To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows by Sam Richard
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Weirdpunk Books (30 Dec. 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 166 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1951658213
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1951658212

A Horror Book Review by Joe Ortlieb 

A lot of people think that working in academia is vastly different to working in the "real world", but the same mundane niggles, exist in those hallowed towers of learning.  Disgruntled employees, uninterested managers / senior lecturers, and the bland existence of going to work every day to see the same boring faces, the same daily drudge of going through the motions, as work slowly erodes any desire to be creative.  You try to remain unnoticed and slog your way to the end of the day, but sometimes you get noticed for all the wrong reasons, and you literally find yourself in the firing line.  So what do you do?  Do you knuckle down and up your game, polishing the corporate ladder with the last smears of your soul?  Or do you hook up with someone and try to better your lot in life by invoking a cursed film from the hands of a demonic Hellspawn?  

Well, that's the dilemma faced by Hetta.  Thankfully she opts for the later course of action.  Otherwise, this novella from Polly Schattel would be a much different and vastly less entertaining read of the consequences of taking the shortcut in life.  

Schattel's 8: 59:29 takes its time in getting to the horror element of this story.  However, this is not a criticism; the initial part of this novel is a finely constructed look at the banality of working a job you don't want to be in.  The observations are cutting, clever and deeply nuanced, underpinned by a dark sense of humour.  We have all worked with a boss like that and dreamed of taking revenge on them for their inability to see our worth.  Schattel has created a world that we can all relate to.  

Schattel draws you in with outstanding character development of the main character, downtrodden, downbeat and just down, with her creative drive sucked dry by her job, resulting in a protagonist that you will be rooting for, even when things get a little bit out of control.  

If I have one complaint about the book, it would be the speed at which Hetta is drawn to the dark side and begins her journey of demonic revenge.  However, this is a minor complaint, especially when it is taken in the context of the space restraint of the novella form. 



And when you consider that it gives more space for the supernatural mayhem to breathe, you quickly forgive it.  Once Hetta teams up with Tanner, things get weird pretty quickly, and the humour of the novel rises closer to the surface; I loved their discussions on what their film should be and can imagine millions of would-be film-makers having the same debate, settling on making a horror film because it would be so easy to do.  It's too close to the bone to be laugh out funny for this horror reviewer, but sometimes the truth hurts.  

My favourite character must be the demon lord, a pompous, self-righteous entity whose opening monologue is a sheer joy to read.  It looks like the hierarchy of work is exactly the same in Hell as it is here. 

8: 59:29 is filled with powerful swipes at the modern world, profoundly entertaining and written with razor-sharp cuts at the contemporary world with a finale that would if this were an episode of The Twilight Zone, we would be ranking it as one of the best episodes ever.  
  

Holy Ghost Road by John Mantooth

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cemetery Dance 
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 374 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1587678608
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1587678608

​A Horror Book Review by Justin Allec 

John Mantooth’s Holy Ghost Road is Forest’s story, a young girl on the run from Nesmith, a dark preacher who has corrupted her home and family with his nefarious interests. The novel follows Forest’s journey as she frantically searches for safety and sanity along the desolate stretches of southern Highway 278 and the surrounding wilderness. Hunted by Nesmith and his brain-washed sycophants, Forest must evade capture, reach her grandmother’s home, and understand the opposing biblical forces that have upended her life.

Mantooth structures the story using Forest’s first-person perspective, and he’s using aspects of several genres to sell the terror, confusion, and unpredictability of her plight. The quest to reach her grandmother’s farm provides the main framework, but aspects of the rural noir colour all the action and characters. Holy Ghost Road firmly deals in a dust-choked, poverty-stricken world of southern Christian binaries: the forces of good and evil exist, physically, in our world, and can be controlled through ritual and objects. Everything is black and white, with only hints of Nesmith’s attempted corruptions of Forest providing shades of grey. As such, a shadowy goat entity invoked by the bad-man Nesmith gives him supernatural powers over nature and people. Opposing this preacher’s influence is a brand of kindly nature-based spirituality practiced by Forest’s grandmother, and the show-down between the two oppositions provides space for Forest to realize her own importance and relationship with the Holy Ghost.

While Forest’s story is a quest of sorts, it also follows the trappings of a road-trip, for better or worse. While she has to travel thirty miles to reach her grandmother’s farm, it’s not a straight shot, and Forest steers off into disparate directions and even backtracks at times. Like any quest, these digressions do necessarily add up to making Forest a worthy adversary for Nesmith—as well as help some secondary characters shine—but they also slow the story down. That would be fine, except I found there’s a generic quality to many of these side-trips that only seem to lengthen the story: Forest needs a special object or to hide, she gets further into trouble with Nesmith’s crew who display increasingly frightening powers, she finds a way out or is helped by a kindly stranger, and then, once safe, her ruminations on the situation and backwoods Christianity tell her exactly what she (and the reader) already knew. A few chapters later, repeat.

