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"The Horror Collection: Gold Edition"
Publisher: KJK Publishing
Editors: Becky Narron & Kevin J. Kennedy Format: Anthology Category: Horror |
“Gold Edition”
Published in 2018, this collection of stories is simply advertised as the first in a series of mini-anthologies presented by KJK publishing. I took a shot in the dark with this book, because I wanted to read something scary from the indie scene for the month of October and I also wanted to review another short story anthology. The horror genre is ideal for telling short stories that are scary, so what could possibly go wrong by choosing a book called “The Horror Collection: Gold Edition”?
Published in 2018, this collection of stories is simply advertised as the first in a series of mini-anthologies presented by KJK publishing. I took a shot in the dark with this book, because I wanted to read something scary from the indie scene for the month of October and I also wanted to review another short story anthology. The horror genre is ideal for telling short stories that are scary, so what could possibly go wrong by choosing a book called “The Horror Collection: Gold Edition”?
Readability
What’s most impressive to me about this work is how it has grown into such a massive project from such a humble beginning. This anthology only showcases a handful of authors, but “The Horror Collection” series as a whole has featured dozens of indie writers. So the reading experience may vary significantly from one edition to the next based on the talent (or lack thereof) being showcased, which is something to keep in mind. It does look like the publisher took the time to list all the featured authors in each collection, but you could also read the sample and browse the table of contents.
I noticed the editing in this collection was pretty lax. The stories do not share the same formatting, so in this book it looks cheaply slapped together – as if each entry was individually edited and then copy-pasted into one master manuscript before being published. That’s more of a professional gripe on the publisher/editing end, than about the content itself.
I will discuss what I thought about each individual story featured in this collection when I talk about the “Delivery” and what this work provided for the reader, but for the most part I thought the overall presentation of this book needed more work. For one thing, I would have set a limit on word count, because every time I’ve seen editors try to squeeze a random novella into what should have been a collection of short stories, it never works out well for the author who receives special treatment in that way. The novella in this collection did not help in any way except to pad out the page count, and that’s never a good look. Usually if there is a novella included in a collection, it’s because it’s a bestseller or a prominent piece of work and it’s usually accompanied by lesser known short stories written by the same author. So to anyone who may be thinking about publishing an anthology, my advice would be to make sure all the submissions fit one format that has the same roundabout word count, because I can’t stand opening a book and discovering a mishmash of content.
When I buy an anthology that showcases fiction, I expect to see a collection of short stories or flash fiction written by one or more authors. I don’t want to see poetry, or screenplays, or novellas, or unedited manuscripts, or word salad, or essays, or opinion pieces. I just want to read complete stories that have a clear beginning, middle, and end, but are written in a short format. I really don’t know why it’s so difficult for editors & publishers within the indie scene to put together a short story collection. Literally every anthology I’ve read so far from the indie market has had some random shit crammed into the mix.
Creativity
I don’t think every anthology needs to present a single theme that relates to all the stories it contains, but at the very least I would say maybe provide a logline for each one in the blurb so that the reader can have some clue as to what they’re getting themselves into. I did notice that by the fourth book in the series an executive decision was made to incorporate a festive theme to bring some solidarity to the table of contents.
In hindsight, it was a bad call to start off the series with the “Gold Edition”. I think maybe a lower grade precious metal like silver or bronze (maybe even copper or tin?) would have been better. Gold Edition implies that the stories contained therein are comparable in value, and since this is the first collection in a planned series of anthologies… I mean where do go from there? You got Platinum, and then what?
I do not understand how we go from “Gold Edition” to random colors like “Black”, “Purple”, “White”, and then we go back to precious metals with the “Silver Edition”, but then decide to add some precious stones to the mix with the “Emerald Edition”.
From what I can tell, there’s really no rhyme or reason to most of these editions and it probably would have been easier (not to mention more accurate) to refer to these books as “volumes” instead of calling them “editions”, because I noticed that the series seems to be presented like a periodical that features a variety of authors not unlike a magazine.
I dig the simplicity of the book covers, with the recognizable skull front and center, but the special editions that stand out with their own unique looking covers were a nice touch. I was going to purchase either the “Pumpkin Edition” or the “Extreme Edition”, but decided to see where it all started instead. However, I may revisit this series at a later time.
