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Gateway by Kristopher Triana

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Gateway is vastly different from a lot of what one might expect from Kristopher Triana. The reader isn’t going to find the sort of vividly depicted gore and violence one frequently associates with Triana’s material. I have to say they’ll be missing out if they don’t dive into this story because they’re disappointed about the lack of brightly splashing gore and viscera in these few pages.
Franco Torres is a human trafficker who specializes in albinos, whether for sex trafficking or harvesting purposes. He’s a monster preying on superstitions and prejudice to accumulate wealth, and he’s exceptionally successful at it.
When a stunning, ethereal albino woman arrives at a party he’s attending, Torres can’t help but introduce himself to The Gateway.
Will his deepest wishes and dreams come true at the hands of this mysterious woman?
What will be the cost?
I will be eagerly anticipating the upcoming novel, The Ivory Dealer, that emerged from this short story. Triana successfully baited the hook with this one, leaving the reader with questions that desperately need answering.

This title is available as part of the 31 Days of Godless event at http://www.godless.com for October of 2021. You can snag this one for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the app to your mobile device. The link is below:

Gateway by Kristopher Triana

Casey’s Vengeance: A Killstreme Prequel by Rayne Havok

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Casey’s Revenge might just be one of the rarest of things, a prequel story that surpasses the narrative it precedes. If you’ve read Killstreme for yourself, you know just how high a bar Rayne Havok set with that title, and how challenging it would be to do what she’s done here. If Casey’s Revenge isn’t better, it’s certainly no worse. It really just depends on what you look for in a story. For me, this had everything I’d have hoped for and more.
Packed with the brutality and violence one comes to expect from her writing along with the well-drawn characters and exceptional storytelling, we also have a heartbreaking story of innocence reclaimed and shattered.
Casey wanted a new start, at a new school with none of her previous mistakes haunting her or hanging over her head, and that’s precisely what she believed she had. Prom night was the night she promised herself she would give Evan the night they both wanted. unfortunately, it turned out that Evan’s wishes were altogether more terrible than she could have imagined. He didn’t want sex, he wanted her to suffer, and he wasn’t alone.
What could have broken her, simmered within her instead. Casey realized that revenge was the only thing that would give her back the power Evan and his friends had stolen from her. Her vengeance is brutal and perfect, directed toward vile young monsters who deserve every bit of what they receive.
Bonus points for the unique curb stomp that involves an altogether different head than what readers might associate with the term. Also, having one’s head up someone’s ass has never seemed quite so visually stimulating.

This title is available as part of the 31 Days of Godless event at http://www.godless.com for October of 2021. You should pick it up for yourself by going to the website or downloading the Godless app to your preferred mobile device. The link is below:

Casey's Vengeance by Rayne Havok

Billy Silver by Daniel J. Volpe, Narrated by John Wayne Comunale

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Billy and Jeannie are definitely not Jack and Diane. They’re not the sort of couple Mellencamp would immortalize in song. It’s more likely they’d be immortalized by a band like Cannibal Corpse, preferably before the departure of Chris Barnes.
Billy Silver is a junkie and an alcoholic, a guitarist and singer, and an all-around degenerate. Despite all of his flaws, and there are many, he’s also captivating and occasionally funny. Within the first few pages, you’ll come to loathe him. That sensation never quite disappears, even as you begin to feel a small amount of sympathy for him along the way.
With his life falling apart even worse than it already had, Billy finds his way into a tattoo parlor where the mysterious Talia pays him to obtain a new piece of ink under the pretense of needing practice before the shop officially opens. It doesn’t take long before Billy’s self-destructive nature takes on an altogether more horrific and direct manifestation.
Daniel Volpe captures Billy and the other characters who populate his dingy, filth-riddled corner of existence with such detail that you can almost smell the halitosis and urine as the story carries you along.
Volpe brings the streets and back alleys of the city to life in crushing, grimy detail that is further enhanced by the narration provided by John Wayne Comunale. These two men together provide us with something as splendid as it is awful. I’m glad I’ve snagged more audiobooks narrated by Comunale because he is not only an excellent writer but a truly amazing narrator.

