Title: Her Heart Beats for Ancient Beasts

Author: Calvin Demmer

Release date: March 16th, 2024

Huge thanks to Calvin for sending me a digital ARC for review! I’ve long been a massive fan of his work, since his phenomenal collection, ‘The Sea Was a Fair Master,’ (which should be a must read for all fans of horror!), so I’m always excited when we get a new release from the master of short-story writing.

This one is made up of some new work and some previously published work, but one thing I noticed throughout, was the settings/locations and themes all were very in tune with the title, but also from where Calvin is from – Africa. Well, he’s specifically from South Africa, but a lot of the stories had Egyptian themes, God themes and savannah locations.

What I liked: Compiled of ten stories, this one rips along and for some may even be a single-sitting read. I took my time with them, as every story Calvin writes is layered and will have a level of complexity that may not be apparent until some quiet contemplation occurs once done.

The collection opened with my three favorite short stories in the batch in a row.

First up was the wonderfully bleak, ‘Highway Hunger.’ This one is based around a highway worker who is tasked with cleaning up roadkill. The job is straight forward until one such case where something odd is found and it soon reveals itself to be a creature from local lore.

Next was ‘Never Sleep Again,’ which was the singular highlight of the entire collection for this reader. A retired detective is called back to help with a new case. This case has the exact same similarities to the case that drove him into retirement in the first place. It is creepy, unsettling, magnificent, and makes me never want to find any dirt on the floor around the bed or couch.

The third story was ‘Another Warrior in Paradise.’ This was such a cinematic story about a young member of a tribe who wants to ascend to Warrior status within his people. He has three trials to complete, and once he is successful, he learns that paradise has different meanings to different people.

From there we get some more fantastic stories and there wasn’t a single let down in the group. The title story is a creep-fest about something lurking. ‘The River Ran Red’ was a fast-paced story where the jungle is stifling and when the creature reveals itself, everything goes splat. ‘Karma’ was a really engaging cosmic story about a strange patient arriving in a hospital and the visions some see when they come into contact with her.

‘Shapes in the Water’ was classic Demmer. Two brothers leap into a wormhole in the hopes of finding their lost brother in whatever strange world he ended up in. We get some great creatures, a potential truth about a well known Loch animal and just a really fun story.

‘The Throne of Space and Time’ will make sci-fi and time travel lovers very happy. Told within a few letters left behind, we learn of what happens when you make a discovery and meet up with the guide to the underworld.

‘Forbidden Fruit’ is a story I’d read previously, but it was great revisiting it again. It follows two big game hunters who’ve hired a guide with a mythical nature about him. The guide warns them about not always trusting the land and soon they learn why.

And the collection finishes with the bleak ‘The Destroyer,’ another story showcasing why meeting a God, this time a trickster and a master of storms, is never a good idea.

Overall, from start to finish, Demmer showcases his ability to grab the reader quickly, pull us in deep and hold us under the surface until we stop kicking.

What I didn’t like: As with every collection, readers will connect with each story different and blah, blah, blah. You’ve heard we say this a bajillion times, but truth be told, Demmer’s writing is just so pure and crisp, you’ll swear you’ve been transported to wherever the story is based and you’ll feel the sweat on your skin and the smell the fear all around you.

Why you should buy this: Did you just read what I wrote? If not, Calvin Demmer is a ‘MUST READ’ short story writer. His work is masterful, dark and comes at you from every direction. Nothing is safe, nothing can be trusted and even when you think the story is based in a firm reality, he’ll open the cosmic portals and rain creatures of acid upon your face.

A blistering batch of stories that never lets up and showcases why I can’t rave about Demmer enough.

5/5

Title: The Galleria

Author: Alexander Michael

Release date: January 2nd, 2024

Thanks so much to Alexander for sending me a digital review copy of this one!

I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into with this one, as I saw a brief synopsis, but I’m fairly open to going into everything blind either way.

The story does feature a foreword that illustrates there are three interconnected novellas that can be read in any order or the reader doesn’t need to read the other two novellas at all, as all things lead towards a full length release coming up. I can safely say that I never felt lost or that I was missing something by having not read the other two, which was great, but I could imagine other readers who’ve read the other two as well, will have enjoyed whatever little Easter eggs that have been dotted throughout.

What I liked: The story follows a cab driver, who has a love/hate relationship with his job. It pays the bills and he gets to meet eclectic people, but he also dislikes a large percentage of the crazy folks who hop in late at night.

On one seemingly normal evening, a young woman jumps in, and has a strange hypnotic effect on him. Within their short interaction, she opens his eyes to some potentials that lay just beyond what we can normally see and from there, he becomes almost obsessed with her, hoping she gets back in nightly.