I noticed that there’s an “LGBTQIA+ Edition” (specifically), and I wonder why it wasn’t simply called the “Rainbow Cult Edition”, or the “Pride in Sin Edition”, or the “Limp-Wristed-Fruit-Loops-and-Loony-Toons Edition”.
Delivery
Like I mentioned in “Readability”, I really admire the publisher’s willingness to collaborate with other underground authors and create a project to specifically showcase their work as a means of helping readers discover the indie scene. Unfortunately, despite the subtitle, I was not under the impression that these authors were submitting their best work for this project. I think that’s a shame, because anthologies may be the primary way in which some readers find new indie authors that they can then research and discover a backlog.
As usual, whenever I review anthologies I will add a note next to the stories that I thought were “Exceptional” in terms of craft or deserved to be separated from the chaff.
“The Paperboy” by Amy Cross: This story is told from Darryl Vineson’s point of view as he spies on a paperboy who’s making the rounds in his neighborhood. Darryl has a strange obsession with the paperboy:
“I’ve been watching him for so long, studying him so long, that I feel like I know every inch of his features. But I’ve never seen his eyes.”
The narrative structure fits the mold of your typical Creepypasta. The protagonist has a name, but since there’s nothing to learn about his character, it really doesn’t matter what his name is. The whole story is built upon a twist which reveals that the main character has been dead the whole time and is stuck in a purgatory like existence, where every day plays out the same as the one before. However, what would have been cool is if the author utilized the newspaper as a plot device, because I don’t understand what the purpose “the paperboy” serves aside from being a distraction that led to Darryl’s character getting run over by a vehicle. Like why was Darryl so obsessed to begin with? What’s with the eyes? Is Darryl a psychopath (was he a creep or wanted criminal in hiding)? Is the paperboy supposed to be symbolic – like a harbinger of some sort? These are concepts that could have been given more attention to add some flavor and make this story feel less generic.
“The Man Who Lost Paradise” by J.C. Michael: Presumably this novella was written by a pantser (a.k.a. “discovery writer”) because it took them twenty or so pages of unnecessary info dumping (in the form of a traumatic backstory) to eventually discover a somewhat compelling premise to jumpstart an actual narrative. I liked the idea of a junkie dying from an overdose and then his spirit haunting and eventually possessing/corrupting the new tenant of the home in which they died. It could have been an interesting play on the concept of addicts fighting “demons” and the “war on drugs” by running with the idea that when a junkie dies they become a “demonic” spirit that still fiends for the fix, but the only way they can experience it is vicariously through the senses of a host body (hence the belief that addiction should be treated like a “disease”).
Unfortunately the author lost the plot after killing off Eric’s character (the innocent resident that the protagonist/antagonist corrupts), and then the spirit possesses a cop. The story then becomes a self-indulgent pity party for the fiendish spirit, as he feels sorry for himself, as he witnesses other addicts through the eyes of the policeman, and then struggles with the idea of redemption so he can get into heaven (“paradise”). However, the character’s primary motivation throughout the entire story is chasing the dragon and bitching about never getting high enough so as to permanently ease his pain.
The author is clearly an amateur and it shows through the prose and the fact that the narrative was mostly aimless and suffered from what I’ve come to recognize as “beating-a-dead-horse syndrome” – constantly rehashing scenarios, character thoughts and emotions, and creating a feeling as though there is very little progression that is taking place in terms of plot points, character development, narrative flow, etc. It’s something you read and you keep thinking to yourself, “Okay, I get it. Now what’s your point, and/or, where are you going with this?” If I wanted to consume content comprised of nothing but whining, bitching, and complaining about nothing but the same shit all the time with no sign of any satisfactory conclusion to come, then I would just log onto social media and doom scroll.
(Exceptional) “The September Laments of Annaleigh” by Matthew Brockmeyer: The most important detail is that this story takes place in the mountains. Even though it is unspecified I pictured an Appalachian nightmare unfolding in present tense from the young female protagonist’s point of view. She naively describes the horrifying situation she’s stuck in, with her poppa and a big man by the name of Cecil.
The story starts off by setting the scene as two men return home to Annaleigh after a day of hunting, and it doesn’t take long before shit gets weird. After Cecil guts the carcass of a deer, Annaleigh drags the tub filled with fresh steamy innards to “the critter pens”. The creatures are described as having:
“- long rat tails and little hands, sharp tusks and tiny horns, rows and rows of square yellow teeth, like an eel.”
