The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories

The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories -- By Aaron Polson

This review comes with a couple of disclaimers: this collection is authored by the host of Skull Salad Reviews, horror writer Aaron Polson. The second disclaimer is that I only review work that I enjoy. My aim in reviewing is to point readers to good stories in the small press.

So it's no surprise that I enjoyed this collection of dark tales. This is a collection of fourteen stories where dark things lurk under the surface of normality. Aaron is adept at creating the tales of quiet horror that I am fond of: creepy tales of escalating tension

Readers may recall that I'm a fan of flash (stories under a thousand words). 'Everything in Its place' is a weird flash story, showing who things can so easily go awry in the world of Aaron's imagination. Flash doesn't owe the reader any explanations. I like that. I enjoyed this slither of strange horror.

A young couple, Zach and Courtney, come to the town of Broughton's Hollow fields to claim their inheritance. I enjoyed the vivid description of the inhabitants with their waxy grey skin, their unreasonable love of the desolate land, and their tendency to express the unspoken. Zach slips easily into the ethos of the community, but pregnant Courtney is determined to fight for herself and her unborn child.  

One thing that I enjoy about horror is that it doesn't have to be fair. You never quite know where you're going to end up when you read it. I keep thinking about the unfairness of 'Brian Cullen's Confessional."  When Mark returns to Black Mountain to attend the funeral of an old friend, the events of childhood rise up and overwhelm him.  

Fourteen fine tales, of hidden horrors, mutant creatures, and strange pasts. Read the free version of The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories at Smashwords or shell out a mere 99 cents to get the full fourteen tales in the bonus edition. Recommended.

Daily Science Fiction - December

A brief review of three short stories from Daily Science Fiction. I highly recommend the site. You can read the stories online or have them delivered to your email.

Nothing but the Truth by Stephen V Ramey is a short tale about a mother who thinks she is doing the best for her boy because of her own twisted ideals. Enjoyable and very effective.

In The God Solution by M.E. Castle, Deliah destroys Gods. Her five-year-old brother is a god. A heartbreaking tale that I almost want to advise against not reading because it's so sad. Beautiful writing. My favourite story of the three.

A Christmas Frost by Robert E Keller is a charming story about Wretch Pines and dark gnomes and continuing family traditions.

And if they don't tempt you. There are plenty more to choose from over at the Daily Science Fiction website.

Bam! 172 Hellaciously Quick Stories

Bam! 172 Hellaciously Quick Stories

by Luc Reid

Bam,  indeed. This is a collection of 172 fantasy and science fiction, flash stories. That's right -- 172. Each of them short enough to read in a few minutes, each of them rich, well crafted, meaningful. Dark chocolate stories that deserved to be savoured.

Luc Reid is a winner of the Writers of the Future award, and it shows. Most of these stories have been previously published in venues such as Abyss and Apex, Brain Harvest and The Daily Cabal.  Reid has compiled this collection, added some interesting commentary and published them at the bargain price of $2.99.

I have a taste for flash, and with the explosion of e-publishing, it could be that flash is going to take off in a big way. You could read these stories to slip a little strangeness into your life, standing in line at the check-out, on the bus, waiting in the doctor's surgery.

There are two things I like in my flash. I love spec fiction, I love ideas. Bam has idea after idea, expressed succinctly. Glimpses into worlds, very much like own, but skewed in some interesting and wonderful way. I also like my flash to have an emotional resonance. I particularly like the three linked 'Outcasts on Earth' stories, written through the eyes of alien perception.  Many of Reid's stories are moving, many of them are funny. There are too many stories to mention all my favorites. I enjoyed the Parthenia Rook series, a tongue-in-cheek pulp style science-fiction adventure series. Ever wondered what happened, after the 'happily ever after' -- read the Cinderella series.

Reid has published the collection in a number of formats. If you have a kindle you can sample or buy on Amazon. If you're like me, a person who is always trailing behind the latest trends, you can read the collection on your computer in pdf or html format. On Smashwords you can read a generous 20% sample of the book for free. I highly recommend this collection. Dark chocolate flash stories which deserve to be savoured, or, if you're greedy like me, you can gobble them all down at once.   

Tying Knots by Ken Liu

In Tying Knots by Ken Liu, To-mu, a traveller from Boston, persuades the naïve, but brilliant, Soe-bo to help him with his research in return for a new crop of rice for his village. However, the gains are weighed in one man's favour.

