure you buckle up before strapping on (full pun intended) this wickedly insane novella.

Like the sleaziest pulp novel from the 70s, HORNWOLF is massively offensive, twisted, politically incorrect, and guaranteed to piss off nearly everyone. This is a nasty, dark tale for those who can handle the extreme side of extreme. All others, take cover.

-Nick Cato

BEDTIME HORRORS by Nic Kristoffer Black and Jorge Gonzalez (2016 Internegative / 50 pp / hardcover)

I got this one as a PDF and found it something of a challenge at first to read, thanks to the layout and choices of design (black background, pale text) but the overall unconventional look of it is both striking and potent. And the illustrations! Oh! The illustrations are lavish and lovely even when they’re horrific and grim.

Billed as “for adults and young adults,” it contains ten short stories of a thousand words each. As for their suitability at bedtime … that depends on how well anybody hopes to sleep. There’s not a lot of room here for bloat and meandering, giving the stories a nice quick campfire feel, dark gooey sweet treats to end the night, like sinister s’mores.

Monsters in the closet make their appearance, as do horrors from the depths of the sea and beyond the stars. Sometimes the monsters and horrors are all too human. Other times, they’re unimaginably Inhuman.

If I had to pick a favorite story, it’d be “Spare Parts,” a fun take on a classic, in which a disgruntled teenager tires of being ignored and belittled by his father.

And if I had to pick a favorite illustration, the ones accompanying “Glass Jars” are simply beautiful uses of color and light, luminous and alive, right off the page (or screen, as the case may be).

-Christine Morgan

WHERE THERE ARE DRAGONS edited by James Jakins, Austin James, & J.L. Mayne (2019 Robber’s Dog Pub / 179 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Okay, this is another in which I’m privileged to have a story, so, am admittedly biased. Especially because one of the editors liked my story so much from elsewhere, he sought me out and requested to include it. How can I say no to flattery like that?

Besides, dragons! Besides, amazing Luke Spooner cover. 21 cool stories and poems. AND interior illustrations for each by Betty Rocksteady!

Also, most important of all, the book is for a cause. Proceeds go to support suicide prevention and awareness; the real dragons all too often are inside us. With all of that, it’d be hard to go wrong … and it doesn’t.

My personal favorite, Eric James Stone’s “Accounting for Dragons,” starts things off with delightfully fun tax tips and hoard-managing advice, sure to bring a grin to all the D&D and gamer types out there.

Other top picks include:

Bo Herno’s “The Dragon’s Tear,” presented in an interesting and well-done omniscient/tell style, with bonus points for pitting a techno-dragon against a horror from the deep;

“Dancing With Fire” by Dr. Benjamin Anthony, taking addiction to deadly new levels with the transformative power of powdered dragon’s bone;

Melanie Bowling’s “Ashes From the Beast” presents a sort of northern-backwoods-gothic in journal form, in which a small town houses a chimney attached to no ordinary furnace;

and “Dragonspeak,” a short but gorgeous poem by Ashley Dioses.

Spanning genres and settings, with tones and emotions from silly/fun to deep/serious, with dragons both literal and metaphorical, the combined result is a strikingly varied anthology of really cool stuff.

-Christine Morgan

NON-FICTION

EARTHQUAKES IN CANDYLAND by Jennifer Robin (2019 Fungasm Press / 320 pp / trade paperback)

I used to think Jennifer Robin just *had* to be exaggerating and taking creative liberties with her observational recountings of life on the weird streets of Portland. Then I went to one of her readings, thought I’d take public transit like a true city person, and on that trip alone witnessed a guy in a teddy bear onesie lugging a huge garbage bag full of aluminum cans. On that one MAX trip! Not even on the bus!

So, okay, I take it back, I eat my words. It really *is* like that out there. And in her latest work, she goes far beyond the Pacific Northwest, examining this great nation of ours in insightful detail by the unflattering lights of our own flame wars and dumpster fires.

It’s over 300 pages of mostly short essays and memories, interspersed with occasional longer travelogues and narratives as well as a few single-line thought-provoking zingers right out of an existentialist’s fortune cookie. Inside perspectives of recent Portland protests and riots are included, as are reflectively intimate personal stories.

There are far too many to go into detail here, but I will say that if you read the whole thing in one sitting, you just might be overwhelmed with frustration and despair and the determination to *do* something (or the wild urge to burn it all the hell down). The ones that cover statistics about war, politics, and social injustice are soul-wrenching. Drugs, sex, religion, abuse, menstruation, guns, health care, racism, and countless other issues are unflinchingly addressed.

Are these works fictional? Some, sorta, maybe so / maybe no. Allegories abound. The language is both poetic and frank, starkly honest in a starkly beautiful way, taking no prisoners. Bizarro? Horror? Yes, and yes, and all the more so because they’re born of our modern reality.

If you’ve ever had the privilege of attending one of her performances (readings are what ordinary authors do; Jennifer Robin is living performance art), you’ll probably hear this entire book done in her voice and rhythm, which is exactly as it should be.

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. You probably won't be able to see it on a cell phone. Fine time to dust off that laptop...

KINFOLK by Matt Kurtz (2018 Grindhouse Press / 167 pp / trade paperback & eBook)
site: https://grindhousepress.com

Gotta love it when it’s bad guys vs. worse guys in an all-out gory smackdown fight to the finish, and you don’t know who to root for!

In this case, the bad guys are a pair of brothers, Eric and Ray, who share a criminal history … except, Ray is trying to put the past behind him by drowning himself in booze, while Eric thinks Ray still needs closure and revenge. Their reunion begins with attempted armed robbery and assault of a cop, their frantic escape leaves them stranded by the side of a road in the middle of who-knows-where, and when a passing driver stops, it’s far from a rescue.

Because, cue the worse guys … your classic depraved backwoods clan of human monsters and semi-human mutants, with hideous habits and deviant appetites! They’re normally accustomed to picking up normal hitchhikers and other lost travelers, and aren’t quite ready for having their prey fight back with guns and total ferocity.

What ensues is sheer chaos and carnage and high-octane wall-to-wall splatter, a thoroughly nasty, blood-soaked, action-packed murder spree where horrible people get what they deserve, deserve what they get, and nobody comes out clean.

If you’re looking for quiet, elevated, or literary horror, this is not the book for you. If you love a good wet-zone mutilation kill-fest, however, settle right on in and have fun!

-Christine Morgan

MY AMERICAN NIGHTMARE: WOMEN IN HORROR edited by Azzurra Nox (2017 Twisted Wing Productions / 244 pp / eBook)

I’m not sure how I acquired this one; none of the names were very well known to me. But, I’ve never let that stop me before. It’s always good to give new things a try, expand those ol’ horizons. Besides it was probably during Women in Horror month, fittingly enough … what better time than to pick up an anthology done entirely by female authors?

There are nineteen tales in all, with an editor’s note at the end, followed by some author bios and a bit about how each piece came to be inspired, and then, as an unusual but very cool bonus feature, some author Q&A.

Another element I hadn’t realized up front was the project’s theme. As I was reading, I kept thinking “Wait, this sounds like a take on (whatever)” and finally realized that was because, yes, it was on purpose! Taking some well-known works – of various types, not just literature but film and music as well – and reinventing them in new, sometimes updated, sometimes feminist ways.

Therefore, so as not to spoil anyone else’s guessing game, I won’t go into particulars. Some, the penny will drop right away, others may take a bit longer to recognize. All together, they make for an odd but interesting read. I expect to be seeing more from many of these ladies very soon.

-Christine Morgan

SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLOOD-SOAKED by Christa Carmen (2018 Unnerving / 242 pp / trade paperback, eBook, audiobook)

I’d only had the pleasure of running across one of these thirteen tales before, but something with a title like “The Girl Who Loved Bruce Campbell” wasn’t going to be something I’d forget. Reading it again was as enjoyable as ever.

But several of its companion pieces in this collection are where some honest pain and bravery really comes shining through. Set in a shared universe, with recurring characters and places, and events seen from different points of view, they work together to bring forth a journey through addiction and recovery that must’ve been very difficult to write at all … let alone write so well. The struggles, the emotions, the relationships, and the reality all ring very true.

Others are more stand-alone, and more supernatural/sensational. You’ll find a spooky babysitter with some even spookier revelations for her young charges, malevolent mystery pics on a cell phone, exquisite flowers, and a Halloween take on Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” unlike anything you’ve seen before.

In fact, Halloween crops up in other tales as well. At a fall farm haunted harvest hayride type attraction, where one of the workers is persuaded to step out from her usual behind-the-scenes role … and as a bride’s special day at an infamous hotel.

And, I must just say, the book opener, “Thirsty Creatures,” has a bang-up attention grabber of a first line: ‘The trees were fire and the skies were panicked birds and the horse was made of bone.’ I mean, dang, how can you NOT read on after a hello like that?

-Christine Morgan

MY PRETTIES by Jeff Strand (2019 Amazon Digital Services / 263 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Alright, folks. We all know this author has become one of my personal favorites in the past couple of years and with the release of this new dark Crime/Horror/Thriller mash-up, I stand by that statement 100%. This is arguably and quite possibly Strand at his finest. Dark and twisted, sad and traumatic, funny, violent, and entertaining with a number of brilliant plot twists, all of the usual characteristics found in the author’s previous work and then some.

Two new friends from work embark on a dangerous quest to pursue the whereabouts of a missing family member they believe was kidnapped by a sick and perverted serial killer. As they begin to troll the area in hopes of finding this deranged man, that’s where things begin to get, well, interesting, as they might just find out exactly what they set out to do. Which, I guess in a perfect world, might be all fun and games, but not when you’re dealing with somebody that gets off on kidnapping and caging women to simply sit back and watch them starve to death! But, we all know you can’t have your sadistic cake and eat it too… Or, maybe you can. I guess you’ll have to read it and find out for yourself.

My Pretties is a Horror and Crime Thriller that's sure to provoke and entertain the darkest of minds. Proceed with caution.

-Jon R. Meyers

ERIE TALES X: MASQUERADE edited by Michael Cieslak (2017 Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers / 94 pp / trade paperback)

The tenth anniversary installment from the GLAHW only includes five stories, but one of those was so downright fantastic it blew me away, and is alone more than worth the price of admission, and so I am just going to start off raving about it.

“Rites of Passage,” by Cassie Carnage, is a dystopian vision of the future that the alt-right thinks the liberal snowflake SJWs want. Emotions are strictly regulated, ‘triggering’ is a crime, misgendering or assuming someone’s gender is a dreadful offense, all opinions must be respected and validated, all communications are monitored, and everyone must be protected from anything even potentially hurtful.

To accommodate this, children all wear identical masks to hide facial expressions and reactions. At age 13, those masks are surgically replaced with permanent ones to ensure conformity and compliance. Told from the perspective of an apprehensive kid on the eve of the pivotal birthday, it is terrifying and excellently written and just phenomenal.

Doesn’t help that the subject matter only makes it more ironic I feel bad about my fair-to-middlin’s responses to the others, but, here we are. The other stories are fine, each delivering their own take on the anthology’s ‘masquerade’ theme of secrets, concealment, and hiding in plain sight.

Which, as it happens, is the title of Peggy Christie’s fun book-opening story – “Hiding in Plain Sight” – about how having a job at a cemetery can be both useful and economical when you’re a creature of unconventional appetites.

J.M. VanHorn’s “Promise” has a young girl looking for her lost dog run into a helpful stranger in an abandoned house, only to then find out the stranger isn’t as helpful as she seems.

In “Sea of Hats,” by Montilee Stormer, the view from the church balcony conceals some unpleasant truths about the congregation.

Finishing things off is Mark Matthews’ “Mask of Sanity,” exploring the wonderful world of psychiatry, medications, and those persistent pharmaceutical reps.

-Christine Morgan

WORSHIP ME by Craig Stewart (2017 Hellbound Books / 356 pp / trade paperback, eBook, audiobook)

I’m pretty sure I was supposed to sympathize with the character who starts off this book running over a feral mama cat and just being relieved at least it wasn’t one of the kittens and driving along while tossing a half-eaten muffin out the window as a ‘sorry my bad’ … but daaaang. All the negative reacts. The character’s later behavior, no matter how played-up-as-heroic/noble/self-sacrificing, did zilch to ameliorate that.

Nor, really, did the behavior of many of the other characters. What an awful group of people! Church people, no less, gathering for their Sunday service, but almost every single one of them was icky or unlikeable one way or another. Sanctimonious, hypocritical, hiding their own sins, gossipy, unkind, the list goes on.

When they all get trapped in the church by a malevolent force claiming to be their new god, you know right off the bat they are going to turn on each other with vicious quickness. And they sure do. With shades of King’s Storm of the Century, they’re given a time limit and a harsh decision to make. Pick one to offer up, or everyone dies.

In the meanwhile, anybody who tries to escape gets brutally, bloodily punished. Even those who give themselves over to this new god are mutilated and marked in blood. The gory sequences are very gory indeed, graphic and wallow-in-it, with some grisly creative maimings in the best splattery tradition.

Here and there, I had a few logistical problems with the setting … for a single building, even one with a large basement, there sure was a lot of screaming and destruction and other noise going on … and the scenes with the fire didn’t seem terribly plausible.

The ending delivers an interesting not-what-I-expected twist, and, if nothing else, pretty much all the awful characters get what they deserve, so it’s quite satisfying on those levels.

-Christine Morgan

KRONOS RISING: KRAKEN by Max Hawthorne (2018 Far From the Tree Press / 555 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, eBook)

Arrrrgh I knew it I knew it, reading along getting closer and closer to the end with more and more buildup and that looming sense of “To Be Continued incoming in 3, 2, 1 ...” and sure enough there at the end is the coming soon Volume 2 announcement. AAAARRRGH.

Then again, I had a feeling, since KRONOS RISING is an ongoing series, this one taking place a generation after the original (reviewed earlier; I seem to have missed a few in the interim but was able to fill in the blanks well enough).

Upside, though, there’s a whole ‘nuther book to look forward to next, one with all the pieces in place for some of the biggest blockbuster special effects sea-monster chompiness of all time. There’s always a bigger fish, right? Or shark. Or marine reptile. Or cephalopod. Or all of the above.

Even on its own, that’d be fun, but when humans have to get involved, you know things are going to get even wilder. Maybe more sci-fi high-tech dino thriller than horror, it takes some of the lessons nobody ever learned in Jurassic Park about thinking we can control nature, and putting too much faith in our technology, and ups the voltage exponentially.

There’s also a whole lot of testosterone in this book, but the manliness of the manly-mens is more than matched by the assertiveness and sexual aggression of the take-no-crap Amazon womens (a critique I had of the earlier one had to do with its sausage-fest-ness). Everyone’s larger than life, exaggerated in one way or another. The sexy people are insatiable sex-beasts, withy plenty of equal-opportunity ogling. The sleazy people are gross almost to the point of absurdity.

It’s got secret bases and giant octopi and submarines and neural implants to use pliosaurs like mechas, it’s leading up to the ultimate aquatic smackdown, and it’s gonzo good action fun.

-Christine Morgan

THE WATCHFUL DEAD by Joe Pawlowski (2019 Glint Media / 199 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

It’s probably typical to see a title like this and more often than not think “zombies,” but in this case the assumption would be way off base. There’s only technically one reanimated corpse, which doesn’t appear until fairly late in the book, and even then is far from your usual zombie.

Ghosts, on the other hand … and the more general presence of the dead in terms of respecting the wishes of those who’ve passed … those feature much more prominently. But even so, this is no more a ghost book than it is a zombie book.

Well okay then, you might be thinking, what the heck kind of book IS it? That’s where things get tricky, because it’s hard to classify. Not cosmic horror per se, but with strong Mythos elements. Cosmic dark fantasy? Cosmic post-apocalyptic dark fantasy? It’d be perfect for gaming in, anyway.

A medieval-ish society’s arisen in the wake of the return of the Old Gods (including Dagon, though interestingly depicted as a female). Mythos-type monsters like night gaunts are mentioned, as are familiar names from the lore. Magic is rare but real. People have been broken into tribes of more diverse races and castes.

In the city of Hastur, Ring’s family are slavers, but his father and uncle have loftier ambitions. Political ambitions, which they hope to attain by some fairly sneaky, roundabout methods involving pirates and a captured island witch with the power to awaken the dead.

Little do they anticipate the wider fallout that’ll ensue, not only from deceased relatives but murder victims, the slaves they’ve sold who came to untimely ends, and the greater repercussions when it stirs the notice of the gods.

Now, it might also be an easy leap to expect Ring’s the classic chosen-one destined hero type who’ll undertake the big quest to save the world and all, but it breaks away from that tired old trope too. All in all, it’s a gutsy, ambitious, skillful exploration of cosmic/epic dark fantasy that brings something new to both facets of the genres.

-Christine Morgan

SUBJECT 11 by Jeffrey Thomas (2014 CreateSpace / 114 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, eBook)

You know those little sleeper indie films that get hardly any buzz but when you watch them on a whim or a recommendation, it turns out to be a stunningly brilliant, eerily effective, blow-your-socks-off solid gold winner?

This is one of those, only in book form. For now. It NEEDS to be a movie. It wouldn’t even need a big budget. A rundown derelict hospital-type facility, some creepy graffiti paint, minimal props, less than a dozen actors, and boom. Winner. Someone get on that.

So you’ve got ten people who signed up as test subjects, the way people do … seems like a good deal at first, right? Spend a while in an abandoned building with no external contact or communications, adhering to rules of anonymity even among themselves (going by numbers instead of names), taking daily unknown medications, etc. At the end, four thousand dollars compensation.

Nothing too strange about that. Minus the medications, we’ve seen reality shows aplenty along those lines – and c’mon if there was a mystery drug trial version of Big Brother or something, it’d probably be mad popular.

Then, of course, things start to go weird. They start to question their own memories and perceptions. None of the participants know if it’s the medications, if it’s psychological tricks being played on them by their unseen test-masters, or what. But didn’t there used to be more of them? Was the graffiti always like that? What’s with the room with the creepy doll’s heads?

Just as the characters are questioning and second-guessing, so too will be the reader. I found myself wanting to skip back and check on continuity details, sure that such-and-such COULDN’T be a mistake because this author is a stone-cold pro who doesn’t make bloopers; it HAD to be deliberate …

Packed with insidious tension and unfolding paranoia, gripping, brilliantly written, a definite winner.

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on a cell phone you probably won't see it. Break out the laptop, baby...

PREVIEW:

A SICK GRAY LAUGH by Nicole Cushing (to be released 8/27/19 by Word Horde / 290 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I'm always thrilled to receive something new from Cushing, and her latest novel A SICK GRAY LAUGH is highlighted by an unreliable narrator whose bizarre history lessons and dark sense of humor kept me glued to the pages.

Noelle Cashman is an award-winning writer whose depression and anxiety have brought her to a place where she needs to start taking a new medication. And despite the success she's had with her weird fiction, she now finds herself inspired to write a non fiction book about her small Indiana town. Feeling like a new person (she now jogs and has lost seventy-five pounds), Cashman sets out to tell the history of Naumpton, Indiana and as she begins to take notice, she discovers a "grayness" seems to be everywhere … and she's gung ho to find out why this is.

Set up in three sections, LAUGH first introduces us to Cashman and her plight, then the second gives us insights into her town's bizarre religious heritage (and it's here where we learn about a group known as The New Israelites, along with their charismatic leader and his right hand man, who give the novel an edge that will come back to haunt you). And in part three, subtitled "The Cure," we discover Cashman's findings in her studies of Naumpton's history, and her involvement in a 5K charity race which had me laughing out loud while simultaneously disturbing the shit out of me.

Being the unreliable story teller that she is, Cashman has us convinced of certain things than has us doubt them within a sentence or two later. Have the new meds truly helped her? Is she a descendent of one of her town's religious cults? Or is she perhaps even grayness incarnate? The beauty of A SICK GRAY LAUGH is we really don't know, and Cushing (or is it Cashman?) pulls us along like students in a bizarre Sunday school class, forced to listen and face the darkness while making us laugh uncomfortably while we do so.

With images and ideas that have been stuck in my head for weeks, Cushing has once again delivered an original story that's hard to define, yet manages to bring the chills in a way all its own and seldom seen in genre novels. Don't miss this.

-Nick Cato

VICTORIA by Jason Parent (2018 Bloodshot Books / 204 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

My only real frustration with this book was never finding out how Chester got her name! Well, and that I wanted more story, more backstory and history and mythology. But I’m greedy that way.

Plot-wise, there is a lot to unpack, but the upshot is, sometimes the little voice in your head may actually be a demonic spider who crawled into your ear and made a nest in your brain.

A demonic brain spider who then encourages you to become an expert thief, team up Leverage-style with a like-minded group of daring rogues, and pull a heist at the Vatican … where you run into a Kingsman-type special agent priest on his own secret mission to hunt down the demonic brain spiders.

No, wait, really, stay with me here, because this is how the book goes, and it’s fantastic throughout! Much better than any of the Dan Brown stuff (also self-aware enough to make jokes about it; I love that touch).

In a way, it could even classify as YA, with the adventuresome young protagonist, but it’d definitely be YA with a harder edge. Not a lot of sex, but the body count gets pretty impressive and the fight scenes are great.

The best fights of all, though, are the ones between Victoria and Chester, who come to some ethical disagreements and personality clashes. As they say, the toughest battles are the ones that take place inside our own heads, even if it’s not usually meant quite like this.

Terrific read, fast-moving and fun! Though when you then develop an ear infection or see those stories online about people finding bugs living in their faces …

-Christine Morgan

GODS AND MOBSTERS by Adam Millard (2019 Amazon Digital / 260 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I’m so glad the author decided to make this one available after all! It’s an absolute blast, mixing genres with wild and gleeful abandon. Starting off a la Aesop’s fables, with a drunk fox playing checkers with an arrogant squirrel … and only accelerating into sheer wackiness from there on out.

Imagine the Iliad, only, instead of interfering with the Trojan War, the gods are mostly loafing around Olympus being petty and snarky at each other as usual, until Artemis the huntress decides she wants to check out how the mortal half lives. Just her luck, she’s got the physical form of a pre-teen Girl Guide, but she’s still got her arrows and her attitude.

Uncle Poseidon ends up sent after her, but instead of bringing her promptly back home, they run into an old-school noir gumshoe working his latest case (hired by a dangerous dame, of course, to get the goods on her cheating mobster husband).

Some misunderstandings and arrow injuries later, the pieces are falling into place for an East London smackdown between immortal goons, undercover cops, and wayward Olympians. While that same poor hapless drunk fox keeps simply trying to skitter out of the line of fire.

Loaded with pop-culture references and social commentary, giving some amusing spins and updates to mythology, and bringing hilarious footnotes back into style, I enjoyed everything about it.

-Christine Morgan

MANNEQUIN: TALES OF WOOD MADE FLESH edited by Justin A. Burnett (2019 Silent Motorist Media / 169 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

That occasional bias of mine about certain anthologies comes into play here again; I love themed calls and can rarely resist an intriguing challenge. And the theme for this one certainly hits upon what may be a universal truth – dolls are freakin’ creepy.