Dissing D*sney by Matt Shaw

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It pleased me a great deal to see another author, one I respect a great deal, deciding that it was worthwhile to focus on Disney as a target for extreme, unpleasant literature.
Matt Shaw dedicates his exceptional talent and delicious wit to providing the reader with horrific, unsettling epilogues to well-known tales previously co-opted by Disney and watered down for children. In a sense, it feels almost as though Shaw is restoring a sort of balance by bringing the darkness and sardonic wit to stories that were largely rather dark before Disney got ahold of them.
I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers, but just the act of sharing which story connects with which fairytale property will, in some cases, spoil some surprises. I want to be sure you take that into consideration before you read beyond this point.
The escapades of Prince Charming with a series of princesses begin to seem reminiscent of Henry VIII in the stories Happy Ever After, Glass, and Bloods. I was especially pleased with Happy Ever After, in that it went the direction I anticipated it would go by the end. It’s nice to know there’s a writer out there with the key to my perverse, cruel heart.
The Toy Maker paints a picture of kindly old Gepetto that would disturb any fan of Pinocchio.
A Dinner Date provides us with the natural outcome one might expect for the characters of Bambi.
Wonderland shows us a terrible fate befalling Alice in her desperate search for Wonderland.
Grief brings the story of Nemo to a close, teaching an important lesson to a child along the way.
The Lion King is concluded with a truly ignoble end with Selfie.
The Harsh Truth shares The Little Mermaid meeting her end.
Finally, The Biggest brings a close to this collection as well as the story of The Jungle Book.
If you’re looking to ruin your childhood in retrospect, this is the collection for you. This is the end of innocence, the graphic and bleak punctuation that closes the book on the comforting tales that brought vibrant, technicolor characters to your youth.

Dissing D*sney was released as part of the 31 Days of Godless event at http://www.godless.com for October of 2021. For a limited time, you can obtain this for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the app to your preferred mobile device. The link is below:

Dissing Disney by Matt Shaw

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 Unclean Verses: Cantos 1 & 2 by John Baltisberger

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Whether you’re a fan of horrorcore rap, brutal poetry, splatterpunk horror, or you simply have an unhealthy obsession with serial killers and the atrocities committed by those degenerates, The Unclean Verses: Cantos 1 & 2 is definitely for you!
I come at this as a fan of John Baltisberger’s poetry–as well as his prose–and this introduction to The Unclean Verses still managed to blow me away.
We’re introduced to a man who feels compelled by demons to perform terrible, violent acts. The descriptive, graphic violence conveyed in verse is so damn impressive, and I’m not just saying that because I volunteered to be one of the victims when Baltisberger was first putting this whole project together. I probably deserved what I got, though, because I feel like I was probably a terrible coworker. I guess maybe I just didn’t have my head in the game.
In a sense, as I wrapped up my reading of Cantos 1 & 2, I felt almost like I’d just read the least remorseful death row confession ever. Imagine, if you will, an unrepentant spree killer or serial killer mocking both the families of the victims and society as a whole by unleashing a hideous, cruel rap detailing his crimes with passionate aplomb. You won’t be far off from what Baltisberger has in store for you with this release.
These first two Cantos will pummel you into submission with the rapid-fire, insidious rhythm by which Baltisberger delivers his barrage of violence and graphic imagery. You’ll quiver with equal parts anticipation and terror, knowing that this is only the beginning.

The Unclean Verses: Cantos 1 & 2 is being released on October 6th at http://www.godless.com as part of the 31 Days of Godless event for October of 2021. You’ll want to pick this one up for yourself by going to the website or downloading the Godless app. The link is below:

Unclean Verses Cantos: I & II by John Baltisberger

The Crimes & Passions of John Stabberger: Volume 2 Antiva by John Baltisberger

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Warning: There are minor spoilers included in this review!

We rejoin John Stabberger as he gleefully slaughters a pregnant neo-Nazi. How else would one slaughter a neo-Nazi than with glee? Upon extracting the baby from her foul womb with perhaps less than surgical precision, he has to figure out what he’s going to do with the infant. As single-minded as Stabberger might be, he recognizes that the newborn isn’t guilty of the mother’s evil.
Unfortunately, there are Nazis everywhere, including the hospital where Stabberger attempts to unload the baby on a buxom nurse. In fact, the hospital is less a hospital than a laboratory environment where awful human experimentation is conducted. Will John Stabberger finally meet his match in the unanticipated battle ahead of him? Well, of course not! He’s John Fucking Stabberger!
Questions are answered:
As sharp as an SS uniform might appear, is it anywhere near as sharp as a scalpel?
How many razor blades can one fit into the wrenched-open jaws of a Nazi scientist?
New questions arise:
What is John Stabberger’s secret past?
What happens when the blade spawning Nazi Annihilator encounters a target who is out of reach, with 24-hour protection and surveillance in a maximum-security prison?
This installment of the Godless League takes no prisoners. Do any of them? Taking aim at anti-vaxxers and Nazis alike, John Baltisberger delivers a tense, exciting thrill ride through hospital corridors and basement laboratories like a B-movie hero on steroids.

