Final Review Roundup of 2015!
Adding them up, I see I've reviewed a whopping 79 books this year! Here's the last batch for 2015; stay tuned for more in 2016!
This roundup includes:
Sick Pack and Cattle Cult! Kill! Kill! by M.P. Johnson
The anthology 18 Wheels of Horror
The Colony: Reckoning by Michaelbrent Collings
The Fresh Meat anthology
Slush by Glenn Rolfe
Bryan Smith's Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies
As She Stabbed Me Gently In The Face and Clownfellas by Carlton Mellick III
The Lovecraft Unbound anthology
Bride of Dr Faust by K.H. Koehler
The Fat Zombie anthology
Sing Me Your Scars by Damien Angelica Walters
Mark Orr's Smarter Than The Average Werewolf
Title: Sick Pack
Author: M.P. Johnson
Publisher: BizarroPulp Press
Website: www.BizarroPulpPress.com
The life of a world-famous romance cover model is far from easy. Just ask Fabulo. Or, better yet, ask Fabulo’s abs. Go ahead, ask them, because in this gloriously outrageous bizarro romp, Fabulo’s abs take on lives of their own.
No, really, they do. As in, his beautifully toned and sculpted ab muscles are tired of the endless regime of crunches, of exercise and discipline, of being shown off glistening and shirtless. When the ab-obsessed Glub Gut shows up to free them, Fabulo’s abs gleefully seize the opportunity to escape and go their six separate ways.
If that sounds all a little too weird for you, then you’d be better off reading something else … it only gets weirder from there. Fabulo finds that, without his abs to restrain it, his stomach becomes a ravening beast with a monstrous hunger, and it will leap right out through the gap where his abs used to be to consume donuts or anything else it can reach.
Besides, without his spectacular abs, Fabulo’s whole career is in danger. He has to get them back! But how to track down runaway ab muscles in a city secretly overrun with rogue body parts? That’s how Fabulo meets Skidrina, a specialist bounty hunter.
Meanwhile, however, each of his abs are off having their own adventures … discovering their true callings, getting in danger, falling in love. It’s like the strangest fairy tale ever, a fairy tale not only with talking animals but animate severed heads, robot hands, booger torture, toilet faces, drugs, sex, violence, and revenge.
So far, everything I’ve read by M.P. Johnson has been sheer wonderful bonzo crazy win, and Sick Pack is yet another mind-melting delight. He’s definitely a fierce force to be reckoned with and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!
**
Title: 18 Wheels of Horror
Editor: Eric Miller
Publisher: Big Time Books
Website: www.bigtimebooks.com
I was a kid in the era of trucker and road movies … Convoy, Cannonball Run … I remember Burt Reynolds and his ‘stache, BJ and his Bear … I remember wishing we could have a CB radio and be all cool … I remember making wild air-honk gestures at passing big-rigs on long road trips, and the glee with which we’d greet each successful blast.
The cover alone is everything it should be, doing what Maximum Overdrive aimed for (and missed by a mile). Gorgeous work, says exactly what it needs to, lets you know exactly what you’re in for. And the stories inside do a great job holding up their end of the bargain.
The book opens with Ray Garton’s taunting, spooky, vengeful “A Dark Road.” If Garton’s ever written a dud, I’ve yet to find it.
Other of my personal faves and stand-outs include:
R.B. Payne’s “Big Water,” in which a weird secret delivery gets weirder and more secret.
“Pursuit,” by Hal Bodner, a deep-skin-crawly piece of paranoia.
The reality-bending sly fun of Tim Chizmar’s “Cargo.”
“Siren,” by Eric Miller, updating an ancient seafaring myth for the land-bound highways.
Meghan Arcuri’s craving-inducing, nicely satisfying “Beyond the Best Seasoning.”
And last but not least, the closing story, the tense and gruesome “Roadkill” by Jeff Seeman, finishing things off with a nice gory splat.
This anthology took me right back. And for those who weren’t around in that era, it’ll take you right there too. Truck stops and CB lingo, the endless rumble of engines and wheels, the perceived romance and wearying lonely truths of the open road, the aspect of unique Americana, it’s all here.
**
Title: The Colony: Reckoning
Author: Michaelbrent Collings
Website: www.michaelbrentcollings.com
FINALLY!!! Last time I reviewed one of these, I’d somehow gotten it into my head that it was the conclusion, so there wouldn’t be any more agonizing cliffhangers leading to me frothing and foaming and calling the author a booger.
But this time, really and for true, this one’s the last in the series. It’s the end, it’s over, the story gets resolved, questions are answered, things are explained, and …
Frothing. Foaming. Calling the author a booger. Not because of a cliffhanger this time, but because of the horrific heart-wrenching tension, the grim fates, emotional whipsaws and gory buzzing bonesaws, and the sustained anxiety of every parent’s worst fears/nightmares.
The relentless, breathless, break-neck pace of the previous books continues in this one, cramming the entire end of the world / fall of civilization / desperate scramble for survival against ever-increasing throngs of ever-more-monstrous enemies into a mere span of days. It takes a real toll on the characters, who barely have a chance to wrap their minds around the latest trauma before the next one strikes.
In ‘Reckoning,’ the POV has shifted from unlikely protagonist Ken to less-likely protagonist Christopher, whose careless, carefree, wisecracking ways are a fraying, frazzled lifeline as he somehow finds himself trying to keep the group together. They’re once again forced to leave a place of sanctuary, once again suffering terrible losses along the way.
And meanwhile, the hivemind mutant bugzombie menace is getting more powerful than ever. A central foe has coalesced, drawing other chosen doomed hosts toward a final confrontation. As before, I daren’t say too much for fear of giving spoilers, but whew, what a racing wild ride!
