Category: Wall of Fire Reviews

Between Two Flames with Laird Ryan States and Someone Else’s Story

~ Noggy
Someone Elses Story

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

Thank you for joining your hosts Lola Silkysocks and Noggy Splitfoot for another installment of Between Two Flames — where we place authors in our hot seat for what surely must feel like an eternity of environmentally unfriendly gas grilling.

Today we welcome Laird Ryan States, author of Someone Else’s Story, a queer body horror globetrotting adventure you can read in an afternoon and have bad dreams about all night. Please tell us a little about yourself in exactly forty-two words.

LRS: I am smart enough to be aware of my failings. which are that I’m lazy, cranky, fantasy-prone, arrogant, mopey and out of shape. Unlike most magician/writers, I’m not a degenerate addict or sexual creep, so I’ve got that going for me.

TST: And you love animals, and that’s something special! And now, let’s get to your story. You’ve begun a grand setting with Sleeping Underwater (and Silver Bullets) and now Someone Else’s Story which you describe as your Sel Souris Cycle. How did this setting come to be? What inspired it?

LRS: I discovered a previously unknown half-brother who lived there.  He contacted me, because he discovered he was carrying a hereditary disease, and felt like he should track down our father’s many MANY children and share that information so we could get tested.  I’m not a carrier, but what an amazing thing to do for people.  

He’s an entomologist, and Sel Souris is a really interesting place for an entomologist to be for reasons which you’ll know if you’ve read Sleeping Underwater.

Like most people, I’d never heard of it, but after I started researching it, I found the island has had a HUGE impact on our culture through its influence on artists. The island inspired a lot of things in the work of, for example, William Burroughs (who appears in Someone Else’s Story), the song Purple Haze, Frank Herbert, and the name of the freaking Beatles.  And yet, nobody talks about Sel Souris.  

It felt to me like a place the world was trying to point us a way from, a place with a kind of cloak drawn around it.  As a magician, that sort of thing is catnip to me. I started poking at it, and never stopped.

Sel Souris was a huge part of my work as a practicing magician, right until it unfortunately collapsed into the sea altogether.

Since then, I’m also finding fewer and fewer references to it on the internet, except for me.  Eventually, I suspect that people are only going to see my stuff, and assume I made it up.

I didn’t.  I’ve been there.  I have pictures.

And I’ve been very sad that it’s gone…but I know that it happened for good reasons I can’t really talk about just at this time.

TST: We’ve heard a rumour that you are enamored by the writing and worlds of Philip José Farmer, another illustrious universe builder able to entwine historical figures and places with his imagination to create something amazing. True? If so, what makes him so compelling? 

LRS:Would that rumor be my NEVER shutting up about him for 10 minutes at a stretch?  Phil Farmer had an imagination as big as the moon, and he was brave as hell.  He was the first writer to bring sex into science-fiction, for example.

Now, Phil’s prose varies widely from workmanlike to awfully good.  He’s like Philip K Dick, in this way.  You aren’t there for the prose, you come for the ideas.

His Riverworld series posits an artificial afterlife for humanity.  A race of benevolent aliens created artificial souls so that all living things can survive death, and live again to ethically improve until their artificial soul becomes part of a detected and unknowable over mind made up of the souls of all who have moved on in this way.

After the end of humanity, every person who ever lived is resurrected on the banks of a million mile river to start again, and build a new culture?

It’s a CRAZY ambitious idea.  He doesn’t quite stick the landing, but who cares?

What really got me onto his work was his biography of Tarzan, Tarzan Alive, which reveals that the fictional Tarzan was based on accounts of a real man raised by very rare hominids in Africa. His research into the real life of this extraordinary man was a huge influence on me.  He later wrote a sequel called Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, which discussed the real man Patrick Clarke Wildman, on whom the classic pulp adventurer was based.

He led me to look more deeply at the secret history of the world, which is a FAR more interesting place than most people truly realize.

TST: Frankenstein and Islamic folklore is a heady blend we don’t think we’ve seen before. And one of the many reasons we are Laird Ryan States fans. How did that happen?

LRS:Well, I was inspired by Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead.  His work in that book pointed me at some of the primary documents about the black stone discussed in Someone Else’s Story.  Despite the fact that Crichton turned out to be kind of an asshole, his work on discussing the Andromeda Strain and the InGen incident that most people think he made up for Jurassic Park was another rung on my ladder to more secret history.

TST: What’s next for Tom, is he going to be popping up again in the future? What about his new sidekick, Lisa? And are you continuing the cycle of Salty Mice?

LRS: Lisa’s living in Berlin under an assumed name, and Tom is trying to give her some space.  He’s been in a terrible TERRIBLE headspace since Sel Souris went down. He’s also incredibly mad at me, which means dragging things out of him is very difficult. Happily, he talks a lot when he’s drunk.  And that’s not an uncommon thing for him.  

There is a book I’m compiling which I’m tentatively calling Wonderland which deals with what happened to the island.  Also, I discuss what really happened at Roswell.  It wasn’t aliens from outer space.  I was disappointed by that, but the truth was so much weirder.

TST: What’s next for you personally? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for?

LRS: I’m at work on compiling Wonderland to send to you folks, actually.  I’m also, god help me, about half a million words into a story set 175 years in the future, after the ecological collapse. It’s shockingly optimistic, and features a religious sect based on Klinger from M*A*S*H where the followers are trying to get out of the shit detail of life by getting a Section 8.

So, I’m keeping on keeping on.

I’m also working on a one man show in which I discuss the history and influence of Sel Souris….but as almost nobody knows what that is, who’d come?

TST: We’ll be there for it! We may not have visited the island in person, but it’s there in our dreams. Thanks Ryan! 

LRS: Thank you.

About the Author:

Laird Ryan States was born in 1971, in Calgary Alberta. He spent his childhood and early adult life in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which is an excellent place to grow up for a writer, as it’s at least as weird as Austin, Texas. He currently lives in a lovely old house in Edmonton Alberta, with his best friend, novelist Gayleen Froese, three dogs, and so many reptiles and invertebrates that he has lost count.

Someone Else’s Story is his third book, and a sequel to his self-published Silver Bullets and Sleeping Underwater, which is kindly published by The Seventh Terrace. It is part of a cycle of stories and mixed media art about the island of Sel Souris. He has nearly completed the sequel to this book, tentatively titled Wonderland, and is many hundreds of thousands of words into a long novel about pro-wrestling and the end of the world that also has loose ties to this cycle.

Ryan has loved Frankenstein’s monster since he was a small child, and though he thoroughly takes the piss out of him in this work, honestly believes him to be one of the greatest creations in literature, and feels a kinship with him that is occasionally uncomfortable.

2022 – A Year in Flux

~ Noggy

N: LOLA!

L: Again with the yelling, don’t you ever shut up?

N: Not when I’m awake.

L: Unless I’ve run you ragged, or jammed a—

N: No need to be explicit. 

L: You started it.

N: I take no responsibility. For anything anymore. That’s what 2022 was about, right? Retiring a life of stoicism and embracing epicureanism. *** sobs *** 

L: Are you still upset about the cancellation of rum raisin ice cream?

N: Maybe…

L: Because LITERALLY everyone who likes it, except you, is dead. It’s just business, Nog.

N: Fascists.

L: Let’s get to the matter at hand, shall we? Each year asking the previous to hold its beer and 2022 was really no exception. 

Lola and Noggy’s 2022 Wheel of the Year. In Brief.

N: Well, brief’ish.

Yule

N: New Years! Naked snow angels! Leaning into photographic evidence by making the best custom calendar ever.

L: We wrote the 2022 year in review. And it was a DOOZY.

N: Your dad’s weed infused absinthe.

L: I lost about 16 hours, for real.

Imbolc

L: We tempted the Gods of Winter and went Ice Fishing at Gull Lake for Noggy’s b-day. This requires an entire review of its own: -30C, biscuits, dumb fish, a month’s worth of booze, and all-night ice cracking.

N: Don’t forget you got me a Texas Mickey of Smirnoff’s! Which was drank. Drunk. Drunken?

L: It got you running again after having your Achilles’ smashed through a meat grinder.

Ostara

N: Hey, remember when you gave me Covid? From Costco? Kirkland Covid, Jesus…

L: We caught up on a decade of TV, so stop bitching.

N: At least we recovered. Steve… he ate mouth full of mud. I don’t think he’s been the same since.

L: And then we made Borscht from a three-thousand-year-old Mennonite recipe.

N: Mmm, and Worm Moon night run magic.

L: Seeing Broken Toyz at the Back Alley where you wore a kimono and sunglasses and everyone thought you were some kind of celebrity.

N: I recall you nearly got kicked out of the bar for being naughty!

L: Happens. More often than you’d think.

N: Remember Velocipastor?

L: Trying not to. Do you remember David Sedaris complimenting my sweater?

N: Traffic cone strikes again!

L: I made a lot of rather drastic decisions post-covid. Bye, bye Medusa, was seriously time for a big chop.

N: And a large-ish tattoo in a post-covid fog. Totally good decision.

L: And Toxic Femininity. Where they ran out of fucking air in the coffee shop. Who runs out of air? Really?

N: And broken plate magic.

L: Which seemed cool until we found out it was a dumb Tik Tok thing. Kids these days…

Beltane

N: We have a guest reviewer for May.

L: Shit.

Steve: Fuck you both. I’m not sure why I invited you animals to come to Victoria for a week. Not saying that I regret it, but… let’s see. You hid in my house like vermin, poked a dead elephant seal, forced me to eat cinnamon buns and latte’s mid beach run, to drink at least forty expensive cocktails at the Bard and Banker, eat weird shit at the Fork n Pork in the middle of the night, listen to yacht rock, walk halfway across Vancouver island to find nostalgia at Spinnakers, run to the liquor store while you soaking wet losers had a nap in a dog blanket, made me run into highway traffic and almost get pancaked by a semi, and be friendly with bathroom stoners.

N: You missed Ferris’s not having Jambalaya, literally the only reason we even came to visit.

L: And the Empress bathrooms. 

S: …

N: …

Litha

L: We descended upon Julie’s book launch, totally unclear on which 80’s theme it was.

N: Pretty sure it was Def Lepard 80’s.

L: Debbie Gibson, all the way.

N: What else is there?

L: The writing retreat, in which I scared the absolute shit out of some unsuspecting memoirists.

N: And listened to drunk stories of cats licking balls.

L: And throwing watermelon rinds at cows.

N: Did we actually write?

L: Now that you mention it…

N: What about our awesome Horror Con cosplay?

L: Baby and Otis!

N: Of the notorious Firefly Family. We’ll never get the blood out. Never.

N: It was nice that summer kicked off with patios. So many patios. And magic. We purified a hell of a lot of patios.

L: Living the vagabond lifestyle my mother always warned me about.

N: We even made it to Stampede for the first time in years.

L: We went there for the weird food and couldn’t find any of it. But hey, my dad got totally fucked up and acquired covid. At least I hope that’s all he got…

N: And you took me kayaking. Twice! And we didn’t kill each other.

L: If at first (or second) you don’t succeed…

L: Stampede breakfast at the Baptist Church could have gone either way.

N: It definitely went some kind of way. With that Baptist Youth Band…

Lughnasadh

L: Ah, August. More house sitting. More patios. And hey, more nude beach.

N: Two words: pocket gopher.

L: At the nude beach!

N: Could have been a sundial.

L: Anyways… We crashed Squamish! Ran fifty fucking miles through forests and over mountains. Shout out to the August Jack Motor Lodge. Ate BBQ. Steve’s b-day in Vancouver, starting with posh cucumber margs in Yaletown, followed by Paper Planes in Gastown, and capping it off with the worst fucking old fashioneds imaginable at the Shark Club. Which in fairness, should not have been a surprise.

N: We also had that all day YYC craft brewery crawl.

L: Followed by Cornfest! Your 37th high school reunion, and a first date on the 2nd Berry Go Round.

N: We rocked the YYC Pride Market.

L: And we released Rhonda’s awesome book – Hell Hath No Sorrow like a Woman Haunted!

Mabon

N: Crustless pizza where have you been all my life?

L: We needed the calories. You know, for stuff…

N: Like WAM.

L: WAM, Wam, wam. A three-day stage mountain ultra-race in Whistler. Why do I let you idiots talk me into these things?

N: The deadliest part was your dad trying to eat a Blizzard while driving through a mountain pass construction zone one-handed, trying to beat the road closure.

L: Here’s to Mad Dads…

N: Cheers!

Samhain

L: Did anything happen besides Halloween?

N: Cocktails at the Wednesday Room with the Overlook Hotel carpet. And candy.

L: Soooo much candy. Twinkies, yes, Big Turks, less yes.

N: You had me at Big Turk.

L: Halloween though!

N: Lazlo and Nadja. Fangs. Blood. Possessed dolls.

L: We outdid ourselves this year, gotta say.

N: Wanted, Sasquatch skull.

L: That all you got?

N: Except for about two hundred birthday parties.

L: Moving right along…

Yule

L: A month late and two pennies short, but we managed to give birth to our latest Purgatorio book, Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold, and inflict more Trace and Solomon on the universe.

N: Running streak! Fucking cold running streak.

L: Don’t forget drinking a gallon of Colyte in preparation for your colonoscopy.

N: You’ll be old one day too!

L: I’ll never be as old as you. Plus, you recovered for Solstice at the Dorian.

N: True. Though you tried your best to kill me on that horrible frozen death run before Christmas.

L: Weird Christmas II: The Weirdening.

N: With bonus Boxing Day parking lot gin.

L: And another seriously required Dead Week. Betty Lou’s Library and Burlesque!

And that’s, as they say in shrew business, a wrap. And now on to 2023, which we’ll preemptively refer to as the haunted Wheel of Fortune…

Dreams of Avarice: “The Envoy’s Blessing” by Chris Patrick Carolan

~ Noggy
Penitents Gold

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

Thank you for joining us for another installment of Between Two Flames — where we place authors in our hot seat for what surely must feel like an eternity of environmentally unfriendly gas grilling.

Today we welcome Chris Patrick Carolan, author of “The Envoy’s Blessing” — a pulpy cosmic horror tale of murder, slime, and gold from our latest Purgatorio Tower’s book Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold. Chris, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly thirty-five words.

Chris: Born in Glasgow, smuggled to Canada as a wee lad, then raised between Calgary and various spots on the west coast. Wrote a book one time, and I sure would like to do it again.

TST: The The Nightshade Cabal  is a fine piece of work, we’d love to see a sequel Chop, chop!! Okay, let’s get right to the greedy guts of it. What does Avarice mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive desire found in this glitzy volume?

Chris: I don’t necessarily think a desire for wealth is a bad thing. It’s like any emotion or impulse; what you do with the impulse defines who you are as a person. When it transcends desire and becomes greed which compels one to set aside their morality to sop up more wealth than they could ever need without the least care for the damage they’ve done along the way, that’s avarice. The Envoy’s titular “blessing” is pure lucre in exchange for services rendered. But what exactly are the people of Port Urabus doing to receive this blessing?

TST: Nefarious deeds. It’s always nefarious deeds. Not that we have an issue with deeds of this sort. In fact, it’s kinda our thing.

Tell us about a time you desperately desired something and went to potentially unexpected lengths to acquire it.

Chris: I needed a new heel for my shoe. So, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those da… oh, wait, that was something else entirely. Uh… let’s see. Well, there was this one time — I must’ve been five or six years old — when I was playing Transformers with the kid next door. He had brought over some wonky off-brand toy that wasn’t even a Go-Bot. I think this thing was a slot machine, with arms and a head you would pop out to make the robot. Its face was a sticker, and I don’t even remember if it had legs. Anyway, for some reason I decided I had to have it, and convinced the kid I had the same one and that he must’ve left his at home before he came over to play. When my dad noticed it later he asked where it had come from, and I fessed up. I think I was actually proud of my deception, but my dad made me walk over to the neighbour’s house to return the toy and admit my guilt. I was grounded for a week, and even though I couldn’t tell you that kid’s name now if you put a gun to my head, I still feel bad about what I did to this day. What can I say? I grew up to be a total hall monitor.

TST: Just imagine who you would have become if you had gotten away with it. We’re thinking Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber “Monty” Burns. “Loose the hounds!”

Can you see any of your characters popping up again in other stories?

Chris: There will definitely be more Nathaniel Garaven stories. He’s a character who is always on the move, and there always seems to be another scrape to get into in the next town. ‘The Envoy’s Blessing’ isn’t actually the first Garaven story I’ve written, just the first one that was ready to send out into the world. I also suspect we haven’t seen the last of Lee Cane… and who can say where and when the Envoys themselves might pop up again?

TST: Excellent! We’d love to read more Nathaniel and/or Cane stories.

Give us a sentence (or short paragraph) from your story that you feel knocked it out of the park.

Chris: I’m really partial to this exchange between Garaven and Howard Sutter:

“Seems wherever I go these days, I find another dead friend.”

“You sound like a man with revenge on his mind,” Sutter said. If the barman had an opinion about that it didn’t show on his face. He had a stern, wind-worn look; Garaven had seen the same stolid expression on working men and women up and down both coasts. Not the kind of man to abide nonsense.

Garaven shook his head in answer. “I’ve got no stomach for vengeance, Mr. Sutter. I’ve tasted violence too damned many times, and it always comes back up sour.” He drained the last of his coffee. “All I’m after is the truth.”

TST: Such delightful phrasing! West coast gold rush and cosmic cults. Want to tell us a little about your research process? 

Chris: A lot of it was making sure I had things like timeline and modes of travel right. I’m a stickler for those sorts of details. I’ve set the Garaven stories into a rather tight window in history, roughly fifteen years after the end of the Civil War. I even spent a fair bit of time working out how the Envoy’s “blessing” might actually work as a physiological process, but those details didn’t make it into the finished story. I was reading a lot of cosmic horror stories around the time the ideas that became this story were rattling around in my head, so I think that definitely influenced the way this one went. Ultimately, though, the story started from the image of big gross larvae living under people’s skin, and I knew I wanted folk to accept them willingly. It wasn’t until I heard about the theme for this anthology that the reason why anyone would go along with it clicked into place.

TST: What’s next for you? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for? Or, any recent delights you’d love to flog?

Chris: I don’t have much on the way right now, unfortunately. I’ve got a few short stories out there in submission limbo, and I’m still working away on my second novel. Hopefully 2023 will offer a few chances to celebrate! But I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to thank Sarah and Rob for having me in this book. It’s a true honour to be included alongside some great writers whose work I admire the heck out of, and you’ve been amazing folks to work with on this project. Cheers!

