Author: Mario Guslandi

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Epeolatry Book Review: When Other People Saw Us, They Saw The Dead Edited by Lauren T. Davila

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Title: When Other People Saw Us, They Saw The Dead
Editor: Lauren T. Davila
Publisher: Haunt Publishing
Genre: Gothic
Release Date: May, 2022

Synopsis: A faceless man stalks a woman’s nightmares in Hollywood. A Kanontsistóntie is summoned to seek revenge in a monastery. A move from the projects to Manhattan leads to ominous shadows closing in. Two sisters discover a secret room in their farm, unearthing a sinister power.

When Other People Saw Us, They Saw the Dead is an anthology of dark, unsettling writing from some of the most exciting contemporary BIPOC writers. Blending Gothic, horror, folklore, fantasy and fairy-tale, these eerie short stories will disturb, move and humour you. Death is ever-present in the pages of They Saw the Dead, blending with notions of home, memory, grief and belonging, as well as gentrification, white supremacy and colonisation.

Edited by Lauren T. Davila, They Saw the Dead explores what it is to be truly haunted.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Revelations: Horror Writers for Climate Action, ed. Seán O’ Connor

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Title: Revelations: Horror Writers for Climate Action

Author: Various, ed. Seán O’ Connor

Genre: Horror

Publisher: Stygian Sky Media LLC

Release Date: 22nd April, 2022

Synopsis: Horror stories from a variety of well-known authors.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Classic Monsters Unleashed, ed. James Aquilone

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Title: Classic Monsters Unleashed
Author: Various, ed. James Aquilone
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing/Black Spot Books
Genre: Horror
Release Date: 12th July, 2022

Synopsis:

Stories of famous monsters in a new horror anthology featuring Joe R. Lansdale, F. Paul Wilson, Jonathan Maberry, Ramsey Campbell, and many others.

Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Moreau, the Headless Horseman, the Invisible Man, the Phantom of the Opera, the Wicked Witch of the West—they’re all here, in this collection of horror short stories that reimagine, subvert, and pay homage to our favorite monsters and creatures.

Written by the biggest names in the genre—including Joe R. Lansdale, F. Paul Wilson, Jonathan Maberry, Ramsey Campbell, Lisa Morton, Owl Goingback, Richard Christian Matheson, Seanan McGuire, Maurice Broaddus, Dacre Stoker, Linda D. Addison, Alessandro Manzetti, Tim Waggoner, John Palisano, Mercedes M. Yardley, Lucy A. Snyder, Gary A. Braunbeck, Rena Mason, and Monique Snyman.

And monstrously illustrated by Colton Worley and Mister Sam Shearon.

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Jewish Book of Horror, ed. Josh Schlossberg

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Title: The Jewish Book of Horror
Author: Various, ed. Josh Schlossberg
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Denver Horror Collective
Release Date: October 2nd, 2021

Synopsis: Horror is part of the human condition, but few peoples across the ages know it quite like the Jews.

From slavery to pogroms to the Holocaust to antisemitism, the “Chosen People” have not only endured hell on Earth, they’ve risen above it to share their stories with the world.

Whether it’s pirate rabbis or demon-slaying Bible queens, concentration camp vampires or beloved, fearless bubbies, THE JEWISH BOOK OF HORROR offers you twenty-two dark tales about the culture, history, and folklore of the Jewish people.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Lady in White, ed. LCW Allingham

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Title: Lady in White
Author: Various, ed. LCW Allingham
Genre: Ghost Fiction
Publisher: Freeze Time Media
Release Date: 29th September, 2021

Synopsis: A woman walks on the side of the road. She wears a white dress and is known by many names: the Ghostly Hitchhiker. The Phantom Prom Date. The Woman in White. She may accept a ride, but she disappears before she ever reaches her destination.
Is she an apparition? A memory? Or something beyond our understanding? Five authors offer their speculations on her story – of love, loss, and redemption.
Rumors of a ghostly hitchhiker draws a woman back to her hometown twenty years after the death of her sister, revealing bonds and betrayals buried under years of grief.
A fresh start for a mourning widower turns into a hunt for the truth about an old tragedy, and a match made beyond the grave.
Confusion clouds the awakening of a young bride, frightened by memories she doesn’t understand in a world she doesn’t recognize, and a duty she has tried to forget.
A heartbroken musician struggles to stay afloat during COVID-19 lockdown, and discovers a love song that unites two souls.
Two women, separated by ages, connect across the veil of time, allowing hope to grow from despair, and a desperate but bright will to tether itself into a better world.
Watch the roads and be prepared, for though these stories are utter speculations, the lady in white still looks for a ride, somewhere on the other side.

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Epeolatry Book Review: October Nights by Kevin Lucia

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Title: October Nights
Author: Kevin Lucia
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing
Release Date: 22nd October, 2021

Synopsis: This Halloween…
On a night when anything seems possible…
We dare you to spend an evening in the small town of Clifton Heights.
October nights here are long and strange, filled with both dread and transformation, and in these four shared-world tales of small-town Halloween horror, you’ll encounter things both wondrous and terrifying, in equal measure:

– A priest hears a ghostly confession on Halloween night which will mark him forever.
– A young man is offered a supernatural chance to remake his fortune, at the risk of losing everything.
– A pastor fleeing the death of his daughter comes to Clifton Heights to face his fears, but finds himself living a nightmare instead.
– Two people with supernatural talents face-off with an engine of darkness and pain on Halloween night.

