Gollitok by Andrew Najberg, Narrated by Joe Hempel

August 6, 2024 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Andrew Najberg’s Gollitok brings to mind the work of Soviet and Russian post-apocalyptic authors like Dmitry Glukhovsky or Arkady and Boris Srugatsky. It’s refreshing to come across a title today with the same dystopian feel that one otherwise only sees in Cold War or post-Cold War literature. What begins as a bit of a mystery in which none of the characters trust–or can trust–one another while exploring and struggling to survive the isolation and potential contagion of the Gollitok prison colony quickly transforms into a masterpiece of body horror and the dangers associated with being on the wrong side of a fascist government.

As abbreviated as the story actually is, the characters are still well-drawn and the environment feels uncomfortably real. It’s hard to talk about the book without giving too much away. It’s clear that Najberg put a great deal of thought into both the environment and the social dynamics that underlie the narrative he’s crafted…but it’s something you’ll really have to experience for yourself. I suggest you do precisely that.

Joe Hempel’s narration is absolutely spot-on, capturing the nuances of characters, the various accents, and the tension the narrative builds within the reader/listener.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Gollitok-Audiobook/B0CX2LTZDF?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp

Unspoken

November 22, 2023 / MeltdownMessiah / 1 Comment

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.”

Unspoken by Nikolas P. Robinson

Innocence Ends

November 22, 2023July 21, 2024 / MeltdownMessiah / 1 Comment

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: