Jason Ridler takes a bite out of the vampire genre with his action-packed, fast-paced novel, Blood and Sawdust. B&S reads like a backroom MMA bout with vampires, or Fight Club with a supernatural twist. B&S has its origins in movies like Bloodsport and Street Fighter as much as it does the novels of Raymond Chandler… Continue reading Blood & Sawdust by Jason Ridler
Little Deaths by John F.D. Taff is a strong collection of creepy tales, served up in a variety of literary styles. Taff experiments with different storytelling techniques, sometimes cribbing prose styles and themes from grand masters of the genre. In lesser hands this work would be hack, but Taff puts his own unique spin these… Continue reading Little Deaths by John F.D. Taff
Joe Konrath (aka Jack Kilborn, aka J.A. Konrath) is a kind of folk hero to struggling authors everywhere. His blog, A Newbie’s Guide To Publishing, outlines his success as a self-published novelist, and encourages others to follow a similar path. He makes a compelling argument for DIY book publishing, and the demise of the industry’s… Continue reading Afraid by Jack Kilborn
While Garton and Lansdale bring lighthearted EC-style chills to their Halloween tales, Stewart O’Nan takes it to a deeper and darker place in his coming-of-age tale, Monsters. O’Nan gives us some meat to chew on in this short tale—the lost of innocence, the power of guilt, the purpose and function of religion and prayer, and… Continue reading Monsters: A Halloween Short Story by Stewart O’Nan
Will Castleton is US Marshall with psychic abilities, and David Bain is the community college English professor who created him. Both seem like interesting characters; Castleton with his sometimes-too-late “visions” of crime victims, and Bain with his ability to carve out a niche for himself in the self-pubbed crime fiction genre. Island Ghosts is a… Continue reading Island Ghosts: A Will Castleton Adventure by David Bain
Like Joe Lansdale’s A Little Halloween Talk, Ray Garton’s Invitation Only is a fun little screamer that feels like a racier version of an EC comics tale. A creepy cemetery on Halloween night, murderous drug pushers, the walking dead, and …an orgy! Ray Garton knows how to throw a Halloween party!
‘Tis the season for Halloween tales, and Cemetery Dance Publications has got you covered with its 13 Days of Halloween: Halloween singles collection. CD will release a different $.99 short story each day until Halloween. Joe Lansdale’s A Little Halloween Talk is a short tale told in the first person, present tense. Lansdale’s prose goes down as… Continue reading A Little Halloween Talk by Joe Lansdale
Brian Keene fans have seen these characters and situations before—a blue-collar family struggling to survive in the face of a monstrous supernatural presence. Those elements, combined with Keene’s patented action-packed pacing, and B horror movie thrills, blend pleasantly in Scratch. This is a brief but engaging novella, similar in style and theme to Keene’s The Conqueror… Continue reading Scratch by Brian Keene
I love Edward Lee’s work. His extreme horror fiction is a little “wet” for some readers, but when Lee gets too “dry” and academic that’s when the trouble starts. Unfortunately the first tale in The Quest for Sex, Truth & Reality, “The Goddess of the New Dark Age ,” falls into Lee’s bone dry category.… Continue reading The Quest For Sex, Truth & Reality by Edward Lee
Throttle is two master storytellers (King 2 and King 1) cutting loose and going balls-out, the way the father and son motorcycle team do in the story. Available as a Kindle single for $.99, Throttle is inspired by Richard Matheson’s classic screenplay, “Duel,” but its style owes a lot to Elmore Leonard’s fast-paced westerns. The… Continue reading Throttle by Joe Hill & Stephen King