Four connected Halloween tales, evoking echoes of Ray Bradbury and Charles L. Grant, taking place in a town where every day is All Hallow’s Eve.

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

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Epeolatry Book Review: From the Neck Up and Other Stories by Aliya Whiteley

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Title: From the Neck Up and Other Stories
Author: Aliya Whiteley
Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Publisher: Titan Books
Release Date: Sept 14th, 2021

Synopsis: The new collection of beautiful, strange and disarming short stories from the award-winning author of The Beauty, Clarke Award nominee The Loosening Skin and The Arrival of Missives, Aliya Whiteley. In 16 stories Whiteley deftly unpeels the strangeness of everyday life through beguiling gardens, rebellious bodies and journeys across familiar worlds, with her trademark wit and compassion. 

Witness the future of farming in a new Ice Age, or the artist bringing life to glass; the many-eyed monsters we carry and the secret cities inside our bodies; the alien invasion through our language to the Chantress and her twists on the fairy tale. Fascinating and always unexpected, Whiteley is unlike any other writer working today.

A prolific novelist, shortlisted for various fantasy and SF Awards, Aliya Whiteley is a writer very hard to classify and totally unpredictable, as clearly demonstrated by this collection of short stories. She’s certainly endowed with a powerful, versatile imagination able to produce dark stories, often in a surrealistic vein. Fine examples are “Many-eyed Monsters” a bizarre, enjoyable tale where little monsters  expelled by human bodies try to attach themselves to their skin.

 “Three Love Letters From an Unrepeatable Garden” is about a delicate flower with a mesmerizing smell which must be kept inside a glass box to save it from wilting and dying.

“Corwick Grows” is a perceptive but puzzling story told by a man laying in a hospital bed, while

”Blessings Erupt” is an offbeat piece featuring a woman removing cancers from sick people by sucking them out and eating them.

The best stories, perhaps, are “Loves of the Long Dead”, a splendid, quite original dark fable  taking the reader on a wild ride from ancient Egypt across the centuries. “Reflection, Refraction, Dispersion” is a strange story about a paranormal phenomenon affecting the lives of a young woman and her father.

A “different” collection by a “different”, gifted author.

 out of 5 ravens

Available from Amazon and Bookshop.

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Epeolatry Book Review: When Things Get Dark edited by Ellen Datlow

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Title: When Things Get Dark
Editor: Ellen Datlow
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Titan Books
Release Date: October 12, 2021

Synopsis: A chilling anthology in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson, collecting today’s best horror writers. Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand and more.
  
A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by, and in tribute to, Shirley Jackson.

Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and readers.

This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, will bring together today’s leading horror writers to offer their own personal tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson.

Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Carmen Maria Machado, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link, Cassandra Khaw, Karen Heuler, Benjamin Percy, John Langan, Laird Barron, Jeffrey Ford, M. Rickert, Seanan McGuire, Gemma Files, and Genevieve Valentine.

Shirley Jackson ,one of the more famous and influential authors of the twentieth century, is the inspiration for the latest anthology edited by distinguished, widely known editor Ellen Datlow.

The volume assembles eighteen brand new storie penned by writers attempting to recreate,somehow, the atmospheres and the themes of Jackson’s fictional work.

 

I won’t pretend to be so well acquainted with that author’s body of work, to be able to detect echoes of her stories and novels in each tale featured in the present book. Thus I will simply judge these new stories as they are on the basis of their intrinsic value.

 

Here’s my personal list of favorites.

 

“For Sale by Owner” by Elizabeth Hand is an excellent, perceptive story revolving around an empty cabin in the woods, where three women decide to spend a night, while Karen Heuler’s

 

“Money of the Dead” is an off beat tale where dead people are called back by their relatives or friends only to disappoint and hurt their callers.

 

“Take Me, I Am Free” by Joyce Carol Oates is a very short, quite disturbing piece about the difficult relationship between a mother and her little girl. The last line will give you the creeps.

 

The strong, vivid “ Hag” by Benjamin Percy takes place in a forsaken island surrounded by a voracious sea demanding human nourishment, while the quite enjoyable “A Trip to Paris” by Richard Kadrey portrays an apparently nice lady hiding terrible secrets.

 

In “Refinery Road” by the prolific Stephen Graham Jones past family tragedies return to haunt the present, and in the superb “ The Door in the Fence” by the always dependable Jeffrey Ford an old woman undergoes an astonishing transformation due to the tainted water from  her garden.

 

To me the highlight of the volume is the absolutely outstanding “Skinder’s Veil” by Kelly Link, a mesmerizing,unforgettable sort of long, dark fable.

 

Other contributors are : M. Rickert, Seanan McGuire, Carmen Maria Machado, Cassandra Khaw, John Langan, Paul Tremblay, Gemma Files, Josh Malerman, Genevieve Valentine, Laird Barron.

In short, another great anthology assembled by Ellen Datlow.

Available from  Bookshop and Amazon.