Now although eel’s can have multiple rows of teeth, their teeth are sharp and not square. This is the only physical description of the “critters”, and I had a difficult time trying to picture what they actually looked like, but apparently they snort which made me think that they’re probably some kind of mutated hog beast. Annaleigh explains that her Poppa uses these creatures to keep the law and prying eyes away from setting foot on their side of the mountain. She says she wants to love the creatures, but Poppa says they need to keep them wild and hungry for humans.
This nonchalant lamenting from Annaleigh paints a grotesque picture of what it’s like to be raised in the mountains of madness by hillbilly lunatics. It’s the little details along the way, like how one scene ends with Poppa telling Annaleigh how she’s a good girl and “purty” then segues into the next where Annaleigh describes a “pumpkin-sized tumor” growing from her belly, which clues the reader in on how naïve Annaleigh actually is (which is what makes this story so scary because she cannot see what’s wrong with this picture).
“Flesh” by Kevin J. Kennedy: Inside a magical cave, two tribes of cannibal troglodytes must unite to defeat the reanimated carcasses of the humans they’ve hunted that are now hunting them as flesh-eating zombies.
I mean… where do I even begin?
Imagine if “The Hills Have Eyes” (2006) raped “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) and they had an inbred bastard child that looked like something from “The Descent” (2005). That’s this story in a nutshell.
The tone seems a bit disconnected from what is taking place on the page. At first it feels like horror, because it’s starts off with the cave dwellers nonchalantly munching on a roasted human leg, while “it” (the rest of their food) is pinned to floor by a spear and is writhing around still. That establishes that these Neanderthal-looking cave dwellers only recognize homo-sapiens as something that’s lower than them on the food chain. Later in the story, the tone shifts to full on camp when the two cave tribes (high cave and the deep cave) go to battle against the zombie horde in an action-packed scene of brutality (as if I was supposed to be in support of, emotionally invested in, and rooting for the inbred-cannibalistic troglodytes). Lol!
I will say that there was a funny bit near the end involving one of the men from the high-cave tribe after the big battle scene. There’s blood and gore all over the place and everyone is battle fatigued, but the first thing on his mind after tallying the butcher’s bill is:
“With only two sisters left he would need to steal a few women and babies again. Having two babies a year with his remaining sisters would be too slow”
“At Peace Now?” by Lex H Jones: After suffering a severe head injury a man named Ethan finds himself at the gates of what he assumes is heaven. The thing is the entrance was left open and the gates hanging from their hinges (as if someone or something had forcefully pried them open). Ethan proceeds to investigate while I wonder if he is actually dead or just in a coma and is experiencing a prolonged fever dream.
This is another undeveloped story, and reads like the author was just making stuff up as he went along. The story starts off as a tale of discovery, when Ethan becomes “consciously” aware that he has been traversing a nondescript tunnel for god knows how long before he recalls his accident, gets hit by a blinding light, and emerges in the paradise of afterlife. There’s a snippet just before Ethan enters the gates where the self-proclaimed agnostic thinks to himself:
“But if he had managed to get here, proving that it wasn’t required to be a devout member of any particular religion or follow its principles, then who else might he find? Which rules mattered and which ones didn’t?”
This is what I would consider a setup for an overarching narrative – a premise in the form of a thought-provoking question that the story is structured around. However, those questions end up being left unanswered. The story does not reveal anything about who Ethan was except for the fact that he wore black dress shoes and a grey suit and that he may have had a little too much to drink, and that he clearly couldn’t handle his alcohol like the good old days at University when he would sleep with random women and men. Since this is a discovery tale, then it’s no big deal if Ethan has no real motivations or desires and is more or less just a vehicle used to drive a concept for the reader to experience vicariously – like a philosophical escapade, if you will, but Nope. No philosophical payoff. The author commits the number-one cardinal sin of storytelling, and leaves the reader with more questions than answers.
