Nikolas P. Robinson's Blog, page 30

Texas Horror, Edited by David Doub

A friend of mine brought a Kickstarter campaign to my attention months ago. Upon checking it out, I absolutely had to get on board. It was to be a graphic novel showcasing a variety of Texas-based comic and literary talents in an anthology setting. Since a lot of my favorite indie authors and small presses are based out of Texas there was no way I wasn’t going to support this campaign.
My digital edition of Texas Horror arrived just a few days ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
We begin this anthology with Kitchen Witches: Origin of the Ramen Witch, brought to us by Halo Toons. A late-night visit to a convenience store becomes something unexpected as a cup of ramen in the microwave behaves in a way that defies any conceivable safety precautions.
Aerobicide: Blockbuster night, written by David Doub with art by Terry Parr, takes on a harrowing adventure that arises from a simple attempt to return some videotapes. You’ll find references to horror video rental royalty throughout this brief but entertaining escapade.
Demons In the Darkness: Part 1, written by David Doub, with letters by Daniel Chan and art by Dominic Racho, tells the story of a group of outcasts getting together for a night of tabletop role-playing after a rough day in school. As the story unfolds, an in-game ritual to purge some of the negativity from the real lives of the players might turn out to have some real-life consequences.
The Texas Horror Writers Showcase brings us flash fiction from some of my favorite writers in the industry today. John Balitsberger shares a tale of the famed Goatman’s Bridge and the sacrifices people will make to unlock secret knowledge. Lucas Mangum tells us the story of a camping trip gone terribly wrong in a story of beautiful flowers and mental illness. Wile E. Young brings us back to the world of Salem Covington (of The Magpie Coffin) from a different perspective. And finally, Max Booth III brings us a strange tale of gardening and family that will leave you wondering “What the fuck,” just as much as the father in his story.
Luna Vino, written by Mike Howlett and drawn by Howard Kelley, takes us to a manor where, no matter how unexpected the night might turn out, losing one’s favorite wine might be the worst thing that could happen.
Finally, Mask It or Casket, written by David Doub with art by Miguel Angel Hernandez, shares a poignant tale of the current pandemic. In this violent clash of ideological perspectives taken to extremes, it’s difficult to consider even one’s own side correct, though it’s hard not to sympathize with the antagonist’s frustration.
All in all, this is a great sampler of the fantastic horror-themed art coming out of Texas. It’s certainly added some names to the list of creators I’ll want to keep an eye on.

Though the campaign for this project has been over for a while, readers might be interested in some additional details. I’ll include the link to the Kickstarter below:

Porcelain by Nate Southard

Jason Hawks puts his career as a professional comedian on hold to return home to Cincinnati after learning his high school sweetheart, Andrea, stripping under the name Porcelain, publicly murdered multiple patrons before shooting herself. Reconnecting with old friends he similarly hadn’t spoken with in 12 years, Jason struggles to discover an explanation for the horrific act Andrea committed. Haunted by disjointed memories and terrifying hallucinations, Jason forces himself and two of his old friends to relive the events of the final night they’d all been together more than a decade before. Piecing together the pieces of what happened when six freshly graduated young adults had lost control and experienced something both carnal and terrifying, a mystery begins to unravel that threatens both sanity and the world as they know it.
Nate Southard shares a compelling and disquieting tale with this title. Friendships are rekindled and snuffed out on the page as the author drags us through a tangled mess of erotica and supernatural horror that tiptoes the line separating us from unstoppable, madness-inducing cosmic horror.
Fans of Stephen King’s IT will feel a certain sense of familiarity with this narrative of adults coming together and unhappily reliving a hardly self-aware sexual awakening they experienced at a much younger age. Unlike the uncomfortable scene described in King’s novel, in Porcelain, at least these characters were adults–though barely–when they intimately came together in a dark, terrifying place.
More terrifying than anything else for me, the core horror of this story is derived from the loss of control. Propelled by an insatiable desire for gratification, characters fight to restrain themselves and to fend off the debasement as increasingly louder voices within are urging them to give in. The almost vampiric presence at the heart of the horror is unsettling in its ability to overwhelm the individual’s better judgment and will to fight. The corrupting nature of the evil as its influence appears to spread from the original location in the abandoned factory makes for a truly disturbing concept, executed superbly by Southard.