**
Title: Fresh Meat
Editor: Leonard Perry
Publisher: Sinister Grin Press
Website: www.sinistergrinpress.com
A selection of seven stories, like a deli sampler platter of cold cuts, there’s a little something here to satisfy most tastes … particularly carnivorous ones with a preference for the tender and juicy.
My favorite of the batch is Liam Dunson’s creepy hostage situation in “Find the Arise,” with its titular phrase that burrows into the underside of your mind and clings there like a nasty little pincery thing.
I also particularly enjoyed the ritual-gone-wrong of “The Spoiler” by Matthew Weber, and Neko Lily’s
deep-down-twisted “The Kiss of Death.”
Some of the others, I found a bit uneven, but all entertaining and intriguing enough to keep me reading. A nice appetizer course, lean and flavorful.
**
Title: Slush
Author: Glenn Rolfe
Publisher: Alien Agenda Publishing
This 12-pack collection draws inevitable comparisons to the short stories of Stephen King, and hey, that’s fair … it fits, and there certainly are worse writers to be compared to!
Elements of small towns, youthful characters coming of age or discovering dark truths, cultural references (and nods to King himself, always fun!), and simple home-style horrors lend them a simple but encompassing appeal.
“Ballad of the Best-Selling Author” gives voice to the eternal frustration many of us feel when something we don’t deem worthy becomes a popular or even mainstream phenom; in this one, the culprit is the zombie craze, as a true horror fan fights a lonely uphill battle to try and explain why famous hotshots don’t deserve the attention.
I particularly admired (I can’t say ‘liked,’ because it gave me SUCH uncomfy chills) the short but viciously effective “I’m In Here” … “Jackie Boy” is a nicely nasty piece of work for sure, and “Henry” will squick anybody right the heck out.
Some of the stories have been published before, others make their debut in these pages, and each of them stands strong. My biggest complaint with the book was that I could have done with another dozen more stories. So, Mr. Rolfe, hop to it!
**
Title: Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies
Author: Bryan Smith
Publisher: Deadite Press
Website: www.deaditepress.com
Ahhh, the 80s … when the various satanic panics about rock-and-roll and other teen pastimes really hit their stride. D&D for the nerdy kids, punk and metal for the cool ones. Parents whose own parents probably flipped out about the Beatles were all set to do anything to re-educate and de-metal their wild child.
The focus of this fun homage to that era is at a special school-slash-treatment-center designed to ‘cure’ teenagers. Of course, such programs are all too often not what they seem. At their best, it’s brainwashing in an attempt to make good little drones. At their worst, it’s rampant abuse of countless kinds.
The Southern Illinois Music Reeducation Center is not one of the good ones. Teachers and guards get away with anything short of murder under the auspices of a sadistic headmistress, and SHE, well, she gets away with more.
Until, that is the night a weird meteor lights the sky, and certain secret shallow graves disgorge their rotting occupants. The students and faculty, as well as a couple of guys on a mission to rescue one’s girlfriend, soon find themselves up to their necks in hungry flesh-chomping zombies.
A cheesy popcorn horror-comedy in book form, it’s pretty much everything you’d expect in all the right ways.
**
Title: Cattle Cult! Kill! Kill!
Author: M.P. Johnson
Publisher: Strange House Books
Website: www.roosterrepublicpress.com
I’m not sure what it says about the genre, or about me, when I was all set to begin this review with something about how this is not your ordinary book of backwoods cultist murder-mutilators. We have enough of those for there to BE a degree of ordinary? And if so, well, guess what? This one is FAR from it.
Oh, there’s backwoods cultists, for sure. There’s murders and mutilations galore. Cannibalism. Nasty sex. Screwed-up families. Rural militiamen. But the creativity, the inventiveness, the sheer sensational WTFery (is that a word? it is now) of Cattle Cult! Kill! Kill! pretty much blows away anything we’ve seen before.
The severed cow heads for masks, for instance. The flails, for instance. The stuff with the eyes, for instance. I mean, the first bit with the eyes, that’s inventive as hell … but that later bit, that one bit, with the fingernails? Yeah, huddled in a corner whimpering forever time, thanks ever so much.
And, again, in most of these books, it’s escape from the cultists, survival, stopping them before their big ritual to unleash their dread god, etc., that are the main elements of the story. But, guess what? About ¾ of the way through, the ritual happens and the dread god IS released, and THAT is when all the WTFery leading up to it is just stage dressing for WTFery on an apocalyptic (apo-cow-lyptic) level.
Every time you think it can’t possibly get any weirder, any grosser, any WTFier, you’re soon proven wrong. It’s completely gonzo. Disgusting, squicktastic, bizarre to above and beyond. It’s safe to say there are some phrases in here never before seen or imagined by the mind, and some phrases that may well break the mind.
**
Title: As She Stabbed Me Gently In The Face
Author: Carlton Mellick III
Publisher: Eraserhead Press
Website: www.eraserheadpress.com
YES! THIS! Finally! This! This is what I’ve been wanting, what I’ve been waiting for, what I’ve been needing someone to do! And it’s right! It’s perfect! It’s beautiful!
I don’t even mean the whole beauty and perfection of Carlton Mellick III’s take on serial killers, though, wow, it’s no slouch in that department either.
At first, I was expecting Oskana’s art to be the focus, the implement and method of her killings. I expected delicate intricate sculptures of machinery and death, elevating the SAW movies to elite exhibitions, murder galleries with champagne and hors d’oeuvres. But, nah. Too obvious. Her knife is more than enough to get the job done.