Holy Ghost Road, then, has a few narrative problems, but Mantooth’s advantage is in Forest’s character. She’s smart and practical, with just enough sass to sell a teen-ager’s confusing outlook and dialogue. Tagging along with Forest is a fun enough way to see the Holy Ghost Road, even if it occasionally feels like the wheels are spinning.

​Justin Allec 

I'm a husband and father of three young boys based in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. Since first reading R.L. Stein and Christopher Pike when I was young, I have been invested in the horror genre. After a lifetime of enjoying horror in all its forms, I decided to attempt to contribute my own stories and after a few years of work, I now proudly call myself a novice horror writer. I have my first short story pending publication with Ghost Orchid Press, and I have received an Ontario Arts Council grant to support my effort to produce a short story collection. I also review films for Thunder Bay's Terror in the Bay Film Festival. I'm interested in reviewing new horror writing as a way to help support other novice writers and learn a thing or two.

All-time Favorite Horror Books:
Robert Chambers, The King in Yellow
Clive Barker, The Damnation Game
William Peter Blatty, Legion
Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn
Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory
Dan Simmons, The Terror
Joe Hill, Horns
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
Robert R. MaCammon, Boy's Life
Catriona Ward, Sundial

...and if I had to pick only one Stephen King book, it'd be Night Shift.

Facebook: Justin Allec
Twitter: @justinallec807

​The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Titan Books (21 Mar. 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1803362693
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1803362694

A Book Review by Tony Jones 

The Strange was my fascinating introduction to Nathan Ballingrud, who is particularly well known for his weird, dark fantasy and horror short stories brought together in the two collections North American Lake Monsters (2013) and Wounds (2019). In 2007 his short story ‘The Monsters of Heaven’ won the prestigious Shirley Jackson Award, with him winning a second Jackson gong in 2013 for North American Lake Monsters, in the Best Single-Author Short Story Collection category. Ballingrud’s widely admired fiction has also been nominated for numerous other top prizes, included the Bram Stoker, the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award.


Back in 2015 Ballingrud’s novella The Visible Filth (currently out of print) was included in the excellent This is Horror website range of fiction, with The Strange being his longest work to date and his debut as a novelist. The Strange was a very appropriate title for a book which was indeed very strange! I also found it to be a very quiet, poetic, and a rather oddly moving experience. It was as much science fiction as it was horror, even if there was little in the way of ‘science’ or wider explanation in the book of how things ticked. It had an overwhelming feeling of decay, resources were low, technology was breaking down and not being replenished. Lots of other reviews have made comparisons with Ray Bradbury (and quite right too) but it also reminded me of the cult Richard Stanley film Hardware (1990) which is also full of technology scavengers and a battle for the last remaining resources.


Although The Strange is undoubtedly being marketed as a horror science fiction crossover novel, it fits into the Weird Western genre just as comfortable as those two more mainstream genres. The plot structure echoes the 1968 western novel True Grit by Charles Portis, made famous by two Hollywood films, the major difference being there is no Rooster Cockburn style character in this book, but feisty teenager Annabelle Crisp would make a fine Mattis Ross. Instead of revenge, Belle is attempting to recover a tube which holds a recording of her mother who recently returned to Earth. The barren and desolate Martian landscapes were beautifully described, with outlying lawless settlements, and it was easy to compare this with the rugged American West of pioneer times.   


The story opens with Belle working at her father’s diner in New Galveston the main colony on Mars, which nostalgically recreates the feeling of Earth with pictures adorning the walls, when a man comes in just before closing time. He is aggressive and confrontational, after ordering coffee he and his gang rob the diner. In the course of the robbery her most prized possession is also taken, the last connection with her absent mother. And she will do anything to get it back, even if the local sheriff is too fearful to cross the outlaws.


Throbbing in the background is this overwhelmingly deep sense of isolation. Since Bella’s mother returned to Earth there has been a breakdown in communication with home and readers will have fun reading between the lines over what might have happened or understanding the force behind it. Is the Mars colony perhaps now being seen as a failed experiment or has there been a catastrophic event on Earth which has caused the deafening silence? Or something closer to home? (home being Mars) The story cleverly balances the idealistic longing to return ‘home’ with what it means to actually be ‘Martian’. Again if you read between the lines most colonists were probably running from something on Earth, with Bella living on the red planet since she was a small child.


