Book Reviews

Curse of the Ratman by Jay Wilburn

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To set the stage for this story, the best I can think to suggest is that it’s a twisted abomination crafted by combining Willard (either the 1971 classic or the superior 2003 remake) with the Clive Barker story, “In the Hills, the Cities.” That doesn’t truly capture the sheer giant monster lunacy of what Wilburn’s created here, but it’ll whet the appetite and prepare the reader as best one can.
A family curse comes on with a vengeance, rampaging across the southeast, leaving a swath of devastation that can only be explained as a natural disaster. To call it an act of God would be to beg the question of what sort of God would allow such a monstrosity to exist.
The intense pacing of Wilburn’s tale propels us forward even as we want to turn back, knowing that nothing good can come of what he’s racing us toward.
If he’d written a novel, including more of the family history and details of the events in the distant past, I’d have gleefully settled in to read the whole thing. As captivating as the story gets, with the expanding threat thundering its way across the landscape, I would love to dive into the origins of the curse in greater detail. There’s a thoroughly fascinating story to be told, and maybe if we beg Wilburn enough–in the form of spreading the word of the Ratman–he’ll find himself compelled to share that part of the tale with us in similar detail.

This novella was released as part of the 31 Days of Godless event at http://www.godless.com and you can pick it up for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the app. The link is below:

Curse of the Ratman by Jay Wilburn

My Dildo Is a Serial Killer by Simon McHardy and Sean Hawker

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I’ve never looked at a dildo and mistaken it for a chest expander, but I’m not a priest, so there’s that. This is how Hawker and McHardy begin their novella, My Dildo Is a Serial Killer.
A priest opens a box containing what he believes to be exercise equipment, and insanity ensues. Of course, this mistake arises because someone who couldn’t spell “exorcism” delivered the box with the expectation that someone associated with the church would be able to remedy the problem with the giant purple dildo possessed by the spirit of a serial killer. His name is Terry.
Escaping from the exorcism performed by a couple of priests, Terry finds his way to Christina, a disgusting human being with potentially no redeeming qualities. She is the perfect tool for the fulfillment of Terry’s needs. It’s not totally her fault, though. Wait until you meet her parents because, as messed up as Christina happens to be, there’s no doubt they played a key role in nudging her along that path.
I’m not telling you anything more about this one. You have to experience it for yourself. The deaths are over-the-top and gruesome, the humor is dark and perverse, and the blistering pace keeps the reader raw and sore as McHardy and Hawker bestow us with a barrage of absurd, graphic, and hilarious events from beginning to climax.
These two are fantastic on their own. Combined, they craft a seamless narrative that captures the best of both worlds.

This title was released as part of the 31 Days of Godless event at http://www.godless.com for October of 2021. You can pick up a digital copy of this release by going to the website or by downloading the Godless app on your mobile device of choice.

My Dildo is a Serial Killer by Simon McHardy and Sean Hawker

Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove, Narrated by Dennis Kleinman

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James Lovegrove writes himself into the narrative with The Cthulhu Casebooks, in a fictionalized account of his own life in the preface to this tale. As a distant relation to the former H.P. Lovecraft, a parcel finds its way to him upon the passing of another member of the Lovecraft family.
Contained within is a trilogy of manuscripts penned by Dr. John Watson, confidant and partner of Sherlock Holmes. In the tale that unfolds, we learn that the meeting of Watson and Holmes did not transpire as we’ve come to believe. Additionally, further elements of Watson’s previously available documentation of the cases he and Holmes investigated have been fictionalized to protect the world from forbidden knowledge of things best left unknown.
From the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan to long-forgotten catacombs beneath London, a global tale of unspeakable horror emerges. Upon meeting one another, Holmes and Watson find themselves in pursuit of answers to a rash of ritualistic deaths occurring during the new moon. What they discover will leave the pair, as well as other familiar characters from the Holmes’ archives, changed in ways never hinted at within the released accounts from Watson.
All-in-all, this was a worthwhile mixture of the Lovecraftian mythos and the characters developed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The writing style emulates Doyle’s prose surprisingly well, and the insertion of creatures like Nyarlathotep and Cthulhu into the narrative was performed seamlessly. The story itself didn’t impress me quite as much as I’d hoped, but it was decent enough to nudge me toward checking out the additional two volumes in this series.
Dennis Kleinman’s narration of Watson was quite fantastic, as was his performance of Holmes’ dialogue. Sadly, the other characters felt perhaps a bit less set apart from the background. This is not to say that they weren’t distinct enough to tell them apart, because he managed that quite well, just that they weren’t brought to life in quite the same way the two protagonists were.

