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Book Review: Petite Mort by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

 

Petite Mort by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

 

Blood Bound Books, Oct. 2022 (Halloween release date)

 

ASIN: BOBB87TLWY

 

Available: Kindle edition ( Amazon.com )

 

Petite Mort is a short story collection that reads like a crossbreed of the Hostel movies and a Jenna Jameson film fest, but with more originality and better storytelling.  This will appeal to readers who like healthy doses of gore and raunchiness.  If you can handle that, the stories are worth a read.

 

There are eight stories, six short and two longer ones. A few have been previously published in other collections.  The main selling point: none of the stories have the tired and overused “male psycho kidnaps, rapes, and tortures helpless woman” plot.  There are elements of the supernatural to the majority of the stories, and some of them are WAY off the path of normalcy.  “Santa’s Package”, the longest (and maybe best) story, has a young woman pregnant by either a) Santa Claus, b) alien abduction, or c) she’s just totally nuts.  ‘”Into the Pit” has a demon residing in one of those plastic ball pits kids play in at places like Chuck E. Cheese eateries.  “Cucumbers and Comforters” has a kappa, a somewhat reptilian water deity from Japanese folklore.  Kudos to author Nikki Noir for working the kappa into a story. It’s fun when authors use lesser-known deities from mythologies other than the familiar Greeks as a story backbone.  

 

The rest of the stories are a touch more “normal”, that being a relative term here, but they all are page turners and pack good doses of creativity, along with heavy doses of splat and lewdness.  Certain tumescent organs being chopped off, horror movie themed sex toys, people being literally torn apart through every possible orifice, it’s all here… for a certain reader type.  

 

Two other things worthy of special mention: the story “HorrorGasm”, which does a slick job of creating a wild revenge tale, while managing to poke fun at the dorks who sit around watching online porn all day.  For hilarity, “Santa’s Package” wins, running away with the writing of Santa’s bedroom scene. He’s quite the ‘jolly old elf’!  The author’s turning of Christmas clichés into witty double entendres is side-splittingly funny: you’ll laugh hard enough to turn your own belly into a bowl full of jelly.  

 

Bottom line: this one is good entertainment for certain readers, just don’t take any of it too seriously.  It’s all meant to be fun, over-the-top craziness, and it succeeds well on that score.  However, this is for adults only: don’t let your junior high students near this one.  Recommended for lovers of splat and sleaze.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on October 18, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror Vol. 3, edited by Paula Guran

The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror Volume 3 edited by Paula Guran

 

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, Vol. 3, edited by Paula Guran

Pyr, 2022

ISBN: 978-1645060345 

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition  (pre-order) ( Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com )

 

Now that British editor Stephen Jones has discontinued his long-running annual series Best New Horror, the burden of choosing and collecting the previous year’s supposedly best short stories in the genre remains exclusively in the capable hands of two American ladies, Ellen Datlow and Paula Guran.

 

Guran’s  latest anthology includes twenty-three stories published in books and magazines during 2021. I haven’t seen Datlow’s forthcoming anthology yet, but, according to the provisional table of contents, this time there are no repeated titles featured in both volumes.

 

Among the authors collected in Guran’s book are some of today’s most celebrated and popular horror writers, but if these stories represent the best of their recent production, I must admit that 2021 was not a great year for horror, at least according to the editor’s choices.

 

But never fear, amidst various run-of-the-mill tales, there are some pieces standing out and providing engrossing reading and actual shivers.

 

“The God Bag”, by Christopher Golden, is an insightful, gentle story featuring a woman trying to get her wishes fulfilled by means of an unusual system. In  “Refinery Road”,  penned by Stephen Graham Jones, past family tragedies return to haunt the present.

 

Alison Littlewood contributes the subtly horrific “Jenny Greenteeth”, where an evil creature hunts its victims by a pool, and  Alix E. Harrow provides “Mr. Death”, a perceptive piece about a recalcitrant professional reaper trying to save a little boy from his lethal destiny.

 

My favorite pieces are the outstanding, atmospheric “For Sale by Owner” by Elizabeth Hand, taking place in a mysterious, abandoned house where three women decide to spend the night, and the superior post-apocalyptic novella “Across the Dark Water” by Richard Kadrey, where a guide and a thief take a long and perilous journey to get to a target which is actually not what they expect.

 

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

Posted on October 12, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Blood Bank: A Charitable Anthology edited by Jo Kaplan

Blood Bank: A Charitable Anthology, by various authors

Blood Bound Books, 2022

ISBN: 9781940250533

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition ( Amazon.com )

 

Blood Bank is a charitable anthology, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the children’s literacy organization Read Better Be Better, and Hagar’s House, a sanctuary for women, children, and gender-nonconforming folks. The collection of fourteen short horror stories are not connected by a particular theme. Authors include well-respected names such as Neil Gaiman, Kristopher Triana, Jeff Strand, and others.

 

With one or two exceptions, the writing is good, and the ideas are new enough for interest, or toss a spin over ideas seen previously.  Story grades average out to a solid B+, with four A’s in the mix. Here are the highlights:

 

“Clown Doll” is a simple story about a haunted Halloween decoration, but the author has real skill in writing words to crawl your skin. It is genuinely fear-inducing.

 

“We Can Get It For You Wholesale” has the best display of writing skill in the book (it is by Neil Gaiman), and this is one time the writing skill matches the story.  A bizarre look at how to hire a hitman to get rid of a cheating wife.

 

Jeff Strand’s “First Date”, almost all dialogue, is a wonderful and darkly amusing look at a first date between a nice young lady and a guy who claims in his online dating profile to be a serial killer.  Extremely snappy dialogue, lots of attitude, and making the characters NOT seem crazy makes it a winner.  The ending line of the story is hilarious, a perfect ending to a warped story.

 

“Pictures of a Princess”: Ever run into someone who is still obsessed with a Disney character they loved as a kid? (say, Cinderella or the like?)  Wonder what happens when they meet the actress playing the role in real life, and the person just isn’t the same as the image they had in their head?  The story will answer that question, in an ugly fashion.

 

“Every Breath is a Choice” by Max Booth III is an excellent revenge story with an ironic twist to it  So, your wife got raped and your only child killed by some random lowlife.  Your life is shattered, and the killer is enjoying his three square meals a day at the Crossbar Hotel, where you can’t get at him.  How do you get payback?  You just have to get REALLY creative! 

 

Bottom line: this is a fun way to violate your brain for a few nights in bite-sized chunks while also benefiting some worthy causes. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on October 6, 2022 by , Reply
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