Florida Gothic by Mitzi Szereto

August 8, 2017 By Leave a Comment


Florida Gothic by Mitzi Szereto
Publisher: Strange Brew Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (74 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Stuck in a twilight world between life and death…

A hit-and-run driver leaves Ernesto Martinez to die by a Miami canal. Then an alligator comes along to finish the job.

Being dead gives Ernesto plenty of time to think. He thinks about his wife, taken from him too soon by illness. He thinks about his daughter, the victim of a drunk driver. He thinks about his death as he watches his body slowly decompose.

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The meth head ex-con living in the Everglades. The judge enjoying retirement on the Gulf Coast. The son of a Colombian drug kingpin partying in South Beach. These men care nothing for the pain they’ve caused. But they’ll soon know what it is to feel pain.

Set against the sweltering bug-infested backdrop of South Florida, Florida Gothic weaves a darkly unnerving and visceral tale of sex, drugs, crime and vengeance.

Justice can be delayed, but eventually it will be satisfied.

This was one of the goriest tales I’ve read in a long time. Ernesto’s death was a gruesome one, and that was only the beginning of blood and gore that showed up everywhere he went as he figured out how to spend his time now that he was no longer living. With that being said, all of these scenes had an important purpose and I’m glad they were described with such grisly detail. These horror elements were a huge part of what made this book as interesting as it was.

There were too many narrators in this story. I found it confusing to switch among all of them so often, especially since their connections to Ernesto weren’t always made clear to the audience right away. I would have preferred to get to know one or two of them well instead of learning a little bit about so many different characters.

Ernesto was a complicated guy. My feelings about him wavered a lot depending on where I was in the plot and what kind of trouble he was currently getting into. Sometimes I liked him, and at other times my opinion of him was nuanced and hard to fit into something as simple as approving or disapproving of him. He wasn’t the kind of character who was at all easy to pigeonhole, and that made me curious to learn more about him. Once I finished the final scene, though, I was glad that he was written in such a complex way and that the author trusted me to come up with my own opinions about him.

Florida Gothic should be read by anyone who has ever had a revenge fantasy.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Beyond The Red Door: The Soul Seeker by E. H. James

August 3, 2017 By Leave a Comment


Beyond The Red Door: The Soul Seeker by E. H. James
The Demon Series Part 2
Publisher: Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (35 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Fifty years to the day Max Jensen walked into the Starke house, Jesse Miller is throwing a party.

Jesse wants to go down in high school history as the kid to remember. Only problem is, he may just get his wish. If he thought throwing a party in the long abandoned house of a serial killer would do it, then he would be right. But what happens that night at the old Starke house isn’t something you want to remember…not if you ever want to sleep again. Performing a mock ceremony to raise Starke from the dead proves to be a mistake of monumental proportion. And by the time Jesse realizes he is in over his head, he must now worry about keeping that same head on his shoulders.
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What would you do if the only way out was to go Beyond the Red Door…into the very mouth of hell?

Sometimes houses are abandoned for a very good reason.

The author did a wonderful job at slowly building the tension. I was creeped out long before anything actually happened because of how much time was spent building up the backstory and explaining why it was such a horrible idea to have a party at the abandoned Starke house.

I would have liked to see more attention paid to why Jesse thought it was a good idea to summon a demon in the first place. He seemed to be a smart and cautious guy in other areas of his life, so I was confused by his obsession with this topic and how casually he approached it. Had there been a little more information about this, I would have easily given this book a much higher rating as I enjoyed everything else about it.

The twist ending caught me by surprise. It wasn’t anything like the first part of this series, but it fit the tone of the whole thing very nicely. I especially liked the fact that there were a few parts of it that reminded me a lot of what happened in The Red Door. While it isn’t necessary to read this series in order, including references to previous events like that was a nice touch for those of us who have read book one already.

