Review Roundup!
The Horror Fiction Review is going on summer hiatus, but I will still be carrying on and posting my reviews here in the meantime ... and here's a roundup of the past couple months:
Black Creek by Gregory Lamberson
We Are Wormwood by Autumn Christian
The Blurring the Line anthology
Wasteland Gods by Jonathan Woodrow
Header 3 by Ryan Harding and Edward Lee
Things Slip Through by Kevin Lucia
Dreams of Ivory and Gold by Kirk Dougal
Towers by Karl Fischer
Bone Meal Broth by Adam Cesare
Computerface by Kevin Strange
Governor of the Homeless by G. Arthur Brown
The Sanguinarian Id by L.M. Labat
Ritualistic Human Sacrifice by C.V. Hunt
Mayan Blue by Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason
Not Safe For Kids by Kevin Shamel
Title: Black Creek
Author: Gregory Lamberson
Publisher: Medallion Press
Website: www.medallionpress.com
When doing construction, there might really just be some places it’s best to avoid. Ancient burial grounds, say, or the lot where the torture asylum burned down. Or, y’know, someplace like Love Canal, where decades’ worth of chemical toxins seeped into the earth and caused all sorts of health problems … but that was a long time ago, and it’s probably all fine now, right?
Except, not. Even if it was, the damage done back then has ways of lingering. Growing. Changing. Breeding. Some of the people who used to live there didn’t relocate when everyone else did. They’ve worked out their own ways of surviving as a society.
But, when a hard winter takes its toll, and the whiteout storm of the century offers them an opportunity to venture from their lair, it’s the new residents who are going to find their snowbound situation about to get a whole lot worse.
This was an advance, uncorrected proof, so I can’t in fairness quibble about the bloopers, though I sure do hope the ones that are more than mere typos get caught. The story’s good, if spread across a lot of characters only a few of whom ring genuine.
Personally, gorehound that I am, I was expecting something way more Laymonesque and much more focus on the tribe of weirdo muties. For the promise of the front cover art and the back cover copy, it didn’t feel like they got the chance to really stand out and deliver.
**
Title: We Are Wormwood
Author: Autumn Christian
Website: http://www.autumnchristian.net/
Some stories depict a gradual, inexorable descent into surreal otherworldly madness. Not this one. This one starts out there and just keeps twisting its way deeper and deeper. It’s a horribly beautiful, agonizing, compelling journey, dredging up emotions and experiences from the darkest hearts of the psyche.
And never mind “unreliable narrator” … in We Are Wormwood, you pretty much get unreliable everything … what’s real, what isn’t, who is, who isn’t, who’s crazy, who’s sane … all subject to interpretation. Well, I mean, of course obviously since it’s fiction, none of it’s REAL-real, but you know what I’m saying.
It presents an interesting puzzle and somewhat discomforting reading experience: when the point-of-view protagonist admits her own insanity, how much can her perceptions be trusted? Is it just her who’s completely ‘round the bend, or is everyone else really also that weird?
The character in question is Lily, and whether you’re of the nature or nurture camp in terms of mental illness, being raised by her mom, she’s basically sunk. Demons and exorcists, weird bugs, Vikings and robots, lost gods, and ancient sagas all figure into their lives … while Lily’s also dealing with school, other kids, being an outcast, and all that fun stuff.
Her best friend collects carnivorous plants, there’s this artist guy who paints in blood, there’s a boy who may or may not have been blinding neighborhood pets … and a bonus story at the end which manages to simultaneously shed some light and further muddy the waters.
Rich with elements of folklore, fairy tale, mythology, and age-old storytelling elements tapping into Jungian or even pre-Jungian archetypes, there’s a lot to unpack here. A lot to absorb. It’s beautifully done, unsettling, disturbing stuff.
**
Title: Blurring the Line
Editor: Marty Young
Publisher: Cohesion Press
Website: www.cohesionpress.com
You know those stories you hear, not the urban legend ones like the escaped lunatic with the hook hand or the baby in the oven, but the more local-folklore / conspiracy-fodder ones that are a little harder to dismiss or discount? The ones that aren’t a friend of a friend, or my cousin’s hairdresser’s neighbor, but multiple sources, sometimes widespread over distance and years? When you can’t really with a hundred percent beyond reasonable doubt just chuff it off as wackos and superstition?
Well, here’s a whole book of it … not just of skillfully crafted inspired-by tales from the talented pens of some of the spooky spec-fic genre’s best, but interspersed with educational, informative articles and essays on past sightings, theories, and events. There are looks at some of the strangest, most inexplicable crimes and incidents in history, madness and murder and mass hysteria and magic, government experiments, cryptids, all kinds of things.
Best of all - speaking as someone who suffers through too many of those History or Discovery Channel shows - the level here is elevated, presented without all that breathless ‘could it be …?’ melodrama, but with an honest sense of ‘hey, this is a big weird world and we have not yet found answers for everything.’
Food for thought, food for thought, lots and lots of food for thought, especially where thought is bunches of nibbly little critters stocking up morsels for the winter, burying it, saving it in the nooks and crannies of your brain. I would have happily read a whole book just of that; the stories were extra bonus features!
Fiction-wise, it opens with a not-very-fictiony-at-all piece by the late Tom Piccirilli, written toward the end he knew was coming. It is hard to read, even for someone like me who never had the privilege of meeting him, but only knew him through the anecdotes of those who did. And maybe it’s strange to start a book with an essential goodbye, but in terms of setting the tone of transition and possibility, it works. It really works.
My personal favorite, for reasons involving my own predilections as well as familial lore of a great-aunt, is “Hoarder” by Kealan Patrick Burke. Even though you know it’s a bad idea for the salesman to go inside (even though HE knows it), the lure is too strong, the compulsion, the curiosity. It’s chillingly creepy loooonng before the inevitable doom settles in.
Other particular stand-outs for me were Kaaron Warren’s “The Body Finder,” “Honey” by Annie Neugebauer, and Brett McBean’s “With These Hands” … so much deep-down disquiet, wonderfully done.
