Hallowe’en likes to turn things upside down: the dead walk, the living turn into monsters and ghosts, nice girls are urged to dress up in “slutty” outfits and children threaten adults with mayhem. So it’s fitting that this anthology inverts the usual order of things, at least where the art is concerned. Normally a book’s stories give birth to its illustrations, but in this case the work of renowned artist Lynne Hansen is what inspired editors Gaby Triana and John Palisano to create the book. The endearing cover began life as a piece of art for a HWA event benefiting an animal shelter, and encapsulates all the traditional fun of trick-or-treating while rewarding the more careful observer with a soft touch of enigma.

In the circumstances it’s no surprise that this anthology contains quite a few stories at the gentler, chattier end of the spectrum, where the aim is to inspire a wry smile or two and offer (relatively) light-hearted, spooky, nostalgic fun. I’m not usually a fan of this stuff (maybe because I was only invited to two Hallowe’en parties in my entire life, and no, of course I’m not bitter, how dare you!) so for this review I’ll be mainly focussing on tales that are more up my street.

For me, ‘The Crawlers in the Corn’ by Shadows and Tall Trees veteran David Surface is where things really get going. You can’t have Hallowe’en without corn, but the real value here lies in the examination of two boys whose childhood friendship is crumbling for the usual reasons (the “too old for that shit now” factor), but has also been damaged by a traumatic event. Carl and Danny lacerate each other with words as sharp as any corn leaf, and it’s a great depiction of the swingeing guilt a victim of trauma can feel when they realize they’ve allowed the darkness that assailed them to seep into the world of their loved ones.

And guilt is built right into Hallowe’en. The way it’s celebrated in America seems designed to generate parental guilt – are we right to let our kids out after dark to cavort among strangers? If we don’t, are we ruining their fun? Have we disappointed them with that cheap supermarket costume, when we should be making them one with our loving hands? And what if we give out the wrong candy? Steve Rasnic Tem’s “When They Fall” gives this theme a great workout, full of beautiful but eerie autumn imagery, with those falling leaves and bad memories messing up what seems at first glance to be a typical suburban garden.

Of course, throbbing away underneath all the anxieties of trick-or-treating is something a lot older: good old survivor’s guilt. Hallowe’en exists to address the fact that we are alive while a bunch of other people are dead, and I’m glad to report that several of the stories here deal with this, and do it well. ‘When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead Across Your Dreams in Pale Battalions Go’, by Jonathan Maberry, is particularly powerful. It has a broad focus, covering the effects of the Vietnam war on the American working-class neighbourhoods that were milked most vigorously for young recruits,  the way psychic wounds fester in families and the power of ritual. A lesser author could lose their way in all that, but the story hits impressively hard in a manner reminiscent of Peter Straub’s classic post-Vietnam War horror novel Koko.

But my personal favourite of the anthology was ‘A Scavenger Hunt When The Veil is Thin’ by Gwendolyne Kiste. Kiste, like Maberry, has decided to go large with the guilt, as the heroine – who has unwisely returned to the godawful community she grew up in -  has to pick her way through a house still jangling with the culpability of the whole damn town, whose inhabitants once sacrificed an innocent young woman on the altar of misogyny. But what really makes this special is the elegance of the writing. Kiste deftly handles a colour palette worthy of The Masque of the Red Death, proving once and for all that all colours are Goth colours, and she does very well with the second-person singular. This form seems to be having a moment right now – possibly because writers and readers are nostalgic for all those Choose Your Own Adventure books that told you what to do – and while it’s good for immediacy it’s not the best for providing information about events that have occurred prior to the beginning of the story (plus all those instructions can seem rather bald.) But Kiste leaps over all these barriers: the way she works background information, character development and eerie atmosphere into a series of scavenger hunt instructions is seriously impressive.  And there’s some very nasty business with a pumpkin.

Finally I enjoyed ‘Soul Cakes’ by Catherine McCarthy, a rare British-set story with the little rituals of home and hearth as its focus, and drawing on the emotional ambiguity of the festival. The quiet accumulation of well-observed domestic details makes the final revelation especially poignant, and a reminder of the real comfort Hallowe’en can provide to the bereaved, however fleeting, melancholy or just plain scary it may be. This theme is certainly at home in Literally Dead, an anthology with a lot of heart but enough darkness to keep the temperature of your spine well below the seasonal average.

The Vessel by Adam Nevill  ​
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ritual Limited (31 Oct. 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 172 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1739788613
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1739788612

A Horror Book Review by James Bennett 

Adam Nevill (‘The Ritual’, ‘No One Here Gets Out Alive’) will need no introduction to Horror fiction fans. Known for consistently delivering stand-out and genuinely frightening novels, ‘The Vessel’ is no different, presenting an absorbing chiller that once again takes a slice of working class British life and infuses it with Machensian folk horror.

Financially struggling Jess McMachen (nice nod there) accepts a position in a grand old house to care for the elderly Flo Gardener, a wealthy and once well-regarded dementia patient. The renumeration promises a new life away from an abusive ex for Jess and her young daughter Izzy, a persistent menace on the edge of their impoverished world. At first, Jess is able to overlook the disordered state of the house and the rudeness of her co-worker, not to mention the bizarre, hostile attitude of her charge. But Nerthus House hides a dark and powerful secret. What are the strange artefacts littering its halls? What lurks in the trees at the back of the garden? And where does the seemingly wheelchair-bound Flo go at night, defying all comfort and reason? When the old woman begins to exert an ominous hold over Jess’s daughter, these mysteries start to unravel with terrifying results…

‘The Vessel’ excels in setting and atmosphere from the off. Nevill captures the situational contrast of borderline poverty and faded splendour with authenticity and aplomb. Layered on top of this are believable and heartfelt characters who carry the carefully threaded enigmas and increasing weirdness, drawing you into their world with relatable challenges and fears. Meanwhile, the tension ratchets up in a fashion that the author’s long-time readers have come to know and love. There’s an unsettling scene as Jess goes hunting in the mansion at night and finds herself plunging into a confined, ritualistic space, wondering whether she’s truly alone in the house. Oddities abound, such as levitating figures, unexplained relics and half-sketched monsters off in the trees, speaking of ages out of time and reckoning. It’s this juxtaposition of the modern and the ancient world, the struggle between them, that infuses much of Nevill’s work and always with such a delicious degree of grace and dread.

The past whispers from old photo albums and neighbourly gossip, and early on you suspect there is more to proceedings than the usual haunting. A palpable sadness pervades the novel and the effect is remarkable considering its length (‘The Vessel’ was originally conceived as a film script, the author tells us in his afterword. And like ‘Cunning Folk’ before it, what a film it would make!) There’s an undercurrent about how we treat our old folks that’s hard to ignore and unlike in previous outings, the line between hero and villain seems less well-defined, adding an unexpected depth to the otherwise pacy ride. No word is wasted here with inner monologues and exposition pared down to a literary knifepoint.

As all the weirdness mounts to a nail-biting climax, one can only admire Nevill’s tireless genius anew as ‘The Vessel’ delivers another thrilling ghost train ride through modern folk Horror, resulting in a novel that will (again) easily stand among his finest work, and as one of this reader’s favourite Horror novels of the year.

An outstanding, unnerving experience.

An eerie folk horror novel from the author of Cunning Folk, The Reddening, The Ritual, No One Gets Out Alive and the four times winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel.


'A watcher may remark that after sleeping for so long, the building appears to have been roused.'


Struggling with money, raising a child alone and fleeing a volatile ex, Jess McMachen accepts a job caring for an elderly patient. Flo Gardner - a disturbed shut-in and invalid. But if Jess can hold this job down, she and her daughter, Izzy, can begin a new life.


Flo's vast home, Nerthus House, may resemble a stately vicarage in an idyllic village, but the labyrinthine interior is a dark, cluttered warren filled with pagan artefacts. And Nerthus House lives in the shadow of a malevolent secret. A sinister enigma determined to reveal itself to Jess and to drive her to the end of her tether. Not only is she stricken by the malign manipulation of the Vicarage's bleak past, but mercurial Flo is soon casting a baleful influence over young Izzy. What appeared to be a routine job soon becomes a battle for Jess's sanity and the control of her child.


It's as if an ancient ritual was triggered when Jess crossed the threshold of the vicarage. A rite leading her and Izzy to a terrifying critical mass, where all will be lost or saved.

​

James Bennett is a British writer raised in Sussex and South Africa. His travels have furnished him with an abiding love of different cultures, history and mythology. His short fiction has appeared internationally and his debut novel CHASING EMBERS was shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the British Fantasy Awards 2017.

In recent years veteran Scottish horror legend Graham Masterton has been on great form with The Soul Stealer (2021), The House of a Hundred Whispers (2020) and the supernatural crime trilogy starring London detectives Jerry Pardoe and Jamila Patel, which begins with Ghost Virus (2018). That trilogy is generally known as the Jerry Pardoe and Jamila Patel Series, two detectives who develop a reputation for handling any ‘hard to explain’ cases (nobody mention Ghostbusters). I could not help think that with a little bit of tinkering his latest book The House at Phantom Park could easily have been written as the four outing for Jerry and Jamila, as it concerns a series of unexplained events in a former military hospital and would have been right up their alley. I wonder if Graham Masterton considered this before taking the police element of the story in a different direction.


