Creature Feature Library

And another crazy year goes down the rat-hole…

Oh well, it was great year for books anyway, TombRats, and your funky and fractious old TombKeeper had the devil’s own time selecting the very best books from among those I reviewed here on Creature Feature, The Weekly Web Program during 2011. However, after exhaustive study and massive rumination, I present to you my personal favorites culled from more than a hundred fabulous books I reviewed last year. And so, if you missed any of these mind-blowing titles, all you need to do is click on the cover graphics to order your copies. Easy!

Please note that these books are listed alphabetically because each is so magnificent that it is impossible to put them into a descending order.

I’m looking forward to scavenging another hundred and more great books from Count Gore’s Teetering Towers of Terror Tomes in 2012, and I hope you’ll join me downstairs in the Tomb for the ongoing literary feast!

BLOOD AND OTHER CRAVINGS edited by Ellen Datlow
I have been reading and enjoying the anthologies edited by multiple award winning editor Ellen Datlow for more decades than I care to confess, and her newest volume is an absolute stunner. These seventeen stories push the boundaries of vampirism to the very edges of contemporary imagination; you’ll find no creaking coffin lids or moldering castles here. What you will find is unerring excellence from some of the finest writers of dark fiction working today.

“All You Can Do Is Breathe” by Kaaron Warren: A celebrity survivor of a mining disaster cannot halt the oncoming darkness he experiences after his rescue.

“Needles” by Elizabeth Bear: A luckless woman and her paramour make an ill-advised stop as they flee across the desert one step ahead of vampire hunters.

“Baskerville’s Midgets” by Reggie Oliver: Dark denizens populate the stage of a run-down theater.

“Blood Yesterday, Blood Tomorrow” by Richard Bowes: The lower depths of SoHo and environs are filled with dangerous treasures, if one knows where to look.

“X for Demetrious” by Steve Duffy: An unnervingly circular tale of a man who gives up everything to insulate himself from his worst fear.

“Keeping Corky” by Melanie Tem: A woman who experienced a troubled upbringing searches for the son she gave up for adoption.

“Shelf-Life” by Lisa Tuttle: A woman’s obsession with an object from her childhood bleeds inexorably into her adult life.

“Caius” by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg: An abrasive talk radio jock and his audience form a grotesque symbiotic bond.

“Sweet Sorrow” by Barbara Roden: A man finds a connection between a lost childhood friend and some extremely creepy neighbors.

“First Breath” by Nicole J. LeBoeuf: A heart-stopping story that centers on a very extreme mode of identity theft. (Note: this is a first professional sale--well done, Ms. LeBoeuf!)

“Toujours” by Kathe Koja: A languidly dazzling tale of the deathless loyalty of an artist’s long-time assistant.

“Miri” by Steve Rasnic Tem: A family man is haunted by memories of a strange young woman he dated in college.

“Mrs. Jones” by Carol Emshwiller: A horrifically funny tale of competitive sisters who find something strange living in their apple orchard.

“Bread and Water” by Michael Cisco: A man with a hideously debilitating disease struggles to retain his humanity.

“Mulberry Boys” by Margo Lanagan: Superstitions, bizarre practices and terrors abound in the deep woodlands.

“The Third Always Beside You” by John Langan: A young woman’s inquiry into her father’s extra-marital affair yields an unexpected and horrifying truth about her parents.

“The Siphon” by Laird Barron: An emotionally detached man takes a job that places him in the company of a group of sophisticated people who claim to believe in monsters.

Each of these stories is most worthy of appearing in Ellen Datlow’s BLOOD AND OTHER CRAVINGS, and that’s saying a lot. For more about this extraordinary editor and her books, you may find her at www.datlow.com.

BONESHAKER by Cherie Priest
Author Cherie Priest shakes up the Steampunk universe with her first entry into the genre in a series she calls her Clockwork Century. The year is 1863 and the American Civil War has begun in earnest. On the other side of the country, however, Klondike Fever has exploded after rumors of gold are reported in the Yukon and Alaskan Territories. Russian investors intent on dominating gold futures hire an eccentric scientist/inventor named Leviticus Blue who comes up with an audacious device to extract gold from the earth: Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine. The Boneshaker is a huge, steam-powered machine with the power to drill through the ice and get to the waiting buried gold. Several people die during the Boneshaker’s ruinous first test run in Seattle, Washington, and a hole is drilled that releases a noxious gas that turns all those that breathe it into flesh-eating “rotters”. Zombies are on the loose in the Pacific Northwest. Twenty years later, the son of the Leviticus Blue, Zeke, decides that he is going to clear his father’s reputation, and he sneaks out of the containment zone where he lives with his mother, Briar, in order to clear his father’s name. Briar, terrified that her son Zeke will become a zombie, pursues her son into rotter country where she discovers that another scientist/inventor is impersonating her husband, Leviticus, and that he has taken an interest in young Zeke. BONESHAKER is a wildly entertaining Steampunk/zombie mash-up loaded with thrills. For more about Cherie Priest, you may read her popular blog at www.cmpriest.livejournal.com.

THE CORN MAIDEN AND OTHER NIGHTMARES by Joyce Carol Oates
I must confess that Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorite writers, and I have read nearly every word she has ever written. In an incredible canon of fine literature that includes novels, short story collections, essays, and nonfiction, THE CORN MAIDEN AND OTHER NIGHTMARES is as fine a collection of single author short fiction as I have ever read. These seven tales of terror rattled me to the bone and left me breathless. The opening title novella, “The Corn Maiden”, is a brain-searing investigation into a lost latch-key child that focuses upon the guilt-ridden mother, a part-time male teacher, and a trio of mean-girl fellow students. A pair of stories about twisted rival twins, a tale of a newly windowed woman who takes up with a disabled man, and an aging womanizer who takes his penchant for the ladies one step too far are some of the creepiest tales this author has ever penned. The final story in the collection concerns a cosmetic surgeon facing financial problems whose entanglement with a wealthy and extremely vain patient could solve his money problems…or become is utter undoing. These are lushly written tales of bleakness and human frailty that leave the reader rocked to the core and emotionally flayed. With THE CORN MAIDEN AND OTHER NIGHTMARES, Ms. Oates once again proves that she is one of the world’s finest living writers.

EVERY SHALLOW CUT by Tom Piccirilli
Tomb favorite Tom Piccirilli presents a brand new novella, EVERY SHALLOW CUT, a horrific noir tale of violence and despair that follows a failed mid-list author trapped in a graveyard spin towards utter madness. As his world collapses around him, the writer--accompanied by his last friend in the world, a sweet bulldog named Churchill—makes a final desperate attempt to connect with a long lost past. His wife has left him, his book sales have tanked, his home has been foreclosed upon, his literary agent avoids him, and his brother disdains him. With nowhere left to go, the writer reluctantly heads to his brother’s home with a broken heart, knowing full well that a warm welcome will not be waiting. The writer grits his teeth and stays with his brother until it becomes evident that his brother can’t stand him or his dog. The writer does have a manuscript, however, which he forces upon his indifferent agent in a truly blood-chilling scene. This novella is Tom Piccirilli writing at his grittiest, darkest best. Bleakness and anguish seethe on every page this heart-stopping story crafted in hues of utter desolation. Join the writer and his dog on an unforgettable road trip into nightmare country. This review references the print edition of EVERY SHALLOW CUT, but you may also purchase this novella in digital formats—just click on the cover graphic. Be sure to visit Mr. Piccirilli’s official online resting place at www.TomPiccirilli.com.

