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Book Review: Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls by Mark McLaughlin

Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls by Mark McLaughlin

Wildside Press, 2014

Available: New paperback

ISBN-13: 978-1479401888

 

Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls is a wonderful collection of horror and the bizarre that spans the author’s career of original and compelling storytelling.

Among my favorites are “The Final Broadcast of Sugarville’s Channel 7 Action News,” an entertaining take on global warming and the destruction of the planet told in its entirety through the station’s final news broadcast; “Drool Tool: The Meltdown Mix”, about a band’s weird music that has a catastrophic effect on the people who hear it; “Agatha Says”, which deals with the weird changes taking place at a nursing home recently bought by an eccentric resident; “Claws of the Internet Witches”, which follows the internet chat room of a coven of witches out to destroy humanity; and “Soft Bones”, about a young man with a debilitating disease, and how one woman tries to help him.

 

There isn’t a bad story in the collection. McLaughlin’s style of writing is weird, quirky, and at times squirm-inducing; a very entertaining read. What I really like about McLaughlin’s writing is his ability to inject dry humor into even the most horrific of tales. If you like your horror weird, bizarre, and funny, then Hideous Faces, Beautiful Faces is right up your alley. Recommended.

Contains: blood and gore

Reviewed by Colleen Wanglund

Posted on April 4, 2015 by , Reply

Help a Reader Out: Supernatural Fiction Collection With An Orange and Yellow Cover

A reader over at Too Much Horror Fiction is looking for this one:

I am trying to identify one in particular published in the early-mid 1970s. It featured cover art with bright orange and yellow flame and background hues, with illustrations of skeletal and spirit figures with a castle. The collection was really presented as a genre study of sorts, and was very well organized around the nature of the supernatural threat: psychological threat, physical threat, etc. The collection was broad but included many classics in gothic, Victorian and early 20th century fiction.

 

Can anyone figure this one out?

 

Edit: The book has been identified. It is Ghosts, Castles and Victims Tales of Gothic Horror edited by Jack C. Wolf and Barbara H. Wolf.

Posted on November 13, 2014 by , Reply

Book Review: Vampires Don’t Sparkle! edited by Michael West


Vampires Don’t Sparkle! edited by Michael West

Seventh Star Press, 2013

ISBN: 1937929604

Available: New, used and ebook

 

Vampires Don’t Sparkle! is an anthology of vampire tales, both modern and historical.  From fun to splattery, and with a smattering of regional specialties, Michael West has assembled a collection of stories designed to leave prissy, playboy bloodsuckers in their condos and compounds. In his selections, monsters run the streets again.

Standout stories include Joel A. Sutherland’s “Skraeling”, “Dreams of Winter” by Bob Freeman, and Jerry Gordon’s “Vampire Nation”, though with so much great fiction inside it’s hard to pick out just a few. Definitely recommended for public and private horror collections.

 

Contains: violence, gore, sex, language

Reviewed by Michele Lee

 

Posted on November 10, 2014 by , Reply
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