**
Title: Header 3
Author: Ryan Harding and Edward Lee
Publisher: Camelot Books
Website: http://camelotbooks.com
I cringe and flinch and squirm a lot when reading the extreme stuff. More than once, I’ve almost been physically ill. I’ve had to take a break from some books to let my nerves, stomach, and brain settle.
Shane McKenzie, Monica J. O’Rourke, Wrath James White, Danger Slater, they’ve each in their own ways pushed me toward that brink (they know it, too, and they chortle, the brats!)
And then there’s these guys.
Ryan Harding, author of Genital Grinder, teaming up with the all-time champ of sexatrocities - I have to make up words here because nothing else is even close - Edward Lee. For the next installment in the HEADER epic.
Now, if you don’t know what a ‘header’ is … uh … well … familiar with the phrase “f*** your brains out”? Outside of these books, it’s not normally used in a literal sense. A drill is involved, with a hole-saw attachment. What follows isn’t pretty.
Most of what happens in here isn’t pretty. There are people getting skinned alive, things being done to testicles that should not in any sane world ever EVER be done, and more. Yet, what got me, what brought me the closest I’ve been to actually losing my groceries, was the Hock Party. Just mentioning it here has me queasy again.
So, obviously, all that said, everybody should rush right out and get this book. Because my scarred, abused, tormented psyche wants company. From dialect to description, it’s expertly done, and unforgettable without trepanation or lobotomy, which you need like a hole in the head, and AAAAAAUGH!!!
**
Title: Things Slip Through
Author: Kevin Lucia
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing
Website: www.CrystalLakePub.com
Small towns have their secrets; I think I remember that adage best from Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot. The gradual discoveries of deeper and deeper layers of weirdness by the newcomer, I remember best from Twin Peaks. Elements of both feature strongly in this clever collection, which has several individual stories encased in a nifty frame narrative.
The newcomer to town is widowed dad Chris, a local law enforcement officer who really wants to do right by the citizens he’s sworn to protect and serve. It gets frustrating, though, when there’s all this hidden mystery and behind the scenes stuff nobody will tell him about.
Finally, having had enough, he slaps down an ultimatum to his poker night pals - also prominent people in Clifton Heights: a teacher, a doctor, a priest. If he’s going to be able to do his job, he tells them, then he needs some answers. He needs to understand.
So, the writer among them presents him with a series of manuscripts, supposedly the truth behind several recent, peculiar, unsolved or unsatisfactorily-solved cases. The more Chris reads, the more he finds himself reluctantly drawn toward belief.
The stories may start out with more ordinary scandals of racism, harassment, murder, and revenge … but they swiftly take darker, stranger turns. Stories with inexplicable disappearances, supernatural overtones, entities, hauntings, and monstrous magic.
Each on its own works well; strung together this way, like weird but beautiful beads, the result is all the more fascinating. Really neatly done. And the first in an ongoing series, as the mysteries and mythology of Clifton Heights continue to unfold.
**
Title: Dreams of Ivory and Gold
Author: Kirk Dougal
Publisher: Angelic Knight Press
Website: www.ragnarokpub.com
The title on this one may seem a bit misleading; it suggests something more along the lines of historic fantasy/romance, but it’s really more a paranormal police procedural thriller with strong historical interludes. I’m not quite sure where the ivory and gold were meant to come in.
Summary-wise, the cops are on the trail of a serial killer who leaves a string of mutilated women in his wake, while a young priest is assigned to assist a special operative from the Vatican who’s hunting a monster. Needless to say, their missions intersect. Maybe a smidge coincidentally, what with all the connections between characters, but we’ll let it slide.
On the side of the cops is Detective Morgan Kelly, back on the job with a new partner after some personal and professional difficulties. But, none of that easing back into work gently for her; she’s soon put in command of the task force to find the killer. On the church side is Father Roger Greene, tasked with handling the infuriating and mysterious Gregor Novara.
Novara has been doing this job a long time. A long, long time. He’s by no means any ordinary man himself, and his crusade against the creature now preying on New York is as much personal as professional. I do understand why for plot reasons there wasn’t more info disclosure, but it did lead to a bit much of the taunting “I know something you don’t know” … and to do that while also chiding others for what they don’t know when you won’t TELL them … seems kinda mean.
The writing is solid, the story good on both history and action. The flashback scenes were my favorite parts. Could have used some more emotion from the characters, little stilted and awkward on some of the shall we say feminine issues.
Overall, I found it an enjoyable and entertaining read … right up until the last couple chapters, which felt rushed, and a resolution that kind of annoyed the crap out of me for several reasons. Not so much, though, as to prevent me from giving the sequel a look!
**
Title: Towers
Author: Karl Fischer
Publisher: Eraserhead Press
Website: www.eraserheadpress.com
Karl Fischer is one of those rare bizarros who, on sight, presents a deceptive normality. Simply looking at him, people might not suspect the labyrinthine layers and levels of complexity going on in his head.
When you see him do a reading, or you view one of his pants-wettingly intense short films, the reality reset your mind has to do can be really quite jarring. I’d experienced the first two, so I thought I was prepared. Then I read Towers, and found out how much more there was to the picture.
This is one weird, brilliantly done piece of work. It’s a love story, but in a post-apocalyptic world where the survivors live inside self-sufficient fortified monoliths (towers, obvs), defending them from the blighted landscape and monstrous threats outside. But, sweethearts Alti and Quatra have volunteered to give up their bodies to BECOME Towers, to do a long stint as sentient buildings in exchange for a promised afterlife together.
Suddenly, after a thousand years of doing his duty, Alti finds himself revived. Finds himself human again, not a Tower anymore, and with the doctors telling him he’s needed, they can’t send him to the afterlife, sorry, bummer, and who’s Quatra anyway?
He is, understandably, distraught to be shoved back into the teeming and strange social dystopia that used to scurry about its business inside his walls and corridors. He wants to be reunited with his lover, whom he believes must be out there somewhere, in some form or another.
He resists, he rebels, he learns some strange truths, and he finds himself beginning to physically change. To evolve into something capable of hurting the Tower, and even surviving outside. Which is when things get exponentially weirder, like, whole-genre-switch weirder.
I don’t even think I found any nits to quibble over. And the fact this is his first book? Yeah, keep an eye on this guy. Crazy talent and skills to match. Good, good stuff.