The real twist comes when she meets Gabriel, her ideal victim. Her perpetual victim. Her immortal victim. He tells her he’s angelic, it’s his purpose, it’s the only way to save her own soul, to spare others. She can kill him over and over, as many times as she likes, in as many ways she can think of, and he keeps reviving. He heals. Whatever pieces she slices off of him soon grow back.
And that’s where the glorious rightness comes in. The eternal question, answered. The constant arguments, solved. Comic geek all-nighters debating Wolverine’s mutant power, Gargoyles fans waxing philosophical what-ifs over Demona and MacBeth, the mythological implications of the hydra, the slicing in half of worms … THAT question, THOSE questions. Here it is. Here it finally, perfectly is.
What DOES happen? When regeneration meets dismemberment and evisceration? When living flesh can’t be killed?
As fascinating as Oskana’s character, as intriguing her game of cat-and-mouse with the handsome young reporter who’s discovered her secret, it was the moment I saw where the Gabriel story was going that I literally DID do the excited little double-fist-shake “yesssss!” thing.
Fantastic story, fantastic book. Stylish, sexy, sadistic, wickedly incisive, cutting, and sharp. It deserves far more than two thumbs up, and, fortunately, thanks to Gabriel, there are way plenty of thumbs to go around!
**
Title: Lovecraft Unbound
Editor: Ellen Datlow
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Website: www.darkhorse.com
The empress of anthologies, Ellen Datlow, presents a new twist on the Lovecraftian … Lovecraftian pretty much without the Lovecraft … no pastiches, no Cthulhu and no tentacles, vocabulary not dripping with squamous adjectives and made-up languages that sound like someone trying to yodel opera through cold oatmeal.
Sounds like a tall order, but the twenty tales she’s lined up manage to pull it off with aplomb. They have more of a focus on the essence of the intangible, existential, more cosmic and creeping horrors, the bigger picture as it were.
“Cold Water Survival” by Holly Philipps is my personal stand-out favorite of the bunch. Set on an immense iceberg, the descriptions are so vivid and the atmosphere so real, you’ll be shivering with chills long before the weirder events start setting in.
Speaking of chills and icy atmosphere, Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud’s “The Crevasse” is another arctic adventure … though certain aspects made it difficult to read (poor doggies!)
I also particularly loved “In The Black Mill” by Michael Chabon; it hit just the right notes for my fondness for small towns with dark histories, secrets, archaeology, and ominousness.
“Marya Nox” by Gemma Files had similar elements of appeal, encounters of mysterious temples and a strange but compelling goddess, told in the form of an interview transcript … first class stuff.
“The Mongoose,” by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, is fiendishly clever and fun, the kind of playful literary twist I always enjoy.
My biggest complaint with this whole book is that I must’ve forgotten at least twelve separate times I was reading an anthology. My mind kept resetting to novel-mode, so there I’d be expecting a next chapter to continue the tantalizing intrigue, only to find the start of a new story instead.
**
Title: Bride of Dr. Faust
Author: K.H. Koehler
Publisher: K.H. Koehler Books
Website: http://khkoehlerbooks.wordpress.com
This dark and disturbing sexy sequel to The Dreadful Dr. Faust is grim, gory, and even more steeped in the turbulent brooding trauma and atmosphere of its predecessor. I mean, the book just about drips with emotion, as well as madness, pain, and assorted bodily fluids in a thick wine-rich cascade.
It picks up with the Dr. and Louise, his Poppet, his bride, the girl whose life he saved and remade into an echo of his own immortality. But just as Louise is relishing her situation, another woman appears. Another woman with whom the doctor also has a troubled, passionate history. An equal, as opposed to a pretty plaything. She brings a warning of an old rival, a surgeon with his own sinister goals, and his own desire for revenge. She also becomes intimately involved with the doctor’s new project.
Louise, meanwhile, seeks comfort and distraction in the upper world … where she meets a nice young man with an adorable little daughter … and brings them all closer to terrible danger as the doctor’s rival closes in.
These books are not for the prudish, nor for the squeamish. Several flinchworthy scenes, compelling seductive mutilation and horror. Well worth a look, if you’ve the nerve. And setting up nicely for a third installment!
**
Title: Clown Fellas
Author: Carlton Mellick III
Publisher: Hydra
Website: www.readhydra.com
I’m not particularly a fan of clowns. I’m not particularly phobic about them, either, but it sure is the creepier ones that have a way of lingering in the memory, and even the benign ones are … let’s face it … kind of creepy. They’re natural fodder for horror and bizarro, being halfway there already.
Now, that said, you might expect the clown treatment in the hands of the likes of Carlton Mellick III to be totally over-the-big-top wild and crazy circus time. Instead, in Clown Fellas, what you get is more of a gritty mosaic, colorful in its intricate way as it picks out a complex panorama of dark, sordid, violent events.
It’s an epic drama, the Godfather and Sopranos of a world in which, for whatever reason, they live among us. An inhuman race of clowns, with their own ways and customs, subject to a different set of physical laws. Other comparisons that sprang to mind included the Toons of Toontown, and Alien Nation.
With clowns. But, even within their own close-knit community of Little Bigtop, there are divisions and conflicts between sub-groups, among families and Families. There’s crime, drugs, prostitution, murder, greed, envy, rivalries, revenge.
If not for the fact that these were clowns, you could almost forget these were clowns. Only, they are clowns, with squirting flowers, balloons, mimes, jugglers, pie throwing, the works.
Weirdest of all, it wasn’t as weird as I thought it would be. It was more restrained, less completely out there, than much of this author’s body of work. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But I caught myself a few times thinking, “wait, right, this is a Carlton!” because sometimes it just didn’t have as much … Carlton-ness … as I’m used to.
