I just arrived back from 5 days staying in the remote and beautiful Kenmore on the edge of Loch Tay, Perthshire, Scotland.
Just the place for relaxing, walking out in the Tolkien-esque scenery and getting the creative juices flowing. I took this picture while sitting on a log and watching the sunset behind the mountains, listening to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on my iPod. (Yes, I’m a closet hobbit)
Sublime.
My wife bought this Afterblight book from Abaddon Books in a recent apocalyptic-fiction phase of which I wholeheartedly approve. I rattled through it, and it’s definitely one of those addictive stories where you anticipate the next chance to pick it up and dig in.
It’s five years since most of the world’s population has been decimated and we find a new social order in the hands of a sinister cult called the Clergy. Our enigmatic protagonist (and narrator) takes us on a brutal adventure through the shanties and clans of New York. He isn’t an entirely pleasant creature, and deliberately so, and proves to be increasingly fascinating the more we learn.
The characters present all our traits, from the reassuring to the heinous, giving the book an extraordinary sense of humanity; the triumphs and the flaws. This makes the extreme violence all the more shocking, yet at the same time, sometimes understandable.
It’s a very colourful tale that manages to be a homage to the familiar (there’s plenty for fans of Mad Max and Escape from New York here) while also treading fresh, unexplored ground. The pace is relentless and it’s all tied up nicely at the end in a manner that should be irritatingly contrived, but instead just cements a solid story.
This novel has certainly thrust Abaddon books to the forefront of my attention. If you’re not a fan of the tribal, post-apocalyptic futures, you’ll probably think it’s good. If you are, you’ll love it.
“Hawg is one wild ride…” begins Bryan Smith’s blurb on the cover, and if I had to sum up this novel in five words, they’d be what I’d choose.
In the rural community of Miller’s Fork, a feral tusked beast is on the rampage, raping and slaughtering his way across the countryside.
The cast of characters includes a gang of tough bikers, a bewildered police force, some tenacious kids and a farmer who likes his religion dipped in fire and brimstone.
These folks come across as very real, producing some great dialogue and often also a sense of fun. The occasional grin-inducing, theatrical lines of dialogue are self-aware and saved for just the right moment.
But it’s not all smiles. There’s extreme violence, an impressive body count and one scene in which a pair of kids are trapped and terrorised by the terrifying Hawg had me holding my breath. The gore is in-yer-face, but pleasingly not at the expense of story.
I have a couple of negatives. In the first half of the book, I had to flick back a couple of times to keep up with who was whom. The second gripe was a Hawg chase through a printworks. It was a blast at first – a joyous slab of carnage – but went on for just a couple of pages too long and I was getting bored by the time it finished, which was a shame.
But overall, this book is bang on. There’s some visceral ideas, nods to the genre and a strong sense of place. In fact, the pace and vision of Hawg would translate perfectly into a movie. The film-makers would need a stout cast, a talented director and truckloads of fake blood and offal to do it justice.
You know you want to. Hawg needs to play.
I’m very happy to discover that my story “The Plague of Gentlemen” will feature in the Dark Jesters anthology coming from Novello publishers next year.
Edited by Nick Cato and L.L. Soares, it also features tales by William A. Veselik, David T. Wilbanks, Laura Cooney, Jerrod Balzer, Sam Battrick, Robert Guffey, James Roy Daley, Rob Brooks and Mark Justice.
Looks good and it’s also nice to share a TOC with me old mate Dave Wilbanks.
The Journal of Absurd and Surreal Fiction #8
I know you shouldn’t judge books by their covers (or indeed titles), but I’ll confess it’s the reason I bought this one. Well, look at it. You’re telling me you’re not intrigued?
Maybe it was because of my illogical impulsiveness that my hopes weren’t high.
Like most publications, some of the stories are better than others, but what did strike me is that in every case, the level of writing is unusually high. The editor clearly has an eye for quality prose.
Anyway, the highlights.