If you’re in the mood for something that’s a little gory and very frightening, Beyond The Red Door: The Soul Seeker is a good choice.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Hell Holes: What Lurks Beneath by Donald Firesmith

July 27, 2017 By 1 Comment


Hell Holes: What Lurks Beneath by Donald Firesmith
Publisher: Magical Wand Imprint
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: Full Length (156 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

It’s August in Alaska, and geology professor Jack Oswald prepares for the new school year. But when hundreds of huge holes mysteriously appear overnight in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle, Jack receives an unexpected phone call. An oil company exec hires Jack to investigate, and he picks his climatologist wife and two of their graduate students as his team. Uncharacteristically, Jack also lets Aileen O’Shannon, a bewitchingly beautiful young photojournalist, talk him into coming along as their photographer. When they arrive in the remote oil town of Deadhorse, the exec and a biologist to protect them from wild animals join the team. Their task: to assess the risk of more holes opening under the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and the wells and pipelines that feed it. But they discover a far worse danger lurks below. When it emerges, it threatens to shatter Jack’s unshakable faith in science. And destroy us all…

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One of my favorite parts of this story was how intelligently the characters behaved in a crisis. Every single one of them kept their cool and made rational decisions regardless of how surprised and horrified they were by what was going on around them. They worked together as a team, too, to figure out what to do next. These aren’t things that happen all that regularly in this genre, so it makes me pretty happy when I do see them.

The pacing was the only thing holding this book back from a much higher rating. Roughly the first 50 pages were spent introducing everyone and setting up the scene. It took even longer for the characters to finally realize that something was seriously wrong on their expedition. As beautiful as the writing itself was, I found myself growing restless as I waited for the horror, paranormal, and science fictions elements of the plot to reveal themselves.

Mr. Firesmith has an eye for detail. His descriptions of the tundra were deliciously spooky even before the characters or the audience had any idea what was happening in that remote corner of the world. I also liked seeing how much attention he paid to what his characters looked like and how their personalities would affect how they reacted to something frightening happening. That made it easy for me to grow attached to them before the plot picked up speed.

Hell Holes: What Lurks Beneath should be read by anyone who enjoys slow-burning horror.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Equus by Rhonda Parrish (editor)

July 11, 2017 By 1 Comment


Equus by Rhonda Parrish (editor)
Publisher: World Weaver Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary, Historical
Length: Full Length (331 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

There’s always something magical about horses, isn’t there? Whether winged or at home in the water, mechanical or mythological, the equines that gallop through these pages span the fantasy spectrum. In one story a woman knits her way up to the stars and in another Loki’s descendant grapples with bizarre transformations while fighting for their life. A woman races on a unique horse to save herself from servitude, while a man rides a chariot through the stars to reclaim his self-worth. From steampunk-inspired stories and tales that brush up against horror to straight-up fantasy, one theme connects them all: freedom.

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What it means to be a horse, unicorn, or other horse-like creature is about to be redefined.

In “A Complete Mare,” a girl named Vez discovered that she was part Norse deity after that part of her bloodline activated and her body began to change. What I liked the most about her transformation was her reaction to it. There was so much time spent developing Vez’s personality that her reaction to her previously unknown lineage made perfect sense. I wouldn’t have expected her to behave in any other way.

While I enjoyed all of the tales in this anthology, some of them could have used some more development. For example, the main character in “Different” travelled a long distance and spent a great deal of money to ask a unicorn to heal her disabled daughter. The unicorn’s response wasn’t anything like she had expected it to be. While I loved the premise, I couldn’t help but to wonder why the main character hadn’t spent more time researching how unicorn healings work. It’s one of the first things I would have done in that situation, so it struck me as odd that someone would go through all of that effort without figuring out in advance what to expect from such a journey.

One of my favorite stories was “Rue the Day.” Gaylene, the main character, was a unicorn trainer who regularly rode into battle with her unicorns. When something threatened to end her career forever, she had to decide how to respond to it. While I figured out what was going on in Gaylene’s life pretty quickly, but that only made me more curious to see how her dilemma would be resolved. This could have easily been expanded into a full-length novel. With that being said, I was satisfied with how it ended.

Equus should be read by anyone who loves everything equestrian.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Darkness Upon the Deep by Hristo Goshev

June 28, 2017 By Leave a Comment

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Darkness Upon the Deep by Hristo Goshev
Publisher: Aurora Wolf Literary Journal
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal
Length: Short Story (22 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Nikolai is gone. I still can’t come to terms with this, even though the honorary list of names on the hangar wall is a constant reminder of the stark reality. My dearest friend, my loyal brother in arms, the most skilled pilot and the noblest person I’ve ever known—dead, sacrificed upon the altar of this unfathomable abyss in which we’ve now been drifting for more than two solar days.