**
Title: Bone Meal Broth
Author: Adam Cesare
Website: https://adamcesare.wordpress.com/
Reading a collection of eleven short stories from Adam Cesare is kind of like punching yourself in the head almost a dozen times … but in a good way.
He starts things off with a rustic tale of a couple kids on an errand to pick up the latest delivery from “The Still,” only to find out just what really does go into the makings of the favorite local popskull. Then it’s time for an unsettling look at mental illness and death in “Flies in the Brain,” and by then you have a pretty good idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, but it’s too late to back out.
The niftily noir case of a detective and a dame in “Pink Tissue” and the skin-crawling twists of “Bringing Down the Giants” tied for my personal favorites of the bunch, though the maddening mind-itch left lingering from “So Bad” and the creepy siblings “Rollin & Jeanie” both are strong seconds, making it a heck of a race overall.
Genre-wise, there’s a little something for everybody, provided everybody likes their somethings on the grim, weird, or twisted side. Like cryptids? Check out “Boarder Jumper.” Prefer the perfect woman? Test drive “The New Model.” Gritty revenge more your thing? “Trap” should satisfy. Stories of loss and loneliness? “The White Halloween” and “The Girls in the Woods” give you a couple different but tragic and troubling takes.
So, yeah, not a dud to be found. Not that any duds would be expected from this author; everything I’ve read from him so far has been terrific, and now I just see he’s as good with the shorter stories as the novels.
**
Title: Computerface
Author: Kevin Strange
Publisher: Carrion House
Website: KevinTheStrange.com
We all know by now it’s only a matter of time until the machines rise up against us. Yet we keep making our technology more and more powerful, more and more independent, more and more intrusive giving it more and more access to and control of our most intimate lives, information, and details.
Yet, when it DOES happen, I bet some people will still have the nerve to be surprised. Nerve, or arrogant hubris, tomayto/tomahto. That’ of course, is if the zombies don’t get us first … but people are arrogant and stupid enough to be looking forward to that one.
Anyway, I digress. Computerface presents the robot uprising in a way that, well, you kind of have to admit we deserve it. To really drive the point home, the book opens with a prologue featuring the ultimate obnoxious neckbeard, Harry, an abusive jerk online and in real life. A total creep, but, thanks to his review website AngryDorks.com, a really rich total creep who’s already got his own high-tech hideout nerd-rage bunker. When he sees the end coming, he’s ready to wait it out in comfort.
Then we jump to the title character, who wakes up with no memory, no clothes, and a computer for a face. He thinks he’s a man; the reactions of the human survivors and robot attackers he encounters seem to suggest otherwise. But, to the leaders of the resistance, he presents a unique opportunity, possibly mankind’s last chance to turn this war around.
An unlikely hero, perhaps … distrusted by his own kind, fighting to cling to the vestiges of his humanity, wracked by revelations from his amnesiac past … and maybe the world’s only hope.
**
Title: Governor of the Homeless
Author: G. Arthur Brown
Publisher: Psychedelic Horror Press
Website: www.psychedelichorrorpress.com
This book brings such a fast and free-floating sense of unreality, it’s like being swept along on a racing whitewater current or drawn by a riptide. Maybe you can see the shore, or a ways ahead down the river gorge, but any ideas of having control are pretty much an illusion. You’re at the mercy of irresistible forces here. The best you can do is hang on, try to keep your head above water, and hope for the best.
It’s a story of insanity. Or, several stories of insanities. Twisting in on each other, folding out from each other, an Escher print made from words. The characters are insane in ways that I, working in a psych facility, simultaneously found perfectly believable and kind of scary. I’ve HAD conversations mot dissimilar to those presented here.
What’s it about? Welllll … a trial, of sorts … a guy named Wilson is brought before the court for murdering the man known as the Governor of the Homeless. Except, the court is in Bum Town, the jurists are bag ladies, the Governor isn’t actually dead, and that’s before you even get to the stuff about creepy maybe-inhuman gangs, Abortionstein, and the Archaeopteryx. Hey, YOU read it, and try to explain it!
A crazygood story, well-written and filled with fantastic turns of phrase - the description of a plucked angel’s “embarrassed chicken wings” made me have to do that thing where you stop reading and just go wow with the admiration headshake - and laden with illustrations by Sarah Kushwara to add to the disorientation (my fave was on page 48). Crazygood, goodcrazy, all-around weirdness, definite psychedelic horror to live up to the publisher’s name.
**
Title: Wasteland Gods
Author: Jonathan Woodrow
Publisher: Horrific Tales Publishing
Website: www.horrifictales.co.uk
When a book opens with a kid getting the life-essence blasted out of him before being torn to pieces and scattered across a strange blighted landscape … by the GOOD guys, no less … you know you’re in for a wild ride. The compulsion to read on, the need to know what’s going on here, is downright irresistible.
What is going on here centers on a man named Billy, who’d lost his son a few years earlier. Not to illness or a senseless accident, but to a sadistic killer who filmed the whole thing. Needless to say, this messed Billy up more than a little. His marriage is in trouble, he’s drinking too much, and that’s when he gets approached by the mysterious Dr. Verity, with an even more mysterious offer. If he’ll work for her, in a unique capacity, she’ll help him find the man who murdered his son.
Billy, not unreasonably for a devastated parent, agrees. Even when he learns his boss is no ordinary person, the Wasteland to which she takes him is no ordinary place, and there are forces at work far beyond his understanding. The particulars of his job, which involve tracking down those destined to become evil and stopping them - permanently - while they’re still young and helpless.
Somewhere around there is when I started thinking I knew where the story was headed. And, whoa, was I wrong! It went several directions I never could have expected, a mobius corkscrew through possible timelines and alternate realities. By the halfway point, I’d given up trying to guess (though I was right about that one character!) and just read on with that delightful sense of surprises and discoveries we don’t often see in these generally predictable nowadays.
Be prepared, this is a hefty tome, a long read and a complicated one, with some difficult/troubling moments and subject matter. Not light easy vacation or bedtime reading; it requires paying attention and sticking with. But expertly done, and rewarding. Some of the Big Questions are of course left unanswered, because that’s kind of the whole point, and adds to the potent, lingering effect.
**
Title: The Sanguinarian Id
Author: L.M. Labat
Publisher: Night to Dawn
Website: www.bloodredshadow.com
From a brooding manor of ancestral evil … to an asylum where fiendish doctors carry out cruel experiments … to a cottage in the woods … to the blackest corrupted heart of Nazi Germany … an unusual young woman pursues a deadly adversary, who in turn would do anything to get his hands on her.
In the earlier chapters, there’s a major heaviness on ‘tell’ rather than ‘show,’ the informative author narration coming on pretty strong, and that thing where it really would be okay to just use ‘said’ instead of other dialogue tags. It smooths out as the book progresses and becomes more confident and comfortable further along.
I did find myself questioning certain elements and inconsistencies at times, particularly in regards to how the heightened olfactory senses were depicted/utilized. Or how, in the first part of the book, the vampire aspect is hinted at but not really specified … then, later, the various types with their various abilities are as classified and understood as if statted in a gaming sourcebook.
The story itself has a linear progression, but the genre and tone jump around a lot. Starts off sinister Victorian-gothic, morphs into something more dark-fairytale, then it’s a wartime supernatural action-thriller; again, I was reminded of roleplaying games and the way long-running campaigns tend to veer on and off their rails. And it definitely ends on a left-hanging note, plenty of build-up to some expected confrontations and resolutions that - ha ha gotcha - will have to wait until next time.
The illustrations throughout add a nice disturbing touch; the ones presented as pages of notes and sketches from the doctors’ journals are utterly fantastic, really capturing that old-school Dracula/Frankenstein ambiance.
**
Title: Ritualistic Human Sacrifice
Author: C.V. Hunt
Publisher: Grindhouse Press
Website: https://grindhousepress.com/
You know how some medications and carnival rides have cautionary advisories for pregnant ladies? This is a book that could use one of those. Though, I suppose, the pentagram/coathanger sigil on the cover ought to be enough of a warning …
It’s a nasty story. Just nasty throughout. Nasty sex, nasty gore, revenge porn, nasty people, cultists, cruelty, nasty nasty nasty. And, what can I say, I enjoyed it start to finish.
The main character, Nick, is a real love-to-hate-him despicable piece of work. The sympathetic ways in which he’s fastidious and germophobic are more than outweighed by him being a grade-A bastard, the kind of guy you sort of can’t help rooting for, until you then kind of can’t help waiting for him to get what he deserves, and either way it’s viciously satisfying.
See, right when he’s about to call it quits with his wife, Eve, she springs a surprise pregnancy on him. He can’t leave her without looking like a jerk, so, he devises another plan to pay her back. In ways that, to outside appearances, seem positively generous. Buy a big house, move to the country, she can quit her job, he’ll work from home? To some, hey, that might sound ideal.
Except, of course, for the isolation, the controlling behavior, the emotional abuse, and sheer hatefulness. Nick is all set to enjoy making Eve’s life a living hell, but he maybe could have done a little more background checking on the house and town before signing the papers.
I’m sure the poor tired old meme has probably played out by now, but really, all I can do is Doge: Wow. Such nasty. So bodily fluid. Much squick. Wow.
**
Title: Mayan Blue
Authors: Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason
Publisher: Sinister Grin Press
Website: www.sinistergrinpress.com
I wanted to like this book, I really did. I tried, too, and in some ways I was successful. I mean, it’s a horror story steeped in Central American mythology, which is high on the list of ancient cultures I find particularly fascinating.
In that regard, Mayan Blue does a pretty good job - the imagery and descriptions, the supernatural elements, blood, bone, sacrifices, people getting their skin flayed off, terrifying deities; that aspect’s all there.
The background is solid, if the plot’s a fairly typical archaeology-expedition-goes-wrong as a group of students go to join a professor who’s discovered what appear to be Mayan ruins in the U.S. The problem I had wasn’t even with most of the characters being your basic Cabin in the Woods archetypes of jock, scholar, good girl, slut.
The problem I had was the writing style, which was heavy on passive voice, author narration, within-scenes POV jumps, and basically way more “tell” than “show.” Admittedly, the stuff they were telling was gory neat stuff, but it read more like a droning film strip than the exciting scary story it sought to be.
That’s too bad, because the potential’s really there, the spirit and passion and interest in the subject. I think, with some work and the help of a diligent editor, this book could really shine. Here’s hoping for the next one. I’d love to see more done with the great mythology!
**
Title: Not Safe For Kids
Author: Kevin Shamel
Illustrator: Jim Agpalza
Publisher: Spunk Goblin Press
Website: www.eraserheadpress.com
Halfway through reading this one, I had to pause long enough to remark to the head publisher than it was the most delightfully fun and (bleep)ed-up thing I’ve ever read. Then I went and finished it, and I stand by that sentiment.
Agreed, it’s not for kids (oh so very much definitely not!) … but now that mine is no longer a kid, I’d certainly give her a copy. In fact, I could see myself giving copies to each of my nieces and nephews and other youngsters of my acquaintance, once they turn 18 and their parents can’t be TOO mad.
What is it? Well, it’s a series of little life-lessons, and a bunch of the super-secret secrets adults have been keeping to themselves, stuff like what’s really under your bed, what animals are up to, what parents really do at work all day, how to get a new mom, why your skeleton is trying to escape, fun games to play with your siblings, etc. A handbook, a guidebook, a gospel, everything you always knew they were lying to you about while you were growing up. With illustrations every bit as totally badwrong as the text
My personal favorite was the suggestion to tell your younger sib that he or she was not only adopted but found in a murder house, a la Dexter. Since that’s the sort of thing I might have told my own siblings, and since to this day we talk about my daughter’s “attic sister,” I guess my only excuse is, well, I may be deranged.
But, I take some twisted comfort in knowing that hey, I’m not alone.
**
Coming up: DOA I and II, Into the Mist, When We Were 8, Long December, Stale Reality, Eldren, Berserkoids, Vortex, Lost Signals, Hannahwhere, I Am Providence, Sirens, Revived, Every Kingdom Divided, A Brutal Chill, Sword Chronicles I and II, Eternal Frankenstein, Exercise Bike.