“Bang Bang” by Adam Breckenridge is a great little story about a powerful man with the freedom to dispose of anyone who bothers him. The repetitive inevitability of his trigger finger was really making me laugh by the end.
“We Witnessed The Advent Of A New Apocalypse During An Episode Of Friends” by Blake Butler is by far the darkest of the 11 stories within. The title describes it perfectly and we see a gradual intrusion of nightmare into the whimsical, familiar, laughter-track world of Rachel, Chandler and co. It’s creepy and vividly disturbing, shared by both the cast and their TV dinner audience. I read it through twice, and may do again.
“Castle Cesare” by Rhys Hughes is probably my favourite. This historical, Italian tale describes a man who becomes trapped upon a vast and realistic orrery, one of those mechanical devices that depicts the solar system with models of moving planets. It has humour, tension, imagination and a brilliant, uncontrived punchline.
There’s also a story by D. Harlan Wilson, and his words glow from the pages, as always.
Overall I was very pleasantly surprised by this mixed bag of the imaginative and the bizarre. A quality journal from a keen editorial eye to which I’m tempted to subscribe.
This anthology of British supernatural horror novelettes from Pendragon Press proves there are some small press publications out there that can go toe-to-toe with the heavyweights of the genre. All 5 stories are beautifully written and slick as a fresh werewolf pelt, yet their shadows envelope you in different ways.
Paul Finch kicks off the grim proceedings with “The Pumping Station”. This features a trio of young quad-bikers who experience a countryside accident leaving them at the mercy of an unspeakable menace. This story is so vividly evoked that you will feel the rain on your face, the cold mud and hot blood against your skin. The arrival of the aforementioned menace actually sent a shiver down my spine, something that hasn’t happened for some time, and I salute this tale of creeping doom.
While the Pumping Station was an exercise in escalating terror, the strength of Stuart Young’s “Bliss” begins with humour and camaraderie amongst its characters in an uncomfortable atmosphere. We find a young Iraq war veteran, back home and attending his murdered father’s funeral. After the locals start turning nasty, he is drawn deeper into trouble with his brother until the whole situation resembles an ultra-violent, X-rated episode of Doctor Who. Although I detected a Lovecraftian vibe at the end, this is probably the least “horror” of the bunch. But it’s also the most fun.
“Heads”, written by the anthology’s editor, proves Gary McMahon is a writer to watch. It’s back to the full blown horror as we meet the narrator, one half of a middle-aged couple, devastated by several miscarriages in their attempt to start a family. After they discover some creepy folklore artefacts buried in the garden, an unexpected pregnancy arrives and the tale accelerates into nightmare. McMahon’s prose is a rare treat. His attention to detail in human interaction creates characters you can see and feel, and the couple’s grief and fear is quite palpable. This makes for a very intense descent.
“The Mill” by Mark West is next to rumble out of the darkness. A man who has lost his wife to cancer suffers strange dreams and discovers through a bereavement support group that he is being drawn towards something sinister. Something centred around an old abandoned mill. Dealing with grief, suicide and desperation, this one grabs your heart-strings and twists. Extra kudos to the author for being able to write dream sequences that aren’t dull.
The last tale by Simon Bestwick is a grim slab of post-apocalypse. “The Narrows” is told by a teacher attempting to save himself and a few surviving pupils and fellow staff from a nuclear fall-out. Their journey through a network of flooded subterranean tunnels is intolerably bleak and will remain in your head for good. Breath-squeezingly claustrophobic yet at the same time very poignant and moving, this isn’t one to read to your kids. Or to anyone afraid of the dark. Or scared of the supernatural. Or a nuclear holocaust. Well, anybody in fact. Other than the ne’er-do-wells who actually like this kind of thing. Like me.
So there it is. We Fade To Grey sets the bar high from the off and doesn’t pause for breath. I normally only like the supernatural in small doses, but this imaginative collection packs such a wallop – both emotional and visceral – that I didn’t care one bit. All five authors weave genuine human pathos with blood and don’t then go and spoil everything with a happy ending. Brilliant. Grab one while you can.
