From the Depths: Terrifying Tales by Richard Saxon

Velox Books, 2021

ISBN 979-8745999574

Available: Paperback, Kindle ( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

It’s always a pleasure to discover a new author of dark fiction, especially when his debut collection is innovative, interesting and extremely entertaining.

This is the case with Richard Saxon, whose short story collection is characterized, first of all, by the unusual, long titles of each tale, which give you a hint of what is waiting for you in the following pages.

Here are some examples of the more accomplished stories.

“The Ocean is Much Deeper Than We Thought” is a tense, riveting piece blending SF and horror, about some mysterious, dangerous creatures living in the deepest part of the ocean, while “I Woke Up During Surgery. They Weren’t Trying to Save Me” is a very disquieting tale of medical horror where a man cured from cancer develops a scary kind of power.

The tell-tale title “My Job is to Watch People Die” perfectly describes the content of that unusual, well crafted story, but in  “We Have Been Guarding an Empty Room for the Past Five Years. Today We Found Something Inside”, a slightly surrealistic piece, the horrific nature of the story becomes apparent only at the end.

In the excellent “Every Year on My Birthday, I Have to Die”, a man keeps dying and then coming back to life when someone else takes on his death, while in “A Man Knocked at My Door at Midnight, He Gave Me A Horrible Choice”, an insightful tale with a Twilight Zone feel, the meaning (or the lack of it) of our existence on Earth is cleverly addressed.

“Arbor Vitae” effectively describes the story of a woman who makes an unusual, terrible bargain to protect her son.

The best story in the volume to me is “ My Favorite Twitch Streamer Just Died. He’ s Still Online”, an outstanding piece investigating the apparently tragic mystery of after-life.

I strongly recommend this superb collection to every lover of dark, speculative fiction.

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi