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Book Review: Chew on This! edited by Robert Essig

Cover art for Chew on This edited by Robert Essig

Chew on This! edited by Robert Essig

Blood Bound Books, 2020

ISBN: 9781940250465

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition  ( Amazon.com )

 

Chew on This is a themed horror anthology dealing with…food.  Can food actually be horrifying?  Based on this book, the answer is a resounding “yes.”  It combines creativity and gut-wrenching disgust into a brew of good stories.  Fair warning: some of these stories are truly barf-inducing, and sicker than any “splat” style horror writing.   Combinations of food and body fluids (and limbs), babies roasted in ovens: it’s all on the table.  This is a fun batch of horror stories, and also the National Restaurant Association’s worst nightmare.

 

With only a few exceptions, the overall story quality varies from good to very good, and most of them aren’t disgusting, just good, smart stories.  Some of them are “cycle” stories, where the story focuses on one event and then ends, leading into another of the same event.  Chad Lutzke’s “Cherry Red” and Kristopher Trianna’s ‘The Feeding” fall into this category.  One deals with a psychotic kid and his fascination with red cereal box toys, the other with a sandwich delivery service that takes much more than the customer’s money.  Ronald Kelly’s “Grandma’s Favorite Recipe” is Kelly doing what he does best: taking a lovable southern character, in this case the “saintly granny,” and turning her into something more sinister, by way of her cooking.  Vivian Kayley’s “Roly Poly” is notable for its entertaining look at the lengths some unfortunate women will go to for weight loss. It’s also the only story in the book with a happy ending.  Shenoa Carroll-Bradd’s “Barrel Aged” may be the most intriguing story, although it might take a second read to understand, as the author squirrels away the most important details in only a few sentences.

 

If you want to avoid (or read first) the stomach churners, here they are.  They are solid pieces, just gruesome.  Tonia Brown’s “A Woman’s Work” features the aforementioned cooked human baby, and John McNee’s “With a Little Salt and Vinegar” has an eating contest, with dead fetuses on the menu.  Nikki Noir’s “Magick Brew” is a hilarious look at combining a certain reproductive body fluid with margaritas to make a drink that renders the consumer ravenous with lust…to the extreme.  The true pukefest is K. Trap Jones’s “Seeds of Filth”.  With restaurant employees combining any and all types of bodily fluids with condiments and serving them to rude customers, this story is likely to make the average reader upchuck their last meal.  It might be the most revolting story ever committed to paper.

 

Overall, Chew on This is a well-written, creative anthology, it just takes a stomach of iron at times to read the full book.  Recommended.

 

Contains:  violence, profanity, gore, body horror, cannibalism, and everything disgusting you can think of

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on March 16, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities, and Other Horrors edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey

cover art for Miscreations edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey

( Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com )

Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities, and Other Horrors edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey

Written Backwards, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1732724464

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

 

 

In the foreword to Miscreations, Alma Katsu writes that “we’re told from childhood that monsters exist… we don’t need anyone to tell us they’re real”. Collected within the pages are 23 tales of monsters of all kinds, from the traditional to the unconventional, from the literary to the personal.  Interspersed is artwork from HagCult, who also did the cover art for the book.

Josh Malerman gives us a werewolf tale in “One Last Transformation” with an engaging, murderous narrator addicted to the change, and a number of writers approach the Frankenstein story in different ways. My favorites of these tales were Stephanie M. Wytovich’s poem “A Benediction of Corpses”  in which the Creature addresses his creator directly, and “Frankenstein’s Daughter”, by Theodora Goss, with its surprising and satisfying ending. Christina Sng takes an unconventional approach to an evil Russian water spirit in “Vodoyanoy”.

More personal monsters also appeared.  Michael Wehunt’s “A Heart Arrhythmia Creeping Into A Dark Room” was an effective and creepy tale about the anxiety and dread that accompany someone living in the shadow of a potential heart attack. The story was flawed by the author’s insertion of a fictionalized monster and victim in a story that was far too realistic. Victor Lavalle’s “Spectral Evidence” touched on the way grief lives on, and Scott Edelman’s “Only Bruises Are Permanent” tells the story of a woman who has the bruises left from an incident of domestic violence tattooed on her body.

Monstrous mothers also appear, in Joanna Parypinski’s brutal “Matryoshka”, in which a family tradition of giving each mother and daughter a matryoshka doll goes dramatically wrong, and Mercedes M. Yardley’s ironic “The Making of Asylum Ophelia”, in which a mother raises her daughter to resemble Hamlet’s Ophelia with plans to also replicate her fate.

Other strong stories I especially enjoyed include Nadia Bulkin’s “Operations Other Than War”, Usman T. Malik’s “Resurrection Points”,  Lisa Morton’s “Imperfect Clay”, and the disturbing “My Knowing Glance” by Lucy A. Snyder, which went in a much different direction than I expected it to.

Miscreations is overall a strong collection. The authors have come up with imaginative creatures using a variety of creative approaches, and readers will find sitting down with it well worth their time. Highly recommended.

Contains: murder, torture, violence, gore, body horror

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note: Miscreations: Gods, Monsters, and Other Horrors is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2020 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology. 

Posted on March 5, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Wicked Women: An Anthology by the New England Horror Writers edited by Trisha J. Wooldridge & Scott E. Goudsward

Wicked Women: An Anthology of the New England Horror Writers by [Trisha J. Wooldridge, Jane Yolen, Hillary Monahan, Lynne Hansen, Scott T. Goudsward]

( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

Wicked Women: An Anthology by the New England Horror Writers, edited by Trisha J. Wooldridge and Scott E. Goudsward.

NEHW Press, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-0998185446

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

February is Women in Horror Month, a time to celebrate both those who have altered the dark landscape and pioneered the path forward into nightmares anew, and who are blazing fresh trails into the abyss. Note: this should not just be relegated to one month– it’s tough to highlight all the new stars in the genre while looking back to those who paved the way.

Writing groups these days are a mixed bag, with many floundering with jealousy and stale efforts,  without the passion that should drive each member forward into the realms of publication and stellar storytelling. The New England Horror Writers are the only group I have witnessed firsthand to be that dark fire that consistently raises the bar for both newbies and veteran authors. Of course, it’s New England, so they have a leg up on the shadowy inspiration.

Wicked Women is a brilliant showcase of the group, many of whom should be and likely will be better known in the days to come. There is not a weak entry in this collection, which make highlighting a select few excruciatingly difficult. Between the covers, there is something for everyone, from the classic to the experimental, the subtle to brutal.

Favorite tales vary by the day and mood so I will focus on what resonated on the second read-through.

“Milk Time” by Elaine Pascale recalls classic Shirley Jackson in a story about a school that handles its students in a manner thatwill leave the reader with chills.

“Bad Trip Highway” by Renee DeCamillis harkens back to the best of wicked, sharp, classic horror of the eighties in the vein of Elizabeth Massie, a story about a woman and a strange hitchhiker that veers off the path of the well-trodden into something special.

“Souls Of The Wicked Like Crumbs In Her Hand” by Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert focuses on a woman who discovers there is another in a cafe that only she can see. What ensues twists into something evil and Twilight-Zone-ish, like the best of Yvonne Navarro.

“Arbor Day” by Kristi Peterson-Schoonover begins with the line “On Linden Island, kids are never told someone has died.” There’s a good reason for this, and the family tree that the community focuses upon holds secrets that outsiders should never discover. This story reminded me of the best of Tamara Thorne.  Again, choosing a favorite from this collection depends on the reader, and was a tough task when just about any could rise to the top. I expect several of the lesser-known authors to become much better-known in the days to come. Highly recommended, especially for fans of short stories.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 

 

Posted on February 17, 2021 by , Reply
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