Thomas R. Clark is usually known for his excellent explorations of folk-horror stomping grounds, dubbed the Master of Splatterfolk by some–and for good reason.
Redshift takes us away from that familiar environment as he takes us to a far-future, spacefaring realm where the consequences of FTL travel are devastating and horrific…and dealt with quickly and without remorse. But what happens when the side effects of interstellar travel aren’t immediately addressed?
This is where Redshift leads us, as we witness first-hand how terrifying and traumatic space travel truly is for those who venture beyond the atmosphere. Clark provides us with an intimate glimpse of the things we sweep under the rug in a way that is graphic, gory, and glorious.
You can read this for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com at the following link:
Ben Farthing manages to take a premise that seems like it should be a made-for-children horror story and successfully translates it into something disturbing and disorienting to adult readers. The most impressive aspect is that he does so quite flawlessly.
When two cousins begin the process of preparing to clean out the apartment of their missing–and presumed dead–grandfather, they’re taken down memory lane in a way that neither of them could have anticipated. Their grandfather had been one-half of the puppeteering team behind a giant puppet on R-City Street (think Sesame Street), and the individual who supplied voices for some of the most well-known puppets on the popular children’s show. The apartment is part of the converted studio where the show had been taped, before being canceled under mysterious circumstances, and there are secrets hidden within the walls.
As the two cousins find themselves traversing a labyrinthine nightmare crafted from their childhood memories, they’re forced to question the nature of reality, the danger of nostalgia, and who or what they can trust.
This is an excellent tale, told by a fantastic storyteller.
The bouquet Bridgett Nelson presents us with is indeed as visceral as the title implies. Eight stories unfold like the petals of carnivorous flowers, a cruel beauty on display no matter where you happen to look. It’s no wonder this collection was the 2023 Splatterpunk Award winning single-author collection, nor is it any surprise that “Jinx” was the winning short story. Both the collection itself and that particular story have a certain feel about them that seeps under the skin of the reader and makes us feel discomfort that only arises from exposure to something heartbreaking and…well…visceral.
There’s something here for everyone, assuming you enjoy your horror to feel intensely personal. Even when there’s a sea monster involved, it’s difficult to distance yourself enough to remember that it’s fiction you’re reading and that no one was harmed in the making of this book…though the same can hardly be said about the reading of it. If it doesn’t hurt, you’re hardly human. These are stories meant to hurt you and leave behind scars that remind you of the all-too-real abuses that pepper these pages. These may not be real victims, but the things that happen to them are far too often quite real.
I found it was best to read each story with a period of digestion between, allowing myself to really think about what I’d read and how it made me feel. This collection, though only eight stories, is a marathon…not a sprint…and it’s a marathon through a gauntlet that will leave the reader forever impacted.
On December 16th, 2023, I decided to finally compile the three Dog Days stories into a single volume, including the Author’s Notes I’d included in each of the individual releases. This title is available exclusively in paperback format.
Lee Melvin left his years as a soldier behind him in the jungles of Vietnam, and he embraced a peaceful life of sobriety in the mountains of Western South Dakota. But a small act of heroism disrupts everything and sends Lee down a path of violence and revenge…and it won’t be the last time.
Based on true stories from the life of the author’s uncle, the three individual Dog Days stories are collected in this one volume along with the author’s notes, detailing the lines that separate fact from fiction.
What readers have had to say about the individual Lee Melvin stories:
“Heartbreaking, savage, and yet extremely cathartic.”
“Gritty, real, and satisfying.”
“…when the violence does come, it makes you feel like it’s not only justified but necessary.”
On December 16th of 2023, Nativity was released. This story was a collaborative effort between myself and Elizabeth J. McKee (my girlfriend). We’d tossed the idea around for a few months, brainstorming and figuring out the fine details, before I finally started the process of typing out our twisted Christmas tale.
Grace loves nativity scenes.
They’re the centerpiece of her annual Christmas displays.
But for last couple of years, vandals have taken it upon themselves to demolish nativity set after nativity set, leaving Grace feeling increasingly defeated and sad.
This year is going to be different.
This time, Grace will get her revenge and she’ll have a nativity set that will rival anything she could buy from a department store.
This Christmas…you’ll believe in the indomitable power of one old woman’s Christmas spirit.
On November 26th of 2020, I released the short story, Yeshua and Adonai.
Meant to supplement some of my other work by laying out the groundwork for some of the underlying mythology within books like You Will Be Consumed and Beneath the Unspoiled Wilderness.
A father shares a story with his young children, one that had been shared with him by his own grandfather. A story of Yeshua as both a boy and a young man, of how he discovered an unexpected and unwanted destiny placed on his shoulders by Adonai. The short story, Yeshua and Adonai, introduces readers to the wider literary universe of The Hungering Void by retelling the tale of Jesus in a horrifying new light.
