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Book Review: Grotesque: Monster Stories by Lee Murray

cover art for Grotesque: Monster Stories by Lee Murray

Grotesque: Monster Stories by Lee Murray

Things in the Well, 2020

ISBN-13 : 979-8611527153

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition ( Amazon.com )

 

In Grotesque: Monster Stories Lee Murray has written tales in a wide variety of styles and subgenres in the horror genre. The combination of her imaginative twists on familiar tropes and the New Zealand setting and atmosphere creates some great creepy, dread-inducing, and horrifying tales.

 

Interestingly, three of Murray’s stories include mindless, killer creatures. In addition to her zombie story, “The New Breed”, which raises the question of who really is the monster in the story, two very different stories provide unique versions of the golem. “Grotesque” is a horror story about the uncovering of an underground passage between two French chateaux, framing events of 1560 when the sixteen-year-old king of France had to be smuggled out, sealing the passage behind him to contain… something.  “Into the Clouded Sky” revisits a character Murray has written about previously, Taine McKenna. This is a nonstop adventure with supernatural visitors, terrifying sand golems, and natural catastrophe, set in New Zealand, and moves at a breakneck pace. These two stories were original for this collection.

 

Other strong stories include “Edward’s Journal”, a Lovecraftian tale told in epistolary manner, paints a lush, wet, and terrifying portrait of an English soldier with the mission of burning the Maori people’s crops to force them to move of their land, lost and starving in the New Zealand forests in an increasingly surreal and sanity-breaking situation; “Selfie”, a post-apocalyptic story with a disturbing amount of creative and vividly described body horror; and “Dead End Town”, an incredibly grim and difficult story to read even before the supernatural gets involved, as it involves repeated violence towards and sexual abuse of a child.

 

I was excited to see a kaiju story, “Maui’s Hook”. I think these must be difficult to write, especially from the point of view of a person experiencing it,  because it’s hard to appreciate giant monster violence when it’s aimed at an individual human instead of another giant monster. Murray did a great job creating a terrifying, unkillable monster and chronicling its violence in a setting and context that I haven’t seen in kaiju films.

 

I haven’t touched on every story in this review but I found them all compelling. Grotesque: Monster Stories should have something to interest almost everyone. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Editor’s Note: Grotesque: Monster Stories is a nominee on the final ballot for this year’s Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection.

Posted on May 22, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn

cover art for Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn

( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn

Omnium Gatherum 2020

ISBN: 9781949054279

Available: Paperback, Kindle

 

Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women is an anthology of stories by Southeast Asian women writers of horror. No one questions that the dangers cultures try to warn against in their ancient stories exist, but should we take the stories themselves as fact or fiction? The “unquiet” Southeast Asian mothers, daughters, wives, and girlfriends in Black Cranes ask this very question as they experience the the disturbing intrusion of these supernatural stories into their modern lives. Many of these characters think that by leaving home or separating themselves from their cultural roots, they can learn to forget, discount or even reject the stories they have grown up with about ghosts, terrifying beasts, bloodthirsty demons, deadly tricksters, and zombies only to find out that is impossible.

 

Several of the stories in this collection are built around characters from Asian myths and legends. The kapre, a tree demon, protects an infant and loves her for life, as kapres do, in “A Love Story” by Rin Chupeco. In Gabriela Lee’s “Rites of Passage,” no matter how an unmarried pregnant girl from Manila tries to escape, the demon child or tiyanak that she has killed will eventually make her pay. Nadia Bulkin asserts that “Truth Is Order and Order Is Truth” in her tale of a conquering Demon Queen who retakes her kingdom from the “fish people,” while the wily fox spirit of Rena Mason’s “Ninth Tale” masquerading as a beautiful woman vies for a tricky bride-to-be’s young man. There is also a daughter who is shocked into believing in a kwee-kia, a dead or miscarried child brought to life again, by catching her mother breastfeeding her own in “Little Worm” by Geneve Flynn. There is even a take on what started as a 1970’s Japanese urban legend involving the kuchisake-onna, or “slit-mouthed woman” in “A Pet Is for Life,” also by Geneve Flynn.

 

A few of these tales read like modern updates of older stories. Their focus is the clash of cultures within an individual’s psyche. Grace Chan’s “Of Hunger and Fury” explores the separation between a daughter and the mother who sent her into a foreign world for a better life. Chan’s poetic descriptions and strong sense of place enhance this tale of the superstition and deeply held beliefs that hold the old generation captive and threaten to erase those in the new who dare to ignore their roots or move beyond the past. The resulting sense of loss is revealed from the mother’s perspective in “Frangipani Wishes” by Lee Murray, in which the mother destroys her own life to forge a future for her daughter. In “Phoenix Claws”, also by Lee Murray, a young woman’s boyfriend is culture tested when he is offered chicken feet at a family meal. When she covers for him by eating the feet herself, she is given a supernatural punishment.

 

The remaining science fiction stories suggest what could happen when culture, relationships, and conflict reach the mythological future. Elaine Cukegkeng predicts the next iteration of overbearing mothers as those who can genetically alter their daughters. A “cosmetech” surgeon can upgrade his wife’s appearance in “Skin Dowdy” by Angela Yuriko Smith, but will she or he ever be satisfied? In Smith’s “Vanilla Rice,” a daughter threatens to undo her mother’s work by removing her physical trait chip. Finally, in “Fury” by Christina Sng, we find out what new horrors  a pandemic will unleash and ask ourselves why the husband in “The Mark” by Grace Chan has a zipper on his chest.

 

There are so many ways into this horror collection: mythology, science fiction, legend, women’s issues, and cultural issues. Readers will appreciate the variety and be drawn in by the storytelling that leads us to believe that the horrors of the past are real, have not died, and are waiting to be reborn in the present. Recommended.

Contains: violence and sexual situations

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on February 3, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror edited by Lee Murray

Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror edited by Lee Murray

Adrenaline Press, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-940095-94-3

Availability: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Hellhole is a well-put-together anthology of horror stories, where the one common thread is that some of the action takes place underground.  Similarities end there, as the stories use mines, ocean volcanoes, underground city tunnels, river caves, and even the Moon as their settings.   What all the stories do well is two things: they deliver fast excitement, and they manage to take common settings and creatures and breathe new life into them, by throwing in enough twists to keep the reader interested.  There isn’t a bad story in the mix: the worst could still be rated at least as “fair.”  The rest all make the grade, from good to very good, with some being truly excellent.

The writing for all of them is solid, although the reader will have to adjust to different perspectives.  The majority are written in the third person, but there are some that use the first person, and even a couple written in the present tense, which some readers may find annoying.  In all of them, the action flows fast and hooks the reader within the first few pages: there’s no waiting around for unnecessary buildup of the plot.  One of the best examples is “Pit of Ghosts” by Kirsten Cross.  Tourists in an underground mine get a quick bit of background on the mine’s ugly history, then they are quickly stalked by creatures that somewhat resemble the Crawlers from the movie The Descent.  This might have only been an okay story if it continued on that path, but the story takes a major turn when the mine’s history plays into why the tourists were unwittingly chosen to be part of the group.  It’s a twist the reader likely won’t see coming, and it greatly elevates the quality of the story.

All of the stories do this to some degree: it’s what makes the book good.  In Jonathan Maberry’s “All the Devils are Here”, someone is trying to open an underground door to another dimension to unleash Old Gods. Seen it before.  But throw in a team of Special Forces soldiers with almost unlimited ammo trying to blast them apart, and you have something fun.  Michael McBrides’s “A Plague of Locusts” recycles the old “victims of biological experimentation gone wrong” plot and breathes new life into it with a fungus that does ugly things to its victims, allowing them to survive underground for decades.  Of course, someone has to go down there… and complete mayhem results.  For pure, over-the-top insanity, Jake Bible’s “Ginourmous Hell Snake” may be the winner.  Start with a big snake, add in an Amazon river cave, and a cult worshipping the snake.  Throw in two of the most entertaining characters in the book: trained mercenaries with futuristic weapons who act more like stoned California surfers, and are simply too laid back to be scared of anything.  When dudes meet snake, the craziness starts.  These aren’t the kind of stories you can read a little at a time– the excitement demands that the reader finish them right away.

The overall quality of the material in this anthology is high. The action and excitement is delivered in droves, and there are enough firefights and characters either torn apart or blown apart to keep gorehound readers satiated.  Factor in the originality shown to bring  tried and true plot devices roaring back to life, and you’ve got something the reader will not want to miss.  Recommended.

Contains: violence, gore

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Editor’s note: Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievment in an Anthology.

Posted on April 29, 2019 by , Reply
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