Along the way The Strange has an array of colourful characters who either help or hinder Bella recover her recording. Add into the mix other fascinating story strands involving ghosts, hallucinations, robots (the kitchen robot ‘Watson’ was very cool) breaking their programming and evolving, throw in kickstarting ancient, busted spacecrafts and there is a lot to savour and enjoy. Threaded throughout is a deep sense of melancholia with Bella telling the story reflectively from some point in the future. This mood was reminiscent of Michel Faber’s science fiction masterpiece The Book of Strange New Things which also concerns trying to contact Earth from millions of miles away.


Bizarrely, The Strange is also set in the past with an alternate historical timeline and although this was odd within the constraints of the story it worked perfectly well, some readers might find the lack of detail frustrating, but I loved this retro-futurism style. And what of ‘The Strange’ itself? I’ve kept that to near the end as I’m not entirely certain how to explain this phenomenon and it could also have done with a tad more clarity, a mineral peculiar to Mars which seems to be growing a conscience and changing or evolving people and technology (think robots). Creating genuine Martians perhaps? Bella was a great character, and although she comes across as older than the probably was, carried the book in some style.


There was a lot going on in The Strange, which was a clever mashup covering several genres carried by a sense of childhood longing, family ideals and a credible leading character trying to hold onto her identity in a world which was changing in ways nobody could fathom. I found the dustbowl of Mars and the broken-down settlements to be totally captivating and absorbing, but I would not want to live there!


Tony Jones

In a world devoid of hope and meaning, what is the point? We were all teenagers once and, for some, that nihilistic feeling never truly departs. But, while you dealt with these complicated feelings in any number of (hopefully) harmless ways, the teenagers in Voidheads take self-harm to a whole new level. Thanks to the thing in Ori Dreyfus’s basement.
​
Told in Kelso’s typically atypical style, where the point of view seemingly drifts from character to character to void at will, with some added graphics to hammer home the alien nature of the void, Voidheads is an examination of the ennui suffered by a group of students from Ishim Lin High, in the fictional city of Ishim Lin. The exact geography of the city is never revealed, and some of the language hints at a British location while some hint that it takes place in a version of America. But, as long-time readers of Kelso’s work will know, he has been known to take certain landscapes of Earth and transpose them to his infamous Slave State. Either way, the location is irrelevant to the story. Sure, most readers in the West will recognise some version of their teenage selves in the main cast of characters. That is the most important aspect of the story, where Kelso reminds us of the empty feeling many of us experienced in our youth.

Instead of shoplifting or graffitiing or cutting, these teens want to make a more permanent statement, offering up limbs and genitalia to the void that exists in Ori’s basement. Whatever you put in that hole, you aren’t getting back. We see through the eyes of those who are curious, those who wish to impress, those who long to feel something larger than themselves – even if what they are feeling is the ultimate nothing, the “big zero” – and there are those who begin by wanting to help the teens but ultimately lose themselves to the void. What begins as an extreme statement, an addiction to some, becomes something altogether more horrific when Ori’s younger brother tries to understand the void and a teacher from the school leaves his encounter with his physical body seemingly intact.

We follow the characters from their initial experience with the void and the voidheads to seeing how the terms change meaning in Ishim Lin, and we are left with a feeling of… hope? It is hard to tell, as Kelso does reference superficiality in the closing pages. Are these the choices we are left with? See the world – the void – for what it truly is, or accept the superficiality of life and just enjoy the simple things while we can? The beauty of nihilism, the art of a brilliant mind. Kelso gets so much pain across the page in so few words (the story could have been longer, and it could have followed a more straightforward narrative style, but where’s the fun in that?). For fans of the text who may be craving more from the void, there are rumours of a companion comic and audiobook being produced in the near future. And, if you simply can’t wait for more in this vein, just take a look at Kelso’s back catalogue. He explores similar themes in The Dreg Trilogy and The Black Dog Eats the City, as well as the numerous works set in his Slave State.

The British medievalist scholar and author Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) is best remembered for his volumes redefining supernatural fiction. First published at the dawn of the twentieth century, his perfected narrative devices set a gold standard, pulling ghost stories from the cliché of formal Gothic backdrops in favor of realistic contemporary settings and everyday protagonists. Highly regarded even today, the classic Jamesian tale (as his technique was dubbed) often featured quiet, quaint English villages, seaside towns or country estates imperiled by vengeful wraths intruding upon our world from beyond the grave, and echoes of James' craft linger in the works of such subsequent literary icons as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, T.E.D. Klein, Ramsey Campbell and Stephen King.

