THE HORROR FICTION REVIEW

MARCH 2012 Reviews

2012-03-01T17:23:00.001-08:00

MARCH, 2012 REVIEWS

(NOTE: The "smell ratings" at the end of some reviews rate the actual SMELL of the book and have nothing to do with the story. Smell Ratings: 5 = excellent, 1 = odorless, 2-4 = you figure it out. Book Key: hc = hardcover / tp = trade paperback / mmp - mass market paperback / rarer forms described. Unless otherwise noted, all reviews are by Nick Cato)

DESTROYER OF WORLDS by Daniel G. Koehane (2012 Other Roads Press / 181 pp / tp and eBook)

Corey Union moves his wife and young daughter away from the city to an isolated home. Paranoid the world is about to end, he forbids newspapers or TV news from coming into the house. He continues to travel to the city to work, and spends his off-time exploring his new vast, wooded property. He also locates the key to a family heirloom; an ugly old clock, which eventually plays into his end-times apprehension.

Corey and his wife Samantha's closest neighbor is an attractive woman named Vanessa, whose actions being to trouble Corey. She seems nice enough, but it becomes apparent she's attracted to both of them and things start to get uncomfortable.

And just why is Corey haunted by a local serial killer who is now locked behind bars for life?

DESTROYER OF WORLDS is a brilliant novel where nothing is as it seems. The first half reads like a clever take on the end-times thriller genre with a serial killer sub-plot to give it a unique flavor. But by the second half, Koehane assaults the reader with so many twists, turns, and surprises you won't know which way is up or down. Add a satisfying conclusion and you have the first must-read novel of 2012. Don't miss it.

AUDITION by Ryu Murakami (translated by Ralph McCarthy) (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2010 {first American printing}; 190 pgs./ tb)

Aoyama lost his wife to cancer and has raised his son alone for the last seven years. Now the fifteen-year-old Shige tells his father he thinks it’s time to find a new wife. Aoyama discusses this with his friend Yoshikawa. Both men have a background in production so Yoshikawa comes up with the brilliant idea of holding an audition to find Aoyama a wife.

Yoshikawa takes care of all of the details and before long they receive three thousand resumes. This is subsequently whittled down to 100 and then Aoyama picks a final thirty. While going through the resumes he comes across one for Asami, a beautiful young woman who sounds perfect to him. They conduct the audition, but Aoyama is clearly only interested in Asami. She is smart, educated and trained as a ballerina until an injury forced her to quit.

A relationship develops between Aoyama and Asami. Aoyama is verging on obsessed….he is like a teenage boy. Asami makes it clear eventually that she shares the same feelings for Aoyama. There is some odd behavior that Aoyama overlooks but Yoshikawa thinks there is something wrong with Asami. They can’t find anyone who actually knows the young woman and can verify her story. Yosikawa pleads with Aoyama to be careful.

The couple goes away for a weekend, but Aoyama wakes up in the hotel room alone after a long night of sex that he cannot completely remember. Weeks go by but he still cannot find Asami. Unfortunately for Aoyama, Asami will come to him when he least expects it…and with a vengeance.

As a sort of disclaimer, AUDITION was made into a movie in 1999 by one of my favorite directors, Takashi Miike, and is one of my favorite movies of all time. Now that that’s out of the way I can tell you that the book is well-written and a quick read. The characters of Aoyama and Asami are well-developed throughout the story and though Aoyama and Yoshikawa initially come across as sexist, Murakami makes it clear that Aoyama is thoroughly in love with Asami. She turns out to be something completely different than he expects. The story is subtle and builds to a rather gruesome climax that had me cringing. More than horror, AUDITION is a tragic study in human psychology and what motivates and shapes us.

-Colleen Wanglund

‘NIDS by Ray Garton (2011 e-reads.com / 168 pp / eBook)

Ray Garton is an evil, evil arachnoterrorist! First he wouldn’t stop flooding my facebook with horrific images of spiders until I bought this book, and then I bought this book and read it and what happens? He floods my MIND with horrific images of spiders!!!

If the title, ‘Nids, is the totes kosh new way of referring to arachnids, then I guess that makes me a ‘Phobe, and as a ‘Phobe, the main thing I have to say about this book is AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE *bugdance*

Okay, I have other things to say, too. As a writer, I cannot help but admire, with however much squeamish revulsion, the artistry of Mr. Garton’s descriptions … most notably in the doghouse scene, where the word ‘blossomed’ has never before been used to such nightmarishly beautiful effect.

But, yeah. Spiders. This story is a classic in the sense of the black and white 50’s drive in monster movie thrillers. No fuss, no muss, no misdirection. We begin with half a dozen teenagers making out at the local lover’s lane, ka-blam there’s a huge explosion at the top-secret classified biogenetics company at the edge of town, and next thing you know, people are getting messily devoured by a spider roughly the size of a sofa.

It’s a very hungry spider (which, just typing that, made me think of what a weird children’s book THAT would have been, instead of a caterpillar). Naturally, nobody wants to believe the first witnesses – teenagers with suspiciously minty-fresh breath – but deniability isn’t a luxury the people of Hope Valley can afford.

The additional characters include the sheriff who has to contend with what’s on the loose in his town, the spider-geek kid brother of one of the teens, and a whole cast of townsfolk we barely get to know before they’re ‘nid bait.

The carnage is over-the-top fun. It’s a spideriffic schlock horror creature feature in book form. While I have some ethical qualms about supporting and encouraging arachnoterrorism, I have to say, the read was worth it!

So, please, buy this book … save me from having to endure another advertising barrage of spider pics … but not necessarily so many that Ray feels like he has to do a sequel complete with advertisting barrage of spider pics …

Crud. Either way, there’s gonna be spiders, isn’t there? Eek!

-Christine Morgan

SWITCHBLADE GODDESS by Lucy A. Snyder (2011 Del Rey / 323 pp / mmp)

The third in Snyder's Jessie Shimmer series finds our favorite mossberg-toting occult heroine sort-of recouping in a small Texas town after the events of SHOTGUN SORCERESS. Like the pervious novels, the action kicks right in: Jessie is on a mission to get her familiar, Pal, healed. He's still in the form of a giant arachnid yet has been sickened from bites by a pack of wererats. Standing in her way is the brutal demigoddess Miko, who has found a way to enter Jessie's 'hellement,' a personal realm that has now become a torture chamber for Jessie and her boyfriend Cooper.

Jessie is still trying to control her ectoplasm-firing hand as well as her mystic-stone eye. This time she's aided by her father (who commincates with her through compact mirrors), an energy potion concoted by her brother, and a humorous but sincere old witch who helps to heal Pal (I like what becomes of him).

Miko, the Switchblade Goddess of the title, is as sexy as she is hell-bent for blood and destruction. Her backstory is one of the finer sections of the novel, and the torments she imputes to Jessie are beyond grim.

I'm loving this fast-moving series that combines modern urban fantasy with generous amounts of horror, action, monsters, and the supernatural. Another cross-genre winner from Snyder.

Smell Rating: 5

CARNACKI: HEAVEN AND HELL by William Meikle (2011 Ghost House {Dark Regions Press} / 250 pp / tp)

Carnacki is an Edwardian occult detective with and excellent reputation. CARNACKI: HEAVEN AND HELL is an anthology of the detective exploits, as told to Carnacki’s trusted friends, of whom Dodgson is the storyteller here.

My favorite story is the three part novella “The Dark Island” about Sir John who is destined to die on his 50th birthday, as his father and grandfather before him. It seems a small island in a loch on Sir John’s land is the home to supposed spirits of dead ancestors. Carnacki discovers something far worse and more dangerous than some ghosts. Carnacki is able to call on his past experiences to hopefully help save Sir John from his appointed fate.

Other great stories include “The Lusitania”, about the haunting of the famed cruise ship that proves to be an omen of its tragic future; “The Tomb of Pygea” about an ancient tomb unearthed on a building site that is deadly to the workers who found it; and “The Beast of Glamis” that tells of a Scottish castle haunted by a tragic young woman’s ghost.

All of the stories are scary paranormal tales that seem to center on a place Carnacki refers to as the Outer Regions where all manner of entity can dwell. I had so much fun reading CARNACKI, as I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, and that is how Meikle’s book reads. The stories themselves are well-written with excellent character and historical detail. The “glue” that holds it all together is a group of men sitting in a smoky room with some Scotch and you will feel as though you are that very room listening to Carnacki tell his tales. I believe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be pleased with CARNACKI: HEAVEN AND HELL. I, for one would love to read more stories of the occult detective’s exploits.

-Colleen Wanglund

ZOMBIES AND SHIT by Carlton Mellick III (2010 Deadite Press / 233 pp / tp)

Twenty people wake up in unfamiliar surroundings. It turns out they’ve been abducted/chosen (depending how you look at it) to appear on a reality TV show called Zombie Survival, a brutal contest that’s the top rated show in a futuristic world overrun by the living dead. An Asian woman explains their predicament: they have three days to cross the Red Zone, a decayed city where zombies and robotic dogs stand in the way of a helicopter…a helicopter that will take only one person to safety. And while alliances are formed, each contestant knows this is to-the-death scenario.

The contestants have all come from a surviving city’s poorest Quadrant: in Mellick’s grim post-apocalyptic world, classes live in separated areas, but only those in the exclusive Platinum Quadrant have the benefit of television, where Zombie Survival is the top rated program.

While ZOMBIES AND SHIT is packed to the brim with off-the-wall violence, interesting weapons, action, and zombie attacks, it’s the contestants (many of them street punks) and their quirks/abilities that make this novel so much fun to read.

One thing I enjoy about Mellick’s story telling is I seriously doubt he could ever write a 100% “normal” horror novel…and that’s a compliment. He infuses just the right amount of his trademark weirdness to give ZOMBIES AND SHIT a different flavor than your typical end-of-the-world undead epic, my favorite being a black character named Laurence who turns out to be a cyborg version of a popular 1980s TV star.

A blend of the seldom-seen 1986 film DEAD END DRIVE-IN and BATTLE ROYALE, Mellick’s “thank you letter to the zombie genre” is a real wild ride that you don’t have to be a zombie fan to enjoy.

(Note: while ZOMBIES AND SHIT is a true, fresh spin on the subgenre, one grossly underrated novel took an amazing look at reality shows and zombies a few years earlier: check out Jason R. Hornsby’s EVERY SIGH, THE END (2006) if you enjoy Mellick’s novel).

THE HAUNTER OF THE THRESHOLD by Edward Lee (2010 Deadite Press / 292 pp / tp)

Okay, who set Edward Lee the dare of “oh yeah, well I bet you can’t fit ALL those fetishes, kinks, perversions and degredations into ONE book”? Whoever it was, I bet you’re sorry now … and dragged the rest of us right along with you!

The back cover promises that this is Lee’s ‘most pornographic novel to date’ and I for one am pretty much inclined to agree. The stuff that main character Hazel Greene gets off on might be enough to make almost anybody blanch. It’s eye-popping, jaw-dropping, leg-crossing, gag-inducing and downright vile … and that’s not even counting the scenes with Lovecraftian monstrosities.

Hazel’s also in love with her pregnant best friend, had a secret fling with said best friend’s fiance, just had a huge fight with her boyfriend when he screwed up his lines during her carefully scripted debasement fantasy, and is avoiding the dad who wishes she’d repent and return to the Church.

THEN she goes to spend a relaxing weekend at a cabin in a creepy little town where her first run-ins with the locals exceed even her imagination. Nightmares that would have sent most people gibbering to the psych ward leave her more turned on than ever. The vacation becomes immersion in a simmering cauldron of icky lust.

And the more Hazel tries to investigate her friend’s finace’s obsession with a colleague’s discoveries involving terrible destructive otherworldly forces, the deeper she gets drawn into the whole seething squirmy tentacly horror. Can she save her friend and her friend’s unborn baby? Can she save the world? Can she save herself? Does she really want to?

It is, basically, everything you might expect and dread rom Edward Lee at his full-throttle best. THE HAUNTER OF THE THRESHOLD will haunt you, as well as scar, traumatize and abuse.

Therefore, I highly recommend it to all bent weirdos like me … the rest of you, I can’t warn away strongly enough … so if you still go and read it, I’d say “sorry” but it might sound a bit like “neener neener muahaha” or “hey, I DID warn you!”

-Christine Morgan

SHADOWS OF THE PAST by Richard Schiver (Abis Books 2012/240 pgs./Tp)

Sam Hardin is a detective with the D.C. police department. He is also a man with some deep psychological scars. Sam’s pregnant wife Anne was killed and the baby, Frankie was born with brain damage from the bullet. Four years on and what’s left of his family is falling apart. Teenage daughter Cheryl fears her father’s temper, alcoholism, and the possibility of his suicide. Michelle, Anne’s best friend is the only person keeping it together.

Sam is temporarily brought out of the sorrow of his past by an unusual murder at a warehouse. The bodies are mutilated in such a way that no human could be responsible. Sam and his partner Dave are led to a professor of ancient history and a knife that may lie at the center of it all. The bodies continue to pile up and Sam is thrust into a fight for the very survival of the human race, a fight that his son Frankie seems to have some important part in.

I enjoyed reading SHADOWS OF THE PAST. The story is an engaging one that for the most part is well-written and suitably frightening. Character development is good and we are given enough of Sam’s past to pity him, while at the same time wanting to tell him to get it together already! That being said, I did have some issues with the book. I wanted more details about the knife and the site it was found at. There was a conversation that the knife and the civilization that made it were thousands of years older than humans. Who were they and why did they think they could take back the Earth? I also didn’t completely understand the significance of the knife. Was it the knife that brought the entity back or the finding of the site in Antarctica? I also thought the revelation of abuse in Michelle’s past seemed unimportant, and more of an afterthought to give her character more depth. There was also an issue with Cheryl and her possible involvement in a crime, but there was no real resolution to that.

The ending is a little predictable, but still very good and even after all of my bitching, it leaves things open a bit. Maybe there’s a sequel with more background of the evil entity? I would like reading more about this advanced civilization that disappeared and could supplant humans as the top dog on the food chain. Just a little more meat is all I ask. Overall SHADOWS OF THE PAST is a very good read and I do recommend it…I just wish it didn’t have all of the loose ends.

-Colleen Wanglund

BADASS ZOMBIE ROAD TRIP by Tonia Brown (2012 Books of the Dead Press / eBook)

Dale and Jonah are on their way to a gig in Nevada when Jonah decides he wants to check out California first. Dale is vehemently against this, saying he can’t cross into California. But once he falls asleep, Jonah drive to California anyway. This turns out to be the biggest mistake of Jonah’s life.

The minute they cross the state line, Dale wakes up and freaks out, begging Jonah to go back. While they are arguing about it, Jonah realizes there’s a cop pulling them over. Dale tells him to keep going, but Jonah knows he has to pull over.

The cop is actually Satan, who has come to collect Dale’s soul. Jonah doesn’t believe at first, then gradually has to admit that this is really happening. He also tries bargaining with Satan to save Dale, but Satan won’t have it. After much arguing, Satan kills Dale. Jonah is shocked and angry, leading to his own deal with Satan - he can have Dale’s soul back if he finds it in time. If not, Satan gets Jonah’s soul as well.

Then the devil reanimates Dale’s corpse, and sends the two on their way to find Dale’s soul before the seven-day time allotment is up. What follows is complete chaos and insanity as the two blunder their way across the country. Since Dale is now undead, he rots and stinks throughout the trip, much to Jonah’s dismay.

In addition, they pick up a hitchhiker, Candy, who turns out to be a stripper. She has her own problems, which end up being mixed up with Jonah’s.

BADASS ZOMBIE ROAD TRIP is a fun, exhilarating read. It’s laugh-out-loud funny at times, yet it still has a bit of a heart. How Jonah and Candy keep Dale from falling apart and stinking up the car is hilarious. The characters are likeable and the dialog believable.

Check out Badass Zombie Road Trip; you’ll be glad you did.

-Sheri White

THE CREATURE FROM BEYOND by Paul Braus (2011 River East Press / 228 pp / tp)

In this follow-up to THE CREATURE’S CURSE, Paul Braus continues the story of the creature created by the witchcraft of the mentally unstable Abigail. Samantha is a cousin of Abigail and is looking for the Sibber Medallion, which can only be used by the women of the Sibber family. The medallion is with Professor Peter Earnhardt, left with him by Oak Alderson of the Sheriff’s Department. Alderson was investigating the murders of two people at the old house where Abigail and Eldon Bailey were brutally murdered years before. Their teenage son Cordus disappeared and is believed to be responsible for his parents’ deaths.

This time the town’s mayor has allowed a television crew to film at the old house. It is a show about paranormal activity and the story of past murders has drawn the show’s creator to what he hopes is a haunted house. Unfortunately what they find is so much worse. Now Alderson has even more murders to solve, but he has an understanding of whom or what is responsible. With the help of the only survivor of the creature and Samantha, the case will eventually be closed and Alderson will have his answers.

As with the first novel, THE CREATURE FROM BEYOND is well-written and character development is excellent. Braus doesn’t assume that the reader has read THE CREATURE’S CURSE and gives enough detail to keep the reader engaged. I really like the supernatural element to Braus’ stories and the frightening nature of the creature. I also found myself sympathizing with the creature, as his predicament is a cruel punishment that he didn’t deserve. I highly recommend THE CREATURE FROM BEYOND but definitely read THE CREATURE’S CURSE for the full wild ride.

-Colleen Wanglund

GIGANTIC DEATH WORM by Vince Kramer (2011 Eraserhead Press / 70 pp / tp)

In yet another offering in Eraserhead Press' New Bizarro Author Series, don't expect a singular title monster: not only are there multiple death worms (of various sizes) on the loose in Arizona, there are also hungry bears who spit wolves, rampant brain parasites, and flying Mexican ninjas who aid our protagonist in battling the creatures and saving his big-boobed buddy Suzanne (who has become a worm-headed mutant). There's also more sex and beer-guzzling than in every 80s teenage comedy combined.

This is Kramer's take on the 2012 Mayan prophecy thing, written like a deranged pre-school teacher allowed her strangest student to experiment with a new form of liqud crack after handing out paper with neon crayons. If this brief novelette doesn't cause you to laugh 'till your ribs hurt, you're taking life too seriously.

Bizarro doesn't get much funnier (or entertaining) than this.

THE NIGHT ETERNAL by Guilllermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan (2011 William Morrow / 382 pp / available in all formats)

In the blockbuster finale to the vampire virus apocalypse begun in THE STRAIN and continued in THE FALL, it is definitely not looking good for humanity.

They’ve been toppled from their comfy spot at the top of the food chain, overwhelmed by a superior and infectious predator. Their environment has undergone a drastic change – two years of nuclear winter, lack of sunlight, the entire ecology and climate thrown for a loop.

What survivors there are exist mainly now as good little worker drones who may not exactly welcome their vampiric overlords but submit meekly to the new regime in exchange for the basics like food, stability, and occasional creature comforts. They’ll report suspicious activity and turn in their neighbors in hopes of garnering favor or reward. The infirm and useless are brutally culled. The leader-types are put down hard and fast as an example to others. Many of the healthy are kept in blood camps, the equivalent of factory farms, where they “donate” regularly. The choice blood-types are pampered and bred. Conservation, control, management and renewable resources, yo.

We might LIKE to think of ourselves as determined survivors and fighter-backers, but honestly, it’s all too easy to believe this is what would actually happen. Especially in America, where, let’s face it, we’re spoiled as hell. Deprivation, fear, struggle? Oh, we’d cave, we’d cave so fast …

Since the “okay” rageface guy image of capitulation and surrender does not make for good heroic storytelling, however, fortunately for us there’s still some pockets of resistance out there. Including the core characters from the previous books, or at least the ones who are among the living and uncorrupted.

They have one strange but powerful ally in the form of Mr. Quinlan, an anomaly among the vampires. They have one major Achilles’ Heel in the form of Zack Goodweather, son of former CDC threat team leader Dr. Ephram Goodweather, who’s being held hostage by the Master. They have a silver-edged book of ancient lore that could hold the key to the vampires’ undoing, and a backpack nuke just in case. And they keep being told they must have friends in high places to have made it this far, though it’s hard to believe as the personal losses continue to mount.

Awesome book, very satisfying finale to a very enjoyable trilogy. If a smidge too deus-ex-machina here and there, it’s largely forgiveable, and much less out of nowhere than events in other similar end-times epics I could name.

So, read it, it’s a good one! Vampires deserve to be scary again!

-Christine Morgan

HOW TO RECOGNIZE A DEMON HAS BECOME YOUR FRIEND by Linda Addison (2011 Necon eBooks / 112 pp / eBook and tp)

Addison's collection of poetry and short stories leans on the dark fantasy/horror side and is sprinkled generously with some nifty (and at times funny) sci-fi.

Among my favorite stories were 'The Power,' about two young girls learning how to use witchcraft via their grandmother in the wake of an attack from granny's old nemesis; 'Excerpts from the Unabridged Traveler's Guide as UFOs in Galaxy A.G.2' is a short but hysterical piece that gives light to some popular UFO myths; 'Just Passing Through' is a cleverly-written short that features a human communicating with a supernatural life form; 'Artificial Unintelligence,' another funny sci-fi romp told in humorous e-mails, and finally 'Boo,' a genuinely terrifying look at paranoia on Halloween night.

My favorite poems include 'Land Sharks,' an inventive and fun urban fantasy of sorts (and originally appeared in an issue of the famous Asimov's SF Magazine), 'Comic Cannibals,' 'Demon Dance,' and the title piece also display the author's skill at dark verse.

There are many more tales and poems here, and not a slow one in the bunch. This is a fine introduction to Addison's world and a trip well worth taking.

Smell Rating: 0

CLICKERS by J. F. Gonzalez and Mark WIlliams (2005 Hard Shell Word Factory / 268 PP / TP)

Lucky find at the used bookstore, the 2005 trade paperback edition, couldn’t pass it up after the buzz – well, after the clickzzz! – I’d become aware of over the years.

And, hey, freaky undersea monsters? I’m in! I love the ocean, but, only when seen from the top. Not a snorkeler. Not a diver. The sea still contains more bizarre undiscovered critters than we can shake a stick at, and, frankly, the idea of running into them gives me the willies. The idea of them strutting ashore to say howdy is bad … that they’d strut ashore in a voracious unstoppable swarm? Eek.

Needless to say, eek is what this book is all about. Strutting, clicking, pinchery, armor-plated eek with long jabby scorpion tails. If that’s not bad enough, toss in flesh-dissolving acid venom and we hit the escape velocity of EEK.

So here’s your basic picturesque New England town … quaint, quiet, peaceful. Until the crab-lobster-scorpion-things start scuttling out of the waves. BIG ones, too. The mutant older brother revenge version of all the crustaceans we’ve dunked into boiling water.

The first person to encounter one is author Rick Sycheck, the newcomer to town, before he even gets to town. Being a long-haired writer type, he’s already got a strike against him as far as the sheriff is concerned. Debuting with a car crash, and then claiming it was because he ran over something that looked like a giant crab?

Rick’s claim ends up vindicated – of course, in the way these things go! – when more of the crab-things appear. Before most of sleepy Phillipsport knows what hit it, the death toll is skyrocketing, the survivors are fighting for their lives, and … it’s about to get even worse.

The Clickers are just the first wave, so to speak. Something else dwells in the deeps, another species eager to follow their natural prey ashore and chow down on anything or anybody else that happens to get in their way.

It’s clicky-clacky good fun, if your idea of good fun consists of stings, severed limbs, melting body parts, engaging characters who are not safe from meeting hideous gory ends, desperate action, and monsters.

If your idea of good fun doesn’t consist of those things, well, really, what are you doing reading this in the first place?

As for me, now I need to track down the sequels!

-Christine Morgan

NOTE TO BOOK SUBMITTERS:

DON'T PANIC! We will get to your book...by the middle of February, we've been over-stuffed with review material. PLEASE be patient...we're only human.

(That said...next month expect a review of LORE, an anthology edited by Rod Heather and Sean O'Leary, as well as William Ollie's latest novel, PITCH...)

MAGAZINE update

2012-02-24T09:17:00.000-08:00

It's been a LONG TIME since we've had a horror fiction magazine update, and as some of you may know, reading through a copy of BLACK STATIC or CEMETERY DANCE can take almost as much time as getting through a small novel. Now let's get down to business...

I'm among the legion of fans who often complains about the long delays in-between issues of CEMETERY DANCE, but once again Richard Chizmar and co. have delivered not only an outstanding magazine, but their largest issue yet with no. 65.

Graham Masterton fans should have this on their must-read list as it includes a lengthy interview (conducted by J.A. Konrath) as well as two fantastic Masterton short stories, as well as two more non-fiction pieces.

This issue's other memorable fiction offerings include a heartbreaking urban terror tale from Maurice Broaddus, Lisa Tuttle takes a most unusual look at a relationship in 'Manskin, Womanskin,' and David Bells' 'The Book of the Dead,' features another relationship-themed story about a Japanese woman dealing with the death of her American husband (this may be of interest to fans of The Beatles---and no, the protagonist is not Yoko Ono!). Of the ten stories included here there wasn't a sour one in the batch.

The usual features include plenty of Stephen King info. in Bev Vincent's famous 'News from the Dead Zone' column, another great installment of Thomas Monteleone's 'The Mothers and Fathers Italian Associtiation,' plus plenty of interviews (including Ray Bradbury, Ellen Datlow, and Whitley Streiber) and another crop of book reviews that (somehow) seem more current than in past issues.

Order a copy at: CEMETERY DANCE Issue 65

The 25th issue of BLACK STATIC (Nov. 2011) kicks off with two nifty film columns, then Mike O'Driscoll takes a look at Justin Cronin's THE PASSAGE.

The fiction comes fast, dark, and heavy with Alison Littlewood's 'About the Dark,' a claustrophobic look at what befalls a few friends who investigate the legends of a a local cave. Latent Apprehension rules tenants during an apartment blackout in Christopher Fowler's 'The Curtain Parts,' and Ray Cluley's eerie 'The Travellers Stay' follows a family's experience at a run down motel. Barbara Barnett also delivers a (lengthy) winner, while Nathaniel Tapley's short 'Best Summer, Ever' is basically a humorous look at a business letter--perhaps a bit out of place in BLACK STATIC, but entertaining nonetheless.

Peter Tennant reviews several horror novels with a historical niche, than delivers an informative interview with author D.F. Lewis, then Tony Lee's boat-load of DVD reviews caps off another high-quality issue.

Order a copy here: BLACK STATIC Issue 25

In the 26th issue of BLACK STATIC (Dec 2011/Jan2012), the three opening comment columns are highlighted by Christopher Fowler's brief coverage of the 12th London Frightfest, as well as the latest British Fantasy Society Convention.

Among this issue's five fiction pieces, Gary McMahon's 'Remains,' stuck with me the longest, and will cause you to make sure your bones are in proper working order; Andrew Hook's 'Dizzy Land' tells the odd tale of Hunter, who is attempting to develop a park comprised of vintage carnival rides; and Ray Cluley (featured for the second issue in a row) strikes with 'I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing,' a rich, unique, haunting piece dealing with fisherman and writers.

Mark Rigney and Carole Johnstone deliver solid stories, although Johnstone's ending is quite depressing so be forewarned.

Peter Tennant focuses his book reviews on anthologies and collections before hitting stand-alone novels (there's quite a few covered here). And while I always look forward to Tony Lee's DVD reviews, this issue he was negative over every film covered (I'm assuming he just didn't get the twisted, comic-book like nature of HELLDRIVER?), but at least he praises the 10th season DVD collection of SMALLVILLE. (Wait--isn't BLACK STATIC supposed to be a horror magazine? I understand there's somewhat of an occultic theme in some episodes, but seriously---let's try to keep things away from super heroes (unless, of course, we're talking THE TOXIC AVENGER!).)

Fun stuff.

Order a copy here: BLACK STATIC Issue 26

FEBRUARY, 2012 REVIEWS

2012-01-31T21:07:00.000-08:00

FEBRUARY, 2012 REVIEWS

PREVIEW

CARNAGE ROAD by Gregory Lamberson (to be released April 3, 2012 by Print is Dead / 86 pp / tp and eBook)

Every time I say I’m tired of zombie stories, I seem to read one that proves the subgenre is simply here to stay. CARNAGE ROAD is a fine example of why: part EASY RIDER, part DAWN OF THE DEAD, this quick novella features two biker buddies, Boone and Walker, who decide to take a cross-country trek when the rest of their gang, the Floating Dragons, abandon their Buffalo, NY compound when a gang of rogue cops kill half their members. Boone always wanted to see Hollywood, and convinces Walker to go with him—Walker had recommended trying Canada, but the cold weather didn’t appeal to Boone.

The story wastes NO time getting to the undead action. Along the way our anti-heroes encounter both sane and insane religious zealots, manage to take in a movie at an abandoned Indiana theater, are arrested in Kansas by racist political extremists, all the while battling hordes of cannibalistic cadavers and burning rubber on their hogs. The boys also come across the most imaginative group of zombies I’ve read in some time at the foot of a twelve-story building. When they finally reach Hollywood there’s a hysterical scene where undead celebrities are spotted. When they realizing there’s just too many zombies around, they decide to head to Texas, where they join a group of survivors at the Alamo.

CARNAGE ROAD may be brief but it’s packed to the gills with brain-splattering zombie goodness, social commentary, a bleak apocalyptic ending, and good old-fashioned b-movie-style fun. Zombie fans will love it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE FALL by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan (2011 Harper Collins / 448 pp / mmp)

This second in the series definitely requires the reading familiarity of the first, but, given how rip-roaring a series it is, that shouldn’t be any sort of a hardship.

THE FALL picks up right after THE STRAIN, in a New York plunged into plague, riots, and chaos. The vampire virus has also begun overwhelming several other cities and the world is well on its way to total pandemic.

By now, the truth is hard to deny, but vindication isn’t a whole lot of comfort to those who’d been trying to warn the authorities since the beginning. The changed hosts of the deadly blood-worms are driven by their hunger, obedience to their vampiric lord known as the Master, and the intense urge to find and bind their loved ones into the same hideous fate.

One small group is led by an aged pawnbroker/scholar who’s dedicated his life to tracking the Master, and by a discredited CDC expert who’s lost his wife and must now protect their son from the hungry fate worse than death. Another is made up of former gangers turned resistance fighters (plus one retired luchadore, my personal favorite character in these books, edging out the exterminator), assisted by a lefthanded alliance of other vampires who oppose the Master’s goals.

On the other side, of course, is the Master himself, and his ever-growing legions. He’s also got the support of a very old, very sick, very rich man whose intention is to barter his financial and political power in exchange for the bite, the transformation, and eternal life.

The writing is as tight and top-notch as ever. There’s no mid-trilogy slump, but the quivering suspense of being in the middle of a long scary bridge … too far to turn back, so you’ve got to keep going.

What I do know is I’m very glad I got this one so soon after reading the first, and that I got the third at the same time so it is coming up next in line.

-Christine Morgan

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

LOST HOMICIDAL MANIAC (ANSWERS TO "SHIRLEY") by Jeff Strand (2011 / 175 pp / eBook)

The long-awaited 4th novel in Strand's Andrew Mayhem series finds Mayhem and his wife receiving news that they're about to become parents for the third time...only with triplets! His partner Roger is finally thinking of proposing to his girlfriend on the day the bumbling duo open their own business, 'A/R Tasks & Investigations.' That's right folks: Andrew and Roger have now gone legit in the attempt to officially try to help people who need their unusual problems solved.

The first day in the new office is slow, so the boys reluctantly take on an unrelated odd job to get the cash flow started. Tired, and just before they close for the day, a woman comes in seeking their help. She claims that she might be a serial killer, and convinces Andrew and Roger to take her case. They follow her to an abandoned house where she thinks--in her blacked-out states--she has killed people and buried their body parts. Not wanting to run away if she snaps, she also convinces Andrew to handcuff himself to her as Roger begins digging under the floor boards.

From this point, it doesn't take long for the mayhem to get going.. LOST HOMICIDAL MANIAC then goes into a relentless, slapstick pace full of goons, killers, over-the-top violence, Strand's trademark sarcasm, and plenty of laughs. One scene involving an old woman, a car chase, and hundreds of bullets had me in stitches (anyone who has read a Strand novel knows he has a way of making you laugh at the sickest, most insane things imaginable). There's also a cameo that hardcore Mayhem fans will get a real kick out of.

Fans of the series will love seeing the boys back in action, as well as an old foe return for revenge. Here's hoping we don't have to wait seven more years until the fifth adventure...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DEAD IN THE TRUNK by Craig Saunders (2011 Amazon Digital Services / eBook)

DEAD IN THE TRUNK is a collection of sixteen short stories by Craig Saunders. I discovered the author when I read his story “The Scarecrow” in the double novella The Scarecrow and The Madness (written by Robert Essig). I was very impressed with “The Scarecrow” so I was pleased when I found out he had a collection out.

The first story, “Mudman,” leads you to believe you know the ending of the story, but instead shocks you. It’s a great tale of love and betrayal that will creep you out as you read.

“Grass Can Be Weeds, Too” gently leads you through the story, making you uneasy as you read. A big storm is the perfect backdrop for the horror that is eventually shown to us. And while the ending is a little telegraphed, you will still enjoy it and maybe even think it’s perfect.

After reading “The Monkey’s Sandwich,” you might not want to eat biscuits again, just like Bill, who tells the story. It reminded me a bit of the recent “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” and was just as exciting. I’ve always had an aversion to monkeys, and thanks to both this story and the movie, I now have a bit of a fear of them as well.

“Fake Plastic” is a fun revenge story, but it’s not an ordinary revenge story. A doctor pays for his malpractice with something other than money. A patient’s sister isn’t happy with the care the good doctor provided for the sister, so she does something about it. A little gruesome, but still fun to read.

Each story in this collection is just as good as the one before it. Craig Saunders has proven himself a writer to watch.

-Sheri White

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

MANGLED MEAT and CARNAL SURGERY by Edward Lee (both titles 2011 Deadite Press / tp)

I’m not sure how many times or how many ways I can say that Ed Lee stories are the squickety-squickest of the Squicky McSquickerson squickfests, but … well, they ARE!

Just so nasty, so gross, so disturbing, so eew with a capital EEW!!! Nothing is sacred, nothing is safe, there’s no far that’s too far! If you can imagine an atrocity, he’s probably already written it. If you can’t, he’s probably written that, too. In excruciating, vivid, unforgettable detail.

And oh, I do love it!

The latest two of Lee’s gory goodies from Deadite to land in my lap,MANGLED MEAT and CARNAL SURGERY, do not disappoint in living up to reputation and expectations.

MANGLED MEAT contains three short works. The first, and least squicktastic, of the bunch is “The Decortication Technician.” It’s a sci-fi piece that admirably showcases the author’s genius and vocabulary, loading up the futuristic jargon in ways that still come across as clear and understandable even to the non-tech-savvy reader such as myself. Decortication, by the way, is the process of cutting the shell, carapace, or exoskeleton off of something. Like an insect. Or a big chitinous alien bug. This particular technician of it is part of the science team on an exploration vessel, and when their explorations turn up a mysterious, sealed spacecraft, the job defaults to him of getting the thing open to see what’s inside.

The second story’s word-for-the-day features in “The Cyesolagniac,” which is a term having to do with the fetishization of pregnant women. You might think you can guess where this one’s going, and, you’re on the right track … a man with that obsession finds and hires a very pregnant hooker … only to find the tables getting turned on him in some especially nasty ways. Does he deserve it? I’m still not sure.

It’s the last, and innocuously-titled “Room 415” that most reduced my psyche to a gibbering ball curled up in the corner of my skull. If I did kind of want to feel sorry for the guy in the last story, I had no such sympathies for the guys in this one. An electronics rep in town for a convention, struggling with sexual dysfunction after a bitter divorce, happens to witness a scene of violence and brutality from his hotel room window … and discovers that it turns him on. After that, it gets really appalling.

CARNAL SURGERY consists of eleven tales … it starts off with “The Seeker,” in which ultimate truth turns out to not be a good thing to go looking for after all. “Please Let Me Out” is disturbingly sexy or sexily disturbing, depending on your POV. I enjoyed the ugly pressure-cooker microcosm social dynamics of “The Order of Nature,” and the creepy bigger-picture themes of “Goddess of the New Dark Age.”

“Hands,” the longest piece in the book, is a nifty psych thriller that was my favorite of the bunch, and is followed by the wafer-thin mint of the four-page “The Table” as a very tasty little aperitif. “Death, She Said” revisits the dark, creepy, haunty and ultimate truth issues touched on in a couple of the earlier stories. “Gut-Shot” is a gritty and effecctively done second-person cop drama.

“The Piece of Paper” and “Make A Wish” are more of Lee’s set-in-Seattle homeless yarns that, given where I work and the population I work with, totally hit the verisimilitude nerve dead on. And “The Blurred Room,” (a version of which appeared as “I.C.U.” in another anthology) is vindictively satisfying.

All in all, good stuff, lots of good good stuff in a bad bad way … just how I like it!

-Christine Morgan

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A HOLLOW CUBE IS A LONELY SPACE by S.D. Foster (2011 Eraserhead Press / 91 pp / tp)

Yet another offering from Eraserhead's 'New Bizarro Author Series,' this time introducing the world to UK writer S.D. Foster with 23 short-short stories, most having a fairy tale feel.

Among my favorites are 'Matilda Goes Shopping,' about a robe-wearing woman who takes care of her obese brother. Her life is drastically changed when she's raped by a supermarket (yes...a supermarket); 'Slothra,' the sad tale of a has-been Kaiju star; 'Silk Flower,' a bizarro take on Pinocchio with an oddly touching conclusion, and finally, 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Chip,' where we meet a singing primate who learns he can't pay the rent in bananas.

While a couple of stories are truly head-scratching, most of A HOLLOW CUBE is accessible without sacrificing the bizarro element.

A decent and imaginative first collection. I'd like to see a novella or novel from Foster.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DESIREE by Ken Goldman (2010 Damnation Books / 101 pp / tp and eBook)

Beautiful Desiree has an odd problem: whenever she kisses someone, they become infatuated with her and eventually commit suicide. Her first victim is a young boy named Tommy who killed himself shortly after kissing her during a game of spin the bottle at a party. Tommy's sister, Tamara, keeps her eye on Desiree over the years, discovering other men have met the same fate as her brother.

Goldman's novella bounces around time-wise and can easily be read in one sitting. Although the author never clearly explains exactly WHY Desiree's mother's breast milk has given her this strange ability, it gives the story a nice mystery as we're never sure if Desiree is completely aware of what she's doing. And despite the nifty ending, I found myself confused on a few occassions, but not to the point I was lost.

DESIREE is an interesting erotic thriller with a latent supernatural leaning that's definitely worth a look.

Smell Rating: 1

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DEVIL BAT DIARY by Peter H. Brothers (2011 / 221 pp / tp)

This mock journal tells the "true" story of what happened in a small American town during the summer of 1939. The 1940 Bela Lugosi film THE DEVIL BAT was a watered-down version of these events, giving this book a "found footage" type of feel.

Chicago newspaper reporter Johnny Layton is sent to the small town of Heathville to get the scoop on the death of Ray Heath, an heir to a multi-million dollar cosmetics company. Johnny is partnered with ace photographer "One Shot" McGuire, a "big-mouthed weasel" who Johnny can't stand.

It turns out someone is trying to kill off the Heath and Morton families with large killer bats. The two clans are co-owners of the company, and Johnny Layton eventually discovers the bats attack those who wear a particular new brand of the companies' skin lotion.

Lugosi's character from the film, Mr. Carruthers, is here portrayed in a similar fashion, but some revelations on the "real" nature of other DEVIL BAT characters are quite funny.

DEVIL BAT DIARY is interesting for fans of the classic Lugosi film, but those not familiar with the source material might be put off by some of the goofy-sounding dialogue and an abundance of distracting slang (McGuire, Carruthers, and a local sheriff speak in heavy accents which the author spells out phonetically, which at times makes the prose a chore to sift through).

Flawed, but fun stuff for fans of classic monster movie fiction.

Smell Rating: 1

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

PLEASE DON'T GO by Eric Dimbleby (2011 Pill Hill Press / 277 pp / tp)

Zephyr is a young grocery store clerk, dealing with the typical ups and downs of college life. He's also planning on proposing to his girlfriend Jackie, both of them English majors. One day he is assigned to deliver groceries to an old man who lives in an isolated house. Charles Rattup turns out to be a writer who was once published in a classic anthology, quickly earning Zephyr's respect. Charlie invites him to come back again, and the two develop a friendship built around literature and movies.

But Charlie begins to act strange, talking to an unseen presence, causing Zephyr to doubt the man's sanity. But by the time he finds out Charlie isn't crazy, it's too late for Zephyr, as he is now held hostage by a sexually-charged entity that may or may not be the legendary Lillth, a demon common to many culture's folklore.

PLEASE DON'T GO is a clever take on ghosts, possession, and succubbi. Dimbleby gives this one a truly unique flavor, along with a cast you'll care about and plenty of scenes filled with tension and dread. The spirit controling Zephyr's life is as cunning as it is evil, slick as it is violent. I was reminded of the film THE ENTITY only with a more brutal demon at play, as the torture she puts Zephyr through will get anyone's skin crawling.

This study of a man's desire to survive in the face of total hopelessness is also a genuine genre spook-fest, delivering the goods and concluding with a bit of a twist (and increasingly dreadful) finale. Great stuff.

Smell Rating: 2

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

HISSERS by Ryan C. Thomas (2011 Permuted Press / 254 pp / tp)

Four troubled teens … two girls and two boys … on the eve of beginning their high-school years … each with their own troubles and fears about the future, bullies and peer pressure, parents and growing up … the trashy chick and the fat video game geek, the all-around good guy and the shy one with the dark secret … it’s the perfect setup for a classic coming-of-age tale …

And BLAM, a plane crashes smack into the middle of town, spraying debris and burning jet fuel everywhere! It’s disaster, it’s carnage, but that is still only the beginning because the mangled ruins of charred and bloodied corpses GET UP and go running around on a contagious chompy RAMPAGE!!! Infection and horrific mutations ensue!

Basically, things start off kind of slow and normal, and then there’s a high-speed plunge into nonstop action and terror, with no reprieve and no turning back. Very much the rollercoaster … chugga-chugga up the slope, reach the crest, and AAAAAHHH screaming dives and hard cranking turns and violent bumps all the way to the end.

Glorious chaos and gore engulf everything as the four teens scramble to survive, to search for their families, and to try and figure out what in the hell happened. I’ve noticed how a lot of authors seem to have trouble writing kid and teen characters; these all rung to me very genuine (speaking as the parent of a teen). Their dialogue, their side-concerns and distractions, their behaviors … excellently handed, quite well done.

Un-put-down-able, exciting, gruesome, tragic and thrilling. Thumbs up! Whole clusters of undead mutant thumbs!

-Christine Morgan

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE CRUD MASTERS by Justin Grimbol (2011 Eraserhead Press / 81 pp / tp)

Eraserhead Press continues their 'New Author Bizarro Series' with this ode to gang novels and giant monster movies.

Boogers is a member of the Crud Masters, a group of outcasts who live on Shelter Island. Among their colorful members are Snuggles (a beefy guy who likes to hug people) and Pussy Bear, a rich woman who spent all her money to make herself look like a bear. With boobs.

Shelter Island also has a heavy army presence: it seems giant sea monsters (called Dagoons) keep coming ashore and causing trouble, the military doing what they can to control them. Rival gang 'NOLA' (comprised of the island's rich kids) becomes unstoppable when one of their members reveals his van can turn into 'Swagatron,' a giant robot. The Crud Masters plan a way to compete, and manage to trap and train one of the Dagoons, leading to a showdown between robot and monster.

With cyborg threesomes, rampaging monsters, animal attacks, and plenty of laughs, THE CRUD MASTERS is a wickedly fun novella, featuring simplistic prose that reads like a YA author on crack.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE HOMOPHOBES by Robert Devereux (2011 Deadite Press / 316 pp / tp)

If I had to name one downside to SANTA STEPS OUT (the previous book in this series), it’d be that the polyamory message maybe sometimes seemed a little heavy-handed and condescending, a bit pushy and preachy. Not so much a “to each their own, mutual respect and understanding” as a “poly’s THE only right and natural way to be and anyone else is pathetic!” Which seems kind of meta-contrary.

In this one, there’s no maybe-sometimes about it … the message clubs you over the head right from the title and keeps on clubbing all the way through. This is a “homophobia is BAD!” lecture, and as such, it suffers from a fairly basic problem: the people who most need to get clubbed over the head with that message aren’t the ones who’d be reading the book, while the ones who already KNOW that are liable to find it both frustrating and tedious to be clubbed over the head with it that much. I was reminded of, for example, panels on sexism and harassment at gaming cons, where the creeps who could benefit aren’t going to attend, or even think they need to attend. And whoever does go to such a panel is already going to be aware and conscientious of the issue.

SANTA CONQUERS THE HOMOPHOBES picks up shortly after SANTA STEPS OUT, where domestic harmony at the North Pole is disturbed when Santa’s little stepdaughter and assistant Wendy – whose task is to select a few good children each year and give them encouraging visions of their future – gets upset by what her premonitions show. One of her chosen few is destined to commit suicide after growing up tormented by intolerant parents, preachers, and bullies. Wendy asks Santa to fix it, and Santa, who dotes on her, agrees.

He soon realizes he’s in way over his head, not to mention that he’s stepped outside the bounds of his office, and has to request help from higher in the heavenly heirarchy (the further exploration of the reinvented myths here made even me a smidge uncomfortable and I don’t consider myself religious … I’m not at all sure how it’d go over with someone who does).

So, permission is granted to try and change the hearts/minds of four people most pivotal in the child’s life, and Santa’s sleigh ride becomes a Fantasy Island guilt trip in the best Ghost-of-Christmas-Future sense.

Or maybe I just don’t “get” it and am being cynical because I was hoping for another gore-slathered sexromp …

The gore-slathered sexromps are, sadly, not to be found here. More like gore-slathered gore, especially because once the Tooth Fairy finds out what Santa’s up to, she’s more determined than ever to punish the jolly ol’ elf and his happy family. She’s lost her Easter ally but has a brood of nasty imps to do her bidding.

Meanwhile, at Santa’s workshop, there’s a parallel example of intolerance and hypocrisy in action, when one of the elves goes on an anti-nosepicking crusade. Anyone who starts their own personal inner countdown clock whenever some politician, celebrity, evangelist or other public figure mounts the outspoken moral high horse will know how that’s gonna go. “Cue humongous scandal exposee in 3, 2, 1 …”

I also couldn’t help finding this one fairly heavily USA-centric in terms of the calendar … the whole world doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but when one of the landmark dates set for Santa’s goal involves Thanksgiving, well …

All in all, I guess I found this one a considerable letdown after its predecessor. But the characters are fun, the imagination remains nicely twisted, and I’d certainly be eager to read a third volume!

-Christine Morgan

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

STEAMY SCREAMS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF EROTIC HORROR edited by Jack Burton (2011 Blood Bound Books / 166 pp / tp)

Woohoo! Smut! Twenty-one quickie short stories of it, a surprise goodie grab bag with enough assortment and variety to have something for almost everyone. Provided you like smut, surprises, and having your goodies grabbed.

Be it people, places, or things … living or dead … natural and supernatural … solos, pairings, groups, combos … happy endings, tragic endings, gruesome endings … romance and raunch, kindness and kink … temptation, tradition and taboo … there are of course countless ways to get busy, and plenty of them are featured in this book.

Among those I liked the best were Tonia Brown’s “Dirty Little Fish Story” (the one that got away? you should BE so lucky!), “The Libidonomicon” by Gregory L. Norris (quite lives up to the promise of the title!), M.P. Johnson’s “Killer Nails” (giving whole new meanings to the term ‘hand job’), “The Club” by Brad Hunter (a cautionary tale of the lines between fantasy and reality), Larissa Alloway’s “Phantom Deposit” (short and sweet paranormal romance), and “A Witch to Live” by James Beamon (decidedly wicked!)

If some of the others didn’t do much for me in either the scary or sexy department, well, that’s the great thing about anthologies like this … another story will be along in just a couple pages.

You’ll also find fairy tales retold, revenge tales that would be right at home in the horror comics, some werewolves and vampires and creatures beyond classification, and more. A little bit of everything adds up to a satisfying bundle. If horrorsmut is your thing, this one’s worth a look.

-Christine Morgan

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

D.O.A: EXTREME HORROR ANTHOLOGY edited by David C. Hayes and Jack Burton (2011 Blood Bound Books / 321 pp / tp)

D.O.A: EXTREME HORROR ANTHOLOGY is a collection of twenty-nine short stories and they are extreme and disturbing.

Among my favorites are the very disturbing “The Boogieman’s Key” by Calie Voorhis about a man using a special key to enter the dreams of his foster daughter to sexually abuse her, however Melissa learns from therapy that she is stronger than he is; “Digital Media” by Michael Cieslak about a man who is tortured and murdered because he won a contest on a website frequented by sexual deviants, and this one has a creepy twist; “Sickened” by Tonia Brown about a town’s sin eater who is made extremely sick by the sins he consumed of a pedophile; and “Cold Air” by Edward R. Rosick about a couple going through medical school when one discovers that she can capture the essence of life and the soul through necrophilia.

Other fantastic stories include “Plague Hulk” by Glynn Barrass about a plague ship boarded by thieves in the hopes of robbing the dead but the thieves don’t make it very far; “Go to Your Room” by Shane McKenzie about what happens to three thugs who try to rob an old man rumored to practice voodoo; “Sisters” by Chris Reed about a very odd sexual experience between a man and a woman with two very strange sisters; and one that really horrified me, “Cena” by Chad McKee about a young man who inadvertently gets caught up in a dog fighting ring.

With most anthologies and collections the stories can run the gamut from great, to good, to not so good. That’s not the case with D.O.A. Some stories I liked better than others but I liked every story in the anthology. I love extreme horror and this collection is definitely extreme. D.O.A. would make a nice addition to any horror fan’s bookshelf.

-Colleen Wanglund

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DYING DAYS by Armand Rosamilia (2011 Rymfire Books / eBook)

Darlene is trying to survive in a world ravaged by zombies. She has made her way to northern Florida in the hopes of finding other survivors. What she finds is an outpost of survivors, a kind of early warning system for the city of St. Augustine, which is alive and well.

While with this group of survivors, Darlene learns that there are cities all over the country—the world—that have managed to rebuild in the wake of the apocalypse, including her hometown, which she left after losing everything. Now she is helping to locate a large group of refugees from Orlando, which has not fared so well. Unfortunately when Darlene and her fellow guides find the refugees, they get a lot more than they bargained for.

With an apocalyptic story that began in HIGHWAY TO HELL and the short story “Rear Guard”, Armand Rosamilia continues the trials of his characters in a world overrun with zombies that are not only hungry, but horny too. Rosamilia’s take on zombies is definitely unique and that makes his stories stand out from the rest of the pack. Well-rounded characters and fast-paced action are abundant here. There is also a bonus short story called “Sons of the New Patriots” which gives a clue to what happened to the refugees making their way from Orlando to St. Augustine. I love the way Rosamilia’s zombie apocalypse novellas and short stories weave together. You don’t necessarily have to read HIGHWAY TO HELL before reading DYING DAYS, but I strongly recommend it. They really are more fun that way.

-Colleen Wanglund

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE DAILY DEATH: HOW I KILLED MY CO-WORKERS ON 30 DAYS by Thomas Scopel (2012 CreateSpace / 118 pp / tp and eBook)

This is a collection of short stories, but with a bit of a twist - it’s a themed collection. The author had the audacity to kill his coworkers, using no weapons except his pen. There are no peaceful deaths here; each person leaves this world in gruesome and strange ways. The author narrates the beginning of each story, becoming kind of a twisted Rod Serling foreshadowing the events to follow.

This is a “Faces of Death,” literary style instead of on the screen. Which might be worse, because what we imagine in our minds is usually far worse than what is being portrayed by actors and fake blood. Most of the stories aren’t supernatural, either - they can accidentally happen. Some of the deaths are a little exaggerated; similar to the crazy deaths in the “Final Destination” series. In other words, gross and squishy, but lots of fun.

Since the stories are so short, and each death is very specific, I will just let a few of the ways people are killed off rather than review each story.

You’ve got the badass who refuses to wear a helmet and pays the price. If you’re afraid of the ocean, your fears will be confirmed in this book. Nothing is sacred, not even the Great American Pastime. Stephen King knew that machines could be scary. And so does Thomas Scopel, who gleefully describes an unfortunate accident. Carnivals and circuses are a little on the creepy side anyway, made more so throughout the book. Even reading isn’t safe.

This book isn’t for anybody who takes such stories seriously. I mean, if the first story offends you, there’s no need to go on. Death wins every time and in deliciously twisted ways. But if you have that little something inside you that gleefully reads the “Darwin Awards,” you will absolutely love this collection.

-Sheri White

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

FIRST CUT: AN ANTHOLOGY OF FAST-PACED FICTION edited by Heather Wildman (2011 Paper Cut Publishing . 100 pp / tp)

FIRST CUT: AN ANTHOLOGY OF FAST-PACED FICTION is a collection of eight short stories that cover a range of subjects, including aliens, vampires, fate, and insanity.

My favorite story is “Unknown Number” by Mark Allan Gunnells about some weird text messages Ethan receives while waiting to meet his partner Roger. The sadist sending the texts seems to be watching Ethan and knows that Roger is late…and why. Ethan disappears and six months later Roger begins getting text messages from a stranger. This is a very creepy story and a good reason for why you should never answer a call or text from an unknown number.

Other good stories include “Suicide Mission” by David Perlmutter about a very odd seven-year-old terrorist who may have built the perfect bomb; “Throwing Darts” by Gary J. Beharry about how fate intervenes in the life of a man who suddenly finds his life spiraling out of control; and “Station Six” by David Martinez about a man who meets his ideal woman through an internet dating site.

All of the stories were pretty good but I found the book as a whole was average. However, don’t write it off. They are all well-written and Ms. Wildman’s editing is top notch. I personally prefer something a bit more extreme but if that’s not your bag then FIRST CUT is a good book to pick up.

-Colleen Wanglund

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

REVIVE by Thomas James Brown (2011 Lulu Publishers / 200 pp / tp)

It is Christmas time and the holiday rush is on. Phil lost his construction job and is trying to support his wife and kids as a department store Santa. He is miserable and worried his wife will find out. Looking for a quiet place to relax and have some coffee, Phil has stumbled upon an out-of-the-way coffee shop called Revive. Phil has also recently been spooked by some very scary hallucinations while at work—those of an emaciated young girl.

Tammy is hoping to help support her sick mother and two younger brothers as well as try to make a nice Christmas for them. Getting a job at Revive, she is surprised the place can make any money. It seems as though the only people ever in the coffee shop are a handful of withered old regulars. What Tammy doesn’t know is that in an attempt to save the family business, Norman has changed his coffee supplier to someone cheaper. Rhonda seems to be the only one who can sense that something isn’t quite right, although Tammy has begun to see things that shouldn’t be there.

Christmas Eve and just hours before midnight the regulars have gathered at Revive for their usual coffees and snacks. Something was not right with the newer coffee beans and tonight Tammy, Phil and the regulars of Revive will find out too late what drinking the coffee has done.

At its core REVIVE is a zombie story with a very unique means of infection. It is deliberately paced and subtle in its delivery but when the story reaches its climax it hits quick and hard. Both Tammy and Phil are good people down on their luck and just trying to get through the holiday season. They each have their issues but in the grand scheme of things, it all really just comes down to survival. All of the characters are well developed and most are likeable and sympathetic. I loved how the story kept me reading and wondering what was going to finally happen. In the end Revive delivers the goods with while not a totally unexpected ending, certainly an interesting one. Thomas James Brown has added a subtlety to zombies that I really enjoyed.

-Colleen Wanglund

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

UNDEAD NOCTURNE: EVEN DEAD MEN DIE by William Todd Rose (2011 Smashwords 2011 / 26 pp / eBook)

Maxwell Lazlow is a private investigator in the corrupt town of Beat City. He is looking for a missing woman named Ginger, who also happens to be his sister. He has followed Demetrius Sloan, the man Ginger worked for, to the docks late one night. Sloan, the biggest crime lord in the city is waiting for a cargo ship from Thailand.

Sloan’s men discover Max and just when it looks like Max’s life is going to end, the cargo ship crashes into the docks and the crew leap overboard, attacking Sloan’s men. Max gets away and with the help of a good cop finds Sloan’s warehouse. Max discovers the cargo and is horrified by what he sees. What does Sloan have planned for his unique and deadly cargo? Will Max survive long enough to find out?

The first in a planned series, UNDEAD NOCTURNE is a well-written novella with engaging characters and a nicely paced story. Max Lazlow is a likeable character and Sloan is a real bastard who you will love to hate. Even though UNDEAD NOCTURNE is about the zombie apocalypse, it has a great noir feel to it. It’s a quick read, mostly because I couldn’t put it down. I love zombies and William Todd Rose always writes them very well.

-Colleen Wanglund

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

EVE HALLOWS AND THE BOOK OF SHRIEKS by Robert Gray (2011 CreateSpace / 252 pp / tp & eBook)

Not only is this one of THE best-looking self-published books I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing – excellent cover, excellent layout, clean and crisp appearance, professional; I had a hard time believing it WAS a self-pub, had to check and re-check to make sure I wasn’t just missing the company logo somehow – it’s also one of THE most enjoyable reads of what’s been an enjoyable-reads month!

In a very, very different way, of course … in a TBR pile of hardcore horror, gore, and porn, suddenly I’m reading a delightful and quirky YA/kid’s book! One that is as fun, engaging, spooky-charming and all-around awesome as can be.

Eve Hallows is an ordinary fourteen-year-old girl, or, as ordinary as a fourteen-year-old girl can be when you’re the only human in Gravesville, the dark monster-world where horrible means wonderful, and adorable means awful beyond belief. With a shapeshifter dad, a vampire grandma and werewolf grandpa, a snake-haired Gorgon for a mom and a ghoul for a little brother, and a creepy haunted castle to call home. Sure, Eve often feels disappointed and left out by being so un-monster-y, but she’s happy with her horrible, horrible life.

Then it all goes wrong. The inhabitants of Gravesville are in danger, threatened by a mysterious organization known as The Source. Someone needs to go undercover and try to find out what’s going on, and Eve’s dad is the monster for the job.

Any teenager could tell you how much they hate having to move, to leave their friends, and start over at a new school with a bunch of strangers … but Eve and her family are relocating to the human world! It’s a definite fate worse than death, undeath, or anything else. They’ll have a normal human house, interact daily (DAILY, as in, when there’s SUNSHINE) with normal humans, operate a normal human pizza parlor, and Eve will have to go to normal human high school!

Of course, that’s just the beginning of Eve’s troubles. Not only does she have mocking mean girls and a cute boy crush to deal with, not only is the principal a Halloween-hating grump, she soon finds herself caught in the middle of The Source’s plot. It could be up to Eve and her handful of misfit friends to save the day for humans and monsters alike!