Cynophobia by Gerhard Jason Geick

Geick’s Cynophobia begins with a drabble. In this case, it’s a heartbreaking drabble that certainly sets the stage and tests the waters for the reader, in advance of the main story. It’s suitable for that purpose, in that it’s perhaps harder to read than what Geick offers up to us in this new tale of mental illness, irrational fear, and failing relationships. None of this is easy to read for an animal lover, and especially a dog lover.
I am an animal lover.
While I was growing up, I had several birds (my great aunt raised them for sale and had a room that consisted of virtually nothing but walls of bird cages. I’ve owned snakes and tarantulas. I have a daughter who didn’t take particularly good care of three guinea pigs she’d received as pets quite a few years ago–but she was only eight or nine at the time, so I shouldn’t have expected too much. They were adorable little things, though. They were, all three, sweet as can be, but they also produced a whole lot of waste that wasn’t properly cleaned up. I’ve owned a total of five ferrets over the years, and it’s challenging to keep up with the rancid mess they make, no matter how well-trained you believe them to be. We have a cat in our home, and we had a terrific rabbit until recently, and I’m allergic to both. I’ve had, at this point in my life, a total of 11 dogs, I currently own three of them, all under the age of five and two of them under the age of two. In October of 2019, the best dog I’ve ever owned died in my arms when a cruel sort of blood cancer stole her from me when she was only seven.
It was worth mentioning all of that because I can sympathize with the protagonist of Cynophobia in a handful of ways while simultaneously considering him almost alien in others.
No more pets was not the insoluble rule he expected it to be, he learns, as his wife progressively turns their home into a menagerie. The relentless hoarding drives the couple further apart and our protagonist distances himself from both his wife and his daughters. As the situation at home spirals out of control, Geick propels us toward a breaking point at which nothing will be the same. It’s a train wreck in relatively slow motion that the reader can’t turn away from.
Cynophobia presents us with two possible endings, the original (S.A.D.) ending and the new ending Geick’s written for this version of the story. In one available ending, the sickness and mental illness appear to spread from one parent to the other, manifesting in an awful climax that will make many readers cringe. In the alternate conclusion, we witness the–hopefully–more natural end of the relationship and the outcome of the clear mental illness left unrestrained at the core of this tale.
You’ll have to read them both, to discover which one you prefer. The splattery side of my nature prefers one, while the animal lover in me prefers the other. Neither of them is pleasant, and as the story says, there are no happy endings.

Cynophobia is available as an exclusive title from http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app on your preferred mobile device. The link to this title is below:

Cynophobia by Gerhard Jason Geick

The Magpie Coffin by Wile E. Young, Narrated by Sean Duregger

Wile E. Young paints a grim portrait of the postbellum American west, replete with magic and mystery. In this shadow permeated version of the wild west, the author spins a tale that fuses horror and fantasy with otherwise familiar tropes and western motifs.
It would be impossible to talk about The Magpie Coffin without first spending some time introducing the protagonist of this amazing Splatter Western. Salem Covington is a riveting character. One can think of him, in the simplest terms, as being equal parts Jonah Hex, a wild west incarnation of Dexter Morgan, and a little bit Elric of Melnibone–substituting a pistol for the sword, Stormbringer. A student of dark magic from various sources and cursed with the need to kill for the sake of his own damned soul, Mr. Covington is far from a heroic figure. There is a strained and rigid nobility to him, though. As with most antihero characters, he has a code of sorts that guides his actions.
Upon discovering that his old Comanche teacher, Dead Bear, has been murdered and that a white buffalo has been slaughtered by the same band of killers, Covington sets out on a quest to bring down everyone involved. Enlisting the assistance of one of the men associated with the killing, his pursuit of vengeance carries the reader through the Dakota Territory and into the Rocky Mountains of what would soon become Colorado.
Leaving a trail of bodies and tortured souls in his wake, Salem Covington chases quarry who might just be too dangerous for even The Black Magpie to overcome.
My only complaints with this book are present because I happen to be a South Dakota resident. North and South Dakota didn’t become states until 1889, and Deadwood is nowhere near North Dakota, sitting approximately 130 miles South of the North Dakota border. But, considering how few people seem to recognize that North and South Dakota exist at all, it’s not exactly a deal-breaker.
The narration by Sean Duregger for the audiobook is fantastic, capturing the grit and cruel nature of Salem Covington with a degree of authenticity that felt right. The narrative, being shared by Covington in first-person, making it simple to distinguish the voices of secondary characters without any trouble.

Seersucker Motherfucker by Jay Wilburn

With Sally French firing a .45 slug through the window of the Harper house, aiming for Kelly Harper, but killing Coop Bainbridge instead, Jay Wilburn’s Seersucker Motherfucker kicks off a bloody feud that makes the Hatfields and McCoys seem quaint by comparison.
The unrelenting, stylized violence that unfolds in the pages of this story is the sort of thing that would surely give Tarantino an erection. In fact, it might be a good idea to get this story in his hands, because this is just the sort of thing he could direct without leaving his wheelhouse. All that’s missing is the banter, 60s & 70s nostalgia, and pseudo-witty dialogue, and we’d have a fantastic Tarantino film in the making.
Shifting perspectives as we follow one burst of bloodshed to another are handled so expertly by Wilburn that the reader never loses track of what’s happening as the tempo steadily increases. One might expect a sort of “fog of war” to gloss over the fine details, obscuring the brutality unfolding, but the clarity of purpose setting these families against one another is extended to the reader, and we’re blessed–or cursed–with an unflinching vision of the staccato rampage.
The old adage, often attributed to Confucius, might have understated things when suggesting one should dig two graves, at least when Wilburn is at the helm.