Michael does a great job with this scene and then having her burrow under our taxi drivers skin. It’s an element that can either work or not, but in this case, we get to walk that line between ‘enough already’ and ‘he needs to find her!’

As the story unfolds, she disappears and he takes it upon himself to find her and its at this point that we go from a fairly mundane story to a seedy underbelly world where drugs, sex and violence lead the way.

Describing things like Clive Barker or Barker-esque can sometimes be overused, but in this case its spot on. Reading this I felt like I was reading something that Stanley Kubrick adapted from Barker. An ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ through Clive’s imagination, if you will.

What I didn’t like: Truthfully, this book was really, really solid, but it never completely grabbed by the throat and held me down, forcing me to turn its pages. I think this is just more of a case of the ‘noir’ aspect to it, that this readers brain typically stays away from, as it never fully connects. So, this one will definitely grab others WAY more than it grabbed me.

Why you should buy this: Michael has done a wonderful job of taking a ‘basic’ character and thrusting him into a world he clearly doesn’t belong in. It makes for some uneasy and awkward moments, which are only heightened by our Taxi drivers desire to find the girl, but also to see everything that he has been missing out in his boring life. A very unique take on the classic ‘fish out of water’ trope.

4/5

Title: Among the Living

Author: Tim Lebbon

Release date: February 13th, 2024

Huge thanks to Tim, Titan Books, Netgalley and Edelweiss for the advance copy of this one. I’d requested this on Edelweiss as soon as it was on there. A month later, it popped up on Netgalley, so I requested it and was approved the same day. Then two days later – approved on Edelweiss haha! So, there we go!

It’s occurred to me that I’ve pretty much only read Tim’s ‘eco-horror’ releases while reading this one. Novels such as ‘The Last Storm,’ ‘Coldbrook,’ ‘The Silence,’ and the phenomenal ‘Eden,’ have all been set in worlds where the characters are predominantly outside fighting to survive. ‘Coldbrook’ might be the outlier there, as it’s not so much an ‘eco-horror’ like the others, but even then, it involves surviving and the great outdoors. Throw in his humourous ‘Run, Walk, Crawl,’ non-fiction release and it’s safe to say writing about the outdoors is Tim’s bread and butter. Everything seems to be more vibrant and the emotions raised that much more. Hell, even throw in his recent novella, ‘The Last Day and the First,’ and it all comes to show you, Tim is a writer who thrives when everything is outside.

Now, I prefaced this by saying I’ve read mainly his ‘eco-horror,’ which means I’ve not read really any of his sci-fi works nor any of his IP works such as his Aliens stuff or his novelizations such as Kong: Skull Island (which is essentially an ‘eco-horror’ novelization!), so others may feel the opposite where they prefer his sci-fi stuff, but for this reader, his wilderness work is pristine.

Which leads us to ‘Among the Living’ his newest novel, launching sky high from the mighty Titan Books. Everything about this one had me excited and when Tim posted a few times that this one might be one of his most straight-ahead horror novels, I knew we were in for a treat.

What I liked: The novel is set in the near-future and focuses on a subject that honestly and truly petrifies the shit out of me. The world has warmed and the permafrost is melting. Which means things that are hundreds of thousands of years old are unthawing and making their way back into the real world.

A side piece here from me. Everything about that little paragraph I’ve written is terrifying and is something that freaks me out. Much like the movie ‘Outbreak’ scared the hell out of me when it was released, the reality that this is actually happening currently is enough to keep me awake at night. Another concerning thing, for me at least, is the turning-of-the-cheek to science and vaccines and vaccination education. Working in a healthcare adjacent position, we see – daily – what the results of being vaccinated and unvaccinated are and with the world’s collective increase in turning their backs on these things, I stress over what will happen when one of these dormant diseases unthaws and spores into the air.

Anyways, I’ll get off my soapbox and get back to the meat and potatoes of this novel. Safe to say, I was scared to my core from page one. The story follows Bethan, Alile and Goyo, who travel far north after being tipped off that a group is illegally searching for rare minerals. The trio do their best to prevent climate destruction. The person who tipped off Bethan is her former best friend, Dean. He is one of the folks mining for these rare materials. While Dean and his group are deep in an unexplored cave complex, they discover old cave paintings and seemingly mummified bodies, dead for centuries. That is, until one of them moves.

It’s from here that Lebbon has created a white-knuckle thrill ride where Dean and Bethan try to overcome their differences – from an event in their past – and work together to prevent the spread of what has waken.

Each and every chapter after is a cinematic masterpiece. Tim does such a job of painting the picture of what this near-future landscape looks like, with polar bears having returned from near extinction and now rampaging across their territory, to the ever-present threat of sink holes and methane geysers erupting at a moments notice.

The Goyo character is phenomenal and becomes an almost supernatural entity within, leading Bethan and Dean across the terrain as they race to prevent the downfall of all mankind.

I loved the folklore element that Tim infuses in here and I’ll need to search out and see if the Long-Gone story shared within was based on a real story or purely from his imagination, but either way, it worked so well to share the ‘why’ of those below and leads us to the violent, chaotic ending.

The ending – for me at least – worked amazingly to cap everything off and when we look at the totality of the ‘why’ and what they are trying to prevent, made total sense. Saying that, it can also be looked at as partially open-ended and who knows, we may see more of this world in the future.

What I didn’t like: This is 100% me nitpicking here, but I had hoped much, much more of this novel was going to be happening in a subterranean setting. Only the first few chapters has anything to do with the cave discovery, so I was a bit bummed when that became obvious, but for me at least, it didn’t dampen the story in the least. I just like cave horror!

Why you should buy this: Tim writes his novels with the ever growing dread that an A-bomb is about to go off. Much like many of the high-fantasy writers (Martin etc) no character in Tim’s novels are ever safe and that makes for an edgy, uncertain read, which I’m all for.

‘Among the Living’ is cold-weather, frozen-tundra horror done so very well. Another example of why Tim’s best work is when he’s writing in the ‘eco-horror’ world and honestly, I don’t think there’s another author out there who has released books at this level, to this degree, focusing so much on the ever-growing crisis of climate change and the terror that these changes can bring.

Outstanding work.

5/5

Title: Family Til’ It Can’t Be, Gang Til’ It Ain’t

Author: Chaz Williams

Release date: January 5th, 2024

Huge thanks to Chaz for sending me a digital ARC of this one. I had it preordered some time ago, and was trying my best to get it read before release date, but life got hectic!

I connected with Chaz a bit ago on IG, as he’s an avid reader and supporter of a lot of Indie Horror. He was with Uncomfortably Dark for a bit reviewing there as well, which is always a great thing to see, as Candace Nola does a ton of work promoting a ton of authors, so having Chaz also providing reviews there was a awesome.

With ‘Family Til’ It Can’t Be, Gang Til’ It Ain’t,’ Chaz has taken the step from having some short stories published in anthologies, to having a tried and true singular release and that’s always a wonderful moment for any author.

I went into this pretty blind, wanting to see what Chaz created for his debut and, I can safely say, for those looking for an exciting new voice in extreme horror, Chaz should be on your radar.

What I liked: The novella follows a group of friends who will always have each other’s backs no matter what. That is until a seemingly unrelated discovery of a ‘kill room’ in a warehouse reveals certain things.

Williams opens this one up with an excellent ‘prologue,’ setting the stage for the brutality that follows. We get some lush, vicious descriptions of what these teens find in the warehouse and it is clearly Chaz’s war-horn sounding that he’s entering the extreme horror game and he’s coming all guns-blazing.

From there, the friends get together and we learn that the one guy – the lawyer in the group – is actually behind all the killings. He reveals that something inside of him makes him do these killings and that, while the acts are heinous, he begs and pleads that he himself is not a monster.

Williams walks that tightrope of ‘how far would you go to help a friend’ well. We get back stories of other instances where the friends have come to help each other and we see how this bond that they’ve created is ‘thicker than blood.’

I do want to add that this novella reads as though it was covered in grime. I don’t know how to describe it well, and a part of that is I’m a 42-year-old, white guy. But this feels like it came from the streets. It has its pulse firmly in the underground and the ‘bad side of the tracks’ if you will and that elevates this story from simply an extreme story with gore to a story with emotions and attachments to characters. This group came from hard times and have stuck beside each other through the hard times.

Which makes the ending that much more emotional and one that – I’m staying spoiler free here – will either work really well for the reader or not.

What I didn’t like: For this being his debut, Chaz was all over it in terms of creating tension, keeping the pace breakneck fast and making me want to believe in the characters.

A few things stuck out for me though, and I want to approach them constructively.

The first was the very common trope of ‘only killing bad people.’ That has been done a million times before (but hey, so has monsters in the woods!), so it was great to see Chaz add his own twist to it, but I wished he’d not mentioned anything about ‘Dexter’ at all, as it will make some folks tune out immediately.

The second thing – and this is my own personal thing (and we’ve all been guilty of it) – is the book and name dropping that really does reduce the ability to suspend disbelief. I get why we want to do it and why we all do it, but as a reader, it does drive me bonkers lol.