So, move over, Neil Gaiman’sCORALINE and THE GRAVEYARD BOOK … make room, Lemony Snicket’s A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS … you’ve got company and competition for shelf space!

-Christine Morgan

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE MILL by Mark West (2011 Greyhart Press / 39 pp / eBook chapbook)

West's chapbook deals with a group of people who meet to counsel each other over the recent loss of a loved ones. When Michael's wife Nicola succumbs to breast cancer, he begins having strange dreams that a counselor had warned him about. He soon discovers that Saskia (another recent widow) has been having similar dreams about a local place where an old mill once stood.

THE MILL is a depressing yet eerie ghost story featuring some sharp writing and a dark yet comforting ending. Fans of Gary A. Braunbeck will eat this up.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

NEXT MONTH:

Jessie Shimmer returns in Lucy A. Snyder's SWITCHBLADE GODDESS, Linda Addison's HOW TO RECOGNIZE A DEMON HAS BECOME YOUR FRIEND, William Ollie's PITCH, and many more...

JANUARY, 2012 REVIEWS

2011-12-30T19:11:00.000-08:00

JANUARY, 2012 REVIEWS

MAL CONTENTS (v/a) (2011 Grand Mal Press / 189 pp / tp)

This collection of four novellas begins with Randy Chandler's HOWLER, about a hairy girl (nick-named Wolf Girl) who leaves a brothel to work as a circus side-show freak. She becomes close with a pair of Jewish performers until a gang of redneck Nazis attack, all the while being mentally tormented by a strange, squid-like creature. It's a violent, heart-breaking tale that gets things off to a great start.

Next up is THE MUSHROOMS by Gregory L. Norris, where TV cooking show host Sunny Weir is assaulted by a would-be chef who failed to make it onto a competition program. When Sunny goes to an isolated house to relax and heal from her injuries, her assailant takes revenge in a supernatural way. Norris gets the chills going and (amazingly) manages to make a mushroom-creature anything but campy.

My favorite of the bunch is Ryan C. Thomas' CHOOSE, about a computer store owner who is almost killed when someone enters his store and puts a gun to his temple, claiming he has made his life a living hell. But instead of shooting, the mysterious gunmen gives him a choice: by midnight this night, he must shoot and kill either his wife or teenage daughter, or he'll kill all three of them. A cop sent to protect the family is quickly dispatched, and despite hiding in another town there seems to be no escape from this otherwordly psycho. Thomas' tale is tight, full of nail-biting suspense and is one of the darker short stories I've read this year.

Ending things is David T. Wilbanks' THE OUTSIDER TRIO. After two years, a man returns to proclaim his love for his girlfriend only to find she has been missing for six months. Malcom learns Violet (a professional violinist) has been kidnapped by some kind of cult-like musician, and with the help of an occult practicioner, manages to track her down, being held prisoner in another dimension. TRIO features some dark humor and all kinds of weird monsters, making for a fun way to wrap up a satisfying collection.

Smell Rating: 2

A PACK OF WOLVES by Eric S. Brown (2011 Grand Mal Press / Kindle Edition 176 KB)

A family is reunited and on a mission. Graham, Zed, Yule, Sarah and Shannon are looking for their brother Samuel who is trying to raise an army. This is no ordinary family. They are a pack of werewolves—pure blooded. Samuel has a very deep hatred of humans since witnessing his parents’ murder when just a boy. That hatred has led him to seek out dark magic and a very powerful spirit that will allow Samuel to enact his revenge.

Samuel is making his way across America’s Western frontier, slaughtering most and creating his army out of the strongest humans he comes across. They are called the Created and they are inferior to the pure werewolves. Samuel also has the help of a mysterious man dressed in white with the voice of an angel. The family is on his trail…but can they stop Samuel before his plans reach fruition?

Set in the American Old West, A PACK OF WOLVES is a fast-paced, action-packed novella full of memorable characters. Eric S. Brown has differentiated between pure werewolves and those created by accident or happenstance, endowing each family/pack member with a different strength, besides the obvious. Character development is excellent and the story contains a few surprises, some that will be recognizable to regular readers of Brown’s work. The prose is tight and flows easily and Brown keeps things unpredictable, which is a huge plus in my book.

Having already helped redefine the zombie sub-genre, Eric S. Brown continues to push the boundaries of the horror genre. Brown has revitalized zombies, Bigfoot and aliens, and now seems to be expanding on the phenomenon of Western horror. A PACK OF WOLVES is a must-get for any horror fan’s collection.

-Colleen Wanglund

NORTHWOODS DEEP by Joel Arnold (2011 Studio City Media Endeavors / 374 pp / tp)

Books like this are a big part of why I’ll never be the outdoorsy type.

Isn’t that enough, without also having to hike, camp, canoe, or otherwise endure the miseries of blisters, mosquitos and lack of indoor potties before you even GET to the REALLY bad parts? Like, hey, having a miserable time yet? Let’s make it WORSE!!!

Let’s bring on a spooky little cabin in the middle of nowhere, some creepy psychos, demonic dogs, mutilations, murders, unspeakable violations …

Yep, NORTHWOODS DEEP is one of those books. This is the stuff a low-budget indie summer horror movie could be made of.

It even goes a step further, because one of the characters – Carol – is looking to escape an already miserable situation. She’s being stalked by her abusive jerk of an ex-husband, who’s got his buddies and even his mother helping in the harrassment. To Carol, a back-to-nature getaway with her sister seems like a reprieve, a real improvement.

Except, of course, her ex finds out about her travel plans and decides to surprise her along the way … only, he’s in for a surprise himself … as are the sisters’ brother and dad, who go looking for them … and a friend they meet along the way … there’s surprises in store for everybody, and none of those surprises are very nice.

The cover’s eye-catching, it’s a solid 360-ish pages of good-looking book with minor editorial/proofreading problems here and there. Some of its story threads seem to trail off at loose ends – there’s a moment where one of the characters thinks “It all makes sense now, it all makes sense” and as I read it I remember wishing it made sense to me.

So, overall, I found NORTHWOODS DEEP to be an okay read, entertaining, with several flinch-inducing scenes and a general aftertaste of eew. No Richard Laymon, of course, but then what else is?

-Christine Morgan

THE NOCTUARY by Greg Chapman (2011 Damnation Books / 56 pp / tp)

Chapman's latest novella is a sort-of homage to Clive Barker, but unlike other "homages" this one has its own voice and style.

Struggling writer Simon Ryan falls into the hands of creatures who are the incarnations of dark muse: they offer him a chance to re-write his abusive life story, but things don't turn out the way Simon had intended.

And just when Simon thinks he'll forever be a scribe for the underworld, a former captive of these creatures helps him escape...although his new-found reality could be darker than ever before.

THE NOCTUARY blends supernatural and real-life horrors quite well. Kudos to Chapman for dealing with a side-plot of child abuse in a non-exploitative (but still chilling) manner.

SANTA STEPS OUT by Robert Devereaux (2011 Deadite Press / 294 pp / tp)

You know how people sometimes bemoan that this or that is “ruining” their childhoood?

Maybe it’s some remake or sequel to something they cherished as a kid … the 2010 Clash of the Titans, for instance … or 2008’s A Miser Brothers Christmas. Maybe it’s any of the countless Rule 34 violations (for which there are no exceptions), presenting beloved iconic characters in a whole new light. Maybe it’s a Weird Al parody or an episode of South Park.

Whatever it is, you know how when it tarnishes, despoils, drags down and utterly debases in unspeakable ways something held near and dear to the heart, people say that thing about it ruining their childhood?

From now on, whenever I hear that complaint, I will think of this book and I will just LAUGH. Because, honey, you think your childhood’s been ruined already? Oh, dear me, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Robert Devereaux’s SANTA STEPS OUT Steps Out is a nonstop sex-romp slathered in gore. It takes the cherished, benign, commercially-sanitized, popular images of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, and corrupts them in ways that have to be read to be believed.

Check those fond memories at the door and get ready to be startled … shocked … horrified … maybe even offended and outraged … though really, if you think those latter two might apply, you may want to consider saving your sanity.

At this most wonderful time of the year, when the news is full of histrionic war-on-holidays hoopla, there’s always eventually the mention of how much of current religion and tradition is taken from pagan roots anyway. That’s the underlying element in this book as well: the gods, myths, and mythic figures of old have been transformed.

Santa Claus and his cheery band of elves used to be older, wilder powers, forces of nature … the lusty Pan and his faun-followers. The side of Santa that has been subsumed, buried, and blocked off is reawakened when he crosses paths with the Tooth Fairy, once a nymph, one Christmas Eve.

To call it an affair is putting it mildly. The resulting relationship spans decades and leads to all kinds of troubles, not the least of which occurs when sweet Mrs. Claus finds out and demands he gives up his mistress. That thing about how hell hath no fury like a woman scorned gets kicked up a few notches when immortals are involved. The jilted Tooth Fairy recruits the already-teetering-towards-depravity Easter Bunny as an accomplice in her revenge plot, the hapless elves find themselves put to work in a far different capacity than toymaking, and to top it off, Santa falls in love with a mortal woman, a nice single mom. That’s when it really hits the fan.

So, yeah. Nonstop sex-romp slathered in gore. It’s sickeningly fun, squickeningly hot, hilariously disturbing, childhood-ruining holiday porn.

Worst of all, not only did I greatly enjoy this book, I have several friends for whom it’d make the ideal present!

-Christine Morgan

(EDITOR'S NOTE: SANTA STEPS OUT was originally published in hardcover in 1998 and mass market paperback in 2000. Next month, Christine takes a look at the long-awaited sequel, SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE HOMOPHOBES. We kid you not. -Nick)

BEYOND THE BARRIERS by Timothy W. Long (2011 Permuted Press / 221 pp / eBook)

Erik Tragger is ex-military, divorced and living in a small Oregon town when the dead start to rise. Erik gathers up some supplies from his home and decides to ride out the end of the world in a secluded cabin in the mountains. After months of isolation and hearing no news from the world Erik decides to try to make it back to his town and see about getting more supplies, which are beginning to run dangerously low.

What he finds upon his return is not what Erik expected. It seems there are more than just your run of the mill zombies to contend with. Saved from certain death by a group of survivors in an abandoned Walmart, Erik discovers that the ghouls he encountered were humans who fed on the flesh of zombies. At first it was out of desperation but it has quickly become apparent that these ghouls want to make more of their kind—a freakish zombie/human hybrid.

After helping the group from the super store get away so they can head to Portland, Erik ends up back at the cabin with Katherine, another survivor. After some months they are attacked and forced back to the town they originally fled from. What ultimately awaits Erik in this new and dangerous world is beyond anything he could have imagined.

BEYOND THE BARRIERS is another book that attempts to take the zombie sub-genre in a new direction and Long succeeds in that effort. BARRIERS sets up a very frightening scenario for the end of the world and it is a book that I could not put down. Characters are well-developed and have a depth that enables the reader to connect to them. The ending is rather unexpected and left intentionally vague….I’m hoping that means a sequel? Anyway, having seen a glut of zombies in the horror genre, I am pleased to see writers like Timothy Long taking risks and their zombies into new directions. Get this book.

-Colleen Wanglund

THE RED EMPIRE AND OTHER STORIES by Joe McKinney (2012 Redrum Horror / 356 pp / tp)

McKinney, best known for his Dead World zombie novels, here delivers a collection featuring a novella and seven shorts, most with a police-theme.

In the novella THE RED EMPIRE, a secret military bio-weapon is accidentally unleashed on a small town where a woman and her young daughter (who is recovering from having cornea implants) are trying to get home during a heavy rain storm. Adding to the problem is an escaped cop killer, who seeks refuge in the woman's isolated home. While the story is action-packed and will give you the willies, it's almost as if the killer-ant thing takes a back seat to the psycho/hostage drama. Good, if a bit uneven.

'Blemish' is a love/ghost story dealing with a cop who ends up leaving the force, and while I didn't find it spooky, McKinney's take on ghosts and lost love is well done. 'Cold Case' deals with a rookie cop who becomes fascinated with the story of a cop who was slain during his second day on the force...back in 1900. Why this short tale (which originally appeared on a true crime blog) was included in a horror fiction collection is anyone's guess.

My favorite piece here is titled 'The Old Man Under the Sea,' an addictive tale featuring Ernest Hemmingway in Cuba--fresh off a boxing match with Louis Lamour--who becomes enticed by a young girl, only to have her father threaten his life if he doesn't help him with a dangerous diving expedition. The suspense and mystery here never lets up, and McKinney handles this classic literary figure in a slick way.

'The Millstone' is a pointless trailer-trash outing about two sisters, their wacky neighbor, a cheating boyfriend, and an axe. Likewise, 'Empty Room' is a sort-of ghost tale about a suicidal would-be father. And a pistol. Both tales are forgettable.

The very-well done 'Burning Finger Man' pits a cop assigned to a housing project against an impossible-to-grab freak who molests women in the hallways then seemingly vanishes. Its cast of crackheads and hood rats gives it a genuine hood-film feel. The collection concludes with 'Eyes Open,' an apocalyptic/Lovecraftian yarn about a cop who becomes "enlightened" by a schziophrenic homeless man about a coming calamity. I'm a sucker for cult-themed stories and this one's quite satisfying.

THE RED EMPIRE AND OTHER STORIES is all over the place, which is fine; but coming from a new small press dedicated to horror fiction, I was surprised to see so many non-genre stories in the mix. The good tales heavily outweight the bad (and thankfully, the longer stories are the more memorable), so it's still worth your time. This is the first I've read from McKinney and it's easy to see why he has so much material out there.

INHERENT DARK by Thomas James Brown (2011 Thomas Jane Brown / 94 pp / tp)

INHERENT DARK is a sort of fairy-tale retelling, with the Deadly Sins personified as entities not demon and not fae but reminiscent of both. The book contains one story for each of the seven, with the stories more or less interlinked.

There’s nice use of description, and the language strives to be stylistic of the classic fairy tales. Some are more strongly written than others, with some clever twists. Overall, though, the writing is passive, a little stuffy, not as vibrant as the underlying idea seems to call for.

The book opens with a series of authorial notes on the origins of each story, which probably should have been presented at the end rather that the beginning … partly for spoiler reasons, mainly because they’re on the pompous, self-congratulatory side.

For a self-published book, it’s not bad. I’ve certainly seen worse. But I’ve also seen better.

-Christine Morgan

RETURN TO DARKNESS by Michael Laimo (2011 Bad Moon Books / 337 pp / tp)

This sequel to the author's 2004 DEEP IN THE DARKNESS picks up right where things left off seven years ago. The backstory: Dr. Michael Cayle--who has moved his family from Manhattan to a small town in New Hampshire--becomes a slave to a race of small creatures known as Isolates. They hold his wife and daughter prisoner as they force Michael to heal their sick and mend their wounded in their underground lair. The creatures have control of everyone in town, and five surrounding towns are also under their spell, making escape impossible.

RETURN TO DARKNESS finds Dr. Michael about to committ suicide, when the thought of his wife and daughter out there in the woods convinces him to go on with the hellish ordeal. His wife--having been raped by an Isolate and given birth to a demon baby in the first novel--now has Isolate DNA running through her veins. She appears to Michael as a half human/half monster...but his young daughter Jessica still seems to be all human. The only way for Michael to get his family back is to have a different person sacrifice an animal to the creatures...a feat that was put on him by an alleged friend, a ritual that has been the town's dark tradition for centuries.

A family of four move in to the neighborhood, and before long Michael plans ways to get one of them to take his place. But the father is a drunk lunatic, his wife and teenage son no better. The eighteen-year-old daughter Shea, however, takes a liking to Michael, and before long helps him find his daughter while he helps her to get revenge on her father who has raped and abused her since she was a child.

What follows is a bloody horrific time as Michael--with increasingly poor health due to struggles with the Isolates--plots a way to escape the cursed town with his daughter, all the while wondering what to do about his possessed wife and his feelings for the young girl who risks life and limb to help him.

Like DEEP IN THE DARKNESS, RETURN is chock-full of suspense, plenty of scares and creepy atmosphere, and an impending sense of doom that'll leave readers breathless. Laimo gives the "ancient evil in a small town" thing a fresh kick in the pants here, delivering a sequel that's every bit as frightening as its predecessor. This is MUST reading for fans of DEEP, and while newbies will get a better effect if they read DEEP first, there's still enough background given to make it work as a stand alone novel.

The seven year wait for RETURN was well worth it, from its fast paced opening right up to the darker than dark finale.

Smell Rating: 2

DEAD HUNGER by Eric A. Shelman (2011 Dolphin Moon Publishing / 268 pp / tp)

When the zombie apocalypse happened Flex Sheridan was on the phone with his sister Jamie. Flex knows something is very wrong so he makes his way to Jamie’s house only to find she is a zombie and her husband and daughter Jesse are dead. Flex does find his niece Trina as well as his lost love Gem.

A virus has attacked the living and turned them into zombies by destroying the brain. The main symptom is a migraine-like headache. Flex and Gem decide to make their way to the CDC in Atlanta to look for other survivors and hopefully find a cure so they can save Jamie. Along the way they pick up Hemp, a scientist who is determined to find the cause of the apocalypse. What they ultimately discover about the zombies is truly frightening.

The first in a planned series of zombie apocalypse novels, DEAD HUNGER reminds me of a pulp novel. Some of the scenarios were a little too-good-to-be-true as were the main characters, but it is very entertaining. The novel is well-written and a fast-paced read. Character development is very good as is Eric Shelman’s curve ball where the zombies are concerned.

DEAD HUNGER has some interesting twists and an unpredictable nail-biter of an ending, which is a great thing in my opinion. Overall I enjoyed DEAD HUNGER and believe Shelman has penned a cool addition to zombie apocalypse lit.

-Colleen Wanglund

PREVIEW:

PURE by Julianna Baggott (to be released February 8, 2012 by Grand Central Publishing / 448 pp / hc & eBook)

Since this one came to me as a proof copy, I don’t know if the cover it had will be the final cover it ends up with on the shelves … if so, it’ll be a risky choice in terms of marketing. Because it’s a matte-white, with the title on the front and the author on the spine in lettering of shiny white, no images, no text at all. It does make a statement, I’ll give it that, but both of my test subjects (the husband and the teen) said they’d be disinclined to pick it up based on such a cover. (EDITORS NOTE: We've FOUND the cover art! -Nick)

That said, the story inside is fantastic! It lands somewhere in the territory between McCammon’s Swan Song and Collins’ The Hunger Games, a near-future post-holocaust setting meant for the YA set but entirely accessible and engrossing to the older reader.

In Pure, society is divided into the haves and the have-nots, several years after a devastating event called the Detonations.

The haves were those who reached the Dome in time, sheltered from the blasts and radiation inside its controlled environment. They live regimented, orderly lives where their resource-consumption / usefulness ratio is considered, where their fates are decided for them, where likely boys are “coded” for enhancements in intellect and athleticism, where girls are designated worthy of reproducing or not, all depending on aptitude and genetics. To them, the people outside are “wretches,” the savage and insane who refused sanctuary.

Outside of the Dome, it’s all very different. They view the people of the Dome as “Pures,” the lucky untouched, because their world is a blasted hellscape where survivors exist as best they can, each sporting a different disfigurement or mutation as a result of the Detonations. That bit, I found, was the best, most haunting, most creatively imagined aspect of the whole book. The oh-wow-too-cool factor, which hearkens to the Wild Card novels and the entire spectrum of ace and joker abilities.

Some wretches are “fused” with whatever they happened to be in contact with at the time, resulting in strange living amalgams of human and inanimate object, or animal, or other human. These range from mild (a speckling of glass fused with a person’s skin) to bizarre (one character has living birds embedded in his back, another’s lower leg is fused with the spine of a dog so he has a dog-foot) to severe (“Groupies” are masses of conjoined people stuck forever together, “Dusts” are scraps of sentience merged mostly with the ground, “Beasts” are so animalistic they’ve lost any semblance of humanity).

