Billy Summers by Stephen King

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Billy Summers is, in my opinion, the best book Stephen King’s written in a great many years. It also stands out as being one of the best non-horror books of 2021, probably of the past few years at the very least. I’m not one of those to denigrate King just because he’s King; there’s a reason he’s perhaps the best-selling horror author of all time. He knows what he’s doing, even if I sometimes question his ability to stick the landing concerning his endings. Botched endings aside, most of his oeuvre is pretty well stellar, and even the material that hasn’t aged well is still worth diving into.
With Billy Summers, while there are passing references to supernatural forces within the world (commentary on The Overlook Hotel), King has made what I consider to be his most pronounced deviation from the realm of horror and the supernatural. Beneath the surface, this novel has a lot to say about the subjective nature of morality, the fluidity of identity and self-identity, the importance of memory, and the relationships we develop in our lives. None of that overshadows the surface-level compelling narrative of Billy and Alice.
Billy is an almost unnaturally skilled killer. While he’s an expert with firearms, he’s written with such humanity and depth that he never crosses the line into being a caricature of the action heroes from film and television. Highly literate, prone to in-depth analysis of both himself and those around him, and always planning, Billy has nevertheless immersed himself within a character he refers to as his “dumb self” when interacting with the criminals for whom he acts as a shooter. Providing his employers with a false sense of confidence derived from apparent superiority has allowed Billy to avoid being perceived as a threat, and it’s potentially kept him alive through the years.
When Billy accepts what he imagines to be one last job, he’s provided with a long-term identity that brings to the surface a dream he’d never expected to pursue. As time passes and Billy immerses himself deeper within the fictional identity, he begins noticing some disturbing signs that everything might not be as smooth as expected when the time comes to complete the job. Thankfully for Billy, he’s much smarter and more capable than the people who hired him.
As Murphy’s Law takes over and anything that can go wrong does go wrong, Billy finds himself in a complex paternal relationship with a damaged young woman. As they help one another heal, Billy learns that he’s still got one last job to complete, and it’s far more dangerous than the one he’d signed up for.
The pacing is superb, and the balance of character study with narrative as we find ourselves led by King to the conclusion of the tale is about as perfect as one could hope to experience.
Paul Sparks expertly tackles the audiobook narration, thoroughly capturing the different sides of Billy as he slips from identity to identity throughout the story. He additionally captures the secondary characters well enough that there’s never any doubt who we’re hearing in the dialogue. Sparks exhibits fantastic cadence as he guides us along the path King has carved for us to follow.

Santa’s Package by Nikki Noir & S. C. Mendes

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I didn’t know Santaphilia was a thing until reading this story from Nikki Noir and S. C. Mendes. I can’t say I was surprised, just that it never crossed my mind to imagine there might actually be an official term applied to individuals with a Santa fetish. As a bearded man named Nikolas–who also happens to celebrate a December birthday–it almost seems disappointing that I’ve missed out on an opportunity to capitalize on this fetish existing.
There’s so much more to this story than just Amber’s frustrated attempts to find a man who is willing to fulfill her fantasy of making love to the Jolly Old Elf himself, though that does set the stage quite nicely.
Rooted in a possible hallucinatory experience when she was 12-years-old, Amber’s fixation on Santa begins at the same point when her family life falls apart. Saint Nick sits her down and tells her she’s special, warning her that life is about to become more challenging and assuring her that she’s strong enough to make it through everything. Ten years later, is it finally time for Santa to return?
At its core, Santa’s Package is a tale that delves into the potential ambiguity of that point where mental illness and legitimate visitation might coexist. How easily can our perceptions and attitudes be manipulated? Are there cases where someone seemingly insane is actually the victim of experiments and sinister machinations?
Santa’s Package may not answer these questions for you, but it’ll certainly raise new questions to consider and explore, and isn’t that what the best literature is meant to do? There’s a whole lot of potential inquiry crammed into this relatively small package, but if you’ve had the pleasure of discovering this one under your tree, you should certainly enjoy it.

Santa’s Package was released through http://www.godless.com as part of the AntiChristmas event for December of 2021. You can obtain a copy for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the Godless app for your mobile device. The link is below:

https://godless.com/products/santas-package-by-nikki-noir-s-c-mendes

Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell

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Felix Blackwell managed to craft a captivating and unsettling narrative that digs its way under the reader’s skin. Like many of the best horror stories, Stolen Tongues envelops the reader in an atmosphere that conveys a sense of both helplessness and fear. As the characters and their plight become more three-dimensional and fleshed out, the threatening force looming in the shadows becomes more unreal and difficult to comprehend. That alien and unfamiliar threat mingling with the all-too-real lives of the protagonists it imperils propels this story beyond the realm of casual, easily dismissed horror literature.
When Felix and his fiance, Faye, begin their romantic getaway at her parents’ cabin in the Colorado Rockies, there’s no way they could have anticipated the disquieting experience that would greet them. If they’d only known the sinister history of Pale Peak, the cabin that rested there in the dark forests, and the way that past resonated within Faye’s dreams and psychology, they certainly would not have stayed.
What unfolds from there is a feverish and unreal sequence of events that follows the couple from waking life into their dreams, influencing their relationships, and impacting everyone who seeks to help. And as the terror escalates, the reader can’t help but wonder if anyone will walk away without being led into the darkness by the creature speaking with stolen tongues.
Growing up in and near the Black Hills of South Dakota and having spent a good deal of my life in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Idaho, I feel like Blackwell captured the beauty and isolation of the environment. Just as importantly, he captured the way these mountain forests can play tricks on people unaccustomed to such places.
As someone who has spent most of his life straddling the outskirts of Indigenous cultures, I appreciated Blackwell’s attempt to avoid exhausted and exhausting tropes while incorporating elements of those cultures in his story. My former step-mother and half-sister are Lakota, my ex-wife, multiple ex-girlfriends, numerous friends, and my teenage daughter as well. This book doesn’t treat the Indigenous characters as overly romanticized token characters, but it does treat them with respect and obvious appreciation for the history of North America before the arrival of European colonizers.

The Breed by Ash Ericmore

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The Breed begins with Theo seeking refuge, hoping for nothing more than to use a phone to call his mother, his bike broken down in the rain. When he knocks at the door of Cullis House, his belief that he’s found a refuge is short-lived.
Ericmore leaps ahead a matter of decades and we join two friends hoping to stay at Cullis House in the middle of their backpacking trip. Sore feet and the attention of a sleazy guest already in attendance are soon the least of their concerns.
This story could be adapted to serve as a Hellraiser sequel with only minimal alteration required. One needs only think of the house in place of the Lament Configuration. Ericmore crafts a grotesque, sexually-charged nightmare that even Barker would be hard-pressed to deny as a suitable abbatoir for his playthings to explore.

The Doze Volume 2: Concrete Christmas by Drew Stepek

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Our second installment of The Doze cements the character as the Godless League answer to The Hulk or The Thing. Much like those two Marvel Comics characters, The Doze is a tragic figure, transformed into a monster through no fault of his own, plagued and motivated by loss and betrayal.
Seeking vengeance against the man who manipulated him and took advantage of his illiteracy, ultimately destroying his family, The Doze sees an opportunity with the Christmas parade celebrating the new Globoshame development that’s arisen where his home used to be. As Stepek splashes the pages with blood and concrete, with over-the-top carnage, we find ourselves thrilled that The Doze might finally achieve the revenge he deserves.
Unfortunately, he’s not the only one with some surprises in store, and Stepek leaves us with a cliffhanger ending that will surely leave readers waiting with tingles of anticipation to see where he takes us next.
As with the five previous Godless League installments, I can’t help but find myself wishing that Stepek, Baltisberger, and Leitner will find a comic book artist capable of converting these tales into one giant graphic novel. It would be amazing to see these tales on display in the format most fitting, possibly even finding a new audience in the process.

The second installment of The Doze series was released as part of the AntiChristmas event at http://www.godless.com for December of 2021. You can pick it up for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Godless League #6 (The Doze – "Concrete Christmas") by Drew Stepek

Distinctly I Remember by The Professor

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Distinctly I Remember further cements The Professor as the master of what can only be described as splattergothic literature. Even if he had any peers in this genre, they would be hard-pressed to approach the passionate embrace of topics considered taboo and the literary flair with which he delves into the depths of perversions that are both titillating and revolting.
In this story, the influence of Poe is unabashedly on display, blending elements of The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher into a tale of deeper darkness and depravity than Edgar Allan Poe would have dared document. Twins, a brother and sister, secluded and kept in isolation, become victims of the hallucinatory madness and obsession growing increasingly profound within the young man. The incestuous relationships and compulsions, often writ as subtext by traditional Gothic writers, come to the forefront with The Professor’s ministrations…and the story is all the better for that brazen lack of subtlety. As events unfold before us, we stare with rapt attention as a thing of beauty is systematically destroyed by the very admirer of that exquisite object of the narrator’s obsession.

This story was released as part of the AntiChristmas event at http://www.godless.com for December of 2021. You can pick it up for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the Godless app to your device of choice. The link is below:

https://godless.com/products/distinctly-i-remember-by-the-professor

And the Devil Cried by Kristopher Triana

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The release of Kristopher Triana’s And the Devil Cried is one of those examples of strangely serendipitous timing. It serves as an odd juxtaposition with Stephen King’s Billy Summers. Both stories are about men who became involved with organized crime after committing a murder during their youth and enlisting with the military. That is, of course, where the similarities end, as the characters themselves couldn’t be more different.
Triana excels in crafting unlikeable characters. His true skill is in developing these characters who manage to be entirely captivating precisely because of how unlikeable they are. Jackie is a prime example of that. Committing his first murder at the age of 17 for no better reason than greed and bitterness over the good fortune of the victim, Jackie never strives to be a better person.
After his time in the Army, Jackie never adjusts to civilian life, and he gets arrested for an attempted armed robbery. The story picks up as he’s being released and reacquainting himself with bad people he met while on the inside. As the story unfolds, you find yourself wishing he’d never been released, but there wouldn’t be much of a book if that were the case.
Misogynistic, abusive, sexist, violent, bigoted, and fundamentally heartless, there’s not much about Jackie that resembles a human being, and that’s what makes him an excellent protagonist for this particular story. While this isn’t one of Triana’s extreme horror or splatterpunk tales, he brings those sensibilities to the pulp crime genre with a character so devoid of decency that he’s almost a caricature of what one might expect a hardened criminal to be.
There are components of this story that are difficult to read. I’d suggest those are notably Jackie’s treatment of homosexuals in prison and his unabashed fixation on young girls, but it’s worth sticking it out to the end. Triana showcases a talent for writing hardboiled pulp crime that transcends the genre conventions. It’s a little bit Scarface, a little bit The Godfather, and all Triana.
While it’s not my favorite of his books, it’s well worth reading and it displays a side of Triana as an author that I’d never witnessed previously. It’s encouraging to see him stepping outside of his comfort zone and exploring new ground, and that makes me curious about what he’ll have in store for us next.

Thin Sleep (and Black Thread: A Dark Poem) by Todd Love

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The lake and surrounding campground are empty as Autumn’s chased all but the locals away. It’s the perfect time for a fishing trip, and Rick, Gary, and Stephen fully intend to capitalize on that isolation as they catch up with one another after years of being caught up in their own lives.
Plagued by nightmares and thin sleep their first night in the tents, the men can hardly wait to get out on the boat on their first day of the camping trip. What they find in the cold water is more than just fish, but that shock is nothing compared to what awaits on the shore.
Will law enforcement discover any evidence of what happened to the missing men? Will we see some hint of light or peace at the end of this tale, or will the reader learn that nothing is quite what it seems in this distant campground?
The reader feels the chill in the air and the terror experienced by the campers as their weekend getaway transforms into a living nightmare. Love breathes inauspicious life into this story just as he does everything else I’ve had the pleasure of reading.
Todd Love always gives us more than we expect with his stories. This story also includes the beautifully sinister poem, Black Thread, with its shifting perspective and unexpected revelation. Love is out to prove to readers everywhere that he knows what he’s doing, and he does it well.

Thin Sleep is a Godless exclusive released for the AntiChristmas event at http://www.godless.com for December of 2021. You can pick it up for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device. The link is below:

Thin Sleep : Godless Edition by Todd Love

The Christmas Movie by Ben Arzate

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Ben Arzate’s The Christmas Movie is an excellent example of the author letting the atmosphere do the heavy lifting. There’s a healthy dose of surreal, semi-supernatural horror involved in the story, but it’s the unsettling feeling of something not being right that carries the message home.
The discovery of a potentially unknown television Christmas movie from decades past quickly transforms for the protagonist from a sense that he’d found lost treasure to the ominous feeling that he’s obtained a cursed object. What initially seems like a particularly low-budget, low-quality Christmas movie broadcast by a Christian television network in the 1980s begins to produce a sense of dread as the movie appears to change with each new viewing.
As the protagonist obsessively immerses himself within repeated viewings of the movie, an impression of familiarity becomes apprehension.
As he prepares to return home to his family for the holidays, we’re left with the same sense of trepidation–bordering on panic–the protagonist experiences.

This story was released as part of the AntiChristmas event at http://www.godless.com for December of 2021. You can pick it up for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the Godless app to your preferred mobile devices. The link is below:

The Christmas Movie by Ben Arzate

Bod by Ash Ericmore

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Peter Smalls might just be the dumbest of the Smalls siblings; he’s certainly the least competent of the brothers we’ve met thus far. I’m not sure that makes him any less dangerous than the others. He might be more dangerous for being how he is.
We’re introduced to Peter just before Peter introduces Theo to his rodent buddy, Petey. Theo had somehow got on the wrong side of a member of the Smalls’ extended family, a cousin who goes by Valentine. Bod and his little buddy, Petey, are there to make things good. This is a win-win scenario for Petey because the little fella hasn’t eaten in a while.
Bod’s been hired by the Eastern Europeans to take care of some competition, but he’s going to be in for a couple of surprises when it comes time to take care of business. That is if he can think clearly enough to get to the correct address.
While Bod wasn’t quite as entertaining as Bliss and Cockwinder for me, it’s still a Smalls Family story, which makes it an absolute thrill ride of over-the-top violence and depravity. You can’t go wrong with any of these stories. Ash Ericmore continues to exhibit the same cinematic storytelling that made readers all over the world fall in love with this dysfunctional family, cementing himself as the literary amalgam of Guy Ritchie and Eli Roth, with just a touch of Tarantino for flavor.

Bod was Ash Ericmore’s release during the AntiChristmas event at http://www.godless.com for December of 2021. You can check it out for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Bod (The Smalls Family VI) by Ash Ericmore