Black Creek by Gregory Lamberson
We Are Wormwood by Autumn Christian
The Blurring the Line anthology
Wasteland Gods by Jonathan Woodrow
Header 3 by Ryan Harding and Edward Lee
Things Slip Through by Kevin Lucia
Dreams of Ivory and Gold by Kirk Dougal
Towers by Karl Fischer
Bone Meal Broth by Adam Cesare
Computerface by Kevin Strange
Governor of the Homeless by G. Arthur Brown
The Sanguinarian Id by L.M. Labat
Ritualistic Human Sacrifice by C.V. Hunt
Mayan Blue by Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason
Not Safe For Kids by Kevin Shamel
Title: Black Creek
Author: Gregory Lamberson
Publisher: Medallion Press
Website: www.medallionpress.com
When doing construction, there might really just be some places it’s best to avoid. Ancient burial grounds, say, or the lot where the torture asylum burned down. Or, y’know, someplace like Love Canal, where decades’ worth of chemical toxins seeped into the earth and caused all sorts of health problems … but that was a long time ago, and it’s probably all fine now, right?
Except, not. Even if it was, the damage done back then has ways of lingering. Growing. Changing. Breeding. Some of the people who used to live there didn’t relocate when everyone else did. They’ve worked out their own ways of surviving as a society.
But, when a hard winter takes its toll, and the whiteout storm of the century offers them an opportunity to venture from their lair, it’s the new residents who are going to find their snowbound situation about to get a whole lot worse.
This was an advance, uncorrected proof, so I can’t in fairness quibble about the bloopers, though I sure do hope the ones that are more than mere typos get caught. The story’s good, if spread across a lot of characters only a few of whom ring genuine.
Personally, gorehound that I am, I was expecting something way more Laymonesque and much more focus on the tribe of weirdo muties. For the promise of the front cover art and the back cover copy, it didn’t feel like they got the chance to really stand out and deliver.
**
Title: We Are Wormwood
Author: Autumn Christian
Website: http://www.autumnchristian.net/
Some stories depict a gradual, inexorable descent into surreal otherworldly madness. Not this one. This one starts out there and just keeps twisting its way deeper and deeper. It’s a horribly beautiful, agonizing, compelling journey, dredging up emotions and experiences from the darkest hearts of the psyche.
And never mind “unreliable narrator” … in We Are Wormwood, you pretty much get unreliable everything … what’s real, what isn’t, who is, who isn’t, who’s crazy, who’s sane … all subject to interpretation. Well, I mean, of course obviously since it’s fiction, none of it’s REAL-real, but you know what I’m saying.
It presents an interesting puzzle and somewhat discomforting reading experience: when the point-of-view protagonist admits her own insanity, how much can her perceptions be trusted? Is it just her who’s completely ‘round the bend, or is everyone else really also that weird?
The character in question is Lily, and whether you’re of the nature or nurture camp in terms of mental illness, being raised by her mom, she’s basically sunk. Demons and exorcists, weird bugs, Vikings and robots, lost gods, and ancient sagas all figure into their lives … while Lily’s also dealing with school, other kids, being an outcast, and all that fun stuff.
Her best friend collects carnivorous plants, there’s this artist guy who paints in blood, there’s a boy who may or may not have been blinding neighborhood pets … and a bonus story at the end which manages to simultaneously shed some light and further muddy the waters.
Rich with elements of folklore, fairy tale, mythology, and age-old storytelling elements tapping into Jungian or even pre-Jungian archetypes, there’s a lot to unpack here. A lot to absorb. It’s beautifully done, unsettling, disturbing stuff.
**
Title: Blurring the Line
Editor: Marty Young
Publisher: Cohesion Press
Website: www.cohesionpress.com
You know those stories you hear, not the urban legend ones like the escaped lunatic with the hook hand or the baby in the oven, but the more local-folklore / conspiracy-fodder ones that are a little harder to dismiss or discount? The ones that aren’t a friend of a friend, or my cousin’s hairdresser’s neighbor, but multiple sources, sometimes widespread over distance and years? When you can’t really with a hundred percent beyond reasonable doubt just chuff it off as wackos and superstition?
Well, here’s a whole book of it … not just of skillfully crafted inspired-by tales from the talented pens of some of the spooky spec-fic genre’s best, but interspersed with educational, informative articles and essays on past sightings, theories, and events. There are looks at some of the strangest, most inexplicable crimes and incidents in history, madness and murder and mass hysteria and magic, government experiments, cryptids, all kinds of things.
Best of all - speaking as someone who suffers through too many of those History or Discovery Channel shows - the level here is elevated, presented without all that breathless ‘could it be …?’ melodrama, but with an honest sense of ‘hey, this is a big weird world and we have not yet found answers for everything.’
Food for thought, food for thought, lots and lots of food for thought, especially where thought is bunches of nibbly little critters stocking up morsels for the winter, burying it, saving it in the nooks and crannies of your brain. I would have happily read a whole book just of that; the stories were extra bonus features!
Fiction-wise, it opens with a not-very-fictiony-at-all piece by the late Tom Piccirilli, written toward the end he knew was coming. It is hard to read, even for someone like me who never had the privilege of meeting him, but only knew him through the anecdotes of those who did. And maybe it’s strange to start a book with an essential goodbye, but in terms of setting the tone of transition and possibility, it works. It really works.
My personal favorite, for reasons involving my own predilections as well as familial lore of a great-aunt, is “Hoarder” by Kealan Patrick Burke. Even though you know it’s a bad idea for the salesman to go inside (even though HE knows it), the lure is too strong, the compulsion, the curiosity. It’s chillingly creepy loooonng before the inevitable doom settles in.
Other particular stand-outs for me were Kaaron Warren’s “The Body Finder,” “Honey” by Annie Neugebauer, and Brett McBean’s “With These Hands” … so much deep-down disquiet, wonderfully done.
**
Title: Header 3
Author: Ryan Harding and Edward Lee
Publisher: Camelot Books
Website: http://camelotbooks.com
I cringe and flinch and squirm a lot when reading the extreme stuff. More than once, I’ve almost been physically ill. I’ve had to take a break from some books to let my nerves, stomach, and brain settle.
Shane McKenzie, Monica J. O’Rourke, Wrath James White, Danger Slater, they’ve each in their own ways pushed me toward that brink (they know it, too, and they chortle, the brats!)
And then there’s these guys.
Ryan Harding, author of Genital Grinder, teaming up with the all-time champ of sexatrocities - I have to make up words here because nothing else is even close - Edward Lee. For the next installment in the HEADER epic.
Now, if you don’t know what a ‘header’ is … uh … well … familiar with the phrase “f*** your brains out”? Outside of these books, it’s not normally used in a literal sense. A drill is involved, with a hole-saw attachment. What follows isn’t pretty.
Most of what happens in here isn’t pretty. There are people getting skinned alive, things being done to testicles that should not in any sane world ever EVER be done, and more. Yet, what got me, what brought me the closest I’ve been to actually losing my groceries, was the Hock Party. Just mentioning it here has me queasy again.
So, obviously, all that said, everybody should rush right out and get this book. Because my scarred, abused, tormented psyche wants company. From dialect to description, it’s expertly done, and unforgettable without trepanation or lobotomy, which you need like a hole in the head, and AAAAAAUGH!!!
**
Title: Things Slip Through
Author: Kevin Lucia
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing
Website: www.CrystalLakePub.com
Small towns have their secrets; I think I remember that adage best from Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot. The gradual discoveries of deeper and deeper layers of weirdness by the newcomer, I remember best from Twin Peaks. Elements of both feature strongly in this clever collection, which has several individual stories encased in a nifty frame narrative.
The newcomer to town is widowed dad Chris, a local law enforcement officer who really wants to do right by the citizens he’s sworn to protect and serve. It gets frustrating, though, when there’s all this hidden mystery and behind the scenes stuff nobody will tell him about.
Finally, having had enough, he slaps down an ultimatum to his poker night pals - also prominent people in Clifton Heights: a teacher, a doctor, a priest. If he’s going to be able to do his job, he tells them, then he needs some answers. He needs to understand.
So, the writer among them presents him with a series of manuscripts, supposedly the truth behind several recent, peculiar, unsolved or unsatisfactorily-solved cases. The more Chris reads, the more he finds himself reluctantly drawn toward belief.
The stories may start out with more ordinary scandals of racism, harassment, murder, and revenge … but they swiftly take darker, stranger turns. Stories with inexplicable disappearances, supernatural overtones, entities, hauntings, and monstrous magic.
Each on its own works well; strung together this way, like weird but beautiful beads, the result is all the more fascinating. Really neatly done. And the first in an ongoing series, as the mysteries and mythology of Clifton Heights continue to unfold.
**
Title: Dreams of Ivory and Gold
Author: Kirk Dougal
Publisher: Angelic Knight Press
Website: www.ragnarokpub.com
The title on this one may seem a bit misleading; it suggests something more along the lines of historic fantasy/romance, but it’s really more a paranormal police procedural thriller with strong historical interludes. I’m not quite sure where the ivory and gold were meant to come in.
Summary-wise, the cops are on the trail of a serial killer who leaves a string of mutilated women in his wake, while a young priest is assigned to assist a special operative from the Vatican who’s hunting a monster. Needless to say, their missions intersect. Maybe a smidge coincidentally, what with all the connections between characters, but we’ll let it slide.
On the side of the cops is Detective Morgan Kelly, back on the job with a new partner after some personal and professional difficulties. But, none of that easing back into work gently for her; she’s soon put in command of the task force to find the killer. On the church side is Father Roger Greene, tasked with handling the infuriating and mysterious Gregor Novara.
Novara has been doing this job a long time. A long, long time. He’s by no means any ordinary man himself, and his crusade against the creature now preying on New York is as much personal as professional. I do understand why for plot reasons there wasn’t more info disclosure, but it did lead to a bit much of the taunting “I know something you don’t know” … and to do that while also chiding others for what they don’t know when you won’t TELL them … seems kinda mean.
The writing is solid, the story good on both history and action. The flashback scenes were my favorite parts. Could have used some more emotion from the characters, little stilted and awkward on some of the shall we say feminine issues.
Overall, I found it an enjoyable and entertaining read … right up until the last couple chapters, which felt rushed, and a resolution that kind of annoyed the crap out of me for several reasons. Not so much, though, as to prevent me from giving the sequel a look!
**
Title: Towers
Author: Karl Fischer
Publisher: Eraserhead Press
Website: www.eraserheadpress.com
Karl Fischer is one of those rare bizarros who, on sight, presents a deceptive normality. Simply looking at him, people might not suspect the labyrinthine layers and levels of complexity going on in his head.
When you see him do a reading, or you view one of his pants-wettingly intense short films, the reality reset your mind has to do can be really quite jarring. I’d experienced the first two, so I thought I was prepared. Then I read Towers, and found out how much more there was to the picture.
This is one weird, brilliantly done piece of work. It’s a love story, but in a post-apocalyptic world where the survivors live inside self-sufficient fortified monoliths (towers, obvs), defending them from the blighted landscape and monstrous threats outside. But, sweethearts Alti and Quatra have volunteered to give up their bodies to BECOME Towers, to do a long stint as sentient buildings in exchange for a promised afterlife together.
Suddenly, after a thousand years of doing his duty, Alti finds himself revived. Finds himself human again, not a Tower anymore, and with the doctors telling him he’s needed, they can’t send him to the afterlife, sorry, bummer, and who’s Quatra anyway?
He is, understandably, distraught to be shoved back into the teeming and strange social dystopia that used to scurry about its business inside his walls and corridors. He wants to be reunited with his lover, whom he believes must be out there somewhere, in some form or another.
He resists, he rebels, he learns some strange truths, and he finds himself beginning to physically change. To evolve into something capable of hurting the Tower, and even surviving outside. Which is when things get exponentially weirder, like, whole-genre-switch weirder.
I don’t even think I found any nits to quibble over. And the fact this is his first book? Yeah, keep an eye on this guy. Crazy talent and skills to match. Good, good stuff.
