Fiction

The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

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The Book of Accidents may superficially appear to be less epic than Wendig’s previous novel, Wanderers, but there’s so much more beneath the surface. When we first meet Oliver and his family, the story seems to be focused on a family under strain, moving into what could potentially be a haunted house. It doesn’t take Wendig long to dispel those assumptions as he takes the reader on a multiverse-spanning adventure of magic and terror.
While the story is filled with interesting characters, Oliver is at the core of it all, in more ways than one. He’s a special boy, empathetic and sensitive, but there’s so much more to him than that. Oliver can see the pain in others in a literal, visceral sense, and the world we’re living in today gives him more than enough pain to witness. Hoping to find some peace for their son, Nate and Maddie move into Nate’s childhood home in rural Pennsylvania after his abusive father passes away. Nate transitions from his life as a Philadelphia police officer to a Pennsylvania Fish & Game warden, and Maddie decides she wants to try a different sort of sculpture from what she’d been creating in the city. Oliver successfully makes new friends on his first day at the new school. Unfortunately, he makes a couple of new enemies as well.
If only things could level out at that point, it would be a typical family drama, and the story would be over. Thankfully, for the reader–though not for the family–Wendig is at the helm. The very enemies Oliver makes at school are instrumental in putting him in Jake’s path, and everything begins to fall apart from there. Wherever Jake goes, the collapse is soon to follow.
You’ll need to be prepared for anything to happen because there’s no way to go into this one predicting the outcome.
It’s masterful the way Wendig brings the disparate threads of narrative together. It astounded me when I was reading Wanderers, and it’s no less astonishing when reading The Book of Accidents.

Son Of the Right Hand: Book of Ze’ev 2 by John Baltisberger

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John Baltisberger takes everything great from Treif Magic and amplifies it with this sequel. As a result, Son of the Right Hand feels simultaneously more intimate and far more epic than the earlier installment in the story of Ze’ev.
Months after the intense conclusion of Treif Magic, Son of the Right Hand picks up after Ze’ev has had time to recuperate. With remnants of the cult scattered into the wind at the end of Treif Magic, Ze’ev has been hunting them down and bringing them to justice. As we follow Ze’ev into what he believes to be the hideout of the final members of the cult, he discovers something far more hideous and terrible than simply a couple of cultists.
Just when Ze’ev thinks he’s earned a well-deserved break from the darkness, an old friend reaches out with terrible news of a gruesome tragedy. Time is running out as another girl has gone missing, and Ze’ev doesn’t know if he can bear the weight of another failure. His struggle to do the right thing and bring his friend some closure brings him face-to-face with a monster from deep in the history of serial killer lore.
If that’s not enough, the past isn’t through with Ze’ev, as his superiors present him with what might be the greatest challenge he’s faced so far. Sandy, the young woman he saved in the previous book–kicking off the events that nearly ended his life–is to be taken into his care. Her brief encounter with the darkness coexisting within our world has tainted her in the same way Ze’ev was tainted as a young man. Now, it’s up to him to teach her how to navigate the world as she now recognizes it.
As everything collides in a tumultuous–and possibly fatal–climax, Ze’ev makes a deal that has consequences he may not be able to live with.
Fans of John’s religious horror masterpiece, War of Dictates, will be pleased to see some crossover from characters in that epic poem as Ze’ev crosses the boundaries that separate our world from the worlds of the things that live in the shadows. That scene alone is worth the price of admission. If you haven’t already read the Splatterpunk Award-nominated War of Dictates, then you need to address that shortcoming post haste.
Notable, within the narrative, we get to act as stand-in students as Ze’ev ruminates on what and how he will teach Sandy. This is brought to greater fruition as we experience her first lesson. The expositionary dialogue is fascinating and internally justified within the story, at no point detracting from the flow of the story.
It’s a damn shame that the next book isn’t already out because this one absolutely leaves the reader wanting more, and impatient too.

This title is also available through http://www.godless.com or via the Godless app on your favorite Apple and Android platforms. I recommend checking Godless out at the earliest convenience. It’s the new home for indie horror. The link is below:

Son of the Right Hand (The Book of Ze'ev 2) by John Baltisberger

Flushed by Chris Miller, narrated by S. W. Salzman

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Chris Miller’s Flushed is short. I’d go so far as to suggest the value of giving this story a listen is inversely proportional to the size of the tale.
What we have here is an uncomfortably–horrifyingly–relatable story of one of those times when we absolutely know our bowels are going to fail us in the worst possible way, at the most calamitous conceivable location, when the timing couldn’t be worse. While we all may not be able to relate to a drunken workplace hook-up with someone we’d sooner have avoided, I think we can all imagine how such a thing might happen.
Miller tells an entertaining tale, increasingly implausible as Murphy’s Law takes a cruel toll on Marty.
The narration provided by S. W. Salzman brings the extreme discomfort and humiliation to life.

The Bleed: Rupture by Mark Tufo, Chris Philbrook, and David Moody, Narrated by Scott Aiello

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The Bleed: Rupture is the beginning of something great, for sure. If the combined efforts of Mark Tufo, Chris Philbrook, and the always fantastic David Moody maintain this same sort of quality moving forward, this series will be spectacular.
The three authors involved in this project successfully combine body horror, fantasy, and science fiction into something greater than the sum of the individual components. The individual stories meld together, creating a sweeping, epic tale of a multiverse in jeopardy as a race of gods and their halfbreed offspring fight a battle of attrition on one world after another against an unstoppable, all-consuming enemy, The Bleed.
We get to experience the disastrous consequences of two gods with conflicting goals in modern-day London as Jenny struggles to come to terms with her heritage.
We join the members of a lunar colony as their settlement faces catastrophic collapse. The small handful of survivors learn that there are secrets on the moon no one could have expected.
And finally, we follow Arridon and Thistle, two half-gods, as their world approaches a horrifying end at the hands of a monstrous force that seeks to devour everything living and dead in absolute domination.
As the stories tie together at the end in the most unexpected ways, I couldn’t help but want to move immediately on to the second volume in the series.
The narration provided by Scott Aiello for the audiobook edition is fantastic. He tackles the cast of characters and their various accents better than many audiobook narrators I’ve heard.

This Post May Cause Unexplained Ocular Bleeding…Or It May Cause You To Buy It, At Least

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If you haven’t already heard about May Cause Unexplained Ocular Bleeding, this post is for you. If you’ve heard about my new book, but you don’t know whether it’s something you’re interested in, this post is also for you. Essentially, this post is for anyone and everyone.
Tomorrow morning, August 18th, my second collection of short fiction becomes available in digital formats at http://www.godless.com for the low price of $2.99, which is $1 cheaper than it’ll be in digital format when it goes live on Amazon on Friday, August 20th. It will also be available in paperback on August 20th for the low price of only $8.99.
Check out this cover, designed by the fantastic Drew Stepek.

That design alone should be enough to whet your appetite. If you’re one of those style over substance sorts, that cover layout should be all it takes to convince you that you need this in your collection.
Of course, you’re in for more than a fancy-looking cover when you pick up a copy of this book.
Not only does this collection include the sleeper hit, Horseplay, from Godless, but it contains nine additional short stories that are sure to make my readers uncomfortable as often as it entertains them. Not only that, but I have made certain to include a brief note that details the inspiration behind each of these tales of terror and tribulation. Some of these notes are more worthwhile than others, but I wanted you–my readers–to know me a little better when you came out of the experience than you might have on your way in.
Here’s the description from the back cover of the paperback edition:

I didn’t know how to react when Carver Pike provided me with what I must admit is likely to be the best blurb I could ever hope to receive. Any comparison to a writer of Gaiman’s caliber is going to be flattering–and also impossible to live up to. I’m going to hope that I don’t let my readers down when I turn out to be nowhere near the author Neil Gaiman happens to be.
Adrian Ludens not only provided a fantastic blurb, but his keen eyes also caught little bits and pieces of editing that had slipped through the cracks along the way. After staring at the same stories for so long, one becomes inured to faults and flaws that might ruin the tone of a story. It’s a sort of editing blindness that creeps in and destroys otherwise fantastic manuscripts. Had it not been for Mr. Ludens taking the time to read the stories with a critical eye, I might have missed a handful of mismatched tenses and incorrect words.

You can, of course, purchase this title from http://www.godless.com or through the Godless app tomorrow. The link is below:

https://godless.com/products/may-cause-unexplained-ocular-bleeding-by-nikolas-p-robinson-august-18th?_pos=7&_sid=3bb2dc68f&_ss=r

You can also hold out until Friday the 20th, to pick up a copy at the following link on http://www.amazon.com

Fucking Scumbags Burn In Hell: Book 6 by John Shupeck, Jr.

