McSweeney’s, Issue 27 / May 2008
Reviewed by: Blu Gilliand

Let me say it right off the bat: “A Very Tight Place” is vintage Stephen King. Maybe not classic King, but certainly vintage. The story springs from one of his patented “what if?” scenarios – in this case, “What if a man were trapped in a port-a-potty?” Admittedly, that’s a summary that sounds more at home as the logline of a new Adam Sandler comedy, but in King’s hands the result is a claustrophobic and engaging meditation on loss and desperation.

King is in fine form here, from his usual sharp characterizations all the way down to descriptive passages with the power to turn heads as well as stomachs. It’s a welcome return to the lean, down-and-dirty approach that made the stories in Night Shift and Skeleton Crew so much fun.

Curtis Johnson made millions on the stock market and is now living the good life on Turtle Island, a small Florida enclave populated with other millionaires, including one Tim Grunwald. A land dispute has driven a permanent wedge between Johnson and Grunwald, who these days limit their contact to the courtroom. It’s with some surprise that Johnson receives a message from his nemesis asking for a face-to-face at the site of one of Grunwald’s failed real estate ventures. “Let’s end this,” Grunwald offers, and a skeptical Johnson heads to the abandoned construction site to find out what the man has to say.

The two men who meet at the wasteland of half-finished buildings that is Durkin Grove Village are both trapped in their own downward spirals. Johnson is grieving over a personal loss that Grunwald, deliberately or not, is responsible for, and has lost sight of any kind of passion for life. Grunwald is mired in multiple crises of both financial and personal natures. When these two combustible elements come together under the hot Florida sun…well, it’s not giving much away to say that things get nasty in a hurry.

“A Very Tight Place” is a taut little thriller, a well-told tale that delivers far more than you’d expect from its one-line plot description. Appearing now in the 27^th issue of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, the literary magazine famous as much for its unique presentation as its content, “Place” is also slated for inclusion in King’s late-2008 collection Just After Sunset. Wherever you choose to read it, you won’t be disappointed.

Purchase McSweeney’s Issue 27, including “A Very Tight Place” by Stephen King.

Pre-order Stephen King’s Just After Sunset, including “A Very Tight Place”.

from Shroud Magazine / January 2008
Reviewed by: Anthony J. Rapino

It’s not often one sees the narrative structure of a story conform to its theme, yet this is just what Tom Piccirilli accomplishes in “Circling” from the inaugural issue of Shroud. The themes and ideas Piccirilli presents early in the story resurface throughout, creating a circular story structure. This thematic echo also manifests through the characters’ actions as they circle – both literally and metaphorically - the tracks surrounding the town and their lives. Even the repetition of such lines as “It never ends” reinforces the notion of revolving found in the story.

In “Circling”, Johnny Bent decides to dig up his father’s corpse. It’s Johnny’s hope that DNA testing will offer proof of paternity. But before Johnny can make it to the graveyard, a Mazda filled with three bank robbers pulls up behind his car, and the ensuing altercation is both a unique and surprising turnabout. Johnny also meets Lorelei, his grave robbing partner, during the botched getaway.

Johnny and Lorelei go on to circle the town as they become better acquainted, eventually finding their way to the graveyard. It is there that Lorelei questions her own family tree to surprising response.

While “Circling” presents a fast-paced and interesting story with its fair share of gasp-inducing moments, it also offers multitudinous layers of meaning. Piccirilli is sure to please different types of readers here: those looking for a bit of blood and those looking for a bit of deeper meaning. Read it once for the murder. Read it a second time for the marvel of its well-crafted themes.

Purchase Shroud Magazine featuring Tom Piccirilli's "Circling."

from Clarkesworld Magazine #17 / February 2008
Reviewed by: Vince A. Liaguno

Stephen Graham Jones is a thinking man’s writer who possesses the uncanny ability to lay all of his cards out on the table yet keep readers from seeing his hand. His cerebral works tease and titillate the little grey cells, and you’re never quite sure if you’ve gotten everything he’s packed into his refreshingly highbrow prose. If you haven’t read his last novel - 2006’s Demon Theory - then you’ve missed out on a work of genuine literary innovation with its wildly experimental film treatment-within-a-novel narrative and annotated celebration of pop culture.