Whilst most authors who have been in the horror game for approaching fifty years (and there are very few still active) might be thinking of slowing down and retiring to the French Algarve, Masterton remains more prolific than ever, with The House at Phantom Park being his second release of 2022. After so many years in the game, his ability to dream up eye-popping plots (and this book has a cracker), remains completely undiminished. His latest is unlikely to be ranked beside his best work but it was still an easy-to-read page-turner aimed at those who enjoy outlandish trashy horror. I sped through this pain filled journey over a couple of days, eating up the near pages with little lull in the action whilst chuckling at the off-colour jokes. It probably was not quite as violent as some of his other recent novels and nicely incorporated thriller elements into the haunted house storyline.


Masterton’s longevity comes from the fact that he has the ability to both dish out crazy plots with a straight face and effortlessly jump between the various subgenres, ranging from haunted houses, body horror, (non-horror) police procedurals and everything else in between. His genius and huge contribution to the genre was finally recognised by the Horror Writer’s Association when he was presented with a long overdue Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. The House at Phantom Park finds the great Scotsman using a derelict hospital to good effect, in fact because of the blend of horror and thriller this book could easily be converted into a supernatural ITV, BBC or Netflix drama (but I imagine the spontaneous human violence would have to go if it was on the first two channels) and the way in which pain is portrayed in the story was unnerving and might have to be toned down.


The House at Phantom Park starts fast and keeps that pace up until its brutal, but somehow beautifully cleansing finale. Think back to when you were a kid: most of us have an old building tucked away in our memories which was supposed to be haunted which our friends dared us to sneak into. For myself it was a ruined mansion in a remote estate called Lessendrum in the Huntley area of the Northeast of Scotland and the setting of derelict St Philomena's military hospital gives off a similar vibe.

In the opening pages there is a surveyor investigating the property which has been bought and is being developed and turned into exclusive apartments. After hearing a strange noise, unexpectedly the surveyor feels incredible pain, so extreme he cannot move and collapses frozen to the ground, but there is nobody else around and it takes some time for him to be found screaming in agony.

Later in the hospital, the doctors are completely flummoxed and cannot find anything wrong with him, but the pain is so bad they induce him into a coma. Main character Lilian Chesterfield, the property developer, thinks this is just bad luck and hires another surveyor and then something similar happens to her. Before long, the guy in the coma dies, but his incredible pain is seemingly passed onto somebody else and initially they search for a scientific explanation. This was an intriguing part of the story and it was interesting to see how it connected to previous events in Afghanistan and how the spirits of soldiers (and something much worse) might be lingering in the house.

Although the hospital was a great setting I was surprised Masterton did not provide more detailed descriptions to ramp up the creep factor, as it could have done with more scares. Although there were atmospheric scenes involving noises in the house, doors slamming, faces in windows, shadows, and moving cutlery. It also took a while for the police to make an appearance (as I already said Pardoe and Patel would have been all over this) but on the other hand it was not initially clear whether any crime had been committed and the mystery element was nicely handled. Although the book was seen from several different points of view Lillian probably had most page time and it took some time to accept there was something supernatural going on as she was much more interested in saving her big bucks project from collapsing. I enjoyed the way the ghosts were presented and the fact that they were touching distance from our own world. On another day Masterton could have written a more straight-forward horror thriller but the storyline connecting it to Afghanistan upped the ante and took events in a fresh direction.

If you are after an entertaining haunted house novel which has a fresh quirks in relation to how it relates to pain and war then The House at Phantom Park which is an interesting companion piece to Masterton’s recent The House of a Hundred Whispers, which was more or a traditional haunted house story. It is in turn atmospheric, creepy and has the bang associated with spontaneous human combustion!
​
Tony Jones

Disturbing. Original. Terrifying. The 'master of horror' is back with the chilling tale of what lurks in the walls of an abandoned hospital.

In this abandoned hospital, pain lives on... and it wants revenge.

St Philomena's military hospital has been abandoned for over three years. Now Lilian Chesterfield, who works for one of the most successful building companies in England, is in charge of developing it into a luxury housing complex.

But as soon as she and her colleagues start work in the Jacobean-style mansion, their dream turns into a nightmare. They hear screaming from wards full of empty beds. They hear doors slamming and find cutlery scattered over the kitchen floor. Then they see faces peering at them from the mullioned windows.
​
Lilian is pragmatic – she doesn't believe in the supernatural. But just when she's put her mind at rest by scouring the mansion from top to bottom and finding nothing, a former patient of St Philomena's arrives with a warning. The hospital is haunted. And it is haunted by something a thousand times more terrifying than ghosts...

About the author


Graham Masterton is best known as a writer of horror and thrillers, but his career as an author spans many genres, including historical epics and sex-advice books. His first horror novel, The Manitou, became a bestseller and was made into a film starring Tony Curtis. In 2019, Graham was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association. He is also the author of the Katie Maguire series of crime thrillers, which have sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide.


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Here we are, my fellow travellers of the Darkplace, poised on the brink of the release of the most significant literary event since the publication of the first Quantum Leap tie-in novel. We have been waiting for this event for longer than a techie's average lifespan on the Scotch Mist set, but hey, if someone has to die too soon, it may as well be a techie. That's right, my fellow acolytes of the Dreamweaver, there is a brand new novel from the Master of the Macabre, the Admiral of Abhorrence, The Dr of Dread, and The Prince of Panic, wow that's a lot of tautology. Still, it's not really as they are all subtly different; see what I did there; Garth Marenghi has unleashed the ultimate scare-filled tome of terror; TerrorTome is now ready to be read, but are we the mere mortals of this realm of terror, prepared to read such a book as Terrortome? (OK, I have got this out of my system now. Let's continue without me trying to channel the brilliance of the most excellent writer to have ever walked this realm of darkness, oh my god; I can't help it) 


Garth Marenghi's Darkplace has always had a special place in the hearts of so many fans of the horror genre; it was a groundbreaking TV show that quickly became a thing of legend. Wrapped in its clever use of creating its mythology, it wormed its way into the hearts of anyone who loved horror. However, the cleverness of Darkplace was not just confined to the screen, with the mythology of the show and the character spreading out into the digital realm with a website listing all of the fictional books created by Garth Marenghi*. 


This brings us here 18 years after the initial showing of the most incredible TV horror comedy show of all time to the publication of Terrortome, can TerrorTome even hope to live up to the hype?


Before you read this book, and you must read it because if you don't, you will miss out on reading a book by the bookiest horror writer of all time; you need to go into it with a wee thought in your head. Even though the book's hero is called Nick Steen, I have a sneaky suspicion that Nick is Garth, and this is, in fact, an autobiographical account of the wordsmith's life.  


Right finally, let us get into the meat of this review. When Nick Steen "purchases" a cursed/ sentient demonic typewriter, his life changes beyond all recognition. Even though his output of horror grows exponentially, to the point where one volume of his new masterpiece is likely to destroy the world, just from the amount of deforestation required to print one copy, he quickly finds himself thrown into a hell of his own making when his ego gets in the way of doing the right thing, Nick finds himself literary dragged into hell of his own making, but not a Christian Hell, that's a whole other hell and not the hell that he finds himself in.  


You see, the typewriter is the Lord of the Prolix, a monster of even greater Lovecraftian dread than Lovecraft could ever dream up, a master of monsters so vile that even Clive Barker's Cenobites would cower in fear from, but distinct enough that there would be no chance of any legal ramifications. The ultimate goal of the Prolix is the destruction of our realm, but when his plans are waylaid by the intervention of the eximious editor Roz, the denizens of Steen's dark and twisted mind are unleashed on the world and Nick and Roz must defend their hometown, of Stalkford from the evilest, the most dangerous and most vile of all creation of chaos. 


Without a doubt, Terrortome is an absolute triumph; fans of the original show will revel in the opportunity to become entirely once again absorbed in the world of Marenghi, and those of you who are new to this indubitably unique creation will no doubt be rushing to catch up on the TV show.  


There isn't a single page in Terrortome where you won't be reading it without a massive grin on your face; it is stupid. It is farcical, but it is one of the purest love letters to the horror genre you are likely to read. And that, my friends, is one of the greatest strengths of this book, yes you are finally reading a book from the greatest writer of all time, but what you are reading is the expression of the man behind Marenghi, love and respect for a genre that he holds dear to his heart. 


You will love picking up all the influences that are lovingly poked fun of, from Hellraiser, Herbert and the pretender to the crown of horror's best writer, Stephen King. While the author rips right into every single one of these, you know that it comes from a place of respect; this isn't someone making fun of the genre we love, this is an author having a whale of a time, and those of you who read will have a whale of a time as well.  


