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Book Review: Creatures of the Night: Vicious Vampire Tales (Dark Tide, Book 17) by Simon Clark, Kevin J. Kennedy, and Gord Rollo

Creatures of the Night (Dark Tide, vol. 17) by Simon Clark, Kevin J. Kennedy, and Gord Rollo

Crystal Lake Publishing, 2024

ISBN: 9781964398181

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Amazon.com 

 

With the Dark Tide horror novella series, Crystal Lake Publishing seems to have found a winning formula.  Each volume has three novellas that center around a particular theme, with one story per author.  In this case, the theme is vampires.  Overall, it’s worth the purchase: you don’t need to be a Nosferatu nut to enjoy the stories.  In order, the three stories are: ok, good, and outstanding. The last one alone (which, thankfully, is the longest) is enough to make the whole book worth it.

 

“Return of the Blood Feeders” by Simon Clark, deals with a strange type of Norse vampire. There’s nothing wrong with the writing or plot, but this one just didn’t click for me.  It might be because the last monster seemed a bit over-the-top, and out of place in the story: it just didn’t fit.  Other readers may feel differently.

 

Kevin J. Kennedy’s “Perspective” is one of those stories that attempts to ‘”humanize” vampires, and it does it well. These aren’t goody two-shoes vampires like the undead in Twilight.  In this story, they may have human emotions like love, sadness, and loss, but they know how to kick serious ass-and serious ass they do kick!  There is a wonderfully messy fight towards the end with vampires, werewolves, and demons ripping off heads and sending body parts raining down everywhere, a great smash of a conclusion to a well written tale.  It’s a good combination of drama, mystery, and messiness, as well as a tale of vampires trying to find a reason to exist.  They do find it, and it’s a good reason to endure immortality.

 

Gord Rollo’s “Beneath Still Waters’” is a true house-shaker, a pure rollercoaster of excitement, from beginning to end.  It has all the elements: a remote Canadian town with a tragic past, Native American folklore, and one very unpleasant underwater monster.  There’s a decent amount of the story that takes place on or under a remote lake, and that’s where the writing really shines.  The author knows his stuff when it comes to putting fear and excitement in underwater sequences.  Diving can be nerve-wracking, with the claustrophobia of cave-diving and limited visibility.  The author clearly knows this, and puts the natural dangers of diving to very good use in the story.  There’s also a good twist to the ending.  Sure, maybe the heroes may be a bit foolish with some of their plans to stop the creature, but who cares?  It’s a thrill ride that keeps you hooked, and that’s all that matters.

 

Bottom line: it’s worth it.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on November 10, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: The Horror Collection, Black Edition by Kevin Kennedy


The Horror Collection: Black Edition edited by Becky Narron and Kevin J. Kennedy

KJK Publishing, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1798000991

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

The Horror Collection: Black Edition is an anthology of horror short stories.

“The Lake is Life”, by Richard Chizmar describes a troubled, teenage girl whose parents are facing divorce. She seeks emotional refuge visiting her grandmother at a tranquil lake.  There is a bloody massacre, and the keys to who and why are in the girl’s past. Unfortunately, the author never clearly explains her past.

“Pie Bingo: Last Man Standing”, by Veronica Smith describes a dystopian future with overcrowded jails.  The authorities need to winnow the jail population. Prisoners can opt to play bingo for pies, conjugal visits and freedom. However, if they don’t win, they won’t like the consolation prizes. The story is memorable because of the gruesome, sadistic details of the contest.

“Goblin Financial”, by Lee McGeorge is a lesson about the consequences of bad debts. A woman reneges on a loan she should have used for her education, causing her creditors emotional pain. She runs, but they have a hideous debt collector, and a horrific way of making themselves whole.

Readers familiar with the concept of informed consent in human experiments will cringe at “The Switch”, by Mark Lukens.  A financially desperate man agrees to be locked alone in a room for pay and told he must not flip a switch on the wall. The purpose, benefits, alternative choices and risks are not explained to him. Readers can guess what happens; it’s not really an experiment, because the researchers know the outcome.

“Those Who Watch from on High”, by Eric Guignard is an interesting account of emotional and psychological stresses on a drone pilot. Bored, isolated and suffering from disrupted sleep/wake cycles, an Air Force lieutenant in the Nevada desert struggles with reality. Is he looking down at a terrorist’s young son in the Afghan desert with a drone, or is he watching the terrorist’s hut from the desert floor? When he gets the order to fire on the hut, will he obey? If he does, what will he do the next day?

“The Ghost of Agnes Gallow”, by James Byers is an impressive poem about a witch whose curse stalks a family over generations on Halloween Eve.  Reciting his poem of ten stanzas of rhyming couplets out loud adds to the enjoyment.

Kevin Kennedy warns that  “A Tarantino Oz”contains strong doses of sex, violence and profanity. Readers who dislike Quentin Tarantino’s movies and misogyny should skip this story. Kennedy says all fairy tales were originally horror stories. In this tale, characters of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz meet for an orgy and murderous rampage.

In “Smolder”, Michael Arnzen uses the well-known difficulty of stopping smoking and the Surgeon General’s health warning to draw readers into his story. Who knew that there is something magical about each word of  “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Smoklng Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy”?  A concerned husband tries to help his pregnant wife kick the habit. He finds a hidden pack of cigarettes, but has no idea that calamity strikes smokers when words of the warning are destroyed.

 

Contains: Gore, graphic sex and profanity

 

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

Posted on May 16, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Screechers by Kevin J. Kennedy and Christina Bergling

Screechers by Kevin J. Kennedy and Christina Bergling

Publisher: Independently published

ISBN-13: 978-1798052655

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Screechers by Kevin Kennedy and Christina Bergling is a novella about a devastated, post-apocalyptic earth that is populated by a few bands of humans and monstrous hybrids. The time, the location, and the cause of the earthshattering catastrophe are unstated. Several mysteries egg the reader on.  What do the screechers look like? The authors only gradually describe them as giant-sized humanoids with translucent skin, rippling muscles, scaled backs, talons and fanged mouths.

Whatever caused the apocalypse accelerated mutations and produced hybrids. Screechers might have arisen from humans and another species, perhaps avian. They hatch from eggs, and females don’t leave the nest to hunt. Other monsters in this post-apocalyptic scenrio include pack-hunting apo-wolves with an elephant-sized alpha female, and crabs with scorpion tails, spewing venom. Each monster is vying to be the top apex predator. Way down on the list are the human survivors, who hunt small prey in ruins of a city.

A lightning storm destroys the screechers’ nest, forcing a lone surviving adult male and an infant to seek food far afield. The adult becomes addicted to a strange plant– another mystery. Then the humans’ community is burned out, and the three survivors flee the city. The humans and monsters meet in an epic free-for-all battle. Each species relies on its particular deadly gifts. Will a possible kindred between screechers and humans come into play?

The point of view of each chapter alternates between screechers, humans and apo-wolves. Adults and teenagers will enjoy this fast-paced novella: I only wished that it were longer, and answered more of the mysteries. Recommended.

Contains: graphic violence, mild profanity

 

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

Posted on March 24, 2019 by , Reply
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