Ethan discovers that an ancient Leviathan has awakened and is consuming the ethereal plane of the afterlife, starting with God in heaven and all his angels. It’s a mess. Not only is the ending abrupt, but it’s totally asinine. It ends with a psychic medium receiving a warning from Ethan in the afterlife. The problem is that the story isn’t actually saying anything. There’s no character development, there’s no real plot in terms of setup AND payoff – it’s just a random series of disconnected discoveries being made by the main character until the author decided to write “The End”. I think it would be amusing to hear what the author would come up with if someone asked him to explain what this story is about, because I got nothing out of it.
(Exceptional) “Ghost Train” by Mike Duke: Out of all the stories in this collection, this one had the most thought put into its structure. It starts off with a kind of prologue that serves to provide info about a tragic accident involving a train and a school bus – a school bus that Billie Barber Jr. was supposed to be on. Fast forward twenty years later, and Billy Barber the 3rd sneaks out of the house to join his ragtag group of friends to witness a paranormal spectacle known as the ghost train:
“According to local legend, the ghost train only showed up when there was a full moon, 12 hours after the accident had occurred, and, in particular, at the height of the full moon…”
Just as the legend suggested, a ghost train does shows up as expected. It appears in the form of a light and a strong gust of wind and passes through the boys while they stand on the tracks, but what they didn’t expect was for their friend Billie to disappear without a trace. This sparks controversy around town and Billie’s friends are the primary suspects behind his disappearance. Now the boys have to figure out how to get their friend back from what they believe to be a completely different plane of existence (according to a D&D manual).
This story is very much a product of eighties nostalgia and captures the vibe of that era in terms of storytelling clichés. There’s the diverse crew of friends including a white kid, a black kid, and a couple Chinese children. There’s a literal Dungeons and Dragons reference. There’s the “parents/adults just don’t understand” trope, so it’s up to the kids to save the day.
The plot is pretty solid except for some minor details, like when the minors are held in police custody and interrogated for over eight hours after Billie disappears (but has been reported missing for less than 24hrs), but that’s a nitpick. Each of the children had their own unique personality and their character undergoes some sort of change during the narrative. I was genuinely surprised by the sinister twist at the end. The setup involving the bullies seemed so subtle and the author managed to turn what I thought was just another eighties cliché tossed into the plot (for the purpose of character development) into a means of subverting my expectation in order to bring the story to a shocking conclusion.
What’s most impressive to me about this work is how it has grown into such a massive project from such a humble beginning. This anthology only showcases a handful of authors, but “The Horror Collection” series as a whole has featured dozens of indie writers. So the reading experience may vary significantly from one edition to the next based on the talent (or lack thereof) being showcased, which is something to keep in mind. It does look like the publisher took the time to list all the featured authors in each collection, but you could also read the sample and browse the table of contents.
I noticed the editing in this collection was pretty lax. The stories do not share the same formatting, so in this book it looks cheaply slapped together – as if each entry was individually edited and then copy-pasted into one master manuscript before being published. That’s more of a professional gripe on the publisher/editing end, than about the content itself.
I will discuss what I thought about each individual story featured in this collection when I talk about the “Delivery” and what this work provided for the reader, but for the most part I thought the overall presentation of this book needed more work. For one thing, I would have set a limit on word count, because every time I’ve seen editors try to squeeze a random novella into what should have been a collection of short stories, it never works out well for the author who receives special treatment in that way. The novella in this collection did not help in any way except to pad out the page count, and that’s never a good look. Usually if there is a novella included in a collection, it’s because it’s a bestseller or a prominent piece of work and it’s usually accompanied by lesser known short stories written by the same author. So to anyone who may be thinking about publishing an anthology, my advice would be to make sure all the submissions fit one format that has the same roundabout word count, because I can’t stand opening a book and discovering a mishmash of content.
When I buy an anthology that showcases fiction, I expect to see a collection of short stories or flash fiction written by one or more authors. I don’t want to see poetry, or screenplays, or novellas, or unedited manuscripts, or word salad, or essays, or opinion pieces. I just want to read complete stories that have a clear beginning, middle, and end, but are written in a short format. I really don’t know why it’s so difficult for editors & publishers within the indie scene to put together a short story collection. Literally every anthology I’ve read so far from the indie market has had some random shit crammed into the mix.
Creativity
I don’t think every anthology needs to present a single theme that relates to all the stories it contains, but at the very least I would say maybe provide a logline for each one in the blurb so that the reader can have some clue as to what they’re getting themselves into. I did notice that by the fourth book in the series an executive decision was made to incorporate a festive theme to bring some solidarity to the table of contents.
