Curiously Twisted Tales: A Smattering of P. S. Gifford
P. S. Gifford
Barking Rain Press
Hardcover, 192 pages, $19.95
Review by Sheila M. Merritt

Curiously Twisted Tales is indeed a curiosity. Short stories by P.S. Gifford are compiled as “chapters” in the book and, while some characters overlap into other narratives, each of the tales is self-contained. The works are basically character studies; reminiscent of macabre pieces by Roald Dahl and Stanley Ellin. Ellin’s “The Specialty of the House” is particularly an influence on Gifford’s yarns, since human flesh as a culinary delicacy occurs in a number of them; as well as serving as fertilizer or feed in others. Another item on the menu is the condiment of relish – as in relishing revenge. Several stories deal with horrific, albeit justified, comeuppances. And rounding out the collection are phobias: spiders, flies, and cracks in the pavement, among them. Because there are many repetitive themes in the tome, it would be easy to dismiss the compositions as facile or one-trick ponies. Considering, however, that the assembled writings cover a period from 2006-2011, perhaps some slack should be cut. Certainly, the author’s abilities could be more appreciated by reading an individual story in a periodical or online. Or by pacing the overall read; not partaking of the entire oeuvre in a single sitting. Similar motifs become all too obvious when congregated in a volume.

Of the cannibalistic contributions, “Raw Talent” has great appeal; especially for writers. In it, the protagonist finds the secret to literary success. Before achieving it, though, he spouts words of frustration that have resonance to those who aspire to the craft: “Deep within my consciousness, the thought of writing was like a tiny candle illuminating a vast mausoleum in the middle of a pitch-black winter’s night. From a close proximity, you could just discern its flicker, yet from a distance, no one knew it was there at all, for its light was simply absorbed by the darkness surrounding it, sucking away its energy and strength.”

Subsequently, there comes inspiration and with it, the inevitable rejection slips. As the first person narrator mulls what he is doing wrong, a notion dawns on him: If he ingests the brains, and hence the creative power of successful authors, then he will attain their lofty status. Lo and behold, the change in diet yields results. After consuming a well-known writer’s brain, there is a step towards fulfillment of the goal. And the gift just keeps on giving: “Since then, I have consumed seven more writer’s brains: three horror authors, one science-fiction writer, two romance novelists, and one political analyst. (I found the last one to be a little too dry for my taste, though.) And just as I suspected, my writing career has taken off! I have written three best-sellers, and I even have been featured on a famous daytime chat show.”

Artistic creativity also plays a part in “The Effigy,” which is an example of the prevalent retaliation leitmotif in the compilation. This riff on films Crucible of Terror and House of Wax is entertaining despite its predictability. The scorned sculptress is a hoot; seizing the materials at hand to mold her mania.

As evidenced by the two discussed works, P.S. Gifford obviously is fond of allusions. Some of his characters even have names such as “Bradbury,” “Mary Higgins,” and the aforementioned “Ellin.” The narratives collected in Curiously Twisted Tales show a knack for dispensing dark humor. And reflect a deep affection for horror fiction. Reading 33 tales that bear certain similarities is not the best way to experience or evaluate a writer’s worth. More flavors; diversity of themes, would better serve the author.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies
Matt Mogk
Gallery Books
Trade Paper, 304 pages, $14.00
Review by Sheila M. Merritt

If giving out awards for most aptly titled book, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies would be a contender; dismembered hands down. Matt Mogk, the founder and head of (and by important zombie extension, the brain behind) The Zombie Research Society, delivers a cornucopia of information. Factual and/or fictional, depending on one’s predisposition for paranoia, Mogk looks at aspects of a perceived undead threat, and pop culture’s distillation of it. With a tongue-in-cheek attitude, the author relates the pitfalls inherent in surviving a perceived inevitable apocalypse, while addressing the public’s willing acceptance of the walking dead in various media. The result is a zany, eccentric distillation of delusion that incorporates the corporeal with the intangible. It is easy to devour this satisfying blend of flesh and fantasy, and to consume its contents with brainless abandon.

The four sections into which the volume is divided are: Zombie Basics, Zombie Science, Zombie Survival, and Popular Culture. In the first three categories, there is inclusion of factual data which is employed to support a madcap fictional thesis. This hypothetical statement, for example, contains some substance; scattered accuracies beef up a contrived premise: “Without a doubt, India is the last place you want to be in a zombie pandemic. It packs in 944 people per square mile, making it an ideal recruiting ground for new undead conscripts, and of a total population of 1.3 billion, less than 4 percent own firearms.”

Putting on his guru garb, Mogk also offers advice about the importance of staying positive when surviving looks grim: “Failure will be the new norm. If you allow negative thoughts to enter the equation, they’ll eat your brain faster than any zombie horde, leaving you exposed to mortal danger on all sides.” Words to live by, indeed.

And, taking a page from Real Estate 101, he invokes the importance of location, location, location: “While a discount retailer such as Costco may score high in defensibility, with available weapons and almost no vulnerabilities, its sustainability rating takes a hit because of the extreme threat presented by the surrounding area. In a zombie outbreak, big-box stores will draw a desperate and violent crowd, quickly becoming epicenters of death.”

While on the seeming brink (wink, wink) of decimation, society appears to have embraced the enemy – at least in terms of pop culture. The author addresses this dichotomy in a philosophical and pragmatic way. The walking dead reflect us: mindlessly going through the motions at work; ennui running through our bloodstream. The perks of zombiehood are affiliation; being part of a roaming, senseless pack, as well as the collateral benefit of anonymity. He notes that those in the book publishing industry have seized upon the zombie zenith, capitalizing on it in any way possible: “I Talked with a Zombie is a collection of interviews with horror-movie insiders. None of the interviewees, however, has worked on a modern zombie movie. The word zombie doesn’t even appear inside the pages of the book, but the publishers slapped zombie in the title and cashed in.”

Everything You Every Wanted to Know About Zombies is marvelous mania: an extrapolation of facts gathered to bolster a playfully perverse postulation. Matt Mogk’s zombie knowledge and credentials are impeccable. He is clearly a “go-to guy” for suggestions about how to deal with conjectured chaos. And happily, his cogent commentary makes this crash course in the absurd ever so much fun.

Wild Justice
Ellen Datlow, Editor
Ash-Tree Press e-books $8.99
Review by Mario Guslandi

First published in 1996 under the title Lethal Kisses, the present anthology represents one of the many accomplishments of famous and prolific horror editor Ellen Datlow.

Truth be told, it would have been a shame if the book, formerly appeared only in the UK, had failed to reach a wider audience or, worse, had fallen into oblivion. Devoted to the theme of vengeance, the volume, as customary with Datlow’s work, assembles a bunch of good quality stories by a group of distinguished authors such as Pat Cadigan, AR Morlan, Caitlin R Kiernan,David J Schow, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Swanwick & Jack Dann, Richard Christian Matheson, and Michael Cadnum. But, being a spoiled reader and reviewer, I’m not satisfied with just the good stuff, I want much more. And I’m happy to tell that the anthology also features many excellent stories.

“A Grub Street Tale” by Thomas Tessier is a tale of revenge where the supernatural, imbued with eroticism, gradually enters an apparently normal conversation about a suicidal, minor writer.

In “Back in the Dunes,” Terry Lamsley, here at his best, conveys a growing sense of horror as the chilling reality of a forgotten past returns to make the culprit pay his dues.

Joyce Carol Oates contributes “Leave Me Alone, God Damn You,” a perceptive, masterful analysis of the difficulties in the relationships between man and woman.

“Butcher’s Logic” by Roberta Lannes is a cruel and vivid portrait of family life, full of disquieting shadows of violence and racism, while “Rare Promise” by Mike O’Driscoll is an engrossing tale about a web of complex relationships between friends, cousins and relatives, at the bottom of which lies an unspeakable secret.

Douglas Clegg provides “O, Rare and Most Exquisite” a gentle, delightful story blending horror and eroticism, where an old gardener reminisces about his love affairs and some peculiar flowers.

In “Unforgotten” Christopher Fowler unearths the dark secretes buried under an old London building. Historical and fictional facts merge perfectly to form an unsettling tableau.

Finally, a real standout, Michael Marshall Smith’s “Foreign Bodies” an extraordinary mystery with a supernatural side, endowed with the eerie atmosphere of a classical Hitchcock movie.

If you are willing to spend a few bucks and are prepared to read an e-book, you’re strongly advised not to miss a great opportunity to savor a lot of great dark fiction.

Carnage Road
Gregory Lamberson
PRINT IS DEAD April, 2012
Review by Matthew Tait

Carnage Road is labeled as Gregory Lamberson’s personal ode to Westerns, Biker pictures, and the cinema of the living dead.

And no other description is more apt for the story that unfolds.

Clocking in at rapid (but precise) 82 pages, Gregory somehow manages to fill this brief stanza with enough gore and action to rival a similar book twice this length. By way of effortless prose, the tale moves swiftly with an ease and traction much like the cool aptitude of its protagonists. It’s the voice of an author who has the confidence and wherewithal of a seasoned professional working in the zombie sub-genre.

This is the story of Boone and Walker – the last surviving members of The Floating Dragons motorcycle gang. After being orphaned in the aftermath a dazzling raid on their compound by rouge cops, the brothers in arms then hightail it back out onto the open road with no particular destination in mind. Now the entire country is a gargantuan canvas for carnage – with the dead slowly outnumbering the living with every mile traveled down. Hollywood suddenly looms on the horizon, a proverbial carrot that dangles like a rotted limb – but before they can reach it both Boone and Walker will have to face the ire and decrepitude of the flyover States … territories that have sunk even deeper into rouge division.

