I’ve read a lot of creature features over the last few years, but Christine Morgan’s Trench Mouth goes bigger, goes bloodier, goes deeper that any of the others which is simultaneously its greatest strength but also where it might not quite hit the mark with all readers. 

So what’s it all about? We have giant sea creatures and we have scientists carrying out genetic mutations on willing volunteers in a secret subsea research station… In fact, there’s so much going on it’s quite difficult to know where to start, and it feels as though Morgan had that problem too, with the first five or six chapters all being titled ‘How it begins..?’ And while forward momentum is a little slow at first as we rush through a series of parallel events, we get treated to Morgan’s fantastic prose. Having enjoyed Morgan’s White Death a couple of years back, I knew I was in safe hands in that regard. You immediately feel immersed in the world, even if you’re not quite sure how it all comes together. 

The vast majority of Trench Mouth’s action takes place far beneath the waves in and around a research station called Fathom Five which is located close to the Mariana Trench. Early in the novel, a group of eight volunteers are making their way to this research station for the purpose of some kind of mysterious experiment they’ve signed up to. The details of this are unknown to the volunteers, and only drip-fed to us through conversations between the scientists, which keeps this element intriguing. Each of the volunteers has a good reason to want to escape their life and volunteer for something which could alter their bodies in unknown ways. Reggie is a surfer whose reputation has been ruined after he shared a video of a group of dolphins getting a little frisky with his girlfriend (which later leads to one of the most bizarre presentations of dolphins I’ve ever read); Hunter and Tanner are the You-TuBros, a pair of vloggers constantly seeking more extreme adventures; Nikos and Ellen are deep-sea divers with a dark secret; Lenka is an former Olympian seeking to adapt to become better still; George is ex-military; and Shandee is a former performing ‘mermaid’ forced out under the misguided belief that there are no black mermaids. Each character is well developed (well Hunter and Tanner come as a pair) so they all feel genuine, and the decisions that the make are logical, which is all too often a failure in this type of story. 

Before we get to their experiments and their transformation, we get to meet some of the extraordinary creatures beneath the waves including an enormous whale, the oldest turtle in existence, a gigantic squid and most extraordinarily, a ginormous anglerfish. Some of these creatures even get their own POV chapters, which helps us to understand them better. One aspect that really stands out is the level of research that has gone into this work. Morgan knows her stuff when it comes to these creatures and it shows here. Their anatomy, their habits, feel authentic here, even if their size is extraordinary. The fact that it’s humans encroaching on their domain is not lost here either. If anything, we get a little too much exploration of the threats, and it’s the only point the pace slows a little too much. 

On Fathom Five to add to our volunteers, we also have a cast of characters, starting with the mastermind before it all, Dr Yale. She comes across as more than just your archetypal mad scientist, though that is definitely her purpose. Vance is the head of security, and when he’s on the page there’s usually tension, especially between him and the volunteers. We also have those that pilot the sub-sea vessels, scientists and cooks, but of all of those, the most interesting are Raf and Hobbs. They’re an odd pair of scientists observing the process, often seeing things in different ways. Hobbs is obsessed with Lord of the Rings, and his dialogue with Raf is always entertaining. 

All of these characters and factors lead to the novels biggest weakness. We’re over 50% of the way through the novel before we see our volunteers, our guinea pigs, our ‘sea monkeys’ as they’re dubbed, in action with their newly developed skills and mutations. That’s not to say that what goes before isn’t of interest or doesn’t move along with a decent pace. We have a rather lengthy episode in which Fathom Five comes under attack from the giant squid, and as much as I enjoyed this, at this point I wanted to know what was going to happen to our genetic experiments.

Most of the characters involved here are minor characters, so while the writing remains engaging, while the scenes are full of action and carnage, I wasn’t as invested as I was in the story of the volunteers, and when I got to those genetic mutations, I was rewarded. Each of the volunteers mutates in a slightly different way that relates to their personality. Lenka’s mutations, for example, fit with her desire to gain greater speed. The pace only picks up in this second half. As formerly mentioned, we start with a high number of characters, and by this point we’ve thinned the herd a little. By the close, the body count only rises, some as result of our genetic mutations, some as result as the other threats in the water. 

Throughout, the writing is excellent, whether that be the description that brings this underwater world to life, the dialogue, or the fast-paced action. The structure of the novel takes us through multiple viewpoints, and it always feels like Morgan is making the right choice in who takes us through a particular scene.