Our main characters are Pressia and Partridge. Pressia, whose fist is fused with a doll’s head (the eyes still blink when she tips her hand back and forth, one of the creepiest touches ever!), lives in the wreckage with her grandfather and ekes out a living trading little sculptures she makes from debris. Partridge is a Pure, the son of a Dome leader who should be destined for a productive place but finds himself unfit for coding, and unsettled when he begins to realize that the histories he’s been told are far from the truth.

So, Partridge finds a way to escape the Dome … he runs into Pressia … with her help as well as that of rebellious conspiracy freedom-fighter Bradwell, they seek to uncover the truth, expose the conspiracy, and find the facts. Which, as they soon discover, are a lot farther-reaching than they had ever imagined.

Their adventures and a cast of engaging sub-plots with secondary characters (the Dome’s treatment of Partridge’s accidental accomplice, Lyda … the dysfunctional relationship of soldier el Capitan and his fused younger brother) make for a rich and engaging read. I will definitely be on the lookout for the sequel, and told the teen enough about it to win her over despite her initial reaction to the cover.

I stand envious of Ms. Baggott’s vision as well as her ability to carry it off with such deft skill. Heck, I was 350 pages into it before it dawned on me that the whole thing was in present-tense, too, and that is a hard trick to pull off smoothly!

Awesome stuff. Very recommended.

-Christine Morgan

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE APOCALYPSE DONKEYS (2011 Copeland Valley Press / 174 pp / tp and limited edition hardcover)

While there's no squids, living sex dolls, or obscure foot fetishists in Krall's latest novella, it turned out to be one of the author's strangest (and best) offerings to date...so if you're a bizarro lover pay attention:

Gary Lancaster reviews obscure films exclusively for print publications. He's on a mission to find a rare film---one he had seen bits and pieces of at a young age. He manages to track down a crude VHS copy of THE APOCALYPSE DONKEY, his journey taking him to a modern day nudist colony where he meets a sexy older woman in a donkey mask, who he hooks up with. Trouble starts when her jealous husband (a professional daredevil) finds out and tries to kill him. Things take a wicked turn when daredevil "Big" Bill Stapleton tries to run Gary over in a diner before he teams up with a flamboyant Mexican chef.

The rest is classic Krall, combining cult film camp with surreal situations and plenty of off key humor. If you're a fan you'll want this...if you're new to bizarro you just might lose your mind.

There's also plenty of nifty extras here, especially in the limited hardcover edition (a preface, introduction, and foreword from three different authors, as well as a hysterical afterword by Matthew Revert and Krall's interesting notes on the text of each chapter PLUS another Krall short story). BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE APOCALYPSE DONKEYS gives the feel of a 60s/70s H.G. Lewis/Russ Meyer nudie movie meshed with a classic underground midnight cult film.

You gotta love it...

Smell Rating: 4

HEART OF GLASS by David Winnick (2011 Bad Moon Books / tp)

This slim little volume contains a single story that, while well-written, only served to whet the appetite. The characters – Adam and his disaffected wife, Sonia – are vivid and sympathetic enough that you really want to get to know them better, you want to find out more about what brought their marriage to its empty, going-through-the-motions state.

And, of course, you want to know lots more about the peculiar glass jigsaw puzzle Adam brings home one day from an antiquing outing (presumably the Heart of Glass of the title).

But, just when all this is warming up in your mind, just when things are nicely spooky in a psychological and emotional sense, the story takes a sudden Twilight Zone turn and then it’s over.

Kind of disappointing, really. A sample, a taste, and that’s it. Maybe if there’d been more stories to make a collection, I might’ve felt more satisfied. A forty page book of which the story takes up twenty-six pages … I read it in a matter of minutes and was left with a sense of “well, NOW what?”

-Christine Morgan

THE BRAINPAN CONCERTO by Kurt Newton (2011 Sideshow Press / 123 pp / tp)

A musical maniac is kidnapping those with extrodinary musical talent, removing their skull caps and tapping into their brains to record some of the most original music ever heard by human ears. With the help of a computer hacker, a young music fan manages to track the lunatic down, only to become another hostage.

On the case are detectives Saul and Gwen, both with their own jaded pasts, an annoying, sexist boss, and they currently happen to be falling for each other. Along with the young boy, Saul eventually becomes hostage to the maniac's musical scalpel, leaving no other choice but for Gwen to come to the rescue.

THE BRAINPAN CONCERTO features a nifty idea for the killings and has some truly gruesome moments, and despite the standard police fare, I found Newton's quick novella a fine way to spend an hour or so.

Smell Rating: 1

PREVIEW:

ENORMITY by W.G. Marshall (to be released February, 2012 by Night Shade Books / 280 pp / tp)

Manny Lopes is an American working in Korea, is sort-of married and is sort-of having an affair with a co-worker. One day an accidental (or is it?) quantum explosion occurs, turning Manny into the size of a mountain...one of the BIGGEST characters ever to appear in a novel.

While Korea is dealing with him (every step he takes causes tsunamis and destroys entire towns), a second giant is spotted near Japan. It turns out she's a North Korean assassin named Yoon-sook, who worships The Wizard of Oz, and as Manny goes to meet up with her, her government makes her change course for the United States. Manny's allies manage to hook up to his ear drum and speak with him, guiding him on his cross-planet trek.

Manny and Yoon-sook met up in an odd confrontation at the Grand Canyon; Manny tries to convice her that since they're the only two giants on the planet, they should unite. His sweet talking leads to one of the more bizarre sex scenes in recent memory, although Yoon-sook uses it to her advantage.

With another strange creature emerging from this unusual meeting, some great side characters, dark humor and plenty of social commentary, ENORMITY is a fun homage to the sci-fi creature features of the 50s. The detail that Marshall gives in explaining what such a large person might be like (from the aforementioned walking effects down to the germs on his skin) makes this quite an imaginative read, and one you'll whiz through in no time. KUDOS for a politically incorrect Muslim named Salim Ali, who rides inside Yook-sook's ear and does something that might have Islamic groups up in arms...yet I laughed my ass off.

Don't miss this.

SUBJECT SEVEN by James A. Moore (2011 Razorbill {an imprint of Penguin Group} / 328 pp / tp)

Some years ago a private company established a secret facility in order to create the perfect weapon for the military. Initially the experiments proved a failure but one of the test subjects escaped. Over the years Subject Seven has used his unique abilities to survive and track down the people responsible for his existence. He has also discovered that there are others like him living in total ignorance of what they really are. Subject Seven has sent out a command and awoken the other teens from their long slumber. As Joe Bronx, Subject Seven has gathered the other teens in Boston and told them what they really are. However, he has decided to keep his true motives a secret for the time being. Now Evelyn Hope, one of the few survivors from the night of Seven’s escape, is determined to stop them and bring them back alive.

SUBJECT SEVEN is Moore’s first Young Adult novel but it is just as appealing for adults. The story is compelling, and more violent than I would have expected from a YA title. Character development is excellent and the teens’ personalities are diverse and relatable. They are average kids from different backgrounds but once transformed become dangerous and almost indestructible monsters….for that is what they were created to be. They are also sympathetic characters—they had no control or say in what was done to them by adults that were supposed to protect them.

SUBJECT SEVEN is a frightening page-turner that ends with quite the cliffhanger, as it is the first in a series…and I am greatly anticipating the next novel. It is a fantastic read for older teens and adults alike.

-Colleen Wanglund

DAWN OF WAR (BLOOD WAR TRILOGY) by Tim Marquitz (2011 CreateSpace / 218 pp / tp)

On the planet Ahreele a devastating war has begun. The savage and animalistic Grol have recently acquired powerful magic weapons from the land of the Sha’ree, a mystical people long thought to be dead. Arrin, a man living in exile for the last fifteen years has seen the devastation first hand and has gone back to his home of Lathah to warn them of the approaching doom.

Cael is a young boy whose home of Nurin has been overrun and destroyed by the Korme, who are loosely allied with the Grol using the same magic weapons. While making a desperate run into the Dead Lands he meets two Sha’ree who are on a mission to warn civilization as well as gather together the bearers of far older magic to defeat the enemies of peace. Cael carries one of these ancient devices.

Domor of the Vel attempts to make his way through the Dead Lands as well to find his family in Nurin. He, along with his blood companion run into other enemies with magic weapons but are saved by the two Sha’ree and the Pathra, cat people who are allies of the human Lathans.

Can a small band of people from different lands join with their allies and defeat their enemies? And who is Sultae of the Sha’ree and what of the plague that supposedly killed them all? The band of hopeful heroes must also contend with the Tumult, a time when the two moons cross paths and wreak havoc on the planet.

DAWN OF WAR, book one of the trilogy is Tim Marquitz’s first foray into fantasy fiction and he has done an exceptional job. There is a lot going on and there are many points of view to follow but Marquitz keeps it all tight and easy to follow. Character development is very good, keeping each race of people easily identifiable. This first book introduces the various points of view and ends on just the proper note, leaving the reader wanting to read more. I’m not generally big on fantasy, but I enjoyed DAWN OF WAR immensely. I think you will, too.

-Colleen Wanglund

DEAD TIDE RISING by Stephen A. North (2010 CreateSpace / 270 pp / tp)

In DEAD TIDE, Stephen A. North introduced us to various people attempting to survive and escape the newly begun zombie apocalypse in Pinellas Park, Florida. DEAD TIDE RISING continues with those chaotic first few hours and days of the collapse of civilization. The president’s wife and children were in St. Petersburg when it all went to Hell. A cruise ship was attacked by the military for violating the quarantine imposed on the city and surrounding suburbs. Two groups of people, including public servants, attempt to make it out of the station and get to one of the supposed safe evacuation zones. Another group who escaped the carnage at the harbor is assessing their situation in a boat on the bay. And one soldier has gone completely off the deep end.

Not everyone will survive. The military initially issued a shoot to kill order for both infected and uninfected alike. The government is in shambles and dealing with mutiny in the ranks. Not even the president is safe in his hidden bunker. People are dying at the hands of the zombies and each other. Will anyone make it out alive?

I really liked North’s first book DEAD TIDE and now love its sequel DEAD TIDE RISING. The book seamlessly continues the initial chaos from the first book and in the same tone. There are no scenarios that would or could be considered too ridiculous even for apocalyptic fiction. Character development is just right for the run and gun style of North’s writing. The story’s pacing is quick and even and keeps the attention to the unpredictable events throughout the story. No character is sacred. Stephen A. North once again does a great job with the zombie sub-genre.

-Colleen Wanglund

NEXT MONTH:

Jeff Strand returns with the long awaited 4th novel in his ANDREW MAYHEM series...

DECEMBER, 2011 REVIEWS

2011-12-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

DECEMBER, 2011 REVIEWS

LAST STAND IN A DEAD LAND by Eric S. Brown (2011 Grand Mal Press / 132 pp / tp)

Eric S. Brown is a writing machine. It seems he has a new title out every time I turn around. And it's not often his novels or short stories don't satisfy. His latest novella, LAST STAND IN A DEAD LAND, is no exception.

In this nearly non-stop monster/action adventure, Brown combines zombies, bigfoot, and an interesting array of heroes. The blood flies almost as quickly as our survivors run, from a tense opening sequence in an office up to the nifty ending (which brings in yet another creature). I'm getting as tired of zombie stories as anyone else, but when they move this fast and feature this many surprises in such a short space, I welcome 'em with open arms. Perhaps the undead should inhabit more novella-length tales?

Either way, LAST STAND throws everything at you at a non-stop pace. Brown's latest monster-mash is one of his best yet and an incredibly fun time.

-Smell Rating: 1

THE CREEPING KELP by William Meikle (2011 Dark Regions Press / 158 pp / tp)

Remember that segement in CREEPSHOW 2 where a bunch of teenagers go on a raft in an isolated pond and get attacked by a mysterious, floating black mass? THE CREEPING KELP brings this skit to mind, only on an epic scale.

Noble and Suzie are two scientists working near London in the North Atlantic. After discovering a strange, black tar on the motor of his boat, Noble makes it back to the main ship just as all hell breaks loose.

As an ever-growing mass of black, tendril-sprouting seaweed attacks England's shores, Noble and Suzie uncover this phenomenon by reading through journals left by recent military persons, then older texts dating back to the 1500s by a Catholic priest and a ship captain.

While Meikle gives a few head-scratching ideas as to what this Creeping Kelp is (everything from an ancient God to a human-engineered military weapon is cited), this short novel is packed with so much cheesy scifi/horror fun it was easy for me to overlook the monster's unclear origin.

Like a better film on the SyFy Channel, THE CREEPING KELP delivers the creature-feature goods despite it's goofy, 'Spongebob'-sounding title. It starts out as an ecological warning (the beast feeds on plastic consumer waste) yet ends on a Lovecraftian, action-packed note with plenty of dazzling visuals. Its environmental edge is quickly forgotten in place of major Kelp attacks and latent conspiracy theories.

KELP is an uneven read that tries to make a point or two, but those seeking some classic 1950s-style monster mayhem should be able to ignore the confusion and have a good time. I did.

Smell Rating: 1

THE STRAIN by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan (2009 William Morrow / 416 pp / all formats)

It’s way past time for vampires to take back the night!

(Admittedly, given how late to the party I am on reading this one, it’s even MORE way past time! The second and third in the series are already out, and on my holiday wish list)

Yes, we could go on about the angstiness that eventually led to porn and sparklification … let’s not, though, ‘kay?

Yes, we’ve got our zombie apocalypses, more of those than you can shake a stick at – and don’t get me wrong, I never get tired of them.

But the plague nature of vampires so rarely gets any attention. These modern, careful, civilized ones out to avoid detection and operate in solitary secret or well-organized clans … enough of that! How about a vicious, insatiable, invasive, pandemic breed of vampire? Vampire-as-virus, out to replicate and spread, contaminate and take over?

We got some of it with Stephen King’s SALEM’S LOT, and we’ve got it on an even larger scale with Robert McCammon’s THEY THIRST (still uncontested as my personal favorite vampire book ever). Both wonderful examples, by all means. Still, don’t you want more? I know I do.

With THE STRAIN, the first in a trilogy from authors Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro (yes, the PAN’S LABYRINTH guy, who made a “fairy tale” spookier and freakier than any horror novel in years!), we get it.

The premise is given reasonably plausible-enough scientific explanations to trigger the whole wonderful stew of fears about contagion and loss of essential humanity that makes a good outbreak story so shivery, while also not disappointing the superstitious part of us that craves the arcane and unnatural.

In THE STRAIN, a routine day at the airport goes suddenly awry when a landing plane just stops dead on the runway, with systems non-operational, no communications, no signs of life. Not good. Terrorists? Mary Celeste style ghost ship? What do you do?

What they do in this case is call in the CDC response team to check for possible biological or chemical agents … and what the CDC finds is a plane full of dead people.

Or are they? *cue ominous music* Spoilers: it’s much, much worse.

And, as usual in these situations, the authorities don’t want to give any credence to the increasingly bizarre evidence mounting right before their eyes. Only an old man with a dark history realizes the truth, and only the CDC investigator on the case can help try to stop it before it’s too late.

The cast of main characters turns out to be fairly typical of the genre, that small group of reluctant believers brought together by circumstance, fate, coincidence, or a bit of literary stretching. But the familiarity is comforting, and the sub-plots with minor characters make for the most fun.

All in all, I found The Strain to be a creepy, exciting, good read. Looking very much forward to the next ones!

--Christine Morgan

THE CRANSTON GIBBERER by Martin Mundt (2011 Bad Moon Books / 65 pp / tp)

In a story told entirely through letters between H and his friend X, THE CRANSTON GIBBERER tells of a writer (H) who is asked by his boss to investigate and write a newspaper article about a local monster called the Cranston Menace. H discovers the monster—also known as the Cranston Gibberer--is centuries old and has some connection to a family called Dirge…one of which is the publisher of the newspaper that H writes for. Unfortunately for H, the monster has decided to change his target.

Mundt tells a humorous story about H’s decent into madness and yet still discussing inanities such as visiting a tailor for a new suit, although even that common occurrence becomes somewhat bizarre. The writing is funny and clever and Mundt will leave you wondering if the monster was real or was H really one crazy SOB? A quick and enjoyable read, THE CRANSTON GIBBERER is one of those rare stories that I can read over and over again. Get this book!

-Colleen Wanglund

CROOKED HILLS (BOOK ONE) by Cullen Bunn (2011 Earwig Press / 248 pp. / tp, eBook, and limited edition hc)

After their father passes away, Charlie and his younger brother Alex are taken on a trip to the small town of Crooked Hills by their mom. Charlie's a bit upset as he was looking forward to spending the summer with his friends, but it doesn't take long for him to gain interest in their planned 6-week vacation. Charlie's mom gives him a book about the haunted legends of Crooked Hills, and before long his cousin Marty and a red-headed tom boy named Lisa are exploring the back woods and its chilling legends.

When each kid has a nightmare about a legendary local witch--and discover young Alex has been kidnapped by a woman bent on resurrecting that witch--the stage is set for plenty of action and suspense. Along the way our little heroes grapple with all kinds of creepy crawlies, ghosts, a nasty dog, and two teenage bullies. Bunn doesn't shy away from having these children deal with death and dark situations, and does so in a manner that shouldn't freak out the more impressionable young readers.

Cullen Bunn's first book in the CROOKED HILL series is aimed at the 9-12 year-old market, and if given a proper push there's no reason this shouldn't take off. It's loaded with fun, is written at a great pace, and is a good way to introduce the kids to the horror genre. I'll surely be getting a copy for my nephew...

ACHERON by Bryon Morrigan (2011 Permuted Press / 258 pp / tp)

While operating on the front lines of Iraq, Captain Nate Leathers’ unit is attacked and he is captured. Kept in what amounts to a stone hole in the wall for who-knows-how-long, Leathers hears the sounds of what he first thinks is battle. He quickly realizes something is wrong when an eerie green mist envelopes his prison. Managing to escape and find shelter with an Iraqi named Muhammad, Leather’s realizes there is something terribly wrong. Zombies are walking the streets and monstrous creatures are also on the hunt for any humans left in the city of Basra.

Leathers and Muhammad make their way to a well-lit police station where they find other Iraqis, a handful of archaeologists, and some private security mercenaries. They are surrounded by the pervasive green mist and monsters that should not exist. The archaeologists think they inadvertently released something from the ruins of a dig outside of the city. Unfortunately for everyone holed up in the station, the mercenaries believe it is the biblical End Times and believe it is their sacred duty to stop the minions of Hell. Leathers is forcibly recruited by the mercenaries but things go horribly wrong for him and his mission. Now Leathers must complete the mission given to him and try to get the few survivors out of the city ASAP.

Bryon Morrigan has written a fantastic supernatural/zombie story and throws in some religious zealots to boot. The characters are well-developed and quite engaging. Pacing is quick and even, giving a nice flow to a rather compelling novella. The ending is left open for a possible sequel, which I look forward to. I thought Leathers “passed out” a bit too much, but I understand it to be a device to advance the story. All in all a great book to add to your horror collection.

-Colleen Wanglund

THE YEARS OF MAGIC by J. Lyndon Hickman (2011 / 234 pp / tp)

Set in 1934, Hickman's debut novel deals with what might have happened in the spirit world if electricity ceased to exist at that time. His two protagonists (a gentleman named David Rancliff and his new friend Winston Thomas Guildersleeves--who turns out to be David's guardian angel) are likeable enough, but after setting up its quirky premise,THE YEARS OF MAGIC quickly looses logic and steam and its base intention seems all but forgotten.

When the world's electricity supply is taken away, the small town of Gallatin becomes host to a group of vampires who build an army through a huge, fancy, corrupt church. David and Winston also encounter werewolves, zombies, ghosts, and just about anything else the author could think to throw in. Apparently the absence of global electricity has caused these legendary monsters to come forth as MAGIC's story becomes an uneven, unintentionally funny tale that bounces all over the place and is further marred by some of the worst dialogue I've read in years.

This is a fine example of a self-published title that could've used a seriously professional edit. I have no idea how I made it to the end.

Smell Rating: 0

SYMPHONY OF BLOOD: A HANK MONDALE SUPERNATURAL CASE by Adam Pepper (2011 Amazon Digital Services / eBook)

Hank Mondale is a private detective who loves to drink and gamble, and is bad at both. He hasn’t paid his rent, can’t pay his secretary, and is in debt from gambling on various sports games. But salvation seems to arrive in the form of a rich man, Thomas Blake, who needs someone discreet to investigate the murders of his daughter’s friends. Mackenzie, a spoiled rich girl, insists that it was a monster who killed her friends, eating them from the inside out, and now it’s after her. She calls the creature “Symphony.“ Skeptical, but desperately needing the large payment Blake promises, Mondale takes the case.

After Mondale begins to check out leads and clues with the help of his friend Vic from the Homicide Department, he finds similar murders that defy rational explanation. Mackenzie is either strung-out or in shock, and can’t help him very well. And Mondale also discovers that Blake isn’t to be trusted, either. What is he hiding? And why are some of his employees disappearing as well?

SYMPHONY OF BLOOD starts out as a normal mystery story, but soon turns into a creepy horror story. A little dark humor sprinkled throughout adds a little levity, but doesn’t distract from the story in any way.

The characters are very well fleshed-out and come across as real. There are many suspenseful moments with a few gross ones thrown in for good measure.

I am looking forward to reading more of Adam Pepper’s work; SYMPHONY hooked me from the first couple pages. Keep an eye out for Adam Pepper’s work; you won’t be disappointed.

-Sheri White

APOCALYPTIC ORGAN GRINDER by William Todd Rose (2011 Smashwords / eBook)

The Gabriel Virus, released by religious fanatics brought civilization to its knees. Two distinct cultures have arisen out of the ashes which despise and fear each other. There are the Settlers, or the clear skins, those that are uninfected and the People or the Spewers, who carry the virus and are made sick but who do not die from it.

Each culture has their own historical perspective on how the remnants of humanity came to be this way. Each mythology is different and each culture demonizes the other. The novella focuses on two main characters—Tanner, a Sweeper for the settlements of the uninfected and Lila, a hunter for the infected clans. Both Tanner and Lila view each other as an enemy that must be destroyed. Unfortunately the hatred held for each other will lead to an inevitable and deadly conclusion.

APOCALYPTIC ORGAN GRINDER is a psychological study of human nature and the inherent nature of distrust and fear of what is different or unknown. Instead of attempting to live separately and in relative peace, these two cultures inevitably wish to destroy each other. Whose version of history is accurate? It ultimately doesn’t matter because that history has been ingrained in the generations since the Gabriel Virus took its toll. It is a bloody and heartbreaking story that I loved reading. It is a quick and entertaining read, and can be had for free courtesy of William Todd Rose. He is a wonderful writer and you should be reading him.

-Colleen Wanglund

DEVILS' DRUMS by Vivian Meik (2011 Medusa Press / 214 pp / limited edition hc)

Continuing to find and re-release seldom-heard horror authors of old, Medusa Press delivers yet another fine collection from a fascinating writer.

After an informative introduction (Meik truly lived an amazing life), the original ten stories that made up DEVIL'S DRUMS in 1933 are presented, followed by three more tales (one actually a non-fiction piece). Meik spent several years in Africa, his love and admiration for the country and culture showing in each tale.

The first two stories, 'Devil's Drums' and 'White Zombie' introduce us to African voodoo, complete with witch doctors, slave-zombies, and plenty of eerie atmosphere. 'An Acre in Hell' is one of the better moments here, dealing with the ultimate in voodoo evil and human sacrifice. 'The Doll of Death' is a spooky little yarn that was even turned into a short film forty years later when it appeard on one of the last episodes of 'Rod Serling's Night Gallery' in 1973.

'White Man's Law' shows what happens when the west intervenes where it shouldn't, and acts as a catalyst for the stories to follow (Mein uses most of the same characters in this collection, making the shorts seem almost like a single, long story). 'L'Amitie Reste' brings Meik favorites Geoffrey Aylett (an action commissioner) and Padre Vaneken (a Catholic missionary) closer together, this time in one of several tales that uses letters to unravel the happenings.

'The Man Who Sold His Shadow' is easily the best of the bunch, an eerie, heart-breaking account of a recently married white couple and their dealings with a local witch doctor. It's the best example of Meik's horror writing, mixing a compelling supernatural plot with social intrigue. 'R.A.' finds our heroes Aylett and Padre Vaneken trying to get to the bottom of a series of gruesome murders along the local villages that leads them to a mysterious old woman and a legendary snake god. 'A Honeymoon in Hate' takes another look at a young couple and their life in Africa, complete with a surprise, brutal (for its time) ending.

The collection isn't called DEVILS' DRUMS for no reason: voodoo drum beats reverbeat throughout each tale, bringing a sense of dread whenever they appear. 'Domiria's Drum' ends the original ten-stories of the collection, once again taking a look at yet another cursed couple.

'The Two Old Women' (the first of three extra stories included in this edition) features not only characters from Meik's Africa horror tales, but also Meik himself. This time the voodoo has come to London. I'm assuming 'Chiromo' is the non-fiction piece mentioned in Douglas A. Anderson's introduction, as it starts off like a memoir then turns into a bizarre ghost story. 'I Leave it to You' ends the collection and is told from the Padre's point of view, and again deals with a woman who may or may not be what she seems.

I found Meik's writing to be filler-free and to the point. Perhaps he used the word "horror" a bit too often, but otherwise he was gifted at building dread and atmosphere while crafting likeable characters in a minimalist manner. Medusa Press has also (once again) created an absolutely beautiful book here, one that any serious fan of horror fiction history will want on their book shelf.

Smell Rating 5

BEAUTIFUL HELL by Jeffrey Thomas (2011 Dark Regions Press 2011 / 118 pp / tp)

First published as part of UGLY HEAVEN, BEAUTIFUL HELL by Carlton Mellick III and Jeffrey Thomas in 2007 by Corrosion Press, BEAUTIFUL HELL is now released by Dark Regions Press as a stand-alone novella.

There is only one Creator of both Heaven and Hell. Frank Lyre is a writer who was sent to Hades as punishment for not believing in the Creator. He has suffered torment for an unknown period of time. Things are changing, though. Humanoid demons and the Damned alike are rebelling and new races of demons are being created.

The Creator has come to Hades because he is having an epiphany of some kind. Among his entourage is Frank’s wife who is an angel. Torn between the love for his wife and the attraction he has for a female demon, Frank decides to watch what is happening and document it for others to read.

Jeffrey Thomas has created a beautiful but frightening vision of Hades and its denizens. BEAUTIFUL HELL is imaginative, intelligent and twisted, and populated with some very interesting and at times scary characters. Pacing is excellent….I was able to read it in a single sitting. I recommend picking this book up.

-Colleen Wanglund

IDOLS AND CONS by S.S. Michaels (2011 / 254 pp / eBook)

John is a drug-dealing (and taking) punk living in a seedy section of Los Angeles, sketching and playing his guitar. His neighborhood has been overrun with yuppies and celebrities looking to be hip. John's also a voyuer, and Damien--the singer for a popular boy band--lives right across the street. John's used to watching Damien bring home groupies for sex romps, but one day things go a little overboard and the singer accidentally kills a teenage girl. He wraps her in a carpet and throws her in a dumpster--and makes eye contact with the peeping John as he does so.

While furhter spying the neighborhood, John witnesses his artist-neighbor Patrick walking into his apartment with the carpet/body. He unwisely decides to go over there and confront him, only to find himself stuck in a world of murder and a growing art project that's beyond gruesome.

But Patrick is the least of John's problems: when John's kidnapped by two thugs, he winds up in the presence of Damien, whose manager had suggested they kill John for his knowledge before he rats and destroys the pop star's career. But Damien can't bear to kill his friend (and drug supplier), so he manages to make John a part of In Dreams, his huge boy band. John accepts (having no other choice), and before long takes to his new role, becoming the most popular member of the band while simultaneously becoming part of a huge art show.

S.S. Michaels' debut novel is nearly impossible to put down. She blends the seedy L.A. underground drug and art world with pop music fame, adds a crime element, and makes us cheer-on her rags-to-riches character despite his low-life personality. And best of all, IDOLS AND CONS is heavy on the suspense and has just the right amount of humor thrown in.

With its message of how far some will go for fame (and the ways people deal with it), the novel is as cautionary as it is entertaining. One of the finest debuts I've read in a long time...

KILLERS: A Prosper Snow Novel (Volume 2) by Shaun Jeffrey (2011 CreateSpace / 282 pp / tp)

Even though KILLERS is the second in a series of novels following the same main character (begun with the novel THE KULT), the book is a stand-alone story. Prosper Snow is a police investigator who is being repeatedly pulled off some very brutal murder cases by a mysterious MI5 operative (the equivalent of our FBI). What spooks Prosper into taking the man’s job offer is the fact that this man knows something about the events on a prior case involving the hatchet Man.

Prosper takes the offer and joins the special and secret investigative unit. It seems that an experiment using human subjects into the question of nature versus nurture and what breeds a killer has lost one of its test subjects. It is that subject that seems to be behind all of the brutal but random murders. Things, however are not what they initially seem. Can Prosper figure out the real story before it’s too late?

Fast paced and well executed, Shaun Jeffrey has taken the idea of behavioral experimentation and run with it. He has drawn from real experiments from the past that were cut short and adds a sadistic twist. I thought character development was just adequate, but I did not read THE KULT so I can’t necessarily speak to the main character. There are plenty of references to the nature of the first novel so you not necessarily need to read that one to keep up with KILLERS. Overall it is an enjoyable and engaging read with an unpredictable ending, which I love.

-Colleen Wanglund

DEVIL TREE by Steve Vernon (2011 Macabre Ink Digital / 289 pp / eBook)

Former preacher Lucas Sawyer and his wife Tamsen are seeking a new life, heading south down the Greensnake River. They nearly drown when their raft capsizes, but are rescued by a burly man named Jonah Duvall, who takes them back to his home in an isolated valley. Duvall's wife Jezebel helps nurse them back to health as their son looks on, and before long Lucas is helping Duvall with the daily chores. And in time Lucas and Tamsen will discover a strange, gigantic tree that sits in the middle of the woods, a tree that seems to be in control of Duvall. A tree that is beginning to call to each of them...

In Vernon's 19th-century-set horror tale, isolation and the impossibility of escape--coupled with supernatural elements--enhance the chills with each page that goes by. While the plot may seem a bit familiar, Vernon's natural talent for infusing believablitiy into each of his characters helps give things a fresh feel.

Vernon is well known for his ability to blend horror and humor (his 2004 novella LONG HORN, BIG SHAGGY being one of my all-time favorites), but here he paints a pitch-black serious tale that'll make you increasingly apprehensive. With Cronenberg-esque body terror, a Wendigo-type sub plot, and a wicked tree that would give the vegetation in the original EVIL DEAD a run for its money, DEVIL TREE is a best bet for horror fans tired of not being scared by horror fiction.

This one delivers the goods.

THE FIELDS by Ty Schwamberger (2011 The Zombie Feed {Div. of Apex Publications} / eBook)

Set in the post-Civil War south, THE FIELDS tells the story of Billy who is trying to make his dead father’s tobacco farm a success. Unfortunately he is failing miserably. Billy is barely able to earn a living to sustain himself through the coming winter. One day Mr. Stratford pays a call to Billy, explaining that he knew Billy’s father and was there to help with the farm. Billy is unsure of Mr. Stratford’s offer but decides to sleep on it.

Mr. Stratford returns the next morning and Billy accepts his offer of help. The first thing Billy must do is dig up the dead slaves buried on the farm’s property and place the bodies in the barn overnight. Billy does what he is told but doesn’t understand why he’s doing it. The next morning Billy finds Mr. Stratford with the reanimated corpses, ready to do the work they used to do while alive. Billy convinces himself that what he is doing is okay, he won’t treat them the way his father did. Unfortunately for Billy, his good intentions go horribly awry.

While I like the idea of THE FIELDS, I was disappointed in its execution. There are far too many unnecessary details and ramblings. The story is all over the place. There is obviously a message here, with Billy’s dead father having abused his slaves and beating some to death, but the message gets lost. Billy wants to be better than his father but it doesn’t work out that way. There are a couple of weird dreams that Billy has, but they seem out of place in the story. This novella might have been better as a short story or chapbook. I recommend that you pass on this one.

-Colleen Wanglund

NEXT MONTH:

2012 looks to be another promising year for horror fiction, and the HFR staff is already busy checking out some forthcoming releases as well as finishing up the tail end of 2011's gruesome offerings. Have a GREAT holiday season!

NOVEMBER, 2011 Reviews

2011-11-01T20:43:00.000-07:00

NOVEMBER, 2011 REVIEWS

HELLHOLE by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (2011 TOR / 532 pp / hc)

After a five-year struggle against the corrupt governemnt of the Constellation, General Tiber Maximilian Adolphus fails to win a crucial battle for the key planet of Sonjeera. But instead of execution, Diadem Michella Duchenet decides to exile him to a bleak planet located in the Deep Zone, a (mostly) unexplored space region comprised of fifty-four planets. Adolphus accepts her decision, despite the Diadem labeling the planet "Hallholme" after the man responsible for defeating him.

Flash forward ten years.

General Adolphus has managed to survive Hallholmes' brutal and unpredictable weather patterns and scarce resources. Other criminals, outcasts, and defectors to the Constellation are welcome at Hallholme, and most of them pledge their allegiance to Adolphus.

While the planet is known as "Hellhole" throughout the Dead Zone and the Crown Jewel Worlds, the strong manage to survive--and Adolphus begins to plan a way to fight back against the Diadem and General Hallholme, a man who used a barbaric tactic to win the Battle of Sonjeera. He also manages to get most of the planets in the Deep Zone to back his cause.

This first of Herbert & Anderson's planned three-part epic moves forward quickly: two men hired by Adolphus to explore Hallholme discover an ancient alien race. The Xayans--natives to Hallholme until an asteroid strike ruined their planet 500 years ago--have survived in mercury-like pools, waiting centuries for someone to find them. When Vincent's friend Fernando falls into a pool, he's "possessed" by one of the aliens. Fernando (and Zairic, his Xayan host) now share Fernando's body, and with Adolphus' permission, persuade other humans to help resurrect the Xayan race. With super-human powers (including telemancy), the Xayans become allies with the Adolphus in his quest...and the stage is set to battle the Constellation's massive army in the next installment.

HELLHOLE is chock-full of interesting characters, is packed with political and intergalactic intrigue, features bizarre religious cults, and has a couple of unusual romances behind the action. There's also four surviving native Xayans who get discovered; with their humanoid/catepillar-like bodies and artistic, philosophic ways, there's a lot of promise with them for the next two novels.

While some readers found this tedious and typical, I was sucked right in, and trekked through its 500+ pages in no time (I'm assuming HELLHOLE's negative reviews came from anal-retentive fans of "epic" scifi...something I only partake in on occassion).

Here's hoping the authors take this fine introduction and make the series explode...

Smell Rating: 4

FANGTOOTH by Shaun Jeffrey (2011 Dark Regions Press / 233 / tp )

Bruce and his teenage son Jack move to the small fishing village of Mulberry, hoping for a fresh start after the death of his wife. At first Bruce and Jack are greeted pleasantly enough until an accident claims the life of a tourist. Then some of the townspeople become openly hostile.

Erin is a marine biologist doing research in Mulberry for a deep-sea drilling company. While out on a dive she sees a creature that couldn’t possibly exist and almost loses her life. The Fangtooth shouldn’t exist in its large and deadly form, but it does, and there’s more than one out there. They have adapted into the perfect killing machine and the whole town will discover how deadly some sea creatures can be.

I liked the basic story of FANGTOOTH and the fact that it’s a good old fashioned monster tale. The action begins pretty quickly and moves at a nice pace, and there was a nice side story dealing with drug-running that totally worked. Character development was pretty good, for the most part but about halfway through the story some characters’ traits changed suddenly and rather unbelievably. For example, Captain Zander was initially a crazy hard-ass brute; then he does almost a complete one-eighty and is suddenly a “good man”, vowing to protect the same kid he was all set to kill earlier in the story. A few of the characters suddenly became too good to be true and parts of the story just read as cliché to me. FANGTOOTH is good, but not great….an average read.

-Colleen Wanglund

ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake (2011 Tor Teen / 316 pp / hc)

In author Blake's world, there are two kinds of ghosts: the passive type and the murderous. Cas Lowood is a teenager living with his mom who has inherited a rare gift from his late father: the ability to "re-kill" murderous ghosts with a special knife handed down to him. Called to rid a small west coast town of a mysterious ghost known as Anna, things take a rough turn when Cas finds himself unable to kill her...especially after they begin to develop feelings for one another.

It turns out a strange spirit creature has been causing Anna to kill...one of her victims a popular jock named Mike whose friends are now furious, although they reluctantly help Cas deal with the Anna situation. Along with a cute, popular girl from school, his friend Thomas and his occult-hippie uncle, Mike's 2 jock friends, and even his white witch mother, whose herbal spells help protect the group.

I don't read much Young Adult fiction, and was surprised by the amount of violence and profanity here...it's definitely not for younger teens. While I enjoyed ghost hunter Cas, it was Anna's character and back story that held my interest. She's an innocent girl--eternally stuck in her teenage years that ended horribly in 1958--transformed into a monster by an evil "Obeahman" which the group battles at the exciting conclusion.

ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD is a fun, quick read, good to whip through this coming Halloween season. Nothing groundbreaking...but good.

Smell Rating: 4

TALES FROM THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT by Mark Allan Gunnells (2011 Sideshow Press / 330 pp / tp)

TALES FROM THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT is a short story collection that is dark, disturbing and at times gruesome.

My favorite of the bunch is “The World’s Smallest Man” about a most bizarre carnival…let’s just say the puppy horrified me. Other favorites include “Collector’s Market” about a very unusual, limited edition publisher that wants to publish an author’s last book; “Accidents Happen” about how the guilt of one man after a car accident literally kills him; “Jam” about a man stuck in a traffic jam that is never-ending…very cool premise; and “Acts 19:19 Party” about a book-burning party that ends quite unexpectedly for those doing the burning.

Other great stories include “Out of Print” about a bidding war over a single copy of an author’s out-of-print book; “Big Dog” about the effects of both an old and a new laptop has on a writer; “Snuff”, a revenge story with a twist; and “The Gift Certificate”, a cautionary tale about why you should never open someone else’s mail.

Mark Allan Gunnells’ collection is a total hit with no misses. I know, there are almost always a mix of hits and misses in collections like this but I really liked every story here. Mark wrote a lot of these stories while actually working a midnight shift, thus the title. At the end of the book the author gives some insight into each of his stories, which is a nice way to end TALES FROM THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT. Horror fans should add this to their own collections.

-Colleen Wanglund

FLOATING STAIRCASE by Ronald Malfi (2011 Medallion Press / 464 pp / tb)

There’s always something to be said for the classics, and in this genre, does it GET more classic than the haunted house? Moody, broody, grim and gloomy … almost Gothic in the literary sense of the word … homes with tragic histories and new-moved-in troubled residents … where unquiet spirits are, really, only a symptom of the evil that we do to each other … Ronald Malfi’s FLOATING STAIRCASE takes all that and gives it just enough of a twist to make what’s old seem new again.

Young couple Travis and Jodie have finally decided to move out of their flat in the city, now that Travis’ struggling career as a writer is beginning to take off. The place they’ve found is a bargain (of course!), on the lake, conveniently close to Travis’ older brother, so there’s family nearby.

It’s a little weird right from the beginning, especially the structure poking up out of the frozen lake, the structure that looks for all the world like a floating staircase. Turns out it’s the collapsed and tipped remains of an old dock, now just a picturesque landmark and the site for daring local kids to climb and dive.

Including the kid who used to live in the house that now belongs to Travis and Jodie. A kid who left some keepsakes hidden in a secret compartment, toys and … other things. A kid whose bedroom may have been in the windowless basement. A kid who drowned in the lake, in an incident that reminds Travis unavoidably of the most terrible moment in his own past.

His investigations into the circumstances of the kid’s death, at first out of curiosity and then as a matter of writerly research, and then as a consuming obsession, lead Travis closer and closer to the hidden truth. If anyone will believe him. If they don’t decide he’s lost his mind.

FLOATING STAIRCASE is a good, gripping read. Interesting characters, well-written, a neat fresh take on the trope. The style’s got a nice solidity and heft, the actual haunt-factor is all the creepier for being understated.

It just might not be the kind of book to take with you on vacation to that nice lakeside cabin in the woods …

-Christine Morgan

ROUGH CUT by Brian Pinkerton (2011 Bad Moon Books / 366 pp / tp)

Harry Tuttle directed a few popular horror films in the 80s. Since then he has been churning out bad, low budget features, many which go direct to DVD or cable TV, barely keeping a cult following. When his ex-wife marries a hot-shot Hollywood director and begins to get famous, he becomes inspired to get back on track. The problem is, Harry finally comes to the realization that he just doesn't have it anymore. He has become a hack.

One day he screens a new film given to him by a young wanna-be director. The film, 'Deadly Desires,' blows Harry away; it's the most realistic, scary horror film he's seen in ages. He strikes a deal with the new director (Marcus Stegman) to release the film, only with himself credited as director. Marcus--badly in need of cash--eventually agrees. Sure enough, Deadly Desires becomes a huge hit, and Harry's career seems back on track, bigger and better than before.

When a popular film critic interviews Harry, he also watches a screener DVD of Deadly Desires, and becomes convinced one of the kill scenes is too real to have been faked. And when no one can get in touch with the actress who dies on film, all hell breaks loose: Harry realizes he has bought a genuine snuff film, and Marcus is currently at work on another one, this time targeting Harry's new girlfriend who also happens to be an actress.

ROUGH CUT features a well-crafted plot, tight writing, and a fantastic level of suspense. Although aimed at a horror audience, this novel will also be enjoyed by fans of thrillers and crime fiction. It's apparent Pinkerton has done his homework here: his portrayal of the ins and outs of the film business kept me as interested in the proceedings as the ever-growing tension. You won't be bored for a second.

Smell Rating: 1

THE NEIGHBORHOOD by Kelli Owen (2011 Thunderstorm Books / 106 pp / mini-tp)

In this brief novella, Owen introduces us to the small town of Neillsville, where everyone knows each other's business and there seems to be little-to-no crime. But when Mary finds a young girl's finger in his son's pocket while doing laundry, THE NEIGHBORHOOD becomes a dark mystery with countless suspects, including a demanding school bus driver and a pedophile who has recently moved to the area. The first half of the novella sort-of reminded me of classic Bentley Little and there's plenty of suspense.

A second victim's body is discovered underneath an old foot bridge (and if you hate heights as much as I do you'll be cringing during the prior chapter), making even the most innocent among the townsfolk seem guilty.

Owen's novella is an enjoyable read, although it seems like part of a much bigger story; we get to meet several tight-knit small town people who I wanted to get to know better, and there's much potential for more Neillsville short stories or even a novel. I'll be keeping an eye out for more...

Smell Rating: 1

THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE by Brett J. Talley (2011 JournalStone Press / 260 pp / tp)

When Carter Weston, a student at Miskatonic University, is asked by his professor Dr. Thayerson to retrieve a book with a powerful reputation, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. Weston is sent to the town of Anchorhead during a blizzard to find the Incendium Maleficarum, or Flame of the Witch. While in a tavern he meets four men, each of whom has a very interesting story to tell. Jack tells Weston of his encounter with the legendary Wendigo while on a trapping expedition. Daniel tells of his misadventure in Eastern Europe where he inadvertently stumbled upon a cult of women intent on bringing a demon into this world. William’s story involves an insane asylum, a professor at Miskatonic University and a cult trying to unsuccessfully awaken Cthulhu with the Necronomicon.

It is the fourth man, Captain Grey who has the book Weston is searching for. Grey’s story of how he found the book in the first place describes a magic powerful enough to trap Grey’s ship and bring back the dead. Grey gives up the book willingly but it is only after Weston has brought the book back to the University that he realizes his mistake. Carter Weston must now stop Thayerson from doing what a former professor at Miskatonic failed to do—awaken Cthulhu.

Winner of JournalStone’s horror novel writing contest, Brett J. Talley has written a wonderful homage to occult horror. Each of the stories told to our protagonist is unique and scary by itself while adding to the overall atmosphere and theme of the novel as a whole. Each character is nicely fleshed-out and their individual stories come together beautifully. With references to Lovecraft, Stoker and even the Bible, THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE reads like the best 19th and early 20th century horror stories about the occult and ancient god-like monsters. I highly Recommend this novel and look forward to reading more by Talley in the future.

(Full disclosure: I was a judge for JournalStone’s contest and gave this novel high marks)

-Colleen Wanglund

A SERPENT UNCOILED by Simon Spurrier (2011 Headline Publishing / 416 pp / tp)

Forget urban fantasy … how about a hearty helping of occult noir? This book grabbed me from the very start and didn’t want to let go, and about knocked my socks off in the process.

Dan Shaper is a London private eye who works the seedy and sometimes weird side of life. His clients are people who can’t, or don’t want to, go to the proper legal authorities with their problems. And Dan, in the best gumshoe tradition, has plenty of problems of his own. Shady acquaintances. Substance abuse issues. A history he’d really rather forget.

Anyway, along comes Dan’s latest case, and it is a doozy. A man called George Glass shows up at his office, claiming to be three thousand years old, with sporadic amnesia and mystical powers. He also claims to be in danger, on a hit list from which a few names ahead of his have already been brutally eliminated.

Dan believes in none of that stuff, of course, but money is money and Glass is offering a lot to find out who’s behind the death threats. The case plunges Dan into a bizarre underworld of psychics, tantric yoga, cults, and killings. With, of course, hired guns on his trail and a turbulent relationship with a troubled, troubling woman inextricably tied to the case.

Though it’s set in modern times, with cell phones and the internet and everything, but you keep expecting – or at least I did! – to run across words like “dame” or other such colorful Prohibition-era slang. Funny thing, I was sure I recalled the story as having been done in first-person! But it isn’t, it’s in third, as I found upon going back for another look. It just seems so like it SHOULD be in first-person that my mind insisted on believing it was.

Loads of fun, exciting and intriguing. A definite keeper. I’ll be reading this one over again.

-Christine Morgan

KARAOKE DEATH SQUAD by Eric Mays (2011 Copeland Valley Press / 308 pp / tp)

Odie Wharton is a hot shot on the underground karaoke bar scene in Baltimore. Along with his off-the-wall friends, karaoke is not only something they do to kill time...it's everything from a serious sport, to a way to make extra cash...it's their way of life. Their world is thrown into chaos when three beautiful Russian women show up one night and seemingly put the place into a trance with their rendition of Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots are Made for Walkin'.' Odie and his crew quickly discover there's more to these women than good voices and hot bodies when they begin to show signs of superhuman strength and other-worldly powers.

When one of Odie's crew goes missing after leaving with two of the girls, and when a few of his male buddies become pregnant, an all-out war is on between our karaoke heroes and these sexy-but-evil dames...

With Russian mobsters, a quiet man who works origami in unusual ways, and a sexy cougar who--along with her hot teenage daughter--work their karaoke like a true art, KARAOKE DEATH SQUAD is loaded with irresistible characters and often hysterical situations. Mays' witty and inventive prose keeps the pages flipping, and his use of popular songs (and how they're sung by certain people) had me in stitches.

This action-packed novel full of slackers, sluts, and succubbi is easily one of the most entertaining novels this year. It might even inspire you to pick up a microphone...

(There's a GREAT bonus after the novel...Mays' special top ten lists to keep in mind the next time you hit your local pub!).

Smell Rating: 2

SACRIFICE by Wrath James White (2011 Sinister Grin Press / 174 pp / tp)

Detective John Malloy is called to a most unusual crime scene: it appears some poor soul has been eaten alive by his dog...and every other animal who happened to be close enough to take a bite out of him at the time. While investigating the case, Malloy and his partner are called to a crime in progress: this time a group of young school children are savagely attacking their teacher...along with all types of animals and insects. Soon after this, a former heavyweight fighter is attacked in a similar manner.

Along with these bizarre murders, Malloy and his partner Mohammed Rafik are also attempting to locate several missing young girls. When they pay a visit to the parents of one missing girl, they find no pictures of the child anywhere in the home...but they do discover a picture of the parents with a woman who they eventually learn turns out to be a voodoo priestess named Delilah.

SACRIFICE is a brutal, action-packed horror yarn with two flawed but likeable detectives and a cast that's equally as interesting. Its take on voodoo is quite different from anything I've read before, giving Delilah a different vibe from other voodoo-novel antagonists (such as the Haitian Voudon in THE EVIL and THE EVIL RETURNS by Hugh B. Cave). And despite it's short 174 pages, this one also manages to double as a sequel (of sorts) to Wrath's 2009 novel, THE RESURRECTIONIST. With lean, tight prose, a satisfying conclusion and a few choice surprises, Wrath has unleashed yet another solid genre read.

Smell Rating: 2

CARNIVAL OF FEAR by J.G. Faherty (2010 Graveside Tales / 310 pp / tp)

A dark carnival has appeared in the middle of the night on Halloween eve, and the carnies are hungry for human flesh and souls. The biggest attraction is the Haunted Castle. When the castle is full at the stroke of midnight, everything changes.

Two groups of teens who clearly don’t like each other end up in the haunted attraction at midnight and each group find themselves fighting for their lives. Upon entering a theme room in the Haunted Castle—witches, zombies, werewolves, etc.—the teens are transported to another world. If they destroy the evil then they end up back in the castle, cardboard cutouts and all. The teens discover that they must defeat the evil in each room of the attraction and then do the same in the final room at the top. Unfortunately not everyone will make it out alive. The final room is each teen’s own personal Hell and only one of the teens can beat his or her own Hell and save the others from theirs, as well as saving the entire town from being devoured by demons.

CARNIVAL OF FEAR is an imaginative and scary story that plays on the fears we all have when walking into a haunted attraction of some kind. It is a Young Adult title but doesn’t read like one. The main characters are all kids, but adults can relate to them all in one way or another. We were scared teens, too once. The story is well-written and has a nice flow to it. There were a couple of instances where I thought character development was a little too much, but it didn’t get in the way of the overall story. Faherty has written a dark and spooky story that will appeal to all ages.

-Colleen Wanglund

LIKE PORNOS FOR PSYCHOS by Wrath James White (2011 Deadite Press / 100 pp / tp and eBook)

Words spring to mind when reading anything by Wrath James White. Words like “nasty” and “vile” and “revolting.” Non-word action sounds spring to mind, too … like gagging, uneasy queasy cries, quivering whimpers and inarticulate screams.

In a good way, of course. If there can be a good way for such things. I mean, yes, the stories in LIKE PORNO FOR PSYCHOS WILL stab straight through your eyeballs and into your brain to wrench your guts and cross your legs, but they’ll do so in a most impressive, memorable way.

Granted, that might also not be a selling point … but then, if you pick up a book with a title and cover like this (the art depicts a woman with the skin flayed off her neck and boobies), you’d hopefully already have some idea of what you’re getting yourself into!

What you’re getting yourself into is a tall stack of horror sandwich, with poems for the bread and ten stories packed in between them. But no ordinary, tidy, safe sandwich. We’re talking “Man Vs. Food” territory here. Like, no sane person should attempt it, you might want gloves, and if you can finish in an hour without puking, you deserve a tee shirt and your name on the wall of fame.

Seriously. There’s meat everywhere. And it’s messy. There’s sex, eating, cannibalism, cannibalistic sex, oral-genital contact in the fun and not-so-fun ways, mutilation, voracious inhumanity (in several senses; lions and demons and dogs as well as people being evil to each other), gadgets, fetishes, abuses, the works.

My favorites of the bunch are probably “Feeding Time” (woman with a fetish and a hated husband finds a possible answer to both while getting her kink on at the zoo) and “After the Cure” (a second Sexual Revolution has unexpected consequences).

Ironically, there’s also one story – “Fatter” – that involves body image issues, sex, and eating … and, speaking as a *ahem* woman of substance, that one hit home with uncanny accuracy.

Now … where’s my tee shirt?

-Christine Morgan

THE WHITE FACED BEAR by R. Scott McCoy (2010 Bellfire Press / 165 pp / tp)

Jeff Bennett returned to Kodiak, Alaska, the place of his birth to fulfill his father’s deathbed wish of having his ashes scattered on the island he so loved. The minute Jeff sets foot on Kodiak a giant bear awakens and Jeff’s nightmare begins. The bear is an evil magician trapped by Aouachala, a Sun’Aq shaman. It seems Jeff’s father, a hunter, shot a member of the magician’s bear clam some forty years before and he is now seeking revenge. Merrick and his grandfather Joe are descendants of the shaman Aouachala and they help Jeff survive the wrath of the magician and destroy the giant bear. Joe sends Jeff and Merrick to Russia to find the skull of Aouchala and bring it back to Kodiak. Along the way both men must deal with the deaths of their fathers and how it has affected their own lives to this point.

THE WHITE FACED BEAR is an interesting story because it’s not just about a rampaging supernatural bear. It’s also about how Merrick and Jeff were each impacted by their fathers and how coming to terms with their respective pasts makes them stronger and able to fight back against the magician. Character development is spot on and the story moves at break-neck speed to its inevitable and satisfying conclusion. Both Jeff and Merrick are flawed but still very likeable men who are just trying to find their way. The magician/giant bear is not really the focus of the story, but makes an excellent and frightening antagonist. R. Scott McCoy’s writing is descriptive without being overdone and keeps an even and quick pace throughout. This is definitely one to pick up if you like your horror full of the supernatural and dangerous animals.

-Colleen Wanglund

JUST LIKE HELL by Nate Southard (2011 Deadite Press / 122 pp / tp)

On some of the forums I frequent, there’s the abbreviation BBR to stand for Black Bug Room, a tag given to designate stuff likely to be ‘triggering’ or upsetting in regards to certain key sensitive issues.

As in, what you’re about to read will agonize and infuriate, make you lose whatever faith you may have had left in this world and our species, and there’s nothing to be done for it. The diametric opposite of uplifting and inspiring.

The title novella of this collection, “Just Like Hell,” could use a BBR tag.

It’s hateful and cruel. It’s brutality and revenge a la “I Spit on Your Grave” crossed with the most awful of homophobic bullying tales. It’s horrific in the way of Jack Ketchum’s THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. It’s terrifyingly painful and difficult to read.

It’s TOO well-written, the characters too real and believable. The usual safety zone of “hey, it’s only a story” is not available here.

In other words, it’s probably one of best things you’ll NEVER WANT TO READ AGAIN. Much too much discomfort. Like J. F. Gonzalez’s SURVIVOR. Like …

Well, just like hell. Talk about aptly-titled. Yeesh. It’s a neck-deep wade through our worst fears of helplessness and witnessing the suffering of our loved ones.

Not pretty. Not pleasant. Very, very BBR.

Yet, at the same time, there are some vocal intolerant types out there for whom I can’t help thinking it should be required reading. Really rub their noses in the ugliness of their own dogma.

Basically, it once again proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that no matter what kind of nightmarish supernatural monsters we dream up, the worst ones are always the real ones.

Assuming you make it through those first sixty-some pages, there are four other shorter and much less soul-shreddingly grueling stories to round out the book.

“A Team-Building Exercise” takes a black-humored look inside corporate life, “Miss Kenner and Me” is a creeptastic tale of obsessive hot-for-teacher, “Seniorita” started off by putting me strongly in mind of the cowboy ballad ‘El Paso’ but then takes a hard left turn into the bizarre, and “Work Pit Four” is a peculiar little one that left me thinking it must have been an excerpt from some longer work (Occult steampunk? Paranormalish-Victoriana?)

-Christine Morgan

NEXT MONTH:

and many more...

October, 2011 Reviews

2011-10-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

OCTOBER 2011 REVIEWS

MIDNIGHT MOVIE by Tobe Hooper with Alan Goldsher (2011 Three Rivers Press / 316 / tp)

There's always a roll of the eyes when a famed horror film director tries his hand at a novel (Wes Craven, anyone?). When I heard Tobe Hooper--director of my all time favorite horror film, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE--had written one, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it, especially after hearing that one of my buddies HATED it and another LOVED it.

For the first 100 pages, MIDNIGHT MOVIE had me hook, line, and sinker. The pace was nice, the initial idea seemed great (a screening of an unseen Hooper film shot in his teenaged years somehow causes America to become a zombieland) But right after this set-up section, the novel goes in several different directions, and I spent most of the time wondering if Hooper (and co-writer Goldsher) could bring it all together in the final act.

They do and they don't.

While I enjoyed Tobe Hooper as the protagonist (as well as the group of misfits who help him re-film his lost epic), and REALLY liked how the zombies are so in the background you hardly know they're there, there were so many other things going on I had a hard time staying focused on the story: besides the zombies, why did the screening of the film cause mass terrorist attacks and outbreaks of sexual frenzy? And just who were carrying out these attacks? The zombies, or some kind of splinter cells? Is not a zombie invasion enough? The authors seriously should've trimmed this thing down a bit (even at just over 300 pages, 75 could've easily been chopped without losing anything).

While the novel works fine as a metaphor for Hooper's views on the Hollywood system, and will make independent film makers proud of what they do, MIDNIGHT MOVIE--in the end--is a so-so offering that starts out fantastic then looses steam as it unfolds (the quick and blah conclusion doesn't help, despite some ends being decently tied up).

For Hooper fanatics only.

Smell Rating: 4

SAMSON AND DENIAL by Robert Ford (2011 Thunderstorm Books / 126 pp / tp)

Ford's supernatural crime novella is a quick, tight read with absolutely ZERO filler.

When Sammy (a Philadelphia street kid who now owns a pawn shop) finds his brother brutally murdered at the hands of the Russian mob (who have also kidnapped his wife), he's on a mission to get her back regardless of the overwhelming odds. Along with his huge Desert Eagle handgun, Sammy's surprise weapon turns out to be a mummified head a junkie unloaded at his shop.

With smart street-wise dialogue, brutal violence, and even an all-female underground religious cult right out of a Jodorowsky film, SAMSON AND DENIAL reads like a pulpy b-movie without the unintentional laughs; it's a serious tale that'll appeal to horror and crime fans alike. Great stuff.

Smell Rating: 1

BLACK LIGHT by Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan, and Stephen Romano (2011Mulholland Books / 327 pp / tp)

Buck grew up in an orphanage with no memory of his life prior to the age of seven. At the age of twelve he discovered a natural ability to deal with the spirits of the dead. He is also able to see the plane of existence where the dead go and hear their voices. Buck has been nagged by the thought that his parents were murdered by something horrible and he seems to have been given the chance to find out along with the missing pieces of his life.

