Month: June 2023

Week 281 – Weekly Horror Short Story Reviews: Murray, Reynaga, Narnia, and Tanzer

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Welcome to Week 281 of my horror short fiction review project! This is our first week of Soren Narnia’s second volume of his Knifepoint Horror transcripts series. We’ve got a really intriguing mix of stories this week. My favorite was probably the brief “I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee” by Christopher Reynaga, which puts a Lovecraftian twist to the events of Moby-Dick, and very successfully I might add.

Dracula Unfanged, edited by Christopher Sequeira (IFWG Australia, 2022)

“Draculhu” by Will Murray

A bit too much decontextualized jargon to be really successful. A U.S. government human remote sensor working in a classified program that apparently knows all about the Cthulhu Mythos, the Dreamlands, etc. encounters some strange dark entity that sucks the life force out of unsuspecting victims and calls itself Draculhu. They then work to stop this thing and contain it. Not entirely unsuccessful but the story needed a great deal more interest and characterization to really be successful.

The Book of Cthulhu II, edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Night Shade Books, 2022)

“I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee” by Christopher Reynaga

A very nice retelling of Moby-Dick, as told by Ishmael, last survivor of Ahab’s crew. Ahab was not hunting a white whale, you see, but Great Cthulhu, and it wreaked havoc on the bodies and minds of his crew. Really good piece, and I don’t even like the original novel!

Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 2, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)

“school”

Very long story, certainly at least a novelette and possibly a short novella. This is a story about the lifelong ramifications on an elementary school child who experiences a shocking and extremely savage act of violence in school. It’s also about how that school experienced a series of strange events leading up to it, and how information about those happenings was controlled and disseminated, and how it became warped over time (like a game of “telephone.”) Really interesting topics, though because it’s all a bit inherently diffuse, it seemed a little more aimless at times than most of Narnia’s stories.

Tails of Terror: Stories of Cat-Themed Horror, edited by Brian M. Sammons (Golden Goblin Press, 2018)

“The Hour of the Tortoise” by Molly Tanzer

This is a decidedly odd one. Tanzer has written a series of stories about a very old British family of aristocrats, the Calipashes. Here, the head of the family is on his deathbed and a young woman who is an illegitimate offspring of the family—long ago sent away for sexual improprieties—has been asked to return to the manor. In the interim, she has become a writer of erotica. All is not well back at the manor, to say the least. Connections to the Cthulhu Mythos are pretty tangential, at best. The ending made sense, but was less satisfying than I would have hoped. Tanzer is a great writer, and while I’ve enjoyed some of her other stories, this one didn’t really do it for me.


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Book Review: The Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Jr., part 5: Price, Griffin, and Gavin

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I’m continuing my look at all things Thomas Ligotti-related by turning now to the wonderful tribute anthology The Grimscribe’s Puppets, compiled by the late, great Joe Pulver. If you haven’t already read this one, you’re missing out. Here are my thoughts on the next three stories in this anthology.

“The Holiness of Desolation” by Robert M. Price

A man finds himself trapped in the dreamworld, as manifested in the city of Vastarien. He tries desperately to free himself and return to our world, eventually finding a bookstore inhabited by a talking raven. There, he stumbles upon a copy of Ligotti’s Conspiracy Against the Human Race and reads it, internalizing the ideas and arguments it contains. After reading it, he reawakens in our world, but some terrible apocalypse has occurred and he wanders through a destroyed landscape devoid of all life. Eventually he happens upon a small band of human survivors and murders them all. A little too on-the-nose with the direct Ligotti reference, I think, but interesting.

“Diamond Dust” by Michael Griffin

Max works at an ordinary office job and lives with his girlfriend Cassandra, who makes industrial art installations. He discovers that his company, his girlfriend, and his enigmatic neighbor are all secretly involved in a massive engineering project. He thinks it’s some kind of mysterious skyscraper but it turns out to be a vast subterranean project that descends deep into the earth and seemingly springs up over night. It also becomes apparent that some sort of bodily transformations are also involved. Very interesting and Kafka-esque.

