Book Review: Halloween Horror: Volume 2

Review Written by Casey Douglass

It’s that time of the year again, that time when Halloween decorations and sweets are the only thing stopping the stores going all out “Christmas manic.” I actually would prefer it if Halloween was a far bigger deal, and Christmas went and “did one”, but that’s just me. If you are a fan of spooks, pumpkins and people meeting messy ends, this book review might just hint at something nice to put into your treat bag. Just don’t let the chocolates melt onto it. DBND Publishing’s Halloween Horror: Volume 2 is an anthology of 22 tales that feature many of the elements that Halloween is known for: chocolates and sweets, tricks, and strange creatures visiting our plane of existence.

Some tales feature sinister games that end up containing a hint of truth. Others feature strange trick or treaters that aren’t quite like the others that knock on your door. Yet others feature strange time loops, ghosts, and cookies with a sinister secret. Each story is told very well and all of them set the scene in such a way that it’s clear how much the authors love Halloween. If you think the reader must surely end up with pumpkin fatigue or “trick or treat-itus”, it’s not something that I noticed myself. Even stories that may share a few elements use them to their own ends. This was great to see.

As I do with most of my reviews, I’ll highlight three or four stories that I particularly enjoyed. The first is Last Treat of the Night by Cullen Monk. Two young children return from a night of trick or treating. Their parents are preoccupied with getting them to bed before “the final one arrives”. It is then discovered that they aren’t ready for this mysterious guest, and a sequence of events results in the children being home alone, just at the moment that this ominous visitor pounds upon the door. I enjoyed this tale as it leaves a fair bit to the imagination, and it did a great job of giving me the creeps.

Trick’r Treats Himself by Daniel Hale is the next story that I loved. It features Jack reforming in his grave, returning from the Hallowed Realm to see how things are going on Halloween night. He is concerned that the “air should be frigid with goblins about their wicked work.” Things are strangely silent. His investigations lead him to find that a darker threat has settled over the nearby homes, and he decides to get to the bottom of things. This tale was enjoyable for being from the point of view of a Halloween creature, and also for the way it melded Halloween with more mundane, everyday evil. I also liked the descriptions of the goblins and what they got up to.

The Other Kids by Patrick Moody starts is as a traditional trick or treating tale but one with a nasty outcome. It opens with news clippings and statements, but when the story proper begins, it starts with some young kids, The Hilltop Crew, planning their trick or treating route for maximum efficiency. They are also preoccupied with beating “the other kids”, their mortal enemies, the kids who don't even live in the area but get brought in by cars and buses to take advantage of the sugary bounty nearby. The trouble is, this year, there are some very strange other kids around, and these aren't just a threat to the chocolate food chain, but to the lives of the people on Hilltop too. My main enjoyment from this tale came from the unsettling qualities of the “other, other kids”, and also the psychological effects that this event clearly has one of the characters.

The last story I want to mention specifically, is Final Halloween by Scott McGregor. It’s about Simon, a boy who loves Halloween, but is possibly getting a little too old to go trick or treating. He decides to visit somewhere called Orchid Woods View, a richer neighbourhood that his father always skipped when they went out in previous years. This year, Simon decides to visit, and he gets stuck in a confusing series of exchanges with the residents, the real truth of what is happening only being revealed fully at the end of the tale. I enjoyed this story for that very reason, it was a bit mind-bending but also did a great job of conveying Simon’s confusion and anger at what he thought was going on.

Halloween Horror: Volume 2 is a very enjoyable jaunt through the mental landscapes of Halloween. There are jack-o'-lanterns, costumes and candy. There is also the undead, blood and nasty tricks. It didn’t awaken in me a desire to go trick or treating, I’m not sure anything could do that. What it did do though, is leave me looking forward to Halloween this year. It has also tickled my appetite for more ghoulish Halloween horror, which I think is a fine outcome.

You can buy Halloween Horror: Volume 2 on Amazon. You can also visit DBND Publishing to see their other books. I previously reviewed Ghost Stories for Starless Nights and really enjoyed that one too.

I was given a review copy of this book.