Underlying this brutal road-trip is sharp dialogue and likable characters in the form of our main players – with Gregory using their predicament for biting social commentary and sometimes scathing attacks on the current global predicament. Above all, it’s balls to the wall horror and just plain good fun for all of those who enjoy the current crop of epic Zombie literature. More than a few typos were prevalent – but with ARC’s this is highly inevitable.

PRINT IS DEAD will be releasing Carnage Road in all formats early in April.

The Dead of Winter
Chris Priestley
Bloomsbury
Trade Paper, 224 pages, $16.99
Review by Sheila M. Merritt

Ghosts. An orphan. A foreboding stately home. Bloody awful weather. Welcome to Merrie Olde England. In The Dead of Winter, author Chris Priestley honors the traditional. The narrative is told in flashback, as the grown protagonist sets pen to paper; recalling traumatic events of his boyhood. Set in the Victorian Age, the book captures an era in which the ghost story flourished. The phantoms who plague first person narrator Michael Vyner are suitably spooky. And the tale itself has an unsettling eerie quality, proceeding at a stately pace to build the chills. Ostensibly marketed to readers “ages 12 and up,” this young adult novel has appeal that extends beyond its demographic target.

After the death of his mother, Michael becomes the ward of a wealthy but maladjusted benefactor. The rich man is beholden to the boy’s father, with whom he served during The British Empire’s campaign in Afghanistan: Dad was killed while saving the other soldier’s life. Begrudgingly accepting the guardian, Master Michael finds they have something in common; they both sense dead people. The vast estate harbors apparitions, and certain rooms in the house are particularly afflicted: “Just as a face betrays the life of the owner, so too a room carries a trace of of the lives lived within its walls. The room positively ached with sadness. It was not just that the room was dark – and it was dark in furnishings and in its greedy accumulation of shadows – it was the very air that seemed tainted with misery.”

As the kid strips away the layers of background behind the haunting, he finds himself in mortal danger. A pervasive malevolence stalks the child, and the spectral manifestations aren’t the only threat to the boy’s well-being: There are those who resent him and fear his findings. It is the supernatural, however, that most disturbs and compels: “I was filled with a stupefying terror. I could do nothing but stand and gape at this pitiful creature: pitiful but dreadful all the same, her skin blue-white, her limpid eyes red-rimmed under the layer of ice.”

Echoing themes and atmosphere established by eminent Victorian scribes, Chris Priestley adheres to the template. There are metaphorical tips of the hat to Charles Dickens and J. Sheridan LeFanu. Delving back to a period when ghost stories were a revered form of literature, the author’s respect for both the era and its writers is evident. The Dead of Winter pays homage to a classic tradition by maintaining the requisite ambiance and chills. While a specific historical age is an element of focus in the novel, the chronological age of its readers should not be limited simply to young adults.

Marlow
Aaron Thomas Nelson and Mathew Reynolds
Arcana Studio
Graphic Novel, $14.95, 122 Pages
Release Date: March 1, 2012
Review by Darkeva

There’s no shortage of zombie material out there – books, magazine articles, films, video games, comic books, and so on. There are even spoofs of it that do quite successfully, like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which is slated for a big screen adaptation soon). And the success of AMC’s television show, The Walking Dead (also adapted from a series of graphic novels) means that we’ll be seeing these creatures for a long time to come. Although the ubiquity of vampires is still very much in effect, for a few years, it felt like everything was coming up vampires, and while the monsters of the fanged variety remain as popular as ever and with a huge following, it seems like even they’ve taken a back seat to zombies, who are thriving in the YA market (just look at the recent success of Jonathan Maberry’s teen zombie series, which started with Rot & Ruin).

With so much zombie material on the market, it’s easy to get lost in the fold, and even harder for an author to stand out now – there’s a lot to choose from, and books sometimes have a hard time gaining as much success as their screen rivals, TV, films, and video games. But graphic novels are an excellent medium for zombie storytellers to explore, not only because when done right, the format lends itself well to telling a great story, but also because while there are numerous zombie comics, there are very few that readers consider at the top. Marlow, by Aaron Thomas Nelson and Mathew Reynolds, should definitely rank high. If you’ve never heard of this series before, I urge you to check it out, as I found it to be exciting, fresh, and very cool (and that’s saying a lot, as I’m not the biggest fan of zombies).