**
Title: Fat Zombie
Editor: Paul Mannering
Publisher: Permuted Press
Website: www.permutedpress.com
We all know those people who are convinced they’d do just fine in any sort of survival or post-apocalyptic situation. Some of us even are those people, or wish we were (I’m in the wish-I-was category, but since I don’t even camp well, am fat and squeamish, and depend on eyeglasses and meds, I realize I’d likely be zombie chow in short order).
In reality, while hardly anybody’s truly capable and ready, just like in real life there are advantages and disadvantages. Some are, for whatever reason, going to have it harder than others. And not simply in terms of not being an Olympic athlete or expert marksman.
This book is for those characters, the unlikeliest of survivors, the ones who already face burdens and struggles in their everyday lives that the average person might not even have to think about. Each of these eleven clever tales presents a different unusual take on the theme.
It opens with the painfully tragic and well-handled heart-wrencher, “Denial,” by Jay Wilburn. Senility, Alzheimer’s, and dementia are terrible. High on my own list of worst-ever fears, emotionally agonizing after seeing loved ones decline.
“Perfect,” by Rachel Aukes, strikes a similar painful, poignant note, deftly dealing with the chaos and fear of the outbreak from the point of view of a little kid with Down’s Syndrome. Strongly done, impressive and effective.
Others high on my list here would have to include the Don-Quixote-esque glory days of “El Caballero Muerte” by Martin Livings, Dan Rabarts’ wickedly devious “Endgame,” and the brilliant resourcefulness of “Mr. Schmidt’s Pet Emporium” by Sally McLennan.
The anthology closes with the ever-awesome Stephen Kozeniewski’s “The New Dark Ages,” sure to strike some familiar chords with every gamer geek and LARPer among us … a funny/gross tale that takes a sudden, dark, sick turn toward the end.
**
Title: Sing Me Your Scars
Author: Damien Angelica Walters
Publisher: Apex Publications
Website: www.apexbookcompany.com
From the very beginning, with her debut novel, it was easy to see that Damien Walters was going to be an author to watch. This collection of her short stories only further proves the point. She is good. Really, really good. Not just a practiced wordsmith, not just a natural talent, not just an artist, but a genuine master artisan of the craft.
I mean, it’s kind of obnoxious, how good she is. Terms like ‘lyrical,’ ‘poetic,’ ‘evocative,’ and ‘powerful’ instantly spring to mind. Beautifully vivid descriptions, a deft but firm touch to the emotional harpstrings on any note from joy to dread.
A few of these stories, I’d seen before in their original appearances, but it was a treat to see them again. And even more of a treat to experience ones I hadn’t seen before. The real challenge came when it was time to write a review and try to single out my top picks. I don’t know if I can narrow it down much beyond: “they’re ALL terrific!”
Well, that and any sort of honorable mention is ever going to have to go to “Always, They Whisper,” because it’s a mythology story, it’s a Medusa story, it’s an amazing, chilling, tragic, wonderful Medusa story. I love it.
The title tale is a haunting take on the Frankenstein theme, setting the tone for several explorations on the concept of self, of what makes us what we are - our physical form, our minds, our souls, our actions?
Others delve into the nature of family, of parenthood and parental influences for good or for ill, pain and loss and love and wonder in their myriad forms. And femininity, in its deepest essence, without being the least bit ‘girly.’
This is strength, and power, unseen mysteries, dark-secret magic. This is some Major Arcana High Priestess next level stuff here.
Did I mention, it’s kind of obnoxious, how good she is?
**
Title: Smarter Than The Average Werewolf
Author: Mark Orr
Publisher: Belfire Press
Website: www.belfirepress.com
So, over roughly the same couple-week span of time, my sporadic recreational entertainment consisted mostly of this book and Netflix’s Jessica Jones. Is it possible to get super-noir overload? Super-powered in the viewing case, super-natural in the reading case, but dang, what a ride!
Plenty of grit, plenty of drama, dangerous attractions, secrets, scandals, violence, wisecracks, and witty banter … what’s not to love? Best of all, in both, the actual flamboyance of the genre tropes was downplayed to take a backseat to the detective angles instead of being center-stage. Here are main characters with unusual abilities that certainly come in handy in their respective lines of work, but aren’t made a big flashy deal of.
Or even really explained, in the course of things. Just isn’t needed. We can accept without being given all the info dump history right up front that Jessica has extraordinary strength … and we can accept, without being told a reason, that Harvey Drago can go insubstantial. That’s just the way it is, and it isn’t the main focus of the story.
Neither, despite the title, is lycanthrope. Yes, there’s been a series of grisly murders, courtesy of what the press has dubbed The West-End Werewolf, and yes, Drago’s been hired to look into them. But what follows isn’t a monster hunt. It’s a mystery, and unraveling the various clues and connections like any good gumshoe is the whole point.
Along, of course, with complicated entanglements involving the ethics of involvement with clients, professional detachment, working with (or around) the police, etc. The more Drago pokes into the case, the more he’s led into deeper trouble, and the more enemies he makes along the way.
The glut of minor characters did bog me down a few times, and some of the relationships between them came off a bit forced, but overall Drago presented as a likable and sympathetic guy, troubled but not broken, unable to get close to anyone for not quite the usual reasons.
The setting’s modern and Tennessee, but the noir-nostalgia factor is there, and it still feels in many ways like an old black-and-white movie. And the ending leaves opportunity for further adventures, which is always aces in my book.
**
Coming in 2016: Amazing Punk Stories, Cut Corners Vols. I and II, The Midnight Creature Feature Picture Show, All Soul's Day, Reincarnage, Ghost in the Cogs, I Will Rot Without You, Monsters Don't Cry, and more!
