Review of ABERRATIONS edited by Jeremy C. Shipp (Attic Clown Press, 2011)

From a group of horror writers with an impressive set of combined credentials, this is an inexpensive—and if you’re an Amazon Prime member, free—ebook-only collection of ten original tales, each about monsters, including vengeful children, the ghosts of influenza victims, zombie hordes, a demon coughed up by a cat, a not-so-mythical mothman, and some very black and very hairy things. They’re everywhere, both in places you would expect (mountain caves, dark woods, post-apocalyptic landscapes where the limbs of fallen trees are adorned with dogs and deer) and ones you almost certainly would not (an aging aunt’s frail body, public transport). Guilt, fear, insecurity and violence call them into being. One of my favorite monsters was the one in Scott Nicholson’s “The Hounds of Love,” the story of a sociopathic boy, Dexter, and his dead dog, Turd Factory. For fun, Dexter kills and buries animals of every kind—with unexpected but not entirely unwelcome consequences. Other favorites were the baby finger-eating, blood-belching passengers in Simon Woods’ “Bus People”—whose disgusting descriptions of transmogrifying flesh brought to mind Brian Yunza’s classic movie Society—and the sinister seducer, Peter, in Lisa Tuttle’s “Bug House.” All in all a great read, but let’s hope and pray these aberrations remain in our Kindles and out of [reviewer pulled apart by baby chimps]

Review of SUPER DINOSAUR, VOLUME 1 by Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard (Image Comics, 2011)

Bought as a Christmas present for my son, I couldn’t resist reading this myself. Tapping into many boys’ love for big reptiles and even bigger battles, Super Dinosaur relates the adventures of juvenile genius Derek Dynamo, son of Doctor Dexter Dynamo, and his best friend, the anthropomorphized, weaponized Super Dinosaur (SD for short!), a relatively small, genetically engineered T-Rex who fires missiles frequently, wears gym shorts occasionally and bathes when necessary; but who, despite his bravado, is a sensitive, sometimes lonely soul. Conspiring against this team are black-bearded villain Max Maximus and his band of playfully named dino-men: Tricerachops, Breakeosaurus, Dreadasaurus and others. Conspiring against everyone is The Exile, a sinister figure with a grudge against humanity. As anticipated, the action is almost constant; onomatopoeic explosions crater the pages. The artwork is crisp, the colors bright, the detailed illustrations of SD’s robotic suits and gizmos particularly appealing, and the story touches on some pertinent political and personal concerns—ageing, dementia, bereavement, environmental damage, nuclear war—in a way younger readers will identify with. And it ends with an unexpected twist which will leave them eager for volume two…

Review of TRIBESMEN by Adam Cesare (Ravenous Shadows, 2012)

 

Both a tribute to the cannibal exploitation films of the 1970s/80s—Cannibal Holocaust, Eaten Alive, Cannibal Ferox et al.—and a unique yarn in its own right, this novella, set mainly in an eerily quiet jungle on an unnamed Caribbean island, explores what happens when people suffer for the sake of art, when yelling “cut” is not enough to stop the carnage. The cast of characters, a group attempting to make a cheap B-movie, ranges from the loathsome—Tito Bronze, racist sleazebag and director of “blood and beaver pictures”—to the loveable—Cynthia, a timid actress who finds her courage. The story is brisk and precisely plotted. Each chapter switches to a different character’s point of view, heightening the tension and creating a very cinematic feel. And unlike a great deal of genre fiction, this doesn’t overstay its welcome; the whole thing can be read in one long sitting. Horror fans, especially, will find a lot here to please the palate: skinned corpses, maidens on stakes, anatomically twisted natives whose speech sounds like bad dubbing, a pig-head hat, good old fashioned people-eating and, most importantly, a memorably hair-raising finale that will whet their appetite for whatever dish, human or not, Cesare cooks up next.

Review of FAT RICH DOG by Stephen Beam (Jagged Books, 2012)

Penned by the prolific Stephen Beam, author of The Teddy Bear Singularity, Monster in the Tree and many others, this novella is a madcap existential adventure featuring a colorful cast of characters, including a trained serpentine assassin, Satan; Gil, a Filipino ritual-circumciser-cum-mad-scientist; and the titular character, Jake, a bio-modified dog whose amazing physiognomy belies his less than amazing life—wasted watching television, smoking, eating Velveeta nachos and vacuuming his own fur from the sofa. One day, Jake decides he wants more, and embarks on a journey of self-discovery which leads him to learn to read, piss on a religious proselytizer, accidentally acquire a pet cat and promote bizarro fiction, among other things. The outcome is genuinely surprising, yet strangely satisfying, and as a creature equally blessed and cursed with self-consciousness, Jake’s story is an allegory of our own as human beings (or bio-modified monkeys, if you will). On one level, we simply want to satisfy our physical appetites for food, sleep and sex; on another, deeper level, we need spiritual fulfillment. Through it all, we’re haunted by the specter of death. A quick, enjoyably compelling read which teaches us that, I quote, “Life is more than banging poodles or smelling asses.”

Review of ATTIC CLOWNS by Jeremy C. Shipp (Redrum Horror, 2012)

Attic Clowns, the latest playfully macabre collection from Jeremy C. Shipp, mixes horror, sci-fi, fantasy and slapstick with generous pinches of pathos, clowns, claustrophobia and attics to make one delicious literary pie. Some of these stories are allegories about the absurdity of work. In “The Quivering Gray Fog,” a woman living in an attic attempts to piece together an apparently impossible puzzle while a legion of demons make her home below into a living hell; in “Giggles,” another woman, Joan, is cursed to entertain a clown forever, lest he become bored, break free and wreak havoc on the world. Others address the absurdity of family life. In “Blister”—one of my favorites—a melancholic narrator, Corn, looks after his mentally ailing father, who does little but sit at the dinner table reading books about the afterlife (including one in which God is a T-Rex); in “Microcircus,” a woman struggles to manage miniature versions of both herself and those she loves. A palpable sense of impending entropy pervades the whole book, which is, paradoxically, rendered in Shipp’s characteristically precise, controlled prose—easy to read, not so easy to forget.

Review of LAWSON VS. LAVALLEY by John Edward Lawson and Dustin LaValley (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2011)

A good story to page count ratio always gets my pulse racing, so when I examined this thin book’s table of contents, I nearly had a heart attack: Thirty-five stories in one hundred and twelve pages! I love collections like this precisely because of their ability to introduce readers to a wide variety of characters and place them in a range of settings, with such economy of words. Some of these tales—those starring homicidal milkmen or a murderer of axes—are absurd, as the best flash fiction often is. Others touch on sensitive personal and political issues like euthanasia and homophobia. And there are imaginary horrors—winged demons from the sinkholes, a possessed dildo, a rodent-munching vagina dentata, a vampiric gas tank—alongside all-too-real ones like terminal illness and irrational, fundamentalist mobs. The imagery utilized is always affecting, frequently grotesque. In “The Stoma Laughs Last,” a sentient stoma drools bits of bloody stool when it speaks; in “The Lightness of Being,” the slow dissection of a sacrificial victim is detailed. To read and finish this is, for fans of the short and horrible, like waking up, wide-eyed and sweaty, after a succession of satisfying nightmares.

DEFENDOR (Peter Stebbings, 2009)

A mentally disturbed road construction worker, played by Woody Harrelson, fights crime at night, disguised as “Defendor” and armed only with a jar of angry wasps, a few marbles and a highly-developed moral sensibility. He rescues a crack whore, and friendship ensues.