FLESH EATERS by Joe McKinney
Zombies are still hot-hot-hot, and some of the best zombie fiction is being written by Texan Joe McKinney, a San Antonio police detective and disaster mitigation specialist with a Master’s Degree in English from the University of Texas, San Antonio. With his background combined with a powerful writing talent, it is little wonder that Mr. McKinney’s zombie novels set in his home state are total immersion experiences that leave readers wrung, raw, and ready for more. FLESH EATERS continues the action-packed carnage with another gripping page-burner, a prequel to his popular novels, DEAD CITY and APOCALYPSE OF THE DEAD. Hurricanes Rita and Ike devastated the city of Houston and unleashing horrific carnage, but the tidal wave that follows virtually destroys the city and contaminates the city with oil and chemicals driven inland from burst containers and refineries. The deadly water is not the only thing rushing inland…no indeed. The ravenous, mutated dead created by the contamination are surging inland as well, and then another hurricane leaves Houston dead in the water, so to speak. Rotting, shambling cannibalistic creatures drag themselves out of the devastation--mute, unthinking predators that hunt and kill live humans in order to propagate their kind. Although most of the last of the living have fled Houston, some people have seen an opportunity to enrich themselves and loot an underwater bank in the worst sort of disaster capitalism. There are a few other left alive, too, trapped in the middle of a zombie Armageddon. It is in the center of this terrible scenario that Emergency Operations sergeant Eleanor Norton finds herself in a ground zero catastrophe that might just be the beginning of the end of the world. FLESH EATERS is another grand epic of zombie horror from an author whose name has become synonymous with the genre. For more about Joe McKinney, please visit his website at http://joemckinney.wordpress.com.

GARDENS OF NIGHT by Greg F. Gifune
This magnificent novel from veteran dark fiction author Greg F. Gifune launches an exciting new independent publisher, Uninvited Books, whose stated mission is to produce the highest quality dark fiction available. Uninvited Books hits their mark with GARDENS OF NIGHT, a lyrically haunting and viscerally horrifying work of true, unmitigated darkness. A life-changing incident of great violence forces a young married couple, Marcus and Brooke, on a journey during which they hope to find psychic and physical healing. Marcus, whose injuries require him to take medications, travels with Brooke and his best friend, Spaulding, to a secluded house nestled deep in the countryside. The farther Marcus progresses into the waiting arms of the natural world, the more his perceptions become altered in a way that he believes is leading him to a profound understanding of a hidden plane of reality hidden and unknown. Is what Marcus is experiencing real, or could his medications be shifting his perceptions? His wife and his friend, Spaulding, suspect that Marcus is suffering a psychotic break, and the trio enters into a sexually charged dance of terror choreographed by the feral omnipresence of the natural world around them and within them. Brilliantly conceived and beautifully wrought, Mr. Gifune taps into the most sublime and dreadful impulses that connect humans to one another and to the universe. Uninvited Books? Mission accomplished. Bravo! For more information about the author, Mr. Gifune’s online resting place can be found at www.GregFGifune.com.

THE GERMAN by Lee Thomas
This is a thoughtful and beautifully written novel of atmospheric terror set in the paranoiac height of World War Two, when Japanese Americans were locked up in American internment camps and anyone who did not specifically fit the The All-American Profile was suspect and shunned. A quiet man named Ernst, a former German soldier and Nazi party leader, has renounced his former brutality and has come to a whole-hearted support of pacifistic ideals after witnesses the atrocities inflicted by his countrymen. But Ernst is a haunted man who cannot throw off the memories of his sadistic past, the men he used his position of power to seduce, and the terrible violence he once embraced. Ernst fled Germany in 1934 and came to reside in a small Texas town in America, hoping for peace and obscurity. When the ravaged bodies of young boys begin to surface in the Texas town where Ernst has chosen to live, the only clues to the killer are tiny painted snuff boxes containing notes written in the German language. As the townspeople focus on the quiet German man in their midst, town sheriff Tom Rabbit investigates the German immigrant, Ernst Lang, whose terrible past might have made him into a serial killer. A trio of narrators--the naïve sheriff, a teen boy, and a former subordinate of the monster who led The Night of the Long Knives in Germany—tell the tale of THE GERMAN, which builds from quiet opening chapters into a horrifying cataclysm of small-town paranoia and homophobia. For more about the author, please visit www.leethomasauthor.com.

