 A father and son team give us seven dark tales Uneasy Beginnings was co-written by Simon Kurt Unsworth and his son Benjamin Kurt Unsworth, who is making his print debut with this collection. In the introduction Simon, who authored the excellent novel The Devil’s Detective and many other short stories, explains that after his son developed an interest in writing, the possibility of releasing a collaborative work presented itself. Simon saw this as a father/son bonding opportunity, a once in a (literary) lifetime exercise, which might not present itself again, and so Black Shuck who have an excellent reputation for quality collections, came onboard. Simon was initially reluctant to read his son’s work, for obvious reasons, but in the end helped shape the stories in the editing stages. Interestingly, it is not revealed which of the two men wrote each individual tale, which was a nice touch. Because I found the introduction captivating and a touch moving, I wanted to like this book much more than I eventually did. My daughter ‘AJ’ occasionally guests reviews for Ginger Nuts (she is only fourteen) and I can understand Simon’s desire to encourage without getting too pushy and not wanting to put his son off by being over critical. I try and do the same, by trying not to nag AJ about her next potential Ginger Nut contribution! However, it is still a decent collection, but ultimately lacked genuine standout stories, a couple of which were let down by disappointing endings. Buttons is the first of the seven; a guy called Bruno is walking along his hallway and instinctively catches something falling which he realises is a button which then sticks to his hand. This very quirky story was an entertaining quick read, and as Bruno just cannot get the button off, begins to get paranoid and thinks he might have to painfully cut it off as his irrational fear mounts quickly. The rather surreal action plays out nicely, but I was not convinced by the ending, was it clever or a cheap shot? I could not make my mind up. Maybe it was both. Fred Darvill works for the British Association of Ghostwatchers (BAG) in A Lust for Ghosts and is sent out to investigate Castlespire Manor which the nagging owners are certain is haunted and is to spend the night there to either prove or debunk it. This one missed the mark for me, it seemed unsure whether it was a ghost story of some sort of comedy and in the end fell between the posts. Again, it was let down by a disappointing and predictable ending. Excision has an interesting enough start, Masters is in hospital for an undisclosed operation, it does not reveal what exactly, but as the action moves on it is obvious things are not quite what they seem, or perhaps it is just the paranoia and fear of Masters? The guy is seriously edgy. Obviously, things do not go as planned, hints are dropped here and there which maintain a high level of interest for the reader, but there was not enough resolution and, once again, the ending seemed a copout with too much left hanging. I thoroughly enjoyed Happy Families which would make a nice episode of a Twilight Zone style show. The three members of the Castle family wake up in an unfamiliar room on metal framed beds and do not remember how they got there. Out of nowhere an intercom voice shouts into the room: “Hello Castles. I am the host. You do not know me. I will return soon. Until then, goodbye.” When the host returns, so do weird flashing lights and then the nasty fun begins as old secrets are spilled and resentments surface. This was an entertaining inclusion, I saw the ending coming, but it still worked great. I also though the very strange Dog was terrific and could also make a cool short film. A guy finds himself in a concrete room with no way out and no furniture. From that point on he is randomly and painfully sprayed with streams of water from unseen hoses which are very difficult to dodge and appears at unexpected moments. Psychologically he is on edge all the time as he does not know when the next vicious blast will arrive. And as the story is called Dog you might be able to guess what appears in the room with the unnamed sucker. Good clean nasty fun with a particularly bleak, but perfectly pitched, ending. Who reckons they could have fun filming a version of Dog in their garden shed?!? Interim Report on an Incident at an Asylum was a let-down and did little for me mainly because of the format it is presented in; an audio log recorded by the operator on duty at Dewar’s Institute for the Criminally Insane. And here lies the biggest weakness of this story, ultimately reports are boring, hell, I read them all day at work and do not want to read them in my leisure time also. David Jones is the guard on duty as things start to go wrong, violently wrong, but it was all very blandly presented, and I struggled to finish it. However, I did manage to hang on until the ending, which was as dull as the rest of it. This was the weakest story in the collection.  Uneasy Beginnings concludes in style with Plastic in which an A&A doctor called David treats a little boy with a nasty cough and after a closer look and a further coughing fit the kid chucks up a lump of plastic which looks a bit like a bottle top. David put it down to bad parenting, or the kid being dumb until a couple of days later he hears a nurse discussing another kid spitting up plastic, then another…. From that moment on conspiracy theories fly and things take a turn into the areas of science fiction. I enjoyed this quirky little story, which ends the collection on a high note, and a final sentence which made me chuckle. Or did I cough? Hopefully not. I am not going to try guessing which Unsworth wrote each story and like every collection, some tales were much better than others. Ultimately seven stories are not a huge investment of your time and it certainly has some high moments, a few laughs, some horrible scenes and its own brand of quirkiness. And Unsworth Junior if you read this review keep on writing! 3/5 Tony Jones   THE HEART Ans soul of horror fiction reviewsComments are closed.
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