Zraitor
This is a good to great collection of dark fiction stories showing where humanity is headed. All the topics in the stories were spot on, and you can see everything explored is basically already happening around us.
There weren't any outright terrible stories, but a few definitely fizzled out and weren't as strong as the others. That is the nature of these huge collections, though, and I truly enjoyed most of them.
The stories include lots of robots going wrong as you'd expect, some wonderfully uncomfortable racism and genetic themes are explored, and they hit pretty hard, and of course, end-stage capitalism doing its destructive best to ruin our lives. Almost anything you can think of was brought up in the collection's twenty-nine tales.
Finally, the narrator was great and brought the stories to life with a variety of voices and accents. I was really impressed by them
There is no theme, rhyme, or reason to this collection of horror stories, just a huge variety of tales from different times and settings thrown together. I enjoyed it a lot and read a few gems that I never came across before.
The only story I outright hated was Ghost of Towneley Towers by Seabury Quinn. When you read older stuff, you know it's gonna have problematic elements, of course, but this one made me outright cringe with how outdated it was, and it had nothing imaginative or interesting to make up for dealing with it. Just an awful, awful story.
Everything else was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I picked this one up. These megapacks are a good deal for the money, and it feels silly reviewing something that costs 99 cents because it was definitely worth that. If you like older horror, check it out; it might have stories you've never seen before mixed in along with the familiar authors.
Beyond The Black Stone is a successful pastiche that mashes together Lovecraft's ‘The Mound' and Robert E Howard's ‘The Black Stone.'
It comes complete with the arrogant weirdo main character who delves too far into things he should not; in this case, the guy is a ‘dark tourist' who travels around to visit places where tragedy happens. It moves through the familiar story beats and manages to keep it just modern enough, so you're not bogged down in the archaic prose that didn't age well, making many of these stories tiresome. The tale is also the perfect length, and while it ends the silly way that many of these do, it was undoubtedly on brand and appropriate for it to do so.
I highly recommend this one.
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.
While I've certainly read weird Western stories that had found themselves randomly in other collections I've gone through, this was my first whole experience of it, and I gotta say, it's pretty darn good.
There was a huge, huge variety of plots and writing styles, which was a boon for this collection. I really, really appreciated this one, and I think I found a new genre to enjoy, along with my usual preference for horror/dark fiction.
Though the majority of the stories have a cowboy-like main character battling through the expected tropes of the Wild West, it never gets old and stays fresh throughout. This one has it all: giant insect monsters, magic, steampunk technology, other worlds, clockwork people, etc.
My two favorites were ‘Second Hand,' people are able to gain a special deck of cards which they can perform all sorts of magic with, but once a card is used, it burns away, so they covet and guard their decks carefully. I would genuinely read a longer work of that, and it created a cool concept/world. And then, ‘The Golden Age,' a fantastic story about a Batman-like character, The Condor, who hunts down criminals, unknowingly, or maybe not, turning them into supervillains. I found this not only to be the best in the collection but probably one of the best short stories I've ever read. It blew me away how good it was—so much fun.
It's a wonderful collection of stories. If you're at all interested, don't think any further about it; just do it.
A good collection of dark fiction, horror, and, towards the end, sci-fi short stories. I think those sci-fi ones were probably the best and made for a great close to the collection.
‘Twisted Tales'contains lots of cool ideas and variety. Most of the stories seemed to end with a dark punchline which happens a lot in these kinds of collections, so prepare for some ‘gotcha' endings. I enjoyed that, though, so it didn't bother me.
A few were pretty silly, the vampire, werewolf, and zombie one being the main one I'm thinking of. The one with the funeral chasers made me roll my eyes, and I just wanted it to end, but otherwise, I didn't really hate any story in the collection. I think it's worth the read.
This is a quick read about a man getting revenge by hunting down child sex offenders and skinning them alive. It starts a little confusing but then the narrative stabilizes and takes its time explaining to you how much the main character becomes a monster himself hunting down these monsters.