“Captain’s Lament,” from the equally academic-leaning Clarkesworld Magazine, reminds readers what true originality is in an often cliché-ridden genre. Using a first-person narrative structure that captivates from the opening paragraph, “Captain” tells the story of a hospitalized merchant marine whose convalescence is the nautical equivalent of being landlocked. As the protagonist’s agonizing period of recovery draws out and he begins to sink deeper into himself, a (seemingly) kindly nurse offers the venerable seaman a glimmer of hope and understanding. But before the reader is able to peg this as a run-of-the-mill creepy nurse tale, Jones deconstructs his story – twisting and turning the narrative so that by the time readers find themselves revisiting familiar urban legend territory, they’ve been thrown gloriously off guard.

As in Demon Theory, nothing is what it really seems in “Captain’s Lament.” Jones richly layers the story with alternate truths and realities that will catch readers blissfully unaware – and perhaps leaving them scratching their heads with thoughts of “Did he just…?” In Jones’ macabre fictional worlds, it’s all up for grabs. And the best part is he tells us everything up front - with a sly wink.

Read “Captain’s Lament” by Stephen Graham Jones in Clarkesworld Magazine.

from Noctem Aeternus Magazine/ January 2008
Reviewed by: Vince A. Liaguno

Seattle detective and Idaho transplant Leatus Balter is called in to investigate the bizarre electrocution death of an elderly woman. While attempting to notify next of kin, he discovers an odd DVD in the woman’s purse and finds a disturbing commercial steeped in religious rhetoric and malevolent imagery. With the help of his partner Gary, Leatus soon learns that the victim’s son has had an uncanny run of bad luck – mixed with good fortune in the form of insurance payouts – when his brother, estranged wife, and mother all meet their untimely ends within months of one another.

Enter Tara Henkle, an insurance adjuster from the insurance company that’s paying out big bucks to the dead octogenarian’s son, now MIA. In true damsel in distress fashion, Henkle leads Leatus to believe that there some connection between the series of deaths and the odd commercial found in the dead woman’s purse. Worse, she fears she is next.

The commercials end up being state-of-the-art prayers, the high-tech versions of lighting votive candles. Priest takes shot at the idea that money can buy everything – including God’s attention. The slicker the Super Bowl commercial, the more Doritos Frito Lays sells, right? It’s an interesting premise that Priest wisely veils in some vague religious mysticism, secret Vatican papers, and academic research that reduces divine petitioning to a numbers game. It’s enough to make the story’s protagonist doubt the whole purpose of maintaining law and order when God’s intervention simply goes to the highest, slickest bidder.

Taken from the inaugural issue of the promising Noctem Aeternus Magazine, the new free PDF brainchild of editor Michael Knost, “The Target Audience” offers up a satisfying slice of religion-meets-consumerism that’s part police procedural, part conspiracy theory, and all dark genre enjoyment.

Read Cherie Priest’s “The Target Audience” in Noctem Aeternus.

from Estronomicon / Halloween 2007 Issue
Reviewed by: Vince A. Liaguno

The British understand subtlety, especially in horror. Case in point: Gary McMahon’s sublimely atmospheric short story “Pumpkin Night.” In this haunting Halloween lament, McMahon introduces us to Baxter, newly widowed and grieving the loss of his wife, Katy. But before you write “Pumpkin Night” off as another sad tale of a husband’s grief bringing back the specter of his dead wife, think again. For Baxter and Katy shared a particular love for Halloween and a penchant for the young tricksters whose fates are slowly revealed through the use of suggestion.

The strength of “Pumpkin Night” is two-fold both in its lush Halloween imagery that sets the mood perfectly and the restraint of McMahon’s prose:

“Rain spat at the windows, thunder rumbled overhead. The weather had taken a turn for the worse only yesterday, as if gearing up for a night of spooks. Outside, someone screamed; laughter; the sound of light footsteps running past his garden gate but not stopping, never stopping here.”

