Escalators to Hell: Shopping Mall Horrors

This anthology's theme is horror stories that have some connection to shopping malls, those dying bastions of consumerism. Not that consumerism is dead, mind you. It's that we're transitioning from roaming their vast corridors of myriad wares to surfing the digital versions on our phones and laptops. To wit, the editors thought that the demise of shopping malls would make for an excellent theme for a horror anthology. And I thought so too.

The stories cover a wide gamut of horror sub-genres, so it isn't all about gore. There's a "Content Warnings" section—something I've never seen in a horror anthology—which I thought was odd. I mean, it's horror. If your mental health is such that certain things will trigger a traumatic emotional reaction, maybe you shouldn't be reading horror. I know that there are certain aspects that I won't read because of my issues. So I guess a content warning is considerate of the authors, can one find it before purchasing it?

Author representation is quite diverse. While North American authors are present, there are stories from African and Asian authors. Also, there are many non-binary authors in this collection.

Ok, onto the stories. Of the 22 stories in this collection, I liked 15 of them. Of those that I didn't enjoy, a good deal of them were too focused on gender identity, with the mall serving as mere setting. A couple of the others were too esoteric or allegorical to connect with.

On with the good stuff! The opening story, "Hard to Be a Mall God," was excellent. It deals with a demonically possessed escalator. "The Intercessor" shows how retail associates deal with trollish customers. "Why I Won't Eat at the Food Court" is part of the Generation Dead series. It drags in some cosmic horror for teen mutant superheroes to deal with but doesn't forget to add a dash of humor. "A Plague Upon Both Our Houses" is Romeo and Juliet with Zombies in a mall. "A Quick Trip to Ryan's" delves into masochism on a whole another level. "Kim, Ray, Trey, and Morgan" delves into drugs as a mind expanding experience with a dash of cosmic horror.

Some stories confront serious matters. "You Must Drop Buy" tackles the subject of rampant materialism and false promises made by deceptive marketing. In "Poseurs," a teen girl deals with her father's suicide by re-enacting a drama with mannequins.

In case anyone feels I'm being unfair to non-binary character stories, there were good stories that had non-binary characters and authors. These stories didn't lose sight of the objective. For example, "The Basement of Crowley's Artefacts and Interests of the Occult" has some non-binary teens dealing with demonic invocation in the supply room of an odd store in the mall. "Cherry Cola Lips" features a woman reflecting on her first crush back in high school, a girl who wouldn't come out and later disappeared. Rumors are that she was murdered, but the truth is stranger.

My favorite story was the closer, "The Temple of All." Makoma is forced by ritual to take her dead husband's remains into the ancient ossuary. It's a post-apocalyptic story with a touch of Handmaid's Tale where the ultimate act of rebellion is to live.

Yes, I'm glad I read this anthology. While I wish some of the stories were better, the good stories made it worth the price and my time.

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Full Disclosure: I backed this book on Kickstarter and received a digital copy as a reward.

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The Blissful Plague by Brady Koch

Twelve-year-old Maggie, her mother, and their loyal dog, Penny, traverse desolate cities, guided by a well-worn travel book. A chance encounter with a solitary boy, entangles them in the perils of Plantation Oaks, a seemingly safe haven.

As secrets unravel, revealing the reasons behind their endless voyage, Maggie and her mother grapple with their complex past. This poignant tale speaks to survival, resilience, and the unbreakable bond between a mother and daughter, emphasizing the strength it takes to navigate a shattered world.

This is the fourth and final book in Koch's All Our Forgotten Futures series.

Efforts to contain the plague have failed. No cure has been found, and now there's no one left that can do anything about it. In this quiet world, Maggie and her mother are on a roadtrip, visiting all of the landmarks and museums of a world Maggie has never known and her mother can't forget. It isn't much of a childhood for Maggie, but she knows that her mother is trying her best even when she doesn't understand why she does things the way she does.

When they meet Henry, a boy unharmed by the plague, living with his feral family members and neighbors in the woods, everything changes. For her entire life, Maggie has only really known her mother. She had no friends growing up, so Henry is someone special to her right off the bat. Maggie wants him to come with them, but her mother tells her that he belongs with his family, no matter what condition they're in.

The people at Plantation Oaks are familiar to anyone who's read or viewed post-apocalyptic fiction. They're survivors, and their methods are cruel because that's how you survive. As someone who still has a heart, Maggie does what she can to protect Henry and his family from them. And Momma does what she can to protect her daughter.

Koch does a great job portraying his characters. Maggie is what I'd expect from a twelve-year-old girl (having had a daughter of my own), seeking her own space in the world, rebelling just a bit from her mother's rules. And Momma is caught up being a single mom in the apocalypse, carrying a ton of guilt for not being able to give her daughter a normal childhood but putting on a brave face to make sure she has the skills to survive and carry forward.

The Blissful Plague is a heartfelt story, focused on the relationship of a mother and her daughter in difficult times, facing long odds, trying to do the right thing in a world that has forgotten compassion.

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Full Disclosure: I was hired by the author to proofread/edit this book. While you might think I'm biased, I suggest heading over to Goodreads for other opinions.

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The Hotline at the End of the World by Brady Koch

In a world paralyzed by an unprecedented outbreak, Clint mans the CDC hotline, a solitary beacon of dwindling hope. Then, one fateful day, a call comes in. Clint finds himself navigating a delicate situation involving a mysterious woman, hinted at in classified files, who may possess the coveted cure. As the world remains under a suffocating lockdown, Clint's every word, every choice, holds the weight of untold futures.

This is the third book in Koch's All Our Forgotten Futures series. And this one might give you Covid-19 flashbacks.

Years later, events at the slaughterhouse have boiled over to the country at large, and everyone is desperate. Social order is breaking down as people are becoming infected, and those who aren't infected are willing to do whatever it takes to avoid getting sick or find the mystery woman.

Clint is taking over the CDC's tip hotline. The current occupant, D'Angelo, has had his fill of the job. With the country in lockdown and people isolating themselves, he's watched as his team has been reduced to just him—the volume of calls no longer warrants a full-time staff. D'Angelo trains Clint, who has experience working other hotlines dedicated to assisting people with the virus or who have family members with it. The training and the off-duty conversations reveal a lot about the men. After the training ends and D'Angelo departs, it's just Clint and the occasional caller on the phone. It's a lonely life, and Clint has too much time on his hands.

Clint learns from D'Angelo that the standard approach to the calls is that the caller has not found the mystery woman with the cure. None of them are. There's just no way it can be her after all these years. Clint is to treat each call as if it were a hostage situation. There's a manual which Clint is instructed to follow. It's a de-escalation procedure that never fails. Clint has to stall for time so that he can track down the caller and alert the police to free the hostage before she gets hurt. It isn't easy on Clint, and Koch does a great job keeping the tension high. Eventually though, Clint gets that one call where abiding by the manual doesn't work, forcing Clint to think of a new way to rescue a woman a thousand miles away.

Despite the lack of action, The Hotline at the End of the World is a suspenseful thriller with an engaging protagonist. It doesn't matter that he's cooped up by himself, quarantined from the world. He's agonizing over the fate of this woman, unable to physically rescue her, relying solely on his intellect to outwit her kidnapper. Koch has skillfully developed his character so that you're right there beside Clint, rooting for him to succeed.

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Full Disclosure: I was hired by the author to proofread/edit this book. While you might think I'm biased, I suggest heading over to Goodreads for other opinions.

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The Forgotten Sons of Wyoming by Brady Koch

In the frozen heart of Wyoming, the Trinity Meat Processors stands as a beacon of rehabilitation. Here, men with no pasts and blank slates find purpose under the watchful eye of Pastor Isiah. Asher, unsettled by the sudden disappearance of his friend after a confrontation with a mysterious intruder, races against time, battling forgotten truths and moral dilemmas.

This is the second book in Koch's All Our Forgotten Futures series. And it's probably my favorite.

Asher is one of several men who work at the Trinity Meat Processors slaughterhouse. Koch pulls no punches when he describes the brutal work that the men do. There's a cold detachment from the process, stripping away each layer of the animal until there's nothing left. It's unsettling. It parallels the counseling sessions and church sermons that the men are required to attend as part of their therapy. They strip away the layers, trying to find the man underneath, but it's the same result: an empty shell.

Each man suffers from memory loss, unable to remember what happened before they came to work at the slaughterhouse. The "mysterious intruder," referred to in the blurb, knows. His presence disturbs the men. He accuses them of things they have no memory of. But Sonny, Asher's friend and the lead on the kill floor, has some idea, but he'll be damned if he's going to let this guy get to them. Of all the men, he's the least docile, which is unacceptable.

Asher desperately wants to remember his past and what his counselor won't tell him. It has to be something terrible, right? It seems that Sonny has the answers, which might explain why he's the most boisterous of the bunch. Events build to a head, and Asher comes to realize that things are terribly wrong. A character shows up from The Negotiated Death of Sara Glen which will cinch it for the reader. At this point, Asher and the men at the slaughterhouse are in mortal peril.

As I mentioned earlier, this story was my favorite in the series. Between Koch's descriptions of the men's lives, their work environment, and the surroundings, plus the way he builds dramatic tension, The Forgotten Sons of Wyoming makes for a solid thriller. But there's a scene towards the end of the book that really did it for me. Asher is standing in the middle of a road with the snow coming down. He needs to make an important decision. The imagery of the scene, coupled with how he comes to make that decision, is the cherry on top of a thrilling sundae.

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Full Disclosure: I was hired by the author to proofread/edit this book. While you might think I'm biased, I suggest heading over to Goodreads for other opinions.

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The Negotiated Death of Sara Glen by Brady Koch

Sara makes a startling discovery through an at-home ancestry kit: She possesses a unique immunity to the elusive Jessica Kitner Syndrome. This revelation doesn't go unnoticed. OriginPoints, the DNA test company, approaches her with a proposition that might demand the ultimate sacrifice.

Caught in the maelstrom of genetic intrigue and moral dilemmas, Sara stands torn. With a profound sense of duty on one hand and the weight of her own life on the other, she grapples with choices where clarity is elusive.

This is the first book in Koch's All Our Forgotten Futures series.

As stated in the blurb, Sara learns that she carries a cure for a disease that reverses the cognitive development of children. The problem is that in order to extract it, she must undergo a procedure that will kill her. She leans this at an engagement party for her sister. Over the course of the book, she goes back and forth between sacrificing her life to choosing to live.

While Sara attempts to keep the news of this to herself, the CEO at OriginPoints is eager to promote the technology that led to the discovery. It could lead to billions, which would make stockholders very happy and he'd wind up rich and famous. The pressure is on him to deliver.

So what's in it for Sara? Well OriginPoints will fully take care of her, pay for her to travel and see the world, memorialize her legacy, basically anything to make her out to be a hero.

The rest of the story, told completely from Sara's POV, has her debating her choice with herself. She volunteers to work at a daycare specializing in the care of kids with JKS to get the parents' perspective. She helps plan her sister's wedding; she even starts dating a guy. Sara goes back and forth until Koch throws in a couple of plot twists that change the stakes.

While Koch does a great job at developing Sara, he also does a solid job of developing all of the other characters that Sara interacts with as she tries to make her decision.

All-in-all, this story is a solid start to a great series. In the hands of a lesser author this could've been treated as a maudlin morality tale. Instead, Koch has crafted a fine dramatic thriller.

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Full Disclosure: I was hired by the author to proofread/edit this book. While you might think I'm biased, I suggest heading over to Goodreads for other opinions.

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Lines of Deception by Steve Anderson

West Germany, 1949. Former actor Max Kaspar suffered greatly in the Second World War. Now he owns a nightclub in Munich—and occasionally lends a hand to the newly formed CIA. Meanwhile, his brother Harry has ventured beyond the Iron Curtain to rescue an American scientist. When Harry is also taken captive, Max resolves to locate his brother at all costs. The last thing he expects is for Harry to go rogue.

Max's treacherous quest takes him to Vienna and Prague to Soviet East Germany and Communist Poland. Along the way, dangerous operators from Harry's past join the pursuit: his former lover Katarina, who's working for the Israelis, and former Nazi Hartmut Dietz, now an agent of East German intelligence. But can anyone be trusted? Even the American scientist Stanley Samaras may not be the hero Harry had believed him to be...

In the fourth novel of the Kaspar Brothers series, Steve Anderson cranks up the dramatic tension. The story is set in a postwar Europe transitioning to the Cold War. The Soviets have begun to flex their muscles in Europe, and the Americans are trying to hold them off while the U.K. and France are busy mending their wounds. Weary of war, all sides have resorted to brinkmanship to see who takes the leadership role for the second half of the twentieth century.

Into this setting, we reunite with Max, who we first met in The Losing Role, where he was an operative in Operation Greif during the Battle of the Bulge. Max spent most of that novel running scared, fearing for his life. He wasn't a hardened soldier or zealous SS officer. He was just a down an out German actor conscripted into service.

But since the war, he's spent the time trying to forget it, except when he's called upon to do the right thing (as in Lost Kin) because the factions may have changed, but there are still evil men in the world bullying the weak and downtrodden. And it makes him angry. When he's visited by an odd, little man while working at his nightclub that anger resurfaces. The man claims that Max's brother Harry is being held for ransom, which Max must deliver. Max is furiously protective of his brother and can barely restrain himself from taking it out on the messenger. Later, when Max encounters the man responsible for the death of a dear friend, he so desperately wants the man to suffer, but as the man is necessary to complete the mission, he has to tamp down that anger.

As suggested in the book blurb, no one is completely forthright with Max. Whether that's to protect him or deceive him is dependent on the person in question. It leads to a constant string of surprises for Max (and the reader), forcing him to react quickly or change plans in order to find his brother and get home safely. He reacts differently to these deceptions. They become a way for him to work through his anger, on some level accepting what he cannot change, which leaves him exhausted.

Lines of Deception is another solid entry in the Kaspar Brothers series. The setting is thoroughly researched with Anderson dragging in historical events to craft a credible and entertaining story. Strong characterization leads the reader into believing what the characters are telling Max, but when their deceptions are revealed, it doesn't strike one as being out of character. One realizes that Anderson left clues all along the way. Ultimately, it enables Anderson to turn a spy thriller into catharsis for his protagonist.

4 stars

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Zervakan by Rob Steiner

Reason and science gave the Recindian Compact wonders like steam engines, telegraphs, and gunpowder. The world had order. It made sense.

Until one night two multi-colored bands of light split the sky, spanning the horizons like rings around the planet. Soon after, unnatural storms assaulted the Compact's cities. Whispers spread of ghoulish creatures haunting Compact forests. And then a message from a legendary race called the Mystics - "ally with us to fight the growing evil, or we all perish."

The Compact's desperate leaders turn to disgraced history professor Taran Abraeu. Taran spent years searching in vain for the ancient healing magic of the Mystics to save his dying daughter. His family and colleagues once mocked him. Now his research might save them.

When the Compact asks Taran to accompany a secret delegation to the Mystic homeland, he is swept up in an adventure that forces him to fight a horrifying enemy that only he among all his people can comprehend.

I discovered today that I reviewed this on GoodReads in 2013, but didn't cross post it here. I've decided to make up for that oversight.

Full Disclosure: I was the editor for this book. You can discount what I have to say here in this review but hear me out. I think what I have to say might still sway you.

You can read the description for what the book is about. I'm here to tell you that Steiner did a fantastic job. The world in Zervakan is a clever juxtaposition of one civilization which relies on primitive technology but is well-versed in magic (the Mystics of Beldamark) while the one in which our protagonist hails from is comparatively advanced: muskets, steam engines, and the telegraph. It would've been easy for Steiner to take a side, i.e. "technology is evil" or "faith is for fools." Instead, he shows that there are good points about both systems, and neither has a monopoly of short-sighted dogmatists. His point is that both sides must learn to work together to overcome an evil that is stronger than either one can handle on its own.

Steiner excels at characterization. They're real. Young characters are passionate but lack the wisdom that comes with experience. Older characters are stuck in their ways. Tarn makes for an excellent protagonist: His daughter is his Achilles' heel, and he struggles to make the right decisions. Fatimah wrestles with trusting Tarn, the outsider who has embraced mysticism despite his Compact upbringing, and obeying the wisdom of her elders. Speaker of the Compact, Dylan Edoss (my favorite character), is forced into having an open mind with regards to the Mystics because he realizes cooperation is the only way to protect his people, but that very open-mindedness leaves him vulnerable to his political enemies. Even Steiner's minor characters and villains defy the cookie cutter mold. I even want to root for Karak, a villain with a conscience.

Even before I was Steiner's editor, I was a fan of his storytelling (See The Last Key and Aspect of Pale Night). He's able to construct a highly believable world that is easy to get caught up in. There's just enough detail: enough to believe you're there in the world he's constructed but not too much that you drown in minutiae. And he's able to conjure up horrors in this land that would fit right in with Lovecraft. My favorite scene is when Steiner plays homage to the Master while Taran and Dylan ride a train to meet with the Mystics. If I say anything more, it will count as a spoiler, so I won't.

So I hope that, despite my obvious prejudice, you'll check out Zervakan, a fantasy vs. steampunk mashup, lightly seasoned with Lovecraftian horrors. At the very least, check out the sample chapters to see Steiner in action. You won't be disappointed.

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AI-Generated Images for Indie Book Covers

James, the lead book cover designer over at GoOnWrite.com, has posted an article to his blog (UPDATE - 11/6/24: His blog has been shuttered.) wherein he discusses the recent explosion of AI-generated images and helps to clear up some misconceptions. It's a long read, but very informative and a tad bit entertaining.

UPDATE - 2/28/23: Over at the Independent Publishing Magazine, there's a related article about how AI art affects indie writers.

The use of AI-generated art remains a contentious issue. And now, with the launch of ChatGPT, AI-generated stories have flooded the marketplace. Interesting times.

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Pharoni by Colin Dodds

When the body of Harry Injurides - playwright, provocateur and bodybuilder - washes up on a beach, his friends are shocked, but not altogether surprised. But when they meet to mourn Harry, he shows up and says he's been resurrected.

Pharoni is the story of those friends. Tommy Pharoni tries to overcome his shock by writing about his friend's resurrection, and accidentally starts a religion. Roy Sudden starts a tech empire based on digital empathy and digital pain, drawing in billionaire investors, femme-fatale programmers, and tsunamis of capital. And, Roy's on-again, off-again girlfriend Maud works in secret to bring radical justice to the most neglected and abused corners of society.

As Tommy's religion grows, Roy and his backers try to take control of it. The battle, about more than doctrine, engulfs Tommy's marriage and threatens his life, leading to a conflict with strangely humane results that no one could predict.

Told in the first person, Pharoni has the feel of a memoir or a really long confession. Tommy Pharoni is a struggling screenplay writer who pays his bills and alimony by working a soulless marketing job. His closest friends were aspiring artists of different sorts in college. Now in their mid-thirties, they've set aside those aspirations to "adult" properly. All except for Harry, whose death opens the story. Harry struggled to fit into contemporary society, instead preferring to help the homeless while penning "words of wisdom" in his many notebooks. After his death and subsequent re-birth, those notebooks wound up in Tommy's possession. Ultimately, Tommy would collect them into a coherent manuscript and seek out a way to get them published.

As Tommy is a screenwriter, the format of the story periodically shifts into screenplay mode. This works particularly well for conversations as it affords opportunity to get to know the other characters through their dialogue rather than relying on Tommy's narrative. I wouldn't say Tommy is an unreliable narrator, but he does limit what we can learn about what's going on elsewhere with other characters. References to things that have been written elsewhere and NDAs force the reader to fill in the gaps.

After Harry's resurrection, the lives of Tommy and his friends change as described in the blurb, but there's so much more. The group of friends find themselves splattered by the seven deadly sins, fitting for a story where a religion is founded upon the philosophical musings of a character that has died and miraculously resurrected days later. At least Christianity didn't get partnered with a health and wellness brand. The corrupting influence of millions and billions of dollars seeps its way into their lives and rots them from within. What is friendship worth? Can you put a dollar amount on it?

If there's one overarching theme that I can take away from this tale, it's that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Keeping this spoiler free, I'll say that Tommy started out as a character that I could connect with to someone I didn't want anything to do with. But I stuck with him because act two opens with:

This is where I get unrelatable, maybe even unlikable. As the writer of failed screenplays, I know what a mortal sin unlikability can be.

That gave me hope for him in act three. But Tommy is far from the only person to be corrupted by power. It's everyone up to the very end of the story. And the only characters whose souls are left intact are those who never possess it.

Colin Dodds has crafted an excellent morality play with vivid characters. Pharoni offers modern day parallels to the founding of Christianity, right down to the Christmas star, but in an age of unbridled capitalism. If you're old enough, with all of the life experience that implies, it forces you to take a look at this fellowship of friends and how they sacrificed art and friendship for wealth and power and check to make sure that this isn't a mirror of your own life.

4 stars

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On the Importance of Book Covers

The 2021 Self-Published Science-Fiction Competition just finished. Check out the top ten covers. A lot of WOW!

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