Send inquiries, or review copies (.mobi and .pdf preferred!) to christinemariemorgan@gmail.com ... and have a Happy New Year!
This roundup includes:
Sick Pack and Cattle Cult! Kill! Kill! by M.P. Johnson
The anthology 18 Wheels of Horror
The Colony: Reckoning by Michaelbrent Collings
The Fresh Meat anthology
Slush by Glenn Rolfe
Bryan Smith's Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies
As She Stabbed Me Gently In The Face and Clownfellas by Carlton Mellick III
The Lovecraft Unbound anthology
Bride of Dr Faust by K.H. Koehler
The Fat Zombie anthology
Sing Me Your Scars by Damien Angelica Walters
Mark Orr's Smarter Than The Average Werewolf
Title: Sick Pack
Author: M.P. Johnson
Publisher: BizarroPulp Press
Website: www.BizarroPulpPress.com
The life of a world-famous romance cover model is far from easy. Just ask Fabulo. Or, better yet, ask Fabulo’s abs. Go ahead, ask them, because in this gloriously outrageous bizarro romp, Fabulo’s abs take on lives of their own.
No, really, they do. As in, his beautifully toned and sculpted ab muscles are tired of the endless regime of crunches, of exercise and discipline, of being shown off glistening and shirtless. When the ab-obsessed Glub Gut shows up to free them, Fabulo’s abs gleefully seize the opportunity to escape and go their six separate ways.
If that sounds all a little too weird for you, then you’d be better off reading something else … it only gets weirder from there. Fabulo finds that, without his abs to restrain it, his stomach becomes a ravening beast with a monstrous hunger, and it will leap right out through the gap where his abs used to be to consume donuts or anything else it can reach.
Besides, without his spectacular abs, Fabulo’s whole career is in danger. He has to get them back! But how to track down runaway ab muscles in a city secretly overrun with rogue body parts? That’s how Fabulo meets Skidrina, a specialist bounty hunter.
Meanwhile, however, each of his abs are off having their own adventures … discovering their true callings, getting in danger, falling in love. It’s like the strangest fairy tale ever, a fairy tale not only with talking animals but animate severed heads, robot hands, booger torture, toilet faces, drugs, sex, violence, and revenge.
So far, everything I’ve read by M.P. Johnson has been sheer wonderful bonzo crazy win, and Sick Pack is yet another mind-melting delight. He’s definitely a fierce force to be reckoned with and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!
**
Title: 18 Wheels of Horror
Editor: Eric Miller
Publisher: Big Time Books
Website: www.bigtimebooks.com
I was a kid in the era of trucker and road movies … Convoy, Cannonball Run … I remember Burt Reynolds and his ‘stache, BJ and his Bear … I remember wishing we could have a CB radio and be all cool … I remember making wild air-honk gestures at passing big-rigs on long road trips, and the glee with which we’d greet each successful blast.
The cover alone is everything it should be, doing what Maximum Overdrive aimed for (and missed by a mile). Gorgeous work, says exactly what it needs to, lets you know exactly what you’re in for. And the stories inside do a great job holding up their end of the bargain.
The book opens with Ray Garton’s taunting, spooky, vengeful “A Dark Road.” If Garton’s ever written a dud, I’ve yet to find it.
Other of my personal faves and stand-outs include:
R.B. Payne’s “Big Water,” in which a weird secret delivery gets weirder and more secret.
“Pursuit,” by Hal Bodner, a deep-skin-crawly piece of paranoia.
The reality-bending sly fun of Tim Chizmar’s “Cargo.”
“Siren,” by Eric Miller, updating an ancient seafaring myth for the land-bound highways.
Meghan Arcuri’s craving-inducing, nicely satisfying “Beyond the Best Seasoning.”
And last but not least, the closing story, the tense and gruesome “Roadkill” by Jeff Seeman, finishing things off with a nice gory splat.
This anthology took me right back. And for those who weren’t around in that era, it’ll take you right there too. Truck stops and CB lingo, the endless rumble of engines and wheels, the perceived romance and wearying lonely truths of the open road, the aspect of unique Americana, it’s all here.
**
Title: The Colony: Reckoning
Author: Michaelbrent Collings
Website: www.michaelbrentcollings.com
FINALLY!!! Last time I reviewed one of these, I’d somehow gotten it into my head that it was the conclusion, so there wouldn’t be any more agonizing cliffhangers leading to me frothing and foaming and calling the author a booger.
But this time, really and for true, this one’s the last in the series. It’s the end, it’s over, the story gets resolved, questions are answered, things are explained, and …
Frothing. Foaming. Calling the author a booger. Not because of a cliffhanger this time, but because of the horrific heart-wrenching tension, the grim fates, emotional whipsaws and gory buzzing bonesaws, and the sustained anxiety of every parent’s worst fears/nightmares.
The relentless, breathless, break-neck pace of the previous books continues in this one, cramming the entire end of the world / fall of civilization / desperate scramble for survival against ever-increasing throngs of ever-more-monstrous enemies into a mere span of days. It takes a real toll on the characters, who barely have a chance to wrap their minds around the latest trauma before the next one strikes.
In ‘Reckoning,’ the POV has shifted from unlikely protagonist Ken to less-likely protagonist Christopher, whose careless, carefree, wisecracking ways are a fraying, frazzled lifeline as he somehow finds himself trying to keep the group together. They’re once again forced to leave a place of sanctuary, once again suffering terrible losses along the way.
And meanwhile, the hivemind mutant bugzombie menace is getting more powerful than ever. A central foe has coalesced, drawing other chosen doomed hosts toward a final confrontation. As before, I daren’t say too much for fear of giving spoilers, but whew, what a racing wild ride!
