Treasures Buried Soul Deep

Toothsome Tales:
Tusk---He's a dentist who likes a little adventure in his free time. She's his sexy neighbor with a thirst for the macabre stories behind the treasure he's collected over the years. It all starts with the words, "At heart, I am a collector of things..."
Sedation Dentistry---The zombie virus is loose and Doctor Ost's next patient has a little problem with tooth decay...

TUSK AND SEDATION DENTISTRY by Stephen A. North are two stories with a tooth theme. Tusk is a short story with one hell of a flashback to a frightening tale of exploration. Sedation Dentistry is a flash fiction piece about an appointment gone wrong.

I didn't think much of the second story...it's not the quality of story-telling I've come to expect from North. However, the author has something horrifying and amazing with the first story. I would love a longer version. The discovery in the cave is absolutely captivating.

If you're looking for more short stories from North, I recommend his other double-feature,Like A Man and Purchase Order #2113-21A.

As always,
AstraDaemon

A Man of Colours

Addison Inquisitor awoke on the island with only the clothes on his back and a pack with a few days of supplies. Suffering from amnesia he desperately wants to find who he is and where he belongs. With the aid of a curious service robot, he begins to explore the island and also try to learn the truth about himself.

What he finds is nothing he would ever expect...

A MAN LIKE ME by Austin Grisham took me on an emotional ride. I felt sorry for Addison being stranded, elated when he discovered Andy, and excited as they appeared to form a genuine bond. When the true nature of Addison's plight is revealed, the ending impressed me beyond words.

I would love for Grisham to revisit this story and expand this piece into a novella or full-length novel. At the very least, I would love a sequel.

As always,
AstraDaemon

Are You Ready To Go?

The Collision is the worst disaster in human history. So far…

In the near future, an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider causes an enormous explosion, known as the Collision. The blast flattens a huge chunk of central Europe and punches a massive hole in the Earth’s surface. Over the next decade, unspeakable horrors pour from the rift: vicious creatures with a taste for human flesh, a terrible scream that drives all who hear it insane, a phantom entity that feeds on fear and paranoia, and a nightmare train from the pits of hell, to name but a few. This onslaught of terror causes the collapse of civilization and threatens to wipe humanity from the planet.

World’s Collider is a unique concept in short fiction, where all eighteen original stories are part of a common narrative, recounting the disaster and its aftermath. A true novel by many voices, including Steven Savile, James Moran, Aaron Rosenberg, Trent Zelazny, Jonathan Green, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Kelly Hale, Richard Wright and a host of new talent.

Fifty million people died in the Collision. They were the lucky ones…

WORLD'S COLLIDER, edited by Richard Salter, has been out for several years, but this anthology is still one of my favorite sci-fi/horror collections.

"An anthology posing as a novel? Or possibly a novel posing as an anthology."

I highly recommend reading the intro first, which explains the concept behind this anthology and is nothing short of fantastic. Salter did an amazing job of putting it all together. World's Collider is not only the best anthology that I read in 2012, but it's one of the most remarkable story collections I've ever read.

The individual accounts within this anthology, written by multiple authors with diverse writing styles, with various POVs and locations, create a mind-blowing larger story about a dimensional rift that opens in the middle of Europe.

While it reminds me slightly of the presentation of World War Z, Salter takes it even further by constructing a novel with short stories written separately within the same setting. Salter's introduction explains his painstaking process.

The stories themselves will both terrify and thrill sci-fi and horror fans, describing mankind's struggle to survive the onslaught of demonic entities spilling into our world from the rift.

If you enjoy novels such as Craig DiLouie's Infection series, or Read the End First (edited by Suzanne Robb), you will relish the nightmares within the pages of World's Collider!

As always,
AstraDaemon

Music Monday: Failure Anthem

Ever been to a convention? Whether it was horror, sci-fi or simply a gathering of authors peddling their stories, you would be guaranteed to see the various subcultures which develop around certain genres. The same goes for music. Depending on the band and/or venue, you'll see the influence music has on people. So, it takes no stretch of the imagination to see how fiction and music work well together.

Maybe you're a novelist looking for inspiration, a reader searching for the right mood music or a musician trying to make a connection with the audience, words are everything to all three. Which brings us to the next installment of Music Monday...

FAILURE ANTHEM is the music feature for this week. When I first heard First World Problems a few years ago, I remember thinking the album forms a story of sorts, with each track functioning as a different chapter. I love how much effort the band puts into their lyrics. My favorite songs include The Ghost Inside, Paralyzed, Just A Wasteland and I Won't Say Goodbye. Definitely an album I recommend to everyone who enjoys high quality rock. Unfortunately, the band has suffered some setbacks with their lineup, but I'm still hoping for another FA album one day.

In the meantime, some very specific book titles come to mind when I think of which stories I enjoyed reading to the sound of Failure Anthem:

The BLOOD Trilogy by Ruth Miranda centers around a young man named Caius, a musician who discovers, through a traumatic event, he is not human. Miranda has a true talent for taking headlines, such as the battles with addiction and tragic overdose deaths of those in the music industry, and turning inner demons into supernatural creatures struggling with the same afflictions.

The Law Giveth by JE Gurley, the second novel in the Jake's Law series. In the first novel, Jake's Law, readers are introduced to a diabetic survivor, Jake, who creates a new system of law in a zombie post-apocalypse. The relationships Jake established in the first book and in the time since then have not held up well in the face of constant conflicts. Jake is more withdrawn than ever, but continues to attract new acquaintances to his way of doing things, following Jake's Laws.

Of course, readers may find other titles more suitable for the accompanying music of Failure Anthem, depending on how each individual interprets the songs.

Bottom line: if you haven't listened to First World Problems, you should ASAP.

As always,
AstraDaemon

Never Will I See The Sun Again

From author Andrew Lennon comes a new collection of eighteen titles, including short stories, drabbles and poetry. This versatile collection will have you fearing those noises coming from the attic, questioning whether you should enter that haunted house at the fairground, thinking twice before you stay in a motel on a desert-stricken highway. It will touch you emotionally when you witness a person’s struggles, their discovery of new friends, how they can triumph and live to see another day, raising their heads to create their own Ode to Death.

ODE TO DEATH by Andrew Lennon is an interesting mix of horror, in various forms:

MY ODE TO DEATH is a poem.

HOUSE OF ILLUSION is a carnival nightmare.

LUNCHTIME is a flash fiction piece...literally.

GHOST STORY had a ghost, but not much story.

NO SLEEP is another poem.

CARAVAN seems like a headline turned into a story.

BURIED is a flash fiction funeral gone wrong.

SANTA CLAUS COMES AT NIGHT is one of the most horrific stories in the collection.

DOG RACE is a tribute to Stephen King's Cujo.

TRYING TO WRITE A HORROR STORY is a tribute to Stephen King's Misery.

HIDE BEHIND A SMILE: poem.

VISITING TIME is a zombie story.

STRESS BLANKET is a soup for the soul moment. Not sure how it fits in with the rest.

RED SHOES is extremely sick and twisted, but very well-written, with a superb ending. The best story in the anthology.

NEW BEGINNING...more poetry.

THE SECRET LIFE OF MY IMAGINARY FRIEND would make a fantastic crime-thriller movie.

LOVER is brutal.

ONE NIGHT IN HOTEL is a chilling combination of the supernatural and crime drama.

House of Illusion, Santa Claus Comes At Night, Red Shoes and The Secret Life of My Imaginary Friend are all such fantastic horror stories, the four of them make this collection worth getting. However, I'm not really impressed with the anthology as a whole, but I still plan on reading more of Lennon's work in the following months.

As always,
AstraDaemon

Made A Fool

He is chained to her through his own choice.
She is chained to him through no choice of her own.
A thick chain linking the two of them together by their ankles and kept in place with heavy-duty locks.
She knows why she is there. He has explained that once - and only once. Each subsequent time she asks, he simply tells her that she knows the reason. She knows there is no way out until he says so.
For a time of his choosing, she is his prisoner and that is all there is to it. Yet - for the two of them - things could have been so, so different.

*DO NOT READ BEFORE YOU READ THE ISLAND*

Chained by Matt Shaw is not so much horror, as simply a revenge story. There isn't much action, and far too many thoughts and feelings. Shaw could have easily written this as flash fiction, in order to reach the ending sooner. The final scene caught me by surprise.

I felt a great deal of sympathy for the narrator. Not sure if Shaw is attempting to make a statement with this story, but sometimes fiction can be an eye-opener. I hope readers realize how much damage lying can do to someone's life.

As always,
AstraDaemon

It's The Man Behind The Trigger

THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE by Joshua Scribner is not a story to be read for entertainment purposes. This flash fiction is for thoughtful readers. Justin and his stressful thoughts are relatable to many of us on some level. His inner dialogue continuously him into the ground, focusing on non-existent failures and brushing off his success and strengths.

The ending is not necessarily a twist, just a dark surprise. Ironic choice by the author, considering we often refer to our depressing thoughts as our inner demons.

As always,
AstraDaemon