Books

A scientist named Lexy and a group of survivors struggle to stay alive during a zombie outbreak. What caused the outbreak and why doesn’t the government seem to want a cure? Will Lexy and her cohorts discover the answers to these questions before it’s too late? I read Timothy Frasier’s book Dark Frequencies a few months ago and absolutely loved …

Skullcrack City – by Jeremy Robert Johnson Lazy Fascist Press, 2015 344 pages Let me start off by making something abundantly clear – I am a huge fan of Jeremy Robert Johnson’s writing. My first encounter with this three-named serial killer of words was within the pages of The Bizarro Starter Kit (Orange), where I read his novella Extinction Journals …

Gone Feral By: Ted Nulty 358 Pages After a chemical outbreak has wreaked havoc on society it doesn’t take long to realize the aftermath has affected humans as well as mammals. Turning creatures into bloodthirsty corpses hell-bent on ravaging all within site, a group of Marine personnel and everyday civilians strive to survive. Following the chronicles of several characters in …

The Dark Side Issue 164 Editor: Allan Bryce Ghoulish Publishing With this latest issue of The Dark Side comes the wonderful news that the magazine has seen its sales continuously rise to the point that they can now up their frequency to an issue every 6 weeks instead of every two months. That’s fantastic, and just goes to show that …

Abram’s Bridge By: Glenn Rolfe Samhain Publishing 74 Pages L’il Ron Sawyer isn’t your ordinary, everyday adolescent boy. With few friends, the new kid in town and forced to live with his estranged alcoholic father and grandmother he has very little in terms of sanctuary. One day while riding by Abram’s Bridge he spots a vision so angelic he’s rendered …

Dead Tide By: Stephen A. North Permuted Press Publishing 237 Pages An onslaught of a virus outbreak has devoured civilization in the Tampa Bay, Florida area. Residents strive to stay alive while government officials responsible for the disaster attempt to flee abandoning all social responsibility and liability. As a novel critic one may only imagine the extent in sheer volume …

My first reaction? Wow….if there is a book solely dedicated to this crappy film toting it as cult phenomenon, then the film “must” be worth checking out. I admit it, I didn’t jump on the wagon when it arrived back in 2003. The movie, that is…had escaped my interest. Since word of this press release, I took it upon myself …

Still The Shadows By Elizabeth Fields 117 Pages A collection of four short stories with a common theme of the macabre. Flypaper: A young couple’s car breaks down and they seek help in the most precarious of circumstances. The Apartment: A first person account of one woman’s experience with malicious spirits. Cinnamon: First person point of view in how one …

I’ve raved on and on about how much I love the DIY aspect of Jack Bantry’s Splatterpunk zine. Twice now, in fact, in my reviews of issues 4 and 5. So I’m not going to repeat myself again by going into all that about how it feels punk, and how it’s so good to see paper zines still exist, etc, …

The Dark Side Issue 163 Editor: Allan Bryce Ghoulish Publishing With this issue, The Dark Side hits its 25th year, which is pretty good going for a magazine which was once on the scrapheap and eventually rose like a chilling phoenix fashioned from the bones and entrails of the fallen issues in order to become something very special again. It …

I love poetry and I love horror. Unsurprisingly, I have a soft spot for horror poetry. Unfortunately, like many expressions of horror, the amount of subpar work by cheap, gimmicky hacks makes the entire genre I adore look like shit. Because of that, I tend to be pretty damn harsh on poetry. Unless I like it, then I glow like …

The Dark Side Issue 162 Editor: Allan Bryce Ghoulish Publishing Ahh, the delights of the Dark Side hitting UK shelves every two months continue, and once again the question must be raised as to why it isn’t monthly. Mind you, having to wait for new issues generates excitement rather than impatience, and harkens back to an era when you could …

The Nightmare Girl – by Jonathan Janz Samhain Publishing, 2015 301 pages You ever feel like no matter what good you do for someone, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t win? Well, let me introduce you to Joe Crawford. Joe was on his way home with his wife and young daughter when he realized he had to …

The End In All Beginnings By: John F.D. Taff Grey Matter Press 330 Pages A collection of five short story/novellas with a central theme of loss of love, innocence and youth. What Becomes God-A young boy will do anything to save his best friend of a terminal illness regardless of the consequences. Object Permanence-Chris Stadler is institutionalized in a psychiatric …

I can’t remember the last straight-up monster book that I’ve read. Probably some book about Bigfoot or something when I was younger. It’s not even that I don’t like the creature features, but more that my tastes usually lay in a more reality-centered realm, where there are far more serial killers and devil-worshippers than there are monsters hiding in the …