Whispers from the Abyss (01 Publishing) describes itself as “An anthology of H.P. Lovecraft inspired short fiction.” But the authors within its pages are no slavish Elvis tribute acts. Instead, they are his mutant bastard offspring, whose mission is to misbehave dreadfully and have a wonderful time doing so. These Children of the Night run amok, gleefully […]
Book Review: Journey, A Short Story Volume I by Mykl Walsh
November 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Journey, A Short Story Volume I begins in the year 10,001. An expedition team from Earth lands on a planet in a neighboring galaxy. Exploring the planet, they find that human-like life once existed on the planet a long time ago. While most signs of civilization are now gone, they still discover several preserved relics. […]
Book Review: Birdsnatch by C.J. Cummings and Mark Ryan
September 4, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Birdsnatch (also available at Amazon.co.uk) is apparently the first in a planned series called “A Tale Told Twice.” The idea behind the series is that two authors take the same title and build separate stories around only the title. This is the first result of that experiment. In C.J. Cummings’s novella, an irreversible computer error is causing […]
Review: Nightmare Magazine, April 2015
July 22, 2015 by 1 Comment
A horribly delayed review, for which I unreservedly apologise to John Joseph Adams and the editorial crew (hey, you know I love you guys!). In my defence, I had a backlog, made my return from seven years in Bulgaria back to my homeland, Scotland, got a new job, etc., etc…. Nevertheless, regardless, as they say, […]
Book Review: Terra Insanus by Edward Lee
July 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment
I’ve read three of Edward Lee’s novels and enjoyed them all. They were schlocky, exploitative and fun to read. Before mass market horror collapsed, Lee’s novels pushed the boundaries of good taste and earned him a spot as as a leading name in the splatterpunk movement. Outside of the mainstream, Lee was publishing even more […]
Graphic Novel Review: The Push Man and Other Stories by Yoshihiro Tatsumi
June 24, 2015 by Leave a Comment
On March 7 of this year, Yoshihiro Tatsumi died at the age of 79. Tatsumi was a Japanese manga artist who had been writing and drawing since the ’50s. He is often considered the “godfather of alternative manga” for the way he helped push Japanese comics to more mature and complex story telling. He even […]
Reviews: The Beauty and The Bridge
May 27, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This time I am reviewing two works: a novella, The Beauty by Aliya Whitely; and a short story, The Bridge by Angela D. Mitchell. Both are distinguished by highly original, unusual storytelling and beautiful prose. In The Beauty by Aliya Whitely, a group of men and boys who have escaped their failing city gather around […]
Book Review: what if i got down on my knees? by Tony Rauch
May 15, 2015 by Leave a Comment
I really enjoyed Tony Rauch’s previous collection of short stories, eyeballs growing all over me …again. It was a strong collection of whimsical and strange stories with a science fiction thread running through it. When I saw that Rauch had released a new collection, I asked for a review copy of what if i got […]
Book Review: Black House Rocked by Paul Bingham and Emril Krestle
April 20, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Hopeless Books bills Black House Rocked as a “literary split single.” It brings to mind pulp presses like Ace Books that published double volumes of books with similar themes, like how the first edition of William S. Burroughs’ novel Junky was part of a double volume with Maurice Helbrant’s novel Narcotic Agent. In this case, […]
Book Review: The Bizarro Starter Kit (Purple)
April 1, 2015 by 1 Comment
I’ve reviewed a couple books here that are billed under the subgenre of Bizarro, such as Dodgeball High and Technicolor Terrorists. Bizarro, however, is a relatively new subgenre of speculative fiction and many are still unfamiliar with it. To introduce people to the genre, Eraserhead Press has released three collections of various authors. The original […]