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Cthulhu-Casebooks-Sherlock-Holmes-and-the-Shadwell-Shadows-Audiobook/1094095028?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp&shareTest=TestShare

Slaughter Box by Carver Pike

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Readers of Carver Pike’s Diablo Snuff books will have first met Kong in Passion & Pain, after his first encounter with the sinister organization. His torture at their hands drove him to seek any information he could find, only to discover they were like ghosts. Our next meeting with Kong is near the end of The Grindhouse, where he appears as a member of Psalm 71. A lot had clearly taken place between those points in time, and Slaughter Box provides us with a glimpse of that missing period of Kong’s life.
Still traumatized and emotionally damaged from his first experience with Diablo Snuff, Kong returns to his hometown where he finds a flier for the grand reopening of a local movie theater. Violating the trust of his childhood best friend, Kong invites that friend’s younger sister, Sammy, on a date. With the flier fresh in his mind, their venue is obvious.
Unfortunately, as the reader suspects, this is a trap.
William Castle, had he been a homicidal monster or a psychopath, would have fallen in love with the painstakingly engineered and hideously cruel alterations to the theater. Bringing the film to life in the most awful ways, Diablo Snuff intends to punish Kong for his persistent search.
I won’t spoil anything, but we know Kong makes it through the events of this book, but will anyone else survive the malicious and inhumane machinations of Diablo Snuff? You’ll have to read it for yourself if you want to find out.
Carver Pike does an excellent job of balancing high stakes, tense horror with more human elements of the story. We learn a great deal about Kong, his life before we first discovered him in that hellish warehouse, and the miserable life he’d been leading subsequent to his escape from the organization’s clutches. We get to know Sammy, and the deep affection between she and Kong is so well-crafted on the page as to feel as palpable and sincere as a relationship between two real people.
As one might expect, Pike manages to fill the pages with a fair amount of sex and smut, in addition to the violence. If you’ve read The Grindhouse–as you certainly should have–you’ll be well aware of what Diablo Snuff is capable of when they’ve got a movie projector available.
This is the penultimate Diablo Snuff book, leading the way into the (sure to be) intense conclusion, The Maddening. It’s been a long ride, getting here…but one cannot claim it hasn’t been enjoyable.

https://amzn.to/3ve3kvz

Firefly: Generations by Tim Lebbon, Narrated by James Anderson Foster

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Firefly: Generations begins with the story of a map. This star map changes hands many times, through treachery or happenstance, but this is no mere map, and those who take it into their possession seem to somehow recognize that fact without being fully conscious of it.
The truth of the map only reveals itself when it finds its way into the hands of River Tam, where hidden machinery embedded in the material activates. From there, we find ourselves following most of Serenity’s crew into the outer reaches of the verse, where deadly secrets await them amidst an awe-inspiring relic of the history before mankind reached their new homes on the planets and moons the Firefly crew is familiar with.
This novel falls somewhere after the prematurely canceled television series, though before Inara and Book had permanently left the crew and retired to the locations where we meet them again in the movie Serenity.
Tim Lebbon takes the helm in this fourth Firefly novel, telling us a story that fills in gaps in the mystery that is the life of River Tam, the secret experiments conducted by Alliance scientists, and the centuries-past journey from Earth that was. Generations is a far different tale than those contained in the three previous Firefly novels, focusing on the more science fiction elements of the property rather than on the land-based adventures of the crew. It’s a nice transition, receiving this glimpse into the less western-themed exploits of Serenity and the family that calls her home.
Foster’s narration seems only to be improving with each subsequent audiobook release. As he more firmly captures the nuances and patterns of speech for the individual characters, one could almost close their eyes and envision the cast playing their parts.

