Review – “Angels of the Silences” by Simon Bestwick

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I’d been looking forward to some new Bestwickian horror, and beamed when I read of “Angels of the Silences” impending release, and then again – twice as wide – when the beautifully produced novella flopped onto my doormat. I acquired it as part of a generous bonus offer when purchasing another chapbook from Pendragon Press, but I would’ve happily paid the cover price.AngelsThe tale concerns our narrator, Emily, and her best friend Biff. They’re likeable goth girls full of attitude and heart, and fairly normal other than the fact that nine months ago they were brutally murdered. They try to keep their other friends from harm, but it soon becomes clear that even undead guardians can’t control the darkness in the world.

Simon’s 1st person prose has always been realistic and Emily proves to be no exception. She’s endearing, intelligent if sometimes naive, loves her friends, and her story shines with that simplistic combination of angst and hope that comes so effortlessly to the young.

The novella reflects subtly on our tribal natures, both its positive and most horrible elements, and I suspect it was inspired by real life events. I also love this idea of the afterlife in which ghosts range from concrete through to mere lurking shadows. The story hints at the reasons, but leaves us to ponder and although I would like to see this concept expanded, there was no need for it here.

This author always stirs me. There’s sobering anger, dark satisfaction, and some incredibly fragile scenes. “Angel of the Silences” made me fill up, so suddenly that it took me by surprise, and I admire anybody who can inflict that merely with simple words on a page.

A one-sitting read, it has real warmth and humour as well as the horror, and should have broad appeal whatever your particular tastes. Put aside the time and savour it.

Simon Bestwick

Pendragon Press

Some You Win, Some You Lose…

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necrotic-tissue-14I was sad to learn that the quality small press digest Necrotic Tissue has been forced to close its doors, chiefly for financial reasons: unfortunately a familiar picture. Details here on their blog. Their last issue will be #14, out in April, which contains my story “The Narcslaag” and will be my 3rd publication with them. I wish Scott, the editor, all the best with his other endeavours.On a brighter note, Craig Clarke is running a little contest over at his blog Somebody Dies to coincide with Oscar season. You can very easily win an ebook copy of “Living After Midnight” as well as other Acid Grave Press goodies. Whadda you waiting for?

“One Monster Is Not Enough” by Paul Finch

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I became familiar with Paul Finch through his anthologised short fiction, and he always ticks all the boxes. One Monster Is Not Enough, a themed collection of 8 novellas and novelettes courtesy of Gray Friar Press, continues that tradition of quality. With the freedom to expand his tales, this book is a treat.One MonsterIt kicks off with one of the shorter stories: “The Old North Road”. Here we find a down-on-his-luck historian travelling to a ruined abbey for a project on the legendary Green Man. He meets a suspicious couple out in the quiet countryside, and the unease notches up slowly towards a terrifying climax in which the supernatural almost takes a back seat to the three human characters. But only almost.

“The Tatterfoal” concerns the widowed wife of an 80s pop star. She arranges for his former band-mates and family to attend a party in her isolated mansion: a place rife with tales about the legendary man-horse of the title. This story keeps us guessing throughout, and ladles on the atmosphere including the best use of fog since… well, The Fog. My only complaint is that it felt slightly too long, and shorn of a few pages, it would’ve been truly unputdownable.

“Calibos” is an immediately gripping SF story in which a titanic mechanical crab – designed to harvest seabed specimens – clambers onto dry land and wreaks a trail of carnage across the country. We follow a crack squad of soldiers into the crab’s guts as they try to bring it down, fighting off the brilliantly anatomical internal defences. Although this is a lighter tale, it’s not without horror, especially when we encounter the human “specimens” the Calibos has collected and processed. The angle of innocent technology gone awry is handled with aplomb, and it also reflects on the value of human life within the world of politics.

Next up is a story with a strong urban flavour. Set in Manchester, “Hag Fold” is a serial killer tale told by an ex-cop. The childhood reflections are superb, and reading it is like watching a grim jigsaw being assembled.

“The Retreat” is a definite favourite. Set during World War II, a group of German soldiers trek across the frozen Russian Steppes and discover a forest shack that seems strangely welcoming. Utterly intriguing from the off, this story has a nightmarish quality to which the hardened soldiers respond perfectly. It’s also notable for its battle scenes, which are nothing short of breathtaking. To read brutal, realistic, wince-inducing bloodshed in such elegant prose is an unforgettable experience, and you would think the author was actually there.

“Kid” is narrated by a tough, bitter ex-boxer. He plans to tell his ex-wife what he thinks of her – and knock her new fella’s teeth out – but instead gets lost in a threadbare and indifferent part of London called Baker’s Wood. He’s an eloquent narrator, despite his primal nature and other shortcomings. I won’t ruin the surprises, but the whole package is a triumph of both concept and voice.

In “Red in Beak and Claw” we meet Ben: gangster muscle in the witness protection programme. When he’s relocated to a country cottage with his wife, he learns of a local robber’s hoard said to be protected by a gigantic, man-slaying cockerel. This tale shows the author’s talent for keeping those pages turning fast, and like the previous story, you engage even though the protagonist is somebody you might avoid in the street. This investment is helped by plenty of character back-story, but as always, not a whiff of infodumping. The conclusion doesn’t quite have the clout as some of the others, but it certainly isn’t disappointing, and it’s a brilliant story to re-read once you know what’s going on.

“Crow-Raven” brings the entertainment to a close. The first couple of paragraphs give a rather bland tour of a medieval manor called Buckton Hall. Okay. Then the narrative begins to describe a couple of murdered corpses in that same polite, slightly jocular and informative tone of a tour-guide, and suddenly I was beaming. This is writing. It transpires that Buckton Hall used to be owned by a family of vicious hunchbacks, and we follow the efforts of a specialist police unit for investigating strange and paranormal crimes. The whole thing pans out like the pilot for an English adult version of the X-Files with plenty of humour, gore, scares, and a dollop of sexual tension.

I suggest getting hold of One Monster Is Not Enough immediately. All the stories are strong. They conclude with a satisfying flourish, with not a hackneyed twist in sight, and the supernatural tales are just as real and chilling as those with concrete foundations. Paul Finch also has an extraordinary ear for dialogue: there are big-budget scriptwriters who can’t pen scenes as natural as those in this book. Regardless of genre, it’s genuinely heart-warming to see the short fiction form in the hands of somebody so bloody good at it.

Gray Friar Press

Paul Finch

Review – “Pretty Little Dead Things” by Gary McMahon

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During the last year, I’ve enjoyed watching Gary McMahon rise from a champion of the small press to the bigger leagues, and his lastest mass market release perfectly demonstrates why this is so. This novel is a very tight combination of noir, horror and character drama.

In Pretty Little Dead Things, we meet Thomas Usher, a man who loses his wife and young child in a traffic accident, but develops a supernatural talent to keep him busy through the years of bitter grief. He can see the recently deceased, and they want to tell him things. As the story progresses, and he investigates the murder of a gangster’s daughter and the kidnapping of a local child, it becomes clear that his gift is the only thing that keeps him trudging through life. He yearns for redemption, yet refuses to let go and punishes himself with tattoos to commemorate those he has failed.PrettyAs with all Gary’s previous publications, the characters are strong right down to the cameos. I expected to become weary of Usher’s grief-stricken self-flagellation, but the pathos is such that I discovered myself right in his corner, and the other characters – including an old romantic interest and a cancer-addled police colleague – also force your investment. And you won’t forget the menacing figure of Mr. Shiloh and his plastic, soulless smile.

The author’s attention to detail is as sharp as ever. He has a neat trick of  allowing the subconscious to notice little things that you only fully acknowledge later on when they turn out to be important. Perhaps his prose is slightly less rich than before, but this isn’t a complaint. Far from it: silent narration takes real writing skill.

This book has a very bleak atmosphere at times, and some segments are nightmarish in their lucidity. A scene involving some recently deceased corpses dangling from the protagonist’s landing is an image so clear that I might as well have seen a photograph of it. This makes it very difficult to forget. And after Usher is menaced by faceless hoodies, walking through the city at night after reading this isn’t quite the same.

There are creepy layers of reality throughout – some ghostly, others concrete – but even with the latter, everything seems slightly off-kilter and wrong: the essence of any quality piece of ghost/horror fiction.

It’s a less “noisy” novel than Hungry Hearts – his 2010 zombie novel from Abaddon books – and feels more like old-school Gary McMahon. Here, he relies more on mood and atmosphere rather than action. But that’s not to say Pretty Little Dead Things doesn’t slam its foot on the accelerator when required. The first part of the book has a gentle, more literary flavour, but it has all pleasingly kicked off by the end.

As usual, I can do nothing but recommend this book. The follow-up Dead Bad Things is due later this year, and I’ll be at the front of the queue, rubbing my hands like a hungry ghoul at the kicked-in doors of a city morgue.

Angry Robot

Gary McMahon

More love for “Living After Midnight”

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Living After Midnight (which contains my novella “Iron Maiden”) received a glowing review from Kent Allard at Dead In The South and also Jim Mcleod at Ginger Nuts of Horror.LAMThere’s also a featured interview with stalwart editor David T Wilbanks here at the Indie Books Blog.

If you haven’t sampled this delightful e-tome yet, it’s available at Smashwords, Amazon, Amazon UK, Diesel, Barnes and Noble… whether you want pdf, Kindle, Nook… so you’ve no excuse but to rock your hard and heavy soul over there and bag one.

