Book Review: The Dark Verse, Vol. 1 by M. Amanuensis Sharkchild

The Dark Verse, Volume 1: From the Passages of Revenants is a collection of 26 fantastical short stories from the darkly imaginative mind of author M. Amanuensis Sharkchild. Sharkchild’s stories were first featured on his self-produced podcast “The Dark Verse” where he would release a fantastically horrific story every two weeks.

The podcast developed quite a following and led to the stories being collected into The Dark Verse Volume 1. This is a beautifully black-bound book with a silver foil cover and black dusting that contains some of the most bizarre and engaging stories I’ve ever come across. The tales tell of distant dimensions and unbelievable beings all the while oozing with an otherworldly atmosphere.

Each and every one of the stories drew me in with the eloquent and sophisticated writing of Sharkchild. Delving deeper and deeper into the great unknown, Sharkchild conjures visions of horrifying monsters and mysterious worlds beyond our own. He creates a window that peers into the black abyss, and the result is that things from the unknown start to look back.

Some would be quick to point out the similarities between Sharkchild’s esoteric style and H.P. Lovecraft’s writings, but though they appear similar I would argue that Sharkchild has a very distinct and unique way of unveiling his mysterious stories. I will say that like any good horror author, Sharkchild’s stories will leave you unhinged as you get a glimpse of the strange species that permeate his imagination and have scrawled themselves into this book.

For example, in the short story What the Flesh Cannot Keep the “Haunter Behind Space” is described by the poor mortal who sees it as “eyes that covered every surface, the souls within them, and the vulgar, detestable complacency of existence that saturated every ounce of its being”. Of course, seeing such a creature would prove fatal to any mortal…

One of my favorite stories is The Changing of the Feyth, told in two parts, about feyths, which are regarded as demigods in their realm. The feyth protagonist describes his race as such: “Our flesh is ash gray and its texture is that of leather. Our eyes are as black as coal and our teeth are as sharp as swords. Our ears are large and so are our noses. We grow to be tall as giants, but our bodies always keep the same slenderness, no matter what our strength or what we consume. Our only master is the Almighty of Shadows…” The story is about how one feyth turns against his brethren and is filled with bloody battle, ghosts and even fairies.

In the story titled Between the Corridors, a small child is haunted by the “Midnight Apothecary”, a nightmarish vision that invades his very mind. It perverts childhood innocence and memories of balloons and ice cream with a menacing and sinister parasitic creature that invades the child’s mind and won’t let go until he relinquishes it.

The book is filled with excellent stories such as those mentioned above, so it is hard not to talk about each and every single one as there is not a bad one in the entire collection. For space sake, I’ll have to keep it down to those mentioned above with hopes they give you a general gist of the fascinating tales told by Sharkchild.

All of Sharkchild’s stories are inhabited by grotesque yet sometimes wondrous beings who have managed to break forth into our own world. These unimaginably horrific monsters populate these short stories, and Sharkchild’s writing brings them to startling and shocking clarity. His stories exist on a different plane, a dimension where unspeakable horrors lie in wait, ready to assault and invade our own existence. These are tales that could reduce you to madness as you marvel at their complex simplicity. Horror lies in fearing the unknown, and boy, does Sharkchild ever have a grasp of how to scare us!

Besides the articulate and intelligent way Sharkchild tells his stories, I must also comment on the overall aesthetic of the book, which is absolutely gorgeous. The outside of the hardback book is wrapped in a faux leather with silver foil stamping adorning it, as well as black dusting on the edges of the pages. Its presentation is impeccable, but only gets better when you open the tome, for inside is stunning artwork by John F. Stifter. Truly, this is one of the most beautifully books I’ve ever reviewed and Armored Books did a fabulous job with its design. This book, though no doubt well-read, will adorn my bookcase for a long, long time.

The Dark Verse, Volume 1: From the Passages of Revenants is an elite collection of fascinating and frightening stories that is sure to impress any horror aficionado who is looking for more peculiar tales rather than the standard slasher/zombie/vampire/serial killer novels that tend to permeate horror fiction. Its high quality is a rarity and I, for one, will treasure this book for a long while.

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Book Review: Cthulhu Unbound edited by Thomas Brannan and John Sunseri

Cthulhu Unbound is an anthology from Permuted Press where the Lovecraftian mythos really let’s its hair down and goes a little wild. The authors have transposed some of Lovecraft’s most famous monsters into all kinds of different stories with delightful result!

The book’s description sums it up perfectly:

Imagine being free.

Free from everything that defines you, that makes you easily recognizable as who you are.

Welcome to a place where bleak noir cityscapes share a Technicolor sky with combat fighters, where you can find gunslingers from the Old West and a lost chapter from a literary classic, all with something in common: Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

This is a place where the Crawling Chaos has to solve his own murder and the Old Ones come up against the Gods of Las Vegas, a place where the new player in London’s underground isn’t human and masked heroes go toe-to-tentacle with eldritch horrors.

This is a Mythos collection unlike any other. This is Lovecraft in many colors, many guises.

This is Cthulhu – Unbound!

I really enjoyed this colorful, unique anthology and didn’t find one bad story between its pages! All fourteen stories are superb, and range from comedic to quirky to shocking to frightening! Permuted Press and editors Thomas Brannan and John Sunseri have put together a wonderfully imaginative anthology that truly shows the versatility of the authors as well as the Cthulhu mythos itself.