In Tying Knots is a tale of how the march of supposed progress is sometimes impossible to stop and how the old ways are becoming lost. Deeply effecting.

Beautifully written, this tale will stay with me for some time. You can read it here.

What They Hear in the Dark by Gary McMahon

What They Hear in the Dark by Gary McMahon is the first chapbook from new publisher, Spectral Press. Both author and story are excellent choices to open the imprint.

There's no sound in the quiet room. After the death of their son, Rob and Becky move into a new house and discover the room. It's a room that shouldn't exist and like grief, the couple experience the space differently. For Becky it is a comforting place, somewhere to feel close to her son. For Rob, it is a different experience altogether.

There is a sense of menace to the tale and McMahon weaves these characters and the room into our hearts and our nightmares.

What They Hear in the Dark is a gorgeous chapbook--both the story and the presentation. The publisher Simon Marshall Jones has produced a top quality chapbook and I highly recommend it. I should however note (though there is no bias towards the story in this review--I hope) that I have a chapbook forthcoming from Spectral Press.

You can find out more about the imprint and how to purchase either subscriptions or Gary McMahon's chapbook at the Spectral Press website.

G U D Issue Six

Issue 6 of G U D (Greatest Uncommon Denominator) is packed with fiction and poetry. I received a free PDF of the magazine.

The issue opens with a story from Aliette de Bodard. Set against the backdrop of ancient China ‘As the Wheel Turns’ follows Dai-Yu on a journey through several lifetimes. In each incarnation she is tormented by the Founders who urge her to choose between them. It is a choice Dai-Yu knows she cannot make whatever the consequences to her own existence.

Lavie Tidhar delivers a poignant tale about a girl, a butterfly and a painter in the ghettos of WWII in ‘The Last Butterfly.’ Almost as poignant, but deeply contrasting, is Caroline M Yoachim’s ‘What Happens in Vegas’ about drugs, sex and forgetting. While, Lydia Ondrusek offers us a sad tale about losing someone you love in ‘Hateful’. ‘Salad Days’ by E.H. Lupton deals with genetic illness and whether it is preferably to know whether or not you have inherited faulty genes.

‘Who are you talking to, Zone?’ by Bob Tippee with its brevity of language and unusual narrative is an engaging tale about a vagrant who hears voices. At times, I wasn’t certain if the other characters in the tale where figments of his imagination or not. I prefer not knowing.

There are a handful of micro tales in Gud, and my favourite was ‘How to Recover from a Hundred-Year Sleep ‘ by Sue Williams. A delightful fairy tale.

For me, the best story this issue was Ferrett Steinmetz’ ‘In the Garden of Rust and Salt.’ Nine-year-old Evelyn, Queen of the Junkyard, discovers unsavoury truths about her guardian and makes an unusual friend. Lovely.

Favourite poems were ‘Fire at the Time Factory’ by Jennifer Jerome and ‘Doll’ by Marine Richards. The latter is beautiful and evocative.

"Fallen Angel", a novella by Amy Grech & Michael McCarty

It was a little over a year ago when I had the chance to read and review Amy Grech's short story collection, Blanket of White (click here to read that review),so I considered it a treat when I got the chance this year to check out her collaboration with author Michael McCarty for a horror novella called Fallen Angel.

The story tells of a young woman named Angel McCallister coming to grips with the death of her father, a sexually abusive drunk. She's already scarred by him, undergoing therapy, but It's when she moves into her old home months after the funeral that she has a resurgence in her nightmares and starts to experience paranormal phenomena around the house, particularly at night in the bedroom.

The despicable nature of her father is wrenching at times, especially early in the story when her mother commits suicide the same night Angel is sexually assaulted. And the desperation and isolation she feels when her father's ghost seems to haunt her is palpable. But there are little things that sucked me out of the story, primarily the copious amount of angel references. The lead character's name is Angel, she lives in Angel Falls, and during a dream sequence she sees a fallen statue of an angel outside a mausoleum.

Aside from an ending that I felt too abrupt, it was a compelling read and packed a serious punch. It was published earlier this year by Delirium Darkside. And if you're interested in checking out other short fiction from either authors, you can find Amy's Blanket of White and Michael's collection, A Hell of a Job, through Damnation Books.

Find out more about Amy at her blog http://www.crimsonscreams.com/. And you can find Michael McCarty on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/monsterbook.

Fallen Angel can be found in e-format at Darkside Digital.