This is the first book available as part of the Godless Halloween event: 31 Days of Godless. You can pick up a copy for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Godless League #4 (The Crimes and Passions of John Stabberger – "AntiVa") by John Baltisberger

The Cosmic Anomaly by Henk Wester

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It begins in 2005, with the unforeseen devastation of a college student’s head in the back of a Japanese classroom. Split down the center, with a sudden burst of blood and gore, the other students don’t have a chance to react before tentacles begin emerging from the space now present between the two halves of the boy’s head. This horrific experience is the first of the anomalies on record.
With that graphic, visually potent scene, Henk Wester drags the reader into his unfolding novella, The Cosmic Anomaly. If you don’t consider that a tantalizing first glimpse of the world he’s preparing to show us, I don’t know what else you’d be looking for.
Wester provides the reader with a brief overview of the succeeding years, as anomalies become increasingly common, ranging from the simply peculiar to the utterly horrific before introducing us to Anton, Irma, Bernie, and the other Splenmalies creators. A South African YouTube channel focused on exploration and exploitation of anomalies, the Splendmalies crew exclusively provides their massive viewership with fraudulent cases, banking on the–largely American and European–subscribers knowing little to nothing about what’s going on in Africa. That is until Bernie decides they need to go big or go home. By venturing into De Aar, a town abandoned by the residents who managed to survive the high rate and destructive level of anomalous activity there, Bernie sees nothing but dollar signs and fame in their futures.
As the story races toward its gripping conclusion, Wester displays great imagination and dedication to bringing the conditions in De Aar to surreal, terrible life. Hellraiser meets Silent Hill is perhaps the best way I can conceive of describing what the reader is in for, and that only provides the bare minimum of preparation.
As Henk Wester introduces us to his native South Africa in a form that, thankfully, should never exist, we realize just how much smaller the world has gotten over recent decades. College students and young adults are the same worldwide, or so it would seem–that is to say, stupid and short-sighted.

This title will be available through Godless on September 30th, before presumably becoming available through other channels a short while thereafter. You can obtain a copy for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app on your smart phone, tablet, or eReader of choice. The link for this title is below:

The Cosmic Anomaly by Henk Wester – SEPTEMBER 30th

You Should Have Let Me In by Donna Latham

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Donna Latham’s You Should Have Let Me In is a short flash fiction piece, so I’ll keep my review short as well.
It starts with a knocking at the door and a sinister presence demanding entry, but it’s not the front door the stranger is seeking to access.
Taking a page from I Know What You Did Last Summer, Latham provides her cruel, gruesome take on when an accident becomes something worse.

This short fiction title was only available by signing up for the D&T Publishing newsletter. You can do so by going to the following site, Since then, the title was released as part of the 31 Days of Godless event at http://www.godless.com for October of 2021. The link for that will be below as well:

https://www.dandtpublishing.com/

You Should Have Let Me In by Donna Latham

Porcelain by Nate Southard

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Jason Hawks puts his career as a professional comedian on hold to return home to Cincinnati after learning his high school sweetheart, Andrea, stripping under the name Porcelain, publicly murdered multiple patrons before shooting herself. Reconnecting with old friends he similarly hadn’t spoken with in 12 years, Jason struggles to discover an explanation for the horrific act Andrea committed. Haunted by disjointed memories and terrifying hallucinations, Jason forces himself and two of his old friends to relive the events of the final night they’d all been together more than a decade before. Piecing together the pieces of what happened when six freshly graduated young adults had lost control and experienced something both carnal and terrifying, a mystery begins to unravel that threatens both sanity and the world as they know it.
Nate Southard shares a compelling and disquieting tale with this title. Friendships are rekindled and snuffed out on the page as the author drags us through a tangled mess of erotica and supernatural horror that tiptoes the line separating us from unstoppable, madness-inducing cosmic horror.
Fans of Stephen King’s IT will feel a certain sense of familiarity with this narrative of adults coming together and unhappily reliving a hardly self-aware sexual awakening they experienced at a much younger age. Unlike the uncomfortable scene described in King’s novel, in Porcelain, at least these characters were adults–though barely–when they intimately came together in a dark, terrifying place.
More terrifying than anything else for me, the core horror of this story is derived from the loss of control. Propelled by an insatiable desire for gratification, characters fight to restrain themselves and to fend off the debasement as increasingly louder voices within are urging them to give in. The almost vampiric presence at the heart of the horror is unsettling in its ability to overwhelm the individual’s better judgment and will to fight. The corrupting nature of the evil as its influence appears to spread from the original location in the abandoned factory makes for a truly disturbing concept, executed superbly by Southard.