A MATRIX OF ANGELS by Christopher Conlon
Bram Stoker Award winning editor and author Christopher Conlon’s second novel, A MATRIX OF ANGELS is a literary triumph by a new master of dark fiction who is writing at the top of his game. Most adults emerge from adolescence bearing some emotional scars, but Frances Pastan has been devastated. Although she is a noted author/illustrator of well-received children’s books, her personal life is a disaster. Her attempts at marriage and motherhood have failed, and Fran is becoming more and more dependent upon alcohol, finding herself—now in middle age—a haunted, despondent woman. She has spent most of her adult life fleeing the events of her adolescence, but after attending a book festival in Santa Barbara, Fran points her car towards the town where she grew up, the small burg of Quiet, California. From the age of 12, Fran was raised by an aunt and uncle after having been rejected and ousted by her parents, which left Fran wounded and very shy. Before long, young Fran is befriended by a local girl named Lucy Sparrow and the two girls form a fiercely loyal relationship that rescues Fran from her former loneliness and desolation. Lucy is a spirited, outspoken girl whose energies lead Fran into troublesome acts of petty crime and violence that only further cement their intense connection. And then Lucy is murdered, a terrible event that gathers destructive emotional momentum as the years pass, crushing everything in Fran’s life that might make her happy. Now, as she leaves Santa Barbara, Fran determines to find Lucy’s killer. Fran’s arrival in Quiet bestirs ghosts and secrets that lead to a truly heart-stopping climax. Mr. Conlon’s characterization of teenage girls and the vicious power of their social structures is nothing less than dazzling in its authenticity. As Fran searches her past for clues to her failed adult life, the reader is gripped by this heart-stopping dance of unfurling, inevitable doom. A MATRIX OF ANGELS is a finely crafted, enthralling work of horror fiction that entertains and terrifies. Also included is an illuminating author’s note about the novel, plus the complete short story that formed the basis of the novel. For more about the author, please visit his website at www.ChristopherConlon.com.

SURREALITIES by Bruce Boston
Award winning author Bruce Boston’s newest collection of dark poetry delves into the depths of surrealism accompanied by his unsettling black Rorschach-inspired illustrations that counterpoint the poetry contained within. Could the artist Dali and Frankenstein’s monster inhabit the same volume of dark poetry? Yes! Consider “Dali’s Ego on Karloff’s Frankenstein”, and plumb the collective unconscious with “ Surreal People”, Surreal Domestic”, “Surreal Dimensions”, Surreal Audio Haiku”, “Surreal Wish List”, and “Surreal Fortune”. The ghost of surrealist Salvatore Dali stalks the pages of this beautiful and vital volume. Informed deconstructions of realties rule here, melting, reforming, reconstructing. The voice of my favorite stringed instrument fairly shrieks a victory knell in “Two Nightstands Attacking a Cello”. If your world seems too real (and my world seems too real all the time!), get down and get surreal with master poet Bruce Boston’s SURREALITIES. For more information about Bruce Boston, head over to his online resting place at www.BruceBoston.com.

UNEARTHLY DELIGHTS by Marge Simon
Space and time are anchors that limit the senses. Shrug off the shackles that fasten you to the mundane and explore the extraordinary with Marge Simon’s UNEARTHLY DELIGHTS, which explores and celebrates the unearthly where art and literature collide. Hiernoymous Bosch informs the titular poem, “A Garden of Unearthly Delights”, in point/counterpoint to Bosch’s famous surrealistic painting. Beauty and horror combine in soughing darkness with poetic danse macabre encounters with artist’s works that engage and illuminate: Degas, Chagall, more. Bleakness is the key of life in these arresting portraits of existence in shades of deepest black to finest gray. Imagine life as a hologram in the sf “The Latest Thing in Holos”, or shudder with delight at the horrific offerings of a “Performance in a Cemetery”. Horror, science fiction and fantasy fans will thrill to these darkly beautiful poems set in magnificent art rendered by the author. For more about the author, please visit www.MargeSimon.com.

Creature Feature is sponsored by Sounds Fabulous DJ Service
Make sure your Washington DC Area Wedding DJ Sounds Fabulous!
and by
Dick Dyszel's exciting new Las Vegas Style Stage Hypnosis Show