Book Title: Halloween Horror: Volume 2

Book Author: Anthology

Publisher: DBND Publishing

Released: 04 Oct 2020

ISBN: 979-8687076371

Current Price: $13.99 (paperback) / $5.00 (Kindle) (As of Amazon.com on 7th Oct 2020)

Book Review: Aliens: Phalanx

Book Review: Aliens: Phalanx

Review by Casey Douglass

One of the things that drives me to stories that feature xenomorphs is that they often mix science fiction and horror. When I read the blurb for Scott Sigler’s Aliens: Phalanx, I was almost put off by the word “medieval” in the description. My first reaction was that it didn’t sound like it was for me. My love for anything starring a xenomorph eventually burst through that initial resistance, and I purchased the book. Were my own personal misgivings proven correct, or was I blown away like a face-hugger disintegrating in pulse-rifle fire? Read on to find out.

The events in Aliens: Phalanx take place on Ataegina, a rugged continent of mountains and ravines. The inhabitants have been slaughtered by black-husked ‘demons’, the survivors driven to living in subterranean mountain keeps. People don’t venture above ground often, but the ones that do, the Runners, race between the various holds to trade goods. These mainly take the form of various essential medicines, but this doesn't stop them bringing a variety of luxury items too.

The book follows Ahiliyah, a young woman who is one such runner, as she serves Lemeth Hold and tries to earn her keep. She also wants to become a warrior, but in Lemeth Hold, women aren't warriors. She runs with two others, the large framed warrior-in-training Brandun, and a weaselly little gobshite called Creen. Brandun is a warrior-in-training and is already blessed with a larger frame than is expected for someone of his age. He is also a little slow at times, which Creen loves to point out to him by calling him “dumbdun”. Creen is actually the comic-relief in many ways, coming out with many cruel words but also displaying vulgar humour in almost equal measure. It is this trio that the reader gets to know during the course of the book, how their already limited world becomes yet more dangerous, as the demons start to eradicate the last traces of humanity in Ataegina.

The societal landscape, the relationships between the various holds, plays an integral part in the pressures that fall on the dwindling people. Due to the nature of the threat from the demons outside, what doesn’t naturally grow in one hold often ends up being an urgent item for another. There are a number of illnesses that can afflict people. Imbid flowers grow abundantly in Lemeth Hold, and Imbid Soup is the cure for something called Weakling Disease. If another hold is suffering from such a disease, runners from Lemeth will trade Imbid flowers for something that they might need to treat their own hold’s different outbreak of illness. Add into this the usual way that humans become greedy, paranoid and even religious zealots, and the politics between holds becomes a true driving force, and often hindrance, to them actually working together.

When the humans clash with the demons, the weapons they have at hand are knives, spears and shields. On my first thoughts about this notion, I think I was guilty of thinking “How the hell are they going to fight them with spears?” in a “Pfft” kind attitude. It didn’t take too long to think the exact same question with a more curious “How will they?” frame of mind. Having finished the book, I didn’t realise that the answer could be so exhilarating. Just as in the films, if you go from the pulse-rifles of Aliens to the cleavers and machetes of Alien3, there’s an exhilaration to be found in that.

The holds themselves are also aptly suited to this kind of horror. The humans are trying to shut out the danger, but by doing so, they have to live claustrophobic and grim lives. They use strangely glowing water in glow-pipe plumbing to light their dark corridors, harvest plants and make use of anything that sits within their “safe” realm. When things take a turn for the worst - as you’d expect they would in a tale like this – these corridors turn from claustrophobic passageways into tunnels of death. I’m not sure what is more scary, meeting a xenomorph on open ground and seeing it dart at you from hundreds of yards away, or hearing one coming towards you along a dark tunnel. Probably the latter...

Aliens: Phalanx is a very satisfying tale. We get to see all three of the runners rise-up in their hold, fighting against prejudice, fear and politics, even sometimes against each other. They all become nicely fleshed out characters with more about them than their more obvious traits. They all grow as people too, and their relationship changes and strengthens as events unfold. It was nice to see a society that viewed the xenomorphs in a different way, as demons and semi-supernatural rather than naïve humans stumbling across them on a spaceship-based jaunt across the galaxy. The story itself escalates in a way that any xenomorph fan will enjoy, and the culmination at the end is the kind that sets the previous events in a slightly different frame, which I thoroughly appreciated. Aliens: Phalanx is a brilliant story, and I’m very glad that I decided to give it a try.

Book Title: Aliens: Phalanx

Book Author: Scott Sigler

Publisher: Titan Books

Released: 25 Feb 2020

Price: £7.99 paperback / £4.74 Kindle (currently)

ISBN: 9781789094015

Dark Fiction: What Monsters Do For Love

Love twists people into strange shapes. It can make monsters of the nicest people, and sometimes, turn a monster into something a little less monstrous. 

What Monsters Do For Love is a new horror anthology from Soteira Press. It consists of 3 volumes, each stuffed with tales of human and inhuman monsters; the shapes that love twists them into. 

My own tale: The Corrupter, is in Volume II.

Amazon links: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3.

Radio 4 Programme With My OCD Interview Airs Monday 13th October 2014

Edit: The program below can be found online at this link.

The interview I did for the Radio 4 programme Digital Human will be broadcast on Monday 13th October 2014 at 4:30pm. No doubt it will also be in BBC iPlayer for awhile afterwards too.

I have no idea how much of what I said will be used, it could just be the tinniest snippet or it could be a bit more. I chatted about Risk and Technology, how my OCD manifests itself when it comes to using the Internet, my computer or other types of gadgetry. It was a very pleasant chat and it made me realise that I had a fair amount to say about OCD and the various ways and techniques that I feel deal with it the best. As a consequence, I have been working on a short book about OCD and how I live with it, what I do to manage it, and other aspects that I have yet to see mentioned in other places. My book will hopefully be complete and up on the Amazon Kindle Store by Christmas.

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Dark Distractions Anthology Volume One is Out Now!

I am happy to announce that nearly every one of my short story and flash fiction posts on this blog from the last couple of years (spanning March 2012 to July 2014) is now bound up in this handy Kindle eBook. Dark Distractions Anthology Volume One is available from Amazon now and is the most simple way to kick back and read my dark fiction in comfort.

"Unlike some first time authors who rely solely on details of gore and bloody scenarios, Casey Douglass opts instead for story and character progression. And it works so well, you’ll be lost in those characters. Whether it’s a short piece of flash fiction or a medium size tale, you feel as if you’re in the world they are in." Dave - Horror Cabin.

Amazon.com = $0.99

Amazon.co.uk = £0.99

It is also available on Amazon sites in other regions by searching for my name or the title.

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Dark Review - Jeff, One Lonely Guy

Jeff, One Lonely Guy Book Review

By Casey Douglass

Book written by Jeff Ragsdale, David Shields and Michael Logan

I found this book at random while browsing Amazon one day and was intrigued by the premise. Jeff decides to put up a flyers around Manhattan asking for people to contact him if they would like to talk. The flyer and phone number soon goes viral, appearing on reddit.com and spreading by word of mouth.

Jeff ends up receiving thousands of calls and texts, much to his astonishment. The nature of the calls showed a large spectrum of human emotion and communication. From the "You're crazy" ones to people confiding in him about the most personal things. The calls/texts are in the main shown with Jeff's responses omitted but they are still understandable. This does let you make your own conclusions also.

I very much enjoyed reading the book. There was usually something unexpected or touching to be found on each page, and I went from thinking how lonely some people are, to thinking what arseholes some can be as well, often within the space of a few pages. Viewed as a social commentary, it is a little sad that he had so many responses and I am not sure what that says about the world we live in today, where people are connected to more people than ever, but only virtually, and not so much in the old ways. I also wonder how such a thing would fare if carried out electronically. I would be doubtful that such a message on Twitter would have the same effect as this flyer pinned to a wooden pole. Maybe we are getting to the stage that so many people are online and interacting via IM, emails and Skype, that if someone like Jeff goes the old-school route, maybe they stand out that little bit more.

One thing I would say is it is a very short read, maybe two hours or thereabouts. I picked up the Kindle version for £3.99 which felt about right. I don't like to judge something like this by price but it did come into my impulse buying decision, and £3.99 seemed about right for the amount of content, however revealing it might have been.

I haven't read a book like this before and I am glad I took the chance with this one.

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