‘Dolls’ being a broad category in this case, including not just childrens’ toys but ventriloquist dummies, mannequins (of course), and even scarecrows. They tend to give us an instinctive approach/avoidance reaction … we’re drawn to them because of the ways they resemble us, but disturbed by them because of the unsettling ways that they don’t.

Or maybe they do, when we’re not looking. Maybe they move. Maybe they think. Maybe they’re far less fond of us than we are of them. Maybe they resent the way we play with and treat and use them. Maybe they want some payback. To punish us. Or to become us, take our places. Who can know what’s going on behind those often-painted-on eyes?

See? Creepy. Creeeeeepy. And here, for your goosebump fodder, are a whole bunch of stories sure to stir unease in the back of your mind or make you do double-takes from the corner of your eye. From horrormaster Ramsey Campbell’s vintage chiller “Cyril” to Daulton Dickey’s experimental weirdness in “Allegory of Shadows and Bones,” from a giant-marionette-apocalypse staggeringly imagined by C.P. Dunphey to tiny trinkets locked away with memories in Austin James’ “Fugue,” they run a varied gamut while all still adhering to that central disturbing theme.

-Christine Morgan

THE PULP HORROR BOOK OF PHOBIAS edited by MJ Sydney (2019 Lycan Valley Press / 636 pp / hardcover, trade paperback)

I can never get enough anthologies about weird phobias. Always helps me feel at least a little better about my own assorted quirks (though, sometimes, it gives me new things to freak out about I hadn’t thought of before).

This particular volume wanted to push far past the basic ordinary run-of-the-mill phobias, really digging deep for the weirder the better. And did so in entertaining A-to-Z order, each author being assigned a different bizarre fear starting with a different letter of the alphabet.

26 stories does make for one hefty tome, some 630 pages. If big honkin’ books scare you (what would that be? megabibliophobia?), you might not want to pick this one up in print. Heck, 630 pages, some might not be ABLE to pick it up in print! But I digress. Moving on!

With cover art by Kealan Patrick Burke and interior illustrations courtesy of Luke Spooner, it’s already a star-studded production even without taking a skim of the table of contents. Doing that, seeing names like Richard Chizmar, John Skipp, Sephera Giron, Tim Waggoner, Gabino Iglesias, Mehitobel Wilson, Ray Garton, Ed Erdelac, and Hank Schwaeble (among others, remember, 26 stories!), you know you are in for some serious quality stuff.

There are far too many winners to choose from to pick a favorite, or even a top five, but I do have to give special mention to Jonah Buck’s “Just Desserts” for sheer genre-blending wackiness (like a hardboiled Murder She Wrote meets Lovecraftian cult meets cooking network) … and Mehitobel Wilson’s “True Confessions of the Happiest Pistachio” for telling it too much like it is, or like it will be if society keeps on at this rate.

Give it a whirl … maybe discover you have phobias you never even knew existed … enjoy!

-Christine Morgan

MAYBE THE DREAM KNOWS WHAT IS REAL by Steve Grogan (2018 Amazon Digital / 74 pp / eBook)

This is a very well-written but incredibly uncomfortable read … like a book-length version of one of those petulant letters to an online advice columnist or ranty MRA blog or incel forum post, basically boiling down to an entitled awful person blaming everyone else for his problems and expressing horrible views about women while complaining how girls never give Nice Guys a chance.

So, if that was the author’s intention with this character, consider the nail hit right on the head. Hit all too well right on the head. We get the nameless protagonist’s entire history as the loner, the outcast even among outcasts, who acknowledges this but nonetheless considers himself better than everyone else, we get a front-row seat to the way he treats others, and we’re helplessly dragged along for the ride when he finally snaps and goes total revenge fantasy porn.

Now, don’t get me wrong, like I said before, it IS very well-written. Almost too much so, maybe. But not in a fun, escapist, entertaining way. More in the sick-morbid-fascination way, like we view manifestos by someone who shoots up a school or a mall because hot chicks don’t date him.

So yeah, incredibly uncomfortable. It’s all there: the objectification, the misogyny, the crude attitudes toward sex, the resentment, the superiority … the whole skin-crawling grossness of realizing some people actually DO think like this protagonist. When we’ve already got a plethora of that stuff in the news every day, it just left me feeling kind of queasy.

-Christine Morgan

THE DAMNED by Kirk Kilgrave (2018 IP / 228 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Reality show meets haunted house, when two teams of ‘experts’ compete to rid a spooky mansion of malevolent forces, for the promise of a big cash prize. One team is composed of ghost-hunters, brash mouthy dudes loaded down with equipment and skepticism. The other team consists of psychics and spiritualists, including the gifted crone, her young apprentice, and our gutsy protagonist who’s had a previous run-in with demons.

Of course, the house IS haunted, plagued with more (and worse) than ordinary ghosts. Of course, it’s remote and they have no way to call for help if anything goes wrong. And of course, things quickly go wrong. One by one, they’re picked off, as they realize they’ve been brought here under false pretenses.

For alleged ‘experts,’ most of the characters are dumb-stubborn in the head-desking obnoxious unrealistic way of so many horror movies. They also spend way too much time info-dumping and tediously explaining things to each other. Heavy on the “telling,” light on emotion and reaction, pretty much meh overall.

-Christine Morgan

SKIN by Dr. Circus (2019 Amazon Digital / 88 pp / eBook)

Um, okay then. Not sure how I ended up with this one, but thought I’d give it a whirl. Never know, right? Might discover a gem, right? Or not.

Sorry to say, this time the answer’s more over on the side of ‘not.’ While there’s a definite enthusiasm to it, some wildly-imagined descriptions and visuals, and some really wildly-imagined really really graphic demon smut, the writing needs a LOT of work and I don’t think an editor or even so much as a beta-reader had a look at it before it was made available.

Do I think it has potential? Possibly. Like I said, there’s definite enthusiasm and creativity, the author was clearly having fun, but the result is far from final-draft-worthy. I only kept reading partly because it’s a very short book and partly out of morbid curiosity.

Several storylines intertwine, centering around a girl named Luna who runs an online business selling occult stuff – books, spells, curses, etc. They’re surprisingly effective, because Luna’s got a direct connection to Hell, though Luna’s finding out that dealing with devils has its own dangerous side effects.

The other storylines follow some of her customers. Such as Emma and Cory, who’ve gotten their hands on an evil book that leads them into a nightmare landscape of flesh … and Anya, who’s ordered up a visit from an incubus to sate her most depraved desires … and an expectant father who’s neglected to mention buying a fertility spell to his wife.

So yeah, it’s dirty, it’s nasty, there’s blood and gore and the abovementioned demon smut. It has the imagination and enthusiasm, but the writing seriously needs work. Might have better luck browsing the “erotic horror” category on Literotica in the meantime.

-Christine Morgan

THE ADVERSARY by Mauricio Limeira / translated by Fabiola Lowenthal (2017 Amazon Digital / 285 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Then there are the days you get an envelope covered with international postage stickers and it’s a nifty-looking paperback from Brazil, with really cool built-in flyleaf cover design (why don’t all paperbacks have that? brilliant!)

Even better, it turns out to be a really cool read. Admittedly, not the easiest one; the translation from Portuguese is far from perfect, and might throw some readers off. Me, language-loving weirdo that I am, I found it extra-fascinating to compare and contrast, and see how various concepts came across. I think I enjoyed that aspect as much as I enjoyed the story itself.

I think it also helped that it’s in first-person point-of-view (well, mostly; halfway through it does inexplicably switch to third for the rest of the book). Makes the tone very conversational and natural, like listening to someone who’s not a native speaker nonetheless do a great job getting their point across.

Story-wise, our protagonist, Zeca, is on the run. It’s a mess he got himself into by, in a moment of grief-stricken desperation, hiring a killer to seek revenge on his behalf. Casimir, however, turns out to be no ordinary assassin, and his interest in Zeca quickly becomes a deadly, even supernatural, obsession. To save himself and his rapidly-dwindling list of loved ones, Zeca will have to confront his own inner dark side, while trying to stay a step ahead of evil.

Most impressive of all, this is the author’s first novel, and if this is how good of a debut they’re making, the rest of us better look out! Even taking the language/translation issues into account. I’ve seen far rougher works from more experienced native English speakers. Definite kudos to the author and translator!

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on a cell phone you probably won't be able to wee it. Break out the laptop, baby...

IN THE SCRAPE by James Newman and Mark Steensland (2019 Silver Shamrock Publishing / 108 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

In this engrossing novella, two young brothers live in an isolated North Carolina community with their abusive father. He has told them their mother left for California because she no longer wanted to be a mom, but neither boy is buying it and they plan to run away and find her. Jake begins stealing to afford bus tickets, and younger brother Matthew goes along with him apprehensively, until he realizes they need to get away from their dad before his beatings become fatal.

Also causing problems is neighborhood bully Caleb, who Jake eventually puts in the hospital, which leads to further complications once the brothers put their escape plan into action.

Part coming of age story, part thriller with some genuinely tense moments, IN THE SCRAPE is another solid tale from the writing team of Newman and Steensland (whose previous novella, THE SPECIAL, is currently being made into a film). I blasted through this in one manic sitting and found everything had an authentic feel, even the slight hint of the supernatural.

-Nick Cato

GHOST STORIES: CLASSIC STORIES OF HORROR AND SUSPENSE edited by Lisa Morton and Leslie Klinger (2019 Pegasus Books / 260 pp / hardcover & eBook)

Every now and then, it’s good to go back and appreciate our roots, get a better appreciation of where we are and where we came from. Especially when the subject is horror, so often undervalued and overlooked in literary circles.

Where better to begin than the classic ghost story? This volume collects seventeen of the earliest published tales, as well as opening with an example of the kind of haunting poetic ballad where the sub-genre used to mostly hang its spectral hat.

Many of these were familiar to me, even if I hadn’t read them in years. Others, somehow, I’d entirely missed, and was glad to finally catch up on. We’ve got Poe’s “Ligeia,” of course … works by M.R. James and Wilkie Collins, Dickens himself. We’ve got stories by Edith Wharton, Olivia Howard Dunbar, Georgia Wood Pangborn, Charlotte Riddell, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, further proving the shouldn’t-have-to-be-proved-anyway point that ladies have ALWAYS been doing this as long and just as well as the gents.

In fact, it’s Phelps’ “Since I Died” that takes the prize for my top pick of the book; wonderfully written, can’t believe I’d never seen it before, some fantastic use of first- and second-person perspective, fabulous descriptions, really hits home with the chilling emotional resonance.

Readers only accustomed to contemporary fast-paced hard-hitting fiction might find these oldies a bit on the slow and rambling/meandering side, but they make up for it with mood, atmosphere, stylishly beautiful turns of phrase, and artfulness the likes of which it’s rare to see these days.

The introduction, and helpful footnotes included throughout, serve to provide a more scholarly academic touch. The history of ghost stories, mediums, and the Spiritualism movement add an extra dimension, making for a satisfying educational experience as well as an entertaining one.

-Christine Morgan

I DREAM OF MIRRORS by Chris Kelso (2019 Sinister Horror Company / 158 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I tell ya, I like to think of myself as fairly smart and savvy and generally together in the brainmeats department, until along comes a book like this and I end up feeling mighty out of my depth. In a good way, though; a profound makes-you-think way. This one isn’t a casual time-passer or idle distraction.

I read it all the way through in one studious sitting, and still came out the other end wondering how much had gone whoosh right over my head. Complex and multi-layered with social satire and commentary, it may seem on the surface to be a survival struggle in a digital-era dystopia … at least, that’s how it seemed to me … but maybe not.

So, do be aware I could be getting it all entirely wrong. This is all only as I perceived it, for whatever that’s worth.

Our main character is a narrator so unreliable even he no longer knows who he is, existing as one of the few remaining ‘dark-dwellers’ not yet indoctrinated into the mindless zombie-like personality cult worshipping a charismatic new leader and slavishly serving the new world order. He’s teamed up with, and secretly fallen for, a tough young woman named Kad. They seek shelter and supplies in abandoned parts of the city, trying to avoid being taken into the fold by any new broadcasts or transmissions.

When a mistake leads to their partnership breaking, our ill-prepared protagonist is suddenly out on the streets on his own. In true and openly-acknowledged Ahab-allegory fashion, he sets out to confront the would-be messiah, only to find out that reality is even weirder than he could have suspected.

-Christine Morgan

SUSPENDED IN DUSK II edited by Simon Dewar (2018 Grey Matter Press / 282 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Gorgeous book. Dean Samed cover, so, no wonder … sometimes that tired old adage about judging just plain doesn’t work. His art is mind-blowing in all the right ways, helping to set the perfect mood and tone for the stories gathered herein.

Those stories – of which there are seventeen – share a common general theme of ‘change,’ of the between, times and spaces and places of transition and crossing. Beyond that, they range from quiet to visceral, smoothly spanning eras, settings, and genres with masterful skill.

Masterful, and no wonder on that either! The authors included are some definite top-tier pros. Just glancing over their “about the” sections, the well-earned and well-deserved credentials, education, accolades and accomplishments are sure to impress (or intimidate, or make-one-feel-inadequate, but I digress).

Editor Simon Dewar’s foreword, and Angela Slatter’s introduction examining how we’re the only species to deliberately seek to scare ourselves on purpose (what is *wrong* with us?), also nicely help set the tone, as well as establish the professional creds of the book.

And then, let the unsettlings begin! Starting off with Karen Runge’s “Angeline,” which swiftly goes from an innocent-enough-seeming-but-also-kinda-creepy first line to decidedly creepy, to deeply creepy, to downright screaming eeks. Yow.

Next up is a terrifying tale of an all-too-real fear courtesy of Damien Angelica Walters, and if I repeat too many more times how she has yet to write anything less than amazing, she’ll probably take out a restraining order. Then Alan Baxter, whom I fully expect to have a movie or Netflix deal soon, takes on teens and the darker corners of the internet.

Plus more, so much more … poetic graveyard art, followed by a little loving cannibalism … ghost walks and terrible bargains … the trapped doom of claustrophobia … lost children, strange legacies … demon-summonings gone awry and sacrifices demanded … folklore, fairy-tales and mythology reaching into the modern world …

Yeah, this one’s another winner!

-Christine Morgan

NIGHT OF THE POSSUMS by Jacob Floyd (2018 Nightmare Press / 296 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

A pivotal, formative part of my childhood was nature-run-amok creature-feature horror, thanks to a shelf of paperbacks my grandmother made my grandfather keep out in the garage. I spent a lot of time out there, reading about dogs and rats and snakes and slugs. In later years, I edited an anthology of similar tales with some less-likely critters (geckos, chihuahuas, crabs, platypuses, murderous blades of grass even!).

So, you better believe it, when a book called Night of the Possums comes along, I am totally there! Whether reviled as trash-goblin vermin, underrated as helpful bug-eaters, or simply misunderstood urban wildlife, they have one of the most divisive reputations in the animal kingdom as far as we humans are concerned.

Not so surprising, then, if they might eventually decide they’d had enough. Enough scrounging through our garbage. Enough being trapped by exterminators and targeted for roadkill. Welcome to a world where possums – or opossums, depending; the distinction is addressed in the book – are plenty pissed, and ready to serve up some payback.

Anybody who might scoff over how much damage a possum would do has clearly never cornered one in an alley or basement. In numbers? And we’re talking NUMBERS, no mere pack of possums but the full-on possum apocalypse. We’re also talking some possums that are far from ordinary in other ways. Bigger. Smarter. Purposeful.

For the people of one small town, what at first seems like random bear maulings or even a roving psycho soon proves to be far more than anyone could have bargained for. It’s a hissing, clawing, biting, screeching bloodbath fight for survival. Total B-movie schlock from start to finish, exactly as it should be.

-Christine Morgan

POP THE CLUTCH: THRILLING TALES OF ROCKABILLY, MONSTERS, AND HOT ROD HORROR edited by Eric J. Guignard (2019 Dark Moon Books / 356 pp / eBook)

Rockabilly horror stories? ROCKABILLY HORROR STORIES!!! Really, is there anything more that needs be said? I mean, I’ll say more anyway because it’s how I roll.

Maybe it was your scene, back in the day. Maybe you grew up hooked on Grease, or watched Cry Baby one too many times, or wanted to be Fonzie when you grew up. For my own fondness, I blame Brian Setzer and the Stray Cats.

However it happened, there’s just something so ridiculously 50’s Americana about it all, so over the top and outrageous, malt shops and car hops, hep cats and hot-rods, so brash, so loud, so tacky. These eighteen stories embody all of it, plus delving into the darker side where drag races and drive-ins turn deadly, but rock and roll will never die … ever … no matter what you do.

And look at this lineup! These are the total T-Birds and Pink Ladies of the genre, the cool kids in school. They got the Lansdales! Both Weston Ochse AND Yvonne Navarro! Class clown extraordinaire Jeff Strand! David-freakin-SCHOW! Lisa-freakin-MORTON! Seanan-are-you-kidding-me-MCGUIRE!!!

But, honestly, it’s simple enough – if you like rockabilly (with or without horror), you need this book. And if you don’t, well, your loss, squares and sad-sacks!

-Christine Morgan

AFTER THE CHANGE by Michael J. Moore (2019 MKM Bridge Press / 286 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

It’s not zombies, though, even if the book’s protagonists have a hard time convincing anybody else of that. As far as teenagers Wes, Cali, and Diego are concerned, the unfortunate victims of the mysterious event are just ‘changed.’

Well, not just changed. It’s a murderous infected/crazies pandemic scenario. The reader doesn’t get much in the way of explanation, which makes sense because neither do the characters. The cause, the contagion vector, none of that matters. What matters is staying sane, staying safe, and not getting killed or eaten.

With a military/mercenary group scouring the countryside for resources and recruits, and a cultish bunch with a charismatic leader holed up in a grocery store, the teens soon learn it’s not only the changed that pose a threat.

The main characters seem awfully mature for fifteen-year-olds, even under the circumstances … the supporting characters are for the most part pretty bland, and there are a few too many convenient nick-of-time or lucky saves for my taste. But it’s decently written and sound enough.

Best part for me was seeing an apocalypse-survival story set in the area north of Seattle; I used to live in Everett WA, so all those familiar locations and placenames made for an entertaining journey.

-Christine Morgan

BALLAD OF THE RIEGELSBERG WEREWOLF AND OTHER FANTASTIC ACCOUNTS by DC Larson (2019 Retro Riff Books / 128 pp / eBook)

Capturing the spirit of those late-night, low-budget, monstorama-theater creature features, hearkening back to the days when ghoulish hosts would introduce the fright night chills and thrills, this is a collection of several little stories written as homage to those.

Like their inspirational source material, these aren’t the most tightly plotted or plausible tales, nor do they have to be. They’re goofy fun, written in a way that brings them to grainy, black-and-white life … with the static of an old television set, or the film-sputteriness of a bargain matinee.

You’ve got your basic mad scientists, absent-minded professors, run-down castles, winsome beauties, intelligent inspectors, manly military men, folksy locals whose warnings go ignored, aliens and weird experiments, plucky kids with pluckier robot friends, rampant patriotic fervor, jet-packs, gloomy moonlit woods, tough teens pitting hotrods against unnatural menaces, the works.

Even for what it is, the book maybe could’ve used a little more editor-type polish, but its charm makes the flaws almost like seeing the wires holding the tin plate spaceships or the zipper down the monster’s back. Light-hearted popcorn fun. I’d watch any of these for a cheesy movie party night.

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on a cell phone it may not be visible. Boot up the lap top, amigo ...

PREVIEW:

THE PALE WHITE by Chad Lutzke (to be released 9/27/19 by Crystal Lake Publishing / 85 pp / eBook)

For the past year, Stacia has been the captive of a demented predator who keeps her locked in an attic. Along with goth girl Alex and a young mute named Kammie, they're only allowed to come down to the second floor to be used as sex toys for a host of pedophiles and other lowlifes. Alex and Kammie have been there much longer than Stacia, until one day when Alex comes up with a plan to escape their perverted pimp.

This short but powerful story is a dark coming of age tale that reminded me a bit of Jack Ketchum, but at this point Lutzke has created his own voice, and the second half of the story, while suspenseful, will leave readers hopeful and satisfied. Most of THE PALE WHITE deals with the aftermath of a tragedy, and I see many tears being shed through this journey, and what our girls go through is the fuel of every parent's worst nightmare.

Brutal, exciting, disturbing and heartbreaking, Lutzke has become a master of the horror novella form. No filler, a strong cast, and plenty to say about family relationships (both biological and chosen) makes this a must read.

-Nick Cato

DARK LANTERN OF THE SPIRIT by Max Beaven (2019 IP / 168 pp / trade paperback, eBook, audiobook)

Weird western cosmic horror, always fun! Buddy-cop style with recurring characters, extra points! Everything told first-person in a sort of nesting doll frame narrative with letters and such, a little confusing overall but it more or less works.

The place is Casper, Wyoming, a rough-and-dusty frontier town. The year is 1897. Transplanted New-Englander Arthur Wilson is still considered something of an outsider even after six years as a deputy sheriff. Now, with some unknown menace threatening the locals, he has to call in another outsider for help.

Scholar and occultist Benjamin Hathorne, comfortably at home in Massachusetts, may be ill-suited to venture out west, but for the sake of an old friend and a mystery to solve, he’ll do it. Even loaded up with arcane knowledge and some useful items, however, he’s not quite prepared for what’s waiting in the wilderness.

Add in gutsy ranchers, helpful natives, a winsome young lady who might be the key to unlocking Arthur’s broken heart, and the eldritch stirrings of an ancient and terrible power, and the duo have got their work more than cut out for them.

-Christine Morgan

THE CRYMOST by Dean H. Wild (2019 Blood Bound Books / 278 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

There’s just something so compelling about the small town with mysterious secrets I never get tired of, and this book provides another solid addition to the sub-genre. I picked up comfortable notes of King’s work, Castle Rock and Salem’s Lot and the one from Under the Dome in particular, that feeling the town itself is a living and ensouled entity, a character in its own story.

This time, the town in question is called Knoll, a quaint and charming peaceful little place. Some of the local families date back to its founding, enjoying their position of history and tradition, maybe a tad resistant to new things and change, but not necessarily unfriendly to newcomers.

They mostly all keep to their own business, with occasional flare-ups of petty grudges and scandals, and events like an upcoming vote involving the fate of the old mercantile are the big all-consuming news. Humble and prosaic, right?

Except then there’s the Crymost … a peculiar feature up in the hills out by the landfill … a rearing limestone ledge overlooking a drop into a deep spring-fed pool … where the people of Knoll bring their offerings. Part sacrificial cenote, part wishing well, part memorial to the dead, there’s no telling what items of strong personal meaning may end up dropped from the height.

And, now, items are reappearing. Items that have been gone for years, even decades, to the depths of the pool. A dark-suited stranger has been seen around. Inspections at the landfill turn up a problem that may bring in hosts of outsiders. Odd messages and odd occurrences lead some of the Knollfolk to realize something powerful is building, and they’re in a race against time to solve the mystery before it’s too late.

Entertaining and intriguing, with many interesting characters who often do surprisingly sensible things (and some who make entirely understandable bad choices); I particularly liked the visuals and poignant touches of the various offering items.

-Christine Morgan

THE SHADOWS BEHIND by Kristi Petersen Schoonover (2019 Books and Boos Press / 301 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Seventeen unsettling, well-written, strongly female-themed stories make up this collection. For the most part, they seem to range between the exotic to the everyday, but every now and then along comes a surprise turn toward bizarro.

For the exotic: archaeologists at a volcanic ash dig site, Egyptian antiquities extending their dangerous influence, hula hauntings and haunted Hawaiian art (hey, for me, Hawaii counts as exotic!), the addition of a rare Madagascar plant to a suburban garden, and an occult oracle in the form of a mummified fish.

For the everyday: a small-town librarian troubled by omens and visions, kid disappearances and a family with a secret, a guilty return to the ol’ swimming hole, a grieving mother no longer fitting in with her friends, a too-creepy flash piece about fearing the dark, a town overrun by kudzu.

As for the bizarre, 'Snake in the Grass' has this irresistible grabber of an opening line: "Twenty-one years after I was the first girl to get boobs in fifth grade, I woke up with a penis." I mean, whoa hello what? Then there’s the post-apocalypticy bizarro of 'Deconstructing Fireflies,' in which a farmer’s wife is concerned about her son’s interests … and 'How I Stopped Complaining and Learned to Love the Bunny,' because those plastic holiday statues aren’t disturbing enough already.

I had two tied-for-faves this time around, though maybe not so much because I enjoyed them as because I found them powerful, painful, emotionally difficult reads. One was 'Doors,' maybe because I too am getting on in years and facing the uncomfortable eventual contemplation of having to clear out the ancestral hoarder-home some day; daunting enough even without there being secret purpose to the clutter. The other, 'The Thing Inside,' is a difficult and potentially painful read, involving a couple mourning their stillborn baby, but then adds in alcoholism and jackalopes and possible insanity.

All in all, potent stuff, well-written, with characters it’s easy to empathize with even as they’re doing terrible things.

-Christine Morgan

TERMINAL by Michaelbrent Collings (2019 Written Insomnia Press / 329 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

The “bunch of random people thrown together in a bad situation” is one of the most fun tropes out there to play with. It’s not knowing who people are and what they’re capable of. It’s how much to hide, how much to reveal, how much to cooperate, how far to go, how much to everyone-for-him/herself.

Usually, these work best when set in common neutral-ground or liminal in-between travel places, where anybody could be for whatever reason.

This time, it’s a small out-of-the-way bus terminal, in the dragging late hours. A few of the characters work there or are locals, but the others are unknown elements just passing through. Or so it seems at first; sometimes there are hidden connections, invisible threads linking lives.

Just imagine, there you are, waiting at the bus terminal. Waiting for your shift to end, waiting for a bus to arrive, waiting and waiting. Observing the people around you but not really interacting with them … until, suddenly, (bleep) gets real. Instead of a place for waiting, the terminal becomes a prison, a trap.

Not by any natural disaster or ordinary danger, either. Paranormal things are afoot. Ominous messages suggest the only way to get through the night is to do the ultimate vote-off. One person may live. Everyone has to decide. It’s got to be unanimous. All in favor.

Collings, always deft and adept with characters, does a fantastic teeth-gritting job of building sympathy and intrigue, suspicion and suspense, growth and change even within. Secrets are revealed, and stark nasty truths. And, for even the most decent among them, the idea of making the choice easier by eliminating the competition is a short and tempting logical leap.

Another gripping white-knuckler, I read it at one sitting, kept changing my mind who I was rooting for, and gasped aloud several times at expertly-done twists.

-Christine Morgan

THE FAITHFUL by Matt Hayward (2018 Sinister Grin Press / 269 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, eBook)

The “small town creepy cult” is another of the most fun tropes to play with, and this time it’s Matt Hayward’s turn to bring the rustic inexplicable weird. The small town in question is Elswich, North Carolina, very much off the beaten track, where grubbiness, poverty, intolerance, abuse, and plain downright meanness are pretty much the rule of the day.

So, not the nicest of places to start with, even before factoring in disappearances and bloody sacrifices and horrible physical abnormalities. Into this charming scene arrives Jonesy, a rambling long-haired type with a guitar … needless to say, he doesn’t receive the best welcome from the locals.

He’s got a particular reason for being here, though: tracking down the ex he ran out on when she got pregnant twelve years ago. Meeting his biological son starts off difficult and goes downhill from there, until Jonesy is on the run with the kid, trying to get them both out of town before anyone’s killed.

Meanwhile, retiring comedian Leo Carmichael has just done his final show and is ready to hit the road in his new RV. After a cryptic but intriguing meeting with a disabled fan, he decides to follow up on those rumors of dreams and strange occurrences in Elswich, and finds a reception no warmer than Jonesy did.

Eager to leave, he’s nonetheless kind enough to stop to pick up a guy and his kid, and then they’re all in it together with half the town’s monstrous population hot on their heels. They soon realize the only way to escape is to turn around and confront the evil at its source, because the dark powers at work in Elswich have already marked them all.

-Christine Morgan

DAHMER'S NOT DEAD by Edward Lee and Elizabeth Steffen (2011 Necro Publications / 248 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, eBook)

Ashamed of myself, diehard Lee fangirl that I am, that this one had slipped by me unnoticed for so long. But, with it being the book club discussion title of the month on “The Horror Show With Brian Keene” (yes, plug for the podcast; if you’re not listening, you should be, it’s excellent!), I knew I had to set things right and pronto.

Now, some might think the combination of one of the flat-out freakydeakiest and feared serial killers of our time with the no-holds-barred graphic language and singular style of Edward Lee would make for a gooshy gory graphic splatfest like none other. And some might be turned off by the idea, tempted to give this one a miss no matter how popular all those murder shows are now.

Well, let me assure you, as Lee stuff goes, especially given the subject matter here, the results are tempered and balanced (Ms Steffen’s influence, I presume) and milder than one might expect. Milder, but still, we are talking about murder and cannibalism here, so let’s not get too comfy, okay?

Our protagonist here is Helen Closs, a police captain facing maybe a few too many stereotypical struggles – career woman trying to prove herself and be taken seriously in a male-dominated field, commitment and trust issues with her boyfriend and her therapist, plus OMG she’s forty so menopause so end of sexuality and looks going downhill (though we are informed of her bra size; that’s probably Lee’s doing). I kinda wanted to smack her.

Her latest case involves Dahmer’s apparent death in prison, beaten to an unrecognizable pulp by a fellow inmate. But there are questions and concerns, discrepancies, right from the start, beginning with getting a positive ID of the body. Further complications quickly arise with new murders. A copycat, obviously … or is it? The evidence suggests otherwise. Was there a switcheroo? Did Dahmer escape and immediately start up his old tricks again?

Helen’s own part in the investigation is further complicated by the fact her boyfriend, who she’s just accused of cheating on her and thrown out, is the medical examiner in charge of the autopsy … a little extra workplace awkwardness. There’s also the media furor, especially once the killer – copycat or the real deal? – starts leaving notes, and various persons of interest turn up missing or meet convenient bad ends.

IS Dahmer dead? Read and find out!

-Christine Morgan

EXPERIMENT NINE by Eric Ian Steele (2018 Solstice Publishing / 342 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

A little disconcertingly, the word “vampire” doesn’t seem to appear in this book. Not even in a “there’s no such thing as” speech by some blustering disbeliever after the exsanguinated bodies start turning up, although it’s presented in other ways as our own usual world.

Now, granted, these aren’t your traditional folklore cape-and-coffin vampires, but the blood-drinking is there, the near-immortality, the vulnerability to sunlight, the ability to create others of their own kind, the compelling mental powers, etc. But their origin here is more clinical and sinister, the results of science that turned out to work a little too well … then, of course, they get out.

The original escapees from the Tower have no memories of their former lives or selves. They go on the run, needing to feed and stay hidden, and to increase their numbers to replace those they’ve lost. Trouble is, there are only so many ways to cover up a growing string of grisly deaths and mysterious disappearances.

Detective Mike Hanlon (the name, same as a King character, admittedly kept throwing me off) is a Brooklyn cop relocated to Iowa, dealing with his difficult issues. This bizarre case gives him a goal, and he’s determined to track down the killers even as more and more bizarre evidence piles up, no matter the risks to his career and his life.

Throw in shadowy agencies trying to bring the situation back under control, a survivor/witness who’s lost his entire family, and the dark history of the doctors behind the experiments, and it’s no wonder the trails all eventually lead back to a final confrontation where it all began.

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

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WHITE TRASH GOTHIC PART TWO by Edward Lee (2019 Section 31 Productions / 160 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at this one months ago, and even then it felt like forever since the end of Part 1! Those of you who’ve been waiting the whole time must’ve really been suffering! But now, now, finally, the suffering is … well, I can’t very well say ‘over,’ now, can I?

Seriously, c’mon, this is an Edward Lee book. This is part of his personal Dark Tower series, interweaving threads from his various works together into one massive tapestry. One massive, hellacious, atrocious, outrageous tapestry.

We rejoin the Writer, who came to Luntville merely trying to solve the mystery of his missing memories, only to be swept up in a destiny of legendary, even Arthurian, proportions. He’s started the derelict car once belonging to Dicky Caudill, of the infamous Dicky-and-Balls duo, and is being hailed as the chosen One. He’s having vision-dreams and getting snarky messages from his own doppelganger. He’s on his way to investigate a necromancer’s estate in the company of two buxom beauties. He’s not intending to open doorways to Hell, but …

It’s got hillbillies and horrific tortures and vile acts galore. It’s got Lovecraftian elements that’d make ol’ Howie keel right over in terminal shock (not to mention scandalize and offend the scholarly purist types, which, personally, always makes me grin). There’s mucho graphic girl-on-girl action of both the sexual and combative varieties. There’s bodily fluids of every all-too-vivid description.

And, folks, there’s the Bighead. THE BIGHEAD IS BACK. Is he ever! In all his grotesque, violent glory. His encounter with a prison bus of pregnant women and their nasty guards (looking at YOU, Sergeant Harding Ryans!) is one for the ages. The Bighead even has a moment so unexpected, I actually went “d’awwww” out loud!

Written with Lee’s trademark mix of elevated erudition and crass-tastic obscenity-laden dialect, breaking the fourth wall with wicked humor, and just generally going to and beyond every extreme, it’s a deservedly awesome debut for Section 31 Productions and a vital addition to any Lee library.

Worth the wait? Oh, yes! Though now we just have to wait for Part 3 … .

-Christine Morgan

BLACK SIREN by Nikki Noir (2019 Red Rum Reviews / 45 pp / eBook)

Nikki Noir isn’t just a reviewer of the dark, sick, sexy stuff … she writes it, too! And pretty dang well, as this tasty teaser of a novella shows.

Make no mistake, we’re talking graphic content, and that’s made clear from the very first line. The story opens at a porn shoot, where model/actress Lily has her own rules about what she’ll do and how far she’ll go for how much money.

It’s not that she’s squeamish or skittish. She just has standards. A girl’s gotta get paid. Especially when she’s five grand in debt to the kind of people who don’t appreciate late payments. Running out of options, she turns to a sleazy former acquaintance who offers her an opportunity to get the money she needs. All she has to do is choke down her humiliation (and a few other things).

Lily agrees, and goes to the gig, only to find out her payment isn’t in the currency she expected. Instead of cash, she ends up in possession of a mysterious substance known as Black Siren. Presuming it’s a drug, she attempts to barter it to pay off her debt, before she realizes the effects it has and that she was never meant to get her hands on it in the first place.

Of course, it ends cliffhanger-style as a lead in to a sequel, but it’s a sequel I will certainly be ready to read, just to see what kind of danger and smutty trouble Lily gets herself into next!

-Christine Morgan

THE DAYLIGHT WILL NOT SAVE YOU by Mark Allan Gunnells (2019 Unnerving Press / 167 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Fasten your seatbelts, Ladies and Gentlemen. It’s about to get hella bumpy and then some up in here with a new collection by Mark Allan Gunnells. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the author has a genuine knack for the art of storytelling. Gunnells’ characters continue to invoke real-world emotions and empathy as they bleed, suffer, and penetrate their way throughout the entirety of this twenty-seven story collection.

Some of my personal favorites were ‘The Cursed Anthology,’ as a man visits the home of a notorious horror editor by the name of Edward Finch, who was the editor of an anthology titled Modern Gothic. The contributors mysteriously began dying one after another in the order in which they appeared in the table of contents in what became to be an internet famous anthology referred to as The Cursed Anthology. ‘Redman,’ a fantastic tale in honor of the great and fantastic Jack Ketchum. ‘A Rain of Autumn Leaves,’ a haunting tale centered around a young mother and her child as the autumn leaves continue to fall and fall and fall. Other honorable mentions; ‘Good Guys With Guns,’ ‘Dead Boy,’ ‘Perversion Therapy’ and ‘Pink Applesauce’.

If you’re in the market to read something dark and horrific that is unique, thought-provoking, comedic at times, well-written, and genuinely overall entertaining to fulfill all of your horror needs and desires, look no further and check this one out.

-Jon R. Meyers

BODY ART: THE COLORING BOOK by Kristopher Triana and Corlen Scope (2019 IP / 77 pp / trade paperback)

Rarely has the “see inside” feature been so hilariously abbreviated … nothing about this book is safe for work, for family viewing, for public, or really for anywhere … the novel was already blow-the-doors-off graphic, and this coloring book version MORE than does it justice. Any random page is an eye-popper for sure. I hope it arrives in a discreet plain brown wrapper!

Highly realistic and VERY detailed. The stuff they showed you in health class, and even the brochures at your sex-doc’s office, got nothin’ on these pics. They illustrate excruciatingly dirty and/or painful scenes with up-close precision so as to mercilessly leave nothing to the imagination.

Now, here they are in full-page black and white, waiting for the discerning reader or artist to fill in the vivid, glorious colors. I haven’t attempted any yet, partly because I’d be sorely tempted to do a livestream Bob Ross style narration with “a happy little penis right over here” (as if I wasn’t already hellbound, that’d do it for sure), and partly because I doubt my humble skills would be up to the spectacle this deserves (I have many immensely talented artist friends to compare myself to).

Choice of medium is another concern. The humble wax crayon or colored pencil? Water colors? Pastels? Someone suggested glitter gel pens. Or Lisa Frank candy-hues? Full splat-gore-biological realism? Maybe some of each. I don’t know, but, the possibilities are endless. What I’d really love to do is get all those aforementioned artist friends together with drinks and have them each do a page.

A definite conversation piece for anyone you’d dare show it to, a keepsake to add to your collection, one fantastic X-rated must-have!

-Christine Morgan

CREEP THROAT edited by Viorika La Vae (2019 Jugular Press / 81 pp / eBook)

Anything with a subtitle of “Sex Fables for the Horny, Gloomy, and Unhinged” is going to get my attention, and I’m delighted to report that the book lived up to and exceeded my expectations.

It begins with a selection from vintage erotica cornerstone The Pearl, to show there’s a long history of this sort of thing and isn’t just something new that modern sickos came up with. Some are cosmic, some are comic. There are sexy shifters, cyberkink, and demonic dungeon-play. A sailing adventure gone nastily awry, hapless would-be occultists unleashing more than they bargained for, and more!

As a fan of pastiches and mashups, I particularly enjoyed seeing some familiar classics get affectionately spoofed – “The Wicker Dick,” for instance, is a hilarious sacrificial-virgin visit to ‘Bummerisle,’ while “LiGGGea” would make ol’ Edgar reel with shock.

With ten tales in all, this is one wicked and delightful assortment of naughtiness, packed with the sort of smut, horror, skillfully twisted writing, and clever literary mischief I love.

-Christine Morgan

NIGHTMARES IN ECSTASY by Brendan Vidito (2018 Clash Books / 157 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Thirteen disturbed and disturbing stories showcase Brendan Vidito’s depraved talent and imagination in this not-for-the-faint-of-heart collection. Starting off with some gooshy body horror in which a pair of lovers with a very intimate, literal, physical bond have to take their breakup to drastic levels; I flinched and squicked a whole lot through that, all right!

The language takes no prisoners either. Some of the titles, I can’t even include in this review without being bleeped. One called “F*** Shock,” for instance (what’s a guy to do when he’s had the best he’ll ever have and nothing else will satisfy?). Or another, a charming tale of humiliation and degradation, called “P*** Slave.”

Then there’s the unbleeped titles like “Placenta Bride,” in which a grieving widower tries to bring back his family using a forgotten pregnancy souvenir from the back of the freezer (ick on several levels!). Or the innocuous-enough-sounding “Rebound,” a lovely little romance between a man and his tapeworm (eeeew!).

For some dark forays into complex horrors, you’ll find a few longer and grimmer more serious works, including the weirdly-almost-gothic “A Feast of You,” and a harrowing quest for healing with a terrible price in “The Black Waters of Babylon.”

“Miranda,” the intriguingly written walkthrough/playthrough of a deadly video game, also deserves mention for experimental originality, doing well what so many movies have tried but done rather poorly.

One final note: as horrific as is what happens to the various human characters throughout this book, gotta say the stuff with the cat in “Stag Loop” was too much for me; if that’s one of your issues, do be warned. Aside from that, jump in, get messy, enjoy the read!

-Christine Morgan

GARDEN OF FIENDS edited by Mark Matthews (2017 Wicked Run Press / 211 pp / trade paperback, eBook, audiobook)

Billed as “Tales of Addiction Horror,” this anthology is not light-heartedly goofing around. These stories approach addiction in its various forms from several different angles, and while some may on the surface seem dissimilar, what they share is an emphasis on the insidious, compelling power of craving and need.

Kealan Patrick Burke starts things off with “A Wicked Thirst,” which follows a desperate alcoholic to the very limits and beyond.

Just the opening line alone to Jessica McHugh’s “The One in the Middle” is a leg-crosser for sure … anything involving injection and testicles … and it gets wilder from there!

Editor Mark Matthews chimes in with “Garden of Fiends,” about how addiction can destroy not only an individual but everyone around them.

With Johan Thorsson’s quick flash-fic “First, Bite Just a Finger,” the notion of your own hungers consuming you proves very literal.

John FD Taff also takes on alcoholism in “Last Call,” with the offer of a surefire cure that comes with terrible consequences for backsliding.

“Torment of the Fallen” by Glen Krisch ventures into somewhat more paranormal territory, as a teenager’s obsession with the uncanny leads to battling other demons.

Max Booth III, no stranger to hardcore horror, rivals Ms. McHugh for genital-related squickiness in “Everywhere You’ve Bled and Everywhere You Will,” a … let’s call it a cautionary tale, shall we?

Last, but unforgettably not least, “Returns,” by Jack Ketchum, is still and always will be the most heart-wrenching thing ever, all too plausible and all too hateful and horrid and true. He really was the best at quietly finding the ultimate nerve center and sliding a cold needle right into it.

Whether a substance, an activity, an emotion, or something else, whether resisting or giving in, these characters are going through what each and every one of us, in some way, may eventually have to deal with. Their stories, like it or not, are our stories as well.

-Christine Morgan

EASY MONEY: DEADLY REALITY TV BOOK 1: by Sea Caummisar (2019 Amazon Digital / 172 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I should not have enjoyed this book as much as I did … it was a lot of telling rather than showing, a lot of same-scene POV jumps, it had several editorial mistakes including wrong names for characters … all things I normally gripe about a lot. And here I am, still griping about them, but despite those flaws, it was just such a crazygrossfun read that I liked it anyway.

The premise is simple enough, and not at all far-fetched: a how-far-would-you-go reality game show where people compete in physical challenges for cash prizes. We’ve seen actual similar things on TV already; I remember one where they’d subject the contestants to cold and heat, Survivor has its share of endurance tests, Amazing Race has done firewalking, there’s always good ol’ Fear Factor, etc. But this takes the next step, involving deliberate injury and pain.

Easy Money is the brainchild of Uptown Reality Network executive producer Damon Dahmer, A guy with a name like that, it’s no surprise he turns out to have a sadistic streak. Tired of dating drama shows, and noting a ratings spike after an on-screen accident resulting in a broken arm, he pitches his new idea and gets approved for a pilot episode.

In it, two contestants bid Name-That-Tune style to see who’ll hurt themselves for the lowest amount. First challenge is staplegunning, followed by nailgunning, followed by a real gun. Live, in front of a live studio audience, no tricks, no effects, extreme close-ups of the bloody results.

The nation is aghast, but in the morbidly fascinated horrible way that demands more, more, more. Subsequent episodes raise the stakes both in terms of prizes and punishments, until we’re talking some SAW-level gruesomeness.

Meanwhile, as his beleaguered but optimistic assistant Mary is battling her own ethical issues, Damon can’t get enough, and, shall we say, starts his own private version of the Easy Money home game.

So yeah, a lot of flaws, but also a lot of fun, and I’ll be eager to see what comes next in the series.

-Christine Morgan

BLACK STATIC Issue #71 (Sep-Oct 2019 / 96 pp)

Lynda E Rucker's opening commentary comparing mankind-induced climate change with cosmic horror is perhaps as chilling as any fiction that follows, while Ralph Robert Moore delivers some solid laughs (and squints) as he compares horror film sequels (and our own lives) with going to the dentist. BLACK STATIC's opening commentaries are always a fine primer and this issue's offerings were among its best.

Opening novelette 'Dixon Parade' by Stephen Hargadon, follows a man whose wife, Nicola, has left him for someone else after 27 years of marriage. Depressed and wondering why she would do this, he becomes a workaholic to keep his mind occupied, and during his long work hours becomes haunted by something he hadn't noticed before in a painting hanging in his office. The story then becomes a journey of discovery that keeps a quiet yet haunting tone, with a weirdness factor I found irresistible.

Sarah Read's 'Diamond Saw' features a pregnant assassin who hears orders coming from her late boss/father through her unborn baby. She poses as a prostitute to get to her next hit, and a suspenseful showdown in a fancy hotel made me wish this crime/horror hybrid would develop into something longer. I think Read can even use this character for a novel. The accompanying artwork by Warwick Fraser-Coombe is perfect.

After the death of her brother David, Angie encounters a ghost (or does she?) in his apartment in Steven Sheil's 'Residue.' There's a great set up and some fine prose, but ends up feeling familiar.

Daniel Bennett delivers the weird with 'A Pressed Red Flower in the Abandoned Archive.' A man working a short term job with a Disaster Management company becomes obsessed with a file on his desk computer. It contains some strange information, so much so our protagonist becomes obsessed and is eventually fired from the job prematurely, right after his computer was taken for alleged maintenance. He becomes a hermit and sits in front of his home computer, waiting for the file to "contact" him, only having a few printed out pages to keep him sated. The strange aura this one leaves is a refreshing break from the norm.