All too often we see writers take short cuts when they write a creature feature. They decide their characters are only there to be slaughtered, that their monster is there to be a menace and nothing more. That’s not the case with Trench Mouth. While Morgan starts with a stereotype in some regards, she makes the characters and the creatures here real. That’s not to say this forgets its B-movie origins. At times, Trench Mouth is hilarious. It’s clear Morgan had fun with the dialogue with these characters as they throw in one-liners at appropriate times. The inspiration of ridiculous action movies is clear too with some over-the-top scenes, but never to the extent where it becomes a parody. I found myself smiling as I was reading so many scenes here, and sometimes grimacing too, because when it starts to get gory there are chunks flying all over the place.
​
If you’re after a shallow dip in the waters, this might not be the book you’re looking for, but if you’re ready to plunge into the depths seeking huge creatures threatening the work of mad-scientists, if you’re looking for human-fish genetic mutations butting heads (and fins) and if you’ve been screaming out for a more developed creature-feature, Trench Mouth will give you plenty to get your teeth into. 

Fathom Five … a state-of-the-art oceanic research facility, suspended far below the surface. There, in the dark and the deep, a team of top-notch scientists study the ecosystems and denizens of an aquatic environment as alien as another planet.

There, they also conduct illicit experiments upon hapless human subjects, with the goal of giving our species a chance to adapt to a changing world. Or, at the very least, to create mutant freaky fish-people, because, why not?

Oh, the arrogance and hubris of genius! Oh, the freaky things that already dwell in the strange, hostile depths! In the cold, crushing, silent pressure of a blackness lit only by eerie bioluminescence. Things that don’t take kindly to intruders Things that are ancient, and enormous, and hungry.

Things like … TRENCH MOUTH.
Think Sea Lab of Dr. Moreau meets Jersey Shore, plus enough gore and body parts to fill entire coal hoppers; add to that, Morgan’s uniquely visual style that rams it all in our faces in glorious Technicolor.
—Ed Lee, White Trash Gothic

This is exactly the kind of book I love. Supersonic pacing. Blood spilled on every page. A grisly weird-science techno-thriller set in the crushing stygian darkness, Morgan’s Trench Mouth lures you in and leaves you gasping.
—Lee Murray, three-time Bram Stoker nominee, and author of Into the Mist

Well first of I was not looking forward to putting my thoughts on this book into words and I would struggle to give it a star rating. This is not because it is a bad book, in fact three of the main leads kept me engaged for 500 odd pages. It is just not easy to describe without spoiling the plot and it was not what I expected.
    

The plot focuses primarily on four main characters that are all connected. One is a secret organisations homicidal operative, the other three are prisoners in an under ground bunker run by the organisation. The plot expands but I don’t want to spoil the fun.
    

The three prisoners are all fascinating and kept me engaged. The organisations secret agent and his colleagues- well not so much. Bliss somehow managed to write boring psychopathic murderers, I’m not sure how but I suspect it is because they belong to an all powerful organisation and are above the law and the consequences of their actions. Sort of like super villains in a super villain club that can do whatever they want and that just isn’t very interesting. I wanted to see these super villains go down horribly, torn apart by literary dogs. I wanted to see the organisation burn. Things didn’t go as I hoped and this let it down for me, especially at the end. Bliss has a message permeating through Fear, involving War, freedom, the War on Terror, shady manipulation and the shit government agencies get away with to suit their own agenda. I liked this about the novel, but it meant the evil largely lived on without suffering.
    

I particularly enjoyed the narrative of the female prisoner Stitch and her revenge, I also liked Mahmoud’s narrative and the stories of his experiences. John Doe, whilst his story and the mystery around him was interesting, I felt his hallucinations were predictable. His last hallucination, if it was one however, was beautiful-
‘I love you because I murdered you. We worship those we kill, and who kill us in return.’


Just beautiful but I won’t spoil it for you. Something else I liked was the total lack of romance in the plot.
    

All in all, Fear is a gripping book with its secrets and hidden messages that aren’t fully realized until the very end. I would have liked to have seen more evil blood being spilt far more horribly, but I understand why it wasn’t. I would have also liked to have seen more rebellion from the three prisoners and a different ending, but I think Bliss went for far realer and more probable actions and reactions to situations.    

​Nurse Stitch has her mouth sewn shut and her memory erased.

John Doe has undergone 'nightmare surgery', his memory also erased, replaced by crippling trauma and delusions.

Mahmoud Farouz is a captured insurgent from Iraq who is going to be used by a special Black Op organization to make America feel fear again.

When these three prisoners of a secret underground torture facility band together to escape, they cannot realize that not only has their torture been orchestrated, but so too will be their path to freedom.

The pitch for this novella sounds like the start of a joke: a cowboy, a vampire and a ghost walk into a bar...