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Imagine slowing down from warp speed only to discover that your battleship has wandered into a place where no stars or planets can be found, physics as we know it is completely meaningless, and your ship seems to be the only thing that exists there at all. I was hooked on this tale as soon as I realized that all of the assumptions I’d normally make about how the universe works were meaningless in this place. This is the kind of storytelling that first got me interested in the science fiction genre in general, so I couldn’t wait to find out where the characters had ended up and if they’d ever figure out how to get back to our plane of reality.

The opening scene was a little confusing for me because the narrator jumped straight into the action without explaining who anyone was or what was going on. While I did figure it all out quickly, it would have been nice to at least know the main character’s name a little sooner. With that being said, this is a minor criticism of a story that I otherwise loved.

This was some of the most beautiful writing I’ve read in a long time. It definitely isn’t easy to find the terrifying side of a place that doesn’t seem to have any corporeal monsters, but that didn’t make me any less frightened for the characters. The author did an amazing job of both describing what that place felt like and showing why it was so dangerous for the people who accidentally ended up there.

Darkness Upon the Deep was a wild ride. I’d heartily recommend it to anyone who loves hard science fiction.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Bat by Leslie W P Garland

June 22, 2017 By Leave a Comment


The Bat by Leslie W P Garland
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Suspense/Mystery, Horror, Paranormal, Historical
Length: Short Story (83 pages)
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

With “fake news” hitting the headlines, I thought it would be nice to look at “truth” and muse on questions such as “what actually is true?” and “what is Truth?” using a fantasy story as a foil for same.

In this coming-of-age story Thomas recounts the events of a term at school when his class returned to a new beautiful class teacher, a donation of stuffed animals and birds by an eccentric benefactor which he and his friends subsequently discovered weren’t quite as dead as they looked, an exorcism in which a bell-jar which had contained a bat shattered, and then things, which up until then had been strange, turned to being sinister and frightening.

In an attempt to understand what was going on, Thomas found himself reading up on Black Magic, Satanism, the early Christian Church, and the worship of evil, but instead of assisting his understanding this made him more confused than ever. Even a conversation with his local priest failed to resolve the problems he found himself wrestling with. What was true? What was the Truth? And of course, where was the bat?

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The difference between good and evil isn’t always as easy to figure out as one might think.

One of the many reasons why I’m such a huge fan of Mr. Garland’s work is that it requires some effort from the reader in order to be understood. He’s the sort of writer who will give his audience a few important clues and then expect them to come to their own conclusions about what happened based on how they chose to interpret those clues. This was the perfect kind of storyline for this writing style because of how slippery people’s memories can be. Two people can remember the same moment in time in completely different ways depending on what their minds were paying attention to back then.

The character development was handled beautifully, too. At times I forgot that the narrator was remembering things that happened to him and his community decades ago because of how caught up I was in what young Thomas was experiencing and how much those events affected the way he saw the world. While I don’t know if the author would ever be interested in write a sequel about this specific character in this series, I’d sure like to read it if he does.

There was nothing gory about the horror in this tale, but that didn’t make any less frightening. I appreciated the way the fear sneaked up on me as I was reading. It wasn’t something I noticed at first, but I was pretty scared by the final scene. There is definitely something to be said for being scared by the threat of something terrible happening almost as much as I was by what actually occurred. Anticipation was one of the narrator’s biggest weapons, and he used it well.

The final reason why I gave this book a perfect score is that it wrestled with so many intriguing questions about faith, morality, grief, and what it means to be a good person without spoon-feeding any answers to the audience. I deeply enjoy philosophical discussions about these kinds of topics, and Mr. Garland gave me a lot of food for thought. I will be thinking about the various points his characters made for a long time.

This is part of the “The Red Grouse” series, but it can be read on its own or out of order.

The Bat chilled me to my core. It’s a must-read for anyone who loves though-provoking and intelligent stories.

Filed Under: Horror, Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Cape Zero: The Fall by Nicholas Woode-Smith

May 10, 2017 By Leave a Comment


Cape Zero: The Fall by Nicholas Woode-Smith
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (122 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

When social recluse and all round introvert, Peter Swart, manages to survive an attack by an insane homeless man, he soon discovers that Cape Town is not going to remain the holiday destination that it was previously regarded.

In the wake of a failed government state of emergency, society crumbles in South Africa as a virus turns people into violent cannibals. Within a day, the already compromised military collapses. Cape Town becomes a dark zone and its residents are forgotten.

With violent mobs roaming the streets, social anxiety and doubtable sanity thrown into the mix – will Peter be able to survive the apocalypse or, worse yet, the necessity to live with other people?

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The zombies in this story were nicely written. I liked the thought Mr. Woode-Smith put into how these creatures move and behave in this universe. He added some logical developments to their mythology that made me shudder. As much as regular zombies scare me, this version of them is even more frightening. I liked the scenes describing what it would be like to accidentally stumble across one of them because of this.

Peter’s character development was confusing to me. The way he behaved suddenly and completely changed about a third of the way through the plot. The medical explanation that was hinted at in the storyline didn’t make sense. Had it actually been the reason for the dramatic change to his personality, I would have expected there to be references to it beginning in the first scene. It’s definitely not the kind of condition that anyone would be able to hide, especially in an environment as stressful and chaotic as the one he was living in.

One of the things I enjoyed the most about this story was how the characters reacted to being in such a dangerous world. The fact that so many of them chose to work together to create a safe place to live made me smile. That doesn’t always happen in this genre, so I was glad to see folks working together so cooperatively this time.

There were multiple grammatical and punctuation errors. Some of the sentences were hard to understand because of how unusually they were written. It often wasn’t clear to me exactly what the author wanted his audience to get from those sentences. The storyline itself was interesting, but this book would have really benefited from another round of editing.

The characters in this tale had a refreshing amount of common sense. I appreciated the fact that they always remained cautious around the zombies and never let down their guards when they were in an unfamiliar situation or away from home. This doesn’t always happen in the horror genre, so I’m happy to meet characters who are so sensible.

Cape Zero: The Fall should be read by anyone who really likes zombie fiction.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A Passport to a Nation of Talking Slugs and Other Stories by Andrew Kozma

April 27, 2017 By Leave a Comment


A Passport to a Nation of Talking Slugs and Other Stories by Andrew Kozma
Publisher: Kozmatic Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Historical, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (44 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A Passport to a Nation of Talking Slugs is a collection of weird, speculative fiction containing four stories of people exploring strange places and situations, from a newly-discovered civilization of six-foot-tall talking slugs to being haunted by a man in a dark chocolate suit. Whether waking up in a prison camp or navigating a city full of copies of themselves, the characters in these stories are bent on understanding their world, even if that understanding also means the end of the world they thought they knew.

If you like the strange side of science fiction, keep reading.
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The main character in “Stammlager 76” lived in a prison camp and was gradually forgetting everything about the life he’d lead before being imprisoned there. There were so few details about what was going on in that camp that I had to read this twice before I understood what was going on. Once I figured it out, though, I really appreciated how much Mr. Kozma left up to his audience’s imagination. This is the sort of thing that works really well with his writing style because of how many different ways the ending can be interpreted.

“The Man in the Dark Chocolate Suit” was about a man who was trying to keep the man in the dark chocolate suit from haunting him. I absolutely loved the beginning of this story. Trying to figure out how I should interpret the identity of the strange man who was haunting the main character was just as much fun as attempting to guess how their conflict would end. With that being said, I really needed more hints here. None of the theories I came up with about what was going on were confirmed or denied. It would have been nice to have them narrowed down somewhat.

In “We of the Future are the Ghosts of the Past,” a man watched himself die over and over again. He then realized that the entire city was filled with copies of himself who were all experiencing the same event simultaneously. What I liked the most about this one was how calmly the protagonist explained an incredibly bizarre and dream-like situation. I didn’t want his saga to end. All of my most important questions were answered, but I was still fascinated by what this kind of experience would be like.

Not every vacation is necessarily an ideal one. The most interesting thing about “A Passport to a Nation of Talking Slugs” for me was how unexcited Roger was at the prospect of visiting a faraway land full of large, intelligent slugs. His vacation only fascinated me more as time went on because of how many contradictions there were between what the advertisements for Slugland promised and what the actual destination was like. The beginning and middle were full of questions that the ending only partially answered. I would have liked to see a little more time spent on explaining how everything tied together. I’m still not entirely sure that my theory about Roger’s fate is the correct one.

A Passport to a Nation of Talking Slugs and Other Stories should be savored. There is a lot of meaning to be sucked out of these tales if you take your time with them.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Thrown to the Wolves by Naomi Clark

March 27, 2017 By Leave a Comment


Thrown to the Wolves by Naomi Clark
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (42 pages)
Other: F/F
Rating: 3.5 stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Paige went to Romania looking for inspiration for a book. She found herself caught in a horror story. Attacked and left for dead by a vampire, Paige finds herself at the mercy of Kata, a beautiful, enigmatic werewolf. Their attraction is instant, but Paige’s fate hangs in the balance. She may yet be turned into a vampire herself. Soon it’s clear to Paige that the only way to save herself may be to return to the woman who attacked her…even if it means placing both herself and Kata in the greatest danger.

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Paige was such a likeable main character. The first thing I noticed about her was how smart and level-headed she was even when she was surrounded by danger. She was the kind of person who took her own safety quite seriously, and that’s refreshing to see in a modern fantasy story. It made me hope that all of her precautions would pay off for her in the end.

I would have liked to see more attention paid to the conflict with the vampire who attacked Paige just before the first scene began. The characters spent so much time trying to figure out how to handle that threat that I was surprised by how quickly that storyline ended up being resolved. I was fascinated by the idea of werewolves and vampires not getting along, so it was a little disappointing to not get to dive into that conflict very deeply.

The chemistry between Paige and Kata was sizzling hot. Watching the sexual tension build up between them made me eager to see it finally come to a head. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen once they finally ended up in bed together and if the sparks that flew between them could ignite something that lasted far longer than one night.

Thrown to the Wolves should be read by fans of erotica and dark fantasy alike.

Filed Under: Erotic Romance, Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

D is for Dinosaur by Rhonda Parrish

March 24, 2017 By 2 Comments


D is for Dinosaur by Rhonda Parrish (editor)
Publisher: Poise and Pen Publishing
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary, Historical
Length: Full Length (373 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

For the fourth installment of Rhonda Parrish’s Alphabet Anthologies, contributors were challenged to write about dinosaurs. The resulting twenty-six stories contain widely different interpretations of the dinosaur theme and span the spectrum from literal to metaphoric.

Within these stories — set in alternative histories, far-flung futures and times just around the corner — dinosaurs whimper and waste away or roar and rage. People can be dinosaurs, as can ideas, fictions and flesh. Knitted dinosaurs share space with ghostly, genetically engineered and even narcotic ones.
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Teenagers must embrace their inner dinosaurs in order to find peace and belonging, a dying woman duels a God in a far future city that echoes aspects of our past, an abused wife accompanies her husband on a hunt for an ancient power and finds more than she could ever have imagined and a girl with wonderful magical powers stumbles across the bones of a giant long-dead lizard. And so much more!

Everyone has a hidden side to themselves. Only time will tell if those unexplored parts of anyone’s personality, past, or future will be revealed.

In “B,” Brontë was a teenage girl who was bullied by classmates during the day and who had vivid dreams of being a raptor at night. When she decided to confront the meanest bully, these two worlds collided in unexpected ways. What I enjoyed the most about this tale was how much time the narrator spent planning her revenge. It made me eager to see what would happen next, and it also fit Brontë’s stubborn personality perfectly.

Once again, Ms. Parrish compiled a collection that I didn’t want to stop reading. Every single one of them had something that appealed to me, and there were very few missteps. “K” was one of the few stories that could have used more development. It was about two men named Gunnar and Brynjar who had recently survived a shipwreck and were trying to figure out how they might live on a deserted island. When one of them spotted another ship on the horizon, they had to decide if they’d rather signal for help or rough it alone. While I really enjoyed the premise, the ending was abrupt. I would have preferred to see more time spent on their dilemma before the twist was revealed. There was still so much material to explore before they made their choice.

“H” followed an ancient race that was capable of living both on land and in the sea. When their existence on one was threatened, they’d switch to fins or legs and live in the other one for a few millenia. This was one of my favourite selections because of how beautiful Ms. Engelhardt’s writing style was. She knew exactly how to capture a single moment and share it with her audience using every single sense a human is capable of perceiving. I didn’t want her storytelling to end, and I would love to read a sequel to this if she ever decides to write one.

I’d wholeheartedly recommend D is for Dinosaur to anyone who is a fan of any part of the modern science fiction or fantasy genres. There is something here for everyone!

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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