“After the Final” by Richard Gavin

J.P. (the narrator) and his companions seem to travel a postapocalyptic wasteland that has been ravaged by a plague; they seek J.P.’s mentor, the enigmatic Professor Nobody, but are unable to summon Nobody despite their best efforts. One of J.P.’s companions is Maximilian, who, as it turns out, is J.P.’s former therapist, and the rest of the companions are Maximilian’s family, held hostage by J.P. The world has not been destroyed by plague, but J.P. did manage to kill his parents with homemade anthrax. Professor Nobody is, of course, literally nobody, as he is just part of J.P.’s disturbed psyche. An interesting one that I liked the more I thought about it. Some elements in this one that reminded me of the film Mandy.


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Week 280 – Weekly Horror Short Story Reviews: Scherpenhuizen, Glancy, Narnia, and Sammons

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Welcome to Week 280 of my weekly horror short fiction review project! This week we’re finishing up with the first volume of Soren Narnia’s Knifepoint Horror podcast transcripts; never fear though, that one will be replaced with the second volume starting next week. I actually really enjoyed all four stories this week, which always poses a challenge in picking “the best.” If you like fast, furious, brutal action, then you’ll like “Once More, from the Top” by Adam Scott Glancy, which explores the government raid on the Deep Ones at Innsmouth only briefly described in Lovecraft. If you’re looking for something a little slower, a little moodier, a little creepier, you’d probably prefer Soren Narnia’s “circles” about a ghostly occurrence in a small town.

Dracula Unfanged, edited by Christopher Sequeira (IFWG Australia, 2022)

“Vlad the Imp” by J. Scherpenhuizen

An intriguing one. Here, Dracula starts off almost as a kind of imaginary friend to a little boy named Harry to goes off to roam and play in the woods. His friend Vlad, however, turns out to be very real, and is more of a demonic spirit or entity that acts through the child to lure his mother into the woods for Vlad’s purposes. Understated, but enjoyable.

The Book of Cthulhu II, edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Night Shade Books, 2022)

“Once More, from the Top” by Adam Scott Glancy

One of the Delta Green stories that marry the Cthulhu Mythos (or a version of it) with modern technothrillers/military and espionage themes. I’ve read most of the books, stories, and role-playing game books in this setting and have mostly found them intriguing. This one is a long tale recounted by an elderly former Marine who participated in the government raid on Innsmouth, as briefly mentioned in HPL’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” to root out the Deep Ones and the Deep One-human hybrids living there in the 1920s. Some absolutely savage action, so if you like military thrillers, this one should be an outstanding read.

Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 1, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)

“circles”

A man grew up in a small town in which there was the persistent rumor or urban legend about a local ghost, the Spinning Boy, who was said to have died on a carousel at a local park. The truth of the matter, which the narrator has returned to investigate as an adult, is a lot more complicated than he (and we) initially believed. I enjoyed how this one touches on the nature of truth, and narrative, and the stories that we tell ourselves, and how perhaps truth is negotiated and evolves, or is transformed over time. I don’t want to give away the ending’s revelations, but this was a good one.

Tails of Terror: Stories of Cat-Themed Horror, edited by Brian M. Sammons (Golden Goblin Press, 2018)

“Ghost Story” by Brian M. Sammons

A really good story about a cat named Ghost who is owned by a CIA assassin who has been called in to deal with a snake cult. Ghost is home alone and has to deal with a…problem that arises. Lots of fun.


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Book Review: Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

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Everything the Darkness Eats
Eric LaRocca
CLASH Books (June 6, 2023)
Reviewed by Andrew Byers

Eric LaRocca is one of the big names in contemporary horror fiction, a kind of wunderkind whose work has regularly gone viral. I’ve had the chance to read his short fiction and novellas (see a couple of my reviews HERE and HERE), but was very curious to see how he’d handle a full-length novel. Everything the Darkness Eats is a small-town horror novel with vast, cosmic implications, coupled with intense, personal violence. I didn’t find it as transgressive as some of LaRocca’s previous work—I suppose every reader’s bounds of transgression are unique to the individual—but I didn’t come away from this one feeling as though by basic sense of human decency had been affronted, nor did it depict acts that would violate the basic cultural taboos of the typical reader as with some of LaRocca’s previous work. (I say this as an admirer of LaRocca’s work—I very much appreciate being pushed out of my comfort zone as a reader.) To be sure though, this book does contain tremendous violence—brutal, savage beatings and torture of innocents that is inspired by hatred—so I don’t mean to suggest that it is not “extreme” in some sense, just that it’s not as outré as some of LaRocca’s previous hits.

Everything the Darkness Eats is set in Henley’s Edge, a quaint, small town, that, like many similar places is only charming on the surface; scratch beneath that veneer of civilization and you’ll quickly find a series of unexplained disappearances and a horrific undercurrent of hatred of those who are different from the mainstream, which manifests through shockingly brutal homophobic attacks. The novel is comprised of two narratives, one cosmic and supernatural in nature and one deeply personal and intimate. The two really only intertwine at the very end of the novel (and I had wondered throughout how they were going to connect).

The first, more cosmic narrative is the story of a still-grieving widower intriguingly named Ghost Everling, who encounters a mysterious man named Heart Crowley, who begins as a kind of Leland Gaunt-esque figure offering Ghost a gift beyond his wildest dreams. Ghost is drawn into the town’s deeper mysteries by the disappearance of a young, single mother named Gemma he has befriended. Heart offers Ghost a way to help Gemma and the other missing townsfolk while also dealing with a problem of vast significance.

The novel’s second narrative stream concerns Nadeem Malik, a police sergeant, and his husband Brett, who have just moved to Henley’s Edge and who are considering adoption. The pair begin experiencing vandalism and ostracization simply because they are gay. That petty harassment quickly escalates into savage violence. It is brutal, and at times hard to read, though I would expect no less from LaRocca. Eventually Nadeem gets swept up in the larger events transpiring in Henley’s Edge.

I never know what to expect from Eric LaRocca, and try to approach all of his books with an open mind and no particular expectations, which always leads to pleasant surprises. I definitely enjoyed Everything the Darkness Eats as I have his other work. While I don’t think this one is necessarily “tamer” than his previous fiction, I would say that if you’ve been curious about checking out Eric LaRocca’s fiction, and perhaps concerned that some of the more extreme elements for which he has a reputation might be too much for you, this one wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

This review originally appeared in Hellnotes.

Book Review: The Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Jr., part 4: Kelly, Angerhuber, and Padgett

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I’m continuing my look at all things Thomas Ligotti-related by turning now to the wonderful tribute anthology The Grimscribe’s Puppets, compiled by the late, great Joe Pulver. If you haven’t already read this one, you’re missing out. Here are my thoughts on the next three stories in this anthology.

“Pieces of Blackness” by Michael Kelly

Peter and Katy are a childless couple who adopt a young boy named Timothy. Timothy is, of course, a budding young psychopath who kills animals, sleepwalks, and is generally creepy. Katy becomes so attached to the young scamp that she begins to lactate and starts breastfeeding the boy (who is way beyond the age that a child should still be breastfeeding). Peter comes to feel that there is a kind of darkness inside himself—not the metaphorical kind, as it turns out—and begins vomiting up literal pieces of the darkness. There’s no real sense of coherency here, other than three very disturbed or delusional people living together as a quasi-family. I just wish that there was more to unify the stories of these three people.

“The Blue Star” by Eddie M. Angerhuber

A man revisits his seaside hometown, a place that he once visited with his girlfriend and another couple. They traveled by boat to the town and ended up hanging out (and making out) in what seemed to be an abandoned building that had a glowing neon blue star hanging outside. The narrator ventures back into that abandoned building, where he visits the desiccated corpse of his former girlfriend, still right where he left her long ago. As it turns out, while the pair were making out, the power cables from the blue star sign attached themselves to the woman and drained the life force right out of her. He revisits every year. A tragic story that was oddly very poignant.