**
Title: Fresh Meat
Editor: Leonard Perry
Publisher: Sinister Grin Press
Website: www.sinistergrinpress.com
A selection of seven stories, like a deli sampler platter of cold cuts, there’s a little something here to satisfy most tastes … particularly carnivorous ones with a preference for the tender and juicy.
My favorite of the batch is Liam Dunson’s creepy hostage situation in “Find the Arise,” with its titular phrase that burrows into the underside of your mind and clings there like a nasty little pincery thing.
I also particularly enjoyed the ritual-gone-wrong of “The Spoiler” by Matthew Weber, and Neko Lily’s
deep-down-twisted “The Kiss of Death.”
Some of the others, I found a bit uneven, but all entertaining and intriguing enough to keep me reading. A nice appetizer course, lean and flavorful.
**
Title: Slush
Author: Glenn Rolfe
Publisher: Alien Agenda Publishing
This 12-pack collection draws inevitable comparisons to the short stories of Stephen King, and hey, that’s fair … it fits, and there certainly are worse writers to be compared to!
Elements of small towns, youthful characters coming of age or discovering dark truths, cultural references (and nods to King himself, always fun!), and simple home-style horrors lend them a simple but encompassing appeal.
“Ballad of the Best-Selling Author” gives voice to the eternal frustration many of us feel when something we don’t deem worthy becomes a popular or even mainstream phenom; in this one, the culprit is the zombie craze, as a true horror fan fights a lonely uphill battle to try and explain why famous hotshots don’t deserve the attention.
I particularly admired (I can’t say ‘liked,’ because it gave me SUCH uncomfy chills) the short but viciously effective “I’m In Here” … “Jackie Boy” is a nicely nasty piece of work for sure, and “Henry” will squick anybody right the heck out.
Some of the stories have been published before, others make their debut in these pages, and each of them stands strong. My biggest complaint with the book was that I could have done with another dozen more stories. So, Mr. Rolfe, hop to it!
**
Title: Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies
Author: Bryan Smith
Publisher: Deadite Press
Website: www.deaditepress.com
Ahhh, the 80s … when the various satanic panics about rock-and-roll and other teen pastimes really hit their stride. D&D for the nerdy kids, punk and metal for the cool ones. Parents whose own parents probably flipped out about the Beatles were all set to do anything to re-educate and de-metal their wild child.
The focus of this fun homage to that era is at a special school-slash-treatment-center designed to ‘cure’ teenagers. Of course, such programs are all too often not what they seem. At their best, it’s brainwashing in an attempt to make good little drones. At their worst, it’s rampant abuse of countless kinds.
The Southern Illinois Music Reeducation Center is not one of the good ones. Teachers and guards get away with anything short of murder under the auspices of a sadistic headmistress, and SHE, well, she gets away with more.
Until, that is the night a weird meteor lights the sky, and certain secret shallow graves disgorge their rotting occupants. The students and faculty, as well as a couple of guys on a mission to rescue one’s girlfriend, soon find themselves up to their necks in hungry flesh-chomping zombies.
A cheesy popcorn horror-comedy in book form, it’s pretty much everything you’d expect in all the right ways.
**
Title: Cattle Cult! Kill! Kill!
Author: M.P. Johnson
Publisher: Strange House Books
Website: www.roosterrepublicpress.com
I’m not sure what it says about the genre, or about me, when I was all set to begin this review with something about how this is not your ordinary book of backwoods cultist murder-mutilators. We have enough of those for there to BE a degree of ordinary? And if so, well, guess what? This one is FAR from it.
Oh, there’s backwoods cultists, for sure. There’s murders and mutilations galore. Cannibalism. Nasty sex. Screwed-up families. Rural militiamen. But the creativity, the inventiveness, the sheer sensational WTFery (is that a word? it is now) of Cattle Cult! Kill! Kill! pretty much blows away anything we’ve seen before.
The severed cow heads for masks, for instance. The flails, for instance. The stuff with the eyes, for instance. I mean, the first bit with the eyes, that’s inventive as hell … but that later bit, that one bit, with the fingernails? Yeah, huddled in a corner whimpering forever time, thanks ever so much.
And, again, in most of these books, it’s escape from the cultists, survival, stopping them before their big ritual to unleash their dread god, etc., that are the main elements of the story. But, guess what? About ¾ of the way through, the ritual happens and the dread god IS released, and THAT is when all the WTFery leading up to it is just stage dressing for WTFery on an apocalyptic (apo-cow-lyptic) level.
Every time you think it can’t possibly get any weirder, any grosser, any WTFier, you’re soon proven wrong. It’s completely gonzo. Disgusting, squicktastic, bizarre to above and beyond. It’s safe to say there are some phrases in here never before seen or imagined by the mind, and some phrases that may well break the mind.
**
Title: As She Stabbed Me Gently In The Face
Author: Carlton Mellick III
Publisher: Eraserhead Press
Website: www.eraserheadpress.com
YES! THIS! Finally! This! This is what I’ve been wanting, what I’ve been waiting for, what I’ve been needing someone to do! And it’s right! It’s perfect! It’s beautiful!
I don’t even mean the whole beauty and perfection of Carlton Mellick III’s take on serial killers, though, wow, it’s no slouch in that department either.
At first, I was expecting Oskana’s art to be the focus, the implement and method of her killings. I expected delicate intricate sculptures of machinery and death, elevating the SAW movies to elite exhibitions, murder galleries with champagne and hors d’oeuvres. But, nah. Too obvious. Her knife is more than enough to get the job done.
The real twist comes when she meets Gabriel, her ideal victim. Her perpetual victim. Her immortal victim. He tells her he’s angelic, it’s his purpose, it’s the only way to save her own soul, to spare others. She can kill him over and over, as many times as she likes, in as many ways she can think of, and he keeps reviving. He heals. Whatever pieces she slices off of him soon grow back.
And that’s where the glorious rightness comes in. The eternal question, answered. The constant arguments, solved. Comic geek all-nighters debating Wolverine’s mutant power, Gargoyles fans waxing philosophical what-ifs over Demona and MacBeth, the mythological implications of the hydra, the slicing in half of worms … THAT question, THOSE questions. Here it is. Here it finally, perfectly is.
What DOES happen? When regeneration meets dismemberment and evisceration? When living flesh can’t be killed?
As fascinating as Oskana’s character, as intriguing her game of cat-and-mouse with the handsome young reporter who’s discovered her secret, it was the moment I saw where the Gabriel story was going that I literally DID do the excited little double-fist-shake “yesssss!” thing.
Fantastic story, fantastic book. Stylish, sexy, sadistic, wickedly incisive, cutting, and sharp. It deserves far more than two thumbs up, and, fortunately, thanks to Gabriel, there are way plenty of thumbs to go around!
**
Title: Lovecraft Unbound
Editor: Ellen Datlow
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Website: www.darkhorse.com
The empress of anthologies, Ellen Datlow, presents a new twist on the Lovecraftian … Lovecraftian pretty much without the Lovecraft … no pastiches, no Cthulhu and no tentacles, vocabulary not dripping with squamous adjectives and made-up languages that sound like someone trying to yodel opera through cold oatmeal.
Sounds like a tall order, but the twenty tales she’s lined up manage to pull it off with aplomb. They have more of a focus on the essence of the intangible, existential, more cosmic and creeping horrors, the bigger picture as it were.
“Cold Water Survival” by Holly Philipps is my personal stand-out favorite of the bunch. Set on an immense iceberg, the descriptions are so vivid and the atmosphere so real, you’ll be shivering with chills long before the weirder events start setting in.
Speaking of chills and icy atmosphere, Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud’s “The Crevasse” is another arctic adventure … though certain aspects made it difficult to read (poor doggies!)
I also particularly loved “In The Black Mill” by Michael Chabon; it hit just the right notes for my fondness for small towns with dark histories, secrets, archaeology, and ominousness.
“Marya Nox” by Gemma Files had similar elements of appeal, encounters of mysterious temples and a strange but compelling goddess, told in the form of an interview transcript … first class stuff.
“The Mongoose,” by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, is fiendishly clever and fun, the kind of playful literary twist I always enjoy.
My biggest complaint with this whole book is that I must’ve forgotten at least twelve separate times I was reading an anthology. My mind kept resetting to novel-mode, so there I’d be expecting a next chapter to continue the tantalizing intrigue, only to find the start of a new story instead.
**
Title: Bride of Dr. Faust
Author: K.H. Koehler
Publisher: K.H. Koehler Books
Website: http://khkoehlerbooks.wordpress.com
This dark and disturbing sexy sequel to The Dreadful Dr. Faust is grim, gory, and even more steeped in the turbulent brooding trauma and atmosphere of its predecessor. I mean, the book just about drips with emotion, as well as madness, pain, and assorted bodily fluids in a thick wine-rich cascade.
It picks up with the Dr. and Louise, his Poppet, his bride, the girl whose life he saved and remade into an echo of his own immortality. But just as Louise is relishing her situation, another woman appears. Another woman with whom the doctor also has a troubled, passionate history. An equal, as opposed to a pretty plaything. She brings a warning of an old rival, a surgeon with his own sinister goals, and his own desire for revenge. She also becomes intimately involved with the doctor’s new project.
Louise, meanwhile, seeks comfort and distraction in the upper world … where she meets a nice young man with an adorable little daughter … and brings them all closer to terrible danger as the doctor’s rival closes in.
These books are not for the prudish, nor for the squeamish. Several flinchworthy scenes, compelling seductive mutilation and horror. Well worth a look, if you’ve the nerve. And setting up nicely for a third installment!
**
Title: Clown Fellas
Author: Carlton Mellick III
Publisher: Hydra
Website: www.readhydra.com
I’m not particularly a fan of clowns. I’m not particularly phobic about them, either, but it sure is the creepier ones that have a way of lingering in the memory, and even the benign ones are … let’s face it … kind of creepy. They’re natural fodder for horror and bizarro, being halfway there already.
Now, that said, you might expect the clown treatment in the hands of the likes of Carlton Mellick III to be totally over-the-big-top wild and crazy circus time. Instead, in Clown Fellas, what you get is more of a gritty mosaic, colorful in its intricate way as it picks out a complex panorama of dark, sordid, violent events.
It’s an epic drama, the Godfather and Sopranos of a world in which, for whatever reason, they live among us. An inhuman race of clowns, with their own ways and customs, subject to a different set of physical laws. Other comparisons that sprang to mind included the Toons of Toontown, and Alien Nation.
With clowns. But, even within their own close-knit community of Little Bigtop, there are divisions and conflicts between sub-groups, among families and Families. There’s crime, drugs, prostitution, murder, greed, envy, rivalries, revenge.
If not for the fact that these were clowns, you could almost forget these were clowns. Only, they are clowns, with squirting flowers, balloons, mimes, jugglers, pie throwing, the works.
Weirdest of all, it wasn’t as weird as I thought it would be. It was more restrained, less completely out there, than much of this author’s body of work. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But I caught myself a few times thinking, “wait, right, this is a Carlton!” because sometimes it just didn’t have as much … Carlton-ness … as I’m used to.