The ending is perhaps obvious to anyone who reads a lot of horror, and it literally clicked into my mind with an ‘OH” while I was reading it what was going to happen, and then I waited for it to do so, and it did.
It's a good dark ending to a good dark story, though; check it out.
Write Like Hell is a good collection of short stories. They don't share any one theme other than being horror, so you get a decent bit of variety. There were six short stories, and the first four were of similar length. The fifth story was the longest and took up about half of the collection's size, and the sixth was a piece of flash fiction, so it seemed unbalanced to me. I'm not sure others would care, though.
I'll give a few thoughts on each story:
Dregmere: It had a good atmosphere and lore, but as soon as said lore was told, I knew exactly what the end would be.
Mud, Blood, and Futility: More good atmosphere, and I enjoyed the journey the main character went on, but the story was confusing on purpose to conceal the ending, which I didn't care for.
Panopticon: This story was incredibly confusing, and I just didn't enjoy it. I tried to read sections of it multiple times but never really could make heads or tails of it and just moved on.
Void Born: My favorite of the collection. A solid sci-fi tale with action and a touch of cosmic horror.
His Black Tongue: The longest of the stories by far, and I found it to be okay. Not much of a fan of the religious elements and all that, but the huge fight at the end was entertaining enough.
Lord Ruthven: A very short story that sets up a mysterious and violent scene and leaves you guessing on what it could be. I liked it for what it was.
A fast and easy read that follows three groups, a Calvary Officer and his men who get stuck in another realm after strange weather, a rancher and his family who find a strange body of water with even stranger fish in it, and a saloon worker who has to deal with with the trouble that comes to his town. They all come together eventually, but that takes quite a while.
The characters are barely more than stereotypes, and the focus is on the action and the battle between good and evil that rages on here. Despite being about Heaven and Hell, there is a thread of cosmic horror in the background. And, of course, plenty of gross body horror right in your face.
Later on, it gets a bit repetitive with the characters saying some variation of ‘I will serve,' and the singing/playing music to push back the evil was ridiculous to imagine in my mind. This all leads to a rushed ending but honestly, there was no realistic way for this ragtag group to defeat the evil at the end, so it just kind of... happens.
Something about horror and westerns always mixes so well, and I thought this was enjoyable. An unsatisfying ending, perhaps, but it was a fun ride getting there.
Finding herself aboard ‘The Black Train' with no memories of her past, Renée Vérité is sent to different locations by a pair of twins to find her missing parents.
Each location is a fantastical adventure where she must complete some task for a strange guardian that will help her on her way... She never really puts the pieces of who these people are together until the very end but the reader should pick it up fast.
These sections get very crazy and over the top with scenes like a raven and octopus mix creature chasing her while she flies on top of a giant red butterfly. Yeah. It's fun and well written and gives the book some action.
She is being chased by a being called The Abstract, your typical Lovecraftian unknowable monster/force. This thing, whatever it is, likes to break into her journeys and cause chaos.
The twins have sections in between Renee's various outings that are set up like stage plays and I thought they were kind of annoying and didn't really see the point to them. Just trying to play up the mystery, I guess.
With all these things going on the book is grounded through Renee and her search for her memories so it's not all constant insanity. It all comes together in the end well enough although it leaves a bit of confusion on just why this all happened in the first place.
–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
Volume 4 continues on with the rape, torture, gore, and all the other random offbeat weird stuff these stories get into. I appreciated the originality and when the stories hit they were great and well of course when they missed they fell flat and made me shake my head.
Which seems to be the constant with these collections of how much of a mixed bag they are. I often say that with collections but these must be the prime example of that. It can be a bit frustrating enjoying one story then disliking the next one after it over and over.
Oddly enough, my favorite story was “Stone”, A woman who feels no pain sells her body in awful and violent sex acts then escapes the life. We follow a former admirer of hers and he just simply... watches her. Normally I hate stories with these weird sex and gore things, but in this one, it was all only related to you really, and it was well written and kind of stuck with me.
The rest of the stories are just about every random dang thing you can think of and, they are either great or just plain bad and it's a wild ride to go through.
So after watching the movie ‘Sacrifice', (which wasn't too bad) and finding out it was based on a story I decided to check this out.
I gotta say they changed so much from the story that I don't really see the point of even using it as a setting. But anyway, the original story itself isn't too bad either, just kind of annoying with the fighting family and making the husband's character go mad very very quickly to make the story work.
The rest of the collection is filled out with stories that aren't outright terrible, just kind of run of the mill. This is one of those books that didn't elicit a strong response of like or dislike, just kind of meh. I liked it enough to read because I like this kind of subject matter but that's about it.
My favorite was easily ‘Thicker Than Water' as it is based on Lovecraft's ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth' and I can read stories based on that all day. It also suffers from the main character who quickly has to act dumb to make things work, which was a thing that sort of runs on throughout the collection of The Colour of Madness.
It is a good enough read if you like weird fiction but overall I found it to be pretty average.
Merged review:
So after watching the movie ‘Sacrifice', (which wasn't too bad) and finding out it was based on a story I decided to check this out.
I gotta say they changed so much from the story that I don't really see the point of even using it as a setting. But anyway, the original story itself isn't too bad either, just kind of annoying with the fighting family and making the husband's character go mad very very quickly to make the story work.
The rest of the collection is filled out with stories that aren't outright terrible, just kind of run of the mill. This is one of those books that didn't elicit a strong response of like or dislike, just kind of meh. I liked it enough to read because I like this kind of subject matter but that's about it.
My favorite was easily ‘Thicker Than Water' as it is based on Lovecraft's ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth' and I can read stories based on that all day. It also suffers from the main character who quickly has to act dumb to make things work, which was a thing that sort of runs on throughout the collection of The Colour of Madness.
It is a good enough read if you like weird fiction but overall I found it to be pretty average.
–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
The fictional paranormal investigator Charlatan Bardot shows us ghost stories collected from all over the world together with his thoughts on each tale, pictures, and even the coordinates of the haunted places. It's quite an interesting idea and the collection is carried by this concept pretty well.
There were a lot of stories and honestly it felt like too many. The quick flash fiction pieces somewhat lost their bite because if you know these local stories are fictional it just ends up being a neat little idea that goes nowhere. Maybe it's just me. I don't know if it was just to fill out the collection but I would have preferred fewer but longer stories for each of the main locations.
Which there were many of as this is a travel catalog of haunted places. We go all around the world and the stories get to present many different ideas, cultures, and history which was quite fun and gives so much variety. Every story is about ghosts, yes, but you never know what's coming next and I always enjoy that in collections.
I was offered this as an ebook but, I'm sure it's much more pleasurable to read in physical format due to the many pictures. Even so, I could tell how well put together it was. It's definitely worth a try for its unique concept.
–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
The third volume is consistent throughout this time (although there are still plenty of average stories I shrugged at) and has thankfully toned down the edginess for edginess' sake.
There were a lot of ideas giving it the variety it needed and several of them had some very gross body horror going on which I enjoyed because that's just fun.
My favorites were the “The Station” simply because it was a clever and creepy idea, and “Fish Bait” because well, what a random damn story that committed fully to its craziness.
I don't think there were any stories that I flat out hated or frustrated me as in the previous two volumes; just the usual mixed bag thing you get in collections.
I think (hope) the series is settling in and keeps getting better because this one was good and a slight improvement overall.
–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
This one has a lot of absurd, over-the-top, and silly stories compared to the first volume. Oh, there are still a lot of things written in here seemingly just for the shock value but nowhere near as bad as before, thankfully.
I Am Meat I Am in Daycare, Free to Good Home, Alien Fajitas, and The Losers vs Beelphegor are most of the weird, and/or comedy-horror stories that made the collection fun. Those were my favorites, or maybe I just needed them after enduring the first volume.
There are still plenty of straight-up horror stories in here though so don't worry. Trapped Light Medium was the stand out of those. It managed to do all the gore and make a great story out of it.
