Genre: Horror Anthology
Publisher: Onyx Neon Press
Publication Date: 23rd Oct 2015
Pages: 185
MY REVIEW:
A copy of Onyx Neon
Shorts Presents: Horror Collection - 2015 was sent to Confessions of a
Reviewer by one of the contributors, Jeremy Thompson, in exchange for an honest
review. This is said review. This book is published by Onyx Neon Press.
So a new collection of thirteen tales, by authors I know
nothing about, apart from one. I read The
Phantom Cabinet by Jeremy Thompson last year and it totally blew me away.
You can read my review of it here. When he emailed me and asked if I would be
interested in reviewing this collection, I initially jumped at it to read his
own short story in it. After having a good look at it, I discovered I have
never read anything by any of the other contributors. This is the sort of
collection I love. It inevitably ends up with my list of authors I like to read
growing, and needing to get an extension for the ever expanding to be read pile.
It also appears that this is the first of a planned
annual collection from Onyx Neon Press so let’s see what these people can do!
ELLIE HILL BY MJ WESOLOWSKI
Three students are on the lookout for an adventure. A
drinking adventure. One of them being local suggests going to Ellie Hill. They
don’t however let the others know the significance of Ellie Hill, or the
terrifying legend.
This is a very dark story. Very atmospheric. Very scary.
The place where they go almost feels like Royston Vasey. Dark and weird and
well, just scary. I don’t know how to describe this story. No plot as such but
just perfectly written to give you goose bumps from start to finish.
A perfect way to open an anthology.
★★★★★ for general.
★★★★★ for horror.
82 RUNGS BY BRIT JONES
Trask and Severin are working in a sewage control room,
one hundred feet underground. They are there on a six-month contract with no
contact with the outside world. It’s a boring but well paid job.
Until they are left there longer than the contracted six
months. And something has come to join them.
This is quite literally, one of the scariest short
stories I have read in years. It has all of my fears rolled up into one tidy little
ball. Working underground, in isolation, with monsters and with no escape.
This story is, quite simply put, short story writing at
its very very best.
★★★★★ for general.
★★★★★ for horror.
WHAT LITTLE REMAINS BY FRANKLIN CHARLES MURDOCK
This is really a flash fiction piece about a brutal
killer of children who has an accident in the pit he keeps the bodies in.
Told through the spirit eyes of, I guess, one of his
victims, this is a quick but harrowing tale of the terror and torture of being
the victim and the terror and torture of the perpetrator when he cannot control
what is happening with himself and the souls come back to haunt him.
Very effective little piece that is very haunting.
★★★★ for general.
★★★★ for horror.
SYLVIA’S PICTURES BY DJ TYRER
Sylvia is a young girl. The only thing she ever does is
draw. She draws the same picture over and over. It’s of the Raggedy man, who
took her mom away. She says he is coming back.
Told through the eyes of Sylvia’s step mother, this is a
chilling tale of a little girl haunted by life after her birth mother goes
missing.
This is some scary stuff right here. Another one in this
anthology full of a very chilling atmosphere. This is expertly written to give
you that creepy chill up your spine feeling from the very first line and will
leave you with your jaw trailing the table with the very last line.
This story left me looking over my shoulder to make sure
there was no one behind me!
★★★★★ for general.
★★★★★ for horror.
SOMETHING NASTY IN THE WOODSHED BY TRACY FAHEY
Teresa Philips is in turmoil. Both in body and mind. She
is caught up in the aftermath after making a terrible discovery in her garden
shed. Regret is the name of the game.
This is psychological horror at its best. Total headfeck.
After the physical horror has passed, how does the mind cope with things?
Told through the eyes of an innocent woman whose husband
is guilty of the most horrific of crimes, this story is a perfect illustration
of how isolation and insanity go hand in hand.
The reasons become clearer as the story progresses but
that doesn't make it any better or any less brutal.
★★★★ for general.
★★★★ for horror.
UP IN THE WINDOW BY ELIZABETH MYRDDIN
A woman likes to watch people through their windows. One
window in particular fascinates her. She always sees the same thing. Nothing
changes.
Fuelled by alcohol and bravado, she ventures out to look
at the window early one morning. She doesn’t see what she thought she would.
Bit of a strange one this. I can see where the drive the
character had came from. We have all noticed something over and over and over
again and felt amazement when it changes. This one just felt a bit empty at the
end. It didn’t really answer the questions for me.
Chilling but just lacking that something.
★★★ for general.
★★★ for horror,
ANALOGUE BY JARL NICHOLL
George is trying to make contact with his recently
departed wife Delia. He enlists the help of a psychic to try and help him piece
together his wife so he can communicate with her one last time.
Didn’t get this one at all. It was very surreal, almost
like a psychedelic dream that I was always on the edge of and I could not quite
get deep enough to understand it or follow it.
Not what I would call scary either. Disappointing.
★★.5 for general.
★★.5 for horror.
INSANITY BY JACKIE WOODARD
Vanessa is in a hospital. Something has happened to her
mother and the doctors are trying to establish exactly what. At her sessions
with her doctor, he keeps asking about the rayis.
These are beings that Vanessa can see, but no one else can. They should believe
her.
Perfect. Not much else to say. Perfect writing that is
perfectly paced with the perfect amount of tension, build up, fear and
intrigue.