This line should let you know what kind of a book you are in for. Dover has written a fast-paced, blood soaked western and filled it with vampires, ghosts and some kind of demon that likes to collect the teeth of its victims and make tea out them (the teeth that is, not the victims). On a superficial level this is all kinds of awesome and is a great premise for the book.

Dover gets us straight into the action with the opening chapters hurtling us through a bar fight, a death, a resurrection, a ghost and enough back story to fill another book. The pace doesn’t let up throughout, with short chapters (some frustratingly so) driving the story forward. I read the whole thing in three days, and this compulsion to keep reading is a strong positive.

Now, as a rule, I am not a fan of big books as they can be repetitive or too slow. This is a very short book, just a couple of hundred pages long, but it would have been absolutely amazing had it been longer.

For example, Samuel and Finn are two vampires with a massive history that is explained in a few pages. There is more than enough story there for a whole book which would have deepened their relationship and given more weight to the story. Similarly, William has a great past that is begging to be expanded: the former gunslinger, now drunk and living off the memory of those glory years. He’s also haunted by a kid he killed.

This is a recurring issue throughout the book: we are told things about these characters, rather than experiencing them. As a result, it is all tell, with very little show, and so it hard to feel any empathy or sympathy with the horrible things Dover unleashes on his cast.

The book reads like a pitch for a film (which would be awesome – a ghost, a vampire, a cowboy?? Come on, who doesn’t want to see that!), which is no bad thing. However, I was left wanting more.
​
So, to sum up, this is a decent if unfulfilling, read.

My bio 
David Watkins lives in Devon in the UK with his wife, two sons, dog, cat and two turtles. He is unsure of his place in the pecking order: probably somewhere between the cat and the turtles. 
​
He has currently released three novels, (The Original’s Return, The Original’s Retribution and The Devil’s Inn) and has a short story in the werewolf anthology Leaders of The Pack.  His most recent release is the short story Rhitta Gawr available as part of the Short Sharp Shocks! Series from Demain Publishing.


Website: www.david-watkins.com 
Twitter: @joshfishkins 
Amazon: author.to/DavidWatkins ​

Let me just get all my walking-related puns out of the way as quick as I can: there's more than a sole reason to buy this collection of 13 stories, which sometimes toe the line in terms of genre conventions, but rarely take a step wrong. I'd only read a couple of Kev Harrison stories before this, and you were wandering about quality like I was, I can say that heel definitely entertain you with this book.


With a brief introduction from the author, as well as some thoughtful notes about each story's inception and publication history at the back end, this is a well-put together collection of interesting concepts and decent chills. Ironically enough, the first couple of stories do feel like paths that have been trodden before, the first echoing 90's action movie Hard Target and its many knock-offs; the second bearing similarities to Minority Report, both seen through more of a British lens. After that, the stories branch into more original takes on themes of identity and destiny, obsession and cruelty. Human horrors features alongside things that go bump in the night, troublesome mould, unsavoury savouries and more. There's even a story from the forbidden subgenre of pizza horror.


As entertaining as the stories are, some do stretch on for what feels like a bit too long, sometimes repeating themselves before getting to the meat of the matter. The characters are often more fleshed out in these longer pieces though, with those featuring in the shorter stories left to react to whatever's happening instead of sticking around long enough to pluck at your heart strings.


And while there's not an overarching theme to tie all the stories together, the majority generally adhere to the “character gradually discovers something” template, which means the stand-out pieces – the bloody gunfights and bizarre rituals delivered in Communion, the epistolary style employed in Reasons for my Abscondence – stand out mostly because they don't follow that formula so strictly. Those that do occasionally squander their frights by piling on more story well after genre-savvy readers might have figured out the twists, while others deliver short, sharp shocks and the odd burst of pitch black humour.


Overall, this is a solid book, perhaps not as varied as other single-author collections, but that may be because the previously-published pieces are all pulled from publications published quite close to one another, over the past 3 years or so. I'd be interested to see another collection spanning a greater number of years, to see how Harrison's style adapts to the times, and to see what other chilling terrors his mind can conjure up.

