When Cutting Block Press’ BUTCHER SHOP QUARTET hit the stands in 2005, it was subtitled “Four Bold Tales to Disturb the Adventurous Mind.” Wow. Re-arrange those eight words and a myriad of possible exaggerations leap out at you. (Let’s pause for a moment so I can admit that I’m not slamming this book, because I haven’t read it. I’m just tossing out a smart-ass allusion to a Dashiell Hammett story, the title of which I can’t remember.)
Now BUTCHER SHOP QUARTET II, edited by Frank J. Hutton, walks among us, sans subtitle, and it’s comprised once again of four long short stories and/or novellas designed to mess with your mind, whether it’s adventurous or not.
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Dammit, I know you get tired of reading reviews of new horror books that whine about how much they remind the reviewer of one or more old books (or old movies, or TV shows, or issues of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, or whatever it is that the reviewer is familiar with from decades of wallowing in creepy stuff), but in this case, that’s tough. Honesty demands that I tell you Ronald Kelly’s HELL HOLLOW is patched together from pieces of Stephen King (there’s a coming-of-age element to the plot), early Michael McDowell (it’s all Southern-fried) and, of course, visual clichés from films.
“It was when Allison turned back toward the bathroom mirror that the decision of whether to go home to St. Louis or continue with her search was made for her. Staring back at her starkly, in puffy pink flesh and ugly brown scabbing, was the word that Jackson had so meticulously and gleefully carved into the flesh of her chest, just above the swell of her breasts.”
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Prolific and inventive horror author Brian Keene’s DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN shares the same basic premise as UNDER THE DOME by Stephen King, to whom Keene is often — and justifiably — compared. Don’t avoid it just because of this coincidence. If you do, you’ll miss out on Keene’s creative spin on the idea. Plus, DARKNESS ranks among his best work. (And anyway, this Leisure edition is actually an expansion of the novel’s original publication back in 2008, so you could argue that Keene beat King to the punch by a couple of years.)
As narrator Robbie Higgins recalls, he and the other residents of the small town of Walden, Va., woke up one morning to darkness. All light had disappeared, along with all electricity and other utilities. No phones, no TV, no radio, no Internet. Just darkness.
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Search this site and you’ll find we are big fans of F. Paul Wilson, for his short stories, standalone novels and his-soon-to-be-finishing Repairman Jack series. But there is a set of books on my shelf which I’ve been staring at for close to three years. I’m referring to “The Adversary Cycle,” which starts off with THE KEEP and then the first Repairman Jack book THE TOMB. The early titles are slowly being revised and reissued, mainly to update the stories with the current times, but in this column, I’ll be reviewing the older editions. Be forewarned: Spoilers abound.
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In assembling THE NEW DEAD: A ZOMBIE ANTHOLOGY, Christopher Golden not only has rounded up a bunch of original stories from a bunch of big names, but also has restored my faith in the viability of the undead-fic genre. No same ol’ same ol’, formula-following entries here; in the idea department, the contributors actually live up to the “new” of the title.
John Connolly kicks things off with his take on perhaps the first zombie story in the history of the world: “Lazarus.” It’s your one and only warning that the contents of NEW DEAD aren’t itching to play it safe — a fact made painfully clear in the next at bat, “What Maisie Knew,” in which David Liss’ narrator keeps a female zombie as a sex slave, but worries she might recall their past together — more specifically, the circumstances surrounding her passing.
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