TST: Thanks Chris! And folks, don’t forget to check out Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks and tiny libraries you might find stray books.

About the Author:

Chris Patrick Carolan is an author, editor, and hovercraft enthusiast, originally from Glasgow but currently based in Calgary, Alberta. He writes science fiction, fantasy , horror , and steampunk, though he has also been known to turn to crime to make ends meet. Crime fiction, that is. The Nightshade Cabal was published by Parliament House Press in 2020 and was a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence ‘Best First Novel’ award. He can be found on Twitter as @cpcwrites but consider this fair warning… it’s mostly just wisecracks about McNuggets.

Dreams of Avarice: “Hares and Hounds” by Lindsay Thomas

~ Noggy
Penitents Gold

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

Thank you for joining us for another installment of Between Two Flames — where we place authors in our hot seat for what surely must feel like an eternity of environmentally unfriendly gas grilling.

Today we welcome Lindsay Thomas, author of “Hares and Hounds”, a thought provoking tale of why it’s never a good idea to hang out with your co-workers, from our latest Purgatorio Tower’s book Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold. Lindsay, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly thirty-five words.

Lindsay: Master Gardener, introverted-event-planner, Buddhist practitioner residing on Treaty 7 territory; frequent memory lapses; occasional attempts at overcoming imposter syndrome may result in shitty first drafts or planting more tomatoes depending on the season. London Fog.      

TST: Gardener? Lola definitely requires tips on keeping arboreal entities alive. Alright, let’s get right to the greedy guts of it. What does Avarice mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive desire found in this glitzy volume? 

Lindsay: Embracing our full range of human emotions can go a long way in self-awareness and healing. Avarice, however, is desire on steroids; the obsession with “more” is all-consuming: It’s a source of suffering that cannot be sated and devours those who choose to remain in ignorance. Kevin, seriously, get a hobby – model trains, ceramics, something.

TST: Ha! Damn you Kevin… And anyone named Kevin. Or with Kevin adjacent names.

Confession Booth: Tell us about a time (real, embellished, or completed fabricated) that you (or, y’know, a friend) desperately desired something and went to unexpected lengths to acquire it. 

Lindsay: Made by Marcus’ Sea Salt and Goat’s Milk Caramel Ice Cream. No other ice cream exists to me now that I have sampled this sorcery. It is the greatest ice cream, the only ice cream, the ice cream to end all ice creams. They have three locations in Calgary so I can’t exactly say I have to go to “great lengths” to get it unless we’re counting driving down 17th during rush hour. Not very exciting? I know. I revel in apathy most of the time.  

TST: Mmm, Made by Marcus is fabulous. We’re, of course, partial to Lemon Curd Blueberry. And 17th is a god awful place to traverse and parks at times. So it counts!

Can you see any of your characters popping up again in other stories? 

Lindsay: Hares and Hounds could easily send me down a rabbit hole of world-building. Kevin’s story is a brutal reality that’s waiting to be smoked out; one that’s only a minor hop from our daily 6:00 news. We know Kevin’s origin story, and I might be sniffing around a backstory for Mikey. I guess we’ll see what gets pulled from the top hat in the coming months. 

TST: Excellent! Now’s the time to show off. Give us a sentence (or short paragraph) from your story that you feel knocked it out of the park.

Lindsay: Rereading something I’ve written is close to a nightmare, but I’ll indulge you this once.

I can’t claim to be bored. Boredom would be something; a sentient recognition of time, a shiver, a stirring of breath against skin, anything, something.

But this. This is nothing.

A monotone haze of tedious mediocrity arranged in consecutive order.

TST: Love it. Rolls off the occipital lobe and straight right into the cerebellum.

Can you tell us a little about how you came up with this story or your creative process?

Lindsay: My initial idea was to do something about the seven deadly sins, but I realized that I didn’t care enough to write about that. So the idea evolved into something about a scavenger hunt, but I’m really not clever enough to come up with clues that the reader would find challenging but would still make sense. I suppose what I’m saying is that I got lazy so I stopped overthinking and started writing. A novel idea. 

TST: Always the best way. Overthinking leads to starting a small horror press — and boom, you’re getting backed over by a Pontiac Aztec for suggesting Christmas anthologies. What’s next for you? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for? Or, any recent grim delights you’d love to flog?

Lindsay: My great-grandmother going back several generations was one of the women murdered as a witch in the Salem Witch Trials. I’ve had an idea fermenting for a while – something that ties her experiences through the lens of generational trauma. But do I have the attention span to research historical fiction? Let me know if you know the answer because I don’t. 

TST: Witches! We look forward to reading that. Thank you, Lindsay! And folks, don’t forget to check out Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks and tiny libraries you might find stray books.

About the Author:

Hailing from the deepest bowels of Alberta, Lindsay Thomas traversed the craggy depths of Europe and Asia before bumbling her way into Calgary after The Great Personal Upheaval of 2007. In 2022 she bumbled her way back out again with an unexpected relocation to Bragg Creek, where she resides with her spouse and many canine companions. A perpetual student, Lindsay has degrees in theatre and psychology , and is currently studying the terrestrial art of horticulture. She is a tender of gardens and composer of nonsense who spends her time finding more questions than answers.

Dreams of Avarice: “Pieces of Prue” by Chris Marrs

~ Noggy
Penitents Gold

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

Thank you for joining us for another installment of Between Two Flames — where we place authors in our hot seat for what surely must feel like an eternity of environmentally unfriendly gas grilling.

TST: Today we welcome Chris Marrs, author of “Pieces of Prue”, a thought provoking tale of having too much skin in the game of rags to riches from our latest Purgatorio Tower’s book Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold. Chris, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly thirty-five words.

Chris: Before I get into the all about me part, I wanted to say thanks to extraordinary Sarah L. Pratt and Rob Bose for including “Pieces of Prue” in PENITENT’S GOLD. Chris lives in Calgary, Alberta.

TST: Thanks for writing us such a fabulous story. Alright, let’s get right to the greedy guts of it. What does Avarice mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive desire found in this glitzy volume?

Chris: I feel anything in its excessive form isn’t likely to end up being a good thing for all involved. While noodling what to write about for this anthology, I read some interesting articles on greed and the brain. The basic idea presented was in the beginning the chase and subsequent gains can be exciting and the dopamine hit of the acquiring intoxicating. And like anything that gives you a rush, over time you need more and more of that thing to achieve the same result. I started thinking what would happen if there were a couple and one person needed to sacrifice something of themselves for the other to gain the wealth. Would they both strive for more and more once the initial rush dissipated? Would they both put a stop to it once the cost of the sacrifice became too high?

TST: It’s a fascinating question. And all too often what starts out as easy and simple and exciting takes a dark turn as human nature digs in and takes over.

Confession Booth: Tell us about a time (real, embellished, or completed fabricated) that you (or, y’know, a friend) desperately desired something and went to unexpected lengths to acquire it.

Chris: Once upon a few years shy of a couple of decades, I was to play the lead in my theatre group’s Spring performance. Rumor had it a couple of scouts from Vancouver were going to be in the audience. My understudy really, really, really wanted my role and even more so once she heard about the scouts. In the days leading up to the dress rehearsal, she did everything to try and get rid of me. Little “accidents’, malicious gossip, petty theft, you name it. The day of the dress rehearsal, though, she seemed to have a change of heart and offered me an olive branch in the form of a piece of pizza. She brought it to me while I was in the dressing room for a final costume fitting. Said it was one of the last slices so to apologize for being a bitch, she saved it for me. I accepted it. What can I say, I was trusting and famished. It was a long day. Now I’m not saying she did anything to it but she was heard snickering in a stall in the girls bathroom beforehand. And I was the only one who appeared to have gotten food poisoning. Unfortunately for her, I rallied  before curtain call.

TST: No good deed goes unpunished. No, that’s not right. What goes around comes around? One reaps what one sows? Gotta hope at least.

Can you see any of your characters popping up again in other stories?

Chris: I can see the door and what lays behind it coming up in another story. There’s a whisper coming from it that says there’s more to explore.

TST: Excellent. There’s definitely something both wonderful and terrible lurking there, we’d love to read more.

Now’s the time to show off. Give us a sentence (or short paragraph) from your story that you feel knocked it out of the park.

Chris: The opening sentence:

Unlike Bluebeard’s wife, Prue knew exactly what lay behind the locked door.

TST: Love it! So intriguing, it had us instantly.

Can you tell us a little about how you came up with this story or your creative process?

Chris: I’m one of those pantser types so usually it’s the characters that speak to me first. Then, as I’m imagining the characters, a what if, sometimes two, presents itself. Once I have the characters and the what if, I sit at my desk and see where they will take me. Sometimes nowhere and sometimes in directions I didn’t expect. PIECES OF PRUE was one of those that went in a direction I didn’t expect.

TST: What’s next for you? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for? Or, any recent grim delights you’d love to flog?

Chris: November gets to see two stories by me. In addition to PIECES OF PRUE, my story THE FROSTLINGS will be reprinted in Wily Writers Presents Tales of Foreboding edited by E.S. Magill and Bill Bodden. This is the fourth anthology in the Wily Writers Presents series and will be out November 15th. 

Thanks for having me! This was fun despite the hot seat.

TST: Thank you, Chris! And folks, don’t forget to check out Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks and tiny libraries you might find stray books.

About the Author:

Chris Marrs lives in Calgary, Alberta where it’s a lot drier and colder than the West Coast she’s used to. She’s had short stories published in various anthologies, most notably the Bram Stoker award winning The Library of the Dead (edited by Michael Bailey 2015) and the Bram Stoker award nominated A Darke Fantastique (Edited by Jason Brock 2014). She’s an active member of the Horror Writers Association. You can find her lurking on Facebook at www.facebook.com/chris.marrs.14, on Twitter as @Chris_Marrs, or Instagram as hauntedmarrs.

Dreams of Avarice: “Gold Digger” by Taija Morgan

~ Noggy
Penitents Gold

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

Thank you for joining us for another installment of Between Two Flames — where we place authors in our hot seat for what surely must feel like an eternity of environmentally unfriendly gas grilling.

TST: Today we welcome Taija Morgan, author of “Gold Digger”, a thought-provoking tale of why your Last Will and Testament should always contain a few surprises, from our latest Purgatorio Tower’s book Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold. Taija, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly thirty-five words.

Taija: Hi everyone, I’m Taija Morgan. I’m an editor and a horror/thriller/suspense author. Not much to say about myself besides that I love the horror genre. I like to travel and read constantly. High-key ultra introvert.

TST: We love high-key ultra introverts – we should start a club! Oh… right… Maybe it can online. With no video. Anyways… let’s get right to the greedy guts of it. What does Avarice mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive desire found in this glitzy volume?

Taija: Avarice… Well, this was a fun, challenging topic to write on for this story. As an author, I love sinking my teeth into some hot rage and seething desperation, but I didn’t have a lot to draw from for greed initially. For me, avarice isn’t quite synonymous with greed but rather expands on the standard definition of greed as “I want it all” to become “Not only do I want it all, but I specifically don’t want you to have any of it, just because I say so.” It’s a malicious, calculating, vindictive energy. So, of course, perfect for horror. 

Inherently bad? I don’t think anything is inherently bad, just inherently human. It all depends on how far you take something and in which direction. Avarice can also be something like healthy ambition taken to an ugly extreme. But I love ugly extremes, so that’s what I tried to capture with my own short story in this collection. In Gold Digger, we see a woman struggling with unprocessed grief and a broken heart, and her response to those difficult emotions is to do some pretty stupid, dangerous, gross, and wildly inappropriate things—all in an attempt to hold on to something she’s lost while simultaneously holding on to her self-image as someone who doesn’t care about what she lost, even as it tears her apart.

TST: Good. Bad. Here in the Towers it’s all about the gold, right? So, confession booth: Tell us about a time (real, embellished, or completed fabricated) that you (or, y’know, a friend) desperately desired something and went to unexpected lengths to acquire it.

Taija: *waves vaguely to the current global political climate* I can’t beat that, sorry. The closest example of real, true avarice that I can think of off the top of my head might be that story about Tonya Harding, the figure skater, who disfigured her competitor in order to secure her position as figure-skating top dog. I remember that being on the news when I was a kid. If that’s not a messed-up, super-dark manifestation of avarice, I don’t know what is.

TST: Figure skating is a goddamn vicious sport, I think we can all agree on that. Though Christmas shopping is a close second.

Can you see any of your characters popping up again in other stories?

Taija: Hard to say, since they don’t all make it… But maybe some could!

TST: From beyond the grave! Literally!! Now’s the time to show off. Give us a sentence (or short paragraph) from your story that you feel knocked it out of the cemetery.

Taija: Okay, here’s a line that really cracked me up when I wrote it:

Sterling is wearing an Armani suit, simple lines, a casual “sure, I’m grieving, but I have to catch the next flight to Ibiza with the boys” vibe that Jennifer doesn’t hate.

TST: Horror is all about the fashion—we’ll keep saying that until everyone believes.

Can you tell us a little about how you came up with this story or your creative process?

Taija: Absolutely. I spent ages trying to think of something to fit this theme, and I knew I wanted to center it in some way around a funeral. Funerals provide a really fertile space for people to be on their absolute worst behaviour. People you’d think are the sweetest and calmest in the world can go absolutely rabid with greed at a funeral or just while grieving in general. So I thought, hey, let’s put the “fun” back in “funeral” for this story! From there I crafted some particularly detestable characters to play with and then let them take the reins on the plot. I did do a ton of research for this short story just to be able to convincingly talk about things like fashion and embalming. There are some crazy expensive dresses out there!

TST: You certainly put the fun back into funeral. Such a fabulous story. So, what’s next for you? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for? Or, any recent grim delights you’d love to flog?

Taija: Sure! I’ve got another story released Oct 27 in Prairie Witch by Prairie Soul Press that I’m excited about—there’s a haunted train track and a witch, so it’s a lot of fun. And between now and winter I’m expecting the release of two other anthologies, Bad Spirits and Rabbit Hole V, in which I have a short story as well. Hoping to get some novels out in the world next year too, so if you love disturbing horror/thrillers/suspense, you can follow my latest releases by joining my newsletter at www.TaijaMorgan.com or following me across any social media platform. Here’s a list of the most relevant: www.goodreads.com/taija_morgan | www.linkedin.com/in/taija-morgan | www.facebook.com/TaijaMorganAuthor | https://www.instagram.com/taijamorgan/

TST: Thanks Taija! And folks, don’t forget to check out Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks and tiny libraries you might find stray books.

About the Author:

Taija Morgan is a professional fiction editor with short stories and non-fiction articles published in various anthologies and magazines, such as Opal Writers’ Magazine, the Aurora-nominated Prairie Gothic anthology (2020) and Prairie Witch anthology (2022) from Prairie Soul Press, Tales to Terrify’s horror podcast, and When Words Collide’s In Places Between anthology (2019). She has bachelor’s degrees in psychology and sociology that contribute realism and insight to her dark, twisted fiction.

Dreams of Avarice: “Attachment” by Shane Kroetsch

~ Noggy
Penitents Gold

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

Thank you for joining us for another installment of Between Two Flames — where we place authors in our hot seat for what surely must feel like an eternity of environmentally unfriendly gas grilling.

Today we welcome Shane Kroetsch, author of “Attachment” — a thought provoking tale of loss and memory from our latest Purgatorio Tower’s book Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold. Shane, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly thirty-five words.

Shane: I’m a builder of things, real and imagined. My mind rarely stops. I’m always planning, scheming. I write fiction to process the confusing mess that is the human race. I also enjoy word count limitations.

TST: Excellent, nothing better than word count limitations, keeps the bones young. With that out of the way let’s get right to the greedy guts of it. What does Avarice mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive desire found in this glitzy volume?

Shane: I suppose it boils down to possessions with no purpose to them—acquiring for the sake of acquiring, or having without being able to maintain. Is any of that an inherently bad thing? It can be, but life is built on shades of grey. We are animals with individual values and agency, what is a want to one is a need to another. My opinion is one of many. I took the exploration of avarice in two directions with my story. The idea that greed and love are one and the same, and how far the need for unique possessions can be taken.

TST: It’s an fabulous exploration. And bonus points for setting in the Towers, we loved that. Now tell us about a time you desperately desired something and went to potentially unexpected lengths to acquire it.

Shane: As I move through life, I am heading in the direction of having fewer moving parts, quality takes precedence over quantity, but that hasn’t always been the case. The instance that comes to mind is from the late 2000’s. My year-end bonus was supposed to pay off the loan on my daily driver, instead I used it to buy a fifty-year-old Volkswagen convertible listed on eBay.

TST: Hopefully the VW brought both joy and terror. Or is terror just from old Volvo’s? We can never remember exactly.. Speaking of retreads, can you see any of your characters popping up again in other stories?

Shane: As soon as I say that I’m done with a particular character or story, whether because I think I’ve said what I need to say or I’m simply sick of looking at them, that’s exactly when my mind will wander, and I’ll start building a new story in the same world.

TST: Give us a sentence (or short paragraph) from your story that you feel knocked it out of the park.

Shane: I’m fond of the opening, 

Fernen steps around me as he scans the message scratched into the concrete wall. Fixing his attention on the closing, he pauses.

I hope you are well.

I hope you are unafraid.

Good-fucking-luck with that.

TST: Beautiful! Can you tell us a little about how you came up with this story or your creative process?

Shane: I generally begin with an image or a line of dialogue, then I start digging the story out of the dirt. For this piece I knew a few of the elements that I could or wanted to incorporate as the framework for the world it takes place in is already established. I set the protagonist’s motive early on. I liked the idea of souls as possessions, as currency, but how I got from there to the finished product is a story longer than the piece itself.

TST: What’s next for you? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for? Or, any recent delights you’d love to flog?

Shane: It’s been a year of drastic change for me. What comes next is to get back into the business of writing. The plan for 2023 is to relaunch my zombie pandemic trilogy with a new edition, and to finish up a paranormal series that’s been sitting half-finished for too long. So many ideas, so little time.

TST: Thanks Shane! And folks, don’t forget to check out Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks and tiny libraries you might find stray books.

About the Author:

Shane Kroetsch writes stories to explore the inherent darkness that makes us human and the monsters that haunt our dreams. In his spare time, he builds projects out of old junk, paints watercolour blanket ghosts, and shakes his butt while vinyl spins. In addition to publishing a collection of short fiction and a zombie outbreak trilogy, Shane’s work is featured in Lampblack Books’ The Planchette Volume One: Genesis and the Alexandra Writers’ Center Society’s 40th Anniversary Anthology WonderShift.