Alien Sex Fluids: Experiments 1 through 3 by Reekfeel

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Attempting to provide a traditional review of Reekfeel’s three Alien Sex Fluids titles would be to perform a disservice. It could be argued that this is simply me attempting to rationalize the fact that I am in no way capable of properly reviewing the material contained within these shorts.
Packed with a sort of free association or stream of consciousness writing that more accurately resembles poetry than narrative prose, Reekfeel’s Alien Sex Fluids plays fast and loose with both language and structure. One almost has simply to let the words–the sounds and visual elements implicit in those words–flow over and around them, dragging the reader along through the cacophony of it all.
The free-flowing, anti-literature qualities are most pronounced in Alien Sex Fluids: Experiment 1, where we’re introduced to Nyarlathotep of Lovecraftian fame, and reinterpreted by the author. This is not the being/creature/god as good ol’ Howard Philips wrote it, but rather a mischievous and whimsically cruel thing prone to juvenile outbursts and toilet humor.
We are also introduced to the beings/people ostensibly conducting the experiments–or are they the subjects of the experiments?–named after various elements of the periodic table. We’ll get to know them in greater detail in further installments of the series.
Reekfeel also takes this time to introduce us to the inhabitants of the garden, strange, child-like creatures without discernable form or function as we perceive it. There’s no conceivable way I could describe the activities during that interlude, and you’ll have to read it for yourself if you want to better understand what I mean.
Alien Sex Fluids: Experiment 2 takes on a more prose-like structure in part, diving more into the narrative elements of the overall story being constructed/deconstructed by Reekfeel. We focus more strongly on Selenium, and it’s a strange reversal of norms that the revelation of a dream is more coherently literary than the surrounding material.
In Alien Sex Fluids: Experiment 3, we get to witness Reekfeel inserting themself into the narrative in a rather tongue-in-cheek sense, providing a sort of halfhearted apology for how challenging it is to follow along with dialogue from Bismuth as an RPG of some kind is being played to assist Selenium(?). Of course, this only serves to upset Nyarlathotep, who is sharing this story with us through Reekfeel as a conduit.
I’d like to say that Experiment 3 continues the more coherent aspects of the narrative as we’d experienced in Experiment 2, but I’d be lying to you, and I’m not a liar! The vast majority of this installment of the series takes place within and is focused around the role-playing taking place, and Reekfeel’s attempt to clear up the mess of multiple dialogues only serves to make it all more of a mess.
It’s virtually impossible, as you might understand, to provide a proper review of Alien Sex Fluids, but it’s worth taking the time to dive into the tumultuous, disorganized, yet strangely calculated and lunatic-by-design story you’ll witness unfolding. This is, after all, something being conveyed to us, through Reekfeel, by the crawling chaos itself. If it weren’t indicative of madness, it wouldn’t be authentic. One thing I can say for sure, there’s a certain brilliance and creative imagination impossible to ignore in the distorted, untethered, insanity of Reekfeel’s work.

Experiment 3 was released as part of the 31 Days of Godless event over at http://www.godless.com You can pick up all three installments of Alien Sex Fluids by going to the website or by downloading the app to your preferred mobile device. The links to the three current volumes are below:

Alien Sex Fluids: Experiment 1 by REEKFEEL
Alien Sex Fluids: Experiment 2 by REEKFEEL
Alien Sex Fluids: Experiment 3 by REEKFEEL

Stef and Tucker: Books 1, 2, & 3 by Dani Brown

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Dani Brown’s first three books of her Stef and Tucker series have been a fascinating thing to dive into back-to-back. She leads the reader on a phantasmagorical, surrealist narrative that bears a strange resemblance to epic tales of adventure like The Odyssey or Dante’s Divine Comedy, but with a whole lot more cum.

Beginning with Book One: Dancin’ with Ice Zombies, we’re introduced to Stef and Tucker on tour with their band. At this point in the series, Stef has been kept out of Tucker’s reach by the machinations of bandmates and a manager actively opposed to that sort of fraternization. While Tucker coats everything in an ever-increasing surface of semen, he obsessively fantasizes about Stef and resents everyone who treats them as if it will be the literal end of the world if the two are allowed to get together.

Maybe they were right.

As Tucker gets Stef alone in the desert for their first date, the underworld itself seems to voice disapproval in the most spectacular way.

Book Two: Jordan provides readers with a better and less one-sided perspective on Tucker’s neglected wife, Jordan. Inhuman, and driven by an obsession with Stef that rivals Tucker’s own, Jordan has plans for the unsuspecting Stef. Not to be held back because Tucker got there first, she dedicates herself to a harrowing journey back home from the store.

Unfortunately for Jordan, she’s not the only non-human creature in the neighborhood. As an orgy turns into something far less pleasant, ancient adversaries work in opposition to one another with Stef and Tucker trapped in the middle.

Book Three: The Flowering Penises begins where the second volume left off, with Stef and Tucker in captivity. The only way out is for Stef to strike out on an astral journey through Tucker’s mental landscape, seeking the cum that will save them from their bondage.

These are fucked up stories filled with more semen than all the sperm banks in the world. Dani Brown spins a yarn drenched in so much sweat, cum, liquid shit, and other unknown fluids that she’s got to spend as much time wringing the fluids from the yarn as she does weaving it into the final form. It’s worth the extra effort, though, because these tales are both captivating and amusing. Besides, what else could one expect from The Queen of Filth?