In hindsight, it was a bad call to start off the series with the “Gold Edition”. I think maybe a lower grade precious metal like silver or bronze (maybe even copper or tin?) would have been better. Gold Edition implies that the stories contained therein are comparable in value, and since this is the first collection in a planned series of anthologies… I mean where do go from there? You got Platinum, and then what?
I do not understand how we go from “Gold Edition” to random colors like “Black”, “Purple”, “White”, and then we go back to precious metals with the “Silver Edition”, but then decide to add some precious stones to the mix with the “Emerald Edition”.
From what I can tell, there’s really no rhyme or reason to most of these editions and it probably would have been easier (not to mention more accurate) to refer to these books as “volumes” instead of calling them “editions”, because I noticed that the series seems to be presented like a periodical that features a variety of authors not unlike a magazine.
I dig the simplicity of the book covers, with the recognizable skull front and center, but the special editions that stand out with their own unique looking covers were a nice touch. I was going to purchase either the “Pumpkin Edition” or the “Extreme Edition”, but decided to see where it all started instead. However, I may revisit this series at a later time.
I noticed that there’s an “LGBTQIA+ Edition” (specifically), and I wonder why it wasn’t simply called the “Rainbow Cult Edition”, or the “Pride in Sin Edition”, or the “Limp-Wristed-Fruit-Loops-and-Loony-Toons Edition”.
Delivery
Like I mentioned in “Readability”, I really admire the publisher’s willingness to collaborate with other underground authors and create a project to specifically showcase their work as a means of helping readers discover the indie scene. Unfortunately, despite the subtitle, I was not under the impression that these authors were submitting their best work for this project. I think that’s a shame, because anthologies may be the primary way in which some readers find new indie authors that they can then research and discover a backlog.
As usual, whenever I review anthologies I will add a note next to the stories that I thought were “Exceptional” in terms of craft or deserved to be separated from the chaff.
“The Paperboy” by Amy Cross: This story is told from Darryl Vineson’s point of view as he spies on a paperboy who’s making the rounds in his neighborhood. Darryl has a strange obsession with the paperboy:
“I’ve been watching him for so long, studying him so long, that I feel like I know every inch of his features. But I’ve never seen his eyes.”
The narrative structure fits the mold of your typical Creepypasta. The protagonist has a name, but since there’s nothing to learn about his character, it really doesn’t matter what his name is. The whole story is built upon a twist which reveals that the main character has been dead the whole time and is stuck in a purgatory like existence, where every day plays out the same as the one before. However, what would have been cool is if the author utilized the newspaper as a plot device, because I don’t understand what the purpose “the paperboy” serves aside from being a distraction that led to Darryl’s character getting run over by a vehicle. Like why was Darryl so obsessed to begin with? What’s with the eyes? Is Darryl a psychopath (was he a creep or wanted criminal in hiding)? Is the paperboy supposed to be symbolic – like a harbinger of some sort? These are concepts that could have been given more attention to add some flavor and make this story feel less generic.
“The Man Who Lost Paradise” by J.C. Michael: Presumably this novella was written by a pantser (a.k.a. “discovery writer”) because it took them twenty or so pages of unnecessary info dumping (in the form of a traumatic backstory) to eventually discover a somewhat compelling premise to jumpstart an actual narrative. I liked the idea of a junkie dying from an overdose and then his spirit haunting and eventually possessing/corrupting the new tenant of the home in which they died. It could have been an interesting play on the concept of addicts fighting “demons” and the “war on drugs” by running with the idea that when a junkie dies they become a “demonic” spirit that still fiends for the fix, but the only way they can experience it is vicariously through the senses of a host body (hence the belief that addiction should be treated like a “disease”).
Unfortunately the author lost the plot after killing off Eric’s character (the innocent resident that the protagonist/antagonist corrupts), and then the spirit possesses a cop. The story then becomes a self-indulgent pity party for the fiendish spirit, as he feels sorry for himself, as he witnesses other addicts through the eyes of the policeman, and then struggles with the idea of redemption so he can get into heaven (“paradise”). However, the character’s primary motivation throughout the entire story is chasing the dragon and bitching about never getting high enough so as to permanently ease his pain.