In the closing novelette 'Open Houses' by Sean Padraic Birnie, a woman learns why she has such foggy memories of her childhood. After having film developed she found in her late father's camera, her life turns upside down and the reader is haunted along with her during her final moments before either death or insanity (I'm still deciding which way the story went). Birnie creates a strong sense of dread that easily gets the chills going...

This issue's book reviews include a look at Paul Tremblay's collection 'Growing Things' as well as an interview dealing mostly with GT's stories, and among the other titles covered, Jac Jemc's 'The Grip of It" sounds like a sure fire hit.

Gary Couzens delivers another barrage of dvd/bluray reviews, including the 5-film set 'Bloody Terror: The Shocking Cinema of Norman J. Warren (1976-1987),' which includes the fun scifi gore-fest 'Inseminoid' and the 1976 sexy Satanic shocker, 'Satan's Slave.' There's also coverage of the Arrow bluray of 'Cruising' and plenty of new and older titles we fans in the U.S. will hope arrive on our shores.

Why haven't you subscribed to this essential magazine yet? Do so right here: BLACK STATIC

-Nick Cato

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COMING SOON:

NOTE: Please see bottom of main page for submission info. If you're on your cell phone you probably won't be able to see it unless you switch to 'desktop mode,' or better yet, break out your laptop, baby...

MERCILESS by Bryan Smith (2019 Grindhouse Press / 163 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Bryan Smith has recently become one of my favorite extreme horror authors. I’ve been hooked ever since I read and watched the movie 68 KILL, which while I’m on the subject, felt as if this title could also easily become a great setting for another violent horror thriller much in the same light. Smith has a very bold, original, and unique voice, as well as an uncanny ability to tell one hell of a dark and violent and twisted tale. From his short stories to his longer works, the author victoriously manages to bring us something morbidly nice and eerily original time and time again.

When a newlywed couple hits the road for their honeymoon things quickly take a turn for the worse. Well, maybe the better? For better or for worse? Isn’t that how these types of marital relationship things usually go? Well, whatever the case is…this couple turns their honeymoon into something much more memorable. Like a bloodbath when they kidnap a total stranger and take him to a cabin in the woods to torture him. Together. For better or for worse with this violent prenuptial agreement. Do they both have what it takes to show their undevoted love for each other? Are they even being completely honest with each other? Only time will tell when you pick this one up and read it for yourself.

With plenty of sadistic, violent twists and turns, this one is sure to have you turning those dirty, sticky, stuck together pages rather quick.

-Jon R. Meyers

THE NIGHT AND THE LAND by Matt Spencer (2019 Back Roads Carnival Books / 362 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

My suppositions and expectations bounced me all over the place going into this one. By the title, I was thinking it’d be dark fantasy, but then the first line’s about a Jeep and murders, so then I thought slasher, but then there’s hints about a hidden war so I leaned toward some kind of vamps-vs-wolves thing … and by the time I realized it wasn’t exactly any of those, I was hooked.

Story starts with Rob, whose dad has a secretive past and mysterious friends he’s worked to keep from his son, even though said past is very much a part of Rob’s own life and future. Then we skip ahead a few years to meet Sally, a runaway with her own secret-laden past, struggling to survive on the streets and stay ahead of who’s chasing her.

Now, my guess that they’d end up the classic star-crossed lovers did prove true, when their chance meeting and attraction proves curiously disturbing yet irresistible to them both. What Sally knows but Rob doesn’t is that they’re each from opposite sides of that hidden war, and should by rights be mortal enemies.

Seems like everyone else Rob runs into also knows way more about his bloodline and place in the world, not to mention the powerful potentials he’s only accidentally begun to tap. Once he and Sally have connected, everything speeds up and escalates into all sorts of violent mayhem.

In the normal scheme of things, his kind is driven to fight, destroy, and devour hers. Something’s different about her, though, and he finds himself protecting her from her own murderous (and kind of delightfully screwed-up psychotic) family.

My personal favorite character is Puttergong, a wisecracking smartass potty-mouthed impish ‘familiar’ who gets assigned to Rob but seems to have his own sometimes less-than-helpful agenda.

-Christine Morgan

THE LONG SHADOWS OF OCTOBER by Kristopher Triana (2019 Grindhouse Press / 250 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

What would you get if you combined a raunchy teen-sex-romp party movie with a haunted house ruled by a vengeful lust-fueled evil? You’d get an unforgettable NC-17 read packed with tempted virgins, tormented spirits, grisly surprises, and the ultimate showdown of female-empowered sensuality. In other words, you’d get this book!

When rebel Joe and jock Danny hatch a plan to get Joe’s little brother finally laid, they never could have predicted how it’d all end up. The offer to housesit at Snowden Manor, complete with pool and hot tub and access to the wine cellar – and for generous pay to boot! – seems way too good to be true, but you’d better believe they jump at the chance.

It IS too good to be true. Mrs. Snowden has a darker reason for hiring on some virile youths to look after the place. The time of power and sacrifice is rolling around again, and like any caring mother, she only wants the best for her dear daughter. She also prefers to be well out of town for a solid alibi.

As soon as the guys settle in, it’s open season on their hormones and desires. It’s also open season on their girlfriends, because what walks in Snowden Manor has a really nasty jealous streak and doesn’t want to share her boy-toys. It might just be up to the innocent ones to save the day … if they can.

I remain greatly impressed by how well Triana writes female characters, even and especially in the extreme horror/smut arenas. They are the real driving force here, believable and relatable, from the elderly lady to the kid sister, from the school slut to the squeaky-clean good girl. (that said, though, my absolute favorite character in the whole book was Horace!)

Didn’t I say a few reviews ago that here was a rising superstar, an author to watch? With THE LONG SHADOWS OF OCTOBER, I’m proved right once again.

-Christine Morgan

CHILOPODOPHOBIA by Paul McMahon (2019 Grinning Skull Press / 156 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

As if anyone needed another reason to not drink and drive, along comes CHILOPODOPHOBIA (say that 5 times fast!) which should be required reading for those taking their learner permit exam (or any horror fan looking for a satisfying creep-out).

Several years after causing an auto accident that claimed an innocent life, Cady (who has started his life over in another part of the country) agrees to meet his girlfriend's uncle, who happens to be her only living relative. Although he agrees to go, he's apprehensive one or both of them may question him about the accident he was miraculously not held responsible for, and tension builds as he wonders what he would say to them. And shortly after arriving at the uncle's home, Cady discovers answering questions about his past life will be the least of his worries.

While the cover art (not to mention the title) for this one had me expecting a HUMAN CENTIPEDE-type tale, McMahon goes off in a different direction and evokes the spirit of classic creepy-crawly terror films such as SQUIRM and KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, albeit with more dread than any of those types of films would be envious of.

McMahon delivers a fine blend of suspense and gross-out horror that's definitely not for the squeamish, and while McMahon's work has been featured in several anthologies, his first book has announced a rising talent who's obviously taking no prisoners.

-Nick Cato

EARWORM by Aaron Thomas Milstead (2019 Blood Bound Books / 224 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Don’t get too comfy anticipating this is going to just be about getting catchy little songs stuck in your head. Oh, no. No, no, no. This is a more literal kind of earworm. The crawls-in-gets-comfy psychic kind, moving from host to host. Think Star Trek, think The Hidden, you get the idea.

Our protagonist, ironically enough, is an exterminator who’s already having a rough time. Not only is he separated from his wife and rarely allowed to see his daughter, he’s recently been diagnosed with a terminal condition. Keeping the news to himself to avoid pity, he goes on about his business, showing up at a routine pest-control call.

But there’s nothing routine about finding a freshly-killed corpse. While checking to see if the guy’s really dead, he feels a weird little tickle by his ear but thinks nothing of it … mostly because just then the murderer comes in with a gas can, and our protagonist decides to make himself scarce without realizing he’s picked up a little hitchhiker.

Then he does start experiencing the catchy-tune kind of earworm, plus odd dreams, as his passenger attempts to establish mental contact. Soon enough, he’s getting the whole story. It turns out the relationship isn’t strictly one-sided; that whole terminal disease thing stops being a problem, for instance.

But they aren’t the only such duo around, and not all of the earworms inhabiting people are so benign. One in particular is quite old, quite evil, and all-too-close to home.

Blending life-sucks with body horror and fears of possession and loss of self, bringing a skewed sense of humor occasionally reminiscent of the works of Jeff Strand, this is a fun read that builds to a surprisingly sweet (if kinda twisted) conclusion.

-Christine Morgan

100 WORD HORRORS BOOK 3: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR DRABBLES edited by Kevin J. Kennedy and Brandy Yassa (2019 Amazon Digital / 110 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

We're fresh out of spooky season, horror folks, and headed for that dreadful winter, but we’ve got ourselves another Drabble Anthology on our hands. First of all, I’d like to say I’m a big fan of these anthologies. I was excited to see there was a third installment coming out and I immediately put it on my list. This series is packed with a whole bunch of great, quick witted reads that are well-written, powerful enough to paint a very quick image in the mind, and just overall a lot of fun to read. This time around there are over a hundred 100-word stories in the Drabble mix. These books would make great bathroom readers, coffee table, tabletop decorations, you know some of those great in-your-face locations to stir up some of those more meaningful conversations to be had. Scary, spooky, violent, bloody, and thought-provoking, these little gems pack quite the horror punch.

Some of my personal favorites were ‘Hack’ by Jim Goforth, a bloody take on how much blood one will shed whilst cutting off their own foot. ‘Narrative’ by Kevin Cathy, a drab author's recent decent into the depths of hell after making a deal with the devil himself. ‘The Midnight Circus’ by Sheldon Woodbury, a shadowy caravan of horrors makes it way down dark country roads. ‘Dreams’ by Andrew Lennon, a man invaded by ghastly dark shadow figures in the twilight hours. ‘Nothing’ by Chad Lutzke: light up the incense to cover up the scent of nothingness and death. ‘Used Parts’ by Theresa Derwin, where a loved one transfers to preserve a dying sibling’s human consciousness into a foreign object whilst lying on his death bed. ‘Wooden Suit’ by Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason, just remember, don't move... it'll leave room for moisture and worms. ‘Machines of War’ by Ron Davis, I mean c'mon, we all know I'm a sucker for robots. Shout-out to these machines of war really quick. ‘Mine’ by Justin Hunter, because we've all thought about purchasing a soul on eBay, haven’t we? But what happens when you don't have a return policy in place. ‘Three O'clock A.M.’ by Eric J Guignard, the witching hour is upon Sam Rockland in the shape of a priest.

Check it out!

-Jon R. Meyers

STRING OF PEARLS by Thom Carnell (2018 Macabre Ink / 242 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Following up his previous collection, Moonlight Serenades, Thom Carnell returns with some new stories written after triumphing over that insidious bane of us all, writer’s block. It’s such a joy when the words start flowing again!

Like before, some of these initially appeared in Carpe Noctem, and they display a wide range of genres and mood. First up is “Sorority,” a gritty little survivalist vignette with a girls-only stand against the zombie apocalypse … and next is a sharp turn into government agencies and demonic possession and a rather unusual weapons-toting priest.

Speaking of weapons-toting, yes, in this book we do get another installment of the adventures of Carnell’s all-around tough guy action hero Cleese! This time, it’s a tantalizing teaser Expendables-style as he and several other mercs, military types, and soldiers of fortune are whisked away on a helicopter ride to a mystery destination for hush-hush but likely life-or-death purposes.

In “On the Ice,” we get a chilling and desolate peek into the mind of Dr. Frankenstein’s unfortunate creation, while “Under Ice” is just simply breathtaking and beautiful in its descriptions.

“House Haunted” hearkens back to the fraught overwrought gothic ghost-stories of old. But then there’s the sinister and far-too-plausible righteousness and poisonous rhetoric of “Family Man,” which I found the scariest of the entire set.

The big centerpiece of the book is the lengthy “Song of the Dragon,” a sprawling Japanese fairytale/folklore adventure that reads like the novelization of an entire season of a fantasy anime. Well-written but not really my thing; I skimmed a lot of that one.

Several of the less-fanciful tales are more introspective and personal, musings on death and dying, philosophy, thought, going home, facing mortality, moving on, and seeking closure or resolution. “Prodigal Son” in particular is a difficult but potent, cathartic read.

-Christine Morgan

THE DEATH CHUTE by Ambrose Stollicker (2019 Aurelia Leo / 118 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

In the arena of creepy old buildings, few can compare with the hospital or asylum. You know the type of place, with the long history, the troubled patients, lots of deaths, possible abuse or neglect or other horrible goings-on. Often voted most-likely-to-be-haunted in the yearbook.

But with this one, it’s a little different. Rather than the derelict ruins left to gloomy decay, where intrepid urban explorers or ghost hunters might go, the former Glastenbury Mountain tuberculosis sanatorium has been spruced up and revitalized as a posh rest/care home for the elderly.

TV producer Jake Porter isn’t thinking new show when he first visits. He’s looking for a place for his ailing mother. Glastenbury seems to have it all: luxurious accommodations, attentive staff, price tag to match. It doesn’t hurt that Jake develops an attraction to the lovely and intelligent director.

So, he moves Mom in – the scenes between Jake and his mom, as she struggles with dementia, are heartbreakingly well-done, and all-too-true to anyone who’s had to deal with that terrible thief of memory and self! – despite being slightly uneasy about the place’s past and the behavior of some of the other residents (in another cuttingly deft touch, their accounts are generally disregarded as senile ramblings.)

It doesn’t take long before ‘slightly uneasy’ becomes ‘seriously unnerved,’ when Jake catches glimpses of nurses in old-timey uniforms, his mother starts talking about the little boy who visits her, and an old graveyard on the property seems to corroborate the legends. There’s even rumors of a ‘death chute,’ through which bodies could be clandestinely removed without upsetting any of the other patients or drawing too much attention.

Jake starts thinking there might be reality show fodder here after all, which doesn’t bode well for his budding romance. The vengeful spirits, meanwhile, are reaching a paranormal boiling point, and soon the living will be lucky to make it out alive.

-Christine Morgan

PART-TIME ZOMBIE by Gerald Rice (2019 Melted Brain Books / 218 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Not sure how well the title here fits the actual book; although it starts off with a mindless and inexplicable craving to eat human flesh, what follows goes way beyond and far afield from your typical ‘zombie’ tropes. By the end, we’re well into more medical-weirdness and almost cosmic-type horror, with religious/mythic overtones.

Alice is just doing her humdrum day job, shuffling paperwork for a couple of doctors who run their practice out of a little strip-mall office. Hungry, but not sure what for, she heads out to the nearby Dairy Queen, but a run-in with some tough teens turns into a fight and one thing leads to another and people get bitten and messily dissolved by spewed gastric acids and hit by a car.

Waking up in the hospital, Alice feels fine and checks herself out against medical advice. But she’s struck again by her hunger on the Uber ride home, and it doesn’t go so well for the driver. Or his car. Or Alice, who gets promptly hauled back to the hospital after what appears to be a deadly crash.

Meanwhile, Detective Lazarus (yes, that’s his name) has been called in to investigate the bizarre incidents. He’s trying to track down the mystery woman for questioning but keeps just missing her, talking to her neighbors, revisiting the hospital only to find Alice has left again, etc.

When he does catch up with her, he’s startled by her uncanny resemblance to his late wife, and that’s when the story really gets on the crazy train. Starting with how his wife was killed and partly eaten by a deer walking on its hind legs (? could have used some more info on that).

From there, the weirdness really keeps on rolling, leading to Frankensteinian levels of mad science and possible links to reincarnation and all kinds of stuff. Interesting to read, and enjoyable, if occasionally a little muddled … but yeah, didn’t seem to quite fit the title.

-Christine Morgan

IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA by Sean Padraic McCarthy (2019 Pace Press / 332 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Oh the red flags, so many red flags … I wanted to feel sorry for Diana, I really did, but dang, between her dysfunctional family and abusive husband, this was a whole red flag drill team long before we even get to the stuff about the hauntings.

Other characters KNEW it, too, and kept TRYING to tell her, and SHE knew it, but STILL … and she’d keep going back, giving another chance, doing what it’s hard not to call ‘stupid’ things that then go hideously wrong and make matters worse …

So, yeah, in terms of being written true-to-life with the trappedness and rationalizations and gaslighting and stuff, it was extremely effective. The urge to just grab her and shake her, or call the cops, or child protective, was overwhelming to the point it sometimes distracted me from the rest of the story. Very well done; flinchingly, wincingly so.

Diana’s mother, too, wow what a piece of work. Again, all too believable, horrible, controlling. The whole dynamic there gave me a creepy V.C. Andrews matriarchal secrets-and-lies vibe, with the rest of the family going along with whatever she wants to avoid her wrath.

Summary-wise, Diana and her daughter, and her new husband Ford (temper and alcohol issues, whose own family background is a mess) move into a house left to Ford by a great-aunt, on a remote island. A house that comes complete with creepy dolls, a troubling journal, and unquiet spirits.

Overall, I found it well-written modern gothic, doing a good job tracing parallels between the past and the present, but yeah, difficult and frustrating and often uncomfortable in terms of the characters.

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

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THE KING OF THE WOOD by J. Edwin Buja (2019 Haverhill Press / 320 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, eBook)

After Tom Bender notices a man tied to a tree in his backyard, and is questioned about it by the local sheriff, he's brought into a magical world that has existed right under his nose. Unbeknown to him and his friends, he has caught the eye of the title King, who is apprehensive about losing his followers as well as his position. And so begins the first installment in Buja's series which blends fantasy and horror and a wonderful dose of the good 'ol weird.

As people go missing from Tom's town, birds are now communicating with him, a garden he tends has began to grow out of control, and the whole world seems to be on some kind of apocalyptic shift … and as if this wasn't enough, we're introduced to a corrupt evangelist and an unusual cult, while occasionally visiting one of the more charismatic mechanics to come down the pike in ages. The entire cast here are very well drawn, and you'll eagerly read on to see what's happening to even the smallest player.

Buja has me impatiently awaiting the second novel, as several mysteries arise during the already strange proceedings, and the little glimpses we're given of The King of the Wood keeps him cleverly shrouded for what's to come. An addictive page-turner full of mystery, magic, and a seriously disturbing cult that will have horror and dark fantasy fans yearning for more.

-Nick Cato

SCREECHERS by Kevin Kennedy & Christina Bergling (2019 Amazon Digital / 88 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

For a post-apocalyptic wasteland where mutant animals are constantly on the hunt and the scattered remnants of humanity eke out bare-bones survival, this is a surprising and delightful heart-warming tale of family and the bonds of affection. Like if the team who made Ice Age did an animated Fallout movie.

I mean, yes, packs of hairless wolf-monsters biting peoples’ heads off … “clicker” style crab-scorpion-lobster things all pinchers and stingers … cities as radioactive hellhole ruins … freaky toxic plants … nuclear lightning strikes ... and of course the titular “screechers” … but go with me, here.

Oh, and what’s a screecher, you might wonder? I did too, since we’re never really given a complete taxonomy. From the descriptions of their scale-armored hides, muscular bodies, claws and teeth, and ability to rise up on hind legs or go on all fours, the image that formed in my head was somewhere around ‘anthropomorphic pangolin;’ make of that what you will.

Anyway, so, there’s this screecher who’s lost his whole family and thinks he’s alone in the world and sets off, not knowing that a hatchling survived and is following along, hoping to prove its little self to the adult. Along the way, the little one encounters and befriends a trio of humans, helping them fend off dangers, touching on the boy-and-his-dog trope for added emotional impact.

We don’t get a bunch of backstory about what happened to the world, and we don’t need it. By now, we all know that basic drill, so it’s easy to slide right on in without info dumps or explanations. The bit about names, though, I thought was a particularly nice touch. Maybe the combination of ‘awww’ sweetness with sheer bloody rip-em-up carnage won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved it and am hoping for more!

-Christine Morgan

THEY COME AT NIGHT by Nick Clausen (2019 Amazon Digital / 101 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I got this one as a PDF without seeing the cover, so, going solely by the title, I was thinking vampires at first. Which is not to say I’m disappointed it turned out to be something different; far from it! The menace here, as the cover actually does show, emerges from the sea rather than the grave.

The book itself is ten years old and was originally in Danish, so this is its English-translation ebook debut. There are a few places in the language, word use, and references where it shows, but only a few, and in a way that adds to rather than detracts from, giving it a refreshingly unique tone.

Group of teens, sneaking off to island vacation cottage for a fun party weekend, the one guy with a crush on his friend’s hot sister, the reclusive locals with quirky customs and cryptic warnings … the beach, the beers, the bikini … the weird happenings at night … footprints in the wet sand, clumps of seaweed, scratches at the window … no phone service, car troubles …

This right here is a ready-made horror movie, hitting all the right buttons, familiar but done well enough to stay entertaining and fun. I read it all in one sitting and enjoyed every page.

-Christine Morgan

NETHERKIND by Greg Chapman (2019 Omnium Gatherum / 240 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Opening strong with a gory combination of cannibalistic cravings, tormented I’m-a-monster self-loathing, and really icky skin-sloughing parts-rotting peel-your-flesh-off body horror, the initial impression here is that we’re dealing with some sort of a ghoul.

Not that the character, Thomas, knows what he is. He only knows his urge, his irresistible hunger, what happens to him if he neglects to feed, and the gradual physical changes that occur when he does. He thinks he’s the only one of his kind, isolated and alone.

When new neighbor Stephanie moves in and wants to be far more than friendly, Thomas isn’t sure how to handle it. Could he have a shot at a normal life? Short answer: nope. She’s not what she seems, and he’s soon torn between loathing and obsession.

He also discovers he was wrong about being alone. There are more monsters in the city and under it, a literal underworld of warring factions, and he’s suddenly plunged into their midst. Not that anybody will tell him what’s going on or answer his questions, keeping him and the reader in the baffled frustrating I-know-something-you-don’t fog for a long time.

That’s when the story veers off into big sweeping Game of Thrones epic-supernatural-fantasy territory, with kings and prophecies and god-visions, political schemings, betrayals, leading up to the final massive battle. Which is fine and well and all, but I personally would’ve preferred more of the modern/surface stuff.

The writing’s very good, the characters are entertaining, the descriptions (especially of the splattery visceral carnage and earlier flesh-peely body horror) are great. I may’ve had a few minor nits and quibbles here and there, but overall, a differently imagined, highly entertaining read.

-Christine Morgan

THE HALF-FREAKS by Nicole Cushing (2019 Grimscribe Press / 89 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Cushing's latest novella features the author herself being harassed (I guess that's safe to say) by one of her own creations, an everyday guy named Harry Meyers, who is busy planning funeral services for his mother as the sky literally starts falling down. Yep...this here is as weird as it gets, but in the hands of Cushing we're never "ass-confused" and the bizarre goings-on are a treat for those who love their horror on the strange side.

While Harry has some unappetizing fetishes and habits, Cushing paints him as a latently humorous guy who just wants what's his, even if he has to threaten Cushing herself with some of her past bad ass characters. While I'm a hard sell on any meta-type story, here it's done in a way that doesn't insult the reader, and in fact gives fans a deeper love of the author's work and creative process.

