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Book Review: The Dark at the End of the Tunnel by Taylor Grant

The Dark at the End of the Tunnel by Taylor Grant

Crystal Lake Publishing, 2015

ISBN: 9780994679338

Available: Kindle ebook, trade paperback

I enjoy a good novel, but sometimes a solid collection of short stories is just as good, if not better. The Darkness at the End of the Tunnel by Taylor Grant contains ten short stories, each with unique storytelling elements.

There are a number of standout stories. “The Vood” is about a creature who hides and devours from the shadows. Grady lost his mother to this creature, and he has feared it since childhood. Growing up with it has caused problems for him, but a lifetime of preventing it from devouring him hasn’t protected Grady from himself. “Show and Tell” is the story of a sixth grader who is called into the guidance councilor’s office after his teacher finds disturbing artwork in his desk. The tale he tells of the pictures is equally disturbing…and deadly. In “Whispers in the Trees, Screams in the Dark,” Blake resents his father and his new wife moving them to a new city, where he has a hard time making new friends. He meets two boys who want to show him something remarkable in the woods; a woman with beauty surpassing that of anyone they have seen. But her beauty comes at a price. In “The Intruders”, Mason makes a discovery during his research for his true crime book after speaking with several serial killers. All of them have one thing in common: they hear voices. Now Mason can hear them, too. The last story in the collection, “The Dark at the End of the Tunnel,” concerns a man coming out of a decade in stasis to discover he has no memories. As they gradually come back, he’s haunted by disturbing hallucinations. Desperate for answers, he reaches out to his broker, Mr. Wheeler, and his doctor, Dr. Smythe.

Grant is a screenwriter and filmmaker, but Dark at the End of the Tunnel is his first short story collections, and it is fantastic. The characters are memorable, the gore is fantastic, and Grant’s storytelling skills are polished. There are certainly stories that have their share of monsters, but it’s the stories that make you take a look at the darker side of humanity that make it truly worth it to pick up this book. You won’t be disappointed. Highly recommended

Contains: body horror, gore, sexuality

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on June 25, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: The Night’s Neon Fangs by David W. Barbee

The Night’s Neon Fangs by David W. Barbee

Eraserhead Press, 2015

Available: New Paperback

ISBN: 9781621051756

 

The Night’s Neon Fangs is a collection of four novellas of horror/weird fiction. Barbee writes beautifully, telling emotional stories and drawing sympathy for the protagonist from readers. The titular novella is about Buster Wade, an electric werewolf who works as a bodyguard and general muscle for a company that cleans up after mummy storms in the future. A giant and dangerous cloud of mummies began in the wake of a disastrous gathering of international gods, and roams the country dumping thousands of pounds of mummies onto the public below. I loved this story for the simple fact that it has mummies, something that you don’t typically see too much of in horror fiction.

Noah’s Arkopolis is about a weird amalgam of a city, built up over time, after God left Noah and the animals adrift with no land in sight. Mating over the generations created many new species of animal/human hybrids. The city is now in danger of being destroyed by whales, so Noah’s ghost enlists the help of Gren, an average citizen of Arkopolis to save the city. This is one of the most imaginative stories I’ve ever read and I loved it. Gren is a sympathetic character, while I wanted to strangle Noah’s ghost at times.

That Ultimo Sumbitch is a surreal, steampunk, sort of story. Ultimo, a mechanized soldier who thinks he is human, is roaming what is left of the Australian outback, in the wake of an alien invasion of Earth. This story just about brought tears to my eyes. Although the main character isn’t even human, the story is gritty and emotionally charged.

Finally, Batcop Out of Hell tells the story of McNulty, a batcop in Guano City who is murdered along with his wife and daughter. He ends up in Hell, but is given a choice by a batdemon. McNulty takes the deal, and is sent back to seek revenge and save his family from Limbo with a skin of special Hellfire. In the process, McNulty discovers things about his former co-workers and himself. This is another story that had me practically in tears, with sympathy for McNulty and the horrible position he has been put in through no fault of his own.

The stories are dark, gritty, and emotionally driven. Barbee is a fantastic writer and I look forward to reading much more by him in the near future. Recommended.

Contains: graphic violence and adult language

Reviewed by: Colleen Wanglund

Posted on June 24, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: Thirty Hours With A Corpse and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol by Maurice Level, introduced and edited by S.T. Joshi

 

Thirty Hours With a Corpse and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol by Maurice Level, introduced and edited by S.T. Joshi
Dover Publications, 2016
ISBN: 9780486802329
Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

S.T. Joshi has collected thirty-nine of Maurice Level’s conte cruel, or “cruel tales,” in one volume. Level, a French writer from the early twentieth century, whose specialty was short stories of the macabre, was a contributor to the Grand Guignol Theatre in Paris, known for staging gory dramas. His tales deal with the human condition and moral frailty, rather than anything supernatural.

 

I was enthralled with all of the stories in this anthology, but a few stood out more than others. As mentioned above, some stories focus on moral frailty. In “The Debt Collector”, a clerk turned thief takes his spoils to a solicitor’s outside town, leaves the funds under a false name, and travels back to town in order to turn himself in. Of course, he is promptly arrested, found guilty at trial, and jailed for five years. Upon release, he heads to the solicitor’s to pick up the money. The trouble is that, in the meantime, he forgot the false name he used. The story “Blue Eyes” culminates in a young woman having certain business transactions with the last man she would ever want to see. In “The Last Kiss,” a man takes revenge on the woman who blinded him.

 

Other stories deal with madness or psychoses. The need for peace and quiet occasionally drives us all a little mad sometimes: unfortunately for the nagging mistress of the man in “Fascination”, he takes that a step too far, and shoots her for the sake of a night in. “In the Light of the Red Lamp” is a tragic tale of a husband who develops photographs of his deceased wife, only to find something he was not expecting. In “Poussette”, a highly religious woman is betrayed by her cat, Pousette, who is only following instincts when she escapes the house to be in the company of yowling male cats. When Pousette returns, the woman’s affection for her formerly loyal pet has turned to anger and paranoia. A man’s suspicions and paranoia conclude in a familial tragedy in “The Bastard”.

 

Several tales take place during wartime. “Under Ether” tells the story of a patient/prisoner who discovers through conversation that his doctor comes from the same town, and that they knew each other’s mothers. What the injured man says under ether, however, is unexpected. “At the Movies” finds a mother telling her son about what is taking place on a newsreel, only to find a familiar face, one she believed to have been killed during the war.

 

The scariest part of these short stories is that none of them have any supernatural explanation as to why things happened. They are all driven by humanity and the wrongs that we have the capability of inflicting on each other. I highly recommend this collection, but you might need a good strong drink or cup of tea to calm your nerves.

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on June 5, 2016 by , Reply
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