You can read more of his writing and keep up to date with his creative shenanigans at ShaneKroetsch.com and @shanekroetsch.

Rob’s Spring Sparks

~ Noggy

So much to read and watch, so little time to review. While I wish I could blast out a full write up of everything, I’m going to go with the highlights of what I enjoyed over the last couple of months.

Books

Cult of the Spider Queen by S.A. Sidor (Arkham Horror)

Current read in progress and so far an enjoyable 1920’s jungle romp with all the cosmic horror trimmings. I’m a huge fan of Sidor’s first Arkham Horror novel, The Last Ritual, and his two supernatural-pulp adventures from Angry Robot, Fury From the Tomb and The Beast of Nightfall Lodge, a series I hope he continues.

When Things Get Dark: Stories inspired by Shirley Jackson edited by Ellen Datlow (Blackstone Audio)

Current listen in progress and after the first few stories, altogether excellent. Lots of family, and dining rooms, and creepiness.

X’s for Eyes by Laird Barron (Bizarro Pulp Press)

I’d read the first part of the book “We Smoke the Northern Lights” in The Gods of HP Lovecraft and was excited to finally read the second half of the novella and see what happens. Pure awesomeness of course. Love the Tooms brothers and their weird, wide, universe which feels a lot like the Venture Brothers with cosmic horror replacing superheroes.

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard (InAudio)

I hadn’t read this book since I was young and my main recollections of it were distorted by the 1985 Richard Chamberlain movie, which is more comedic parody than faithful adaption. The book is far superior, albeit steeped in damn horrible colonialism where every non white is a savage and gunning down herds of elephants is considered heroic – definitely overpowers the bones of the story which are about friendships and family.

Pickman’s Gallery edited by Matthew Carpenter (Ulthar Press)

I always loved the character of Richard Upton Pickman from a couple of Lovecraft’s stories and dug this collection continuing his legacy. I especially liked that the stories weren’t necessarily about him, but in many cases adjacent or referential. Great fun.

The Fisherman by John Langan (Word Horde)

I’m of two minds about this book. On one hand I loved it – loved the world, loved the mythology which really reminded me of my favourite Michael Shea stories. The structure, on the other hand, was unexpected. I think I was hoping for more back and forth between the times and less the three act narrative. But, as Sarah says, I’m horribly impatient, so take that complaint as a personal preference. Definitely an amazing story!

Rules for Monsters by Michael Minnis (Lovecraft eZine Press)

So many stories, and I hear there will be another volume – Michael is a prolific author indeed. While not every story is a winner, I enjoyed many of them and loved some, especially where he didn’t directly homage or extend classic Lovecraft stories.

Cthulhu Reloaded by David Conyers

Some entertaining military cosmic horror. Major Harrison Peel is a solid character and his adventures take him across many Lovecraftian locals and pit him against even more Lovecraftian monsters and gods. A fun page turner and I’m looking forward to picking up and reading the next couple of books in the series.

Mr. Cannyharme by Michael Shea (Hippocampus Press)

Michael Shea has always been one of my favourite authors and a serious inspiration for my own writing. I’ve read pretty much everything he wrote and was delighted to learn that this novel existed and would be published (and I hear there may be yet another lost Shea manuscript out there!!). Mr. Cannyharme was written in 81 and is a homage/adaption of Lovecraft’s “The Hound”. Loved it.

Movies

Possum (A Sarah pick)

Holy shit this was bleak. And British. If that’s not a genre, it should be. I’m not at all a fan of horrible creepy puppets so yeah… The plot? Sure. Well, there’s this dude named Phillip who used to be a puppeteer and ends up back at his old house with his weird old uncle. Phillip has old, deep issues. And a horrible creepy spider puppet. I can’t even… thanks for nightmares Sarah. Pro tip: Never go home with a puppet.

The Deeper You Dig (A Rob pick)

We’d watched Hellbender and enjoyed it, and I was listening to a podcast where they talked about this being the Adams Family’s (not THE Addams Family, though I kinda wonder, hmm) second movie. So we hunted down The Deeper You Dig and weren’t disappointed. Pretty much the same cast and with a similar witchy/psychic themes, which we loved. The plot? After her daughter dies and haunts the killer, her mom, a psychic, tries to figure out what’s happening. Pro tip? Don’t sled in the dark in a blizzard across a road.

Jug Face (A Rob pick)

Another movie I heard about from a podcast (The Lovecraft eZine Podcast?) that sounded intriguing. Like, what’s not interesting about devout backwoods hillbillies worshiping a malevolent/benevolent pit that’s probably some kind of forest demon god? Hits all the right notes in my book. The Plot? The Pit wants what the Pit wants. And it’s not the friendly sort of blood filled pit that everyone likes. Let’s just say it’s best to obey it’s demands or you lose your intestines.. Pro tip: Don’t sleep with your brother.

Covid-19: A Spiritual Journey

~ Lola

Noggy: We’re really calling it that?

Lola: Yes, shut up.

Noggy: Okay, but let the record show, you laid your spores in me. Unclean woman.

Lola: It’s my version of trapping you with a baby.

Noggy: Alien parasites. And not the good kind that everyone likes.

Lola: We have a review to write, quit stalling.

N: Fine! (cut to mumbling). It all started when I was minding my own business, living a life of selfless virtue, building orphanages and rescuing baby birds fallen from their nests—

L: And I went to Costco, maskless, like a dumbass.

N: A few days later we went for a four-hour run wherein you aerosolized me with Kirkland brand covid, and the next morning you tested positive, destroying my innocent little life.

L: You didn’t have to invite me to quarantine with you.

N: Did you miss the part where I’m selfless? And didn’t want your family turned into transhuman jelly?

L: Let’s just do the review, okay?

Day 1: You are a SUPERNOVA!

L: I slacked work with my rapid test selfie and soon enough several people were typing: condolences, concern, well-meaning banishments. And I’m all, “I got this, boo. I feel fine.”

N: Then you came over to WFH, which you did for about an hour before faceplanting on your laptop. I like to call this part ‘the sickening.’

L: Turns out, not so fine.

N: I tested negative but had a nap anyway. One can never have enough naps. Pretty sure that’s in the Purgatory manual.

L: Then we watched that show about WeWork…for some reason.

N: Remind me why we’re supposed to care about rich white people problems? Rich whites who got richer after their shenanigans? Where’s the comeuppance?

Day 2: Of Which Lola Has Little Memory

N: You poured a 5oz slug of brandy in your Neo Citron, remember?

L: I think we’ve already established that I don’t.

N: I was still testing negative but starting to show minimal signs of plague, though to be honest, I think they were sympathetic at this point.

L: You made me go for a walk in the middle of nowhere. I was literally dying and you made me exercise.

N: It’s easier to explain a body in the wild and not stuffed under one’s couch.

L: Especially that couch.

N: Hey, it may be the worst couch ever but at least we discovered the filthy delight that is Human Resources on Netflix while expiring on said couch. Literal bags of assholes.

L: The show, not the couch. I think.

Day 3: Noggy Tests Positive

L: Finally.

N: Late evening and bam, murdered.

L: We also did an episode of Between Two Flames for Rebekah Raymond’s virtual book launch. I’m told we did this. I’m told it was brilliant.

N: So that’s why I woke up wearing sunglasses and a vest…

Day 4: Cracow Monsters!

N: It was the worst of times, it was was the worstest of times.

L: Yeah, but soup. Don’t forget the soup.

N: True. Magic soup from the soup fairies. Bless their souls. I watched from the window as they placed the bowls in the symbolic configuration, mystically protected from the dark water feral bunny god, before making the proper ritualistic gestures and vanishing from whence they came.

L: I’m pretty sure that was the arcane cabal from the Netflix show.

N: Vietnamese, not Polish.

L: What the hell are we talking about again?

N: Dying.

L: Right. The Big Sleep.

Day 5: It’s always darkest before dawn

L: I think I feel…better? Or maybe I’ve turned…

N: Aren’t you glad I made you exercise?

L: I went a little easier on you, because you had man-covid.

Day 6: In Which Lola is Paroled from Covid Jail

N: And I was still holed up in my midden of diseased blankets and used Kleenex

L: Like a rat. While I N95’d and went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards. It was glorious…until I realized I couldn’t taste a damn thing. It wound up taking three days to eat.

N: That was also the day we aired out the place. Neither of us could smell either but I’m sure it was something akin to a festering hockey bag.

Days 7-10: Noggy turns the corner

N: And Lola decides she’s in the right headspace to get a large tattoo

L: Not as impulsive as it sounds

N: But the leaking black goo! Or was it black blood? You had turned.

L: Turned a corner.

N: Soon enough we had the energy to get drunk and yell at the television

L: Then I went home. I was actually…sad.

N: I thought we’d kill each other in quarantine, but I didn’t hate it, aside from the fatally diseased part.

Overall Impressions

So, what have we learned from Ten Days in Purgatory?

That you always come out of Costco with more than you planned. Always.

5/5

P.S. 8 weeks later. We’re not saying long covid, but we’re not-not saying it…Jesus Christ.

2021 – The Great Diaspora

~ Noggy

N: LOLA!
L: I’m literally right here. Sitting next to you. You don’t need to yell.
N: But I like yelling. This is a very yelly year.
L: You’re not wrong. Remember our 2020 year in review?
N: Should I? I told you nobody reads these. Including us.
L: Something about 2021 asking 2020 to hold her beer?
N: Fuck, so it’s our fault? Why can’t we just keep our gob holes shut?
L: It is, we can’t, we didn’t, and it happened.
N: Not sure if 2021 was the best of times or the worst of times, but it was… times.
L: Let’s start with the best…
…
…
N: Lola?
L: Shh, I’m thinking… Never mind, better to just puke meatballs on the wall and see what sticks.
N: … we said we would never speak of that again.
L: shrug emoji.
N: Let’s try some new categories.

THE LITERARY

THE (MIS)ADVENTUROUS

  • Cocktails!!
  • First Vaccination. When everyone was getting the Pfizer Cadillac, we hopped a ride on the AZ hillbilly hay truck down a road full of potholes.
  • Witchcraft. Look, we trapped an Elemental in a candle. It’s still there. In the back of a drawer. We don’t know what to do. Help us… please.
  • Found a butt shaped rock on a full moon run. Serendipity.
  • The bug in Lola’s eye. ROFL!.
  • Tetanus shots.
  • Second vaccination. Yay, Pfizer!
  • Skinny dipping in the river. While high. Wearing dress shoes. Coming back to find our clothes covered in slugs.
  • Running the Blackspur Ultra in Kimberly. In the rain. In the cold. Uphill both ways. Epic chafing. Meatballs. Meatballs, in reverse. 
  • Running the Lost Soul Ultra in Lethbridge. In the rain. In the cold. On fucking pavement.
  • Noggy running the Whistler Alpine Meadows Ultra, with acute Achilles bursitis.
  • Third vaccination. Are we done yet?
  • Shockwave therapy! It’s like fun, but with extra medieval torture.
  • Dogma Logs (see image above). 

THE CELEBRATORY

  • Cocktails!!!
  • Noggy’s birthday. Cannoli in a parking lot.
  • Wedding Anniversaries. Latest and last.
  • Living our best lives in parental basements and decommissioned love hotels.
  • Shrek-themed birthday party for Lola. Random, yet utterly perfect.
  • Cursed pies.
  • Weird Thanksgiving.
  • Betty Lou’s Library speakeasy followed by dinner with the Russian mob.
  • Taylor’s Version everything! Lola is obsessed. Noggy will sing along three sidecars deep.
  • Solstice: sneaking in a yule log into Fairmont Hotel #1, praying to Hecate, cayenne pepper in the carpet, poking our noses where they don’t belong, five bourbons and an eggnog at the Tipsy Elf.
  • Omicron!
  • Weirder Christmas
  • Dead Week: the most wonderful time of the year

2022 SNEAK PEEK

  • Naked Snow Angels (there may be pictures).
  • Roofied by Lola’s dad and his weed infused absinthe punch.
  • Hell Hath no Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted by R.J. Joseph and Terrace V: Penitent’s Gold curated by us!
  • Lawyer fees.
  • Vaccinations 4, 5, and 6?
  • Squamish Ultra and the Triple WAMmy with like fifty thousand feet of vert.
  • Hopefully some writing.

N: Soooo. No way we should have survived.
L: Yet here we are.
N: Are we though?
L: Where ever here is. In spite of it all, I’m still happier now than I was a year ago.
N: That’s the literal four thousand cocktails speaking, and maybe that weed punch.
L: I predict the first half of 2022 will be like the signature Icelandic shark dish Hákarl, it’s gotta ferment five months before it’s non-toxic.
N: We’ll wash it down with Arby’s and extra-large DQ Blizzards come July.

Forbidden Fruits: “Vomitus Bacchanalius” by Mike Thorn

~ Noggy
T6 Forbidden Fruit

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

With the release of Forbidden Fruit, the second (or sixth, depending your reckoning) instalment in our Purgatorio anthology series, we are inviting our fabulous contributors between the flames to get their hot, gluttonous take on their story and the book and life in general, such that it is in these end days.

Today we welcome Mike Thorn, author of “Vomitus Bacchanalius”, a tale of ultimate culinary and dinner party pleasure gone delightfully sideways. Mike, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly twenty-seven words. 

Mike: I am Mike Thorn, author of Shelter for the Damned, Darkest Hours, and “Vomitus Bacchanalius.” Here are some more words to meet the specified number of twenty-seven. 

TST: Specificity is important and those extra twelve words won’t hurt anyone, right? Maybe we shouldn’t ask. In fact, forget we said anything.

All right, let’s get right to the oozing meat of it. What does gluttony mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive consumption found in this unwholesome volume? 

Mike: I was about to to say that gluttony is okay in moderation, but upon consideration, gluttony is, by definition, about the lack of moderation. With “Vomitus Bacchanalius,” I wanted to depict the celebration of over-consumption among privileged elites, and the incumbent exploitation therein.  

TST: Damn privileged elites! We’re never sad when they get what’s coming to them, even with the collateral damage inherent in these sorts of… situations. Now, tell us about a time you overindulged, like really stuffed yourself silly…with anything. 

Mike: One of my very earliest memories is of a giant bag of Jujubes that some unsuspecting adult left within my toddler-fingers’ reach. My baby id took hold, and I started cramming fistfuls of them into my mouth, barely taking the time to chew. 

The memory is hazy, but I know someone caught me in the act and stopped me from choking … maybe the Heimlich maneuver was involved? In any event, this was an early lesson about moderation (there’s that word again).  

TST: Mmm, Jububes. Now we’re hungry. We just did an trail ultramarathon and they had them at an aid station in the middle of nowhere. Saved our damned lives! Moderation? It has its place. Probably.

Which of your characters could you see popping up again in other stories? 

Mike: Many of my protagonists don’t make it past the final page… but I have a feeling that I haven’t seen the last of Cate, from “The Auteur” (published inDarkest Hours).  

TST: We’d love to see Cate again! She’s a survivor. So, since we conscripted a recipe from you, tell us about your usefulness in the kitchen. Does preparing food get your creative gravy gushing? 

Mike: I enjoy cooking! For me, it’s a good form of distraction, especially if the meal I’m preparing is comprised of several moving parts—I totally zone into the task at hand. I have a few go-to dishes I tend to make often—tofu scramble; Beyond Meat spaghetti sauce; seitan sausage with mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, and greens; and a rice bowl with roasted sweet potatoes, sauteed spinach, pinto beans stewed in fresh tomatoes, and tahini-miso sauce.  

TST: Drool. God, we’re so hungry now, ravenous actually. We’re tempted to kidnap you and make you cook for us. We didn’t just put that in writing, did we? Damn. Oh well, it’ll be worth a couple of years of fugitive status.

While we ponder that: Roman orgy, aliens, and effluent. Would you tell us a little about your research process?  

Mike: This story took a while to gestate. When you folks graciously invited me to contribute, I took some time reflecting on the theme of gluttony, and it took me a while to “find” “Vomitus Bacchanalius.” 

I spent some time perusing the Internet for myths and stories involving gluttony, and I came across an article describing popular misconceptions about the ancient Roman vomitorium (commonly misperceived as a place where revelers barfed mid-celebration to clear stomach space). It dawned on me suddenly that I could explore gluttony through an elaborate Bacchanalian orgy held by members of high society. The genre elements fell into place soon after that.

At the time, I was doing some preliminary research for an essay, and I was fully immersed in Georges Bataille’s Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939. Bataille’s ideas definitely found their way into this story, as did the Schopenhauerian concepts that undergird so much Black Metal Theory.  

TST: We loved it and are so glad you took the time to craft such a wonderfully horrible story.

So, what’s next for you? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for? 

Mike: My second short story collection, Peel Back and See, comes out from JournalStone this October. I think it might be the darkest book I’ve written.  

TST: We are so looking forward to it. Thanks, Mike!

And folks, don’t forget to check out Terrace VI: Forbidden Fruit, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks you might find stray books.

About the Author:

Mike Thorn is the author of the novel Shelter for the Damned and the short story collection Darkest Hours. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies and podcasts, including Vastarien, Dark Moon Digest, The NoSleep Podcast, and Tales to Terrify. His film criticism has been published in MUBI Notebook, The Film Stage, and In Review Online. 

Visit his website mikethornwrites.com, or connect with him on Twitter @MikeThornWrites.

Forbidden Fruits: “Fat Apocalypse” by Robin van Eck

~ Noggy
T6 Forbidden Fruit

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

With the release of Forbidden Fruit, the second (or sixth, depending your reckoning) instalment in our Purgatorio anthology series, we are inviting our fabulous contributors between the flames to get their hot, gluttonous take on their story and the book and life in general, such that it is in these end days.

Today we welcome Robin van Eck, author of “Fat Apocalypse”, a tale of a future that’s let itself go. A… lot. Robin, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly twenty-seven words.

Robin: Writer. Mom. Pet lover. Book reader – of all things horror, weird, contemporary. Face it, I’ll read most anything. And write just as eclectically. Don’t believe in limits. 

TST: Limits are definitely best ignored. Sooo…. what does gluttony mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive consumption found in this unwholesome volume?