The author is clearly an amateur and it shows through the prose and the fact that the narrative was mostly aimless and suffered from what I’ve come to recognize as “beating-a-dead-horse syndrome” – constantly rehashing scenarios, character thoughts and emotions, and creating a feeling as though there is very little progression that is taking place in terms of plot points, character development, narrative flow, etc. It’s something you read and you keep thinking to yourself, “Okay, I get it. Now what’s your point, and/or, where are you going with this?” If I wanted to consume content comprised of nothing but whining, bitching, and complaining about nothing but the same shit all the time with no sign of any satisfactory conclusion to come, then I would just log onto social media and doom scroll.
(Exceptional) “The September Laments of Annaleigh” by Matthew Brockmeyer: The most important detail is that this story takes place in the mountains. Even though it is unspecified I pictured an Appalachian nightmare unfolding in present tense from the young female protagonist’s point of view. She naively describes the horrifying situation she’s stuck in, with her poppa and a big man by the name of Cecil.
The story starts off by setting the scene as two men return home to Annaleigh after a day of hunting, and it doesn’t take long before shit gets weird. After Cecil guts the carcass of a deer, Annaleigh drags the tub filled with fresh steamy innards to “the critter pens”. The creatures are described as having:
“- long rat tails and little hands, sharp tusks and tiny horns, rows and rows of square yellow teeth, like an eel.”
Now although eel’s can have multiple rows of teeth, their teeth are sharp and not square. This is the only physical description of the “critters”, and I had a difficult time trying to picture what they actually looked like, but apparently they snort which made me think that they’re probably some kind of mutated hog beast. Annaleigh explains that her Poppa uses these creatures to keep the law and prying eyes away from setting foot on their side of the mountain. She says she wants to love the creatures, but Poppa says they need to keep them wild and hungry for humans.
This nonchalant lamenting from Annaleigh paints a grotesque picture of what it’s like to be raised in the mountains of madness by hillbilly lunatics. It’s the little details along the way, like how one scene ends with Poppa telling Annaleigh how she’s a good girl and “purty” then segues into the next where Annaleigh describes a “pumpkin-sized tumor” growing from her belly, which clues the reader in on how naïve Annaleigh actually is (which is what makes this story so scary because she cannot see what’s wrong with this picture).
“Flesh” by Kevin J. Kennedy: Inside a magical cave, two tribes of cannibal troglodytes must unite to defeat the reanimated carcasses of the humans they’ve hunted that are now hunting them as flesh-eating zombies.
I mean… where do I even begin?
Imagine if “The Hills Have Eyes” (2006) raped “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) and they had an inbred bastard child that looked like something from “The Descent” (2005). That’s this story in a nutshell.
The tone seems a bit disconnected from what is taking place on the page. At first it feels like horror, because it’s starts off with the cave dwellers nonchalantly munching on a roasted human leg, while “it” (the rest of their food) is pinned to floor by a spear and is writhing around still. That establishes that these Neanderthal-looking cave dwellers only recognize homo-sapiens as something that’s lower than them on the food chain. Later in the story, the tone shifts to full on camp when the two cave tribes (high cave and the deep cave) go to battle against the zombie horde in an action-packed scene of brutality (as if I was supposed to be in support of, emotionally invested in, and rooting for the inbred-cannibalistic troglodytes). Lol!
I will say that there was a funny bit near the end involving one of the men from the high-cave tribe after the big battle scene. There’s blood and gore all over the place and everyone is battle fatigued, but the first thing on his mind after tallying the butcher’s bill is:
“With only two sisters left he would need to steal a few women and babies again. Having two babies a year with his remaining sisters would be too slow”
“At Peace Now?” by Lex H Jones: After suffering a severe head injury a man named Ethan finds himself at the gates of what he assumes is heaven. The thing is the entrance was left open and the gates hanging from their hinges (as if someone or something had forcefully pried them open). Ethan proceeds to investigate while I wonder if he is actually dead or just in a coma and is experiencing a prolonged fever dream.