As with her latest novel A SICK GRAY LAUGH, I'm enjoying the dark humor rearing its head in Cushing's work, and this short but sweet blast of meta-insanity is a fine addition to her growing catalog.

-Nick Cato

UNAMERICA by Cody Goodfellow (2019 King Shot Press / 448 pp / trade paperback)

It’s sometimes hard to categorize Cody Goodfellow’s works as ‘fiction,’ when they’re often presenting all-too-plausible cutting observations and social commentary on current events, and a wickedly harsh but accurate portrayal of the state of the world as we know it.

UNAMERICA does that, with no holds barred. Okay, maybe it seems far-fetched to think some shady government/corporate organization supervises a secret underground city-sized detention center enclave where human lives are cheap and disposable … but … c’mon … would it really surprise anyone?

Upon arrival (usually involuntary!), you get a bar code and access to resources, but you’re also being monitored. Being used for market research and product testing. Being experimented on in dozens of ways: physically, psychologically, pharmaceutically, you name it. They’re tracking what you eat, drink, watch, whatever. They’re releasing viruses to see what happens. They’re harvesting organs. They’re monitoring trends and behaviors.

Populated by prisoners, addicts, drug lords, gangs, derelicts, religious fanatics, renegades, and consumers of every possible type, this subterranean Skinner box is not so much a melting pot as it is a powder keg and a pressure cooker. Racism, sexism, violence, crime, substance abuse, desperation, divisiveness, power, fear, arrogance, control, and excess run rampant.

Into all this ventures a guy calling himself Nolan Hatch, looking to do some drug-lording and product testing of his own, courtesy of a rare strain of psychedelic mushroom. He claims he wants to help people, enlighten them, awaken them, free them. Even the best intentions, however, can go awry … and Hatch’s certainly do.

Although clearly meant to be satire, although written to highlight that sense of over-the-top extremism, the ongoing state of real-world affairs makes it a little hard to read this book for pleasure or entertainment. It’s well done to the point of squirming too-true discomfort, and a few years from now we’ll probably be holding it up as an example the way we are doing today with 1984.

-Christine Morgan

THE NIGHT IT GOT OUT by Patrick James Ryan (2015 Black Bed Sheet Books / 220 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

If you took Dean Koontz’s book WATCHERS, cut out all the parts with the superdog, and focus on the genetically engineered Outsider/monster secret military project angle … but amped the brutality and violence to goresplat levels, add some Laymonesque beasty-rapey stuff, turn it loose on an unsuspecting town, and throw in tough-talking tough-guy types trying to hunt it down … the results might look quite a bit like this.

Okay, there’s icky content; there’s kids and pets being savaged along with the adult body count. Okay, most of the female characters are passive victims at best and a lot of the tough-guy tough-talk seems overdone on the dickswinging. Okay, it’s a lot more ‘tell’ than ‘show’ and could have used more editorial fine-tuning, but …

But, clearly, the author was having a blast, and that comes through on every page. Fun with words, self-referential in-jokes, just a brashly gross and gleeful wild ride throughout. And, for that, I can overlook many of the aforementioned issues. Enthusiasm and fun go a long way with me.

Which is a good thing, because I have several more by him on the list, including one that’s referenced in this story. Stay tuned!

-Christine Morgan

I'M NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE HERE TODAY by Brian Asman (2019 Eraserhead Press / 88 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I guess I should mention up front that I barely know who Kevin Smith is and have never seen any of his movies, so, many of the finer points of this book were likely lost on me. Still, it didn’t stop me from getting right into the story, following along just fine, and enjoying the read!

Scot is a surfer dude who works at an electronics store, installing car speakers and sound systems when not ducking out to catch a few waves. He also fought a demon once before, but, y’know, these things happen. He’s just not expecting it to happen AGAIN.

He’s also not expecting to get a call from his boss, informing him that his idol Kevin Smith is currently at his very place of employment to spruce up his ride. Preparing to rush right over, he just needs to pop into the Fasmart for a cool refreshing Slushpuppy first. He’s in such a good mood he even offers to buy a Gatorade for the homeless guy outside.

Trouble is, by the time Scot gets back to the parking lot, the homeless guy is having a seizure. The convenience store clerk is no help, nor are the skater kids who only video the episode with their phones. To make matters worse, the gibberish spewing from the guy’s mouth suddenly isn’t gibberish at all, but a language sounding all too familiar.

It’s an incantation, boiling the blacktop and bringing up a ferocious denizen of Hell to tempt and torment the handful of trapped survivors. And Scot is their only hope!

-Christine Morgan

THE DEAD WAKE by Ellie Douglas (2017 Amazon Digital / 196 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This collection knows what it is and embraces the schlock whole-heartedly; all you have to do is skim the table of contents to see that. With sections called “Space Zombies” and “Oh Sh*t! Zombies!” and “Pimp My Body,” among others, there’s no room for pretension.

The writing may not be the most polished, the language a little on the rough side, but the author seemed to be having a good time, particularly with the splattery stuff. Lots of fun descriptions of carnage, plus some fiendishly gory artwork.

The stories span eras from the dusty Old West to the farflung starfaring future to the 1930s on the Alaskan tundra. More familiar modern settings include a nursing home, a big-city subway, a playboy’s mansion, the ever-popular shopping mall, a maternity ward, a fat camp, and a cruise ship.

Overall, could use some more editorial TLC, maybe a few historical and reality checks, but it’s okay.

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

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SLASHVIVOR by Stephen Kozeniewski and Stevie Kopas (2017 Sinister Grin Press / 296 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Not sure how I hadn’t reviewed this one yet, since I know I read it a while ago! At any rate, buckle up, keep your assorted limbs inside the vehicle, and hold on tight, because here we go … it’s time for post-apocalyptic America’s favorite game show, TRY NOT TO DIE!!!

Remember THE RUNNING MAN? Not the novella, which still would make a neat flick on its own, but the movie adaptation with Arnie? The big televised obstacle course deathtrap arena with over-the-top pro-wrestler-style maniacs trying to hack up condemned prisoner contestants as a smarmy host commentates?

Start with that … only, replace the condemned prisoners with ‘randomly’ selected citizens … stick the arena in a giant caged dome with a live studio audience … and instead of pro-wrestler-style maniacs, it’s a roster of the most fiendish and brutal serial killers in the world.

The world which, by the way, is a blasted hellscape of destruction with cyborgs and nuclear mutants and repurposed homicidal animatrons, so, that roster includes far more than your classic slashers … but those are quite well-represented too. Especially the debonair cannibal, the gifted experimental surgeon … you get the idea.

Most people are thrilled to be Selected, a moment-of-fame televised death preferable to their ongoing dismal existence. Dawn, a scrappy young scavenger and thief from the wastelands, feels differently. But the powerful Producers don’t take no for an answer, and as the game gets underway, Dawn finds herself a reluctant celebrity.

As if the situation wasn’t already all-around bad enough, this particular episode of Try Not To Die is in for some nasty surprises even the Producers haven’t anticipated. The body counts and splatter factor will go off the charts, not to mention the ratings … if there’s anyone left alive to care.

A wild, gory, riotous ride, packed with great hate-to-love-’em and love-to-hate-’em characters throughout. Forget THE HUNGER GAMES; here, the odds are NEVER gonna be in your favor.

-Christine Morgan

THE MONSTROUS FEMININE: DARK TALES OF DANGEROUS WOMEN edited by Cin Ferguson and Broos Campbell (2019 Scary Dairy Press / trade paperback & eBook)

Anyone who doesn’t know by now that women can so write horror has either been living under a rock or playing willfully ignorant. That argument should be over. But, since it still does keep cropping up from time to time, here’s another stellar example of female writers showcasing their dark and deadly sides.

I was particularly pleased to notice how many of the names among the contributors were new to me; more proof (not that it was needed) that there’s plenty of us out there, more and gaining momentum all the time.

These fourteen stories examine many different sides of what it means to be (or identify as) a woman, from the expectations inflicted by society to what we take upon ourselves. The creative, the destructive, the protective, the passionate, the vengeful, the loving … it’s all in here, because it’s all in each of us.

You’ll find female-focused tales herein of familial obligation that may make you think twice about your next holiday gathering … of professional obligations keeping a doctor on the job well above and beyond the call of duty … of ancient relics and ancestral secrets.

You’ll share the daily eternal struggles of dealing with boys-will-be-boys, workplace harassment, body image, that time of the month, and finding confidence in sexual empowerment. You’ll witness uncanny transformations from the Stepford-esque to the Jekyll-and-Hyde.

If you’re a gal-type, you’ll have plenty to relate to, strongly resonating with life experiences. If you’re a guy-type, and tempted to skip this book because it might make you feel guilty or uncomfortable or left out, well, really, ask yourself, isn’t that all the more reason to read it?

-Christine Morgan

CLUB CLOUD AND QUEEN by Victor O’Neil (2019 Omnium Gatherum / 321 / trade paperback & eBook)

Based on the cover, I thought I was in for a rockabilly rodeo of a weird western. What I got was something with, admittedly, a few weird western elements, but overall was altogether wilder, weirder, epic, mythic, and full-tilt bizarre.

Were I to blurb it (*innocent look*), I would go with something like this: “Joseph Campbell himself couldn’t have imagined the classic hero’s journey as depraved as this … a cosmic, dystopia, hedonistic Narnia with shades of the Matrix and the wild West … monstrously good … will turn your brain into a balloon animal!”

Trying to explain this book would be a monumentally complex undertaking that’d still fall far short of encompassing the sheer mind-warpingness. If you insist on some sort of summary, there’s this guy named Jed (an unreliable narrator in an unreliable reality to begin with) who appears to live in a struggling post-fall society, or maybe it’s all in his head. Then a snake comes out of a ceiling fan and suddenly Jed’s being wet-nursed by an angel when a Burt Reynolds lookalike rolls up in a muscle car …

Wait. Let’s try that again. You know how, in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, those four kids cross over into a different world and become royalty? Kind of like that, only, instead of fauns and talking lions, there’s super-drugs and wild orgies …

Or, how about this … if instead of discovering he was a wizard, Harry Potter found out he and his siblings were powerful godlings, their mother a decadent wicked fourth-dimensional queen slowly becoming a monster …

See? See what I mean? It defies summarizing. Just read it. Read it and see for yourself. Do be warned, though, there’s a lot of, ahem, adult content (wasn’t kidding about using ‘hedonistic’ and ‘depraved’ in that blurb!) Tell you this; I fully expect to see it on the Wonderland Awards ballot next year.

-Christine Morgan

INTO BONES LIKE OIL by Kaaron Warren (2019 Meerkat Press / 90 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

While mourning the deaths of her two young daughters, Dora finds herself at a sea-side boarding house, which happens to be haunted by the spirits of those killed during a nearby shipwreck. But the "hauntings" here aren't your standard genre tropes, and to say more about them would do this gripping novella a major disservice.

The owners of the Inn try to persuade Dora to do something that could potentially set her mind back or even destroy it, and her recovery, as it is, is continually challenged by odd situations and hints of the supernatural that we're never quite sure aren't just figments of Dora's imagination and fears.

Like her previous novel TIDE OF STONE, Warren again employs some fantastic atmosphere and keeps the reader guessing as to what's actually going on inside our protagonist's head. I've said before Warren's style reminds me a bit of the late, great T.M. Wright, but with this latest novella she continues to carve out a quiet-horror path that's all her own and uniquely frightening.

-Nick Cato

LUCIFER SAM by Leo Darke (2019 Grinning Skull Press / 290 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Heavy metal and horror are like chocolate and peanut-butter! They don’t just go together, they belong together! And every now and then, along comes something right up there with not merely a Reese’s, but a Reese’s Halloween pumpkin. Something like this book, for instance.

Our narrator, Kirk, is front man for a band called Lucifer Sam, rife with their own struggles, drama, and personality conflicts. Except, the story he’s telling isn’t so much Lucifer Sam’s story as the story of how Lucifer Sam got swept up in a bigger, far stranger, deadlier one. The story of the hugely popular and successful band Cat O’ Nine Tails, and what happened after their mysterious disappearance … and even more mysterious return …

With Bermuda-Triangle shades of Lost and other such thrillers, Cat O’ Nine’s plane vanishes without a trace, only to reappear in the same spot, six months later. There’s no accounting for the missing time, no explanation, no answers given. All anyone knows is, they were gone and now they’re back. And planning an album and big show.

They seem different, though. It isn’t just the way they look younger and fitter. Their behavior is different. Flat-affect, unsettling, devoid of emotion even toward their loved ones. As if they’re changed somehow. A change that also shows in their music. Those listening to the early demos of their new stuff react in crazed, violent, self-destructive ways.

Kirk was never much of a fan of their work, but when his obsessed girlfriend starts showing the signs, he takes it upon himself to try and find out the truth. Even if it means convincing the other guys in Lucifer Sam to help, and even if it means tracking down an aging former rocker with his own ties to Cat O’ Nine Tails.

And maybe you only meant to eat one Reese’s Halloween pumpkin, but before you know it, you’ve gone through the whole bag of chocolatey peanut-buttery goodness, and should feel bad about it, but probably won’t!

-Christine Morgan

TO WALLOW IN ASH & SORROWS by Sam Richard (2019 Nihilism Revised / 165 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Extra, extra. Read all about it. I found a new author that you’re going to want to read and will probably be all about it. First things first, two words: Sam Richard. If that doesn’t ring a bell, you may already know him as the mastermind, owner, and operator behind a couple of already unique and compelling mashups of Weird Fiction, Horror, and Bizarro Fiction style punk rock tribute anthologies put out through his press, Weirdpunk Books. With a literary tribute to David Cronenberg in THE NEW FLESH, The Misfits in HYRBID MOMENTS, and another zombie punk rock spectacular titled ZOMBIE PUNKS FUCK OFF, his eclectic barrage of loud and zany literature has already begun to make some noise in the not so distant past. But, after reading this debut collection, I discovered something even better, the man and his writing himself. Let’s all say it out loud together again: Sam Richard, whose writing is not only unique within itself but strong enough to standout in a world of already great and fantastic micro and small press authors of the weird. His writing is brutally honest in this unforgiving and relentless sort of punk rock, weird fiction, horror kind of way. Often thought-provoking and deep, often with a unique blend of looming sadness, impending doom, and hopeless dread. I loved every word on every turn of the page.

There’s a lot to take in on this one, folks. You might want to do yourself a favor and read it slowly, let the words soak in, or you may take on more than you can chew, or in this case spit out and regurgitate slow into the mouths of corpse like birds with skeletal wings. Yes, it’s that heavy. The words are sincere amidst the dark, and often beautifully dreadful imagery abounds. For example, the author kicks things off in this collection with a story that’s almost indirectly written very closely to home titled ‘To Wallow in Ash,’ a tale about a widow who takes the ashes of his deceased wife and mixes them in with the ink of a new tattoo, before realizing that she and the time they had were more powerful than ever, and to consume their memories together was simply not enough by form of permanent ink, so the narrator begins to consume her ashes in more conventional and lasting ways… think, by physically ingesting them. To hold and to preserve within, to digest and to take part of her again to not only feel but to also hold onto that eternal love they shared together. Like I said, there’s some super powerful stuff going on here, folks! Am I right?

It only keeps getting better the more you read into it. Please do yourself a favor and pick this one up. Make sure you read the introduction first to see what this book is really all about. I randomly picked this one up one day when the cover caught my eye and I literally could not put it down after I started reading it. It's that good!

-Jon R. Meyers

#HORRIBLE by KJ Moore (2019 Blood Bound Books / 101 pp / eBook)

The introduction warns that these “are not nice stories.” It warns of possible shock, offense, and transgression. There’s a system of hashtags, including spoilers and potential triggers. Some may seem silly – ‘poorly loaded dishwasher,’ ‘cheese not used as intended,’ ‘mechanical bull’ – but then, if you’ve ever lived with someone who LOADS THE DISHWASHER WRONG …

Ahem. Sorry. Got me with that one, I guess. Anyway. Yes. Each story has its hashtags and warning labels listed. While that may seem sensationalistic and gimmicky, well, so what? Besides, some of these? Oh yes, they are warranted. Are they ever!

Body horror stuff. Genitals. Scissors. Pedophilia. Abortion. Dead animals. Rape. Remember the “not nice stories” thing? NOT JOKING. Some seriously dark, awful, uncomfortable, cringeworthy content here. Stuff that will curdle the soul and sicken the stomach.

We’re talking stuff that … let’s just say, I enjoy extreme horror, but even I was thinking, okay, the title has it right. Horrible. People are horrible, the asteroid can’t eradicate us soon enough, what the hell is WRONG with us, I hope the meerkats or octopi or whatever takes over next does a better job, because really, WTF, humanity.

This, by the way, was all still just leading up to the last story in the book. Which is called “Tasteless,” for very good reason. Which has a hashtag advising the reader to skip it. Which would have been the right idea, but I didn’t.

Which, if you’re at all familiar with a certain controversial performance at a certain convention, and were traumatized by the content, um, yeah … this involves a similar atrocity. Heed the warnings. For the sake of your sanity, heed the warnings.

-Christine Morgan

ZOMBIE PUNKS FUCK OFF by Sam Richard (2018 CLASH Books / 160 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

When people say punk is dead, they probably didn’t mean it quite like this. Same for people saying zombies have gone mainstream. Here, gathered in a fun and fast-reading little paperback, are fourteen stories flipping the finger to all those people, combining zombies and punk in diverse, wild ways.

The book also serves as a memorial to Mo Richard, the editor’s wife, a dear lady who was taken from us suddenly and far too soon. If it seems ironic or tacky for a bunch of zombie stories, well, how punk is that? Sam Richard, in the intro, even suggests she would have wanted it that way. His own contribution, concluding the book on an emotional note, is a definite punch in the feels.

The stories themselves, like zombies, also rise to the occasion. Featuring the talents of big-name bizarros such as Danger Slater, David W. Barbee, Emma Johnson, and Brendan Vidito, it’s packed with gigs, guts, grodiness, and attitude.

On a nitpickier note, I do wish a little more care had been taken with the edits and proofreading. Love the folks at CLASH but this isn’t the first time I’ve noticed that issue. Everything else looks great, the cover unabashedly trashy, the layout sharp, all that good stuff.

Particular shout-out to Madison McSweeney’s “Re-Made,” my personal favorite of the lot, which takes jabs at the arrogant idiocy of conversion therapy. Troubled teen? Send them to punk camp! Turn them into productive, wholesome members of society! Or, hey, into zombies; six of one, half a dozen of the other!

-Christine Morgan

UNTIL THE SUN by Chandler Morrison (2019 Death’s Head Press / 293 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

You know how, in certain Olympic events like gymnastics, diving, or skating, the judges will factor the difficulty of the routine into their scoring? So, doing well at something easier is good but doing well at something really challenging is better? As soon as I started reading this book and saw Morrison was attempting the difficulty setting of “second person present tense,” I knew the bar was set high. Ballsy. Ambitious. Pushing it for a relatively young and new writer?

Heh. He freakin’ NAILED it. All tens. Across the board. And stuck the landing like WHOA. Flawless performance. Give him the gold. Give him the awards. Everyone else can just pack it in for this year. This guy’s got mad talent and mad skills.

As for the actual book, I should mention, this is not ‘that’ book, the one embroiled in a genre-shaking controversy. This is what the South Park goth kids wished Twilight had been. THIS is the perfect almost-YA (I say ‘almost’ because there’s a LOT of sex and a lot of violence) vampire book … and more … and then some.

Laden with references to lore both classic and modern – oh I saw that haunted Plymouth in there, don’t think I’d miss it! – the story starts off with a disaffected youth whose foster parents are butchered by a trio of blood-drinkers. When they invite him to come meet their Sire and possibly join them, he figures why not, and goes along for the ride.

What follows is a thoroughly riveting, thrilling, dark, twisted adventure of backstories, secrets, and all-around can’t-put-it-down brilliance. Skillfully interwoven, character-rich, utterly believable.

Found myself thinking as I read, not only is he already way better than I was at that age (literally half mine, for the record), he’s already way better than I am NOW. If he keeps it up, which I have no doubts he will, he’ll blow the rest of us out of the water within a few years. It’d be easy to be grouchy about that, but I for one am delighted. Future of the genre’s in damn good hands, folks!

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

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GWENDY'S MAGIC FEATHER by Richard Chizmar (2019 Cemetery Dance Publications / 330 pp / hardcover, eBook, audiobook)

I hadn’t realized there was going to be a Button Box sequel until suddenly there was one, so rather than have to wait and anticipate, I got it as a nice surprise! This time, aside from an intro by King, it’s all Richard Chizmar’s work.

We rejoin Gwendy Peterson, now all grown up, gorgeous and successful, a novelist turned congresswoman, happily married. Her biggest problem is the worry over whether she earned all these blessings, or they’re some holdover from the button box’s powers.

Her next-biggest problems are having to deal with annoying politicians (including an obnoxious President; it’s a slightly alt-universe reality), her photojournalist husband getting sent on assignment to potential war-zones, and her mom’s ongoing battles with cancer.

She’s not expecting to have the button box (and its attendant silver dollars and exquisite chocolate animals) make a sudden surprise reappearance in her life. The temptation of those buttons now, with her inside knowledge, is greater than ever. But so’s her caution.

First things first, though … she’s going home for the holidays. Home to Castle Rock, that perpetually troubled little town, which is in the grips of fear after some girls have gone missing. While her mother’s health takes a turn for the worse. Where her father’s found an old keepsake from her childhood: a little white feather she always believed was magic.

It might be up to Gwendy to save the world from itself, and sometimes saving the world means starting small, in your own home town.

Admittedly, I was hoping for more connection to previous stuff, more references to earlier characters, instead of just appearances and mentions. I wanted (and still want) to know more about the aftermath of the whole Needful Things business and the rest of those folks. Aside from that slight disappointment, though, a fine and enjoyable thought-provoking read.

-Christine Morgan

THE CAVERN by Alister Hodge (2019 Severed Press / 207 pp / eBook)

Knew from the first glimpse that this book would be just my thing … caving, cave diving, cave monsters? Plus, local history of keeping them secret and placated? Risks, thrills, sensory deprivation, terror? Bonus opal mines? Heck, yeah!

And I was not proven wrong. Tense and intense, hitting all the right notes. My only quibble, minor though it is, is that it could’ve used a punchier title. Otherwise, it might be too easy to overlook or fade into the background, which would be a shame because this is an exciting and scary read.

With some REALLY nifty monsters, too. Far beyond the pallid subterranean cannibal mutants of The Descent. More like a cross between Alien-esque xenomorphs and chameleonic aquatic reptiles, black and sleek, luminous-eyed … with the ability to camouflage or disguise themselves, hunting by echolocation and other enhanced senses, loaded with vicious talons and lamprey-like teeth … I want toys of them. In fact, a whole cavern playset.

The locals talk of what they call the Miner’s Mother, which taps and raps like a tommyknocker, but likes its offerings of blood and fresh meat. Many of the little opal mines in the area still have shrines, and those who follow the old sacrificial custom, or even go further to conceal the truth.

When a sinkhole reveals part of the vast interlinked underground system, though, news gets around fast among the community of cavers, explorers, and adventuresome types. They’re all eager to be first to get a good look. Sometimes, eager enough to bend or break the rules …

Needless to say, it doesn’t go well. After one intrepid duo vanishes without a trace, another group ignores the warnings and objections, and venture down there themselves. Also needless to say, it doesn’t go well for them, either! Or for anyone else in the area, because what lives in the caves is far from pleased at these intrusions.

-Christine Morgan

KRONOS RISING DIABLO by Max Hawthorne (2016 Far From The Tree Press / 47 pp / eBook)

A brief prologue-type installment to the Kronos Rising series, this one is set on an isolated volcanic island, a Lost World type of setting where life and evolution have gone on largely undisturbed by outside influences.

It’s home to a tribe of Cro Magnon descendants, who’ve thrived for thousands of years and developed their religion centered around the massive marine reptiles inhabiting the island’s inland sea. These great beasts are their gods … though, lately, it’s seemed the gods are in decline. Maybe even dying out.

The tribe’s new shaman/chieftain must preside over the funeral ceremony of his predecessor, hoping to establish his place and regain the gods’ favor, as well as that of his promised bride. But, times have been changing. Strange craft have been seen near the island, strange visitors have come to their shores, and the forces of fate and of nature may have other plans.

My main issue with this one was in terms of storytelling and voice; it’s meant to be from the point of view of a member of this entirely separate offshoot society, so having the author including references to things that should not in any way be part of that society’s comprehension – terms of measurement, scientific classifications, art and history and culture, etc. – kept jarring me out of immersion.

-Christine Morgan

PREVIEW:

DEAD TO HER by Sarah Pinborough (to be released 2/11/20 BY William Morrow / 400 pp / hardcover, eBook, audiobook)

Pinborough is one of a few writers I've followed into the thriller field from their days churning out mainly horror, and while this one has all the elements of a blockbuster thriller, in the end it gets quite horrific and features a deliciously wicked cast.

Marcie marries into a ritzy community in Savannah, Georgia. Her husband, Jason Maddox, is now partners with his boss, William, who has recently become both a widower and the husband of a beautiful young woman from London, Keisha. When Keisha starts coming around to the private country clubs, Marcie swears she's flirting with her husband, and intends to friend her to not only keep up appearances, but keep an eye on her as well. Before long Marcie discovers Jason isn't the one Keisha wants, and she's thrown into an affair she could've never predicted.

As Marcie tries to stay faithful to Jason, worried she'll lose all she has gained and be forced to go back to a poor lifestyle, William is murdered, everyone is suspect, and as detectives work the case Jason and Marcie become the top suspects.

Like her previous thrillers BEHIND HER EYES and CROSS HER HEART, DEAD TO HER features plenty of twists and turns, lots of suspense and surprises, and a wicked twist ending that has become a staple of Pinborough's novels. And by wicked, I'm not only talking about who we discover is behind all the manipulation, but the entire cast, who are not only difficult-to-like elitists, but also some of the most downright evil people I've read in quite some time, which gives the novel a sense anything can happen (and for the most part, it does).

Told in four parts, this is a compulsive read featuring a slight voodoo element, giving it a flavor the author's fans from her horror days will appreciate.

-Nick Cato

SKINWRAPPER by Stephen Kozeniewski (2019 Sinister Grin Press / 80 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Of all the horrific things found in the author’s previous work, The Hematophages, the one that most captured my imagination was the concept of the skinwrappers – women who, dealing with cancer and other terrible terminal-type illnesses, have taken to space.

There, planetary factors such as gravity and environmental changes have less of an effect on their deteriorating conditions. Many of them missing skin or other body parts, being scrawny and wasted by disease and elongated by living under zero-G, they resemble living corpses, sometimes partially bandage-wrapped like mummies, often perpetually leaking blood and bodily fluids.

Icky, right? But, remember, these aren’t mindless undead. These are live humans, incurably ill, in constant pain. If their appearance alone doesn’t make them outcasts, their mental state isn’t the best, either. Between their suffering and their stigma, they’ve a right to be bitter.

Whether or not they have a right to band together, raiding for food and medical supplies, brutally killing whoever they can find after harvesting fresh blood and useful organs and body parts … well, it may be understandable; survival is survival … but it does make them some of the most feared pirates in the system.

This book, a tight, taut, tense thriller set in the Hematophages universe (a strongly feminist corporate-driven one where males are obsolete, btw, interesting and very neatly done), follows a desperate teenager trying to hide during a skinwrapper attack on her ship. It’s claustrophobic, nerve-wracking, grisly, and I read the whole thing in one sitting.

-Christine Morgan

HELL'S EMPIRE edited by John Linwood Grant (2019 Ulthar Press / 295 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

You often hear about anthology submissions that must’ve clearly been pre-existing stories altered to fit the call. Change this, add that, take out this other thing, voila and away we go, right? No one will ever know, right?

Well, that sure didn’t happen here. The theme is so narrow, so specific and precise, reworking a story would have been MORE work than writing a whole fresh new one. Which is good, and it shows. This entire book fits together so well it’s as if it was planned that way, coordinated, cooperatively written.

It’s like that WORLD WAR Z book, chronicling the events in a series of interlinked stories. Only, done by several different authors instead of just one. And instead of zombies across modern-day America, it’s England, toward the end of the Victorian age, with an incursion of the forces of Hell. Not the rest of the world, not other eras. Just that narrow zone.

Now, don’t see Victorian and automatically think ‘steampunk’. There are fantastical elements here and there – besides all the Hell stuff, that is – but it’s primarily historical, it’s military and mundane, it brings in aspects of the everyday. Above all else, delightfully so, it’s just SO British in tone and in feel throughout. There’s primness, a crispness, a propriety. The language. The aspects of class and national pride.

Although I enjoyed them all, I have to mention a few particular favorites:

“Hell at the Empire” by Marion Pitman, in which a showgirl singer initially figures the talk of people seeing demons must merely be something in the gin, until the theater she works at comes under attack.

Frank Coffman’s “Reinforcements,” told in the form of a soldier’s journal entries, well into the war, and the arrival of some unusual but far from unwelcome allies.

“The Singing Stones” by Charlotte Bond, taking a skewed look at things from the other side as a demon and his minion find their scouting mission gone awry.

Ross Baxter’s “The Mighty Mastiff” puts bravery and loyalty to the test when a tough old gunboat faces more than just the lonely isolation of the cold sea.

One of the poetic entries, Phil Breach’s “The Charge of the Wight Brigade,” would’ve had me by the title alone, but the poem itself more than lives up to its promise.

-Christine Morgan

BLOOD VERSE by Patrick James Ryan (2013 Black Bed Sheet Books / 398 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

A prevailing theme throughout this collection of 27 tales demonstrates that getting what you want isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be … meet a heavyweight champ facing some challenges that can’t be bested in the ring, a scientific genius learning some hard truths about the medical industry, an eternal reward that sounds awesome at first to one self-righteous soul.

Many of the stories get very grisly, including an example of desperate survival as an injured driver finds himself pitted against patient scavengers, some grit-and-blood revenge torture in the old West, a spelling bee where the stakes have never been higher, and the storm of the millennium giving a killer the perfect cover.

There are family secrets, bitter fantasies, colliding phobias, a much-put-upon assistant trying to help his boss’ parental goals, an ancient vampire’s reaction to certain brooding sparkly paranormal romance trends (hey, as monstrous as he is, it’s kinda hard not to sympathize, y’know?)

I wanted to give a particular shout-out to “Hair,” which starts off with a nasty discovery in a dumpster, seems like it’s going to be a monster-hunty police thing, and then veers into gagworthy body horror … I don’t know if ‘favorite’ is the word I want here, but it sure is effective and squicked me mightily.

Overall, the writing and editing could have used a bit more polish. Little stuff like overuse of names in dialogue, repetitive word use, over-detailed choreography description bogging down the action scenes. But, the spirit’s there, a good sense of energy and enthusiasm. Even when the characters are unlikable, or downright loathsome, they’re entertaining to read.

-Christine Morgan

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2202 by Edward Lee (2019 Necro Publications / 138 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Given his more usual settings, one might not be so inclined to think LEE IN SPAAAACE, but, here we go! In a future where religion has taken firm control of society, advancing their theocratic empire around the globe, a ship has been launched on the ultimate quest – to find the actual, physical Heaven.

An extraterrestrial anomaly has been detected. Which, scans indicate, appears to be of the exact compositions and dimensions laid out in the Book of Revelation by St. John the Apostle. It doesn’t take the shape of a planet or nebula; it isn’t made of gases or simple minerals. Is it walled in jasper? Gated in gold? Does it contain the souls of those who’ve passed on? Angels? God Himself?

The C.F.S. Edessa is on a secret mission to find out. Most of the crew doesn’t even know until well into the journey. Including Sharon, a humble data integrator with no idea how sheltered her life has been … an obedient, pious, virginal young woman who regularly goes to confession, diligently takes her supplements, and abstains from foul language or sinful thought.

Many of her shipmates, however, deviate from the rules. This is still an Edward Lee book, so you can rest assured there’s plenty of cussing and sex going on. There’s also sinister plans afoot, including sabotage and murder efforts by heretic cultists.

Sarah, drawn into the intrigues after surviving one such attack, suffers some rude awakenings when she learns more about what’s really going on aboard the Edessa. She’s disturbed by the influences of a civilian remote-viewer assigned to the mission, and by her own budding attraction to a security guard.

She’ll be more disturbed yet when the ship reaches its destination, and they find out the shattering truth of what’s waiting for them in Heaven. If, that is, any of them survive to tell the tale.

A masterful blend of philosophies, sci-fi action, and horror, featuring Lee’s trademark touches throughout, this book will entertain, offend, or maybe both.

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

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TALES IN SOMBRE TONES by Sean Walter (2019 SP / 222 pp / trade paperback)

The cover and overall look of this book live up to the title, matte and eerie, hauntingly grim yet alluring. Add in the charcoal and carbon pencil illustrations of Drawing in Dark’s Karen Ruffles, and before you even get to the stories, the promised sombre tones are already delivered.

The stories themselves then carry on in theme. Two dozen of them in total, short and sweet (or not necessarily sweet, more of a bitter dark-chocolate kind of sweet), they offer a variety of spooky glimpses into the shadows, whether of the mundane world or with a more paranormal turn.

Among my favorites:

“Lost at Sea,” when a storm leaves a ship adrift in strange waters, only to find its way to an even stranger port-of-call;

“Finders Keepers” struck me as particularly poignant, beautiful in a sad way, as a young woman forms a powerful bond with some clever crows;

“Jinxed,” in which sightings of a black cat accompany one poor guy’s bad luck day getting worse and worse;

and “Name Your Poison,” set at a bar like no other, a bar where the bartender’s mixology skills involve much more than simple spirits.

Others include deals with shifty devils, what lurks in the dark woods or desolate farm-fields, childhood monsters we never quite escape, old lore with more than a grain of truth, some E.C. Comics or Twilight Zone table-turning comeuppances, the perils of taking souvenirs from graveyards or mysterious vendors, folklore come to life, and all-too-real nightmares.

I did notice quite a few little bloopers, another book that could’ve benefited from some stricter editorial attention. The writing style often comes across more passive than I’d like, and maybe too many of the stories open with the weather (I only noticed because I read them one after the other). Those minor quibbles aside, I found the experience nicely disquieting throughout.

-Christine Morgan

SLASHER CRASHER by David Nora (2019 Black Rose Writing / 357 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This book knows what it is and what it does, and just goes for it with an utter shamelessness that is simultaneously uncomfortable and refreshing. It’s packed to capacity with teen slasher-horror tropes, characters that transcend mere stereotype into full-blown caricatures (this is where a lot of the uncomfortable stuff factors in), crassness, raunchiness, deliberate movie references, and over-the-top goresplat kills.

So, there’s this escaped maniac who’s been locked up in an asylum since he murdered his babysitter’s boyfriend. His kook of a doctor is convinced he’ll make a beeline for home to finish the job, and enlists the aid of local law enforcement.

Which, in this case, is a grieving wreck of a sheriff at odds with his teen daughter. He’s trying to be protective, she thinks he’s strict and controlling. She’s also recently broken from her nerdier loser-type friends to get with one of the popular guys at school, though the rest of his crowd aren’t exactly keen on having her around.

Oh, and, it’s almost Halloween, because of course it is! And some of the cool kids are having an unsupervised party, because of course they are! Despite the sheriff’s sudden implementation of a curfew, as he’s out on the road with the kook doctor, trying to track down the maniac.

Naturally, the good girl daughter sneaks out with her popular guy boyfriend to go to the party, where she doesn’t find the warmest welcome from the other cool kids. Meanwhile, though, one of her loser-type friends (gross angry fat chick) has sworn to get back at her, and hooked the other loser-type friend (outrageously gay) into helping with the revenge plot.

Needless to say, their paths all converge and the total bloodbath commences, except with some surprising genre-defying twists to shake things up in entertaining ways.

-Christine Morgan

SHADOWS ON THE WALL by Steven Paulsen (2018 IFWG Pubishing / 220 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I am so glad to live in the age of the ebook and internet, where works by an entire global host of authors are readily available! Opens up whole new worlds, presents whole new perspectives. Not to mention, it’s a lot easier and cheaper than having to shell out for international shipping.

I gotta say, the folks in the Southern Hemisphere sure are knocking it out of the park. Many writers from Australia and New Zealand quickly made their way onto my list of those who never fail to deliver a solid good story.

Well, it’s time to add another name to that list, because this collection by Steve Paulsen displays strong talent, mastery of a wide range of genres, deft craftsmanship, and undeniable skill.

From military horror in the humid jungles of a past war, to a near-future where AI and waste-disposal make for a dangerous combination … an experimental but effective 50-word piece … haunting memories becoming all too real, and haunted legacies reaching from beyond … some updated takes on Lovecraftian lore, including an exotic pulp adventure … the amusing mythic saga of a reluctant hero and his talking sword … sinister explanations behind monstrous acts … these fourteen tales span a nice variety of settings and styles.

Among my favorites are “Two Tomorrow” and “Christmas Morning,” two of the shortest, sweetest pieces in the book, which convey such heartfelt love and emotion that the final punches land with wickedly devastating force.

-Christine Morgan

THE MUMMY OF CANAAN by Maxwell Bauman (2019 Clash Books / 136 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

In my introduction to Lorne Dixon’s 2011 mummy novel ETERNAL UNREST, I swore the genre was on the verge of mummies being the new “it” monster. Vampires and zombies were beyond played out at the time, especially in the small press, and there was this unofficial “bet” going on if werewolves or mummies would be the next big thing. Turns out the wolves were given more love, mummies didn’t have the resurgence I’d hoped for, but that didn’t stop a handful of authors from trying to bring them back to life.

The latest comes courtesy of Maxwell Bauman and follows a group of American teenagers taking a tour of Israel. After a member of the group goes off on his own and cuts his palm on the mummy’s tomb, it provides just enough sauce to awaken the ancient corpse, who then goes on a brutal killing spree (with triple the amount of gore about five of you saw in the 1981 Italian schlock-fest DAWN OF THE MUMMY). Detective Yosef Leib, fresh off listening to another tourist claim someone tried to steal his eyes while visiting a famous tomb, is quickly brought in on the case.

There’s some interesting Jewish history and folklore on display here, breaking up scenes of our tourists being mutilated, their blood drained, multiple innards being removed, and fleeing from one of the more pissed off mummies in recent memory. Those into the splatterpunk thing should enjoy this quick novella well enough, and anyone with a love for the bandaged ones should have fun. CANAAN manages to entertain despite its standard monster-romp set up and how (seemingly) easy this ancient curse is defeated.

-Nick Cato

KILLER LAKE by W.D. Gagliani and David Benton (2019 Deadite Press / 262 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Going by title alone, you might expect this one to be a slasher-flick-type book packed with packed with partying college kids, lots of drinking, lots of sex, and a fast-rising gruesome body count. In the woods, by the lake, at a remote and rustic cabin.

BUT WAIT! It’s not a slasher-flick-type … it’s sinister cultists! Whose plan to summon up their demon lord was thwarted years before but may now finally be ready to bear fruit! And it’s not a remote and rustic cabin, it’s a luxurious vacation home.

The lake, the woods, and the ‘packed with partying college kids, lots of drinking, lots of sex, and fast-rising gruesome body count’ parts, however? Oh, yes, that’s all there, in gloriously graphic profusion. Soon, characters are getting it on, getting off, and getting offed almost too rapidly to keep track of. To add to the fun, evil forces bring the slaughtered students back as ravenous undead, while the cultists gather their power to complete their sacrificial ritual.

Many of the classic tropes and archetypes – jocks, sluts, the nice girl, the rich boy, the bad boy, the misfit, the alcoholic wreck of a professor, the bumbling country cop – are well-represented, but with some surprising twists.

The structure takes a football game kind of format, with the pregame and replays giving us our flashbacks to what happened the first time the cult tried this, and the various quarters following the present-day action. There’s a halftime show, things go into overtime with a survivor meeting some bonus backwoods horror, and there’s even a bit of postgame wrap-up.

Entertaining, fast-paced, splattery, shameless, lowbrow and delightfully trashy. I read the whole thing in one day, during breaks while at jury duty. Not sure what that says about me, but at least nobody asked!

-Christine Morgan

DOORWAYS TO THE DEADEYE by Eric J. Guignard (2019 Journalstone / 312 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This may be the first novel-length work I’ve read by Eric J. Guignard, but he certainly proves he’s as strong there as he is with short stories and editing anthologies! The language here is beautifully handled throughout, often as grainy and sepia-toned as old photographs from past decades. Which fits, given its largely historical setting.

Not only historical, but historical-within-historical, and uniquely American in a way only a very few genres seem to manage. But, instead of the Old West, Colonial New England, or the gothic South, the main era presented here is that of the Great Depression, a bleak time in which jobs were scarce, hope was scarcer, and countless hobos roamed the rails in search of a little bit of livelihood.

One of the most fascinating things about those years is the way hobo culture developed its own secret language of signs and symbols, graffiti-style markings left so fellow travelers would know where work or charity might be found, or warned off from dangerous places.

That hobo code features prominently in this book, and I admit I worried it’d end up becoming an overbearing author show-offy brag thing, look how much I researched, like Koontz did with surfer lingo. It was a minor worry, given my previous experiences with this author, and I’m pleased to report it proved fully unfounded. The explanations flow naturally in the course and context of the story.

Along with the code, we get inside peeks at the hobo traditions of storytelling and legends and tall tales (referred to as “crossbucks”), the feared railroad ‘bulls’ who would roust travelers, and other customs and rail-riding traditions. Even if that had been all this book was, straightforward historical fiction, it would’ve been fascinating enough, but it gets taken to another level when one young hobo discovers deeper secrets behind some of those signs and symbols.

He’s soon able to do more than just hitch a ride on a train, finding ways to step into another world alongside our own … a world where the remembered dead linger, and attempt to remake reality by shaping the memories of the living. Once he’s gone into this world – called the Deadeye – our protagonist encounters key figures from other eras of American history, and they aren’t all what their reputations would have us believe.

-Christine Morgan

THE INVENTION OF GHOSTS by Gwendolyn Kiste (2019 Nightscape Press / trade paperback)

Everly and her best friend room together at college. Everly is not only fascinated by the occult, but uses "parlor tricks" to amuse other students. Her best friend isn't as crazy about the dark side, and sets some boundaries to try to keep herself safe. But when Everly decides it's high time to go home for a visit, she discovers things about herself, her friend, and both of their parents that lead to a life changing conclusion.

Kiste has delivered a couple of original ghost stories before, and this is another in her ever-growing catalog. With as much peer pressure in our protagonist's lives as there is mystery surrounding the weird rapping coming from their dorm room ceiling, this short but powerful story seamlessly brings the supernatural into an everyday situation, and gives the reader plenty to ponder. Fans of unusual ghost stories, don't miss out (and it's for a great cause).

This book is part of Nightscape Press'"Charitable Chapbook" series, is limited to 100 copies, and as of this writing there are only 25 left. Grab one here before they're gone: NS Charitable Chapbook Series

-Nick Cato

SPLATTER VON RAINBOW by Nicholaus Patnaude (2019 Nihilism Revised / 115 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This book seriously messed with my head in several admittedly interesting and unforgettable ways. The cover alone, clashing bright magenta and lime green, hurts the eyes even before you attempt to read the chiller-font lettering; it took me a few tries to even figure out what the cover image was supposed to be!

Don’t get me wrong, though. This isn’t one of those ones you’d see on a terrible-book-covers page full of badly photoshopped garbage. This is meant to be an eye-hurter, a warning as vivid as the coloration of certain varieties of mushrooms and little poison dart frogs, because the story inside is every bit as trippy as what you’d get from eating those mushrooms or licking those frogs.

Maybe not fatal. Maybe. I’m not sure yet. I finished reading it yesterday and my mind is still trying to fumble its way back to coherence. Haven’t felt so disoriented since I stopped the pain meds. This is bizarro of the most concentrated, distilled, compacted weirdness I’ve seen in a while.

At first, the story might seem like a random mish-mash of the craziest images and ideas thrown together, but the further you go, the more it fits together. There’s a sense of it making perfect sense just beyond comprehension, like I could almost grasp, almost grok, its ultimate message … but my brain wouldn’t let me, or wasn’t ready yet.

What’s it about, you might wonder? Good grief, I hardly know where to start. It’s a tragic love story, of sorts, a couple whose passion spans several past lives and dimensions in a half-fated, half-doomed kind of way.

But she’s trapped in the body of a manikin, and he has dinosaur genitals (not in the way that you’d think; just typing that sentence messed with my head again). There’s all kinds of kinky lingerie, and the title’s the name of a mystic rock-goddess (rock as in music), and a pervy voyeur magician-type offers the couple a chance to relive their past lives but only if he can watch them get it on, and …

… and then it gets REALLY out-there, so, yeah … nibble the mushroom, lick the colorful little frog, read this book … maybe don’t operate heavy machinery for a while …

-Christine Morgan

SHEPHERD'S WARNING by Cailyn Lloyd (2019 Land of Oz LLC / 398 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Sorry to say, I really struggled with this one. There’s nothing wrong with the writing; the writing is solid and sound, totally fine. Some of the historical and supernatural elements of the plot were different and interesting.

The characters, though, and their actions, reactions, and interactions … it’s a textbook case throughout of whatever the haunted house equivalent of climate-change deniers would be. Gosh, the locals are averse to the place. Gosh, inexplicable stuff keeps happening. Gosh, evidently there was some old hidden family secret. Gosh, a hundred other clues and red flags.

Let’s be typical obtuse white people, move right in, and start remodeling the place! Let’s go a step further and get it featured on one of those home improvement shows! Let’s none of us actually talk to each other about our disturbing experiences! Let’s ignore the way things move around, and the strange figures, and the dreams and personality changes! Let’s keep poking around and finding mysterious old books, gold coins, trap doors, but laugh it all off.