Which brings me to the third thing. It’s mentioned early on that part of the reason our killer begins to think about what brings him joy, is his discovery of reading extreme horror and Splatterpunk. Any time ANY correlation between someone deciding to kill someone based on reading something, or even listening to heavy metal music, makes me roll my eyes. There really is no correlation that people who read horror are more prone to violence, horrid acts or killing people. We need to actively move away from that, especially as we grapple with so many unhinged people in the world right now.

And lastly – the ending was telegraphed pretty blatantly. I’m ok when it works as a distractive piece (Hell, I get shit on for my purposeful early revealing the ‘who’ in one of my own novels), but I think it would’ve been far more subtle to have eliminated the other group text moment and left us thinking the police would be more involved.

Why you should buy this: Overall, this was a really enjoyable novella that is an easy one-sit reading. Chaz’s debut definitely shows that he’s here to deliver the dark goods and that he’ll be doing that with a unique and distinctive storytelling voice. I’m really excited to see where he goes from here and I think this one is going to be a sleeper hit in 2024 with many, many people finding it and it ending up on a number of year end ‘Best-Of’ lists.

Well done on this debut and now we await the next release!

3/5

Title: Intercepts

Author: T.J. Payne

Release date: April 23rd, 2019

So, this ended up being my last read finished in 2023 and if I’d have read it earlier, it would’ve definitely made it onto my Year-End-Best-Of list.

This novel has been suggested to me a few dozen times and a lot of readers who’s opinions I trust and have similar reading enjoyments as myself have raved about it. But for a long time, I was kind of hesitant to dive in for one sort of lame reason. The cover. Honestly, this cover has never done it for me and even after reading the novel, I find the cover to be bland and lacking. I’m not sure if it was a ‘mass market’-type decision to appeal to as many potential readers as possible (which, hey, is often what all writers want, right?), but this one doesn’t scream read me. It doesn’t scream – CRAZINESS AHEAD. It kind of screams ‘last minute’ and ‘meh, this will do.’

But, when I was looking to finish my year off with a horror novel firmly wrapped together with sci-fi, this one’s synopsis fit the bill and I was kind of hoping I’d end up in a Splice movie type situation. And while we didn’t go there, this one does go in some really great directions.

What I liked: The story follows shit father, Joe, who works for a clandestine organization. He is in charge of a secret place that is using doped up people to get intelligence from around the world. The place is deep underground and he’s unable to discuss what he does with anyone from the outside world. He works long hours and focuses solely on his job and the perfection of the job. Which is administering a special cocktail of nerve stimulants to ‘tune’ these prisoners to retrieve this information.

Payne does a really solid job of setting the stage. We get the ‘why’ of Joe’s divorce, his estranged relationship with his teen daughter Riley and as the first quarter of the novel goes along, we get some hints about things starting to turn and Riley struggling with seeing something. This occurs after an incident with her mother and soon enough the novel goes from a jog to a sprint for the remaining 50%.

The location of this one is perfect. While it isn’t fleshed out with full schematic blueprints for us, it is described enough in bare-bones details to have our imaginations fill in the blanks. The same goes to the people they use. Heads shaved, hospital gowns stained and emaciated bodies abound.

What begins as a moral-testing story of how far should we go to get intelligence that can prevent huge world events, turns into a story of survival. Of Joe wanting to do whatever he can to save his daughter Riley from both the organization as well as from those who have been mistreated and experimented on.

The ending is essentially three parts. The first is the wrap up of the events in the underground lab. The second is the ‘epilogue’ of how the survivor continues on. And the third is the true epilogue which in itself made for a fantastically dark and bleak short story and could potentially see more of this world in the future.

Payne kept me completely captivated throughout and the blending of sci-fi and horror was pitch perfect.

What I didn’t like: Throughout, Joe is portrayed as a callous, asshole of a dad who never cared to be there for his daughter and even shares a few memories of when he chose work over her or spending time with his ex-wife and his daughter. It made it tough, for me at least, to completely believe that he had this sudden change of heart once Riley was involved. It was even shown a few times that his ‘love’ for her was shallow, when instead of staying with her, he up and left to return to work.

Why you should buy this: As I mentioned, this novel gallops along and was a great mix of horror, sci-fi and had some amazingly brutal and graphic moments. A lot of it reminded me of how a graphic novel would’ve rolled out and the action sequences and layers of government interference and involvement was great.

Payne has definitely hit a home run with this one and I think it’s a novel that will have a long, long shelf life as many new readers discover it.

5/5