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Book Review: Bloody Britain by Anna Taborska, illustrated by Reggie Oliver

 

cover art for Bloody Britain by Anna Taborska

Bloody Britain by Anna Taborska, illustrated by Reggie Oliver

Shadow Publishing, 2020

ISBN 978-0957296299

Available: Paperback ( Bookshop.org )

 

The legends and lore of ancient Britain are an essential part of its history, and in Bloody Britain, Anna Taborska shows us that its dark past is never really dead. In a disturbingly calm, conversational tone, Taborska reports the details of torture, murder, revenge, and punishment that evolve from familiar stories and settings into new short story plots with a contemporary feel.

 

Some of the best stories in this collection find horror in the midst of everyday encounters while their innocuous titles belie the violence to come. Who would expect the nice man collecting money for a cancer charity in “Teatime” to be a serial killer who revels in making people suffer their greatest fears? What would make anyone think that a giant worm would be waiting for an opportunity to pop out of a church crypt like the monster in “Cyril’s Mission” does?

 

Two of the most inventive tales, “Rockstar” and “Daylight Robbery,” also give us something deeper to think about as we ponder the characters’ behavior. When the singer in “Rockstar” secretly pays an anonymous writer for lyrics that end up describing real murders, it calls to mind the bad choices some people make for fame and profit. “Daylight Robbery” also focuses on status. It paints the picture of a futuristic, divided society, one in which designer babies become privileged adults who drive around in electric cars wearing “smart suits” while poor immigrants are literally blind and persecuted as terrorists.

 

There are also traditional ghost stories in Bloody Britain. The ghosts include a woman who died in a meat packing factory (“The Haggis Queen”), a young wife and her servant, falsely accused of being her lover, who were both murdered by her husband (“The Gatehouse”), and even ghost dogs that roam around a pet cemetery (“A Walk in the Park”).

 

Although the events are rather predictable in a few of these short stories, they are still  entertaining due to Taborska’s writing style and skillful use of dialogue and description. For example, in “Night of the Crone,” a gang of degenerates gets what’s coming to them when they disturb a monolith in a stone circle. There is also a man who gets into trouble when he dares to inspect a shipwreck at “Formby Point,” and an innocent person imprisoned in the Tower of London who has an encounter with the ghost of Lady Jane Grey. In “The Cat Sitter,” a woman is targeted by a witch who haunts the woods nearby, and in “The Lemmy/Trump Test,” people of low social status are killed for sport. Even the curious student in “Out of the Light” can’t avoid disaster when he becomes addicted to reading a fascinating, evil book he’s borrowed from the bowels of the Bodleian Library.

 

So, light the fire, lock the door, and curl up with a diverting story and a nice cuppa. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

 

Editor’s note: Bloody Britain is a nominee on the final ballot of this year’s Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. 

Posted on April 8, 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

Book Review: Conquer (John Conquer Series, Book 1) by Edward M. Erdelac

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Conquer (John Conquer Series, Book 1) by Edward M. Erdelac

Independently published, 2020

ISBN: 9798579334848

Available : Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Harlem, 1976: an era of bad clothes, bad habits, and bad music.  From this scene emerges John Conquer, private investigator, and the baddest brother around.  How bad?  Well, “didn’t he kung-fu Frankenstein off the marquee at the Apollo, and bust him to pieces with John Henry’s hammer?  Didn’t he go fishin’ and catch the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and throw him back because he was too small!  He played ball with Dr. J in Rucker Park, and let him win!”  Conquer is a folk hero to Harlem, and his exploits have grown into legend among the locals.  These are his stories.

 

Conquer consists of seven short stories, three were previously published in Occult Detective Quarterly in 2017.  The stories are consistently entertaining, if a bit formulaic at the beginning of each story.  They usually start with Detective Lou Lazzaroni of the NYPD being assigned a case.  Lou realizes that the cases have a supernatural bent to them, and that’s where John Conquer steps in.  Although he’s a standard PI, Conquer also has a deep knowledge of voodoo, hoodoo, and all kinds of occult stuff, as he was partially raised in Louisiana, America’s capital of pagan weirdness.  It’s up to Conquer to solve the cases and save the day.

 

Author Erdelac has done a nice job writing a horror period piece: his portrayal of the late 1970s feels quite authentic, both in terms of setting (ox-blood leather coats, linoleum, lava lamps, etc.) and dialogue.  The dialogue feels very accurate with its terminology and phrasing, and does a good job transporting the reader back to another time in American history.  After Conquer is brought onto each case, the author shifts gears and shows a strong flair for creativity.  Readers might assume that voodoo automatically means zombies, but only one story actually has the undead.  Instead, Erdelac does a nice job cross-pollinating various African and Asian mythologies into the story.  Examples include a Slip-Skin Hag (or ‘boo hag’), a Popobawa (a bat-wing creature) and a monster based on Dahomeyan beliefs that defies easy categorization.  He did an excellent job researching these creatures for the book, but there are times when a little more explanation would have helped.  Unless you’ve read Wade Davis’s The Serpent and the Rainbow, terms like bokor, vodoun, veve, and Papa Legba are likely to sail over the heads of most readers, sending them scrambling for Wikipedia.

 

The stories are fast with no wasted time. Conquer dives right into the action, destroying villains with often-creative methods, such as cigarettes laced with sage for exorcising demons, and a pocket-coating powder that renders pickpockets immobile and subject to Conquer’s commands.  Part of the character’s appeal is that he doesn’t just blast away with his Colt Python, but often relies on his own magic methods to beat the baddies at their own game.  Special mention must be made of a fantastic secondary character, in the form of the ghost of a dead pimp that haunts Conquer’s car, and speaks to him through the radio.   This also allows Conquer to control the car through voice command, when the ghost agrees.  It’s like a bizarre 1970s version of the television show Knight Rider, and the back and forth squabbling provides unexpected and welcome hilarity.

 

Overall, Conquer is a welcome horror novel throwback to another era.  Let’s hope for more from Conquer and company in the future.  Recommended.

 

 

Contains:  violence, profanity

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on February 16, 2021 by , Reply
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