He wisely shades the depravity of his characters in subtlety, bringing home the point that there are no such things as Halloween ghosts or goblins or monsters - “just people, and the things they did to each other.” There is nothing remotely resembling a shock effect here, no graphic descriptions to revile and repulse. McMahon’s story works effectively through this masterful sense of understatement, hinting at the unspeakable horrors that lie buried beneath a thin covering of dirt in the basement, warning of the moral corruption lurking just under the surface of our neighbors’ friendly facades. Like the best exercises in horror, McMahon leaves the details up to the reader’s imagination.

Read Gary McMahon’s “Pumpkin Night” in Estronomicon.

from Postscripts #11 / Summer 2007
Reviewed by: Martel Sardina

Stories that end in unexpected ways are a treat and “Waiting For Dawn” is no exception. Alan Southerland is an unhappily married journalist. He’s fallen into a rut at work and at home. When Alan begins an affair with the perfect woman, Dawn, she reminds him that he used to be a creative person. Alan once dreamt of being a novelist, but burned his manuscript after getting a scathing response from his wife, Janie. Dawn tells Alan that he has a wonderful imagination and challenges him to take a chance on his long forgotten dreams again.

Mikal Trimm does a wonderful job of showing us the contrast in Alan’s life, measured in terms, “before Dawn” and “since Dawn”:

Before Dawn, his days were brackets to the drudgery they encapsulated. Wake up, crapcrapcrapcrapcrap, go to sleep. Repeat process, ad infinitum. Since Dawn had appeared, though, time flowed more harmoniously; each moment with her stretched out to grasp the next, a daisy-chain of tranquility.

Trimm paints portraits of the characters not only by referencing their physical attributes, but also through the use of dialogue and internal dialogue to show the reader what the characters think of themselves and each other. These glimpses, especially the ones into Alan’s mind, cause the reader to identify with Alan and hope that he finds a way to get out of the life that he had “before Dawn” in order to find happiness. Trimm delivers a satisfying resolution to Alan’s quest.

“Waiting For Dawn” provides writers with an example of a well-crafted tale. The combination of quality writing, well developed characters, and an interesting plot will keep writers wondering how Trimm got it all right and readers wondering where they can find more of his work.

Purchase Postscripts #11 featuring Mikal Trimm's short story "Waiting For Dawn"

from Postscripts #10 / Spring 2007
Reviewed by: JG Faherty

Some people might pick up the latest issue of Postscripts (Number 10, Spring 2007, edited by Peter Crowther), because of stories by Stephen King, Joe Hill, or Tim Lebbon. Or maybe because of the whole section devoted to Michael Marshall Smith. But every anthology has its hidden gems, and one of the best in this anthology is “Hearing Aid,” by Rick Hautala.

One of the things I’ve always found refreshing about Hautala is his no-nonsense approach to horror. Hautala’s stories are back-to-the-basics, straightforward dark fiction, sometimes dealing with monsters and boogems pulled from the depths of Maine’s deep well of supernatural myths, and other times providing a quiet but chilling look at the world.

Hautala admits that one of his main influences is Rod Serling, and the Twilight Zone/Outer Limits style is certainly evident in this story of a man who gets fitted for a hearing aid and ends up with something much more than he bargained for.

If you’ve read any of Hautala’s previous works, you know things are not going to end well for the protagonist. The story is short, with no wasted words. We know everything we need to about the main character in a few brief sentences, and his problem is thrust upon him, and us, immediately.

I’m a sucker for traditional horror, and “Hearing Aid” is the kind of story I grew up reading, and still enjoy. It’s a modern campfire story. It creeps you out, makes you feel sorry for the main character, and might even make you think, ‘Wow, what if...” long after you’ve read it.

In short, it’s a damn good story with no verbal doilies or pseudo-literary pretense.

But then, what else would you expect from a storyteller from Maine?

Purchase Postscripts #10 featuring Rick Hautala's short story "Hearing Aid"