“20 Simple Steps to Ventriloquism” by Jon Padgett

This is the short version of the story—Padgett has published a much longer version of this one elsewhere—and I think it’s kind of a masterpiece. This is just a wonderfully creepy and disturbing piece that begins as the text from a manual on how to teach yourself ventriloquism but becomes much more than that. It starts off innocuously, but with a few subtle clues that this is no ordinary (or mere) guidebook. The diligent reader progresses from ventriloquism to telekinesis, and then gains a horrible kind of control over other people and things. The idea is that they (and eventually you yourself) are all just dummies with no true thoughts, feelings, autonomy, or agency. While you progress from being just a regular ventriloquist to a Greater Ventriloquist, eventually you learn that in fact you are a thrall to the Ultimate Ventriloquist. Surprisingly effective.


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Week 279 – Weekly Horror Short Story Reviews: Fortier, Goodfellow, Narnia, and Rawlik

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Welcome to Week 279 of my weekly horror short fiction review project! Some really good stories this week. While I really liked “Rapture of the Deep” by Cody Goodfellow (dueling Cold War remote viewers venturing down into the Mariana Trench, how can you not like that premise?), my favorite story of the week was “The Cat in the Pall” by Peter Rawlik. This one actually expands and enriches one of my favorite HPL stories, “The Rats in the Walls,” and explains what was going on in part of the story that didn’t actually make a lot of sense.

Dracula Unfanged, edited by Christopher Sequeira (IFWG Australia, 2022)

“Worlds of Wonder” by Ron Fortier

I just don’t get some of the stories in this collection, or maybe I just don’t understand what the collection was trying to do. Nominally, the theme was to take the character of Dracula and imagine him as something other than the vampire that Stoker described. Okay, that has potential. Here Dracula is a pulp magazine editor who is able to revive the dying pulp genre in the mid-1930s. Oh and he’s not just Dracula, or a Dracula-esque character, he’s also the only make Muse (from Greek mythology). The story itself is okay—though it contains no conflict as far as I can see, his plans go exactly as planned consistently—but why did we need to involve Dracula?

The Book of Cthulhu II, edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Night Shade Books, 2022)

[previously reviewed] “The Big Fish” by Kim Newman

“Rapture of the Deep” by Cody Goodfellow

Cody Goodfellow has written a good number of Cold War and post-Cold War-era Cthulhu Mythos tales that often have a military or espionage bent to them, and are similar to the Delta Green setting, though separate and distinct from those materials. This is one such story about a couple of remote viewers, one American and one Russian, one venture down into the Mariana Trench because several submarines and underwater drones have failed to return after investigating the…unusual activities happening there. Really good.

Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 1, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)

“hiker”

A brief story about a hiker on the Appalachian Trail who meets a fellow hiker whose life has turned out to be extraordinarily, improbably unlucky. An interesting mediation on the nature of luck; some people really do seem to live the opposite of a charmed life, don’t they? A quick one, but a nice mood and well-written as always.

Tails of Terror: Stories of Cat-Themed Horror, edited by Brian M. Sammons (Golden Goblin Press, 2018)

“The Cat in the Pall” by Peter Rawlik

Really good story told from the perspective of the cats in HPL’s “The Rats in the Walls” (and yes, the cat narrator calls himself by a different name than the one that HPL assigned him in case you were wondering). If you recall the original story, there is something terrible going on under Exham Priory, and the eponymous rats living in the walls of the restored priory are a kind of harbinger for those horrors, but we eventually find out that they’re the least of what’s going on here. Not so, apparently. Excellent characterization and addition to the Mythos of one of my favorite HPL stories.


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Book Review: The Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Jr., part 3: Spriggs, Cushing, and Goodfellow

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I’m continuing my look at all things Thomas Ligotti-related by turning now to the wonderful tribute anthology The Grimscribe’s Puppets, compiled by the late, great Joe Pulver. If you haven’t already read this one, you’re missing out. Here are my thoughts on the next three stories in this anthology.

“The Xenambulist: A Fable in Four Acts” by Robin Spriggs

Curious; not quite sure what to make of this one. A man notices a missing step on the stairs as he exits his apartment. He leaves the building and enters a strange church. He is transported to an otherworldly place—another planet, perhaps—before discovering that the whole place is artificial, like a stage set in a theater. The man eventually manages to leave this place, but is beset by shadow monsters, then, it seems, is forced to become one of them. Some interesting things going on here, I just couldn’t figure out what exactly.

“The Company Town” by Nicole Cushing

A man and his daughter pack up and leave town after their wife/mother dies. They take a road trip to a new town where, it soon becomes clear, the man planned a murder-suicide using the services of a company that apparently provides such services for a fee. As it turns out, the company charges a rather large fee—why do you need a company’s help to kill yourself?—which means that they will have to work the fee off while working at the company before they can kill themselves. In fact, everyone working at the company is working their fee off, including the woman at the information desk, who has been working at the company for the past twenty-seven years.

“The Man Who Escaped This Story” by Cody Goodfellow

In my view, this one is just too experimental of a story and a story structure to be wholly successful. At the heart of this one is an insane asylum patient whose identity has unraveled. He conceives of himself in several different ways: as a man who has made a deal with the devil, an author who can write things into existence, and a fictional character in a story. There are some interesting ideas here, but it’s just not all that coherent a story. Wish I liked this one better, I am typically a big fan of Goodfellow’s work.


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Week 278 – Weekly Horror Short Story Reviews: Franks, Llewellyn, Narnia, and Morgan

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Welcome to Week 278 of my weekly horror short fiction review project! The four stories this week are all very good, maybe even great, which makes it very hard to decide which was my favorite. This was genuinely tough. Just by a smidge, I’d have to say that Soren Narnia’s “moonkeeper” was probably my favorite because I could feel the depths of the narrator’s despair and danger palpably throughout. As a writer, that’s very hard to achieve, but Narnia has once again managed to achieve that with his sparse prose.

Dracula Unfanged, edited by Christopher Sequeira (IFWG Australia, 2022)

“Children of the Dragon” by Jason Franks

A female security guard is hired to work for an unabashed cult in Los Angeles, protecting the cult’s headquarters. She has a unique vantage point on the cult, since she is not a member, but is kind of on the inside. She is befriended by the cult’s leader, V., who is, well, you know. Really intriguing.

The Book of Cthulhu II, edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Night Shade Books, 2022)

[previously reviewed] “The Ocean and All Its Devices” by William Browning Spencer

“Take Your Daughters to Work” by Livia Llewellyn

Sadie’s father runs a big corporation; they are participating in an (annual?) day at the office where all the workers bring their daughters to the office (as one does). Short, but you know it’s going to be a creepy story right from the outset. Good.

Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 1, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)

“moonkeeper”

This is the description of an episode in a truly sad life. The narrator lives a truly marginal existence—no friends or family, a crappy job, no real prospects for improvement, a loner’s disposition—and becomes temporarily homeless for a week or so in a town where he doesn’t really no anyone or have anyone he can rely on. Broke, he essentially just walks around town at night and tries to find an unobtrusive spot he can sleep in. Oh and there’s also a serial killer on the loose in town who seems to prey on similarly marginal people, so what would ordinarily be just plain awful is awful and existentially frightening. Very atmospheric and evocative. I could feel the narrator’s tension, terror, and hopelessness.

Tails of Terror: Stories of Cat-Themed Horror, edited by Brian M. Sammons (Golden Goblin Press, 2018)

“Derpyfoot” by Christine Morgan

Told from the perspective of a kitten, which I thought was going to be cloying and annoying. I should have had more faith in Christine Morgan’s storytelling abilities. Nice gross little horror story.


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Book Review: The Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Jr., part 2: Warren, Lane, and Schweitzer

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I’m continuing my look at all things Thomas Ligotti-related by turning now to the wonderful tribute anthology The Grimscribe’s Puppets, compiled by the late, great Joe Pulver. If you haven’t already read this one, you’re missing out. Here are my thoughts on the next three stories in this anthology.