Another touched by James' haunting presence is his fellow countryman M.G. Mason, the Swindon-born author whose latest compilation of unearthly yarns, Spooky Salmonweird, is not only dedicated to James, but pays loving homage to his still-thriving legacy. Subtitled as Tales From the Village, it's a companion tome to Mason's continuing series (along with Salmonweird: A Cornish Crime Comedy Caper and A Salmonweird Sleighing) about Salmonweir, a coastal hamlet whose primary residents are of the incorporeal kind, and each of the thirteen stories delves into the past of a different ghost, revealing there's much more to their lives than death.
Beginning in Iron Age Cornwall, moving forward chronologically through the Second World War and roaming from England to Italy to the high seas, the battlefields of the Confederate States and back again, the volume's opener, 'The Bucca of Old Rock', shows how the site of the future Salmonweir came to be and focuses on Kensa, chosen by her ancient druid tribe to be the forbearer of their people who must endure a series of mysterious trials. The next story comes in Roman times, where newly appointed Centurion Cato falls prey to 'The Nightmare Cult', worshippers of a bizarre beast that feeds on people's fears and which ties directly into Mason's 2020 sci-fi/horror novel, Phobetor's Children. Replete with crawling chills and a claustrophobic location, 'The Crypt' features a Black Death-era priest encountering a sinister vampiric entity after he unwittingly disturbs her earthen-filled crates.

The stones of a monolith and a feisty female sprite inadvertently lure the son of a lord during Henry VIII's reign into a confrontation with a chthonic creature seeking 'The 20th Maiden'. With its cloistered atmosphere and hideously human twist, 'The Haunting of Withecombe Abbey' follows demon hunter Eli as he attempts to purge the titular building from an infernal being. 'Old Sam' changes continents and ratchets up the intensity with a unique take on the American Civil War, as a wounded Union soldier must outpace a ravenous wendigo following a woodland skirmish. And a weary wife on the way to rendezvous with her sailor husband accidentally boards a phantom train carrying the tortured souls of World War I soldiers as well as the malevolent monstrosity who feasts upon them in 'Never Again'.

No doubt due to Mason's training as an archeologist, Spooky Salmonweird is steeped in history and does a wonderful job of awakening each epoch in the reader's mind. Period details and dialogue, anecdotes and famous events serve to buttress the narratives, but are careful never overwhelm the characters' individual plights. There's a pure love of language, wordplay, and a certain easy manner in Mason's prose, in the seductive, sly way he ingratiates protagonists to the audience--in only a few pages one feels comfortable with every lead and their situation. And while wry humor arises at times, the focus here is repeatedly and successfully on fostering irrevocable dread. Hardcore horror hounds take heart, however: these are no stodgy sprites, and true to the Jamesian tradition a reverence of the grotesque unapologetically exists.

With most single author collections it's commonplace for readers to have clear-cut favorites among the proffered titles, yet Mason's skillfulness makes any such preferential treatment difficult. Each entry is just as satisfying as the preceding one, though six still manage to muscle their way to the forefront.

A woman's thespian ambition in Elizabethan days leads her to a dilapidated theater and a foreboding confrontation with 'The Man in Row 8', while a bevy of buccaneers captained by a disguised heroine plunder a cursed sword that arouses ghastly ghouls in 'Dead Sails'. Similarly possessed objects also inhabit two other tales: a spectral traveler toting a malicious doll beguile a tavern owner and her family in 'Late Arrival', just as the coin found at the seashore plays a pivotal part in a young woman's journey through the hall of mirrors on 'Carnival Night'. Echoes of Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol' abound when a wealthy abolitionist must leave an annual yuletide offering for 'The Girl In The Orangery'. Yet for sheer palpitating terror, it's impossible to surpass 'The Curse of the Storm Harpy', which recounts the fate of a pirate crew once they board a deserted (and possibly living) vessel. Replete with harrowing, hideous imagery and spine-snapping flair, it will leave even the most jaded horror stalwart shuddering.

If there's any weakness to this book, it's that someone fresh to the Salmonweird universe may finish with the sensation they're missing pieces from a bigger picture by not visiting the previous volumes first. But newcomers fear not: Mason cleverly dodges that otherwise fatal bullet by letting each tale exist independently instead of requiring extensive exposition. In doing so, the audience is allowed leisurely breathing room; a longtime reader will no doubt cull a deeper understanding of the figures they've come to esteem, but anyone with a hankering for supremely composed frights could do far worse than snare Spooky Salmonweird, and for that reason I bestow upon it a well-deserved 4.5 (out of 5) on my Fang Scale. M.R. James would be proud of you, Mr. Mason. Bravo.

The ghosts of Salmonweir in Cornwall have given the village's only living resident - the retired detective Karl Blackman - the night off.
​
In this collection of short stories, thirteen of the supporting characters recount weird and spooky goings on from the times when they were alive.

What did Kensa have to do to prove herself a worthy queen? Why does Harry fear the ship known as The Storm Harpy? Did The King's head have a ghost resident before Morwenna and Babajide came back as ghosts? From the Iron Age to World War II, including takes from both the American Civil War and interregnal England, these thirteen stories pay homage to some of the greatest ghost stories of all time.

Ghost stories for Halloween, for Christmas, and all the year round.

The world in which the ghosts of Salmonweird live has a darker, scarier side.

Dare you?

Exposed to the weird worlds of horror, sci-fi and comics as a boy, Damascus Mincemeyer was ruined for life. Now he spends his time doing lurid book cover illustrations and publishing fiction in various anthologies. He lives near St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and has one volume of short horror stories, Where The Last Light Dies, and a forthcoming horror novel, By Invitation Only, to his credit. He spends his spare time listening to music nobody else likes and wasting far too much time on Instagram @damascusundead666

Alex North caught my eye back in 2019 with his terrific debut The Whisper Man, which he followed a year later with another beauty, The Shadow Friend. I previously reviewed both novels for Ginger Nuts of Horror and was delighted to see them become sizable hits. Although both books are more thriller than horror, they feature a convincing whiff of the undiagnosed supernatural, which is maintained in his third offering The Half-Burnt House. These are excellent page-turners which should have both traditional thriller and horror fans purring and solidify North’s reputation as an author going from strength to strength and with readers in both horror and thriller areas. Should you be a fan of this blend of horror and have already read all of John Connolly’s Charlie Parker novels I highly recommend the Earl Marcus Mystery trilogy by Hank Early which begins with Heaven’s Crooked Finger and is the absolute gold standard for this type of fiction.


It is worth paying close attention to the plot of The Half-Burnt House as it jumps backwards and forwards in time, which includes multiple points of view. Due to the convoluted plot it takes some time for the various dots to link together and although confusing is ultimately a very well structured and thoughtful thriller. The various story strands feature a long dead local serial killer, stalkers, a bizarre cult, family secrets and a spiralling series of events kicked off by a seemingly random act of violence on a teenage boy. The latter is shocking and packs a psychological wallop on the devastated family involved.


The Half-Burnt House kicks off with teenager Katie mulling over whether she wants to have sex for the first time with her boyfriend. Very normal average teenage stuff. She usually walked home from school with her younger brother Chris, however, on the rare afternoon she ditches her brother for her boyfriend he is moved down on the street by a complete stranger, who then attacks him and tries to cut off his face. The story then jumps forward a decade, where Katie is now married with a young daughter, but her brother is now estranged from the family after drifting into homelessness, petty crime and drug addiction.


I do not want to reveal too much about the plot or spoilers about how they might connect together, but the main thrust involves Katie being contacted by two police detectives after Chris is spotted on CCTV belonging to a retired Philosophy professor. Alan Hobbes was viciously murdered, almost decapitated, and as the police investigate they realise Hobbes was very, very wealthy and had some very dark and hidden obsessions. But how did this connect to Chris? As the police investigation flounders, a very jumpy Katie, fearing for the life of her brother, begins her own search which takes her into a very dark and sinister world.


Some readers might find The Half-Burnt House a tad slow, but I found the complex exploration into trauma, family secrets and brainwashing akin to a gigantic jigsaw puzzle which was a very entertaining read. Some fascinating philosophical ideas are woken into the plot and similar to his other two novels not quite everything can be explained away by science. However, even though there was a lot going on the family dynamics at the centre of the novel were very convincing and how the ripple effect of the original knife attack on Chris had impacted the family over a number of years. This included the guilt felt by Katie and how she overcompensated by being overprotective of her own daughter, whilst triggering her husband, and having a complex relationship with her own mother.


Alex North can spin a great story and this third novel keeps up the high standard set by his two previous offerings. Solid characterisation, a complex plot which comes together deliciously slowly, and flashbacks to the mind of a madman are all great highlights. However, Katie was the real star, The Half-Burnt House pulls a woman who already has personal problems and dumps her in a world which is a million miles away from her normal suburban life.


The Half-Burnt House is released in the USA as The Angel Maker.


Tony Jones