As a couple of folks have asked, these stories aren’t about the bands, or even necessarily about music (although you will meet a few fictional rockers, of course). They’re just dark tales inspired by the music that the authors love. So you’re more into country, techno, hip-hop or reggae? Matters not a jot. Just don’t expect too much sunshine…

Review – “Roots” by Daniel I Russell

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I’ve been reading more and more e-books recently, lured by the price, immediacy and sheer number of titles available. I particularly like the opportunity to casually download single novelettes or novellas, which during the days of print-only publishing, would’ve been part of a larger and more expensive collection.

One such particular pleasure is “Roots” by Daniel I Russell. In this standalone novelette, we meet Richard, a regular copper frustrated by an increasing number of missing person cases in the neighbourhood. Unbeknownst to him, the murderous culprit lives right across the street, and has been using the butchered corpses to fertilise his garden. But there’s a very hungry and dangerous bit of greenery in that garden, a plant that absorbs the memories of the dead. And it’s growing stronger…RootsThere are no crime procedural elements to this story: this is proud horror and all the better for it. It throws the tropes of serial killers, the undead and monster vegetation together and the results are a crisp and well constructed tale. Roots has the air of a chapter in a television show, like an episode of Masters of Horror or a particularly lurid Tales from the Crypt. The author’s matter-of-fact prose style helps, letting the dialogue and actions speak for themselves and making for an effortless read.

There’s plenty of threat lurking throughout, both subtle and immediate, so even moments of domestic normality seem shadowed and askew. The violence is realistic, and one particular assault from the monster induced an actual writhe. But the author understands there can be as much horror in a footstep echoing down an empty street or a rustle in the trees, and uses such atmosphere and tone to great effect.

My only complaint was an odd situation involving a lift home from a nightclub during which a woman ended up wandering the deserted streets alone. It didn’t quite add up, and felt like she had been shoehorned into jeopardy for the purposes of a scare. But it’s my only complaint, and that scene is still pretty terrifying once it gathers momentum.

Give it a shot. Roots delivers half an hour or so of monstrous fun and is certainly worth the price.

Daniel I Russell

Favourite Books of 2010

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Some of these were actually 2009 releases, but it wasn’t their fault they were adrift somewhere in the middle of my eternally towering to-be-read pile for a year or so.

So in no particular order, my top 10 genre reads of 2010 were…

  • The Harm – Gary McMahon
  • Nekropolis – Tim Waggoner
  • Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland – Carlton Mellick III
  • Mostly Monochrome Stories – John Travis
  • Taste of Tenderloin – Gene O’Neill
  • Null Immortalis: Nemonymous #10 – Various Authors (Edited by DF Lewis)
  • The Seventh Black Book of Horror – Various Authors (Edited by Charles Black)
  • Tide of Souls – Simon Bestwick
  • In Sickness – LL Soares and Laura Cooney
  • One Monster Is Not Enough – Paul Finch

Forced to pick, my overall favourite has to be Paul Finch’s “One Monster Is Not Enough”. It’s an exceptional collection, which made it onto this list before I was even half way through.

Living After Midnight!

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I’m very pleased to announce that the “Living After Midnight” ebook – which includes my novella Iron Maiden –  is now available from Acid Grave Press.

Edited by David T. Wilbanks and Craig Clarke, this anthology contains 6 horror and dark-fantasy tales inspired by rock and metal bands. You’ll find werewolves, high-seas mythology, zombies, ancient magic, motorbikes, beer, blood and plenty of volume! A lot of passion went into these stories so it’s great to see the book out there.

Table of Contents:

  • Spooky Tooth by Randy Chandler
  • Iron Maiden by Matthew Fryer
  • Black Sabbath by Steven L. Shrewsbury
  • Judas Priest by David T. Wilbanks
  • Motorhead by Kent Gowran
  • Slayer by L.L. Soares

You can download it from Smashwords in whatever electronic format you can think of, and all for a mere $2.99 (Just under £2). For the Kindle edition, it’s up at Amazon and Amazon UK.

Grab a bottle of Jack, crank it up to eleven, and enjoy.

Jean Rollin 1938 – 2010

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I was sad to learn that prolific French erotic-horror film-maker Jean Rollin died on December 15th after a long illness.

The few films I’ve seen of his were pleasingly stylish as well as lurid, and “Fascination” summed it all up for me. Set in a beautifully-shot French castle, it features period costume, theatrical dialogue and a cast of blood-drinking lesbian killers.The image of a semi-naked Brigitte Lahaie, stalking a victim across the castle moat with a scythe is one that refuses to be forgotten.

RIP Jean. May your heaven be full of nudey vampire girls.