Hell, he even looks at the relationship between authors and editors. I loved this part of the book, especially how Steen's ego was always fighting with his love for Roz, and pay attention here as this is a critical part of the plot.  


The novel is written as three dark, interconnected tales, and we all know that portmanteau movies are the best. However, you need to pay attention as Marenghi loves to use foreboding, but don't worry, he also loves to use footnotes, and he makes sure that you are paying attention to all of the important points of foreshadowing. And those footnotes are used to spectacular effect.  


From the reimaging of Hellraiser in the first book of this threesometastic, trilogy of terror tales, Marenghi puts his vivid, colourful, rich and lucid imagination to full use. The descriptions alone of the creatures from his mind are nothing short of amazing, and that's not even considering the sections that were excised from the original manuscript. Thankfully these have been reinstated at the end of the book, with plenty of strong-worded content warnings, so you have been warned, and you cannot blame the author for any wetting your undergarments.  


It takes a lot of talent to keep a joke running for the length of a whole novel, especially when you consider that most of the humour comes from the complete lack of self-awareness, self-editing and sensibility of the author in question. Marenghi's predilection to over-explain and over-emphasis the descriptive elements of the story, and his uncanny ability to focus on the mundane parts of the narrative, such as his long-winded description of how he replaces the batters in a torch, and the subsequent brilliant line about the tunnel which was dark, was now in effect no longer dark thanks to the torch in his hand. Should, in theory, drive every reader mad with frustration and reaching for some correction fluid to swill, but such is the gift for writing that Marenghi has; you are always left smiling when Marenghi goes full-on Marenghi.  


But all of his would be pointless if there was a decent story at the heart of TerrorTome. And even if you strip away all the gags, double-entendres, shaggy dog stories, and facetious footnotes, you are still left with a story that holds up as both a horror novel and a love story between an author and his editor and a love story between an author and himself. Even the final sentence is perfect; if only every horror novel finished this way, the world would be far better. 


Terrortome is the purest form of Marenghi; it hooks you in from the very first sentence, swaddles you in a full-grain black leather jacket, and cradles you in its undiluted brilliance. We have had to wait for almost twenty years for this moment, and it was worth every single second. Let's hope and pray that we don't have to wait as long for the next novel.  


Oh!!! I almost forgot there is also a freaking map!!!!
  ​

* 

Do you think I was going to write this review without a footnote??

I used to be part of a horror forum, and there was this one  American member, who had read everything, no matter how obscure or rare.  So a bunch of us decided to talk about Garth's books, and low and behold he had read them all, even though they never existed.  

Although Chromophobia is billed as a color-themed collection, it functions quite nicely as a icosikaipentagon of horror’s darkest corners illuminated by some of today’s brightest scribes. Each of dark fiction’s subgenres are represented within its array of twenty-five stories, so there is certainly a tale to please every horror lover, and the caliber of writing is consistently stellar.

In Jo Kaplan’s sinisterly psychedelic “Stygian Blue,” a river with mysterious qualities opens doorways to other dimensions, but it’s a multiverse far darker that any Marvel screenwriter might conjure. Another water-themed entry is KC Grifant’s “The Color of Friendship.” There, four friends escape on a scenic getaway to a lakeside cabin, but simmering about the gray-green water are unresolved grudges and petty jealousies, the stench of which quickly becomes “rotten…bordering on putrid.” Grifant makes hearty use of the verdant setting as her protagonist discovers a strange and ravenous creature: “She threw some chips on the water and held her breath hoping—she didn’t know what for. It was stupid, but her breath seemed to come easier when she saw the bubbles appear on the surface. It wasn’t a hand this time, but a set of protruding eyes, ringed with emerald bands. Watching.” In the isolation felt within a pack of mean girls grown up, there is a monster lurking just under the surface, both literally and metaphorically.

Love, or at least, companionship, is explored in all of its nuances. In “Five Stars” by J. B. Lamping, an unnamed narrator trolls the bar scene, looking for men to appease her sweet tooth, but the desserts she craves aren’t the kind one might expect to find on the menu. Geneve Flynn’s haunting “Double Happiness” tackles a macabre tradition: the arranged marriage to a ghost bride.  “His stomach roiled, but he told himself that the girl was already long dead. He was providing her spirit a place on his family altar. She would be lost, otherwise: an aimless ghost…The matchmaker drew out a life-sized dummy of a young woman in a traditional wedding dress. Her face had been crudely painted a heavy, inhuman pink. He grinned. ‘Congratulations. Here is your bride.’ The effigy’s mismatched eyes seemed to stare at Jin. He gathered his courage.” As the protagonist learns the real price he must pay for fulfilling his ailing father’s requirements for an inheritance, Flynn’s new Gothic tale bleeds reds and pinks.

The concept of loss is also interpreted by multiple authors within the collection. In EV Knight’s cosmic horror “Red Light/Green Light,” little Luna shares a fascination with lightning storms with her grandmother, but when the girl catches a glimpse of something ominous in the sky’s flashes, she tracks it faithfully for many years following, convinced that what it brings will change existence as we know it. In Ali Seay’s “Nesting,” Andi visits a psychic for guidance after her husband succumbs to cancer, but her grief is too immense to be ameliorated. “Pick, pick, pick. I wedge my thumbnail beneath the breach in the mattress. I dig at it until a bit of fluff emerges. I put it to my face, smell it, hoping for a scent of him. Maybe a long-ago scent of sex or laughter or happiness. It just smells like bed. After a pause, my mother goes on. ‘We’re going to dinner in an hour or so. Just me and daddy.’ By that she means no other people. I can’t be around a lot of people. I tend to start leaking from the face. Once, I started screaming. My brain isn’t ready for the world and the burden of seeming okay.” Shades of yellow dance across the tale; it’s “the color of rebirth,” the seer explains, and any birth is a difficult process, as Andi soon discovers.
​
Editor Sara Tantlinger’s masterful curation skills are on full display in Chromophobia: there isn’t a weak entry in the line-up, but more importantly, the stories vary beautifully so that the motif never grows stale or feels repetitive. The dark hues of one tale serve as foils for the brighter colors in a neighboring one; a wide array of voices, points-of-view, and pacing is meticulously arranged so that each entry shines showroom new, even if featuring a similar palette. While some authors soak their stories in one shade or another, others choose to dye their narratives more subtly, and both approaches are successful. As Tantlinger notes in her Introduction, “Sharing the experience of color will always be a little different from person to person, but the wondrous and weird ways we can attempt to share an experience may inspire us along the way, for better or worse, for beauty or for terror.” Women in horror month may fall in February (or is it March?), but this anthology proves that 2022 has been a showcase for women in horror year-round.

Is there a busier author in world horror than Philip Fracassi at the moment? I doubt that very much. However prolific Fracassi is has had little impact on the quality and sheer range of fiction he has recently released to a sleigh of top-quality publishers.  Gothic comes hot on the heels of the excellent A Child Alone With Strangers (2021) and is available in two formats, the first is a 250 limited edition from Earthling Press (November 2022) which is long since sold out and the trade version which has been picked up by Cemetery Dance for a February 2023 drop.


Fracassi is obviously a fan of releasing his work as limited editions before later wider releases as he did the same with the superb Boys in the Valley, which was originally limited to 500 copies (which sold out very quickly) but will thankfully get a mainstream release in the summer of 2023. It is a relief that Tor Nightfire (USA) and Orbit (UK) have picked up this terrific book as it was far too good to stay hidden away as an obscure collector’s edition. Don’t Let Them Get You Down (Zagava Press) is yet another limited edition, which I haven’t read yet, Fracassi has in the pipeline.


If you haven’t read A Child Alone With Strangers I strongly recommend you check it out, it has some similarities in style to Gothic in that plot wise it is a throwback horror novel harking back to the glory years of the seventies and eighties. Thankfully that is where the similarities end as Fracassi is too good and stylish a writer to keep recycling the same ideas. A Child Alone With Strangers is undoubtedly a more ambitious work, but that is not being detrimental to Gothic, which has a leaner more self-contained story, with less characters and about half the page length. Fracassi has commented online “I’m hopeful readers of my work (and authors in the vein of King, McCammon, Barker) will enjoy.” The influence of Stephen King is all over Gothic, but personally I compare it to the briefer works of his alter ego Richard Bachman!


At the heart of Gothic is a blend of two very old horror tropes: the cursed or haunted objects, which is expertly mixed with the idea of selling your soul for untold wealth. Philip Fracassi takes a bit of both and puts it into his exquisite horror blender and gives us a brand-new smoothie called Gothic! It does not matter too much that the idea is not particularly original, because the way in which the story is presented and told is first rate and a guaranteed page-turner which I sped through over a couple of days. Fracassi even has fun with knowing jokes aimed at Stephen King, both the horror author/reader crowd (“Richard Laymon’s novels were exiled to the UK”) and uncannily nails his plot of the novel in one sentence “Can you believe it Tyson? It’s like Christine… but wood!” Or to paraphrase instead of a haunted car, a 1958 Plymouth Fury to be precise, we have a possessed desk! It sounds very dumb but in reality the plots of those novels which inspired it were equally preposterous.


Gothic opens with Diana Montresor getting very excited, she has spies and detectives all over the world trying to track down an ancient family heirloom which was stolen two centuries earlier, with one of her contacts believing he has eyes on it. Meanwhile in New York, Sarah, the long-term girlfriend of washed up former hot-shot horror author Tyson Parks is eyeing up buying her boyfriend a vintage desk for his birthday. He is 59 years old and has not had a hit novel in some years and she hopes the new desk will get his creative juices flowing.  And considering what happens next that is a serious understatement!


Although Gothic did not hold any major twists and turns it was a hugely enjoyable easy on the eye novel as Tyson Parks moves from being a twitchy has-been with low self-esteem to an all-together different swaggering beast. It was hard to say whether Parks was based on any real authors, more than likely there were snippets of various individuals thrown into the mix, but combined they gave a great portrayal of an author who enjoyed his second wind and was too self-obsessed to see the bigger picture. I am sure we can all think of many authors who had a few early hit and then faded away feeding off former glories and resenting the next generation being invited to conventions before them!


I enjoyed the glimpse into the cutthroat world of bigtime publishing and how easy it is to be cast aside and forgotten (see above), with everybody only being as good as their next hit. The supporting cast and how they revolved around Parks was also first rate, from his relationship with Sarah, to his on/off bond with his daughter Violet. The interactions between the three was very credible and Violet was an empathetic university student who as the plot moved on jumped from the page. The relationship with his agent Harry, and the manner in which the balance of power switches, was also another strength of Gothic.  Strong characterisation has always been a major strength of Fracassi, and even with the plot leans towards the trashy, he does not lower the quality or skimp on the detail or credibility.


And what of the desk itself? It was much more than a hunk of wood and was far from inanimate. What a monstrous and wonderous creation! It breathed, lurked, evolved, oozed, made empty promises, fed on pain and grew ever so powerful as Tyson’s writing career produced a new bestseller. Along the way there were moments of hair-raising gore and the desk drawer scene had me wincing. If you ever read Gothic you will know exactly what I mean.


Over the last couple of years Philip Fracassi has quickly become one of my ‘go to’ authors and he is equally skilled at writing novels and novellas as he is short stories. If you have never read him both Gothic and A Child Alone with Strangers are great places to start before the rerelease of Boys in the Valley in the summer of 2023. But don’t forget his excellent range of shorter fiction, this guy covers all the literary bases.


Tony Jones

"Nobody is safe in a Fracassi story." - Laird Barron

On his 59th birthday, Tyson Parks—a famous, but struggling, horror writer—receives an antique desk from his partner, Sarah, in the hopes it will rekindle his creative juices. Perhaps inspire him to write another best-selling novel and prove his best years aren’t behind him.


A continent away, a mysterious woman makes inquiries with her sources around the world, seeking the whereabouts of a certain artifact her family has been hunting for centuries. With the help of a New York City private detective, she finally finds what she’s been looking for.
It’s in the home of Tyson Parks.

Meanwhile, as Tyson begins to use his new desk, he begins acting... strange. Violent. His writing more disturbing than anything he’s done before. But publishers are paying top dollar, convinced his new work will be a hit, and Tyson will do whatever it takes to protect his newfound success. Even if it means the destruction of the ones he loves.

Even if it means his own sanity.

Published as a trade paperback:
• Printed on 60# acid-free paper
• Featuring full color cover artwork
• Retail price $18.99

Published as a trade hardcover:
• Printed on 60# acid-free paper
• Featuring full color cover artwork
• Retail price $25.00

According to the A.I. Index, since the year 2000, the annual investment from venture capital firms into U.S. startups utilizing artificial intelligence systems has increased as much as six times, and statistics show that overall global investments in A.I. research and applications is set to reach $500 billion by 2024. A CBC Radio interview with Dr. David Levy even quoted the A.I. expert as predicting, "...in a few generations, we won't just be having sex with robots, we'll be marrying them."

Humankind's interest in artificially created human-like beings extends back to antiquity, the myths of golems brought to life by magical means, but the most recognizable representative of synthetic intelligence in our collective unconscious came only with the industrialized era of mass-production. The robot, first named a century ago in Karel Čapek's 1921 play, 'R.U.R.' (Rossum's Universal Robots), was a specific type of sentient automated doppelgänger further expanded upon in the works of science fiction godfathers Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick, and on the silver screen with films such as Westworld, Blade Runner (itself based on Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?), the RoboCop series, and the never-ending Terminator franchise. But in the ultra high-tech post-modern 21st century zeitgeist, how close is too close for comfort when it comes to artificial intelligence? Where are ethical lines drawn? And what, in the end, separates humankind from the machines we create in our own image?