This is how to write a short horror story and keep your
reader plastered to the pages, gripped with a palpable fear, until you decide it is finished.
★★★★★ for general.
★★★★★ for horror.
THE GUARD BY B.T. JOY
Harry Paterson has taken a night guards job at a museum.
He has no idea why, but he has taken an extreme interest in two mummies on
display in the museum and cannot get enough info of anything to do with them
and their history. It appears he wasn’t the first.
This is an interesting one. Although not what I would
call a very scary story, it has a certain amount of horror elements to it. I
liked it as a story but would class it more as a supernatural story.
I also think I would have liked this one with a bit more
meat on the bones.
★★★★ for general.
★★★ for horror.
SACRIFICIAL VERSION BY JEREMY THOMPSON
A man who travels through times and realms is preparing
for his latest journey through the mysterious door that opens in the floor for
him.
Before he leaves his current world, he must deal with
disaster on a catastrophic scale and also deal with demons that live around him
and inside of him.
This is a fascinating tale. Set in an imaginative fantasy
world, it is full of both beautiful and disgusting horrors. This is the sort of
writing that makes you want to read the story over and over and over. I think
if I read this again I would pick up something different from it each time.
Jeremy Thompson is a wonderful writer. His imagination
knows no bounds and he can masterfully change your mood from utter serenity to
utter horror in a few words.
Fantastic stuff.
★★★★★ for general.
★★★★★ for horror.
THE MAN WHO LEFT NO FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW BY MATT TVETER
Barbara wakes as normal on a cold and snowy morning. As
she is making breakfast, there is a knock at her door. When she answers, there
is a strange man there telling her all her neighbours have left and she should
get ready to go somewhere safe as
well.
That is all I can tell you about this one. Again this is
short story telling at its very best. A calm and serene introduction but at the
same time giving you chills just under your skin. Enough chills to stay with
you and have every hair on your body standing on end to the very last word.
A story that ends with you wondering.
Superb!
★★★★★ for general.
★★★★★ for horror.
THE LAKE HOUSE BY JOSEPH RUBAS
Jim is a writer. He is also recovering from a big loss.
He needs to write his next big book so does the writerly thing and rents some
old house, miles from nowhere, to do the writing. Bad move.
If you think this is the old writer goes to secluded
house to write and things go wrong scenario, you would be right.
However, this is a unique take on the old plot. Unique to
the point of almost refreshing the old plot and taking it to a new dimension
that I can’t believe no one has thought of yet.
Full of tension and horror with an ending you would not
expect, this is another superb short in this anthology.
★★★★★ for general.
★★★★★ for horror.
COLD HARBOUR BY RO MCNULTY
Christine Bone is a social worker tasked with looking out
for Joan, a blind, disabled woman who has a mixture of characters in her family,
who are all fighting amongst themselves and not really taking her care
seriously.
This reads as if Christine is giving a statement to
police or some sort of an enquiry. It is very well written and is gripping as a
story. It keeps you interested in what is going on and will take you through a
lot of different emotions as you read.
It all culminated in an ending though that I found a bit
strange. It didn’t seem to conclude the story for me in any way or make much
sense. This disappointed me a lot.
★★.5 for general.
★★.5 for horror.
So there it is, my first taste of a lot of new authors in
this new anthology. I have to say that for the majority, I absolutely loved
this book. There are some very fresh new writers in this one and some of them I
will definitely be checking out again.
If you do decide to pick this one up, then some of my
personal favourite stories to check out would be: 82 Rungs, Sylvia’s Pictures,
Insanity and Sacrificial Version.
Normally when I do my final score for an anthology, it is
an average score for all of the stories included in the book. There are only a
couple of stories that I would call weak in this one so for the book as a whole
it has to get full marks in the general rating.
I said earlier that this looks like it is going to be the
first in an annual collection released by Onyx Neon Press. I am already looking
forward to the next one!
To summarise: if you want a book full of short stories
with some rather interesting new blood to try out then this is definitely an
anthology you will want to check out.
Overall general rating:
★★★★★ excellent stuff overall.
Overall horror rating:
★★★★ some scary stuff in this!
If you would like to help support Confessions of a Reviewer,
then please consider using the links below to buy Horror Collection 2015 or any other books from Onyx Neon Press. This
not only supports me but also lets me know how many people actually like to buy
books after reading my reviews.
Thanks.
Book Synopsis:
Fans of horror will be delighted by the dark delicacies
in this collection of horror’s up-and-coming stars. "Onyx Neon Shorts
Presents: Horror Collection – 2015" brings together tales of horror from
authors all over the world. These stories are about haunted houses, obsession,
insanity, cults, the unexplainable repetition of goddess worship, and the
psychological and physical terror that only humans can inflict. This collection
celebrates one of literature’s most popular forms of fiction by bringing together
horror writers from all over the world, offering a unique vision of the genre.
Edited by Jacob Michael King (author of Postmortem) and
Jeffrey P. Martin (Head Editor of Onyx Neon Shorts). This is the first in a
yearly horror collection series.
We are a branch of
Onyx Neon Press and we publish fiction and non-fiction of all varieties and we
are always seeking new authors.
We believe in the
power of short fiction. It’s a way to express ideas and emotions quickly and
powerfully.
We are a collective
of writers, editors, techies, nerds, book lovers, and artists who strive to
find and make the best original content.
And
for more about Onyx Neon Press, visit their site or find them on social media:
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