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Pink introduces us to Theo as she attends SAA (Sex Addicts Anonymous) for the first time. Theo has a problem–and it’s far worse than what the reader might first imagine–but it soon becomes clear she’s uninterested in finding a solution. She’s not there for help. She’s there on the prowl.
The usual therapist who hosts these meetings isn’t available, but Dr. Hooper is there to help everyone through the session. As Theo’s initial meeting of SAA becomes progressively more bizarre and surreal, it’s difficult not to feel a sense of unease, knowing that there’s more to the story and that we’re probably not going to like what awaits us.
It’s only after Theo brings one of the other sex addicts home to her apartment that we get the first glimpse of just how dark and perverse Theo’s hunger happens to be. With a brief glimpse of a jar and bloody chains, we join Casey in feeling a sense of disorientation and panic as we realize there’s something far worse than sex addiction going on.
By the time it’s all over–and the story comes to a close–we’re forced to examine the definition of murder and what it means to kill someone. Shupeck paints us an excruciatingly real portrait of someone who doesn’t care who she hurts, as long as she gets what she wants. What she wants is to live the adage, “misery loves company.”
Anyone who has read the previous five installments in the FSBIH series will recognize that Hooper tends to give people a choice, and it’s the very choice they make that leads them into his power. This is no different. Theo is given a choice, more clearly than most of Hooper’s “victims” have gotten…and Theo does indeed make her choice with wide-open eyes.
This one might be the worst of the installments to read so far, for reasons that will be clear to anyone upon arriving at the end. The graphic, grotesque imagery is only half of the problem. It’s the depravity and monstrous nature of Theo herself that hits the hardest.

This title is exclusively available through http://www.godless.com or via the Godless app for your Apple and Android devices. You can obtain it at the following link:

Pink (Fucking Scumbags Burn in Hell: Book 6) by John Shupeck, Jr.

Chuck’s Dinosaur Tinglers: Volume 1 by Chuck Tingle

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Volume One of Chuck’s Dinosaur Tinglers compiles three previously available stories; My Billionaire Triceratops Craves Gay Ass, Gay T-Rex Law Firm: Executive Boner, and Space Raptor Butt Invasion. If you’re unfamiliar with the brilliant Chuck Tingle and his plethora of tinglers, I’m not sure how you’re accessing this review from the space beneath the rock you’ve been living under for however long.
In the first of these three tinglers, Jeremy receives a call out of the blue from Oliver, his former pet triceratops, now an exotic dancer who made billions from sports betting. An evening of expensive dinner instead becomes a gay, erotic encounter in Jeremy’s New York apartment.
The second tale tells us of Donny’s first day at the T-Rex law firm, where he’d just gotten hired as a secretary. Seeking prestige and a better paycheck, Donny soon gets more than he signed up for as he learns just what sort of animals he’s working for when an indecent proposal crosses his desk.
The final tale introduces us to Lance, an astronaut, just as he begins his solo, year-long mission on an alien planet undergoing terraforming to provide humans with a new home and salvation from a dying Earth. Little does he know that a velociraptor astronaut from Earth 2 is also on a similar mission. A friendship borne of mutual loneliness soon becomes a steamy affair, as Lance and Orion discover a new way to pass the time that has nothing to do with playing ping-pong.
In true Tingle fashion, these three stories are short, sweet, and smutty. The erotic elements are graphic in detail and ridiculous in content, which is precisely what Dr. Chuck Tingle excels at bringing to the table. In his life’s mission of showing his readers and fans that love is real, he often goes to extremes that guarantee one will not soon forget the experience of joining him on a tingling journey.

This paperback edition was a Father’s Day present for me from my girlfriend in 2020. Additionally, I was gifted two more Tinglers in paperback at the same time. Only someone who knows me well would have considered these to be just the sort of things I would want in my library.

The Second Cumming Book 1: All Outta Virgins by Matthew A. Clarke

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Look at the person to your right.
Now, look at the person to your left.
Both of them are terrorists.
Also, you’re a terrorist.
In Matthew A. Clarke’s The Second Cumming Book 1: All Outta Virgins, that’s the world we’re living in. Everyone has become part of one faction of terrorists or another. That includes the ragtag members of ANT (Anti Terrorists) we come to know during this first installment in the Second Cumming series. Believe it or not, that is the least crazy element of the story.
What we have here is a non-stop barrage of bizarro, both in imagery and in substance. One of the protagonists is a sentient, humanoid pile of shit, after all.
The best part is that all of this is only the beginning.
All of this is nothing more than the setup. The story takes off when Jesus shows up–oozing cum from every hole in his body–with a mad proposition and a whole lot of violence in mind.
Clarke has masterfully crafted a violent, pornographic satire, blending The Passion of the Christ with Battle Royale.