That's the heady philosophical ground trod by Welsh-born New Zealand author Ian J. Middleton in his latest sci-fi/horror thriller, Beware The Moon Publishing's Ghosts Of Gion. An expansion from an earlier story, 'Geisha', originally written for The Other Stories podcast and available in his short fiction collection Ominous: A Collection of Dark Tales, Gion is a novel that offers a chillingly reflective take on the possibilities and dangers of unrelenting and immoral technological innovation.

The book's premise is deceptively simple: Lilly Monroe is a young British woman who arrives in Kyoto's historic, tourist-pandering, geisha-centric Gion district searching for her missing rebellious, globe-trotting sister, Katrina. With scant information on her sibling's travels, Lilly's sole lead regarding Katrina's disappearance involves a visit to the headquarters of Sy-Tech, a world-renown manufacturer of more-human-than-human geisha androids created to be ideal companions and also the last place Katrina was seen alive. Lily swiftly learns, however, that not only does Sy-Tech have a more sinister intention for their automatons than mere pleasurebots, but that their company's moral compass is broken in ways she'd never imagined.

What makes Ghosts Of Gion so rich isn't the plot; the straight-forward storyline, and particularly the killer-robot-army-run-amok climax, directly channels the aforementioned Michael Crichton vehicle Westworld, and Sy-Tech's android geishas owe more than their fair share to the replicants of Blade Runner fame. Instead, Middleton wisely eschews the conventional world-building that oftentimes overpowers average science fiction stories to focus instead on Lilly herself. His lush, hypnotic prose and grounded characterization allows us deep access to her troubled psyche; in contrast to the rambunctious Katrina, Lilly is depicted as cripplingly introverted, a sometimes unconfident woman ill at ease with the world and her place in it and continually haunted by childhood fears. Tormented well into her adult years by the memory of her Aunt Mandy's creepy doll collection, Lilly has a distinct phobia of porcelain faces that consistently tests her mettle amid the geisha-crowded district. Yet as virtually the sole character of the book, Lilly's fragile personality shows its strength in a variety of ways; her stubbornness, resilience in the face of adversity and, most of all, an unfaltering loyalty to those closest to her.
Perhaps owing to its short story roots, Ghosts of Gion makes for quick entertainment; a dedicated reader could absorb the entire novel in a solitary day. But that dedication comes easily; Middleton's descriptions are so vivid, particularly when relaying the Gion district itself, that one is thoroughly immersed in its evocative rainy-day splendor. The mystery elements, too, are intriguingly handled, and Kristina's ultimate fate, while not entirely unforeseen, unfurl with unwavering literary precision. Those seeking some chaotic horror thrills won't be disappointed, either; the scenes of Sy-Tech's decent into slam-bang android anarchy in the novel's last third are harrowing, and Lilly's grisly skin-blistering, face-melting confrontation with the corporation's executive villain easily matches anything Hollywood's CGI factory can hurl at an audience.
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Ghosts Of Gion isn't a work concerned with upending convention; its storytelling lineage can readily be traced back through to classics of decades past. More than anything Middleton's novel falls into the category of Good Tales Well Told, and is worth every bit the investment of time taken to explore its pages. Filled with believable characters, thoughtful musings on modern-day questions about artificial intelligence and a throw-you-off-balance final chapter, Ghosts Of Gion earns an enjoyable 4 (out of 5) on my Fang Scale. Extra-special praise must be granted to the Garth Design Company, who crafted this novel's breathtakingly beautiful cover. It captured both my eye and heart before reading a single word. This is how it's done, people. Take note.     ​

So when I was finished reading If Only a Heart I had to think for a little about what I read. This was a real hit or miss collection for me. It's not as though the stories were poorly written. They just didn't connect with me.

There were some stories I really enjoyed.
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Wallpaper Man was a creepy story that I didn't want to end. It was one of those shorts that would make a great longer read. Don't Let Her In had me hoping I never break down on a back road. Backward man was down right creepy.

Those 3 stories I felt were the true stand outs in this collection. The other were ok reads. If I was to reread this collection down the road, I would probably just read. Of course you could read them and love them all. These are my thoughts. That's the thing about opinions we all have them. These just happen to be mine. Like I said no story was poorly written they just weren't for me.