The seed of evil has been planted …
What will happen when its roots take hold?
Ékleipsis: The Abyss is the second short story collection by the award-winning author.
Tales of depravation and insanity are woven together with unrelenting style and depth, scrutinizing human nature’s degeneration when compromised by tragic, vicious circumstances.
These complex, wretched individuals and the irremediable conditions they are desperate to claw out of—or into—invoke the unfathomable question: What devastation are we truly capable of when left with no way out but down . . . into the obscurity of the abyss?
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For many reasons, I don’t usually accept review requests these days. One of those reasons is that I like to be both honest and kind, and it can be hard to reconcile those two values if the book is not well written.
I’m glad I accepted this request, though. Supernatural horror is usually my bag, whereas these stories are firmly grounded in the real world, which in Wino’s capable hands made them all the more terrifying. A common thread runs through the stories, yet each one is different enough to maintain the reader’s interest. Each story starts on familiar ground, at times steering close to cliché. Then the tension builds. And builds. And builds. And soon the reader finds themselves in a dark, dangerous, and unexpected place.
Wino writes in an accessible style. He develops his characters with the efficiency that only a skilled short story writer can master, some with such nuance that one can’t quite be sure who is the victim, who is the villain, and who is the hero. My favourite story was “En Prise”, in which an ordinary woman plays an extraordinary mind game to save herself from a man who might be a serial killer.
Exquisite Corpse