Buck has been hired by a billionaire businessman to “protect” the passengers on his new bullet train as it moves through a very spiritually active area of the desert known as the Black Triangle. Buck had been there before and almost died on a case involving the Blackjack Nine. He swore he’d never go back, but believes it is the chance to have his questions answered. What Buck doesn’t know is that there are others involved and everyone has their own agenda. Buck is the key to unleashing something terrifying, IF things go according to plan. Buck knows that he will either do his job and discover the key to his past or die trying.

For a debut novel, BLACK LIGHT is an entertaining and interesting read. I liked the main character, Buck Carlsbad and his development is well-done and to the point. I thought his abilities and what he did with them made for quite an original story. I was a bit disappointed with the development of other characters, including some of the protagonists, as well as their motives. While I did enjoy the book for the most part, I thought the climax of the story was a bit overblown and half expected the end to play like something out of SON OF ROSEMARY by Ira Levin (which to me turned out to be a huge letdown). I also think there were too many players in the final mix. I would have preferred a story that focused more on Buck and his quest for answers and less on a movie-style ending—but two of the authors wrote for the SAW movie franchise so that explains some things. Buck comes across as being very subdued and I think the grandiose happenings in the last third of the novel don’t really fit around him. BLACK LIGHT is entertaining but just slightly above average.

-Colleen Wanglund

PHOENIX ROSE by Michael Bailey (2009 CreateSpace / 366 pp / tp)

Ever watch a big lavish movie and get the idea that you’re seeing three or four cool stories trying to be told all at the same time? With the result being that none of them really get their full due, and you’re left with this lingering sense of wondering what was going on?

That’s how I felt reading PHOENIX ROSE. Three or four cool stories, wrapped around and framed within one another, with some obvious ties to a previous work I hadn’t read, and by the time I reached the last page, I realized I still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on.

I think, and hope, that was the author’s intention. The whole thing reads like someone else’s delirium dreams, reminding me of the time my father confused teaspoons for tablespoons once when I was sick.

The actual writing is good quality, excellent language use and descriptions. Some of the reality checks may have bounced for me; I found myself wondering if that’s really how foaling is handled (not that I’d have any idea; my experiences with horses are limited), and having my doubts about the psychiatric angles. But that’s a bit beside the point.

So, there’s these three or four stories. One is about an injured little boy whose family can’t cope with the aftermath of an awful accident, another is about a guy who may or may not be kind of almost sort of a werewolf, then there’s the brothers who are faking crop circles, and a zombie/vampire priest who interrupts a convenience store robbery … and a semi-suicidal man in an amnesiac insane asylum …

Hell, I don’t know WHAT this book was about. It was interesting; some of the ideas and many turns of phrase were downright amazing, but overall, I was (and still am, referring back to it now), pretty well totally baffled.

If you enjoy that sense of drifting disconnect, and don’t expect to reach the end and close a book with any measure of finality and satisfaction, then you could give this one a whirl.

-Christine Morgan

BESTIAL: WEREWOLF APOCALYPSE by William D. Carl (2008 Permuted Press / 298 pp / tp)

I finally got around to reading Carl's 2008 action-packed monster novel, close to the eve of its re-release through Simon & Schuster this December, 2011.

When a bunch of hoods hold up a bank in Cincinatti, things take a wickedly bad turn when the city is attacked by werewolf-like creatures. Head thug Rick and head bank teller Chesya manage to survive the assault inside the bank's vault. But when they emerge the next morning, they find their city in ruins.

Across town, a teenage runaway squatter named Christian thinks he knows what's going on. It seems one of his Johns was a wealthy Frenchman who also worked at a bio lab. When things seem safe outside of his building, he locates the man's lab and finds a notebook that may hold some answers to the devastation. And finally, a middle-aged housewife is on a mission to find her lost son after receiving a telephone call from him amidst the chaos (while several end-time novels use this search-for-the-missing-kid subplot, this time it's done quickly and doesn't take much space).

Despite a couple of end-of-the-world scenarious that will be familiar to fans of the subgenre, BESTIAL has a relentless pace that forced me to finish it in two sittings. And the werewolves aren't your typical werewolves; they also show signs of being part bear and part tiger, giving them a faster, stronger, and more lethal edge. Carl also manages to flesh out his characters while keeping the action flying at a nearly non-stop pace, making me long to see more of them in the two promised sequels.

Apocalyptic novels have saturated the horror fiction scene over the past eight years or so...but when they're as well done as BESTIAL, it's easy to see why fans keep begging for more.

ETERNAL UNREST: A NOVEL OF MUMMY TERROR by Lorne Dixon (2011 Coscom Entertainment / 240 pp / tp)

Prior to America’s involvement in World War II England endured heavy bombardment by the German Luftwaffe and so decided to send its most valuable artifacts from the British Museum to the Smithsonian Institute. Unfortunately for Priscilla Stuyvesant, who is overseeing the transport of the artifacts, a bomb has reduced three truck-loads to one. Priscilla and her two companions, Mason and Brigham barely escape with their lives and have now picked up some refugees. One of the refugees decides to ride in the back of the truck but Priscilla senses something is wrong with their cargo.

After a harrowing night at a military refueling station, the group finally makes it to the docks and the cargo ship, but with two less people than they had the night before. Once on board things go from bad to worse rather quickly. Priscilla senses the power emanating from the mummies’ crates, but while attempting to dump them overboard the crap really hits the fan. Not only are these former assassins returning to life but the ship has now been boarded by Nazis on the run from their own government, including a doctor who performed unauthorized experiments on his own people. Priscilla and her companions must find a way to survive murderous Nazis and powerful mummies all in the enclosed spaces of a cargo ship on the Atlantic Ocean.

If there was ever a story to begin the reign of the mummy in the horror genre, ETERNAL UNREST is it. Dixon has weaved together a tale of war, murder, and revenge—of two powerful civilizations separated by thousands of years and the magic and horror that has connected them. ETERNAL UNREST wastes no time getting into the meat of the story, which is bloody and brutal and the very claustrophobic atmosphere makes for a truly scary read. For diehard fans of Hammer Studios’ mummy flicks, this is the book we’ve been waiting for! With a great introduction by author Nick Cato who sums up the lack of mummy love perfectly and amazing cover art by C.J. Hutchinson and Jesus Morales, this is a highly recommended must-read.

-Colleen Wanglund

PREVIEW:

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER by M.R. Sellars (To Be Released November, 2011 by Willow Tree Press / 327 pp / hc, tp, and eBook)

Special Agent Constance Mandalay is assigned to a case in the small town of Hulis, Missouri. She's the latest in a string of FBI agents who have spent the past seven Christmas seasons attempting to uncover a murder that occurs each year--each one identical to a brutal crime that happened at the same location back in 1975.

Agent Mandalay has her share of suspects as everyone in Hulis seems to be holding back information. Sheriff Addison "Skip" Carmichael (who was a rookie deputy at the time of the '75 murder) seems helpful and friendly enough, but Mandalay fears he, too, isn't telling her everything he knows about the case.

This is the first novel from Sellars to feature Constance Mandalay as a main character (she has appeared in Sellars' best-selling "Rowan Gant Investigation' series), and while she's not a typical over-the-top crime-novel detective, the author does a fine job with her as a straight-shooting agent (it was actually refreshing to see a cop without heavy past or present demons or addictions for a change). Perhaps after the odd events she has endured in this novel, Sellars now has a bit more of a dark edge to grow the character from.

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER is a well written mystery with a paranormal slant. The gruesome murders and child-abuse back story will keep the attention of any fan of dark fiction. It's difficult to put down and will make a satisfying, spooky ready on a cold night this coming holiday season.

I'm looking forward to more from Sellars and Special Agent Mandalay.

THESE STRANGE WORLDS by Daniel Powell (2011 Distillations Press / tp)

THESE STRANGE WORLDS: FOURTEEN DARK TALES is a collection of short stories that run the gamut from sorta-scifi to sorta-horror. And, while they’re not badly written, while they’re engaging enough, I could not shake the feeling that I was reading the equivalent of a made-for-TV movie just dissimilar enough to some blockbuster to avoid being TOO obvious, or eating the generic store brand of a snack cake.

“Oh,” I’d think as I read, “this one’s his take on …” or “Hmm, seems heavily influenced by …” or “hey, just like …” and so on. I was reminded over and over of other stories. Not necessarily in a bad way, but often in a watered down way.

Yeah, I know, there’s only so many plots, so many ideas, and the difference is in the storytelling. Not what ya got but how ya use it. Etc. Still, I came away from this book wishing I’d spent the time re-reading Stephen King’s collections instead.

So, the fourteen dark tales are okay … not great, not awful … mostly bland with an occasional flash of stirring imagery or artful word use. The ones I liked best in here were “The Scheme,” “The Usurper” and the title track, “These Strange Worlds.”

-Christine Morgan

FOR EMMY by Mary SanGiovanni (2011 Thunderstorm Books / 107 pp / tp)

Dana is Emmy's older sister, and they spend their after-school hours helping their father around his small book store. One day Emmy goes missing from right under there noses. With this simple premise the author takes us on a crash course of missing persons cases that branches into issues many may have never considered. Within these short 107 pages I found more food for thought and downright eeriness than in just about all of the 60+ books I've read so far this year.

SanGiovanni's novella dealing with a missing five year-old girl did something few horror stories do (even of its ilk): it actually scared me. And after all, isn't that what horror fiction is supposed to do? Try reading this one alone late at night and you just might agree. I can't recommend this one enough.

NOWHERE HALL by Cate Gardner (2011 Spectral Press / 28 pp / cb)

One in a limited edition series of chapbooks released by Spectral Press, NOWHERE HALL introduces us to Ron, a man contemplating suicide because he’s lost his job. While wrestling with his decision Ron is drawn to The Vestibule, a hotel that is either beautiful and bustling or derelict and haunted, depending on the state of Ron’s fragile psyche. Once Ron has entered he is forced to play the game, one he doesn’t know the rules to.

Cate Gardner has penned a surreal and spooky story in less than 30 pages. It’s a quick but very entertaining read. At times the prose seems more like poetry and the imagery is almost dream-like. Gardner allows the reader to come to the answer to Ron’s dilemma right along with the character. I liked Ron and empathized with him immediately. I also like that Gardner didn’t explain everything; I don’t necessarily want everything explained. Did Ron make his final decision when he entered the building? Read NOWHERE HALL to find out.

Colleen Wanglund

THE DRIVER'S GUIDE TO HITTING PEDESTRIANS by Andersen Prunty (2011 Lazy Fascist Press / 98 pp / tp)

Prunty (a man who is happiest while napping in his tennis shoes) deilvers this collection of Bizarro short stories that range from the TRULY bizarre to the truly hysterical (and usually a combo of the two).

Among the more memorable are the epic title story, a sort-of take on DEATH RACE 2000 featuring an odd guy who spends most of his life in his van; 'Architecture' deals with a man who decides to build something truly different; 'Napper" is one of the funniest pieces here as Prunty shows off his classic Bizarro chops; 'The Balloonman's Secret' features an oddly out-of-place happy ending; I couldn't get enough of the idea behind 'Reading Manko' and neither will you if you're cool; 'Rivalry' takes neighborly scuffles to a new level, and 'Divorce' is classic Bizarro that readers either get or run away from crying.

Even the couple of semi-predictable tales fit in here and are satisfying.

While I enjoy prunty's novels, his shorts make for some good rapid-fire reading until the next one is unleashed.

Smell Rating: 2

THE FIVE by Robert McCammon (2011 Subterranean Press / 520 pp / hc)

My stream of thoughts upon seeing this one on the shelf went as follows:

“Ooh! A new McCammon?” *grab*

*look at cover* “Aww, obviously not a Matthew Corbett … but okay.”

“Eeee! GARGOYLES font!” *fangirl moment*

By then I already knew I’d be buying it, whatever it turned out to be about. Which, in this case, happens to be a band. Called “The Five,” reasonably enough, since it’s the title and since there’s five members. Even if there are six of them riding in the van on their latest tour, five plus their manager.

Though, in a more meta sense, the book is also about the current cultural climate, how the internet affects artists of all stripes, and the fickle price/nature of fame and success. Which, speaking as one of the struggling multitudes of would-bes, makes for a fairly nerve-hitting, depressing, shaming read. Ouch.

The Five are an odd mix of musical archetypes. Nomad is the bad boy, the tough guy, the shades-and-smokes lead singer. Ariel is the ethereal quirky hippie-chick, the gentle soul of the group. Keyboardist Terry, despite his shaved head, is the geeky genius. Berke, the drummer, has chip-on-the-shoulder, angry, in-your-face issues. Bass player Mike is, fittingly, the steady rock the rest can depend on.

And the sixth, manager George, takes care of all the mundane details. Gigs, hotels when they can afford it and crash space when they can’t, merchandising, interviews, etc. Right up until the day he announces that at the end of the tour, he’s leaving for a more stable career. That opens the door for Terry to make a similar announcement, and that heralds the crumbling of The Five.

As a last-ditch gesture, either to hold them together or to be a final project, they decide to collaborate on one more song. A bizarre experience on the road provides some inspiration, but a maliciously-handled interview on local TV brings The Five to the attention of a dangerous man who appoints himself their personal stalker and hitman.

That’s when it stops being about their farewell tour as a band, and starts being about matters of life and death. That’s also when they discover that nothing gets attention – not to mention publicity and sales – faster than violence, tragedy, bloodshed and horror.

Before they can even begin coming to terms with the loss of some of their own, the surviving members of The Five find themselves catapulted to stardom. They also find themselves as bait for the killer, not to mention caught up in something that seems even bigger, some sort of showdown of good versus evil.

Basically, THE FIVE is five hundred pages of rock and soul, and when you sit down to read it, make sure you’ve provided adequate time … you won’t want to close the book until the end, and maybe not even then.

-Christine Morgan

THE BONE WORMS by Keith Minnion (2011 Cemetery Dance Publications / 156 pp / eBook)

Having recently raved over Minnion's short story collection, IT'S FOR YOU, I was happy to see one of my favorites ('Up in the Boneyard') turned into a short novel. Minnion takes a classic horror set up (an ancient evil comes back to haunt the present day) and makes it work.

In 1921 and 1922, two young boys are affected by The Boneyard, a mystical realm that exists about twenty stories in the air over a certain section of Pittsburgh. Flash ahead to 1983, where a series of grisly (and strange) murders have police baffled: it seems some lunatic is managing to steal his or her victims' bones while leaving the flesh behind with precision-neat slices in the skin; first responders to the crime scenes are also discovering organs and muscles neatly stacked in a separate corner of the room. Enter Detective Sergeant Francis Lomax, a straight-up cop haunted by his father's lack of faith in him. Francis happens to see things at each crime scene others don't, and with the help of a geeky librarian, manages to get on the tail of the killer...or killers...or thing(s).

THE BONE WORMS can be read in a sitting or two, will give those afraid of heights the willies, and supplies plenty of suspense and gut-wrenching violence. In the hands of a lesser author, this standard plot could have easily gone south, but somehow Minnion makes it seem fresh. Check it out.

THE ARMAGEDDON CHORD by Jeremy Wagner (2011 kNight Romance Publishing / 254 pp / tp)

Helmut Hartkopff is an Egyptologist who finds an ancient song written in hieroglyphics while exploring the pyramid of an evil pharaoh, Aknaseth. If this song is played, it will bring about the end of the world and Satan will rule the Earth.

Helmut is working for Festus Baustone, a billionaire looking for relief from the pain of dying from bone cancer. The song is said to bring immortality, which peaks Festus’s interest greatly. Not only would he be free from pain, but he’d also become more powerful than he already is.

But first he must find someone to perform the song.

Kirk Vaisto is the “God of Guitar” according to his fans. When he is approached by Festus to translate the hieroglyphics into the song, Kirk is wary but agrees. But when he plays the song in his studio, he is assaulted by evil sights and sounds that destroy his equipment. His fingers bleed from playing, and he is left with the conviction that the song must never be played again.

However, Festus doesn’t take no for an answer. Kirk has fallen for Festus’s daughter Mona, and Festus uses that as leverage to make Kirk play the song in Egypt, broadcasted live all over the world. If Kirk doesn’t play, Festus will kill his own daughter.

Could the “Armageddon Chord” really bring about the Apocalypse and allow Satan to rule the world with Festus at his side?

This is Jeremy Wagner’s first novel, and it’s fantastic. Besides being an author, Jeremy is also a talented heavy metal musician and songwriter. It is obvious while reading The Armageddon Chord that Jeremy is passionate about music and guitars - there is a lot of interesting information throughout the book about both subjects.

The Armageddon Chord is a fun and thrilling combination of heavy metal music and horror. Jeremy Wagner has written a great story including angels and demons, good guys and bad guys, suspense and a little bit of romance. This is a book that is hard to put down; I read it in about a day.

Jeremy Wagner has hit the ground running with his debut novel. I can’t wait to see what he has in store next.

-Sheri White

HIGHWAYS TO HELL by Bryan Smith (2011 Deadite Press / 200 pp / tp)

What do you do when you wake from a blackout and find a murdered stripper in the back of your car? Or, rather, in a story called “Living Dead Bitch,” what do you do when the murdered stripper in the back of your car starts trying to take chomps out of you and your buddy?

Such questions are the sort posed to the unfortunate characters in Bryan Smith’s Highways to Hell collection.

Others might include: How do you get back at the obnoxious brats at the ball park? (“Slugger,” and given my own ongoing feud with the local Little Leaguers, I’d best not answer that one) Or: Where do you get your story ideas? (“Brain Worms Crave Soul Food” … those of you who write, and who view real life as fodder for your creativity, you gotta agree with me here … please don’t tell me I’m the only one who feels that way … that would be awkward …)

Or: You think being a pizza delivery guy is a sucky enough job to start with? How about if you walk in on a crime in progress? (“Pizza Face”) Or: Would you take back the most heinous act of your life if you still had to live with the memory of it? (“Remorse”)

The best question and best answer of all, in my opinion, has to be the one presented in “Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be” … What’s it like, being allowed to play with someone else’s coolest toys? I envy the living daylights out of any writer who gets to dabble in the Mephistopolis, and Smith’s contribution to an Edward Lee tribute anthology only proves how damn much fun it is!

In fact, all the stories in this book are fun, albeit in an often dark, warped, or twisted kind of way. They are the product of someone having a wild good time doing something he loves to do, and it shows.

-Christine Morgan

TATTERED SOULS 2 edited by Frank J. Hutton (2011 Cutting Block Press / 218 pp / tp)

In Hutton's second second anthology aimed at introducing newer writers, there are more hits than misses and each of the eight stories are long enough to get a true taste of each author's style.

Among my favorites are Elias Siqueiros' 'The First Stroke,' about a retired dollmaker who finds one of his cutomized creations (which happens to resemble his son) has a bunch of people after it. I found it to be the eeriest story here, if somewhat familiar.

Stephanie Shaw shines with 'Mademoiselle Guignol,' about an actress in 1913 paris who has grown tired of dying off in countless performances. When she tells the theater's owner she wants to quit, things take a dark turn. Of all the authors featured in TATTERED SOULS 2, Shaw is one I'll surely be keeping my eye on.

Other winners include Steve Ruthenbeck's 'I Was A Teenage Zombie Apocalypse,' another familiar yet well done yarn of the undead; the opening sci-fi-tinged 'Yellow Called and Mom was There,' by Tim W. Burke, set in a world where everyone is continually hooked up to computers to receive daily injections (and Burke takes it in a direction I didn't expect); and the most disturbing of the lot easily goes to Forrest Aguirre, whose 'The Arch: Conjecture of Cities,' about a man who searches for a legendary book, discovers it's much more than he had originally thought. Things are revealed at a fine pace, building to a most satisfying conclusion.

TS2 is a fine introduction to 8 authors, only one who I had heard of (that'd be Forrest Aguirre). And while not every story is memorable, they're all well written and should hold most horror fan's interest.

NEXT MONTH:

Kendare Blake's ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD and HELLHOLE, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's first installment of an epic trilogy, PLUS more reviews than you can shake a stick at!