The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Guest Review by Jason Lush

Click to buy

One hundred and ninety pages of political masturbation disguised as a supernatural suspense story. Of the three main characters we have; Dorian Gray, who is a brainless puppet the personifies vanity; Basil Hallward, the artist who painted the fabled portrait and represents the sorrowful conscience; and Lord Henry Wolton, who is the quintessential 19th Century fop whose sole purpose in the book is to act as Wilde’s voice on politics, religion and homosexuality and as a driving corrupter of everyone else in the book.

The pacing is horrendously slow, the chapters devoted to explaining Gray’s hobbies and the pictures of his ancestors in his hallway don’t help with the lousy pacing. The whole story could have been condensed to a 30 page novella and would have been enjoyable.

And, as a side note to the posthumous Mr. Wilde, forty is not old and hideous.

The Lesser of Two Evils by Zoe Whitten

Click to Buy

Paperback: 978-1-4092-4121-8, $11.95
E-Book: 978-0-9820427-1-7, $4.95 e-book

The Lesser of Two Evils is a perfect example of why readers shouldn’t dismiss every book with a self-published label.

Davis Briggs, sheriff of the small Texas town of Devine has a hell of a mess on his hands when children start showing up dead and a drifter and a thirteen year old psychic seem to be the only ones who can help. Jobe, not the typical hero, comes to Devine via possibly divine intervention (haha, get it?), not just because he’s laying low from his last botched bombing which killed more than just the cop it was intended for. Meanwhile, Wendy, thirteen and already having faced more reality than most people do in their lives, is trying to keep her brother alive, and be the parent while her actual parents are out of town on a job. She’s the first to sense a supernatural doom descend on the town and has to convince Davis to trust her instincts before more lives are lost. And when things start to get real bad she and Jobe must team up to take down the killer.

The Lesser of Two Evils is a well paced serial killer story with strong, unique characters. It combines science and fantasy in explaining the paranormal aspects of the plot. The antiheroes rule the show, sharing their own twisted pasts, morals and going through an emotional shift to become something else. While much of the book isn’t graphic there are spectacular murders and an unrelenting, unstoppable killer than keeps the readers swept away for all 363 pages.

An example of “the cream that rises to the top” of the self publishing world, The Lesser of Two Evils is definitely on the Buy list.

Murky Depths #6

Click to Buy

Where much of speculative fiction questions or outright violates our perceptions of reality, the first contribution to Murky Depths #6, “The Lastest Marianne” by Alan Frackelton, takes a more direct route. This surreal tale concerns a haunted man’s progressive descent into madness… Full review at The Fix.

Apex Magazine: January 2009

Click to Read

Reminiscent of a Children’s Help Network commercial, Ruth Nestvold’s “On the Shadow Side of the Beast” is tale of a post apocalyptic world that offers no real explanation of what happened to ruin Berlin. It touches on a lot in a small space, children vs. adults, lack of education, the quest for survival, all set against a backdrop different from the America-centric one most often found in science fiction. It feels like only part of a story though, with a lot left up to the imagination and plenty of ends left open.

“In Memory” by James Stone is a disturbing tale of humans pushing their limits to unimaginable extremes. Kenny is a mathematician who uploaded himself into an experimental program long ago. After his mother’s funeral he notices a number of missing gaps in his memory and discovers he’s locked away parts of his memory from himself. What’s hidden is dark and terrible. Despite the tech heavy cloak on this tale at its core it’s about the struggles of the human mind trying to deal with the terrible and the tragic events in our lives. While Kenny is accused of becoming less human by locking his memories away, the action to cut out painful memories is very human, and in this tale, made possible by technological advances.

“Starter House” by Jason Palmer is quite the strange tale, where houses are giant creatures that must be chained and pained into submission for the survival of the humans living on a planet far away. What starts as a strange commentary touching on elitism and classism, quickly turns into a reflection of our current housing market and war issues. From there, as the prestige of owning a purebred house is stripped away by the struggle to survive in poverty, the story becomes one of a war between a man and his house. This tale is surreal, complex and not to be missed.

“Edison’s Dead Men” by Ed Turner is another reprint from Permuted Press’ History is Dead anthology. A bit too serious and dangerous to be a pure dark humor tale, it’s not your average zombie story. It is part science fiction, historically so, speculating on
“What if Edison’s electricity made zombies?” It’s a fun little mad scientist tale readers should be sure not to over look.

This Issue also features:

Popped Culture: This is Totally Going on the DVR by Justin Stewart

Confessions of a Book Junkie: Book Burning by Lavie Tidhar

Preliminary 2008 Stoker Ballot Announced

Congratulations to all!

2008 Preliminary Stoker Ballot

Superior Achievement in a Novel
Coffin County by Gary Braunbeck (Leisure)
The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford (William Morrow)
Ghost Walk by Brian Keene (Leisure)
The Reach by Nate Kenyon (Leisure)
Duma Key by Stephen King (Scribner)
Johnny Gruesome by Gregory Lamberson (Bad Moon/Medallion)
Water Witch by Deborah Leblanc (Dorchester/Leisure)
Bad Moon Rising by Jonathan Maberry (Pinnacle)
Dead and Gone by Harry Shannon (Delirium Books)
The Price by Alexandra Sokoloff (St. Martins)
The Man on the Ceiling by Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem (Wizards of the Coast)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel
Bestial: Werewolf Apocalypse by William D. Carl (Permuted Press)
Apricot Brandy by Lynn César (Juno Books)
Midnight On Mourn Street by Christopher Conlon (Earthling Publications)
Veins by Lawrence C. Connolly (Fantasist Enterprises)
Eternal Vigilance by Gabrielle S. Faust (Immanion Press)
The Gentling Box by Lisa Mannetti (Dark Hart Press)
Monster Behind the Wheel by Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin (Delirium Books)
Frozen Blood by Joel A. Sutherland (Lachesis Publishing)
Crimson Orgy by Austin Williams (Borderlands Press)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
“The Lagerstatte” by Laird Barron (The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy)
The Shallow End of the Pool by Adam-Troy Castro (Creeping Hemlock)
Miranda by John R. Little (Bad Moon Books)
Redemption Roadshow by Weston Ochse (Burning Effigy)
The Confessions of St. Zach by Gene O’Neill (Bad Moon Books)
Orpheus and the Pearl by Kim Paffenroth (Magus Press)
“Behold the Child” by Harry Shannon (Brimstone Turnpike)
Just Like Hell by Nate Southard (Thunderstorm Books)
Population Zero by Wrath James White (Cargo Cult Press)
Orgy of Souls by Wrath James White, and Maurice Broaddus (Apex Book Company)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
“The Last Word” by Maria Alexander (Sins of the Sirens)
“Mama Strangelove’s Remedies for Afterlife Disorders, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Mother Death” by C. Dean Andersson (Brutarian)
“Consumed” by Michael Louis Calvillo (Horror Library Volume 3)
“Petrified” by Scott Edelman (Desolate Souls)
“Mechanix” by Christopher Fulbright (Bound for Evil)
The Lost by Sarah Langan (Cemetery Dance Publications)
“The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft” by Nick Mamatas, and Tim Pratt (Chizine)
“The Haven” by John Palisano (Horror Library Vol. 3)
“Turtle” by Lee Thomas (Doorways)
“The Blog at the End of the World” by Paul Tremblay (Chizine)
“Those Eyes” by Mark W. Worthen (Thinner Than Mist)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology
The Undead: Headshot Quartet edited by Christina Bivins and Lane Adamson (Permuted Press)
Like a Chinese Tattoo edited by Bill Breedlove (Dark Arts Books)
Horror Library, Vol. 3 edited by R. J. Cavender (Cutting Block Press)
Abominations edited by Tim Deal (Shroud Publishing)
Beneath the Surface edited by Tim Deal (Shroud Publishing)
Unspeakable Horrors edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder (Dark Scribe Press)

Superior Achievement in a Collection
The Number 121 to Pennsylvania by Kealan Patrick Burke (Cemetery Dance Publications)
Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales by Fran Friel (Apex Publications)
Just After Sunset by Stephen King (Scribner)
Little Creatures by Michael McCarty (Sam’s Dot Publishing)
Other Gods by Stephen Mark Rainey (Dark Regions Press)
The Autopsy and Other Tales by Michael Shea (Centipede)
Sheep and Wolves by Jeremy C. Shipp (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Fourtold by Michael Stone (Baysgarth Publications)
Gleefully Macabre Tales by Jeff Strand (Delirium)
Ennui and Other States of Madness by David Niall Wilson (Dark Regions Press)

Superior Achievement in Nonfiction
Shadows Over New England by David Goudsward, and Scott T. Goudsward (BearManor Media)
Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller (McFarland)
Spirits and Death in Niagara by Marcy Italiano (Schiffer Publishing)
The New Annotated Dracula by Leslie S. Klinger (W. W. Norton)
Beauty and Dynamite by Alethea Kontis (Apex Publications)
Cheap Scares by Gregory Lamberson (McFarland)
Zombie CSU by Jonathan Maberry (Citadel)
Modern Mythmakers by Michael McCarty (McFarland)
A Hallowe’en Anthology by Lisa Morton (McFarland)
The Book of Lists: Horror by Amy Wallace, Del Howison, and Scott Bradley (Harper)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection
The Nightmare Collection by Bruce Boston (Dark Regions Press)
The Phantom World by Gary William Crawford (Sam’s Dot)
Virgin of the Apocalypse by Corrine De Winter (Sam’s Dot Publishing)
The Flayed Man and Other Poems by Phillip A. Ellis (Gothic Press)
Attack Of The Two-Headed Poetry Monster by Mark McLaughlin and Michael McCarty (Skullvines Press)
Ghosts of Past and Future by Darrell Schweitzer (Borgo)

(List aquired from Greg Lamberson’s blog.)