“The Human Moth” by Kaaron Warren

I enjoyed this story because of its sheer insanity. A woman is raised by her strange, abusive parents who take in a large number of cruel, bullying foster children who also abuse her. From childhood she fancies herself a kind of moth in human form. She does things like avoiding eating anything other than lilac, and covers herself in powder. She eventually smothers her parents to death (this seems mostly justified), and then does the same to a drunk she encounters in a park. This one was just plain weird, but fascinating all the same.

“Basement Angels” by Joel Lane

Interesting. Max is a troubled soul, alienated and experiencing blackouts and missing time. He meets a man named Colin, whom he befriends, but who also sells him strange objects: a blue glass pane that seems to look out onto strange vistas, CDs that play strange mixtures of discordant music and noise, a beverage that may be narcotic, etc. Max eventually gets tired of his life and tells Colin he wants to work for him. Max goes to Colin’s studio, gets drugged there, and then has his shadow excised from him and cut into wailing strips that are then dried. Max is then dragged down into the basement and thrown in a chamber with a dozen other lost souls in similar shape. Very evocative.

“No Signal” by Darrell Schweitzer

Interesting. A college professor with a wife and daughter realizes that it is time for him to leave his entire life behind. In a dreamlike state, he travels via subway to another place and meets a crowd of people rushing away. One of them begs him to help and stop someone from leaving. He enters a building and finds a mirror there; he enters the mirror and encounters an unspeakably ancient entity that has been imprisoned in the mirror. He feebly tries to stop it from leaving the mirror, but is easily brushed aside. He winds up being trapped in the mirror. No idea what any of this was about, though I did enjoy it.


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Week 277 – Weekly Horror Short Story Reviews: Fowler, Tobin, Narnia, and Erdelac

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Welcome to Week 277 of my horror short fiction review project! This is the first week of a new collection, the feline-themed Tails of Terror. All the stories this week were good ones. The one that has really stuck with me though was “The Legend of Dracula Reconsidered As a Prime-Time TV Special” by Christopher Fowler, which is about the depths that some will go to for their art, and the inhumanity of modern society.

Dracula Unfanged, edited by Christopher Sequeira (IFWG Australia, 2022)

“The Legend of Dracula Reconsidered As a Prime-Time TV Special” by Christopher Fowler

A young screenwriter living in NYC has written a made-for-TV movie version of Dracula that retells the story in a new way for modern audiences. He must hustle to try to get the screenplay purchased by a TV developer, and his life deteriorates as he is forced to sell his own blood, live on the streets, turn tricks, and be scammed by the unscrupulous. As powerful as it is tragic.

The Book of Cthulhu II, edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Night Shade Books, 2022)

[previously reviewed] “Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea (1957)” by Caitlín R. Kiernan

[previously reviewed] “This Is How the World Ends” by John R. Fultz

“The Drowning at Lake Henpin” by Paul Tobin

Fascinating story told from the perspective of a British policeman who is writing a report on a shooting that he was involved in (and that has several inexplicable circumstances). Wonderfully reminiscent of “The Rats in the Walls” because of a restoration project of an ancient tower in a rural area, but involving a very different set of Cthulhu Mythos entities. The cop involved was probably a little too scholarly of a bent, but excellent story with excellent atmosphere and revelations of forbidden lore.

Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 1, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)

“cellar”

The narrator encounters an old friend he hasn’t seen in many years and finds that the friend has become unstable; he’s certainly a drug addict and seeks attention in strange ways that may indicate mental illness. The friend says he keeps getting weird calls on his home answering machine and that something sinister is going on in his basement. It’s genuinely creepy. We’ve probably all had encounters with people who enter and sometimes re-enter our lives and cause problems every time. This is like that, but with a much darker edge to it.

Tails of Terror: Stories of Cat-Themed Horror, edited by Brian M. Sammons (Golden Goblin Press, 2018)

“Brown Jenkin’s Reckoning” by Edward M. Erdelac

At the end of HPL’s “The Dreams in the Witch-House,” we think that the ancient witch Keziah Mason and her familiar Brown Jenkin (one of the best familiars in all of literature) have been destroyed. Not so, Ed Erdelac reveals. Brown Jenkin is still roaming about to enact his old master’s goals. The cats of Arkham are finally going to take care of that little problem. Fun.


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