May Cause Unexplained Ocular Bleeding by Nikolas P. Robinson (review by Rebecca Rowland) ASIN : B09CRXYKM1 Publisher : Independently published (18 Aug. 2021) Language : English Paperback : 110 pages ISBN-13 : 979-8531344892 On its surface, Nikolas P. Robinson’s newest release presents itself as traditional splatter-gore fare, but upon closer inspection, May Cause Unexplained Ocular Bleeding explores existential truth on a level rarely attempted by extreme horror writers. I first encountered Robinson’s work when the poet and dark fiction author presented at Killer Con in Austin this year (airing remotely), and his charisma and collection intrigue immediately caught my attention. May is a short read, only ten stories in length, and easily may be finished in one sitting, but I would encourage readers to take their time and digest it in chunks. There isn’t a weak entry in the decade, but the stand-outs for me run the gamut in theme and gore level. In the opening tale, “Drive Me Home,” Tavor’s tree-trimming implements for his job at a landscaping business come in handy when, intoxicated with his best girl passed out beside him, he hits a pedestrian with his car. “Though the glow from his single, functioning headlight isn’t great, he can see the dark, muddied dirt surrounding the body before he’s all the way there. Far from sober, his thoughts are still swimming, and he thinks for a second that maybe the person he hit has pissed themselves before a second internal voice tells him that it’s blood. There’s so much of it, soaking into the dry earth of the road like it’s a vampire thirsting for nourishment.” But things are not what they seem, and one misstep domino-effects Tavor on a destiny for which he has not adequately prepared. “It’s Fine…Everything is Fine” reminded me initially of a disturbing news account I caught years ago of a naked man who, hopped up on bath salts, began biting and—literally—eating strangers like a mindless zombie in downtown Miami. Here, Robinson places the catalyst for his tale’s terror in a seemingly innocuous traffic accident. Soon after, “Hands began slapping against glass, fists pounding rhythmically into the surface…They both managed to find a moment to be grateful they’d lucked into a bank rather than something less likely to be fortified as the barrage of flesh against glass filled the deserted interior with echoes.” As witnesses watch from the lobby, what began as a fender bender quickly accelerates into a chaotic, full-blown fearfest. The group’s tentpole entry, “The Journey,” is its most cerebral. It opens with the narrator remarking about a set of mysterious lights in the distance, intermittently visible from his city abode, and the possible power wielded by their source. If he investigates, he will “be able to see first-hand just how credible the tales have been, these rumors and whispers that spread from the places where the lights have previously appeared, these tales of transformation and strange alteration afflicting those who venture too close to curiosity.” Accompanied by a reticent trail guide, the protagonist ventures into the forest in search of answers while simultaneously quitting smoking cold turkey. Robinson marks the passage of time using a series of nicotine withdrawal benchmarks interspaced with scenes of unnerving adventure into surrealist dehumanization horror on par with William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch: “I came to see what it could change in me, never imagining how drastic these alterations would be. I wanted to experience something new, something truly novel. I never anticipated that I would shed my humanity in the process.” Fans of Robinson likely will be familiar with “Horseplay,” which made its initial debut on the Godless digital platform. In the story, the closet door in the backroom of underground pornography is kicked wide open when a post-production video editor hired to clean up fetish films for distribution views a particularly unconventional sex tape featuring a cornucopia of kink that most viewers would say not only breaks the moral compass, it smashes it to bits. “I’m not sure how the tape found its way to my seller. It could be that someone else involved in the intended bestiality production had cleaned up the mess and shipped the tape off as if nothing was out of the ordinary. There’s still money to be made, after all.” If you have any qualms about content that pushes boundaries, “Horseplay” is not for you, but in it, the author skillfully builds a series of unbridled disturbing tableaus into a sly social commentary on just who should share the guilt when individuals are victimized for the sake of entertainment. “Wake Up,” one of the shorter entries in the collection, is nonetheless powerful in its portrayal of an unfaithful partner, an uncomfortable sharing of a marital bed with the cuckolded spouse, and the gruesome aftermath of what appeared to be a run-of-the-mill quarrel. Don’t venture into this one with a full stomach unless you’re looking to lose a few pounds. Readers should weigh that snippet of advice for all of May’s stories but also savor what’s particularly unique about this collection against the backdrop of its extreme horror label. Rather than tie up his gruesome dioramas in a tidy manner, Robinson sometimes leaves the resolution, the real horror, up to the reader’s imagination. In a genre routinely soaked with in-your-face carnage, this pushes May up to the top with the cream. May Cause Unexplained Ocular Bleeding |
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