DANGER: The Unknown Lies Ahead.
In this collection of 18 tales of horror and the macabre, expect the unexpected. Inside you’ll find tales of gorgeous ghouls and seductive sirens, of hideous creatures that wear another’s face and tentworms that spin death into dessert. You’ll tour a factory of the living dead and walk through the blood rains of hell. From sexual encounters beyond the grave to a secret pinball club where the silver ball is deadly, Bram Stoker Award-winning author John Everson will take you to places you never imagined.
Inside, you’ll find the kind of fictional ride that is always most effective when you have no idea what is lurking around the next curve. The kind of horror that is always served best with plenty of toe-curling triggers and …
No Warnings.
This will be long. Sorry. As the expression goes, opinions are like kittens and I'm giving them away. I have to say something before I talk about these stories. From the title, I didn't expect trigger warnings and that is fine since I don't need them. I don't even read the trigger warnings in a book until after I have read the book. I only read them to mention their existence for those who want to know. I did not expect a lecture on them. I was surprised at the author's loud, proud, and frankly tone deaf stance against them while showing a lack of understanding of what they are or what they are for. He states at the beginning of the book that he has seen an "increasing flurry of hand wringing about preparing readers with warnings to protect their delicate psyches from stumbling on something unpleasant and preemptively sanitizing fiction in case something in it appears to be insensitive to one group or another and thus might (gasp) offend someone." The description also says this book contains "plenty of toe curling triggers."
Well holy shit. Triggers are not toe-curling as if it is some sort of orgasmic experience. What a long winded way to tell me that you don't know what a trigger warning is, and that you think its purpose is to force you to sanitize your writing so as not to offend someone. Trigger warnings are not censorship, They are not to stop you from writing anything as "offensive" or insensitive or downright gory, vulgar, nauseating, and disgusting as you please. They do not take away your freedom of speech. No topic is off limits. I would think that would be obvious from the most popular horror books by indie authors, you are limited only by your own imagination.
As a horror reader, I expect a multitude of unpleasant scenarios in books. I want to laugh, and cry and be disgusted or terrified. That doesn't mean I am ignorant of the fact that trauma survivors may prefer to avoid topics that cause them to relive their trauma or at least have the option to steel themselves for its approach rather than be ambushed by it. It's ok not to need trigger warnings and it is even ok not to include them. It is not OK to belittle readers who do need them in order to protect their own mental well being.
Anyway!
As far as the stories in this collection, most have been previously published and I have read and enjoyed a few of them in the anthologies where they originally appeared.
I have previously read and loved the first story Driving Her Home, which is the author's take on a classic ghost story/urban legend that nearly everyone will have heard someone swear that a version of this has actually happened to a friend of a friend. Maybe even on a wooded stretch of road you have traveled.
I also remember The Cemetery Man, which appeared in one of my all-time favorite anthologies, Midnight In The Graveyard. This is a darkly comedic story about a man who is willing to put up with a lot of creepy situations just to have some sexy time with a woman who is turned on by graveyards.
Other stories I enjoyed were The Most Dangerous Game, about pinball aficionados and a collection of rare pinball machines that you will never have seen in your local arcade.
Friends discover that their deceased pal's resting place has been disturbed in another dark horror comedy, Arnie's Ashes.
A henpecked husband and his wife spend an unforgettable night at a country inn that sells a mysterious concoction known as Forest Butter.
Ghoul Friend In A Coma finds high schoolers plagued by a curfew because there may be a serial killer picking them off one by one.
Normally, for story collections, I will just touch briefly on the stories that I loved the most, but since the only brand new story here is one I did not care for, I will have to mention Triggered. This is a story of revenge against a book reviewer by someone who conflates trigger warnings with reviewers who mistakenly assume that authors who write about horrible happenings are horrible people and therefore attempt to get these writers "cancelled." If my eyes had rolled any harder reading this story, my ocular muscles would bulge like a champion weight lifter.
I'm getting sick of the sound of myself typing and I am sure to be over the character limit for social media so I will end here by saying I enjoyed most of the stories. Many are like the old 80s fun and freaky campy horror with gore, bouncing boobs and dark humor.
My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications for the e-ARC.