Book Three: The Flowering Penises is one of the releases for Day Seven of the 31 Days of Godless event over on http://www.godless.com You can pick all three up by going to the website or by downloading the app to your mobile device of choice. The links are below:

Stef and Tucker Book One Dancin' With Ice Zombies by Dani Brown
Stef and Tucker Book Two Jordan by Dani Brown
Stef and Tucker Book Three: The Flowering Penises by Dani Brown

Sew Sorry by Aron Beauregard and Daniel Volpe

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Aron Beauregard and Daniel Volpe work exceptionally well together, seamlessly crafting a fantastic and surprising two-person anthology. Sew Sorry tells two vastly different tales that begin at the same fateful point in time. While the skin might be different between the two stories, there are underlying similarities in the meat that stand out.
We begin with Aron’s contribution, Charity’s Cackle. “Hurt people, hurt people” was the adage that ran through my mind the whole time I read this component of the book. Henry was a good kid, a bright kid, and it wasn’t his fault that his mother was a terrible, compulsive, and judgmental bitch. None of that stops asshole kids from being the assholes we expect them to be, as Henry experiences extreme bullying in response to his mother’s revealed behavior associated with her ignominious death.
The theme of damage radiating further damage is pronounced in this story, and it’s heartbreaking to have that additional layer to the narrative. I can’t say more, without giving too much away, but there’s a certain sense that fate was at work by the time the reader finishes the first half of this book.
Daniel takes up the baton with The Strays, diverting from the initial hostile confrontation we’ve already witnessed, but from a profoundly different perspective. The homeless man we first felt sorry for in Charity’s Cackle turns out to be a bit less sympathetic than he at first appeared.
Garrison is a broken man who has allowed regret from his past to poison him, turning him into a truly awful human being, assuming he wasn’t that way, to begin with. With Mary and Desiree in tow, Garrison’s only concern is for himself and what he can gain from those around him.
The way these two stories diverge and come together at multiple points is masterfully achieved by Beauregard and Volpe. Reminiscent of movies like Crash (not the Cronenberg film) or Magnolia, an interconnectedness between people is on display. Regardless of our seeming differences and backgrounds, the world has a way of forming collisions and coalescence that we’d never anticipate.
As graphic and vile as aspects of these two stories are–and there’s a whole hell of a lot of them–there’s so much storytelling skill at work that one can’t help but admire the literary talent both authors bring to the project.

Sew Sorry is part of the 31 Days of Godless event taking place for October of 2021 at http://www.godless.com. You can pick this up for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the app. The link is below:

Sew Sorry by Aron Beauregard & Daniel J. Volpe

The Whorehouse That Jack Built Part Three: Bear Maiden by Kevin Sweeney

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As we journey into the third of Kevin Sweeney’s The Whorehouse That Jack Built stories, we again glimpse a revolting bit of training the albino priest underwent with Motherfucker Superior. From that degrading bit of conditioning, we move along to the even more disgusting sexorcism of Bear Maiden.
A mountain of flesh, Bear Maiden never stops eating as the albino begins his ascent, intent on conquering the second of the Vestal Whores. Her disgusting body riddled with sores, with larvae nesting in the chasms of her rolls, the climb might prove too treacherous for our albino priest.
Equipped with undaunted courage, cruciform dildos, and his massive, rainbow-colored cock, the albino will wade through all manner of vileness to accomplish his mission, or die in the jaws of the ravenous Bear Maiden.
It’s impressive how well Sweeney manages to avoid seeming tedious or repetitious with these stories. He accomplishes this, in part, by providing a backstory for the Vestal Whore in each story. It’s interesting to see those details fleshed out and manifested in how each of the monstrous whores appears on the page.

This title is one of the 31 Days of Godless releases for October of 2021. You can obtain it for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app. The link is below:

https://godless.com/products/the-whorehouse-that-jack-built-part-3-bear-maiden-by-kevin-sweeney

The Whorehouse That Jack Built Part Two: Mary Maggie Darling by Kevin Sweeney

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The second installment of Kevin Sweeney’s The Whorehouse That Jack Built series begins with a glimpse of backstory into the life of our nameless albino priest and presumably the training he experienced leading to his current calling.
From there, we meet the first of the Vestal Whores. We have the pleasure of experiencing the piss-drenched, street trash Mary Maggie Darling in all her stigmatized glory.
There’s no sense in trying to predict where this one is going. You’ll never anticipate each new twist and turn, nor every unexpected crevasse Sweeney guides you through along the way. This story is a fluid-filled romp that’ll make you feel more than a little bit dirty by the time you reach the climax.

You can pick this up by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app on your mobile device. The link is below:

The Whorehouse That Jack Built (Part 2 – Mary Maggie Darling) by Kevin Sweeney