Robin: Gluttony. An over-indulgence of anything good or bad. Is excess a bad thing? Too much money?  I’d like to roll in money. Who wouldn’t? Too much food? Well, I do hate that bloated feeling after a really good meal. Too much love and forbidden fantasies? We all need fantasies. A glutton for punishment? I guess that depends on the punishment and what it’s for. See fantasies. Alcohol and drugs…ok, maybe some bad can come from excess.

In Fat Apocalypse, the world has gone to shit, people are over-indulging because there’s not much left. Isn’t that usually how it works? The less we have, the more we want and will go to almost any extreme to get it. On one hand, the protagonists in my story are searching for healthy food, the bottom has dropped out of the economy, fresh fruit and vegetables are nowhere to be found, we’ve wasted and the environment and society is paying for it. Maybe that’s a little too Alberta for this interview. 

TST: I’m sure better times are right around the corner here in good old Alberta. Sunny days! Hmm, smoky days at least. Now, tell us about a time you overindulged, like really stuffed yourself silly…with anything.

Robin: Not sure I want to admit this right now. Let’s just say chocolate is my comfort food and comfort is something that is needed right now. 

TST: Chocolate is the best. One day the Press will be rich enough to have its own combination chocolate fountain and hot tub and then, look out world! Speaking of legacies, which of your characters could you see popping up again in other stories?

Robin: I don’t tend to recycle characters. I guess we would just have to wait and see. These characters are all a little odd, I think I might have to simply leave them where they are. 

TST: Nobody ever escapes a Robin van Eck story, got it! Since we conscripted a recipe from you, tell us about your usefulness in the kitchen. Does preparing food get your creative gravy gushing?

Robin: This is a bit hit and miss for me. I’m a good cook. I can read a recipe. I can be creative. Whether it tastes good or not is another story.

TST: We can attest personally that it’s always a hit, though our memories are fragmented at best. Having lived through a pandemic, have your thoughts on what the end of the world might look like changed from the time you wrote about your apocalyptic carnival? And will you ever go to the Calgary Stampede ever again?

Robin: This is an interesting question and something I’ve thought about a lot actually. Remember that heat wave just a few weeks ago? All the fires currently blazing. I think we’re going to fry to death before we ever have a chance to eat ourselves silly. So many naysayers about the environmental impact we’ve had on the world, yet the evidence keeps coming. It’s a scary thought. I picture us living in some kind of Mad Max world. If we survive, it will be an us vs them situation. Us being the realistic reasonable people, wanting to help one another survive. Them being the ones who can’t get their heads out of their asses and realize there’s more to life than oil and money and of course, it’s all a conspiracy. 
And no. The Stampede should never have happened this year, yet they went ahead. I have lost complete interest, not that I had much in the first place.  

TST: The world is definitely burning. In all the ways. But at least we’ll have front row seats at the BBQ! Hmm, now we’re hungry. Again For chocolate and seared meat.. Before we head to the meat locker, what’s next for you? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for?

Robin: Nothing coming up, but a lot going on. Since my novel came out in November of last year I’ve been picking away at a new manuscript that is close to completion, but not complete enough to really talk about except to say if you’re interested in death and some of the weird sites around Alberta, you might like this new book. 

TST: Thanks Robin! And don’t forget to check out the book – Terrace VI: Forbidden Fruit is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks you might find stray books.

About the Author:

Robin van Eck’s stories and personal essays have appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies across Canada and internationally such as Lamplight, FreeFall, Prairie Journal, Woven Tales Press, Waiting: An Anthology of Essays, Very Much Alive and more. Her first novel, Rough, was published by Stonehouse Publishing in November 2020.

More information at www.robinzvaneck.com.

Forbidden Fruits: “Tuny” by Julie Hiner

~ Noggy
T6 Forbidden Fruit

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

With the release of Forbidden Fruit, the second (or sixth, depending your reckoning) instalment in our Purgatorio anthology series, we are inviting our fabulous contributors between the flames to get their hot, gluttonous take on their story and the book and life in general, such that it is in these end days.

Today we welcome Julie Hiner, author of “Tuny”, a warning tale about what happens when you just need one more tiny little wafer-thin mint. Julie, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly twenty-seven words.

Julie: I am a toxic concoction of equal parts 80s rocker, true crime addict, wheel of cheese eating and beer guzzling glutton, outdoor adventurer and 80s horror lover.

TST: And queen of horror make-up! You really terrify us some days. With that out of the way let’s get right to the oozing meat of it. What does gluttony mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive consumption found in this unwholesome volume?

Julie: When I hear the word gluttony, I automatically jump to thoughts of food. I think that gluttony CAN be a bad thing, if it becomes an addiction that we cannot control. However, if one is generally a well balanced human being of sorts, then the occasional excessive night of eating and/or drinking can be a delicious indulgence. In short, if I puke too often, I cut back on my eating.

The story about Tuny was inspired by an experience I had as a young girl. At one time, I had absolutely NO concept of calories in and calories out. I literally did eat myself sick one more than one occasion. Now, I am able to indulge without barfing my guts out.

TST: Noggy knows all about the vomit comet. He never learns though, it’s in his DNA. Now, tell us about a time you overindulged, like really stuffed yourself silly… with anything.

Julie: The time I spoke about, which inspired my story, I think it was Christmas Day. I recall eating an entire box of turtles. Yes. That was just the start of it. I still ate all the meals that we had that day including a large dinner spread as most families do. I ate SO much that I literally barfed my guts out. I was staying at my Grandma’s house. I believe she thought I was sick with something. I don’t think she knew the truth. I was embarrassed. I don’t think I really put it together.

As the years went on, I still had moments of over eating. I recall eating ENTIRE Bernard Callebaut Easter Eggs (the big ones) stuffed with several dozen chocolates. In one sitting. Not good. 

I have since learned how to enjoy the food I love without being a ridiculous, gluttonous beast.

TST: Now we want chocolate. Like ten pounds of it. At least it’s only 74 days until Halloween. So which of your characters could you see popping up again in other stories?

Julie: The only character in my story was Tuny. And I do think this was a one time show for her.

TST: Probably for the best really. Poor Tuny… Since we conscripted a recipe from you, tell us about your usefulness in the kitchen. Does preparing food get your creative gravy gushing?

Julie: YES. I love to cook. I love the fresh ingredients. I love a family meal where we sit down, enjoy slowly and connect with eating.

My favorite meals of all time were in Italy, on a cycling trip, where the dinners took hours, the group came together over slow eating and lots of chat.

TST: There’s a lot of internalized shame driving poor Tuny’s binge. Besides not stuffing an entire turkey down your gullet, any words of advice for anyone struggling with distorted body image? And… how much you really love Turtles?

Julie: Yes. I do have advice. My inability to understand how much I was eating and what I was doing to my body led to me gaining a bunch of weight, and hating my physical being. It caused me a lot of anxiety for many years. I just couldn’t go on feeling so awful all the time. I learned how to portion control and to eat a healthy balance of everything – treats included. That would be stop 1 of my advice – learn how much your body needs. There are many online tools out there now to help someone track calories and do a rough calculation of how much you need depending on your activity level.

Step 2 of my advice would be to find a physical activity that you love, and to make time for it. For me, cycling changed my life. I found my inner athlete and love for my physical being. It opened the door for many activities that I now love to do.

Step 3 – don’t try to be perfect. Allow yourself to enjoy and indulge in the foods you love. But balance it out with activity and healthy eating.

TST: Thanks Julie! Feel free to partake of the hot tub and vomitorium on the way out.

And folks, don’t forget to check out the book – Terrace VI: Forbidden Fruit is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks you might find stray books!!

About the Author:

Julie Hiner is an author, storyteller, and blogger. She has independently published an inspirational work of non-fiction and two dark crime novels – Final Track and Acid Track. Two of Julie’s short horror stories have been published in anthologies, and she is currently collaborating in the horror realm. Julie’s home-base is KillersAndDemons.com where she serves up toxic cocktails of 80s metal, ritualistic murder, and raw horror.

Julie lives in her hometown in Canada, nestled near the Rocky Mountains. A hardcore 80s rocker at heart, Julie’s writing is infused with music of all eras. Her dark crime novels are a fusion of 80s metal, 70s acid rock and dark story telling. Obsessed with the dark mind of the serial killer, Julie’s characters are based on bits and pieces of some of the most terrifying monsters to roam the earth.

Find Julie online at killersanddemons.com.

Forbidden Fruits: “Death Shot” by Konn Lavery

~ Noggy
T6 Forbidden Fruit

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

With the release of Forbidden Fruit, the second (or sixth, depending your reckoning) instalment in our Purgatorio anthology series, we are inviting our fabulous contributors between the flames to get their hot, gluttonous take on their story and the book and life in general, such that it at the end of all things.

Today we welcome Konn Lavery, author of “Death Shot”, a wild tale of a man settling into his stay in Purgatory after certain, how do you say it… indiscretions. Konn, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly twenty-seven words.

Konn: Why yes, my parents are Star Trek fans. Yes, they adjusted the spelling to mask my true power. I write dark fiction and am a graphic designer.

TST: “Khhhaaaaaaaaan!!” Revenge is a dish best served cold, isn’t it? And… moving on to the main course of our revenge banquet, what does gluttony mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive consumption found in this unwholesome volume?

Konn: Great question… I think the warnings of gluttony tie into each of the seven deadly sins, which are designed to warn people about excessiveness within themselves. Let’s get hippie-dippie zen by saying that life is a balance and too much of anything can lead to high contrasts in your life.

The concepts of good and evil create a gnarly rollercoaster within us. If you remove the higher peaks, such as overconsumption and substance abuse, you’ll find yourself on the kiddie rollercoaster ride. Life is easier but less exciting. Keep in mind, the ride may be awkward as there is a height restriction, and the nearby parents will give you dagger eyes. So, in short, enjoy the sins of the flesh but know when to cut out overconsumption.

Gluttony plays right into the short story “Death Shot”. The protagonist named Newbie had an addiction problem on Earth before dying (no spoilers), which leads him into the afterlife, and his greedy ways come back to haunt him, bringing in the classic cautions of the deadly sins.

TST: Indeed. And, let me tell you, you can’t trust anyone in Purgatory! Anyone!! Now tell us about a time you overindulged, like really stuffed yourself silly… with anything.

Konn: Oh boy! How embarrassing do we get? Well, I’ll share a milder warning. In Calgary, there is this breakfast joint named Galaxie Diner that holds dark temptations with each visit. Entering the narrow corridor, you’re met with mountains of frying potatoes and coffee all around. Their menus clearly state “bottomless toast and endless hashbrowns,” which brings fleeting pleasures of the tongue. Plate after plate, the mashed-up taters pile up in the belly, stretching innards, waiting to break free. Some souls never make it out of the diner as their stomachs rip open, dumping a mangled mess of potatoes and stomach fluid onto the checkered floor. The nearby customers scurry on all fours, licking up the spilled out potatoes, hoping to please their tastebuds. Thankfully I managed to escape this dark fate, collapsing into a bed and slipping into an afternoon coma of drool.

TST: Mmm, endless taters, now we’re hungry again. And speaking of endless regurgitation, which of your characters could you see popping up again in other stories?

Konn: Mo is someone I’d like to revisit. He’s got a lot of humorous mystery to his character with the shapeshifting and vampiric nature.

TST: Mo does seem like a solid wingman, I bet he brings all boys to the kitchen. Since we conscripted a recipe from you, tell us about your usefulness in said kitchen. Does preparing food get your creative gravy gushing?

Konn: Cooking does! Working from home for many years, I learned to get good at it. Most of the meals I make are vegan with raw ingredients making the sauces from various spices and acids. The bulk of the meals are vegetables, legumes, and beans. My favourite dishes to make are ginger Szechuan, pad thai, and curried chickpeas. Prepping the meals and cooking them helps break me from the usual workflow. It gets the brain to work in different thought patterns compared to design work or writing, giving it room to see situations from new angles.

TST: Mmm, ginger Szechuan. You’re killing us here! If you were to massively overdose on cocaine and wind up at the Purgatorio Bar & Grill, who would you hope to run into there? And would you sell a soul to save your own?

Konn: I’d hope to run into someone cool like Jimi Hendrix or Marshall McLuhan. Not that they were terrible people, but they thought outside of the box, which may be enough to send you down into Purgatory. Now for selling a soul . . . heh heh, depends on who.

TST: We can give you an extensive list and we’ll totally make it worth your while. So, what’s next for you? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for?

Konn: The next release is a complete overhaul of my horror novel Seed Me in the fall. It’ll be labelled as a Relapse Edition. Basically, a retelling of the whole story with new scenes expanding on the World Mother mythos. After that, I’m in a strange crossroads covered in fog. But I am working on a modern-day urban fantasy series mixing in drugs, crime, and Illuminati conspiracy theories.

TST: Excellent, those sound fantastic! Feel free to partake of the hot tub and vomitorium on the way out.

Konn: Nice! Already jumping in.

TST: Thanks Konn! That about wraps things up – don’t forget to check out Terrace VI: Forbidden Fruit now available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks you might find stray books.

About the Author:

Konn Lavery is a Canadian author whose work has been recognized by Edmonton’s top five bestseller charts and by reviewers such as Readers’ Favorite, and The Wishing Shelf Awards.

He started writing stories at a young age while being homeschooled. After graduating from graphic design college, he began professionally pursuing his writing with his first release, Reality. He continues to write in the thriller, horror, and fantasy genres.

He balances his literary work along with his own graphic design and website development business. His visual communication skills have been transcribed into the formatting and artwork found within his publications supporting his fascination of transmedia storytelling.

You can find Konn online at www.konnlavery.com.

Forbidden Fruits: “Gluttony” by Cam Hayden

~ Noggy
T6 Forbidden Fruit

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

With the release of Forbidden Fruit, the second (or sixth, depending your reckoning) instalment in our Purgatorio anthology series, we are inviting our fabulous contributors between the flames to get their hot, gluttonous take on their story and the book and life in general, such that it is in these end days.

Today we welcome Cam Hayden, artist and author of “Gluttony”, a graphic tale of a little old woman with some serious and pressing issues. Cam, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly twenty-seven words.

Cam: I’m pretty tall, probably like 7 feet or so, and super ripped, like totally shredded, most people when they see me are like, “woah! That dude can’t keep shirts on his body because they get all cut up on contact!”

TST: Alright, forty words but we’ll let that slip – this time! Let’s get right to the oozing meat of it. What does gluttony mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive consumption found in this unwholesome volume?

Cam: Well, right now I’d say gluttony is kind of a survival mechanism. I’m living in this place with 29 other dudes, all competing for the affections of one lady. There’s only so much food to go around so at night I’ve been sneaking into the kitchen and just going to town on everything I can get my hands on. I need to keep my strength up because I never know what I’m going to be doing the next day. Could be wrestling orangutans, could be doing flips, could be seeing who can dig the biggest hole in 15 minutes. Any food I can get in me instead of those other guys, that could be the edge I need. Our task last week was to submit a comic to a prose anthology. Those other chumps were too weak to come up with anything.

TST: That’s one lucky lady, right Lola? And we agree about the other chumps. Tell us about a time you overindulged, like really stuffed yourself silly…with anything.

Cam: Back in the day, I was in a prog rock band and ate 7 peregrine falcons, including beaks and feet. Normally I’d only eat 2 but we kept getting encores. Man, they loved us in Red Deer! I even had to abstain from the groupies that night because I kept burping up those little hoods. It was embarrassing. I played it off like it was funny but it really upset me.

TST: Red Deer is the cat’s pyjamas – smells like a serious road trip – beaks and feet and donuts. Which of your characters could you see popping up again in other stories?

Cam: Maybe the maggots.

TST: Never enough maggots. That makes me want to tell our maggot story. No? Fine, you win this time… So Cam, tell us about your usefulness in the kitchen. Does preparing food get your creative gravy gushing?

Cam: Sometimes while my chef is mashing my taters I make my butler do improv with me. Does that count?

TST: Yes, definitely. Also, taters, mmm. What would you do if you swallowed a fly? And what’s the largest land mammal you think you could cram down your throat?

Cam: I swallow flies all the time, it sort of comes with the territory where I’m living. I was also having trouble sleeping so I went to one of those sleep clinics where they videotape you tossing and turning all night. As it happens, the reason I kept waking up was because my nose and mouth would fill up with the little buggers. It was like there was an after hours club for flies inside my yap. It turns out the reason was because of all the tubs of honey I’d been chugging while the other dudes were working out or whatever. Largest animal: peregrine falcon. No wait, that’s not a mammal. Let’s see… ok, one time I shotgunned an orange crush but I didn’t realize that due to some mishap at the plant, a skinny pig had gotten into the can.

TST: Sounds like you need to work your way up to a camel or possibly a hippo, but a skinny pig is a good intermediate step.

Thanks Cam! And don’t forget to check out the book – Terrace VI: Forbidden Fruit is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks you might find stray books.

About the Artist:

Cam Hayden draws strange comics, cartoons, makes odd prints and things like that. A lot of his inspiration comes from underground comic folks and an early exposure to Mad Magazine and National Lampoon. He also makes goofy trading cards.

Find Cam online on Twitter at @Lancegoiter or at www.patreon.com/lancegoiter.

Forbidden Fruits: “Naked Samantha” by Eddie Generous

~ Noggy
T6 Forbidden Fruit

BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

With the release of Forbidden Fruit, the second (or sixth, depending your reckoning) instalment in our Purgatorio anthology series, we are inviting our fabulous contributors between the flames to get their hot, gluttonous take on their story and the book and life in general, such that it is in these end days.

Today we welcome Eddie Generous, author of “Naked Samantha”, a story about uh, hmm, poker? and one I suspect you never thought you’d get published. Eddie, please tell us a little about yourself in exactly twenty-seven words.

Eddie: I’m currently a bit sweaty, and bloated from ice cream (non-dairy, I’m suddenly allergic to everything, happened the moment I outlived Jesus Christ). I’m fond of cats.

TST: Alright! With that out of the way let’s get right to the oozing meat of it. What does gluttony mean to you? Is it inherently a bad thing? How does that play into your story of excessive consumption found in this unwholesome volume?

Eddie: Gluttony, I guess, is crossing a line from consumption to criminal consumption. Probably it’s usually okay, I mean, the world’s on fire and conservative politicians want everyone miserable before they burn. So, indulge. How gluttony plays in this story…ignore what I just said; don’t indulge in that, you perverts. Some carnal urges need to be ignored…then again, sometimes it’s fun to watch things play out when there’s a secret on the horizon, an ace up the sleeve.

TST: Tell us about a time you overindulged, like really stuffed yourself silly…with anything.

Eddie: When I was fourteen, I drank thirty-three beers in one night and was sick for a whole week, but I had to go to school. Not like anybody was going to let me stay home for a hangover. Also, I split one of the beers with a donkey not long before I passed out in the field where we were drinking.

TST: Which of your characters could you see popping up again in other stories?

Eddie: From this story, I guess the Starbucks employee? Otherwise, I don’t know. Not too many options and Samantha kind of steals the show, so it might be like rewriting this same story all over again if she reappeared.

TST: Tell us about your usefulness in the kitchen. Does preparing food get your creative gravy gushing?

Eddie: I’m a good cook, if you’re into low-brow offerings. I’m not excited about cooking, but I know what something’s going to taste like if I make it, so I tend to do my share of the suppers around my house.

TST: In your view, how likely is it that the barista who smiles as she takes down the complicated instructions for my mochafrappishitino would murder me in a heartbeat if the opportunity presented itself? And in your view, would I deserve it? Also, five card stud or Texas hold’em?

Eddie: Baristas seemed unhinged at the best of times. I guess they weed out people who would thrive in other environments and take what’s left over. I guess the real question that would answer your question is: did you tip? Texas hold’em, I guess. I don’t know much about cards or gambling or convening with enough humans to facilitate a game; not these days.

TST: What’s next for you? Any forthcoming releases, hatchings, or germinations we should be on the lookout for? 

Eddie: I have a new novel on the way in September titled HETTY and, and in August or September I have a novella coming titled IT CAME FROM SPACE, and I have a handful of shorts on contract that’ll trickle into the world in the next however long, but mostly, if people want more of me, they should grab a copy of THE WALKING SON. It’s the story of a curse, a road trip, and some very old coins, plus ghosts and body horror. People, so far, really seem to like it.

TST: Thanks Eddie! And don’t forget to check out the book – Terrace VI: Forbidden Fruit is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and under whatever rocks you might find stray books.

About the Author:

Eddie Generous has fallen off three different roofs and been lit on fire on multiple occasions. He grew up on a farm and later slept with his shoes under his pillows in homeless shelters. He dropped out of high school to afford rent on a room at a crummy boarding house, but eventually graduated from a mediocre college. He is the author of several small press books, has 2.8 rescue cats (one needed a leg amputation), is a podcast host, and lives on the Pacific Coast of Canada.

You can find Eddie online at www.jiffypopandhorror.com

The Donut Queen by Scott S. Phillips

~ Noggy
The Donut Queen

REVIEW

Vampires get a bad rap these days. A terrible rap. Sure, it’s easy to point to the general body of work from the last decade and shrug at the overdone and uninspired and lazy, but that’s a vast oversimplification. All genres wax and wane, and amidst the swirling seas of creativity there are always gems to be discovered and cherished. If you’ve been keeping watch, you’ll know there is plenty of thick red blood left in the vampire genre. Still not convinced? Fire up WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (movie AND series), for one, and you will be.

Along those humorous and wildly entertaining lines, the PETE, DRINKER OF BLOOD series has been a treasure for the last few years. Since 2012 Scott Phillips has been entertaining us with tales of regular, everyman, Pete, transformed into a vampire in 1973 and sort of stuck in the seventies in so many (good) ways. The fabulous and distinctive covers by Lili Chin elucidate this aesthetic perfectly.

All poor Pete wants is to have an unexciting, normal life (or what passes as one for a creature of the night). Spending quality time with his girlfriend Angie, working his night job for the Department of Water and Power, listening to classic rock at the Starbucket diner. But a simple life is not in the cards. Over five novels (with a sixth in the works!) Pete, with a fantastic cast of friends, enemies, and frenemies, has navigated an increasing chaotic adventure oozing with greasy magic and the machinations of the insidious Untermeier’s Donuts.

This adventure and conflict comes to its penultimate conclusion in The Donut Queen. Maisie Untermeier, the aforementioned Donut Queen herself, has arrived in person to deal with the ever troublesome Pete, and with an unexpected and terrifying ally attempts to make good on that threat. But Pete has an unexpected, though possibly undesired, ally as well, and in typical Pete fashion, unlife never proceeds exactly as desired.

While you might possibly understand what the hell is going on if you jump right into this one without reading the preceding four, I’d strongly recommend picking up the others if you haven’t – well worth the price of admission.

The Donut Queen is available on Amazon now!

INTERVIEW – BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH THE SEVENTH TERRACE

TST: Welcome, Scott, to the Seventh Terrace of Purgatory. The sexiest terrace of course. And warm! Want to introduce yourself and tell us a little about your new novel, THE DONUT QUEEN? And possibly about the PETE, DRINKER OF BLOOD series in general?

Scott: Thanks! I like to be warm and sexy. By way of introduction, I  guess I’m just a guy who likes to write stuff. When I was a kid I used to make little Super-8mm movies, mostly because at the time I wanted to be a stop-motion animator, but as I kept making the flicks, I realized that I liked writing the scripts for ‘em better than doing the animation and whatnot. This led to writing a bunch of screenplays and I eventually sold one that became DRIVE (Dacascos, not Gosling). I wound up writing a handful of movies and a bunch of stuff that never got made (like the infamous Steven Seagal nightmare and the script I did for Kelsey Grammer’s production company at Paramount that basically broke my spirit). Along the way, I discovered I liked writing short stories a lot more than I liked dealing with Hollywood and around that time, I wrote my first novel, SQUIRREL EYES. After a truly unpleasant experience with the editor of my novel FRIDAY THE 13th: CHURCH OF THE DIVINE PSYCHOPATH, I decided to take a stab at self-publishing, and I’ve never looked back. 

As for PETE, I had originally written what became the first novel as a screenplay, although it was more of an Adam Sandler movie than what the book wound up being. My girlfriend Sarah Bartsch, who is also a writer (and we’re working on a couple books together right now), suggested turning it into a series, and THE DONUT QUEEN is the fifth book in that series. That one just came out at the end of April. They’re urban fantasy stories full of vampires, monsters, and magic, and they’re also pretty funny (I hope). 

TST: We love Pete, but why the hell would you select 1973 as the year his hair had to be trapped in? Not a particularly great year for hair if I remember, though I was only six and probably got my hair cut with a bowl.

Scott: I was nine and had that same bowl cut! Which is probably one reason I got picked on constantly, along with liking comic books and Star Trek. Remember when being a nerd actually got the shit kicked out of you? Anyway, I disagree on hair-years – personally, I’m all about the 70s hair, largely because as a guy who has had long hair (and is in the process of having it again now), it’s a lot easier to pull off the 70s thing than the 80s thing – hair metal or new wave. Of course, Pete doesn’t even have long hair, just a ‘fro. I guess this is where I should mention that 1973 is when Pete got himself vampire-bit, for those wondering what the hell we’re even talking about.

TST: So… greasy magic. Sounds like something that spontaneously happens when we leave fast food in the sun in the back seat of our Pontiac Aztec or possibly when Gary and the rest of the penguins get into the lube. How on earth did you come up with the concept and name for this unique flavor of sorcery?

Scott: One of the things I like to do with the Pete books is poke a little fun at genre tropes, and between writing the first and second books, I read MISTBORN by Brandon Sanderson, and he came up with that insanely cool and insanely well-thought-out magic system, so I wanted to do the exact opposite with PETE HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE. I figured I needed the lowest form of low magic, and you can’t get much lower than something that requires using your own pee (or other bodily fluids) to control it. I wanted a sort of magic that’s pretty much exclusively used by criminals and lazy people. The name is kind of a Trailer Park Boys reference – they’re always referring to anything particularly sleazy as “greasy,” and I just thought it fit. 

TST: The inclusion of the Fae in this novel is inspired. Did you plan this, or did you take a wrong turn at Albuquerque?

Scott: Thanks! But heck no, I don’t plan nuthin’, really. When someone asked Elmore Leonard if he outlines really tightly, he said “I don’t even have a loose outline. I just make it up as I go along.” That’s pretty much how I like to write – although I’m not comparing myself to Elmore Leonard, aside from not outlining. I tend to have little signposts in my head that I work towards but I like things to be flexible, and I find if I’m working from an outline I get all twisted up trying to stick to it even though my instincts are screaming at me to throw it out. So yes, wrong turn at Albuquerque, which is easy since I live just outside of the place. I guess it just felt like it was time for some faeries to show up in the Pete books. 

TST: What’s next for Pete? We hear tell of a capstone for his current set of adventures – though hopefully it won’t be three more years! And on related note, are you planning on writing any more Boone Butters stories? Please say yes.

Scott: I’ve just gotten started on the sixth book in the series, which is called THE GREASY MAGIC WAR. That will wrap up the Untermeier’s Donuts story arc that’s been going on since book two – and yeah, I definitely don’t want any more three-year stretches of writing one book! Depression is the enemy of cranking out the wordage, I can assure you. I’m feeling a bit better these days, though, and I’m writing every single day (and have been since January 1st, 2020). There will definitely be more Pete adventures after book six, although I think they’ll be more standalone stories unless I change my mind along the way. I already have an idea of what books seven and eight will be, in any case. I’d like to do a spin-off featuring Randy “Serious” Burns and his criminal cohorts, and I’ve got the next Boone Butters book percolating like crazy, but it’s just a matter of finding the time to write all the things. As I mentioned, Sarah and I are working on two books together – they’re both cozy mysteries, and we’re having a lot of fun with those. With any luck, the first one (WICKED SNARL: A DANGER POTATO MYSTERY) will be out by the end of the year.

TST: You have a great Patreon with a stream of terrible poems, video journals, and sneak peeks. And something called No Coward Bites where you eat… well, technically things you can put in your mouth and possibly swallow. What made you think this was a good idea?

Scott: Thanks! I try to make the Patreon thing fun and deliver some goofy stuff. Writing the terrible poems is my favorite thing about it. No Coward Bites is actually something I do for YouTube, so anyone can check it out, but folks on my Patreon get early access to new episodes. It was Sarah’s idea – I have a bunch of those disturbing old cookbooks full of horrifying recipes and she thought it would be cool if I made them and sampled them. The title is something my friend Greg Freeland said when I told him I was gonna make the Veg-All Pie for the first episode. I’d like to do the episodes more often, but not only is time a factor, I honestly dread having to eat the stuff so I put it off sometimes. Like the one I’ve got coming up – it involves chicken noodle soup, cream cheese, lemon Jell-O, and canned shrimp. The idea of putting that into my mouth-parts is utterly terrifying. 

TST: You wrote a couple of fantastic short stories for us back at Coffin Hop Press, in It’s a Weird Winter Wonderland and Knucklehead Noir. Any possibility of getting another story out of you in the near/medium/long future?

Scott: You are too kind. I would love to send more stories your way, but once again it comes down to the hours in the day. I’ve got a couple things kickin’ around my brain, so it’s not out of the question. As with any of us people what puts the words on the papers, the dream is that the book sales will pick up to the point where I can cut back on the day job a bit and get more of the real stuff done.

TST: Thank you for chatting with us! Any final words before we release the leg hold trap?

Scott: Only that I wish I had that fast food from the back seat of your car right now. 

5/5

About the Author:

Scott S. Phillips has written all kinds of stuff: films, TV, books, comics and even dialogue for talking dolls. He’s the author of the PETE, DRINKER OF BLOOD series, as well as several other books. Scott wrote the screenplay for the cult action flick DRIVE (1997), and twelve episodes of the CW Network’s KAMEN RIDER DRAGON KNIGHT.

Perhaps most importantly, he once performed as stand-in for the legendary Lemmy in the video for Motorhead’s “Sacrifice.”

You can find Scott at his Patreon page, where you can get cool exclusives like sneak peeks at chapters of upcoming books, a Patrons-only blog, read his monthly terrible poems (and see videos of him doing dramatic readings of those very same terrible poems), get your name listed in the acknowledgments of his books, and even have a character named after you!

You can also find Scott at Facebook and Instagram: @scottphillipsnm

Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez

~ Lola

Queer fiction has long led the charge of stories with big ideas that challenge, terrify, and thrill, and this novel exemplifies those qualities. In near-future Toronto, devastating floods stoke the fear and hatred of the privileged, giving rise to a powerful civilian militia with a mission to eradicate immigrants, queer folks, poor folks, and anyone deemed to be other. This dark wave spreads unchecked across the country, until a black drag queen, transgender refugee, and a former social worker are recruited into a resistance movement that might be their last hope.

This is story driven by indelible characters, complex and non-conforming, without a single archetype to be found among them. With no molds from which to cast, Hernandez has accomplished something remarkable in creating wholly realized unique individuals. There is no saviour, no plucky sidekick, no sage. Evil is an utterly banal presence in the narrative, taking the form of politicians, angry suburbanites, and “concerned citizens”. It’s scary as hell because Crosshairs is our world exaggerated, but only a little, and some days not at all. Prepare to confront your biases in this unflinching novel where humanity shines in all its beautiful, messy, resilient diversity.

4/5

Darkest Hours: Expanded Edition by Mike Thorn

~ Noggy

REVIEW

I didn’t think I could love this collection more, but I so do! When it comes to Mike Thorn, more is always better. And this Expanded Edition gives you so much more. Hard to believe it’s been four years since the original was released by Unnerving – I remember reading through it the first time thinking what the absolute fuck. In the best way of course. I never thought of hair the same way. Ever.

So what comes in the box? Besides freshly revised versions of the all the original stories, we get an awesome new cover from Mikio Murakami, a lovely foreword from Sadie Hartmann (of Mother Horror renown), story notes for each story, and a collection of excellent essays on horror cinema.

I’m not going to review each of the stories in depth, but I will say if I had to pick my jewel of the collection, I’m going to have to go with “Mictian Diabolus”. A story with anything or anyone called The Peeler hits all of my sweet spots.

Of all the new content, the story notes are my favourite addition. As both a reader and author, I love to hear how stories came to be and their influences (so incredibly varied) and how they evolved. Super cool.

And the essays? Mike knows SO much about horror film history, and his insights on such make me realize how much I don’t know and what I should go track down and devour (Rob Zombie’s 31!). He makes it look effortless. After you read this set of essays, if you haven’t poured through the lists of his favourites (and why they are his favourites) on Twitter, you’re missing out. Run, don’t walk, and read them all. Trust me, you’ll learn so much.

Darkest Hours: Expanded Edition will be released into the world by Journalstone on June 11, 2021.

INTERVIEW – BETWEEN TWO FLAMES WITH LOLA AND NOGGY

Noggy: Today in the studio, we have the infamous Mike Thorn. Want to tell us a little about your new collection Darkest Hours: Expanded Edition and why we’d consider you infamous? 

Mike: Yes, I do want to tell you about Darkest Hours: Expanded Edition! Thank you, Sarah and Rob. This is a deluxe reissue of a short story collection initially released in 2017. This updated version includes my author notes for all 16 original stories, 17 essays on horror cinema, and a foreword by the great Sadie Hartmann (Mother Horror). It also features beautiful new cover art by Mikio Murakami. 

I suspect you might consider me infamous because my reading of “Hair” made several customers gag at Owl’s Nest Books. Is that true?  

Noggy: I’m going to say yes! (Sarah’s nota bene: it is true and it was me). And that’s probably why the Nest now has hardwood instead of carpet. So with that out of the way, I do have a burning question, are you perhaps any relation to the Frank Manly Thorn? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Manly_Thorn – you’re both sort of dapper writer types in that monstrous and indescribable way. 

Mike: I can’t respond to this with any certainty. If I send my saliva to 23andMe, will they be able to confirm? I apologize for answering your question with a question, but it’s the best I can do right now. 

Lola: Understood. If anyone understands evasion, we certainly do. What horror movie/book/media you totally love and adore that most people think is garbage – and vice versa? 

Mike: I recently rewatched the director’s cut of The Bye Bye Man, directed by Stacy Title, and I liked it even more on a second viewing. I’m also a huge fan of John Boorman’s Exorcist II, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, all of Dario Argento’s late-career work, Bela Lugosi’s Poverty Row pictures … I could go on and on. There are so many horror films that I think are misunderstood and/or underappreciated!  

As for the reverse: I did not respond to A Quiet Place at all, but I know a lot of people were excited by it.  

Lola: Fuck/Marry/Kill: characters and monsters from Darkest Hours. Come on, we know you have answers! 

Mike: Fuck the blob from “Mired.” 
Marry Cate from “The Auteur.” 
Kill Steve from “Party Time.”

You’ll have to read the book to psychoanalyze these responses, folks!

Noggy: You just released your first novel – Shelter for the Damned – do you think you’ll write more novels, or are you retreating back to short stories where the fun and uh… money is? 

Mike: Right now, I’m drafting a screen treatment and an essay for an anthology on Weird Fiction. I’m also neck-deep in a second novel. I intend to keep working within both the long and short forms. Wherever the muse leads me, you know? 

Lola: What would you do if you woke up one morning and found a single stout hair growing in the middle of your tongue? 

Mike: Just one hair? In all honesty, I would probably just pluck it. If this became a recurring issue, or if one hair became two (or more), I would promptly schedule a visit with my doctor.  

Lola: The only thing less respectable than being a horror writer is being a film critic. In your view, is becoming a critic failing up or down? 

Mike: “Respectable” is overrated.  

I like to think my failings are on a consistently upward trajectory. Thanks for this question.  

Noggy: Could be worse I guess, you could be a poet. Want to tell us about what you have coming out this year and what you’re working on? Or have you peaked and plan on coasting for the rest of the decade? 

Mike: My second short story collection, Peel Back and See, comes out from Journalstone in October. Also, Jamie Blanks and I have been talking about collaborating on something scary for the screen! 

Right now, I’m working on getting vaccinated and staying afloat.

Noggy: Good luck with with all your endeavours, and enjoy your new microchip. Well Lola, guess we should mention that Mike has also been coerced into writing a story for The Seventh Terrace’s forthcoming mini-anthology Terrace VI: Forbidden Fruit, out in June!

Lola: Do yourself a favour and pick up Darkest Hours: Expanded Edition. And remember, there’s always more than one hair…

5/5

About the Author:

Mike Thorn is the author of the novel Shelter for the Damned and the short story collection Darkest Hours. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies and podcasts, including Vastarien, Dark Moon Digest, The NoSleep Podcast, and Tales to Terrify. His film criticism has been published in MUBI Notebook, The Film Stage, and In Review Online. 

Visit his website mikethornwrites.com or connect with him on Twitter @MikeThornWrites.

Publisher: Journalstone

One Tough Bastard by Adam Howe

~ Noggy
One Tough Bastard

In Adam Howe’s One Tough Bastard, the most legendary buddy team-up in cinematic history has flung itself from the 80’s silver screen to plummet onto the written page. Maybe not the traditional vector for this sort of blockbuster, but given the lack of time machines, it’s not like modern humanity is able to return the favour. If Adam ever got a film made from this book, the universe would probably explode, Ouroboros being what it is.

Worth the risk of course, and until then we have this exquisite… historical document about Moxie and Duke and their wild-ass testosterone drenched misadventures. As a child of the 80’s (acid wash notwithstanding) this book is a love letter. To me. Hell, I owned pastel blue parachute pants (made from a real parachute) and a jean vest and cowboy boots. And a sick mullet. I’d post a picture, but the twenties don’t appreciate style and I’d get arrested for being nostalgically awesome (a real thing, look it up).

Anyways, I digress. Actually, no I don’t, the 80’s ARE the best. Maybe you had to be there, maybe you had to be the right age, but nothing beats the pure unfettered blend of action and humour and music and style. Peak movie insanity. Peak wrestling. Peak cheap booze. Peak stripper bars. A higher percentage of enbiggening oxygen in the atmosphere (also a real thing).

So, what to say about One Tough Bastard that hasn’t already been politically incorrectly uttered in every cool bar in every cool corner of every cool city and town and backwater cesspool? It’s just plain, unapologetic fun. In a world that seems to think everything has to be have a deep, underlying theme about loss and grief, it’s fabulous to read a story that’s pure fun romp. Sure, there are integral themes about friendship and self-confidence and being unable to understand how much of an idiot you are. And sure, even a nod to grief, of course as fuel for revenge, but all heaped with a giggling lemon spread of fun. Which is exactly what 2021 needs. Beyond the 80’s buddy movie dynamic, Adam has created a mythology around the characters and story squeezed from the best this genre have to offer. Shane Moxie is a hero. Possibly flawed, sure, but who wouldn’t be with that much awesomeness warping reality? If his movies were available, bootleg or not, I’d have Amishing in Action, Gung Ho-Ho-Ho, and especially Copscicle, splashed across a 108” 8K screen every chance I could.

5/5

About the Author: Adam Howe writes the twisted fiction your mother warned you about. A British writer of fiction and screenplays, he lives in London with his partner, their daughter, and a hellhound named Gino. Writing as Garrett Addams, his short story Jumper was chosen by Stephen King as the winner of the international On Writing contest, and published in the paperback/Kindle editions of King’s memoir. His fiction has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Thuglit, Mythic Delirium, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, and other places. He is the author of One Tough Bastard, Scapegoat (with James Newman), Tijuana Donkey Showdown, Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet, and Black Cat Mojo, and the editor of the Wrestle Maniacs anthology. In the pipeline: The Polack, a gritty 1930s noir co-written with Joseph Hirsch. Stalk him at Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter @Adam_G_Howe.

Publisher: Honey Badger Press

Luster by Raven Leilani

~ Lola

Edie is the only Black woman working at a children’s book publisher where she hopes to get promoted from reception to illustrator. But when they hire another, younger, hungrier, lighter-skinned Black lady, Edie is fired. It’s racism, tokenism, an outrage. It’s also because Edie fucked most of the men in the office and isn’t good at her job. So, lacking any other option, she moves in with her married white boyfriend, his white wife, and their recently adopted 11yo Black daughter. It’s every bit as strange as it sounds but this book blew my mind. A story of alienation, desperation, and bewildering tenderness, Luster is a darkly curious dive into unconventional relationships, the surprising ways in which people bond, and what they can teach each other.

I don’t know if I’d call this horror in the genre sense, but since I prefer to think of horror as an experience, an emotion, I gotta say I was peeking over the edge of a blanket, tense, cringing, and biting my knuckles in avoidance of my own unvarnished reactions to this story and the people living inside it. Raven Leilani’s prose is voracious, with a full set of teeth in each sentence.

2020: The Year We All Walked Through Fire

~ Noggy

L: NOGGY!!!
N: Jesus, Lola…what?
L: It’s January 11, 2021.
N: Congratulations, you learned to read a calendar. Next, you’re going tell me it’s 6:43 p.m.
L: Shut up, I just meant eleven days is enough time to get some perspective on the most remarkable year in living memory.
N: Hate to break it to you, Silkysocks but I don’t even remember what happened last week.
L: Put the bottle down and let’s do this.
N: Fine, but let the record show I am aggrieved. Are we even allowed to talk about this stuff? People might get mad.
L: For that to happen they’d have to read our blog.
N: Which no one has. Ever.
L: So, let’s warm up with the good. We had two whole months that weren’t a pandemic.

The Good

  • Launched End of the Loop and Starseed by getting drunk on something blue called Sex in (on?) the Driveway and presenting the first and possibly last episode of Between Two Flames over Zoom. Poor Guy…
  • Attended Wordbridge in Little LA and got lost in a blizzard tryin’ to find Arby’s.
  • Celebrated Noggy’s b-day sucking the cream out of a bunch of cannoli.
  • Summer road trip to BC. Noggy, Lola, and Particle Man, running through the mountains, angering the gods, and capping it off riding Sturgeons in Revelstoke for Lola’s Birthday.
  • Bloody Offensive Literary Salon. A real boner of a good time.
  • Neither of us got fired/arrested/strip-searched or investigated for crimes against the living or dead. Or god(s).
  • Crashed a wedding. That sooo needed crashing.
  • Attended 80’s themed book launch in the most disgusting dive in the city on the coldest day in twenty years. Noggy really took a shine to his red metallic leggings. Cash bar. Bathrooms physically residing in Hell. But hey, great band!
  • Noggy & Lola’s alter egos saw their very first co-written story, about Grandpa’s freezer meat, purchased for actual money, and published in an actual book called Chew on This!
  • Road trip to Taber, complete with lunch at the Mexican-Ukrainian fusion restaurant and Lola desecrating Noggy’s grandfather’s grave (details redacted, but there were haunted soul holes and spiders. And owls.).
  • Wrote an epic poem for Particle Man’s birthday “The Many Deaths of Particle Man.”
  • Taylor Swift released two new amazing records!
  • Exotic cocktails with the Secret Saturday Night Quarantine Society.
  • Working from home.
  • First name basis at local liquor stores.
  • Picnics.
  • Full moon runs.
  • Jaja Ding Dong.

The Bad

  • Lola dropped her phone down a mountain trying to take a picture of a goat.
  • Virtual events. They suck. Good Merciful Gary, do they suck. Even ours. Especially ours.
  • Writer podcasts that are 1hr+ of aimless, unedited yammering – but we listened anyways, cause.
  • All races, literary events, festivals, and conventions cancelled. Although this is probably why we didn’t get fired or arrested.
  • Everyone deciding they need to get some fucking fresh air, dawdling about in enormous groups clogging entire paths.
  • Doing the summer scavenger hunt and Lola having to be nice to the path cloggers.
  • Doing the summer scavenger hunt and Noggy forbidding Lola from sticking her hiking pole in some idiot cyclist’s spokes.
  • Noggy forced to listen repeatedly to two new Taylor Swift records.
  • Perturbed skunks on a full moon run.
  • Sunday mornings.
  • Trying to work from home with your entire family up your ass.
  • Lola’s number one Spotify song: Jaja Ding Dong.

The Ugly

  • This is eerily mostly the same list as The Good.
  • Actually missing open mic poetry about rocks and streams and dead parents.
  • Noggy projectile vomiting 65km into our 80km self-directed urban ultra-marathon. That bush is dead now, the city bench melted. They should really replace the memorial plaque.
  • Lola setting her hair on fire doing witchcraft.
  • Running 420km in December + Eggnog + Herring Rollmops.
  • Homeschooling six (6) gremlins.
  • 11 p.m. Particle Man ukulele singalongs (the other hotel guests loved it).
  • The mall. Any malls. All malls.
  • IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH!

Bonus List: The Weird

  • Running at dusk and finding ourselves, no shit, surrounded by beavers.
  • Approached by an elfin teenaged boy after dark and offered a cookie.
  • Along the river finding many, many elaborate dwellings constructed from deadfall.
  • Elementals chasing us off Mount Okanagan.
  • Repeated sex dreams about all our friends.
  • The metallic pants, again. Noggy can’t get enough.
  • Onesies.
  • Lola’s cover girl debut…as a corpse.
  • And, as always, the weird wonderful constant in this topsy turvy world: Arby’s

In closing, there’s a lot more we could have added, but Legal has advised us to quit while we’re not in contravention of any number of municipal bylaws or provincial health orders. Suffice it to say, it’s been a trip. From the looks of it, 2021 is already asking 2020 to hold her beer, and you know what? We can’t wait.

Unnerving Magazine Issue #14 – Eddie Generous

~ Noggy

It’s always a grand day at The Seventh Terrace when we get a new issue of Unnerving. And a Stephen King inspired issue at that. While Sarah is undoubtably more deeply read in King than myself, I do love a lot of his work, especially his weirder short stories and novellas.

The issue was a treat, as usual, so track down a copy if you haven’t already!

– Rob

Danger’s Failed Film Pitches: One of the best bits of the last few issues has been Danger Slater pitching somewhat… questionable movies to A-List creative types. Brilliant and entertaining. And yes I’d definitely go see It: Part III and Reverse Thinner.

First Encounters: Robert Sawyer dishes on watching his first Stephen King movie. Samantha M. Bailey barely survives a King title marathon. Andrew Pyper recalls being wrecked by a King novel.

Non-Fiction Features: Richard Chizmar talks Stephen King in the slush pile. Cassie Daley discusses various aspects of The Dark Half brought to life in prose, film, and game. Charles Ardai gives his thoughts on the Hard Case crime stories of Stephen King. Tracy Robinson considers The Stand and how King’s stories changed for her from first teen readings to current adult experience.

Too Stubborn to Quit: Eddie talks about the little touches that make writing pop, using some great King examples.

Reviews: Eddie, Ben Walker, and Valerie Lester review the erotic cosmic horror steeped Starseed by Stephen Guy, The Seventh Terrace (Near and dear to our hearts), the haunted house tale Defying the Ghosts by Joan Marie Verba, FTL Publications, the Jack the Ripper poem collection Whitechapel Rhapsody by Alessandro Manzetti, Independent Legions, the eerie Lovecraftian portal story The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher, Saga Press (which we were lucky enough to get an ARC of and absolutely loved), the cosmic horror monster feature The Worm and his Kings by Hailey Piper, Off Limits Press (which we’re desperately waiting for), and the YA murderfest Clown in the Cornfield by Adam Cesare, HarperTeen.

Poetry: “Figures in an Unimportant Landscape” – A cool black-out poem by the awesome Jessica McHugh. “Hotel” – by the always excellent Donna Lynch.

And some great fiction, of course. Here are some two sentence thoughts:

“The Spindly Man” by Stephen Graham Jones

When meeting the devil, you so need to bring back proof. And a story.

“Special Delivery” by Bev Vincent

Not all ideas come from within, but when they get delivered – don’t answer the door.

“Finding the Path” by Kaaron Warren

The road to summer camp hell is paved with adverbs… and tombstones.

“Black Brothel Part III: ” by Renee Miller

Where in Mary takes in an unexpected associate. (Oh my, this story is getting disturbingly juicy!)

“Home is Where You Sink Your Teeth” by Anne Gresham

No one can ever really leave Citadel Bluff.

“Don’t Let The Dark Stop You Shining” by William Meikle

Undealt with grief can take you full circle.

An all around excellent issue, well worth picking up a subscription for. And while you’re at it, check out the Unnerving Podcast and Unnerving’s fabulous fiction offerings, especially the new Rewind and Die series..

Verdict? Hot!

About the Editor: Eddie Generous

Eddie Generous is the author of a great many books, including What Lurks Beneath, Savage Beasts of the Arctic Circle, Rawr, Radio Run, Great Big Teeth, and Trouble at Camp Still Waters from Severed Press, Plantation Pan from Omnium Gatherum Books, and numerous story collections. He is the founder/editor/publisher/artist behind Unnerving and Unnerving Magazine, and the host of the Unnerving and Books North Podcasts. He was born in Ontario, Canada and now lives on the Pacific Coast of Canada with his wife and their cat overlords.

Arby’s Orange Cream Milkshake

~ Lola

It begins, as so many things do, with Lola and Noggy’s inability to take even the smallest action without turning it into a quest, a quest inevitably deteriorating into a comedy of errors. And if you’re worried, you should be, but know that this boondoggle ends happily.

In all fairness this particular quest wasn’t their idea, but rather part of a summer scavenger hunt put on by some fun-loving race organizers after covid-19 forced a blanket cancellation of all the season’s ultra-running events. Thirty or so running challenges, and a badge for each one completed. Fun stuff like 2000 stairs, a sunrise run, running in loops, and saying something nice to every goddamned menace on a bike you see during your run. That kind of thing.

(By the way, this review is a TL:DR internet recipe. Scroll to the end if what we thought of the fucking milkshake means that much to you.)

Anyway, on this day Lola and Noggy had their sights set on the “Run for Food” badge. Basically what it sounds like. You run directly to obtain food. Their choice of sustenance was, no surprise, the much-maligned Arby’s.

But first, the run. Here’s the thing about these knuckleheads, they can never just “go to Arby’s”. No, those beef ‘n cheddars must be paid for in suffering. It has to be “get lost in a blizzard, wandering until Arby’s reveals itself like a celestial mirage” or “run 50km in February and stagger into the fancy Arby’s like smelly arctic explorers” or in this case “an easy 10km and then dive face first into the horsey sauce.” Simple, right?

You know where this is going…

Lola: I found a new trail!

(wading through waist high wet grass)

Noggy: This isn’t a trail and my feet are soaked.

Lola: You said you wanted an adventure. It’s the trail less traveled.

Noggy: Again, not a trail

(wading through waist high wet thistles)

Lola: Hmm, I’m sure this connects with the main path somewhere.

Noggy: How, genius? In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re on the wrong side of the creek.

Lola: Right…no problem, we can just crawl over these boulders and…Nog?

Noggy: …

Lola: Ouch, that is some blood.

Noggy: I hate you.

(several kilometres later)

Lola: [rips off her sunglasses, screaming]

Noggy: Jesus, what?

Lola: [incoherently babbles, clutching the side of her face]

Noggy: Use your words, Silkysocks.

Lola: A wasp stung me twice in the brain. Am I going to die?

Noggy: [inspects Lola’s swelling temple] Definitely scarred for life. Come on, let’s get some curly fries.

Our intrepid dimwits, with their fancy gps watches, cannot navigate themselves out of a wet paper bag and end up running closer to 16km before the semi-iconic ten-gallon Arby’s hat comes into view. They stagger into the parking lot, scraped and inflamed, spirits buoyed by visions of meatcraft, and in this way their “Run for Food” attempt is foiled, ironically, by three Corona-fuelled words…

Drive Thru Only

.

.

.

.

.

.

Anyway, the Arby’s orange milkshake is not at all terrible. You should try it.

4/5

Rad Recent Reads

~ Lola

Lola’s Picks

You know what’s great? Books not written by white people. So we’re sharing some recent reads so delicious you should definitely buy them and lick every page with your horny eyeballs. BIPOC voices are crushing it, and if it’s been a while since you waded off white author island, you really ought to dive in because the water is glorious.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Noemí Taboada is a Mexico City socialite sent to check on a sick cousin at High Place, a dilapidated Victorian mansion in the mountains, and the ancestral home of a once wealthy English family that owned the nearby silver mines. Soon Noemí finds her cousin has married into a family with secrets eating away at them much like the strange mould devouring the wallpaper, carpet, and draperies of High Place. At a loss for how to help her cousin or herself, Noemí’s dreams turn to dark horrors and every flicker of light leads her down yet another haunted corridor.

This book serves up mood and atmosphere big time, steadily dialling up the dread, violence, and desire. It’s Noemí, however, that keeps the story from tilling up the same gothic soil farmed over and over again by so many others. She’s spoiled and beautiful. Sharp and tenacious. Neither a damsel in distress nor a Strong Female Character perfectly executing roundhouse kicks. She’s a young woman still discovering who she is and what she stands for in a world controlled by men. She’s also frequently bored, and enjoys rubbing one out in the bathtub on occasion.

Between the ghosts, family tragedy, eugenics, mycology, feminism, and romance, Mexican Gothic lives up to the hype and leaves you with a lot to think about.

Catch the author on twitter @silviamg

5/5

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

This book isn’t horror, but it’s pretty fucking horrible, in the very best ways. I’ve got a stygian sense of humour, and damn if this novel doesn’t tickle my blackened funnybone.

It’s pre-911 NYC, and the unnamed narrator is tall, blonde, pretty, and above all, thin. An art history major, recently fired from her job at a shitty gallery. Her best friend Reva is sleeping with her boss and obsessed with her twin interests of “weekend plans” and pouring tequila into cans of diet Mountain Dew. She’s a wretched human, but she’s all the narrator has left. Both her parents are dead, and though they were objectively terrible people, she can’t bring herself to sell their house. She decides to sleep on it. For a full year. Sleep as much, and be awake as little, as possible. Her project requires that she seek out a goofy psychiatrist and manipulate her into prescribing ever increasing doses and varieties of tranquilizers, downers, sleeping pills. All taken with an OTC chaser of NyQuil, or Benadryl. In her passionate dedication to hibernation, she hopes to find a way to truly wake up.

This novel is so, so dark, and utterly hilarious. You’ll cringe, you’ll laugh, you’ll want to black out for three days and wake up on your couch wearing nothing but a Brazilian bikini wax and a mink coat with broccoli in the pockets.

5/5

Noggy’s Picks

I’ve had the good fortune to read not one, not two, but three fabulous cosmic horror novellas over the last number of weeks, and there are few things I love more than cosmic horror novellas. They hit the sweet spot. Long enough to tell a fleshed out story, short enough to devour in one or two jaw distending gulps without leaving you cramped and bloated. Which happens more frequently than you’d think – especially to hairless guinea pigs – but that’s a different horror entirely, one we totally don’t need to get into right now. Unless you want to? I’m here all night.

Anyways, on with the show.

All three of these are about the monsters within us, either figuratively or literally. In these cases, definitely leaning on the literal side.

Hammers on Bone and A Song for Quiet by Cassandra Khaw

I’ll start with a two-fer, a pair of delightfully dark stories starting off Cassandra’s “Persons Non Grata” series (which I’m now impatiently waiting for more – so chop chop!). This is cosmic horror of the Lovecraftian persuasion, with just enough to anchor you to the mythos.

Hammers on Bone tells the story of a John Persons, a unique private eye cut right out of the detective classics. While there are the elements of that homage you’d expect, it’s just enough to give you a warm fuzzy and not make you roll your eyes and mumble “oh god….” John’s a monster who hunts monsters and the story is solid and excellent with a great hook: A ten-year-old kid hiring him to kill his step-dad. Wow. Not something you see every day.

A Song for Quiet is not a direct sequel, but shares the setting including John Persons in a cool supporting role. This story is a deeper one, more musical than pulpy. Lyrical. Deacon James is a bluesman haunted by a lot of things, including the music in his head that wants, and needs, to get out. Though that’s not a great thing. For him. Or everyone on the planet.

I adore the covers. Black and white and red. Powerful stark imagery. One of the things that drew me to them me when I saw people gushing on Twitter. Where you should definitely follow Cassandra at @casskhaw.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

I’m a slacker. I’ll come right and say it. I’ve been meaning to read this since it came out, but somehow never did. Why? It kept popping up in my “this is your thing, why haven’t you read it yet,” list and yet… Yeah. Anyways, I did read it and I did love it. And now I have The Devil in Silver sitting on my table staring at me, taunting me. I’ll slack less with it. I promise.

The Ballad of Black Tom is a retelling of H. P. Lovecraft’s story “The Horror at Red Hook” through a substantially different lens. I read that original story way way back, and it comes up often as quintessential Lovecraft horribleness, so it was cool to see how Victor turned it on its head.

Tommy Tester aka Black Tom is an interesting fellow, a not so great musician, but with a knack for doing jobs and going into white neighborhoods where his fellows fear to tread. One of these jobs lands him in the sights of a the police and goes swiftly off trail from there. There are some great cosmic horror elements at play, with a spooky old lady that’s obviously way more than she seems, cryptic books, dark cults, a rich occultist, and powers beyond time and space.

I’d highly recommend it, especially for the rich setting and feel of 1920’s New York and the racial conflict which is as real today as it was then (which makes you realize how much HASN’T changed in a century).

Victor is also found on Twitter, at @victorlavalle, and is always worth listening to.

5/5 For the lot

Trace & Solomon: Torrington

~ Noggy

Review by Noggy Splitfoot and Lola Silkysocks

Available at: Amazon, Amazon Canada, Kobo

Torrington

Welcome to Torrington, Alberta. A wide spot in the blacktop, home to the world-famous Gopher Hole Museum above, and a massive convergence of mystical energy below. When a rogue exorcist acquires a soul translocating relic, the Vatican reluctantly – very reluctantly – turns to the only mercenaries capable of taking it back. The hard-drinking, double-crossing, catastrophe-courting mercenaries that sold it to him in the first place.

Trace and Solomon ought to know better. Church work is always a handshake with the Devil, but this time there’s more than money on the line, and it forces them to question what matters most. In this life, and the next.

Noggy Splitfoot: So, why are we interrupting my day drinking again?

Lola Silkysocks: It would be nice if you took our first paying gig seriously, and it’s 10am for Christ’s sake.

N: You got paid?

L: You didn’t? Nevermind. This is the part where we disclose that in exchange for unspecified remuneration, we are providing a fair and unbiased book review that doesn’t “violate community standards” whatever that means.

N: Okay, so it’s a grey market review. Fair and unbiased is overrated. I think I read that in a book, a philosophy book, or maybe it was a Wikipedia article. Everyone lies about these sorts of things. Objectivism is dead.

L: We’re reviewing a book, not objectivism. Focus.

Speaking of grey area, this is a long short story, or a short novella, or something in those murky waters. I can see why they self-published, not like anyone else would.

N: So, short enough to lack guts and long enough to get boring?

L: You can read it in half an hour is what I’m saying. That was probably my favourite part. 

N: Well, the cover has occult symbols and a beaver on it, so I’m thinking it’s about possessed nocturnal, semi-aquatic rodents.

L: Sigh…Noggy, did you read the book?

N: Well, I skimmed the introduction, which made absolutely zero sense, if that’s what you’re asking.

L: You disappoint me, Splitfoot.

N: Because I have better things to do? What are they even paying you? Twenty bucks?

L: No one here is proud. Go read. I’ll wait.

N: Fine. BRB

30 minutes later…

L: Nog?

3 days later…

N: Wow, what the hell did I just read? Not even one beaver.

L: Congratulations on finishing the equivalent of an I Can Read book.

N: Looks like Torrington is a real place. Like a prison for undead Richardson’s ground squirrels and other unwanted farm things.

L: The book is like From Dusk ‘til Dawn meets Little House on the Prairie, except Ma and Pa are evil Catholic clergy, the kids are rabid vermin, and Clooney and Tarantino are a trashy couple of grifters on a perpetual road trip in their shitty Winnebago.

N: The bar in the story didn’t have Salma Hayek. Or Machete.

L: Minus a star for that alone. But I like the idea of an evil ashtray that can capture your soul and funnel it into someone or something else

N: Sure, I guess. What kind of cigarettes would Jesus smoke do you think?

L: Had to have been weed. I mean, no one loves everyone, not that much. But back to the story. Did you find anything…familiar about these characters?

N: I guess Trace and Solomon are sort of like us, only Solomon is a lot older and uglier. Like who wears Hawaiian shirts, likes 80’s rock, and drives a 70’s era Winnebago? Not very relatable if you ask me.

L: Yes, he is 100% unlike you in every conceivable way, and Trace is way more dedicated than I am. That’s a lot of hassle just to get an ashtray back from an evil exorcist. I would have abandoned the quest and gone for tacos.

N: The quest is the whole point, dummy. The story is about Trace and Sol getting to Torrington. They need to gather wards and stuff so they can’t be soul swapped. You see a lot of what their relationship is like.

L: Yeah, about that. Why are they even together? They fight all the time and screw… everything up. They’re going to get each other killed sooner or later. Reminds me of the time we got drunk under a bridge skipping stones and you hit a duck.

N: I’m a hell of a lot luckier than Sol, that’s all I’m going to say about that! At least I didn’t try to catch a duckling for a pet. Trace though, she needs a pet something fierce.

L: A lady needs something fuzzy to cuddle in the night. Speaking of…that sex scene in the graveyard was kinda yikes.

N: Sol finally got to pet a beaver.

L: You mean he got attacked by a badger?

N: Right, that.

L: Why would you pet a beaver?

N: Beaver/Badger, point is these authors are sadistic perverts.

L: They do seem to have an axe to grind. Against the church, flightless birds, and humanity in general. Everyone in this story deserves to be ground into hog feed.

N: At least that feels real! So, what was your favourite part?

L: When the 50-foot gopher attacks downtown Torrington. That was badass.

N: Clem T. GoFur!

I liked the crossroads demon scene. I hope they market Carl plushies. They’d sell dozens, probably make a hell of a lot more than selling eBooks.

L: Yeah, like who is this book even for? I was expecting Christian Tentacle Romance and got this trash. An occult heist story loaded with violence and sex and blasphemy.

N: I don’t even know what genre this is supposed to be. Weird Crap? Probably shouldn’t give it a name. Names have power.

But since they’re sort of paying us, well you, I can’t say it’s bad. I’m also not going to say it’s good. Twenty bucks is worth two stars I guess.

L: -1 Flame. Took too long to arrive in the mail and didn’t look like the picture.

N: We’re doing flames, right, totally forgot about that. They go negative? I thought we reserved imaginary numbers for poets and astrophysicists?

L: Rock bottom is for quitters, and these two brought shovels.

N: I do see they labeled it as #1 in a series

L: One more than anyone asked for, so I guess I’ll close us out on that note of despair. And since I’ve got $20 burning a hole in my skirt, I say we go to Arby’s.

?/5

If It Bleeds by Stephen King

~ Lola

“AMAZING!” ~ slavish fan

“King at his best.” ~ slavish reviewer

“Loved! But the cover sucks.” ~ some dork from goodreads

Before you get mad, I’m not here to drag the King. I read almost everything he wrote up until 2010-ish. Needful Things, Pet Sematery, and Different Seasons are among some of my rare re-reads. I’m possibly the only person out there that really loved Duma Key. And King writes some of the greatest short stories and novellas out there. Apt Pupil is relentless horror on so many levels. The Road Virus Heads North is a master class in punishing suspense in the short form.

But he’s not incapable of mediocrity. Cell, anyone? He’s also a frequent idiot on Twitter, but whatever. Boomers gonna boom. Never meet your heroes. (Also, I haven’t read any of The Dark Tower books. Shut up, I don’t care.)

Now for the review! I picked up If It Bleeds because of the clever cover. I like animals all up in each other. It’s fun. Like the cat-rat version of turducken. Without the third thing. I don’t know what that would be. Maybe a fish or a lizard.

Now the review, for real this time. I was ready to settle into the comfy pair of slippers that is a Stephen King book and If It Bleeds did not disappoint. This book is very King-y. Four novellas containing all his greatest hits. Folksy olds. Poignant moments of loss. A child’s world existing just below the line of adult sight. And, of course, a struggling writer.

I’ll go through one at a time and give my thoughts.

Mr. Harrigan’s Phone

A ghost story for the digital age. Young boy earns a few bucks each week reading the newspaper to a retired finance industry titan. Eventually the old man dies, but not before the boy teaches him how to use an iPhone. Life goes on, but in some ways stays rooted in place where it begins to sicken and rot. It’s a story about grief. In a sense, all the novellas in this collection are about grief, but Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is the most explicit, and it sets the tone nicely. Also harkens back to the advent of the smart phone with a certain nostalgia and horror. This story felt the most fully realized of the four, but the novelty of tech doesn’t make it a novel King story. If an AI was programmed to generate Stephen King stories, this would be one of them.

The Life of Chuck

This one reads almost experimental, like a China Mieville novel. Told in three acts in reverse order, or from the inside out, or from the top down. I don’t know really. Chuck is born, he lives, he dies, and the world he carries within dies with him. I can’t say more than that without spoiling because this one isn’t a thriller chiller. It meanders, and does so delightfully. As a whole the story doesn’t quite take shape the way you sense King wants it to, but that’s why it’s my favourite of the four. It takes a risk and does something King doesn’t normally do. It surprised me.

If It Bleeds

You get the feeling the other stories are just blubber padding out the headliner. I didn’t read The Outsider. I hear it’s good. Maybe I should read it because this one was just okay for me. The premise is cool, a face shifting monster orchestrates a middle school bombing and Holly Gibney is on the case. This is what happens when an author loves his characters too much. This story is indulgent. King tries to get our hearts to bleed for Holly, but I didn’t feel it. She’s basically perfect with a few quirks. He loves her too much to give her actual flaws. It was a fun read, but nothing that resonated on the level I know King is capable of.

The Rat

I’m just going to say it. This story was some dumb shit. A recycled mish mash of Bag of Bones, 1408, and The Secret Window and probably any story where King is clearly writing some externalized version of himself. Writer is having trouble writing. Writer goes to cabin. Writer experiences a strange. Writer makes Bad Deal. Consequences. I kept waiting for King to subvert his own trope, but he doesn’t. If I had to guess, I’d say this was a trunk story he hauled out to meet a page count that would justify a $38 hardcover.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection, and with the exception of The Rat the stories were entertaining. The Life of Chuck was nearly brilliant, and I give King credit for taking that risk, considering the rest of the stories play it incredibly safe. Maybe the cover says it all? We’ve got the cat and mouse (or rat), which is clever if familiar. What’s missing is the third ingredient that surprises and makes the whole thing memorable. If It Bleeds is not bad, Constant Reader, but it’s no turducken.

3/5

Unnerving Magazine Issue #12 – Eddie Generous

~ Noggy

All things change. Some frequently, some not, but it’s good to shake it up once and awhile, see where it takes you. With this latest issue, at the solid dozen mark, Unnerving Magazine does just that. Beyond dark tales of horror and accompanying non-fiction articles and commentary, we’re now blessed with a wide variety of shiny new toys including columns and comics and interviews and book reviews. Let’s dig in, shall we.

Danger’s Failed Film Pitches: This issue has not one, but two hilarious bites of pure, unadulterated Danger Slater giving us a peek at what really goes on in the world of A-List movie pitching. A gift, really, perfect bookends.

First Horror Features: Richard Chizmar, Cat Rambo and Daniel Kraus dish on their earliest horror memories. It’s always cool to see what formative influences authors have.

Too Stubborn to Quit: Eddie has a new column providing hard-learned wisdom on all things writing related – starting with cold story openings. If you want to know how to hook a submissions editor when they’re plowing through an enormous slush pile, this one’s for you.

Cancer and Creativity: A great interview with William Meikle about getting his life and writing jump started after a battle with cancer. William is one of my Rob’s go-to authors for supernatural detectives and cosmic horror, so it’s great to hear that William’s come out on top of it all.

Reviews: A solid collection of novel and anthology reviews including The Skin Factory by Lucas Pederson, which we’re definitely going to be picking up after reading about it.

Jacques: A mini-comic by Eddie and TovanSakura. Not going to spoil it, but it made us laugh.

And some great fiction, of course. Here are some two sentence thoughts:

“Here There be Spyders” by Graham Watkins

Sometimes you have to face your greatest fear. And undoubtably devour it.

“Circle of Lias” by Lawrence C. Connolly

 Is there anything sweeter than a honey-bun? A box of honey-buns!

“It Gets Blacker” by H. Pueyo

And very dark. And deep. An excellent short piece that doesn’t involve eating, but that’s okay.

“Black Brothel: Haunted Holes” by Renee Miller

Well, there’s something strange about Mary. And while ravenous, we’re no longer at all hungry.

 “A Friend in Paga” by Brent Michael Kelley

We’d kill, or worse, for a solid night’s sleep. How about you?

So all in all an excellent refresh, well worth picking up for an extremely reasonable few bucks a year. And while you’re at it, check out the Unnerving Podcast and Unnerving’s fiction offerings.

5/5

About the Editor: Eddie Generous

Eddie Generous is the author of many books, including Savage Beasts of the Arctic Circle, Rawr, Radio Run, Great Big Teeth, and Trouble at Camp Still Waters from Severed Press, Plantation Pan from Omnium Gatherum Books, and numerous story collections. He is the founder/editor/publisher/artist behind Unnerving and Unnerving Magazine, and the host of the Unnerving Podcast. He was born in Ontario, Canada and now lives on the Pacific Coast of Canada with his wife and their cat overlords.

In Dreams We Rot – Betty Rocksteady

~ Noggy

Wow! I feel like I’m a little late to the party on this one, but you know what, the collection is timeless so no matter. I’d seen it bouncing around on social media of course, but it wasn’t until I was catching up on Ink Heist and caught the episode from last November where Betty was talking to Rich about Boy Meets World of all things, that I decided I’d wasted enough time, so I picked it up and dove in.

And yes, wow. I love my horror… well, horrible. As horrible as possible. Full of eye twitching sex and crowbar to the head violence and those little edges that make you feel like having a shower if you didn’t know something wasn’t waiting behind the curtain to siphon out your brain through a straw and fry up your liver without proper medical credentials. Nothing wrong with psychological horror of course, but you can’t beat worrying that the concrete corner you’ve wedged yourself into might not be as impenetrable as you thought. These stories deliver that and more. Weird fucked up dreams, weirder fucked up sex, copious amounts of blood and pretty much every sort of bodily fluid pooling around bits of furry chunks both real and imaginary.

Also, cats.

Cats, as any cat lover knows, are sinister. Alien. Predatorial. Biding their time while plotting world domination. And there’s a ton of cats in these stories. And bones. And art. Betty’s a fantastic artist and obviously had a lot of fun with it, though I’ll probably never look at elephants the same way ever again. So, pretty much perfect.

My favourites? I’m going to with These Beautiful Bones, where basement art takes on a sex life of its own, Root Rot where yeah, we’ve all had a bad hookup, but not THIS bad, Postpartum… having recently visited the Torrington Gopher Hole museum where they exhibit stuffed gophers in domestic environments I totally both get it and am scared shitless, and Larva, Pupa, Moth, where next time you think about scratching that itch, bring a hammer.

So if you haven’t picked it up, brave the quarantine apocalypse and hit your local indie bookstore, curl up under a monster proof blanket in front of a chimney searing fire with your cat, and prepare to be terrified.

5/5

About the Author: Betty Rocksteady

Betty Rocksteady writes cosmic sex horror, cat mythos, and surreal, claustrophobic nightmares.

Her debut novella Arachnophile was part of Eraserhead Press New Bizarro Author Series 2015. Like Jagged Teeth and The Writhing Skies were released by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing. The Writhing Skies was voted Novella of the Year by This Is Horror Awards 2018.

Publisher: Trepidatio Publishing

The Haemophiliac by Tania Donald

~ Lola

The shortest month of the year is Women in Horror Month, and I’d rather not waste time inking out a list of scary ladies that’s mostly all the scary ladies you already know and are maybe dead (to all the horror bros proud of having read Shirley Jackson and Charlotte Gilman, I see you, here’s your cookie). Instead I’ll turn my tentacles to the ones doing amazing work not many people are talking about. Octoclot asks so little of you, so consider this humble request. Read Tania Donald. Do it now.

The protagonist of this historical gothic novella is the young and vulnerable Fraulein Klein. A seamstress desperate to turn her life around and climb out of the pit of poverty. Desperate enough to take job as a governess at a remote estate in the Black Forest. One year. For a suspiciously outsized sum. One year and she can afford to start her life over and take back the baby daughter she was forced to give up. In Fraulein Klein, Donald shows us a heroine battered by life but with enough steel in her to keep trying, for good or ill.

On arrival Klein is greeted by a haggard housekeeper who remarks on Klein’s scrawny appearance and immediately insists on feeding her, though not in a particularly kindly way. As Klein eats her first hot meal in an age, the housekeeper sets out the rules. She must remain in the child’s room at all times. She must eschew color, especially red. She must never ever allow the child to handle anything sharp, like a pin or a needle as she’s a hemophiliac, and the slightest prick will have her bleeding to death, the fate that befell her twin sister.