You can pick up your own copy of Clarke’s first installment in this new series at http://www.godless.com or through the Godless app. The best part is that it’s free. He’s giving you a taste, just to get you hooked…much as a drug dealer might. The link is below:

The Second Cumming Book 1 (All Outta Virgins) by Matthew A. Clarke

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

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After The Only Good Indians last year, Stephen Graham Jones set the bar higher than most authors could dream of achieving. I say that because The Only Good Indians was easily one of the best novels I’ve had the pleasure of reading, regardless of the genre…ever. My Heart Is a Chainsaw isn’t likely to leave quite as profound of a lasting impact as that book, but it’s a different sort of beast altogether. And boy, is it a beast.
Jade Daniels is a walking, talking archive of all things slasher-related, or even slasher-adjacent. She’s a socially awkward outcast who speaks to others in slasher genre shorthand. To her, everything in life can be easily compared and contrasted with plot points of one or more of her favorite movies. Every occasion has an appropriate quote from the slasher genre. As a person, she’s equal parts aggravating and endearing to the reader–assuming the reader, like me, is a hardcore slasher fanatic.
Finally, her dead-end life in a dead-end Idaho town appears to be heading toward a fantasy come true. With the arrival of Lethe Mondragon, the final piece falls into place as Jade determines she’s located the archetypal “final girl” for the real-life slasher horror to play out.
Is Jade another Cassandra, doomed to warn everyone of the impending nightmare and tragedy, only to be dismissed as all youth are in the movies she so adores? Is she simply a troubled girl who has lost the capacity to differentiate between fantasy and reality, on the verge of returning to the institution from which she’d only recently been released? You’ll have to read the book to find out. If you’re familiar with Jones as an author, you should know you won’t be disappointed.
As you reach the halfway point of this novel, everything begins cascading out of control with a feverish pace and such a dizzying assortment of horrors that you’ll hardly see the next twist coming–and there are indeed twists.
The novel is so much more than a slasher story. I’d love to tell you more, but I’d be giving too much away. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is also a coming-of-age tale about an indigenous girl haunted by her past and fixated on the haunted history of the mountain town she calls home. This is a story of friendship, a dysfunctional family, and an even more dysfunctional community.
My Heart Is a Chainsaw should assure any readers that Stephen Graham Jones is–I say this without a doubt in my mind–perhaps the single greatest writer currently active in the horror genre.

Midnight Horror Show by Ben Lathrop: Narrated by Tee Quillin

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A little backstory might be in order for this review.
This story is built around the old Screen Gems release of Universal horror pictures in syndication to television stations in the late 1950s. With the encouragement that the stations bring in a host to introduce the “Shock” and later “Son of Shock” pictures, Screen Gems helped to platform an industry, first popularized by Vampira, the original horror host on television. There have been many others along the way, including notable icons such as Vincent Price, Joe Bob Briggs, and Elvira. Midnight Horror Show captures a nostalgic snapshot of a time that’s lost in memory, turning it into something truly sinister, and telling a fantastic tale along the way.
With a series of unusual killings in the sleepy Iowa town of Dubois in 1985, Detective David Carlson finds himself thrust into the midst of an all-too-real horror show. Investigating the seemingly unrelated crimes, he encounters James West, a strange young man with a fixation on horror and heavy metal, soon to host his own horror show at a local drive-in with a dark history.
James’s obsession with a former television and drive-in host, Boris Orlof, brings Detective Carlson face-to-face with secrets and terrifying truths previously buried in the past. Confronting his own forgotten memories, a file of missing person cases from twenty years before, and the very real possibility that there’s more than simple movie magic taking place behind the scenes, Detective West finds himself fighting a ticking clock to solve the unbelievable mystery and save the young man he’s grudgingly befriended before Halloween night.
Midnight Horror Show is a captivating story that leaves you guessing what’s going to happen right up until the end. When you think you have a handle on what’s next, Lathrop manages to dodge your assumptions and veer off in a different direction.
The narration provided by Tee Quillin is fantastic and believable as he voices the assorted characters populating the tale with seeming ease.