The debut collection from Kev Harrison, author of THE BALANCE, this tome brings together tales of ghosts in the machine, folkloric creatures let loose, abandoned places and dystopian nightmares. Containing thirteen stories - three of which are previously unpublished, with three others never before available in print, take your first tentative step onto the PATHS BEST LEFT UNTRODDEN. Early praise for PATHS BEST LEFT UNTRODDEN:

​
'The breadth and depth of imagination showcased here invite comparison with classics like King’s Night Shift, as well as more recent releases like Tananarive Due’s Ghost Summer. But Harrison, ultimately, dances to the beat of a drum that’s all his own.' - TC Parker, author of SALT BLOOD, A PRESS OF FEATHERS and SALVATION SPRING

'Kev Harrison's fiction disturbs and unsettles readers in equal measure. His stories smoulder in your mind, horrific burning embers. Don't take your eyes off this writer, he's getting better and better.' – Dan Howarth, author of DARK MISSIVES

With lines like “The chainsaw felt more right in her hands than food or water” (“The Saw House” by Shannon Brady), grindhouse-themed Violent Vixens promises its readers a rollicking fun ride, and sure enough, it is. In this newest release from editor Aric Sundquist, fifteen authors point their sniper scopes directly at the feminist exploitation horror wave and inject it with new life in high octane stories that range from paranormal to science fiction.

Having read multiple works from Scotty Milder in the past, I knew the first entry in the pack, “The Whole Price of Blood,” would be a shotgun blast, and the author did not disappoint. What begins as a seemingly traditional revenge-porn set up—Abigail, a victims’ advocate, listens to the statement of a sexual assault survivor under the sterile lights of a hospital room—shifts quickly into overdrive, casting some iconic imagery from apocalyptic folklore in a new, and more sinister, role. Milder is at fighting weight here, crafting a new breed of heroine as the tale tumbles gleefully into creature splattergore. As is true for many of the storylines in Vixens, there is room for a sequel, but I’d love to see the author expand this one into a full-length screenplay.

Continuing the bloodfest are exceptional entries from Rob E. Boley and Matt Neil Hill. Boley’s “What the Bone Says” takes the prize as the most ghastly of all of Vixen’s storylines: a woman survives unspeakable torture only to transform into a primal monster of her own, a femur from another victim her only confidant. In Hill’s “The Parts that Hurt Me the Most,” the last of a foursome of renegades maneuvers through a bus station carrying a suitcase full of body parts. How she arrived there with her gruesome cargo beats any desperado on the lam tale I can recall.

If supernatural horror is your preference, two Vixen standouts are Adrian Ludens’ “Animate Objects” and Paul Magnan’s “The Course of One’s Life on Fire.” The women in prison trope saturated grindhouse movies of the early 70s. In Ludens’ tale, when a new inmate corners Debra into explaining why she is housed in a cell all by herself, she’s not prepared for the story she hears. It’s one of Debra’s life before incarceration, where seemingly innocuous objects dart about the room on their own accord. Ludens’ pacing is whipsmart methodical, endearing the seemingly innocent Debra to the reader until the very last act. If you’ve ever wondered what little Charlie McGee’s life might have been like as Stephen King’s pyrokinetic wunderkind negotiated adulthood—or what happens when a housewife’s patience comes to a violent end—Paul Magnan offers an insider’s peek. The resulting story is a vision board for anyone who has haggled with an endlessly annoying neighbor. You’ll be using the tale as a mantra to keep from strangling that person who cut you off in traffic.

There is something for every horror aficionado in Vixens, even a taste of bizarro fiction. In “Finger Lickin’ Bad” by Nik Patrick, Kim is new to country living, a farm town transplant from San Francisco. When she visits the local feed store and chick hatchery, she quickly learns that toppling those who perch at the pinnacle of the food chain can be a nightmarish (and delightfully absurdist) experience. Bonus points to Patrick for a fun exchange about 1950s screen sirens at the end.
​
My hands-down favorite of the collection is Gwendolyn Kiste’s “Sister Glitter Blood” for two reasons. First, in lieu of the traditional narrative format, Kiste presents the story as a board game tutorial, a set of instructions to twin sisters on how to play the nefarious Sister Glitter Blood (complete with the registered trademark symbol), including sections titled Equipment, Rules of Play, and The Winner. Second, Kiste’s voice is simply genius here, evoking amusement, heartbreak, and suspense with sardonic quips as the author parodies family board games and parental apathy in lines like “You want to believe you’ll both get away, but sometimes, you’re not so sure.” “Sister” is an allegory both on siblings whose parental influence ping-pongs between addiction-shaded neglect and abuse and on the ghosts of childhood damage that haunt us as adults. Or maybe it’s just a kick ass tale of two girls messing with an occult-themed plaything. Either way, it’s worth buying the collection for this tale alone.
​
The ladies of Violent Vixens aren’t the tongue-in-cheek gals of femsploitation films of yesteryear; they aren’t your parents’ femme fatales. They are juggernauts of vengeance and survival, delivering delicious destruction and leaving few survivors in their wake, and you won’t be able to put them down.