This novella is the epitome of a slow burn, punctuated with increasingly hot flare ups. What I particularly appreciated was the skill with which Donald developed the deep inner life of her protagonist. Complex characterization is so often lacking in the horror genre, especially in short stories and novellas, but Donald nails it. She also takes the time to develop those elements that make a story resonate past the final page. Things like theme, subtext, and symbolism, all through carefully chosen language and structure. The writing is sophisticated which elevates The Haemophiliac, in my unapologetically snobby opinion, to the level of literary horror.

Nothing is what it seems in this web of white lace nestled in the Black Forest. This is not the story of a sick child, but a story of what we carry in our blood, a legacy of betrayal and deception, the twin curse of lust and hunger. Traps of our own weaving. You are what you are, and no matter where you go you cannot escape yourself.

4/5

The Broken Hours, by Jacqueline Baker

~ Lola

This historical novel is a ghost story set in a maze of nested aliases. At its core, it questions the concept of identity. Who are we? Does that change depending on who we’re with? Who are we when we’re alone?

Arthor Crandle is a man fallen on hard times, a grieving father with an estranged wife. He’s travelled to Providence, Rhode Island to take a position as a personal assistant to a reclusive writer, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Once installed in the house, supposedly shared with a few other mystery tenants, he is consumed by the mystery of his employer’s past and drawn to the gregarious young actress living in the apartment downstairs.

In the well-established Lovecraftian tradition, Baker’s narrative is suffused with a gloomy nihilistic dread. Set in Spring – my least favourite season, muddy and cold – it rains constantly, the ocean is a repulsive set piece reeking of sewage, and the people are dour and suspicious. One gets the impression that nothing in this story will end far from where it started, and even if it did, nothing much will change as a result, because we are simply too insignificant to move that cosmic needle.

Arthor goes about his work, maintaining the household, transcribing handwritten manuscript pages, and communicating with H.P. primarily through letters. All the while Crandle is unravelling, seeing a ghostly little girl in the garden at night, hearing screams from the study, and encountering an oppressive malevolence stalking the halls. His one source of solace in a storm of confusion and despair is Flossie, the actress, though she too grows more and more insubstantial as the days press on.

It all comes back to the names, the aliases. Baker skillfully uses names as metaphor for the stories we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it. Who are you? Using beautiful language and clever subtext, she builds a new mythology around an already somewhat mythical figure, and slowly, mercilessly, strips it away.

4/5

The Nightshade Cabal

~ Noggy

Strange things are afoot in 1880’s Halifax, the likes of which you’ve never seen. Isaac Barrow – full time technomancer and inventor, part time investigator, and, I think, aspiring curmudgeon (if he lives long enough) – is thrust head first into the thick of the action against the sinister necromantic Nightshade Cabal while searching for a missing young lady.

Isaac is a resourceful fellow, it must be said, clever yet fallible, with both old friends and new watching his back, but that might not be enough to see him through when his poking around dredges up enemies possibly higher than his pay grade. But that’s half the fun, seeing if he’s up to the challenge. The other half is, of course, immersing one’s self in a magical, steampunk infused Halifax. A place of light and darkness, shadow and intrigue.

A fabulous first novel for Chris, well worth picking up. And of course, be sure to check out a pair of short stories featuring our stalwart technomancer: “A Murder at Carleton House” in Enigma Front: Burnt (Analemma Books, August 2016) and “The Wolfville Horror” in in Enigma Front: The Monster Within (Analemma Books, August 2017).

I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of Isaac Barrow, and for that I’m glad.

5/5

About the Author: Chris Patrick Carolan

Chris Patrick Carolan is an author, editor, and hovercraft enthusiast whose stories have appeared in the Enigma Front anthology series (Analemma Books, ExitZero Books), 49th Parallels: Alternative Canadian Histories and Futures (Bundoran Press), Baby, It’s Cold Outside (Coffin Hop Press), and Alchemy & Artifacts: Tesseracts 22 (EDGE Science Fiction).

Publisher: The Parliament House

Bunny, by Mona Awad

~ Lola

My name is Octoclot, and I read literary fiction. I read more literary fiction than genre fiction. I’m a snob and I’m not sorry. That said, there’s nothing better than sinking my tentacles into the juicy unicorn that is the literary genre novel, and Bunny fits that bill perfectly.

I’d read Awad’s previous novel, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, and didn’t much like it. So I wouldn’t have read Bunny if I hadn’t attended a reading and fallen in love with Awad’s voice. Seriously smooth. I’d also recently read The Secret History (yes, I’m late to most parties), and the parallels intrigued me. I mean, Bunny.

Samantha is a scholarship student enrolled in a creative writing program at an elite liberal arts university (shades of Tartt and Ellis). Desperately poor and lonely, she’s recruited into a cult of beautiful women in her workshop that dress like little girls, eat miniature food, hug for hours, braid each other’s hair, and call each other Bunny.

Naturally, a cruel obsession lurks beneath the glossy cupcake frosting. In an MFA program fixated on the concept of ‘the body’, deconstructing it in their workshop to the point of meaninglessness, the Bunnies have summoned the power to create life, to create a boy, from a bunny. Though not exactly boys, they’re rough work, malformed drafts. Built to serve until required to ponder a sense of self and then they unravel (or explode, in the more gruesome scenes). They seem to think that Samantha, their unrefined, emotionally wooden newbie, has what it takes to do better, to create a real boy.

In this bizarre story described as The Secret History meets Mean Girls, the juxtaposition of the saccharine with the sinister evokes a dreamlike dread that’s hard to shake. Samantha is more disturbed that you think. The Bunnies, more hollow. The drafts, more calamitous. Make no mistake, this is a horror novel, an erotic horror novel, masquerading as literary fiction.

One of my favourite things about Bunny is the mythic references. We’ve got swans, lambs, wolves, and rabbits. The best part is the complete lack of subtlety. I mean, they go to Warren College for Christ’s sake, and there is almost literally a big bad wolf. Lit fic values nothing so much as metaphorical murk and obfuscation, and to see it explicitly splashed across the page in such an outsized way is terrifically fun. She also refers to poets as Lizard People. Seriously Mona, I feel seen.

And the end, oh the end! No spoilers, but the climax bricked me right in the heart. Let’s just say there are worse things than someone you love dying. And the more beautiful the lie, the more tragic the truth.

For this reader, Bunny was not about mean girls. Or classism. Or the ridiculousness of MFA culture. It’s about desire and loneliness, and the lengths we’ll go just to be loved. Without sentimentality, Awad suggests that perhaps that’s all we’re made for.

5/5

The Arby’s S’mores Milkshake Experience

~ Lola

Sometimes Lola Silkysocks wants to go where nobody knows her name and the feature milkshake is orange. Where Picasso prints line the walls, an annoyed shift worker slouches behind the counter, and the place is usually a graveyard. Until it’s not.

After the Garlic Butter Steak Sandwich catastrophe, I’d learned my lesson to not experiment at Arby’s, to just order my goddamn beef n’ cheddar and enjoy the fuck out of it under the sallow cubist gaze of the deserted dining room.

I do not peruse the menu. I know what I want. Noggy and I place our orders. The bored cashier asks if there’s anything else. I swear it’s another voice coming out of my mouth.

“I’ll have a S’mores Milkshake.”

As you may or may not know, Noggy has two glares. There’s affectionate exasperation or I suffer you to live, and they’re functionally identical. Though after the way I carried on about the buttered steak, you can guess which one this was.

How to describe the S’mores Milkshake? It makes you wonder things you never wondered before, like, “What are marshmallows supposed to taste like?” When a marshmallow forward milkshake prompts this question, you know you’re in shark infested waters and Terry is about to offer you a shrimp.

I slurp some more. There are chunks. I’m 60% sure they’re graham crackers. A vague thrill of chocolate runs through the whole business, though little more than it takes to lull you into a false sense of trust.

Meanwhile people are wandering into Arby’s by the dozen. Boomers ordering coffee, bougie boxing week shoppers, a mom berating her small child like she’s his parole officer. Arby’s employees leap into unprecedented levels of animation. The meat trays empty and full baskets of curly fries sizzle in their vats. Metaphysical laws are being broken. This is Arby’s. The very gates of Purgatory. No one comes here intentionally. But it is the season for Deadly Sins, and I’m heavily distracted by this confusing confection that is the S’mores Milkshake.

Eventually it had to happen. “Hey Nog, try this.”

In my defense, he didn’t have to drink the whole thing. But he did, and he can tell you the rest…

It should be obvious, if you’ve been paying attention, that Lola has this thing about trying ‘new’ and ‘possibly interesting’ items on the menu at our vintage Picasso adorned local Arby’s. Undeterred by the nightmare that was the Garlic Butter Steak Sandwich, and ravenous after running for thirty days straight, she swore they couldn’t possibly fuck up a milkshake.

Yeah.

I should have known something was up when Lola had a couple sips, pushed it across the table, and said “Try this.” She had that look in her eye. That glazed look. The kind you get when you’re teetering on the edge of a coma. And it wasn’t so much an offering, as a challenge. Sadly, I can’t resist a challenge, or any eatable substance jammed in my face.

Well, I’m going to come right out and say it. It’s not that it’s… bad. And not that it’s… good. It’s just… sickly sweet. Like you used a Christmas elf to clean your teeth with and then washed it down with liquid marshmallow juice. While it does taste vaguely S’more’ish (as any combination of graham cracker, chocolate, and marshmallow tends to) it’s a pale imitation of the actual heavenly camping staple.

Regrets? So many. Within minutes, my stomach began to gurgle. Within an hour, I was little more than a perturbed sea cucumber, nastily expelling both my stomach and twenty feet of large intestine, while hastily scrawling my last will and testament on three sheets of toilet paper I couldn’t actually spare.

Will I drink it again? Uncertain. I guess that depends on if she thrusts it in my face next year.

Noggy and Lola went back and forth on a flame rating and ultimately split the difference between the not totally terrible flavour profile and post-shake warp core ejection.

2/5

Arby’s Garlic Butter Steak Sandwich

~ Lola

When it comes time for The Seventh Terrace Strategic Planning meeting, there’s only one place to go. Conveniently located directly across from Starbucks, midway between Purgatory Towers and the Factory. Yes, I’m talking about the much-maligned Arby’s. Willing our dreams into reality, one quarterly meatcraft gorging at a time.

Here’s the thing about Arby’s, kids. We’re not saying it’s the best. The menu is semi-monstrous. They have a weird selection of pseudo-Greek items for some reason, and their usual feature milkshake is orange. The ambience is total ass. Vinyl. Plastic. Wretchedly faded impressionist prints. But the primal satisfaction and sensual flavours? Curly fries? Half pound Beef n’ Cheddar sandwiches? They’re goddamn delicious, so stop lying to yourselves and the world. It’s okay to love Arby’s. We do, and we’re not sorry.

My point, and of course I have one, is that nothing that will make you want to throw up your hands and let it all burn like Arby’s new Garlic Butter Steak Sandwich.

WHAT. THE. HELL?

No one asked for fine dining, Arby’s. No one asked for anything with an identifiable organic origin or visible grain. No one asked for steak. We like our meat in grey-brown tatters crumpled under a blanket of hot cheese.

Arby’s has never disappointed me before, and when that happens, you really take stock of all the choices that led you to that moment. Staring down a ciabatta bun (I’ve had it with all the different buns, but that’s another review) piled with uniform strips of steak, lettuce, tomato, and a thin drool of garlic butter. If only it was vile. That would be easier to process emotionally. But it was fine. It was devastating. It was no Beef n’ Cheddar. My darlings, at this juncture I must remind you that Octoclot loves food and requires frequent feedings but I left this abomination not even half eaten on the tray. Not even Horsey Sauce could save it. Even the glorious curly fries couldn’t lift my spirits.

I can’t blame Arby’s. They’re taking risks, a quality I admire. This one is on me. There’s a time and a place to experiment with food, and Arby’s is not it. That steak sandwich broke my heart.

2/5

A Body of Work, Colleen Anderson

~ Noggy

Colleen Anderson is one of those versatile authors who can write in any form and any genre and you know it’ll be solid, entertaining, and probably oddly disturbing, even if you’re not entirely sure how or why.

This collection from Black Shuck Books is case in point, sixteen short stories spanning the gamut of science fiction, dark fantasy, urban fantasy, cyberpunk, and outright horror. As with any collection, some stories claw into your brain more than others, but I enjoyed them all, even the ones that left me thinking WTF.

My favourites? In no particular order: The Collector (I loved how the elemental magic worked, and I’m a sucker for soul reaping spirit stories), The Blade (who doesn’t enjoy a self serving intelligent sword?), A Book By It’s Cover (Virtual nirvanas are never what they seem and really, really be careful what you wish for, it might come true), Red (There’s ALWAYS a bigger predator in the forest), Season’s End/The Brown Woman (A pair of excellent Green Man tales), and The Book With No End (A little Indiana Jones, a lot ‘this is going in a very sinister direction and I’m not sure what direction that is.. exactly.’).

Great stuff – track down a copy, worm your way into your blanket tent, and prepare to be entertained.

4/5

The Author: Colleen Anderson

The Publisher: Black Shuck Books

Dreams of Lake Drukka & Exhumation, by Mike Thorn

~ Noggy

If you’re looking for someone to deliver impactful short sharp shocks, you’ve come to the right place. Mike Thorn has crafted two delightfully dreadful stories demonstrating that family secrets are best kept buried and once you leave home, there’s no going back.

Dreams of Lake Drukka: Two sisters return to the scene of a sinister family mystery and learn the true price for success.

I loved the sister’s strained, yet connected, relationship with both each other and their father, and the atmosphere built up as they discover what’s waiting for them in that cold, grasping lake.

Exhumation: A man returns home after many years to attend a family funeral – and gets way more than he bargained for.

This one is creepy as hell and reminded me why the next funeral I’ll go to is probably my own. Really. Don’t go to funerals and talk to people you don’t remember. Don’t!

Mike impressed me with his fabulous collection Darkest Hours, and these two tales are a solid addition to his body of work. Well worth your time! (and while you’re at it, check out the rest of the Short Sharp Shock’s series – great stuff)

5/5

About the Author: Mike Thorn

Mike Thorn is the author of the short story collection Darkest Hours.

His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies and podcasts, including Dark Moon Digest, The NoSleep Podcast, DarkFuse, Unnerving Magazine, Turn to Ash and Tales to Terrify. His film criticism has been published in MUBI Notebook, The Film Stage, The Seventh Row, Bright Lights Film Journal and Vague Visages. 

He completed his M.A. with a major in English literature at the University of Calgary, where he wrote a thesis on epistemophobia in John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness. 

Publisher: Demain Publishing

Only Pretty Damned, by Niall Howell

~ Noggy

Who doesn’t love clowns? Oh right… Well, better question. Who doesn’t love those small, cool circuses and carnivals that rolled into town periodically when you were a child (and yes, I’m assuming everyone reading this is both ‘this’ tall and ‘this’ old -> points to to the wooden cutout of a cartoon character)? You know the ones I mean. If you close your eyes you can still still smell the popcorn and the elephants, imagine the aerialists and the knife throwers and, yes, the clowns.

Rowland’s World Class Circus. You see the sign and know you’re in for a real treat. And you are entertained! How could you not be. Every performer a talented professional. You especially love the warm up for the main event. Freddy Folly. A clown’s clown. Once a headliner on the trapeze, but… well, let’s just say it’s complicated.

Toby (Freddy) has been with the circus a hell of a long time. He has his ups, his downs. Drinks entirely too much (but hey, it’s a stressful job). And knows things. Dark things. About the circus. About other performers. About himself. And he knows most of all, he wants back on the trapeze. One way or another. It’s noir, however. Carnival Noir. So the going is going to be rough.

I love the atmosphere of this book. The feel of it. All the bits oozing out as the character’s populating the story come alive, transporting me to a different time, though definitely not a simpler time. So next time you see a clown, wonder what he or she is thinking of under that makeup, understand that they probably aren’t plotting your unfortunately demise – but if they are, you probably deserve it.

4/5

Hollow Kingdom, by Kira Jane Buxton

~ Lola

Stories told from the point of view of animals are a hard sell. Usually it feels like a gimmick, or a lazy way to gain reader sympathy because, y’know, animals. I’m a bit of a monster, it’s true, but not an animal-hating monster. Except for birds. Don’t like ’em. Especially owls, those feathered ghouls are terrifying.

Anyway, this story is told largely from the POV of a crow.

And I freaking loved it!

Described as Walking Dead meets The Incredible Journey, this novel is a crow’s eye view of the zombie apocalypse. There’s a message about tech addiction, environmental conservation, and even an animal analogue of the current human discussion around gender identity, but it plays out organically.

Through S.T. (short for Shit Turd), we get a foul-mouthed corvid’s meditations on humanity, survival, and the interconnectedness of everything. Hollow Kingdom is horribly funny, tense as hell, and bursting with heart and hope.

4/5

Wounds, by Nathan Ballingrud

~ Lola

An unsettling collection of the dark fantastic starting off with a jaunt through the swamps to retrieve a terrifying artifact of Hell and ending up in the water again with a historical pirate novella tying off the collection. First off, I love short stories. I love ‘em. Horror lends itself particularly well to the short form and this collection is a solid example of why shorts rule and novels drool (and I say that as a novelist, so take it with a pillar of salt). Secondly, as with any collection, I had favourites and less favourites, but overall, Wounds is tight.

“Atlas of Hell” has moments of visceral dread at an intensity I’ve rarely felt in fiction, and the imagery in this story absolutely kills. “Visible Filth” (recently adapted to film) is body and tech horror in one. I’ve never found the idea of “angels among us” to be of much comfort and now I know why. Yuck. My favourite of the bunch was “Skullpocket”. One of those gems where you spend most of the story wondering what the damn hell is going on and slowly, so slowly, like stitches ripping out one at a time, you get it. Giving details would ruin the magic; I’ll only say that particularly in “Skullpocket” and “The Diabolist”, Nathan Ballingrud reads like nihilist Neil Gaiman and I am 100% here for it. At the same time, there’s tenderness in these stories. Between parents and children, childhood friends, struggling lovers, even strangers thrown together by desperate circumstance as in “The Maw”.

Horror is tricky. It needs to check a lot of boxes to work, and Wounds pulls it off. These stories are not keep your light on at night scary. They’re look over your shoulder in the middle of the day and wonder what dark worlds are rubbing against the skin of our own. If you’re a fan of horror and wonder in equal suffocating measure, you’ll love this book.

4/5

Hot or Not?

Featured ~ Lola

We review books, music, trail races, deep sea creatures, colours on the visible spectrum, and whatever else we feel like, on a rating scale of one to five sin-purging flames.