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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: Toadstones by Eric Williams

 

Toadstones by Eric Williams

Malarkey Books, 2022

ISBN: 9781088017302

Available: paperback, Kindle ( Bookshop.org )

 

If you thought you’d read all the possible plotlines available for short stories, think again.  Eric Williams’s Toadstones obliterates that notion.  The book relies wholly on originality and a deft touch with the writing, no gore or sex needed.  For horror fans, this is a can’t miss.

 

It’s only the beginning of the book that runs flat; of the first three stories, two are easily forgettable.  After that, in terms of imagination, all the stories are loaded with enough horsepower to redline a Peterbilt freight truck.  You can catch traces of the author’s influences (a touch of “The Mummy” and  “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” here, a trace of Lovecraft there) but he’s managed to create something entirely new with them.  The closest to a theme for this book would be ‘ordinary dudes running into REALLY weird things.’  Some examples:

 

1.  A man on a nature hike in Utah happens upon one of the Greek gods, and shares beer and conversation with him.

2.  A showing of a crime noir film turns all too real for some of the theatre viewers.

3.  A corrupt cop robs corpses of their limbs to sell for voodoo charms.

 

If that isn’t enough, there are also two bus-obsessed students tracking a phantom bus on an abandoned route, an oil rig crew drilling a seemingly pointless hole for an eccentric billionaire… the list goes on.  All these stories are very creative, and highly entertaining.  A special mention is needed for “Doomstown”, the best story in the book.  It involves two crazy grad students on a quest to locate one of the mock-up towns left over from the days when the military tested high powered bang-bangs in the Nevada desert.  This story has the highest scare factor of all of them: it’s off the charts.  If you thought mannequins were even remotely creepy, read this story.  You’ll never walk past a department store window again.  “Doomtown'” should win every award available for best horror short story this year, it’s that good.

 

All the stories are well written; they flow fast and smooth like the Jack Daniels at a Kennedy family party on Cape Cod.  There’s a nice touch of humor thrown in on occasion, and the characters are well sketched and feel authentic; there are no cardboard cutouts anywhere.  The author does have a mild touch of Dickens-ism (aka using too many overblown words) on occasion, but that’s easily overlooked, as it only shows up a few times.

 

The bottom line?  Just read it.  One of the best of 2022 so far. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson.

Posted on June 25, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Thanatrauma by Steve Rasnic Tem

cover art for Thanatrauma by Steve Rasnic Tem

Thanatrauma by Steve Rasnic Tem

Valancourt Books, 2021

ISBN: 978-1954321052

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

 

Steve Rasnic Tem is an iconic author of horror fiction who doesn’t need any introduction. Any new book written by him is an event for any lover of dark fiction.

The present collection assembles seventeen previously published stories and four original tales, most of which are imbued with a sense of dread– the curse of getting old and the feeling that death is waiting just around the corner. What else can be more horrific than that?

The  gloomy title story, “Thanatrauma”, sets the tone by portraying a widower’s gradual downfall after the death of his beloved wife. Similarly, “Saudade” is a perceptive, melancholy tale about a lonesome widower taking a cruise.

The angsty “A Stay at the Shore” is the distressing report of a long train ride to an untraceable beach by an elusive ocean , and  “August Freeze” is a veritable nightmare, depicting how a house set in the middle of nowhere becomes prey to cold and freeze, whereas all around it a glorious summer is at its peak.

In the disturbing “Forwarded”, a man returning home to celebrate his brother’s retirement finds himself overwhelmed by the memories of a long gone past.

To me the two best stories in the book are the outstanding “The Parts Man”, an insightful piece about a man making a supernatural deal to briefly bring back to life some  deceased family members (for a price), and the disquieting “ Reflections in Black”, depicting how on a Halloween night a man is allowed to fleetingly see a lost love from his past.

Although some themes tend to recur, the collection remains an upsetting but engrossing ride provided by a master storyteller.

 

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

Posted on November 6, 2021 by , Reply
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