Judith Sonnet

Dark Disasters: A Dark Dozen Anthology, Edited by Candace Nola

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I’ll start by saying the same thing I did for my blurb when I read an advance copy of this anthology: “The only thing disastrous about Dark Disasters is the impact it will have on readers. In these pages, you will find devastation of all kinds, but it’s the emotional or psychological devastation that will have the most lasting effects. There were no drills in school to prepare me for what I experienced in these pages. Nola has done it again…lightning strikes thrice, which is fitting, considering the subject matter.”

This is the third of the Dark Dozen anthologies edited by Candace Nola and released under her imprint of Uncomfortably Dark Horror. I had the privilege of reading advance copies of all three, the first and third to supply a blurb, the second because I was one of the contributing authors…and it has been a pleasure all three times.

This anthology is focused, as you might expect, on horror taking place during–or because of–natural disasters. We have rainstorms, landslides, wildfires, blizzards, and so much more…and those are often only the beginning of the horrors facing the characters populating these tales. There are vampires, something akin to cymothoa exigua (the god-awful parasites that replace the tongues of certain fish), ghosts, sentient mud, and all sorts of other nightmarish things awaiting the reader brave enough to thumb through these pages. There’s no conceivable way someone could read this anthology and feel a sense of disappointment, not if they’re looking for horror or hoping to feel their skin crawling.

Be careful, though…there might be a storm coming.

You can also purchase this title by going to http://www.godless.com or clicking the link below:

DARK DISASTERS: A Dark Dozen Anthology

Something Akin To Revulsion by Judith Sonnet

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Judith Sonnet takes a hammer and chisel to our sensibilities and good taste with her collection, Something Akin To Revulsion: Six Extreme Short Stories. There is nothing safe, nothing sacrosanct, and nothing off-limits within these pages–and that’s how it should be.
It was my pleasure to be one of the first to experience LOLCOW, the story that starts this particular collection. Judith’s rendition of this grotesque and graphic tale was the winning performance of the 2022 KillerCon Gross-Out Contest, and with good reason. Plumbing the depths of the internet for hilarious, perverse, and captivating content might provide more stimulation than one is prepared to experience. But like the narrator of LOLCOW, we can’t help ourselves as we return to the trough.
Liquid Sick suitably tackles the TERF epidemic, showcasing for readers that those people spend too much time spewing excrement and too little time on empathy. Judith’s own trans experience influences and informs this narrative, and she does an excellent job of providing both amusement and poignant social commentary. Also, apropos of nothing…fecal emesis has always fascinated me.
Sonnet’s next story, Rehearsal, provides a grim and unrelenting glimpse into the hours before a school shooting transpires. Kids who did nothing wrong find themselves prey to the whims of cruel and maladjusted classmates with pizza cutters to grind.
Body-Crunch takes us to the dimly lit, poorly constructed ring of a backyard wrestling match that goes horrifically wrong. It’s not every day one almost feels bad for a pedophile, but it’s hard not to feel some faint stirring of sympathy as everything comes crashing down–and spilling out.
In Coke-Nail, a group of bored, slacker teenagers decide they know where they might be able to score some cocaine. The deal doesn’t work out as planned, but one of them still manages to reach a state sort of like snowblindness.
Finally, we have Something Akin To Revulsion, wherein some truly awful preadolescent girls decide they’re going to play a prank on the dumpy, less popular girl in their class. The conclusion might have you in stitches, though, so it’s worth sitting through the horror.
Sonnet’s collection is as gripping as it is bleak and nihilistic, and it’s got those traits in spades. Her story notes clarify the inspiration and motivation behind each of the inclusions, and it’s always a pleasure to spend a little time getting to know the author after finishing something that’s hollowed you out like this collection is sure to do.