Zraitor

There are a variety of good ideas here; however, most of the stories zip by so fast that I didn't really feel attached to anything happening. On the flip side, I suppose they never stuck around too long to offend, either. I didn't find any story to be terrible, but only a few interested me in the end.

In my opinion, Mrs Pendleton's Corpse, The Undertow, The King of Gorse, and Snick were the standouts and my favorites. They showcased the humor, weirdness, and horror that you want from this kind of collection.

As a whole, it's a decent and quick read that will have at least a few stories you find enjoyable, if not more, due to differing tastes.

–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
This a well written dark fiction and horror collection. The stories are incredibly varied and I love it when these collections have little to no repetition like this one. They were all pretty original to me and had a lot of violence and gore, as well as great characters and meaningful moments.

“A Case Study in Natural Selection and How It Applies to Love”, the Earth is heated up from global warming and sometimes people spontaneously combust, or as the people in this story call it, fireball, which sounds so much cooler. The author wordplays with this ‘fireballing' quite a bit, my favorite being the remark about people heating up and popping like popcorn. Gave me quite the visual.

Also, mankind somewhat reverts back into smaller nomadic tribes, and often wars with one another in competition for dwindling supplies. In this terrible world, a young teenager comes to age and finds himself and it's quite moving despite how messed up everything is.

“A Serving of Nomu Sashimi” is about a salesman invited to a special restaurant with his high scoring coworkers, who let him in on the secret of their success. I won't spoil what that is, but oh man this story. I imagine this one would be the attention grabber and the one people remember the most. It's so dark and imaginative and that ending... This is one of those stories you want to talk about but can't cause you'll ruin the fun.

“Those Who Watch From On High”, the last one I'll pick out was my favorite. We follow Bruce, a drone operator in the military. He is tasked with watching the same patches of the Afhaghni desert for twelve-hour shifts and his job is mind-numbing and boring. Until of course, he is ordered to pull the trigger on a target there. He hates his job, and his commanding officer and his inner dialogue and insights about everything were excellent.

He watches a little boy, who he continually remarks on having perfect teeth. You find out his backstory, and why he becomes so fixated on this boy, and everything is so perfectly paced and revealed to the reader I thought. Such a great story about a man losing his mind to past trauma.

Well, I could be here writing about this one all day. There are sixteen stories and so much going on in each one. There's also a gunslinger battling alien creatures, a Beauty and the Beast like story, only the prince becomes an undead creature that craves flesh, even one about a grandfather telling his grandson about the time he and his hunting buddies encountered and fought Bigfoot...

Just a great collection, and with the varied plots, there is something for everyone to enjoy. The author had a lot of ideas and pulled them all off in my opinion. If you like dark fiction, horror, and short stories, this one is a must-read.

On the run from both the police and an abusive lover, a woman checks into a motel where things aren't quite right.

The writing is great in this one, Eve's thoughts on her situation, her bad relationship, and the mystery around her are all interesting and thought out.

Everything's described well, the motel and its surrounding are fleshed out, and feel real. Its emptiness, animal wood carvings, and the fog about give it that creepy horror setting. Oh, and of course, a woman's voice screaming in the night...

There are two stories here, with her hiding out in the motel, and what happened before she arrived there. The pace quickens in the end with the jumping back and forth between stories and gives a bit of welcome suspense with not her knowing what is real, and the truth being revealed to her.

If you've read/watched enough horror, you'll know whats going on immediately, but it's unlikely you'll care cause it's done so well.

A girl coming of age finds refuge from ALL EVIL MEN with feral cats, but when she loses the one she brings into her home she becomes darker and darker.

Some serious men-hating in this one told me it was just the main character's POV at first, but that got harder and harder to believe as it went on. All the characters besides Mia are just there to be there, and have no real personality and only do things to advance what little plot there is.

But mostly, it was just boring. Every time it got remotely interesting, it'd just drag out the point and beat it to death. Boys like boobs... men are bad... got it, move on to some story already... By the time it gets to the obvious end, I wasn't scared or saddened, or anything other than relieved it was finally over.

A short story but it manages to build tension and suspense quite well. You get a little character development in there too.

The horror bits get a little predictable and I didn't care for the witch and __ stuff as a personal taste thing. (So disregard if you are into that, I just usually find it annoying.) The psychological aspects made up for it though in my opinion.

It is not overly gory but there are certainly disturbing images in it. (Animal violence!) Otherwise, it's just well written throughout and worth the read.