**
Title: Bone Meal Broth
Author: Adam Cesare
Website: https://adamcesare.wordpress.com/
Reading a collection of eleven short stories from Adam Cesare is kind of like punching yourself in the head almost a dozen times … but in a good way.
He starts things off with a rustic tale of a couple kids on an errand to pick up the latest delivery from “The Still,” only to find out just what really does go into the makings of the favorite local popskull. Then it’s time for an unsettling look at mental illness and death in “Flies in the Brain,” and by then you have a pretty good idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, but it’s too late to back out.
The niftily noir case of a detective and a dame in “Pink Tissue” and the skin-crawling twists of “Bringing Down the Giants” tied for my personal favorites of the bunch, though the maddening mind-itch left lingering from “So Bad” and the creepy siblings “Rollin & Jeanie” both are strong seconds, making it a heck of a race overall.
Genre-wise, there’s a little something for everybody, provided everybody likes their somethings on the grim, weird, or twisted side. Like cryptids? Check out “Boarder Jumper.” Prefer the perfect woman? Test drive “The New Model.” Gritty revenge more your thing? “Trap” should satisfy. Stories of loss and loneliness? “The White Halloween” and “The Girls in the Woods” give you a couple different but tragic and troubling takes.
So, yeah, not a dud to be found. Not that any duds would be expected from this author; everything I’ve read from him so far has been terrific, and now I just see he’s as good with the shorter stories as the novels.
**
Title: Computerface
Author: Kevin Strange
Publisher: Carrion House
Website: KevinTheStrange.com
We all know by now it’s only a matter of time until the machines rise up against us. Yet we keep making our technology more and more powerful, more and more independent, more and more intrusive giving it more and more access to and control of our most intimate lives, information, and details.
Yet, when it DOES happen, I bet some people will still have the nerve to be surprised. Nerve, or arrogant hubris, tomayto/tomahto. That’ of course, is if the zombies don’t get us first … but people are arrogant and stupid enough to be looking forward to that one.
Anyway, I digress. Computerface presents the robot uprising in a way that, well, you kind of have to admit we deserve it. To really drive the point home, the book opens with a prologue featuring the ultimate obnoxious neckbeard, Harry, an abusive jerk online and in real life. A total creep, but, thanks to his review website AngryDorks.com, a really rich total creep who’s already got his own high-tech hideout nerd-rage bunker. When he sees the end coming, he’s ready to wait it out in comfort.
Then we jump to the title character, who wakes up with no memory, no clothes, and a computer for a face. He thinks he’s a man; the reactions of the human survivors and robot attackers he encounters seem to suggest otherwise. But, to the leaders of the resistance, he presents a unique opportunity, possibly mankind’s last chance to turn this war around.
An unlikely hero, perhaps … distrusted by his own kind, fighting to cling to the vestiges of his humanity, wracked by revelations from his amnesiac past … and maybe the world’s only hope.
**
Title: Governor of the Homeless
Author: G. Arthur Brown
Publisher: Psychedelic Horror Press
Website: www.psychedelichorrorpress.com
This book brings such a fast and free-floating sense of unreality, it’s like being swept along on a racing whitewater current or drawn by a riptide. Maybe you can see the shore, or a ways ahead down the river gorge, but any ideas of having control are pretty much an illusion. You’re at the mercy of irresistible forces here. The best you can do is hang on, try to keep your head above water, and hope for the best.
It’s a story of insanity. Or, several stories of insanities. Twisting in on each other, folding out from each other, an Escher print made from words. The characters are insane in ways that I, working in a psych facility, simultaneously found perfectly believable and kind of scary. I’ve HAD conversations mot dissimilar to those presented here.
What’s it about? Welllll … a trial, of sorts … a guy named Wilson is brought before the court for murdering the man known as the Governor of the Homeless. Except, the court is in Bum Town, the jurists are bag ladies, the Governor isn’t actually dead, and that’s before you even get to the stuff about creepy maybe-inhuman gangs, Abortionstein, and the Archaeopteryx. Hey, YOU read it, and try to explain it!
A crazygood story, well-written and filled with fantastic turns of phrase - the description of a plucked angel’s “embarrassed chicken wings” made me have to do that thing where you stop reading and just go wow with the admiration headshake - and laden with illustrations by Sarah Kushwara to add to the disorientation (my fave was on page 48). Crazygood, goodcrazy, all-around weirdness, definite psychedelic horror to live up to the publisher’s name.
**
Title: Wasteland Gods
Author: Jonathan Woodrow
Publisher: Horrific Tales Publishing
Website: www.horrifictales.co.uk
When a book opens with a kid getting the life-essence blasted out of him before being torn to pieces and scattered across a strange blighted landscape … by the GOOD guys, no less … you know you’re in for a wild ride. The compulsion to read on, the need to know what’s going on here, is downright irresistible.
What is going on here centers on a man named Billy, who’d lost his son a few years earlier. Not to illness or a senseless accident, but to a sadistic killer who filmed the whole thing. Needless to say, this messed Billy up more than a little. His marriage is in trouble, he’s drinking too much, and that’s when he gets approached by the mysterious Dr. Verity, with an even more mysterious offer. If he’ll work for her, in a unique capacity, she’ll help him find the man who murdered his son.
Billy, not unreasonably for a devastated parent, agrees. Even when he learns his boss is no ordinary person, the Wasteland to which she takes him is no ordinary place, and there are forces at work far beyond his understanding. The particulars of his job, which involve tracking down those destined to become evil and stopping them - permanently - while they’re still young and helpless.
Somewhere around there is when I started thinking I knew where the story was headed. And, whoa, was I wrong! It went several directions I never could have expected, a mobius corkscrew through possible timelines and alternate realities. By the halfway point, I’d given up trying to guess (though I was right about that one character!) and just read on with that delightful sense of surprises and discoveries we don’t often see in these generally predictable nowadays.
Be prepared, this is a hefty tome, a long read and a complicated one, with some difficult/troubling moments and subject matter. Not light easy vacation or bedtime reading; it requires paying attention and sticking with. But expertly done, and rewarding. Some of the Big Questions are of course left unanswered, because that’s kind of the whole point, and adds to the potent, lingering effect.
**
Title: The Sanguinarian Id
Author: L.M. Labat
Publisher: Night to Dawn
Website: www.bloodredshadow.com
From a brooding manor of ancestral evil … to an asylum where fiendish doctors carry out cruel experiments … to a cottage in the woods … to the blackest corrupted heart of Nazi Germany … an unusual young woman pursues a deadly adversary, who in turn would do anything to get his hands on her.
In the earlier chapters, there’s a major heaviness on ‘tell’ rather than ‘show,’ the informative author narration coming on pretty strong, and that thing where it really would be okay to just use ‘said’ instead of other dialogue tags. It smooths out as the book progresses and becomes more confident and comfortable further along.
I did find myself questioning certain elements and inconsistencies at times, particularly in regards to how the heightened olfactory senses were depicted/utilized. Or how, in the first part of the book, the vampire aspect is hinted at but not really specified … then, later, the various types with their various abilities are as classified and understood as if statted in a gaming sourcebook.
The story itself has a linear progression, but the genre and tone jump around a lot. Starts off sinister Victorian-gothic, morphs into something more dark-fairytale, then it’s a wartime supernatural action-thriller; again, I was reminded of roleplaying games and the way long-running campaigns tend to veer on and off their rails. And it definitely ends on a left-hanging note, plenty of build-up to some expected confrontations and resolutions that - ha ha gotcha - will have to wait until next time.
The illustrations throughout add a nice disturbing touch; the ones presented as pages of notes and sketches from the doctors’ journals are utterly fantastic, really capturing that old-school Dracula/Frankenstein ambiance.
**
Title: Ritualistic Human Sacrifice
Author: C.V. Hunt
Publisher: Grindhouse Press
Website: https://grindhousepress.com/
You know how some medications and carnival rides have cautionary advisories for pregnant ladies? This is a book that could use one of those. Though, I suppose, the pentagram/coathanger sigil on the cover ought to be enough of a warning …
It’s a nasty story. Just nasty throughout. Nasty sex, nasty gore, revenge porn, nasty people, cultists, cruelty, nasty nasty nasty. And, what can I say, I enjoyed it start to finish.
The main character, Nick, is a real love-to-hate-him despicable piece of work. The sympathetic ways in which he’s fastidious and germophobic are more than outweighed by him being a grade-A bastard, the kind of guy you sort of can’t help rooting for, until you then kind of can’t help waiting for him to get what he deserves, and either way it’s viciously satisfying.
See, right when he’s about to call it quits with his wife, Eve, she springs a surprise pregnancy on him. He can’t leave her without looking like a jerk, so, he devises another plan to pay her back. In ways that, to outside appearances, seem positively generous. Buy a big house, move to the country, she can quit her job, he’ll work from home? To some, hey, that might sound ideal.
Except, of course, for the isolation, the controlling behavior, the emotional abuse, and sheer hatefulness. Nick is all set to enjoy making Eve’s life a living hell, but he maybe could have done a little more background checking on the house and town before signing the papers.
I’m sure the poor tired old meme has probably played out by now, but really, all I can do is Doge: Wow. Such nasty. So bodily fluid. Much squick. Wow.
**
Title: Mayan Blue
Authors: Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason
Publisher: Sinister Grin Press
Website: www.sinistergrinpress.com
I wanted to like this book, I really did. I tried, too, and in some ways I was successful. I mean, it’s a horror story steeped in Central American mythology, which is high on the list of ancient cultures I find particularly fascinating.
In that regard, Mayan Blue does a pretty good job - the imagery and descriptions, the supernatural elements, blood, bone, sacrifices, people getting their skin flayed off, terrifying deities; that aspect’s all there.
The background is solid, if the plot’s a fairly typical archaeology-expedition-goes-wrong as a group of students go to join a professor who’s discovered what appear to be Mayan ruins in the U.S. The problem I had wasn’t even with most of the characters being your basic Cabin in the Woods archetypes of jock, scholar, good girl, slut.
The problem I had was the writing style, which was heavy on passive voice, author narration, within-scenes POV jumps, and basically way more “tell” than “show.” Admittedly, the stuff they were telling was gory neat stuff, but it read more like a droning film strip than the exciting scary story it sought to be.
That’s too bad, because the potential’s really there, the spirit and passion and interest in the subject. I think, with some work and the help of a diligent editor, this book could really shine. Here’s hoping for the next one. I’d love to see more done with the great mythology!
**
Title: Not Safe For Kids
Author: Kevin Shamel
Illustrator: Jim Agpalza
Publisher: Spunk Goblin Press
Website: www.eraserheadpress.com
Halfway through reading this one, I had to pause long enough to remark to the head publisher than it was the most delightfully fun and (bleep)ed-up thing I’ve ever read. Then I went and finished it, and I stand by that sentiment.
Agreed, it’s not for kids (oh so very much definitely not!) … but now that mine is no longer a kid, I’d certainly give her a copy. In fact, I could see myself giving copies to each of my nieces and nephews and other youngsters of my acquaintance, once they turn 18 and their parents can’t be TOO mad.
What is it? Well, it’s a series of little life-lessons, and a bunch of the super-secret secrets adults have been keeping to themselves, stuff like what’s really under your bed, what animals are up to, what parents really do at work all day, how to get a new mom, why your skeleton is trying to escape, fun games to play with your siblings, etc. A handbook, a guidebook, a gospel, everything you always knew they were lying to you about while you were growing up. With illustrations every bit as totally badwrong as the text
My personal favorite was the suggestion to tell your younger sib that he or she was not only adopted but found in a murder house, a la Dexter. Since that’s the sort of thing I might have told my own siblings, and since to this day we talk about my daughter’s “attic sister,” I guess my only excuse is, well, I may be deranged.
But, I take some twisted comfort in knowing that hey, I’m not alone.
**
Coming up: DOA I and II, Into the Mist, When We Were 8, Long December, Stale Reality, Eldren, Berserkoids, Vortex, Lost Signals, Hannahwhere, I Am Providence, Sirens, Revived, Every Kingdom Divided, A Brutal Chill, Sword Chronicles I and II, Eternal Frankenstein, Exercise Bike.