Until, surprise surprise, it’s too late and people are going crazy, getting hurt, having psychic flashes, fighting, lying. I wanted to smack them, honest I did. Even the professor who’s really a centuries-old immortal scholar and sorcerer, and might otherwise have been a fascinating character just came across as arrogant, entitled, and tedious.

Book 1 in a series, but I doubt I’ll be in a hurry to pick up the next installment.

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

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STRONGER THAN HATE by Robert Essig (2019 Death’s Head Press / 169 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Must’ve been something in the zeitgeist, because it seemed all of a sudden I was seeing a bunch of sinkholes opening up! I’d say ‘scary’ sinkholes, but they are already freakin’ terrifying to start with. Once they get into the hands of horror authors, though, the stakes go even higher.

In this one, the sinkhole itself may be small-scale; it doesn’t devour buildings or neighborhoods or whole blocks of tarmac into bottomless caverns in the earth … it’s only a small and relatively shallow collapse in a backyard, going unnoticed by everyone except – at first – the old lady whose property it is.

Francine is a widow, a retired schoolteacher, living alone. Her garden is the only thing that still brings her joy. Until the ground gives way beneath her feet and she finds herself trapped several feet belowground in a deep pit of wet, crumbling earth.

The only other person aware of her plight is Greg, a former student who lives next door. A loner/loser type, instead of calling for help, he contacts some of his old classmates instead, thinking to up his status by giving them a laugh at seeing one of their strict high-school nemeses stuck in the mud.

Oh, they get more than a laugh out of it, all right. Bad boy Trevor and his trashy girlfriend Heather are in no hurry to let Francine out. In fact, Trevor has all sorts of nasty ideas to humiliate the helpless woman … then sees a way to monetize the opportunity, by charging admission to fellow scum and degenerates.

What follows is a worsening nightmare for Francine, and the reader might as well be trapped right down there with her. Meanwhile, Greg’s trapped in a hell of his own making, afraid to stand up to Trevor despite a guilty crisis of conscience and pity.

It’s a disturbing, difficult, highly effective read. As well as a good reminder to check in on your elderly relatives and shut-in neighbors from time to time.

-Christine Morgan

NIGHT CREEPERS by David Irons (2019 Severed Press / 177 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I got this one, and from the cover and title was anticipating a spooky creature feature … then read the back, which describes a scenario more akin to a cosy British mystery. The kind where some dying patriarch summons his beneficiaries to his country house to discuss the will, but then murder ensues and a host of long-standing family secrets are revealed.

Well, turns out, the book’s a little of both and neither at the same time, ends up something else altogether, and – sorry to say – falls short of its various potentials. The promise is there, but could’ve used fleshing out and elaboration to make the characters more vivid, the scenario more tense and frightening.

The usual suspects include the ex trophy-wife, the stepdaughter, and business associates ranging from the shady to the loyal. They’re almost too rote, lacking personality beyond their basic stereotypes, and hard to muster up much interest in. Instead of a country house, they’re summoned to a remote church, the powerful rich man already dead but having made specific arrangements for his funeral.

Very specific, as well as none too, well, beneficial. At first, it seems a snide last word from beyond the grave, a final controlling gesture. But the guests soon find themselves literally caught in a trap, having to navigate a course through the catacombs with various mechanisms to steer them along toward the real threat waiting in the darkness.

I think there really could’ve been something fun here, but none of the elements really shone and they didn’t combine enough to work as well together as they otherwise might. In general, an okay time-passer, just kind of bland.

-Christine Morgan

100 WORD HORRORS BOOK 4: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR DRABBLE edited by Kevin J. Kennedy (2019 Amazon Digital Services, LLC / 109 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Drabble, drabble. I’ll see you when you drabble, drabble… Wait a minute, that’s not the lyrics to that Offspring song in the 2000s that nobody has stuck in their head right now. So, what is all that dastardly and godforsaken commotion you may be wondering right now? Well, let me just fill you in on a little secret, a hundred of them to be exact, much like the word count in these fun, little horror gems from KJK Publishing. The fourth installment of these great and fantastic and equally horrific bathroom reader digests more formally known as the 100 WORD HORRORS series is a powerful addition to the rest of the drabble family. This specific edition, in my opinion, has been very carefully laid out as far as format and order of stories goes. The book reads rather well, and collects some of the more serious of drabbles as far as content is concerned compared to some of the other anthologies found in this series.

Some of my personal favorites were ‘Chiaroscuro Morning’ by Kevin Wetmore, ‘The Wave’ by Andrew Lennon, ‘Livestock’ by RJ Meldrum, ‘Every Fifty Years the Roots Need Blood’ by Ellen A. Easton, ‘No Time Like the Present’ by Adam Light, ‘A Prison Inside Us’ by Sheldon Woodbury, ‘Wrath of the Old Ones’ by Kevin J. Kennedy, ‘The Coffin’ by Kevin Cathy, ‘Mine’ by Nerisha Kemraj, ‘Shingles on a Graham Cracker Roof’ by Chad Lutzke, and ‘Meal’ by John Boden.

For the record, book two still wins my heart as far as my love for eye-catching book cover art is concerned, but, overall, this is a great book full of some of our favorite, little 100 word horrors to date.

-Jon R. Meyers

CATFISH LULLABY by A.C. Wise (2019 Broken Eye Books / 118 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

You know those books that exist only within other books, in the forms of references, excerpts, and quotes? Fictional tomes like the Necronomicon, Koontz’s Book of Shadows, the actual Hitchhiker’s Guide, that seem so neat you wish they were real because you want to read them, too?

I’m adding one to my personal list. Each chapter of CATFISH LULLABY opens with a bit from something called ‘Myths, History, and Legends from the Delta to the Bayou’ (Whippoorwill Press, 2016). I love folklore and local legends; the closest I’ve ever been to the bayou is the start of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride but find it fascinating; I’d read the heck out of that.

Which isn’t to say ‘Catfish Lullaby’ itself is a disappointment, because it isn’t. Not so much southern gothic with mouldering mansions and plantation houses dripping with moss; we’re talking more small-town-swamp-gothic. Much more rustic, though still with all the humid secrecy and closed-off mystery.

For mixed-race Caleb, life in Lewis was always a bit challenging even as a kid. Dealing with bullies, having neighbors with unsavory reputations, being raised by a single dad who then takes in a strange orphan girl after a fire, all the rumors about someone (or something) called Catfish John, the secrets, the disappearances …

He may have thought, as an adult, he’d left all that behind him. But we know better, don’t we, folks? Returning as an adult, in a relationship with another man, he faces whole new levels of challenge, especially when he steps in as the new local sheriff. And when the strange girl who’d disappeared so long ago suddenly returns to his life, and bad things once again start to happen.

-Christine Morgan

AMERI-SCARES: WEST VIRGINIA, LAIR OF THE MOTHMAN by Stephen Mark Rainey (2019 Crossroad Press / 152 pp / trade paperback, eBook, audiobook)

The rising popularity of geocaching is a real godsend to the whole horror genre. Finally, a way to get more of the less-athletic, nerdier types out into the hostile wilderness, well off the beaten path, instead of just the usual hikers and wild party-in-the-woods crowd!

(If you’re unfamiliar with the hobby, it’s kind of a higher-tech puzzle game treasure hunt; fear not, the book’s intro explains the basics, and beyond that, well, that’s what google is for)

With “Lair of the Mothman” in the title, I do admit I was expecting more, well, more Mothman, more of the actual folklore and history, the legends and sightings. Which isn’t to say I was disappointed by the read, only that it was fairly geocaching-forward, with the Mothman aspects taking a back seat.

Our protagonist Vance Archer, who goes by ArcherV on the geocaching sites. He got into it thanks to his older brother, and has recently been joined on his quests by one of his schoolmates, Marybeth, aka Emerald Racer. Being kids, the duo is limited to local caches around their hometown.

Their hometown, however, is in a part of the country which, over the years, has had its share of the inexplicable: lights in the sky, Mothman sightings, and other strange events. Vance’s own family history includes a member lost to a disaster during one such spate of strangeness.

Now, those things are happening again. Cell phones start picking up messages that don’t show in the call record (what IS it about that? like in Lost, or 1408? how can mere numbers be so creepy?). Vance himself keeps seeing shadowy shapes and eerie red eyes. Something new and ominous seems to be gathering strength. And it might just be up to the intrepid young geocachers to find out what.

-Christine Morgan

TRUE CRIME by Samantha Kolesnik (2020 Grindhouse Press / 144 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

“Like all good monsters, I came not by force, but by invitation.”

Tired of being abused by her mother, Suzy, along with her brother Lim, leave their small town of Morris Grove and head for *anywhere* that will rid them of their troubled upbringing. But, the damage in both of these young people has been done and they wind up embarking on a killing spree, starting with their own mother.

The first half of TRUE CRIME may feel like a senseless exercise in extreme violence...yet if that’s not your thing, stick around, as Kolesnik turns this into a dark character study of a damaged young woman, attempting to find her purpose in the world among twisted adults, questionable clergy and her own growing urge to kill. The violence, which is shocking at times, serves the story, which quickly sets this apart from a host of similar novels/novellas. Having been raised on issues of True Crime magazine, her actions and mental condition begin to mirror the lurid stories she had spent so much of her young life enveloped in.

You often hear certain writers have that “Jack Ketchum or Richard Laymon” flair, but this stunning debut, while at times channeling both writers, ends up with a fresh voice, making us care for Suzy (and her brother) despite their lifestyles that are destined to be unrepentant. One scene in which Suzy learns a life lesson from an elderly man is as poignant as it is suspenseful, and Kolesnik’s short sentence style manages to deliver some serious mule kicks when you’re least expecting it.

TRUE CRIME is a powerful (if short) debut which will surely be embraced by not only the horror community, but I’m betting fans of crime fiction, too.

-Nick Cato

THE SERPENT'S SHADOW by Daniel Braum (2019 Cemetery Dance / 108 pp / eBook)

What I found most striking about this book was how well it showcased the dichotomy of opposites going together side-by-side, highlighting and contrasting each other by their very existence while depending on each other and being irrevocably enmeshed. Life and death. Wealth and poverty. The new ways and the old. The modern world and the ancient one. Love and fear. Good and evil.

Must say, it proved a surprising and refreshing takeaway from what I initially expected when a bunch of vacationing college kids sneak away from their Cancun hotels to party by the Mayan ruins. We’ve all seen that sort of thing play out often enough, you know? Obnoxious Americans trespassing somewhere forbidden, ignoring the cryptic warnings of taciturn locals, having no respect for local lore or mythology … awakening something evil … getting gruesomely picked off one by one …

Well, many of those elements do exist here, but they aren’t put together in the ways you might think. The result is quieter – though still with its bloody moments – and more intricate, ultimately almost cosmic-style horror.

David and Regina are spending Christmas in Cancun with their parents, but eager to slip out and investigate the local nightlife. This introduces them to Anne-Marie, who then introduces them to her friends for the aforementioned sneaking away to party by the ruins.

Soon, scholarly introspective David – already fascinated by the region and its history, troubled by dreamlike visions of winged serpents and tales of the vengeful White Lady – finds himself drawn into the mysteries of the lingering not-so-lost-after-all Mayan culture. When he and Anne-Marie participate in a solstice ceremony at a hidden temple, events are set in motion that will make him ultimately have to choose among those side-by-side opposites, and face the consequences.

-Christine Morgan

BLACK HEART BOYS' CHOIR by Curtis M. Lawson (2019 Wyrd Horror / 261 pp / trade paperback, eBook, audiobook)

Lucien Beaumont is a perfect example of a main archetype of our age – the entitled, arrogant, sulky white boy with privilege and resentment issues, prone to violent revenge-wank fantasies. You know the sort. We all know the sort. Way too many of the sort, these days. They’re ending up on the news all the time.

Okay, sure, the world’s dealt Lucien some rough turns lately. His dad’s died, he’s had to move from his big house and snobby academy, his mom’s withdrawn into a neglectful substance-dependent wreck, he has to get an actual (gasp) part-time job. The so-called school he has to go to now doesn’t even have a decent music program, let alone a proper choir. And his fellow students are brainless primitives who make fun of him for wearing nice suits. The few friends he manages to make are primarily through the bonding of fellow disaffected outcasts and rebels, and they form a small chorus club of their own.

Lucien’s only saving grace might be his musical talent, but even that’s corrupted by his better-than-everyone ego. When he discovers an unfinished collaboration by his late father and another composer, an ominous piece they apparently tried to destroy because of its dark power, you’d better believe he becomes obsessed with it. In a blackly amusing take on the battle of the bands teen trope, Lucien and his choir plan to perfect the forbidden Madrigal of the World’s End, and unleash it to show those glee club powers what’s for.

If he’s meant to be presented righteously striking back a la CARRIE, it didn’t work for me. I found him an unlikable snot from the word go. The language choices for his point of view reflect his attitude perfectly. I spent the whole time wanting to smack the crap out of him. Which means, whatever else, he certainly was written believably and effectively! Maybe too much so.

-Christine Morgan

CRISIS BOY by Garrett Cook (2018 Eraserhead Press / 190 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Writing this book must’ve been difficult. Researching it, even more so. And reading it is no picnic either. Inspired by the rash of terrible actual events plaguing our society, and inspired all the more by some of the ludicrous conspiracies around them, welcome to a world where we can’t believe anything we hear on the news or even see with our own eyes.

Welcome to a world where disasters really are staged. Shootings, bombings, assassinations, murders. A world where shadowy behind-the-scenes organizations really do plan it all. Where, no matter how wild the theories may seem, the truth is all that much stranger.

What if there were people, specially gifted and trained people, who got sent from tragedy to tragedy to ensure good optics of the carnage and suffering? People like John, a so-called ‘crisis boy,’ who has been critically injured at multiple incidents, but somehow heals up in time for the next one.

What if some of those message board nutjobs were right, spotting the similarities, making the connections? What if one such ‘crisis boy’ starts to question his role, as he’s put in place for the next massacre? What if he decides to try and change the script?

The subject matter is definitely not for everyone. It’s troubling and traumatic, approached in a way that by no means glorifies the awfulness of such events, while simultaneously throwing a wry light onto the lunacy that’d have to be going on behind the scenes. It reads at a fever pitch, almost manic, with an inherent wild-eyed-ness very fitting.

I do wish it’d had a more thorough edit (I know, I know, I gripe about that a lot). Sure won’t expect to see it on any high school reading lists soon, but, it provides a scary peek into certain modern mindsets. There are probably some who’ll swear it’s non-fiction, and that’s the scariest thing of all.

-Christine Morgan

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THE BANK by Bentley Little (to be released 4/28/20 by Cemetery Dance Publications / 375 pp / hardcover)

Kyle Decker runs a bookstore in the small town of Montgomery Arizona. Seemingly overnight a new bank opens in the adjacent space next door that he had been considering buying to expand his shop. And within hours of The First People’s Bank opening for business, certain residents of Montgomery begin acting very strange, others leave their jobs to work for the new bank, and every employee at an established local bank are found massacred in a field.

Little’s 28th novel falls into what the author refers to as one of his “institutional” stories, similar in theme and structure to fan favorites such as THE STORE, THE MAILMAN, and THE RESORT. While Little has written many of these, THE BANK still finds new ways to both entertain and disturb the reader, and like THE CONSULTANT (2016) this one employs plenty of dark humor, social commentary, and a genuinely evil antagonist.

There’s a great bit about a couple who agree to a an attractive homeowner’s loan, with the one stipulation they won’t have use or access to a mysterious locked room, and when the Bank’s evil kicks into high gear, Little manages to throw in a white power militia, a school shooting, and a real estate agent who begins freaking her family out with some off the wall behavior.

THE BANK has perhaps a bit too many things going on, and aside from Kyle and the town’s Sheriff it’s easy not to care for most of the large cast, but fans of Little’s quirky brand of horror should enjoy this well enough, even among the familiarity and abrupt finale.

-Nick Cato

WELCOME TO MISKATONIC UNIVERSITY edited by Scott Gable and C. Dombrowski (2019 Broken Eye Books / trade paperback & eBook)

Ah, good ol’ Miskatonic U! Home of the Fighting Cephalopods! Alma mater claimed on many a social media profile! And, saying so at risk of offending many a Lovecraft devotee, probably the second-most-popular academy of the arcane, right after Hogwarts!

An entire anthology set at this revered Arkham campus is never to be missed, and the additional theme of updating those hallowed halls to the modern day only makes it all the more enjoyable. The authors herein took on a challenging game of what-if, asking and answering questions such as how Miskatonic’s faculty, staff, and students might deal with the hassles and obstacles common to contemporary college life, and do a terrific job rising to the task.

Some of these pieces fittingly pay homage to the epistolary format, letting the story be told through exchanges of emails and texts. People don’t just go mad or summon eldritch beings from old books anymore; it’s a full mixed-multi-media experience.

Imagine the frathouse hazings or sinister sorority sisterhoods! The dorm-room disputes! Freshman orientation! Are the needs of a much more diverse population being adequately addressed? There are dietary restrictions and religious holidays to consider. Oh, and you thought the kerfuffle over renaming an award was bad; what to do about the very buildings whose namesakes had unfortunate ‘a man of his time’ reputations?

I particularly liked the stories that focused on non-academic regular people, the staff members just trying to keep their heads down and do their jobs as Miskatonic’s weirdness goes on around them. It’s always a treat to get that sort of outside view but from the inside. Would read a whole book just of those.

With a lineup including names such as Gwendolyn Kiste, Joseph Pulver Sr., Nate Southard, Kristi DeMeester, and Scott R. Jones, this is an entertaining addition to Lovecraftian lore, providing plenty to think about as well as plenty to enjoy.

-Christine Morgan

ROPE BURNS / OBLIQUATAR VOLUPTAS (published by Death’s Head Press under mysterious circumstances)

This poor book has been through the wringer, thanks to assorted issues with a certain shall-not-be-named online retailer. Despite title changes and other revamps, it’s been done, undone, and redone again and again in both ebook and paperback versions. Still, through it all, some copies did manage to escape into the hands of a fortunate few. If you got one, hang onto it and consider yourself lucky!

Okay. Moving on to the actual thing! You’d better believe an anthology of horror erotica / erotic horror from THIS publisher with THAT lineup of talent was going to jump to the top of my reading list. I mean, it opens with a novella from THE power duo of the genre, Monica O’Rourke and Wrath James White. That alone is worth the price of admission!

Titled “Chinara,” it’s about a coven of particularly bloodthirsty and power-hungry witches, a clash between the centuries-old leader and a new upstart, the family of albinos they hope to use for their rituals, and that family’s mother’s own supernatural efforts to save her children. Many body parts get all kinds of attention, from carnal to carnivorous, in every bit as much gory detail as you might expect, and then some!

Among my particular faves:

Evelyn Deshane’s “Breathless,” which explores a dangerous kink in a rather different way, when regular old methods of autoerotic asphyxiation just aren’t quite getting the job done anymore;

“Ministrations” by Michael Patrick Hicks, a classic tables-turn tale with some additional twists, as a scumbag goes after his next beautiful victim and finds himself in for a very bad time, with satisfying (for the reader, not the scumbag!) results;

Another devilish take on the scumbag-gets-his-due (what can I say, I like seeing them suffer!) gets served up in Lucas Milliron’s “Damnation,” involving a nasty magical trinket from a mysterious shop;

Jaap Boekestein’s wildly inventive, original, and creative “Fucking Flesh Walker,” when two fetishists find their perfect matches and take their obsession to the ultimate extreme;

“The Playroom” by Sarah Cannavo, as a nice young couple must deal with the fact that their new house (with newly remodeled sex-dungeon) is haunted by a spirit who doesn’t do safewords or consent;

and Jeremy Wagner’s “Four Heads Are Better Than Two” brings some wacky apocalyptic fun in a porn-star-turned-pig-farmer’s bomb shelter … wow, there’s a sentence that felt weird to type …

The other stories, for me, ranged mostly from ‘okay’ to ‘kind of meh,’ sorry to say, and I did spot several edit bloopers I hope got chased out in final draft. Overall, though? If you’re into this kind of stuff, and you can get your hands on the book, you’ll want to.

-Christine Morgan

TOO MANY EYES AND OTHER THRILLING STRANGE TALES by Patrick Loveland (2019 Stay Strange Publishing / 360 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

Some titles, you just know you’re in for pulpy action-packed adventure, the kind of thing that’d be right at home in those men’s magazines where shirtless dudes bludgeon Nazis in the face with snapping turtles, or the cliffhanger serials they used to do on the radio or before movies.

This collection lives up to that promise nicely, and goes it some better by including plenty of strong, gutsy women, and ethnic and sexual diversity. The works themselves span a wide and weird range of genres, from the old west and gritty war stories to the far future.

Recurring characters and agencies pop up a few times, tying several of the stories together in interesting ways. Though, a few are the obvious unconnected odd ducks out – there’s a pizza story, for instance; folks in the horror small press probably would know what that’s all about – and the more traditional spooky Halloween fun of “Not Cavities”.

I particularly liked the niftily-multilayered titular tale, “Too Many Eyes,” which begins with the staff of a theater pre-screening a rare film-within-a-film cult classic that quickly becomes much more than a movie, and the strangeness just keeps on escalating.

Overall, there was maybe more emphasis on military and sci-fi than would normally be to my tastes, but not so much as to keep me away. When the eldritch weirdness unfurls, it does so on a spectacular scale, with vivid descriptions of what should be indescribable.

-Christine Morgan

THE FUCKING ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE by Bryan Smith (2020 Grindhouse Press / 100 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

You remember a while back when the market was flooded with what seemed like one too many zombie books, and it seemed like every where you turned you couldn’t turn without getting smacked in the face by some sort of zombie limb or apparatus? Well, I do. And, I, there for a while, was personally turned off by the concept or regurgitated plot, reoccurring theme of the stereotypical zombie tale in general. Sure, I’ve always sort of been a fan of them too. When they’re great, they’re great. ‘28 Days Later’, ‘28 Weeks Later’, ‘Zombie’, ‘Night of the Living Dead’, and George Romero’s other timely undead classics of yesteryear for example are all brilliant examples of what the subgenre is capable of. But, I didn’t really ever need more than that. I didn’t necessarily feel like I ever needed to read a bunch of books sporting such a similar plot even though, I mean, what’s there not to love about blood, guts, gore, and the living dead corpse moaning their way through a foggy cemetery at night... am I right? But, here’s the thing. I’m so wrong. They’re not all the same. Similar, sure. The same? Not at all. This book right here is living proof of why we don’t just give up on something and write it off like that. Plus, we already know Grindhouse Press. They’re not just going to put something that’s already been done before in our hot little horror hands. Nope, they’re going to deliver the $#%@^&* goods.