The story begins with the main character, Marlow, who is on a mission by a pharmaceutical company to go to Romania and save Dr. Arcos. The doctor and pharmaceutical company created the nanotech that turns people into zombies. Marlow was a great test subject, a warrior who Arcos thought could become immortal, and while that’s partly true, he’s still a zombie and without a liquid ‘cure,’ he can’t control himself or think straight and does zombie things, namely eating and infecting as many people as he can. In exchange for providing him with this ‘cure,’ the pharmaceutical company gets Marlow to go on missions for them.

For this particular mission, Marlow enlists the help of Conrad, a boxer; Rox, an ex-Marine who can break into just about anything, physical or electronic; and Specs, the tech geek.

Arcos has his own agenda for creating the zombie-causing nanotechnology, and the story just keeps getting more interesting until the end of the issue. The plot thickens in part two, River of Symbols, in which things revolve around Marlow, who thinks he has gone AWOL in the jungle. His focus is very much on wanting to reunite with his daughter, which isn’t exactly a possibility for a zombie, even a “controlled” one like Marlow.

With a monk’s help, he discovers a fruit that grows on a specific tree someplace remote, and it keeps him human as long as he eats it so he repays the villagers by protecting them. Things change when a warlord picks Marlow up and says his daughter paid him to bring Marlow home. While his teammates from the previous issue look for Marlow, he ends up in a Vietnamese jail.

There are more twists and turns in this issue, and it lends itself to all the immediacy of a film, having a very cinematic quality in that you’ll be so surprised by the time that you’re done as the story tends to fly by, but has a satisfying resolution. The artwork in both issues is excellent, and again, it’s always nice to encounter works of zombie fiction that do things a little differently and give a unique hook.

Monsters of L.A.
Lisa Morton
Bad Moon Books
Trade Paper, 320 pages, $20.00
Review by Sheila M. Merritt

Lisa Morton and Randy Newman love L.A. Yet both display critical sentiments pertaining to the area. Newman’s satiric song “I Love L.A.” is well known for its ambivalence concerning the city, and environs. Morton’s collection, Monsters of L.A., exhibits an affectionate angst: The author meditates on urban and suburban landmarks, and applies iconic “monsters” to define the multi-cultural vibe, as well as the imperfections, of the community at large. Flaws are great creative fodder in fiction, and Monsters of L.A. certainly capitalizes on that notion; focusing on unique places and displaced individuals to create an atmosphere of subliminal horror. Lisa Morton selects sites and edifices that reflect a macabre metropolitan mindset; pop-culture imagery converges with very familiar genre characters. What she achieves in Monsters of L.A. is a harmonious blending of place and personages. It’s a hand-in-glove fit of habitat and habitant.

Consider for example, Dracula as a present day film actor. Ego-oriented and temperamental, The Count enjoys the perks of his reputation, but still feels the pangs of power lost: “Hollywood had provided a luxurious sanctuary, and he liked being a movie star, but…he often wished for the old days when those who’d angered him found themselves impaled on a twelve-foot stake in his courtyard.”

While termed a “company town,” Los Angeles isn’t all about the film industry. It is, however, a lot about the showbiz mentality. Even amusement parks strive for affective special effects. In the tale which focuses on the Devil as its dark fantasy figure, an initially innocuous ride turns into a variation of The Devil Rides Out: “The car continued past various ghoulish tableaux: a sewing room, where clothes mended themselves; a greenhouse, with dog-sized insects scuttling past giant carnivorous plants; a kitchen, with human bones bubbling in a stew pot and a platter of fingers set neatly on a table. The worst, though, was the attic, where ancient strange boxes juddered and tittered.”

And what is show business without a clown act? Or more precisely, what would horror be without The Killer Clown subgenre? It would be laughably lacking, but writer Morton puts her best oversized foot forward in regarding a funny phobia. A young woman, who has been traumatized in childhood by an uncle with a clown fetish, grows up abhorring Halloween. On October 31st, circumstances land her at a liquor store with a circus name/logo. Needless to say, confrontations occur: “Behind the glass were no bottles now, but dozens of clown faces, outlined in the darkness, peering out at her. There were all kinds of clown faces – some with color only around their mouths, some with full masks, some with faces that looked half eaten away by malicious glee, teeth filed to tiny points…”

Morton also does a deft take on Cat People: A researcher in regional folklore follows links to a supernatural feral feline; Japanese myth merges with Hispanic culture on Southern California turf. The graduate student pursuing the leads is searching for something to justify her academic expectations since, professionally and personally, she is at a low ebb. When it seems that the pursuit is yet another hollow conjecture, a sad surmise surfaces: “What had once been a symbol of the way L.A. melded varying cultures had now become emblematic of the city’s ability to shatter illusion.”

Ultimately, the 20 stories contained in Monsters of L.A. reveal the region’s diversity and divergences. The environment is inviting and imperfect; externally hospitable yet potentially hostile. Lisa Morton shrewdly reminds that where there is sun, there is likely to be smog. And lurking behind the swaying palms, there may very well be monsters.