My favorite stories include the Wild West-inspired Hellstone and Brimfire by Doug Goodman, a “lost” chapter of Moby Dick called The Covenant by Kim Paffenroth, superhero story In Our Darkest Hour by Steven Graham, Bubba Cthulhu’s Last Stand by Lisa L. Hilton that features a redneck Cthulhu family and the Hunter S. Thompson-inspired The Shadow Over Vegas by John Claude Smith. The remainder of the stories are equally entertaining, so much so that I find it hardpressed to not list them all as my favorites!

Page after page I was amazed by the many different guises the Cthulhu mythos took! I never knew which eldritch monster I would encounter from story to story or what quirky characters I would meet. No matter if you are a hardcore Lovecraft fan or just a casual one, Cthulhu Unbound will no doubt entertain you! It has so much spunk and bite and is such an ambitious anthology that you won’t be able to escape its tentacled grasp!

Available from Amazon!

LovecraCked! The Movie (2006)

LovecraCked! The Movie is an anthology of short films inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft that are bound together by a running gag of an investigative reporter (Elias) trying to find out more information on the famous writer. The movie is a comedy/horror and the results are a mixed bag. The investigative reporter bits and some of the shorts play like Troma-esque movies (Lloyd Kaufman is featured as an interviewee in one of the reporter segments) and get old fast, while some of the shorts have a much more creepy and satisfying tone.

- “The Statement of Randolph Carter,” directed by Jane Rose. It had a definite old school, ‘50s feel to it, but still came off as campy to me. I didn’t care for it that much, but it was still a good opener to stories inspired by Lovecraft.

- “The History of the Lurkers” (directed by Justin Powers) in which a punk rocker has the ability to summon evil and so he does...The problem being that the lurkers he summons turn out to be trench coat-wearing, porn shop-frequenting pervs. While the story was pretty original, it got old quick and dragged on too long.

- “Remain” directed by Ashley Thorp, was probably the strongest film in the bunch. Filmed with a stop-motion technique, it presents a man who paints a picture that comes to life. Definitely creepy with an excellent mood; I’d like to see more what this director can accomplish.

- The forth short was entitled “Bugboy” and was directed by Tomas Almgren. It tells the tale of a jilted lover transforming (literally, in a giant cocoon) into something more sinister. Shot in black and white, this film looked absolutely amazing and was both creepy and icky in a sticky sort of way.

- “Witches Spring” directed by Brian Barnes, was predictable and stale. A guy hooks up with a woman via the Internet, figuring he will just have some fun, but it turns out she’s a witch and is planning on using him in a ritual to retain her youth.

-The sixth short was directed by Simon Ruben and was called “Alecto”. This was another superb short that tells the tale of a man tormented by a song played on the violin. The film itself was haunting and eerie as it slowly unfolded.

- “Chaos of the Flesh” was another excellent entry. It was directed by Grady Granros and shot in black and white. A man is in the forest when he sees another man carrying an unconscious girl over his shoulder. He follows the pair to a tree stump and sees that the man is intent on cutting off the girl’s head. The two scuffle and finally the girl is saved…but she is no girl! She’s actually a demon…

- Next, we get a porno thrown into the mix, which was quite odd. It was the infamous (softcore version) of “Re-Penetrator” directed by Doug Sakmann. Dr. Hubert Breast reanimates his love interest and they proceed to have zombie sex…complete with lots of blood and internal organs, of course.

- The ninth and final short was an animated music video called “And This Was on a Good Day” directed by Brian A. Bernhard, which was probably the least entertaining.

Between each short the investigative reporter would come back for a silly segment. Sure, this was sometimes amusing, but the gig got old fast and less funny each time around. The humor was akin to Troma with a twinge of Monty Python thrown in.

My final verdict? Some of the shorts were quite excellent, but the failed reporter segue and some of the lesser shorts ruin it. If you are interested in checking out some short horror movies, by all means pick it up…but don’t say I didn’t warn you about the many duds throughout this anthology.

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In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

In the Mouth of Madness is a great movie influenced in part by H.P. Lovecraft. Sutter Cane is a successful horror author who suddenly goes missing while writing his next book. John Trent, an independent insurance investigator, is hired by Mr. Cane's publishers to find him to ensure they receive his new book. Trouble is, Mr. Cane's other books are already affecting some of his readers adversely, causing violent, even murderous behavior.

Trent suspects that Cane is hiding out in the supposedly fictional town of Hobb's End. He is sent with Cane's editor, Ms. Stiles, to find the town. Soon, reality is blending with fiction as it appears Cane's book, with all its monstrous images, is coming to life. Can Trent stop Cane from finishing his book and unleashing his nightmarish creations on the world?

This was a great movie. I love these kind of what-if movies. I mean, what if what we read was real or somehow the line between fiction and reality was blurred? What if reality was just what everyone agreed upon? What is reality, anywho? All these questions are raised in the film.

In the Mouth of Madness is a great film by Carpenter, one that actually impressed me. When it touched on Cane's books' influence on readers, I was eerily reminded of Carpenter's Masters of Horror entry, Cigarette Burns (reviewed here).

If you have been denied this movie's charms (by charms I mean thrills and chills, of course), check it out. I actually bought this movie before I'd even seen it, and it was very worthwhile. It has its jump scares, but the real fright comes long after you've watched it, as you start to question your own reality.

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