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Book Review: Ash Rising by Katya Lebeque

Ash Rising by Katya Lebeque
Wordsmith Press, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1983106095
Available: Paperback, Kindle edition
**This review is cross-posted from Monster Librarian’s YA blog, Reading Bites**
Post-apocalyptic fairy tale. Do I have your attention yet? Ash Rising is set in the world of Cinderella, after her happily ever after. After a horrific genetic mutation that was supposed to help feed the world, and instead leeches the ground of its fertility and mutates the birds of the kingdom into giant predators who think humans are pretty tasty little snacks.
Ash lives in a once-grand manor, having renounced her title and opted instead for a life as a cook. Until the carriors came and she found herself the only one capable of keeping what remains of her household alive. While she has a complicated, resentful relationship with her stepmother, there are no evil stepsisters here. Ash dearly loves what family she has, and is determined to do the best for them.
Pluck Katniss Everdeen from Panem and plop her down in a fairy tale, and this is what you’d get. Dark, enduring, and brilliantly written, Ash Rising is a lovely and engaging read. Lebeque balances the gray grimness of disaster with the young spark of characters who can still, maybe, believe in the dream of a better life. Definitely highly recommended.

Contains: violence, some gore, language.

Reviewed by Michele Lee

Posted on November 16, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: That Which Grows Wild by Eric J. Guignard

That Which Grows Wild: 16 Tales of Dark Fiction by Eric J. Guignard

Harper Day Books, 2018

978-1949491005

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

That Which Grows Wild is a debut collection from Eric Guignard, which has been nominated for a Stoker award for Fiction Collections. This is a wondrous collection which considers the horrors of the world children are growing up in.

The really great stories include “A Case Study in Natural Selection and How It Applies to Love,” wherein a young man considers his place in the world as an ever-warming world brings about more and more cases of spontaneous combustion, with creatures and people exploding for seemingly no good reason. “The Inveterate Establishment of Daddano & Co.” permits an elderly undertaker to tell us what actually happened during the legendary Valentine Day’s Massacre, and how it affected the dirt and grime of Chicago. Finally, “In the Last Days of Gunslinger John Amos” a gunslinger protects the children of a devastated village from large and vicious animals in the wilderness, until a flood comes rumbling through.

Throughout all 16 tales, Guignard is highlighting nature. Nature is both the most beautiful and the most scary of terrifying monsters. As our world warms, we may yet experience the terrors which Guignard tells us about in this brilliant collection.

If ever there was a collection of stories that deserved to be read by every high schooler, it is this one. That Which Grows Wild is highly recommended for all readers 14 and up.

 

Reviewed by Benjamin Franz

Editor’s note: That Which Grows Wild is on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection.

Posted on April 30, 2019 by , Reply

Short Fiction Review: “The Devil’s Throat” by Rena Mason

“The Devil’s Throat” by Rena Mason (in Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terrors edited by Lee Murray)

Adrenaline Press, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-940095-94-3

Availability: paperback, ebook

 

‘The Devil’s Throat” plunges the reader into an undersea volcano called the Devil’s Throat.  A team of scientists working from a floating research station near the volcano loses contact with one of their members while diving in the Throat.  They struggle to find out what happened to the missing scientist, and have to contend with the military showing up and trying to take over the rescue operation, for reasons of their own.

The best part of the story is the setting and the monsters.  For undersea monsters, authors have used sharks, snakes, and jellyfish, but…sea cucumbers?  That has to be a first, using those harmless looking things as creatures that are attracted to blood and attack humans.  The setting is also very good.  The Throat isn’t just a cylinder, it’s honeycombed with passages in its walls that provide additional chambers and dive holes for the characters to venture into.   While the scientists and military people are facing off within the volcano walls, the cucumbers are also an element that both sides must contend with.  The idea may sound silly, but the author takes it seriously and makes it entertaining, and it all caps off with two of the most perfectly written sentences to end a story.

The story is well-written in third person, and delivers good entertainment within its nineteen pages.  It’s a story that may well leave the reader clamoring for more, as there are plenty of plot devices in the narrative that could have been developed further.  Little detail is given involving the military experiments at the bottom of the Throat, or the genetic modifications done to the sea cucumbers.  This is worth the read, and would probably make an excellent basis for a much longer story or full length novel, as the material quality is good enough to provide the basis for one.  Recommended.

 

Editor’s note: “The Devil’s Throat” is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in Short Fiction. Monster Librarian does not typically review individual short stories, and this is an exception made specifically because of its inclusion on the Stoker Awards final ballot. 

 

Contains: mild violence

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on April 28, 2019 by , Reply
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