Unfortunately for me, the two stories I liked the least were back to back in order... Drawn and Meat-Boy. Drawn just has the dumbest ending and Meat-Boy well... I try my hardest not to dump on stories I don't like but, Meat-Boy was honestly one of the worst stories I've ever read. What the heck was that?
It ends on a Lovecraftian story from out of nowhere, and while it wasn't very original it was well-written and enjoyable.
I found it to be a good collection and a clear step up from the first volume.
–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
Full of cutting off limbs, rape, and torture this collection is incredibly edgy. It did grow tiresome reading some of the stories that seemingly were written to shock and awe me instead of telling a good story.
Other stories were simply too short to really have any impact or meaning and others had promising starts only to deliver a done a million times before outcome.
The stories I liked best were ‘Orrin's Axe': Just a very creepy tale that makes you unsure the whole time, ‘Little Black Box': Basically for the same reason and keeps you reading to see the outcome., ‘Lemonhead': A drug-fueled revenge tale that stands out compared to the others, and ‘The Puppet Show': Weird, gross, and imaginative and while I'm not sure I agree with ending it's just so good a story I didn't care.
A few other stories reach “okay” but were just so confusing that while I liked parts of them I found them frustrating to read like ‘The Remembering Country' and ‘Las Brujas Del Rio Verde'.
This collection to me overall was uneven and mixed in quality but certainly not terrible in any way. I could see a lot of potential in the stories but most of them needed a bit more of something.
None were as good as the original story which was to be expected I suppose. I thought the collection would be very repetitive but it somehow managed to avoid that or maybe I was just really in the mood for it.
A few of the stories definitely seemed to be written before the theme and then had the fish people stuff worked in afterward. Homecoming was the worst offender here.
But apart from that most of what's here channels the mood and ideas of Lovecraft's story and I enjoyed it, and if you're up for that you should too.
Most of the stories in this collection are about a young man discovering some dark powers in a coming-of-age tale. It felt a bit repetitive at times because of this.
They read sort of like fantasies or things you'd daydream about when young and bored turned into dark fiction/horror tales. Nothing was horrible though and I enjoyed the writing but the stories weren't the greatest. When the author breaks away from this I liked it more.
Unfortunately, there are just way too many typos in this collection. I normally ignore those and don't let them bother me, especially in self-published works so that should tell you just how many there were. This really could use another check through to fix those up.
I do quite like this author as they do characters well (when not doing the usual young man awakens special powers thing) and have all sorts of zany ideas but this wasn't their best example of those.
The squad gets trapped on an oil rig and under attack by another huge sea monster...
Another fast-paced and action-packed entry. Has all the usual strengths of the series: loads of action and one-liners. And of course all the weaknesses as no other character but Wiggins and Banks matter. Not that this really matters, we know what we are reading this for. (Monsters and pew pew.)
–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
Later in the book when asked what's the greatest compliment you can receive, the author answers absurd, which is exactly what I found these stories to be...
Every story was interesting because they are from a Chinese person's point of view and seeing their culture dealing with sci-fi/horror themes was enjoyable. Every story is also full of social commentary but as each tale goes to about an eleven on the crazy scale I doubt that's what you'll come away remembering most from each one.
A different version of the Christopher Columbus legend, a man gets trapped on a subway car that never stops, a baby born with many eyes, all of China forced to work at night and never dream... A lot is going on in these stories and it's not easy to summarize them really. For the most part, I didn't know where each story was going and found them very original. ‘My Country Does Not Dream' was by far the highlight of the collection to me, what an amazing story.
After each story, you get a short commentary that talks about and explains it which I found helpful, except in the case of ‘Two Small Birds' where no amount of explanation will ever help me understand what the heck was going on there.
Han Song's stories were great to read, and the collection is just otherwise well put together and worth the time.
Two brothers and a soldier they hired follow a treasure map promising riches and because they are in a William Meikle story they, of course, end up in a lost world full of dinosaurs.