On February 27th of 2023 I released Hounds of War on Godless. This short story serves as both a stand-alone tale and the introduction to a larger work in progress that combines elements of police procedural and crime noir with cosmic and body horror.
In 1917, a small group of American soldiers venture into the forests of France, searching for a patrol of Germans seeking to get behind the American lines. Scared and cut off from allies, they discover something far more dangerous than enemy soldiers–something that doesn’t pick sides.
As days pass in the mist-shrouded ruins of an ancient castle, it becomes clear that none of them are likely to survive.
For Sergeant Adrien Demos, the war will take something more valuable than his life, it will take his identity–and if he isn’t careful, it threatens to take his humanity.
Errata: Collected Short Fiction and Poetry was released in 2016, collecting in one volume eight short stories I’d written and released digitally as well as a collection of poetry that had been released as A Wreck In Progress a short while before Unspoken was published.
There is no connecting thread between the included stories, spanning genres from gritty crime drama to bizarro extreme horror. Topics run the gamut from the final scenes of a slasher narrative to the terrifying isolation of interstellar space. There is something for everyone, from fans of horror to those who enjoy hard science fiction.
This collection contains eight short stories spanning subjects from gritty crime drama to the terrifying isolation of interstellar space. There is something for everyone, from fans of horror to those who enjoy hard science fiction.Additionally, this volume includes the author’s collected poetry previously available as A Wreck In Progress.
Unspoken was the first novel I released, back in late 2011, though it was not the first I’d written. There was some small amount of experimentation taking place in the writing of this story, focusing on a protagonist that wasn’t particularly likable or relatable to most people…but hoping to elicit some sympathy for him by the time we reach our conclusion. In that, I do believe I succeeded.
Unspoken is a short, but well-paced and compelling exploration of the themes of unrequited love and the insanity that accompanies it in the midst of a world sliding into madness. A story of love, regret, and the end of the world expressed with a poetic voice and postmodern sensibilities; it could be described as being a combination between George A. Romero’s The Crazies and an amalgam of The Notebook and Love In the Time of Cholera.
The story follows Nathan, recently employed as an overnight orderly in a state mental hospital. He has found himself lucky enough to develop a friendship with Leyna, another of the overnight staff, but that friendship quickly becomes something far more intense for Nathan, a fact he chooses to keep to himself.
Suffering through the turmoil of his unspoken desire for Leyna and inured to the environment of a mental hospital and the madness that has afflicted him in his personal life, Nathan neglects to notice the signs that become more and more prevalent in the world around him, signs indicating that something terrible is taking place. As the world descends into madness, Nathan and Leyna remain at the institution, hoping that isolation might protect them from the world collapsing around them, but in the end there may be no escaping some tragedies.
Horror author David Moody described Unspoken as, “…a brave and thought-provoking piece of work filled with palpable emotions and plausible situations.”
Innocence Ends, which was originally released in August of 2020, is a story of friendship and how far that friendship can be tested. Since its release, it has been one of my most successful titles. It was not, however, successful enough in the opinion of Candace Nola, the founder of Uncomfortably Dark Horror. In late 2023, she asked if I would be willing to remove the existing edition of the novel from publication and allow her to work with me to improve it, slap a brand new cover on it (courtesy of Don Noble), and release it through her publishing house. I agreed, and she quickly got to work. In June of 2024, almost four years from the original release date, the new and improved edition of Innocence Ends found new life.
The concept that forms the substrate of this novel is one that arose from a conversation with an old friend of mine, more than 20 years before the book ended up being published. We’d been discussing that certain B-movie tropes were never played as being serious, and we were sort of disappointed by that fact. You know the tropes I mean, the mad scientist with his manor atop the hillside, the group of friends trapped in a town with a sinister secret, and other such things. Snippets of scenes that would ultimately become part of Innocence Ends were posted on this blog years ago because I’d started writing this book long before I finally sat down and finished it in late 2019 and early 2020. More than two decades in the making, I’m pleased with how this one turned out.
Six lifelong friends meet together in an isolated mountain town in Northern Idaho to commemorate the fifth anniversary of a close friend’s suicide.
A week of hiking, spending time in nature, and a bittersweet reunion soon takes a sinister turn as the friends find themselves fighting for their lives and struggling to survive. A seemingly tranquil community bombarded by late spring storms becomes a trap filled with monsters and threats everywhere they turn.
Terrifying secrets are revealed and the survivors are left to wonder what will be left of the world outside if they can find a way to come through the gauntlet alive.
Advance praise for the new and improved edition of Innocence Ends:
Domus Necrophagous 