Monday, January 4, 2010

The New Bedlam Project Issue #4



Issue 4 of The New Bedlam project once more delivers on the little town’s promise to unnerve the unwary reader. Once more we travel through its darkened streets to uncover the evil which lurks within the minds and hearts of those within the city limits.

Natalie L Sin takes a different approach, using her unique love of Asia and everything within it to add a different cultural bent and flavour to the twisted happenings in this writers’ haven. Zoe E. Whitten reminds us that not all the residents are writers but horror isn’t picky when choosing victims. Michael C Pennington allows us to see some hope when the writers fight back. Somehow I see this as opening a whole new can of worms – fat and juicy ones.

Barry Napier and J. Jay Waller take a stab at necrophilia, but from completely different angles – so to speak. I’m sure they’re both fine upstanding gentlemen, but the black twistedness of their imaginations is clear for all to see.

And we have creatures. As regular readers know, the imaginings of the writer residents of New Bedlam are the bread and butter of the horror which walks its streets, and so Kevin Lucia and Louise Bohmer serve up a dog of hell and something mystical and creepy (respectively) just to remind us.

Coupled with an excerpt by Brandon Layng from Courting Morpheus (Can of Worms), and another from Jodi Lee’s novel set in New Bedlam (At the Institute), we have an excellent all round issue with something to please everyone – and it’s free. Go check it out.

by Brenton Tomlinson

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the awesome review, BT!

    I'm so glad you enjoyed this issue. It was definitely a tough one to put to bed, so to speak, being the end of our first year in publication, but also the beginning of a new year all around.

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  2. Excellent stuff-- I haven't finished reading it yet, but now I'm even hungrier to do so. Oh how I love this mag.

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