The characters are likable enough and the adventure has some cool things going for it such as using different terminology for the dinosaurs because of the time period this takes place.
There's not much depth or anything else going on though and the plot is mainly just the group running from one place to another.
It's really just a quickly done action-adventure story that has been done many times before already. Enjoyable, but only because I like the author.
–>I received an ARC of this in exchange for an honest review.
While trying to promote his first book Separating You on Twitter Dr. Jason Carson constantly finds himself bombarded with comments on Trump. After finally having enough he decides to write this, a book all about trying to convince Trump to become a serial killer himself.
This is just as smart and insightful as the first. It is also brutal and extremely messed up. It really hits all the same notes as the first which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Any reader of the first will know what's going on here I'd imagine.
Unfortunately, it is also just nauseating. Not for anything the author did himself it is just that I don't care at all about Trump outside of him going away forever. Reading his quotes I found myself disgusted which is what I expected. There's really no getting around the subject matter here, it is what it is.
Replacing the SURVEYS in the first one here are scenarios imagining Trump abusing his power to kill. While clever they don't have the personal touch the first had.
It is not completely lacking in personal touches for the reader however as it is filled with attacks on the left, the right, and everything else. To Carson, no lives matter and he'll make sure you know that before you're through.
I often wondered who the target audience was here because while the idea of the book is that it was written to lure these Trump fanatics in and give them what they want I can't see them reading it and just continuing to post nonsense on Twitter.
There is just no denying the shock factor involved here. There is more to it than that; seeing the same warped mind deal with a charismatic con artist and going back and forth with admiration and jealousy was a lot of fun. Thankfully in the book's favor, it is not very long as again, reading those quotes was a bit much for me.
Fans of the first will enjoy this if they can get past the Trump stuff. Anyone who hasn't read that should read it first and then come back to this.
–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
Two men addicted to baggage auctions, yeah I didn't know that was a thing either, come across a suitcase with a gramophone in it that plays strange music...
So right off the bat, I was intrigued by the baggage auction stuff. At the same time, I find it to be so cool and yet so sad. Hoping to find something valuable in these cases people bid on them only to usually find worthless junk. Although in the case of this story we find a cursed music player. Gambling, man.
What comes about from this seems to be a much darker version of the author's other work, Doorways to the Deadeye. The idea that people linger on after death but of course here it is not through memories but black magic and evil. That was quite a moment when that certain someone just pops up randomly and is revealed.
Now, this could all be cartoonish and silly but thanks to the strong characterizations and writing the story pulls through it all and is very enjoyable. Charlie Stewart is a great main character and through him the story is grounded with his thoughts on a wasted gambler's life, wanting better with his girlfriend, etc. He may not be the most likable to some but his inner struggle makes him seem to be a real person and very relatable.
For the rest, we have the great setting brought to life, the creepiness of the music turning people into slaves, and the wonderful drawings found in the book which is always one of those little touches I appreciate.
The fun of this story for me was the thoughts of the main character which were earnestly shown to the reader. The others, whose perspectives we don't see from, are also so well done. The characters in this book are great.
There is a lot of back and forth of whether or not his brother, finally released from an institution for torturing children, actually has been redeemed and is just a victim of circumstances. Now of course, with a word such as Daemonia in the title things are heavily weighted one way. However, the story is done in a way in which you care for everyone involved so I found myself hoping it wouldn't turn out too bad...
Great characters, well thought out, and very disturbing in many ways. Worth the read.
The first story is an update of the story The Tapestried Chamber and while I definitely wouldn't call it a failure the updated terms just really clashed with keeping the older writing style. I do like the story itself and once I read a bit I was able to get into it but it was really odd at first.
A Minute to Learn and Miriam's Comet were solid ghost stories if a bit unsatisfying in the way they ended to me.
And finally, I loved both O Shades, My Woe, and Winter's Dollhouse. Both weren't happy with just being ghost stories oh no, they had to add in babies and dolls and they were great. I really enjoyed the King Arthur legend being told from a different perspective and the creepy underwater diving stuff in the other.