Here’s a small selection of the horror and genre news that caught our eye during the last week …
Three Christmas horrors from writer Mark Cassell, available now
From the author of the Shadow Fabric mythos comes this 70-page Christmas chapbook featuring three stories. ‘Santa’s Elite’ finds the human population fast approaching eight billion, and it’s up to Santa’s special branch to lessen his seasonal workload. ‘Away in a Mangler’ features a shop selling unique gifts, whose proprietor has a horrifying secret or two he does not want shared. Finally, ‘Ho Ho Hollow’ finds something out in the woods which turns a family Christmas into a day of death and despair. Available in 99p/99c Kindle edition or paperback, you can pick up your copy here, now.
Intelligent, beautiful; 16-yearr-old Bethany Childs is now officially a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. But, that innocence is savagely taken away on the night of her birthday, and a part of her won’t let it go. Under the wing of an age-old demon – who facilitates Bethany’s revenge by imbuing the girl with supernatural powers – Bethany reveals her story in a ‘no-nonsense’ fashion, apologizing not for her torment nor asking for sympathy, but pleading for an understanding of the demonic forces she employs, and the fatalities that ensue in her wake. “It is not the future I saw for myself…” If Bethany is to believe in herself once again, and renounce Hell’s brutal, iniquitous ways, she will need to open her eyes and heart to a world that will never be the way she remembers. Only then can there be salvation in her name. Available in eBook and paperback, you can grab your copy here.
The Dead Boxes Archive, the new collection from John F Leonard, out now
The Dead Boxes Archive is a chilling collection of short horror stories and horror novellas. Together for the first time in one volume, seven tales from the critically acclaimed Dead Boxes series. Dead Boxes are scary things. Wonderful and dreadful secrets hiding themselves in plain view. On the surface, they often appear to be ordinary, everyday objects. Items which are easily overlooked at first glance. Perhaps that’s just as well because the Dead Boxes are as far from ordinary and everyday as you can get. They hold miracle and mystery, horror and salvation, answers to questions best not asked and directions to places better left unfound. This collection offers an insight into some of these delightfully eerie articles. A stunning omnibus of old school inspired horror, the brooding and ominous variety. Not to say that there isn’t a little gore and gruesome in the mix. But one of the beauties of horror is that it comes in many forms. Blood and guts don’t need to be stars of the show for a story to be dark and disturbing. Something that will stay with you long after the reading is done. Available in paperback and eBook formats, you can get hold of your copy now, here.
The Miskatonic Insitute announces courses for 2021
The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies is proud to present the Spring 2021 Semester of Lectures. As we enter the second (and hopefully final) year of the pandemic crisis, lectures for all our branches will be online for this semester. While we miss the live events, we are happy to reach out to a wider audience. We’re thrilled at the number of attendees from around the world who have had the opportunity to experience our classes this past autumn, and despite the reason, we’re delighted to expand the Miskatonic family, both in audience and instructors. For information on all courses, including to buy tickets and passes, click here.
Coming 31 December from Demain Publishing, the next six titles in the Short Sharp Shocks! range
Featuring releases by Marc Shapiro, A. S. Mackenzie, D. T. Griffith, Christopher Beck, Paul Flewitt and David Massengill, Demain Publishing unleash the next six titles in the Short Sharp Shocks range of bite sized horror releases. Let Me Take You Down by Marc Shapiro is literally and figuratively horror from the jazz age. Alternately creepy, cerebral like a meandering sax solo and dense in structure and pure storytelling depth like a wild dance by Miles Davis, Let Me Take You Down takes you down a dark path of thought, conceit and the subtle nature of what real terror and horror can be. To find out more, and pre-order your copy of this and the other releases in this wave of Short Sharp Shocks, click here.
KEV HARRISON