**
Title: Fat Zombie
Editor: Paul Mannering
Publisher: Permuted Press
Website: www.permutedpress.com
We all know those people who are convinced they’d do just fine in any sort of survival or post-apocalyptic situation. Some of us even are those people, or wish we were (I’m in the wish-I-was category, but since I don’t even camp well, am fat and squeamish, and depend on eyeglasses and meds, I realize I’d likely be zombie chow in short order).
In reality, while hardly anybody’s truly capable and ready, just like in real life there are advantages and disadvantages. Some are, for whatever reason, going to have it harder than others. And not simply in terms of not being an Olympic athlete or expert marksman.
This book is for those characters, the unlikeliest of survivors, the ones who already face burdens and struggles in their everyday lives that the average person might not even have to think about. Each of these eleven clever tales presents a different unusual take on the theme.
It opens with the painfully tragic and well-handled heart-wrencher, “Denial,” by Jay Wilburn. Senility, Alzheimer’s, and dementia are terrible. High on my own list of worst-ever fears, emotionally agonizing after seeing loved ones decline.
“Perfect,” by Rachel Aukes, strikes a similar painful, poignant note, deftly dealing with the chaos and fear of the outbreak from the point of view of a little kid with Down’s Syndrome. Strongly done, impressive and effective.
Others high on my list here would have to include the Don-Quixote-esque glory days of “El Caballero Muerte” by Martin Livings, Dan Rabarts’ wickedly devious “Endgame,” and the brilliant resourcefulness of “Mr. Schmidt’s Pet Emporium” by Sally McLennan.
The anthology closes with the ever-awesome Stephen Kozeniewski’s “The New Dark Ages,” sure to strike some familiar chords with every gamer geek and LARPer among us … a funny/gross tale that takes a sudden, dark, sick turn toward the end.
**
Title: Sing Me Your Scars
Author: Damien Angelica Walters
Publisher: Apex Publications
Website: www.apexbookcompany.com
From the very beginning, with her debut novel, it was easy to see that Damien Walters was going to be an author to watch. This collection of her short stories only further proves the point. She is good. Really, really good. Not just a practiced wordsmith, not just a natural talent, not just an artist, but a genuine master artisan of the craft.
I mean, it’s kind of obnoxious, how good she is. Terms like ‘lyrical,’ ‘poetic,’ ‘evocative,’ and ‘powerful’ instantly spring to mind. Beautifully vivid descriptions, a deft but firm touch to the emotional harpstrings on any note from joy to dread.
A few of these stories, I’d seen before in their original appearances, but it was a treat to see them again. And even more of a treat to experience ones I hadn’t seen before. The real challenge came when it was time to write a review and try to single out my top picks. I don’t know if I can narrow it down much beyond: “they’re ALL terrific!”
Well, that and any sort of honorable mention is ever going to have to go to “Always, They Whisper,” because it’s a mythology story, it’s a Medusa story, it’s an amazing, chilling, tragic, wonderful Medusa story. I love it.
The title tale is a haunting take on the Frankenstein theme, setting the tone for several explorations on the concept of self, of what makes us what we are - our physical form, our minds, our souls, our actions?
Others delve into the nature of family, of parenthood and parental influences for good or for ill, pain and loss and love and wonder in their myriad forms. And femininity, in its deepest essence, without being the least bit ‘girly.’
This is strength, and power, unseen mysteries, dark-secret magic. This is some Major Arcana High Priestess next level stuff here.
Did I mention, it’s kind of obnoxious, how good she is?
**
Title: Smarter Than The Average Werewolf
Author: Mark Orr
Publisher: Belfire Press
Website: www.belfirepress.com
So, over roughly the same couple-week span of time, my sporadic recreational entertainment consisted mostly of this book and Netflix’s Jessica Jones. Is it possible to get super-noir overload? Super-powered in the viewing case, super-natural in the reading case, but dang, what a ride!
Plenty of grit, plenty of drama, dangerous attractions, secrets, scandals, violence, wisecracks, and witty banter … what’s not to love? Best of all, in both, the actual flamboyance of the genre tropes was downplayed to take a backseat to the detective angles instead of being center-stage. Here are main characters with unusual abilities that certainly come in handy in their respective lines of work, but aren’t made a big flashy deal of.
Or even really explained, in the course of things. Just isn’t needed. We can accept without being given all the info dump history right up front that Jessica has extraordinary strength … and we can accept, without being told a reason, that Harvey Drago can go insubstantial. That’s just the way it is, and it isn’t the main focus of the story.
Neither, despite the title, is lycanthrope. Yes, there’s been a series of grisly murders, courtesy of what the press has dubbed The West-End Werewolf, and yes, Drago’s been hired to look into them. But what follows isn’t a monster hunt. It’s a mystery, and unraveling the various clues and connections like any good gumshoe is the whole point.
Along, of course, with complicated entanglements involving the ethics of involvement with clients, professional detachment, working with (or around) the police, etc. The more Drago pokes into the case, the more he’s led into deeper trouble, and the more enemies he makes along the way.
The glut of minor characters did bog me down a few times, and some of the relationships between them came off a bit forced, but overall Drago presented as a likable and sympathetic guy, troubled but not broken, unable to get close to anyone for not quite the usual reasons.
The setting’s modern and Tennessee, but the noir-nostalgia factor is there, and it still feels in many ways like an old black-and-white movie. And the ending leaves opportunity for further adventures, which is always aces in my book.
**
Coming in 2016: Amazing Punk Stories, Cut Corners Vols. I and II, The Midnight Creature Feature Picture Show, All Soul's Day, Reincarnage, Ghost in the Cogs, I Will Rot Without You, Monsters Don't Cry, and more!
Send inquiries, or review copies (.mobi and .pdf preferred!) to christinemariemorgan@gmail.com ... and have a Happy New Year!