This is another undeveloped story, and reads like the author was just making stuff up as he went along. The story starts off as a tale of discovery, when Ethan becomes “consciously” aware that he has been traversing a nondescript tunnel for god knows how long before he recalls his accident, gets hit by a blinding light, and emerges in the paradise of afterlife. There’s a snippet just before Ethan enters the gates where the self-proclaimed agnostic thinks to himself:
“But if he had managed to get here, proving that it wasn’t required to be a devout member of any particular religion or follow its principles, then who else might he find? Which rules mattered and which ones didn’t?”
This is what I would consider a setup for an overarching narrative – a premise in the form of a thought-provoking question that the story is structured around. However, those questions end up being left unanswered. The story does not reveal anything about who Ethan was except for the fact that he wore black dress shoes and a grey suit and that he may have had a little too much to drink, and that he clearly couldn’t handle his alcohol like the good old days at University when he would sleep with random women and men. Since this is a discovery tale, then it’s no big deal if Ethan has no real motivations or desires and is more or less just a vehicle used to drive a concept for the reader to experience vicariously – like a philosophical escapade, if you will, but Nope. No philosophical payoff. The author commits the number-one cardinal sin of storytelling, and leaves the reader with more questions than answers.
Ethan discovers that an ancient Leviathan has awakened and is consuming the ethereal plane of the afterlife, starting with God in heaven and all his angels. It’s a mess. Not only is the ending abrupt, but it’s totally asinine. It ends with a psychic medium receiving a warning from Ethan in the afterlife. The problem is that the story isn’t actually saying anything. There’s no character development, there’s no real plot in terms of setup AND payoff – it’s just a random series of disconnected discoveries being made by the main character until the author decided to write “The End”. I think it would be amusing to hear what the author would come up with if someone asked him to explain what this story is about, because I got nothing out of it.
(Exceptional) “Ghost Train” by Mike Duke: Out of all the stories in this collection, this one had the most thought put into its structure. It starts off with a kind of prologue that serves to provide info about a tragic accident involving a train and a school bus – a school bus that Billie Barber Jr. was supposed to be on. Fast forward twenty years later, and Billy Barber the 3rd sneaks out of the house to join his ragtag group of friends to witness a paranormal spectacle known as the ghost train:
“According to local legend, the ghost train only showed up when there was a full moon, 12 hours after the accident had occurred, and, in particular, at the height of the full moon…”
Just as the legend suggested, a ghost train does shows up as expected. It appears in the form of a light and a strong gust of wind and passes through the boys while they stand on the tracks, but what they didn’t expect was for their friend Billie to disappear without a trace. This sparks controversy around town and Billie’s friends are the primary suspects behind his disappearance. Now the boys have to figure out how to get their friend back from what they believe to be a completely different plane of existence (according to a D&D manual).
This story is very much a product of eighties nostalgia and captures the vibe of that era in terms of storytelling clichés. There’s the diverse crew of friends including a white kid, a black kid, and a couple Chinese children. There’s a literal Dungeons and Dragons reference. There’s the “parents/adults just don’t understand” trope, so it’s up to the kids to save the day.
The plot is pretty solid except for some minor details, like when the minors are held in police custody and interrogated for over eight hours after Billie disappears (but has been reported missing for less than 24hrs), but that’s a nitpick. Each of the children had their own unique personality and their character undergoes some sort of change during the narrative. I was genuinely surprised by the sinister twist at the end. The setup involving the bullies seemed so subtle and the author managed to turn what I thought was just another eighties cliché tossed into the plot (for the purpose of character development) into a means of subverting my expectation in order to bring the story to a shocking conclusion.
#LFLR Indie Rating: 3.5/10
“The Horror Collection: Gold Edition” is just the first anthology in a series that has produced over twenty five books that has featured dozens of names from the indie scene. As I browsed through some of the other books, I even recognized some authors whose work I’ve reviewed before. Kevin J. Kennedy is an author, editor, and self-proclaimed anthologist. He has amassed an impressive catalog of horror collections under his KJK Publishing label.
“The Horror Collection: Gold Edition” is just the first anthology in a series that has produced over twenty five books that has featured dozens of names from the indie scene. As I browsed through some of the other books, I even recognized some authors whose work I’ve reviewed before. Kevin J. Kennedy is an author, editor, and self-proclaimed anthologist. He has amassed an impressive catalog of horror collections under his KJK Publishing label.
THIS BREAKDOWN IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE #LFLR NETWORK.