If Phil were to have just given up after his crazy girlfriend called threatening to kill his hamster instead of battling his way back across town during the start of the %#$@&^* zombie apocalypse, where would we as the reader even be? We wouldn’t get the opportunity to meet Satan himself. Learn of the relationship that he and Phil’s neurotic, bat-shit crazy significant other share so dearly together. Or, perhaps, the emotional ties and bonds that can become of two different life paths when forced upon the same trials and tribulations, or, in this case, an ungodly ménage a’ trois with a gigantic I don’t think you even want to know! No, because you were wrong and you would’ve missed out on all the good not-so-clean fun this book has to offer, as the author delivers to us a zombie book that’s unlike any other zombie book available on the market, but also sort of not at the same time, which is a brilliantly executed abomination with and of itself, if I do say so myself.

Think ‘Highway to Hell’ meets ‘The Walking Dead’ while doing hard time on a most excellent adventure with Bill and Ted during the %#$@^&# zombie apocalypse. Do yourself a favor and check this one out! You can thank me later.

-Jon R. Meyers

PLAYTHING by Brandon Ford (2019 Carter Meloy Publishing / trade paperback & eBook)

Oh, creepy … creepy, creepy, creepy … this one is creepy from the word go. It starts with a prologue about a little girl being invited to play by an older kid, and sets the skin-crawling stage for the entire rest of the book.

You KNOW, you just KNOW, that this kid isn’t okay. That icky things are going to happen. Icky, awful things.

Well, guess what? You’re right. And it gets very, VERY icky and awful indeed. Hard to read, but in that chilling, compelling, well-written, can’t-look-away fashion.

Bailey is a teen with troubles (as opposed to a troubled teen). Aside from the usual issues of school and identity and family stuff, he’s recently lost his best friend to a tragedy. His controlling parents have him in therapy and on meds, and very much disapprove of how much time he spends visiting his friend’s mother. They want him to get over it, move on, find new friends.

As it happens, the lady who just moved in next door has a son about his age. So, not given much choice, Bailey goes over to introduce himself to Glen. Remember the icky, creepy, not-okay kid from the prologue? He’s older now, with an obsessive interest in serial killers and mass murderers.

I won’t say much more except that things … things don’t go well. We’re talking Jack Ketchum levels of discomfort here. If you were scarred for life by The Girl Next Door (and who among us wasn’t?), this one will likely give you flashbacks.

-Christine Morgan

DRIVE-THRU CREMATORIUM by Jon Bassoff (2019 Eraserhead Press / 168 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I was going to start off with “If Bentley Little wrote bizarro,” and then I realized well actually he kind of does if you think about it … but, that’s beside the point. The thought came into my mind as I was reading. If Bentley Little wrote bizarro, it’d be something like this.

Stanley Maddox is your basic everyman nobody kind of guy, whose whole world just suddenly starts falling apart around him. One day, he goes in to work, to the same job he’s had for years, and none of his co-workers recognize him. They can’t get his name right. They’ve cleaned out his office. Oh, they’ll still let him do the work, but it’s not like he’s officially employed … or getting paid.

Meanwhile, at home, his wife’s attitude toward Stanley is a kind of benign indifference. She’s more concerned with some rabbit she keeps seeing around the house. Then, one day she’s got some guy named Jeff living there with them, with no explanation.

He’s not sure how to cope with any of these strange developments. Confrontation isn’t really his thing. So, he pretty much goes along, but things continue getting weirder and weirder. Especially once he encounters the Drive-Thru Mortuary and Crematorium, a little business he’s never noticed before.

As matters unfold – no, that’s incorrect; matters don’t UNfold, they fold in on themselves like insane origami – Stanley faces the prospective death of his father and birth of his son, with twisted variations of the full Oedipal Greek tragedy epic archetype themes playing out. And there’s a murderer on the loose in town, and lookalikes, and …

And, as befitting most bizarro, really there’s no good way to explain it because it just sounds crazier the more that I try. Best just to read it and see for yourself!

-Christine Morgan

THE BIG BOOK OF BLASPHEMY edited by Regina Garza Mitchell and David G. Barnett (2019 Necro Publications / 376 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

There’s a crucified banana on the cover. How can you not be intrigued by a book with a crucified banana on the cover? And this was even before whatever artist duct-taped one to a gallery wall and sold it for ridiculous amounts of money.

If the banana itself isn’t enough, look at the NAMES involved here. It’s the A-list royal flush celebrity red carpet of extreme horror. Dedicated to two of the recently-lost greats, GAK and Charlee Jacob, packed with thirty hardcore heavy hitters, this hefty book is your boarding pass to a first class seat in the handbasket to Hell.

Many of my all-time favorite authors and literary idols are represented here, but even taking that bias into consideration, everyone’s knocking it out of the park for sure. Edward Lee bringing the twisted familial faith in “Scriptures”? Grandmaster Brian Keene going brashly and cheerfully for outrageous offense with “The Guy From Nazareth”? Kristopher Triana’s gruesome suicide cult in “Goddess of Gallows”? Fantastic!

Some entries, such as Ray Garton’s “Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth” and Joshua Chaplinsky’s “Playing Doctor,” are extra disturbing in their real-world plausibility. Others, like David G. Barnett’s “When a Baby Cries” and “And You Shall Be Adored” by Regina Garza Mitchell, were probably extra inappropriate to read over the holidays. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the creepy kids in Lucy Taylor’s “The Cursing Prayer,” or cringe at the brutality of Monica O’Rourke’s “Watchers.”

Needless to say, bigtime warning labels should apply to readers of a pious, sensitive, or otherwise nice decent nature. There’s nasty sex (hello, Wrath James White, who outdoes even himself in “Messiah of Sin”), nastier violence, some of the nastiest tortures possible (looking at you, Ryan Harding, especially for the spike strip bit in “Angelbait”!).

All that, plus Stephen Kozeniewski, Gabino Iglesias, Lucas Mangum, AND many more? Religious ideals and ideations profaned? Sins explored and exploited? Angels abused and deities defiled? This book will not disappoint. Blasphemy it promises, and blasphemy it delivers. In every imaginable, and some hitherto unimaginable, sense of the word.

-Christine Morgan

~~~~~~~~~~~

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NOW IN OUR 17th YEAR!

ON THE NIGHT BORDER by James Chambers (2019 Raw Dog Screaming Press / 218 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

This debut collection starts off with a fine introduction by Linda Addison, in which she claims Chambers knows the importance of a short story’s opening line...and considering just about all of them hooked me, I’m not going to argue.

Among my favorites are:

‘A Song Left Behind in the Aztakea Hills,’ where an artist who was also a friend of Jack Kerouac is paid to revisit a site that is rumored to have opened an otherworldly portal. A psychedelic rock band helps bring the cosmic horror in this solid opening tale.

‘Marco Polo’ takes a dark look at a game most of us played as kids, only this time using a sinister mask as the catalyst. One of my favorites of the collection.

In ‘Lost Daughters,’ a Good Samaritan finds himself at the mercy of three mysterious young women who seem to know a little too much about his family. Great suspense level considering it’s one of the shorter pieces here.

‘Mnemonicide’is a truly different take on a killing spree, told in second person which adds to the craziness factor. The ending will leave a hole right in the center of your chest.

Chambers gets a bit extreme in ‘The Driver, Under a Cheshire Moon,’ as he slowly reveals what our Driver is up to. While we’re told in this book’s introduction the author is big on opening lines, this is another entry to feature a great ending you probably won’t figure out.

‘The Chamber of Last Earthly Delights’ reminded me a bit of the film SOYLENT GREEN and I loved its alt-look at the early 1920s. One of the stranger stories here with some of Chambers’ strongest characters.

And finally in ‘Picture Man’ Ethan awakens in the hospital after a rough subway ride, but has no recollection how he got there. He eventually regains memory when he learns his incident became the subject of the local news. I love stories dealing with amnesia/lost memories and here the author gives his own flavor to it.

ON THE NIGHT BORDER contains 15 stories, 6 appearing here for the first time. Chambers goes all over the spectrum here, from cosmic to quiet horror, mysteries, and even a story featuring Kolchak, who some will remember from the great 70s pre-X Files type TV show, THE NIGHT STALKER. With 9 bonus pages of insightful author notes, this collection shows off the best of a skilled writer who I’m eagerly anticipating more from.

-Nick Cato

ZOMBIE RUN by Dwayne Perkins and Koji Steven Sakai (2019 Solstice Publishing / 251 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

One of the more fun and lighter-hearted aspects of the zombie apocalypse to play with is the notion of the living trying to ‘pass,’ hoping to survive by being mistaken as just another of the horde. Harder in some scenarios than others, bringing up questions of how far a person would go to fit in.

In this particular scenario, after the initial outbreak and aside from the ongoing ravenous urge to devour any live humans they happen to find, the dead have returned to the more-or-less business as usual of everyday routine. They go to work, they go home, they go out; they go through the motions of having rudimentary conversations and social interactions.

Given how many of us already function like that, it’s not so hard to blend in for a survivor. Hanson has been managing for years, thinking he’s the only one left. He lives with his undead brother, has occasional hookups with undead ladies, does his job alongside his undead co-workers, and keeps his more animated moments and interests very much to himself.

For years. Years. Until he discovers he’s not the only one left after all. There’s quite the small but thriving underground community of live people still around. Including Alicia, who’s more than glad to introduce him to the world he’s been missing. He can have real friends again! Even love!

But, inevitably, complications arise. And, the more someone has, the more they then stand to lose. For Hanson and Alicia, they have to decide if their relationship is worth the risk, if there might be any truth to the rumors of a safe zone, and if they can outrun the real zombies in the Zombie Run.

I may have had a few minor quibbles with how the zombies sense their prey, and other stuff like that, but overall it was an amusing, enjoyable read with several small entertaining touches.

-Christine Morgan

FIGMENTS AND FRAGMENTS by Deborah Sheldon (2019 IFWG Publishing / 284 / trade paperback & eBook)

Many of the pieces in this one are, as it says in the title, more along the lines of figments and fragments than entire self-contained stories. Yet they work that way, work very well. They’re evocative, bringing the disquieting feelings across, stirring the mood and emotion, without necessarily needing full resolution, explanation, or answers.

Well, mostly … a few are real teasers, building up and then just leaving the reader hanging, waiting for a what-happens-next that doesn’t; found some of those on the frustrating side, right when I was good and interested, but then that’s all folks. Definitely left wanting more on some of those!

Theme-wise, they span everything from gritty survival/revenge to troubled family histories, some with a whisper of the uncanny creeping in but most all too true to the real world. There are crime thrillers gone awry, neighborhood disputes taking strange twists, problematic relationships and random encounters, murders, schemes, pet cemeteries and prison escapes.

“Risk of Recurrence” was a tough read for me personally, dealing as it does with doctors, cancer, radiation, and other issues I’ve had way too much of these past few years. Between its dismissive arrogant medical professionals, and the stubborn detective determined to find the ‘real’ answers in “The Caldwell Case,” the frustrating tension gets pretty strong.

My favorite of the bunch, “Crazy Town is a Happy Place,” also hit on a personal level; I work residential psych, and have always been fascinated by articles about care facilities masquerading as ordinary little villages, and the unique moral challenges they pose.

Others I particularly enjoyed include “Fortune Teller,” in which a new client proves challenging to some of the usual tricks of the trade, and the haunting nostalgia of “November 9th, 1989.”

-Christine Morgan

A POCKETFUL OF HORRIBLES by MV Mitchell (2017 CreateSpace / 50 pp / trade paperback)

The half a dozen stories gathered in this collection date back a good thirty years or more, but I wouldn’t have guessed that just from seeing them here for the first time. They don’t read, or feel, dated at all. The style is beautifully dark, skillfully done.

First up is “The Dance House,” and while I have never danced myself, I know many people who do, and have a combination of admiration and horror for what they put themselves through for their art. The work, the pain, and to make it look so effortlessly graceful … but, as one young street dancer given an opportunity to change her life is about to find out, even those sacrifices may not be enough.

“The Gemini Compound” deals with the darkest sides of jealousy, possessiveness, vengefulness, and spite as a wicked-stepmother widow seeks to ensure even death won’t let her husband escape her grasp.

Set in a vintage bygone era, “The Fetch” pits a reverend’s daughter against sinister forces, when the specters of dead children refuse to let go of their chance at life.

In “The Dark Place,” an abused young woman with a rare mental gift seeks solace from her torment, even if it means sending herself somewhere dreadful.

“The Odalisque,” set in a harem, is a lavish historical piece but by no means a romance; however kind the sultan may be, a sadistic chief eunuch can make things difficult, or deadly, for even a favorite concubine.

Last but by no meals least, “The Moonlit Pool” takes on what society tells us is a woman’s ultimate losing battle; what would you do to regain your youth and beauty?

Each of the works present a strongly feminine, strongly female perspective, rich with depth and darkness and intricacy. Excellent writing, and I’m sorry I hadn’t experienced this author’s work before!

-Christine Morgan

THE IMMEASURABLE CORPSE OF NATURE by Christopher Slatsky (2020 Grimscribe Press / 385 pp / trade paperback & eBook)

I read Slatsky’s first collection, ALECTRYOMANCER AND OTHER WEIRD TALES, when released 5 years ago, so was thrilled to see a second (and longer) batch of his stories have been unleashed, and I’m happy to report its every bit as weird and horrifying as it’s predecessor, a few tales even more so. If dark, depressing, and downright macabre horror is your thing, you’re in for some real treats:

Among the stand outs are opening tale ‘Phantom Airfields,’ in which Randall is dealing with a divorce, losing his job, a missing son, and a newborn daughter. The levels of dread Slatsky hits in the piece are devastating, right down to the bleak finale.

‘The World is Waiting for a Sunrise’ is another one centered around a child’s death, as Alice conducts fake seances in an attempt to heal her distraught husband, who continues to believe even after she admits her scam. With a gut-punch of an ending, this one will leave most readers genuinely disturbed.

‘From a People of a Strange Language’ I had read in its previous chapbook form. It’s a great play and another story dealing with a seance, only this time the horrors it brings are all too real.

If you want to see Slatsky’s talent on high display, look no further than ‘The Figurine.’ In just 19 pages, the author captures the emotional grief and tragedy in the wake of a school shooting more intensely than Jodi Picoult did in her 455-paged best selling novel NINETEEN MINUTES. That’s not to slight Picoult (of who I’m a fan), but to magnify this author is a force to be reckoned with.

There isn’t much that can prepare you for the title story, ‘The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature,’ in which Mina, an anthropologist, is contacted by her former teacher to help sift through the remains of a mass cult suicide. Grim doesn’t begin to describe this, which is one of the more horrific short stories I’ve read in years. If this doesn’t make any “Best of Horror” anthologies next year I’ll be stunned.

There are some entries among these 15 stories that, while they didn’t resonate with me, I still found interesting, and I really liked a non-fiction piece titled ‘Affirmation of the Spirit: Consciousness, Transformation, and the Fourth World in Film.’ Is it possible this is fiction parading as fact? Who knows...but either way it’s driving me crazy that I can’t tell, which is further proof Slatsky is operating on a level above and beyond most authors of weird fiction. And non fiction. And maybe meshes of both?

This here is a stellar collection fans of the strangest and darkest type of horror surely won’t want to miss, with most stories end-capped by great artwork from Käthe Kolleitz.

-Nick Cato

OCTOPUS (1 and 2) by Matt Shaw (2019 Amazon Digital / 163 pp, 91 pp / hardcover, trade paperback, eBook)

This one’s a twofer because I picked them up together, and as soon as I finished the first, there was no way I wouldn’t dive right into the second. Which, I kind of suspected would be the case. Shorter works as they are, I read them both in a single night. May not have been the best move for my psyche, but, that’s never stopped me before.

Someone might look at the books, at the title and covers, and develop certain expectations for what the content will entail. But, quite likely, that someone would be wrong. If that someone is hoping for all manner of squelchy tentacle stuff, they might be in for some disappointment. Any actual octopi don’t make an appearance until well toward the end of vol. 1, after a lot human nastiness.

And I mean a LOT; this is Matt Shaw we’re talking about here. By now, nobody should need me to deliver the disclaimers! Language, content, sex, violence, atrocity, the whole deal. Seriously. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Anyway, there’s this lovely couple, you see, Helena and Max. Wealthy, well-connected, known for throwing the most elaborate and extravagant parties. Those kinds of parties. Anything-goes kinds of parties. The kind they hire on women for, and pay extremely well.

When you’re a struggling young model like Jess, being paid extremely well for an evening’s work sounds good, even if it is naked work as a sushi serving dish. She doesn’t necessarily have to take on anything extra, though the cam-girl friend who helped her get the job is planning to.

Now, normally, being treated as a disposable plaything for the rich and powerful might already seem sketchy or dehumanizing enough, but it turns out Helena and Max and their innermost circle are into more than just sex. They have an agenda. It involves cultish rituals, and madness, and death.

All of which come to full fruition as, after an unexpected but fantastic twist, vol. 2 gets underway. And that’s the thing about cultish rituals with madness and death, isn’t it? Success might not turn out to be such a good thing. No matter how prepared Helena and Max think they are, they’re in for some unpleasant surprises.

-Christine Morgan

RESISTING MADNESS by Wesley Southard (2019 Death’s Head Press / 291 pp / trade paperback, eBook)

In this collection of fourteen tales, Wes Southard continues to establish himself, and shows a particularly effective knack for quick little short stories and flash fictions that whip around out of nowhere to pack a hell of a punch.

My personal fave, “Arrearages,” is one of his more extreme-horror forays, and it’s a winner for its mix of body horror and self-mutilation as well as the sleazeball-gets-what-he-deserves kind of vengeance … guy wakes up in a dungeon with only a knife, then a cell phone stitched beneath his skin begins to ring … evilly fun and satisfyingly gross SAW-esque antics ensue as he learns the time’s come to pay for his past.

I also really liked, as much as something so disturbing can be liked, the title tale, “Resisting Madness,” which follows a father’s desperate love for the son whose eyes he can never look into. When your own child is an innocent but deadly weapon, when they want to keep him locked away where he can’t hurt anyone, it presents an agonizing struggle any parent would find heart-wrenching.

Other top picks:

“God Bless You” just is so one of those things I could totally see happening … “By the Throat” pits trust issues against an unusual phobia … I felt for the dog in “Now You Don’t”; those videos always do seem kinda mean! … “He Loves Me Not,” I thought was setting up for a Little Mermaid scenario, but boy was I wrong! … the creepy “Confusion in Southern Illinois,” what with grandparents’ basements, made me think uncomfortably of a certain someone best not named, so, extra ickiness there … and “Minor Leaguer” because never annoy a crime boss with a real thing for hockey!

Each story is also followed by a brief author’s note about the history of how the stories came to be, or the trials and tribulations they saw along the way. I always find it interesting to read these and see what it’s like for other writers, because there’s no single path and we can all learn from each other’s journeys.

-Christine Morgan

CANNI by Daniel O’Connor (2019 Blood Bound Books / 348 pp / trade paperback, eBook)

I’ve read many an outbreak story over the years, whether zombie apocalypse or psychotic mania, but this one managed to do a few things even I had rarely seen!

For a start, the condition isn’t contagious; getting bitten isn’t necessarily an automatic death sentence. However, there are no tell-tale warning signs. Anyone could be infected, and could go from perfectly normal to total murderous frenzy at any time. Just, all at once. One second, they’re fine … the next, boom, red-eyed mouth-foaming mindless monster with a terrible craving for human flesh.

But what really sets this particular plague apart from others I’ve read is that the effects are temporary. The afflicted person, after a brief period of doing a whole lot of damage, reverts to their old self with no memory of what they’ve done. Imagine the repercussions, the self-defense and moral choices, for all involved. Do you put them down? They might be okay in a few minutes. What if it’s a loved one? What if it’s you?

Another way in which this book stands apart is its kind of casual light-heartedness amid the horror and gore. A large ensemble cast of characters, from a subterranean enclave of homeless up to the highest reaches of government, displays a wide range of quirks and personality. The President was my fave. I’d so vote for him!

The story itself primarily follows a young couple, Rob and Caroline (aka Cash), who are on their way to Vegas to maybe get hitched, and never mind the terrorist stuff with the airplanes and the chemical weapons; surely it can’t be that bad, can it? A lot of their relationship issues did make me cringe; Rob came across as a walking bundle of overpossessive, overprotective red flags, and it seemed like the buildup just then sort of fizzled out.

It’s a fun read, though, as various groups of characters strive for survival and a cure and are inevitably brought together for a delightfully entertaining finish.

-Christine Morgan

DARK CARNIVAL by Joanna Parypinski (2019 Independent Legions / 248 pp / trade paperback, eBook)

Title here is a bit misleading; I was expecting and hoping for way more actual carnival in the course of the book. Though mentioned in flashbacks, and as the main character researches the mysterious goings-on, the carnival itself doesn’t make an appearance until well toward the end, and then only really serves as a backdrop instead of a prominent feature.

What we really have is a take on the classic return-to-small-town. Dax Howard, who managed to escape to college, has to come home to settle affairs after his estranged alcoholic father dies. He doesn’t exactly come home a success story, either, being on the verge of flunking out and losing his scholarship. Running over a coyote in the road just seems, at first, like an additional ill omen.

His hometown is a place of bad memories and unpleasant revelations, anyway. His mom disappeared when he was a kid, his best friend has become a meth-head, his dad ended life as an obsessed none-too-popular wreck, the funeral costs are an unwelcome blow, and it’s not like he stands to gain much of an inheritance. The sheriff is on his case for no good reason. Really, all there is to do is go out to the abandoned farm where the locals drink, party, and do drugs.

But Dax soon realizes something else is afoot, something dangerous and malevolent. He’s not so sure he roadkilled that coyote after all … unless a different yellow-eyed creature is slinking around watching him from the darkness. Going through his dad’s things, he starts wondering if his mom’s disappearance wasn’t random or an accident. His friend’s sister is fascinated by a strange girl talking cult-type weirdness. And then, as he’s wondering if his father was right all along, here comes the carnival, back to town.

I found it an okay read overall, just wanted less of the dismal town stuff and more of the cult-type weirdness and creepy carnival.

-Christine Morgan

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COMING SOON:

Reviews for the Week of January 28, 2019

Reviews for the Week of February 11, 2019

Reviews for the Week of February 25, 2019

Reviews for the Week of March 11, 2019

Reviews for the Week of March 25, 2019

Reviews for the Week of April 8, 2019

Reviews for the Week of April 22, 2019

Reviews for the Week of May 6, 2019

Reviews for the Week of May 27, 2019

Reviews for the Week of June 17, 2019

Reviews for the Week of July 1, 2019

Reviews for the Week of July 15, 2019

Reviews for the Week of August 5, 2019

Reviews for the Week of August 19, 2019

Reviews for the Week of September 2, 2019

Reviews for the Week of September 16, 2019

Reviews for the Week of October 14, 2019

Reviews for the Week of November 11, 2019

Reviews for the Week of November 25, 2019

Reviews for the Week of December 9, 2019

Reviews for the Week of January 6, 2020

Reviews for the Week of January 20, 2020

Reviews for the Week of February 10, 2020

Reviews for the Week of February 24, 2020

Reviews for the Week of March 9, 2020