I wasn’t expecting Dead Sea to deliver as much as it did.
It begins with a pretty standard outbreak and action, but as Keene is a practiced veteran of the genre, it’s well written enough to hold the attention.
The troubled narrator, Lamar Reed, is an engaging and slightly enigmatic lead as he escapes the fires and undead of a swiftly apocalyptic Baltimore, ending up on a coastguard cutter with a bunch of other survivors. As they search the seas for possible sanctuary, things start to get really interesting and the second half of the book is a real page turner.
There are a standard characters in the group – the asshole cop with attitude, the tenacious kids – but fortunately this doesn’t harm enjoyment as it may have in the hands of a lesser talent, and they develop nicely with plenty of surprises along the way.
There’s enough of blood and violence to satisfy the sinew-thirsty gorehounds and when the crew dock at a rescue station for supplies, we get an imaginative, sickening treat that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling.
Although the science of the zombie disease is pretty generic (with the bonus of cross-species), the conversion of the infected is very dark, and one scene describing a confused crewman’s fall to the sickness is genuinely haunting. There’s also a couple of incidents when you realise what’s brewing before the protagonists, and it’s fun waiting for the shit to hit the fan as they carry on oblivious.
The book only stalls briefly with the sudden introduction of 20 or so characters as the narrator boards the ship. For the subsequent few chapters, I had to keep flicking back to their initial meeting to remind myself of who was whom, something to be expected in a sprawling space opera, but not usually the case in a Lesiure 300 page horror thriller.
But this is my only complaint and I read it in 2 sittings. After “City of the Dead”, Keene’s 2nd zombie novel, I thought I’d had my fill of his undead, but now I’d happily read another. Right now in fact.
I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this recent offering from Darkhart Press. The military drama angle of US soldiers going missing and fighting an “unspeakable menace” in Iraq didn’t sound desperately original or my cup of tea. But I gave it a go and was pleased that I did.
It starts with a pair of soldiers in remotest Iraq who discover the journal of a man from a long-vanished platoon. His journal describes an almost deserted village in which the platoon became trapped. People died, creepy goings-on ensued, and the journal ends.
Shortly after, the pair of soldiers find the village and by this point I was hooked. Tightly plotted and fast paced, this book grabbed my hand and ran without giving me any choice in the matter. The action and chase sequences are handled with aplomb and I think I might have actually held my breath a couple of times.
There are some faults. While the early journal section sets the mood, it doesn’t read like a journal but more like a novel, which dulls the realistic effect. Some of the characters are slightly stock and I also sometimes found the author over-descriptive. There is also a very jarring scene in which while running for their lives, one soldier manages to regale his companion with complex information about how their terrible situation came about. While this dialogue is clearly to inform the reader, it didn’t ring true in that situation.
But never mind all that. Although somewhat obvious, the characters are strong to a man. The atmosphere of the desert is perfect and the tension is palpable throughout. It also managed to make me afraid of the supernatural. I like spooky, but it’s usually just fun. This author has a talent for even the most imaginative of beasties to kick down your reality filters.
It’s a ride and I’ll happily read Mr Morrigon’s work in future.
As a fan of loud and unpopular music, I wrote some theatrical horror lyrics for punk-metallers FC Dog.
The lyrics to Zombie Night and Vampire Parliament were inspired by psychobilly music and bands such as the Misfits, and are both now regulars in FC Dog’s live set.
Click on the link below to see the video of the song, in which I also played the lead zombie in the black hoody. I had a ghastly real ale hangover during the filming, but it was fun running around Sheffield city centre covered in corpse paint and fake blood, much to the fascination of the local goths.
Run and hide, shriek and die! Zombie night is almost nigh.
Suffer Sheffield, don’t ask why. Your mother’s corpse won’t hear you cry…
Welcome to the Hellforge 