You can pick up a copy of this story from http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app on your favorite mobile device. The link is below:

Seersucker Motherfucker by Jay Wilburn

The Ghoul Archipelago by Stephen Kozeniewski, narrated by Jennifer Fournier

The Ghoul Archipelago takes us on quite the adventure. On the high seas, to the islands of Southeast Asia, we experience a region of the world unfamiliar to many of us. Kozeniewski populates his near-future vision of the exotic environment with smugglers, pirates, island tribes, missionary religious fanatics, a smug computer programmer and inventor, and, of course, zombies. We’ve witnessed zombies all over American and Europe, the cities of Asia, and the islands of the Caribbean. Stephen Kozeniewski takes us to a novel location where we can witness the collapse of civilization and the rise of the undead, somewhere it’s less apparent that the rest of the world is gone.
At the core of this story, we see the same sad commentary on human nature fans of the subgenre should be familiar with. No matter where we are in the world, it would appear that we’re always too preoccupied with petty squabbles and power plays to focus on the survival that should be the unifying goal under such dire circumstances. As depressing as it might be, the author probably isn’t far off from the truth of it all.
Skirting through a gauntlet of pirates on the payroll of a billionaire still fixated on profit, adherents of a Christian death cult, and a megalomaniacal naval commander are Henk Martigan and his crew of smugglers. Will anyone make it through Kozeniewski’s tale alive, or will monsters, both living and undead, grind all of the survivors into a meaty pulp of blood and viscera until only maggots thrive?
It’s not easy to create an original story of the zombie apocalypse, but The Ghoul Archipelago is precisely that. Reliant on three-dimensional, believable, and even sympathetic characters, Kozeniewski propels the reader through scattered viewpoints as the adventure becomes far more than just a zombie story.
Jennifer Fournier’s audiobook narration is excellent, especially when capturing shifts in cadence and accent from one character to another.

Fucking Scumbags Burn In Hell: Book 7 by Lewis Kelly

Hell Week introduces us to Tailor, President of the Sigma House fraternity, just as he’s about to cross a line from which he’ll never come back. Let’s face it, though, Tailor was an irredeemable and monumental piece of shit long before he ever approached the line he’s careening toward. You’re sure to feel just like I do, thinking Hoop can’t show up fast enough.
Tailor and his inner circle of fraternity brothers pride themselves on degrading women in every conceivable way, but they appear to especially enjoy drugging and raping impressionable and insecure younger girls from their college. Alone with Nicole/Melanie/Pig Dolphin as she’s rapidly losing consciousness, Tailor discovers that taking everything up a notch might be the only way he’ll be able to get off this time. Already a monster, he doesn’t flinch as he passes the point of no return, in the process, destroying multiple additional lives with casual cruelty and disregard for anything approaching humanity.
This kid should have been on Hoop’s radar for a long time before the events of Hell Week. Spoiled, narcissistic, cold-blooded, and lazy, the best that can be said about Tailor is that he’s apparently handsome and that he comes from wealth. Thankfully, with Hoop’s intervention, Tailor manages to do something good, unintentionally taking out the trash as he receives his comeuppance.
Lewis Kelly is a new name for me, as I’m sure he is for many of you, but his is a name you’ll want to be watching for. I do not doubt that we’ll be seeing a lot of good material coming from this up-and-coming writer. Hell Week is a worthy addition to the Hoopiverse, and Lewis is a worthy author to have been included.

This title is available September 15th, 2021 on http://www.godless.com or through the Godless app, available on your preferred mobile platform. The link is below:

Hell Week (Fucking Scumbags Burn in Hell: Book 7) by Lewis Kelly – SEPTEMBER 15th

This Is Not An Exit by Ryder Kinlay

Ryder Kinlay is back again with the continuing adventures of David Longbottom. Time has passed since the events of Bloodymoon, and David has his 31st birthday on the near horizon. What does one give the man who has virtually everything and who is not shy about taking whatever else he wants?
Drugs, drinking, and debauchery have kept him going, but he’s getting bored and the pandemic conditions have hampered his fun. Concerned about his apparent malaise, his mother and a couple of his friends have a surprise in store for David.
If you thought the bloody honeymoon was violent and cruel, you’re in store for a real treat with this birthday bash.
I’m perhaps a bit biased, as Ryder Kinlay offered to kill friends and fans if they could suggest a suitable way to torture and kill Longbottom’s victims. I was lucky enough to be one of those victims.
It’s almost as if the author read my mind with the fate that befalls Nikolas in this story. I used to joke with my children that I was going to include it in my will that anyone who wanted an inheritance from me would have to consume me at the funeral reception. I suggested the exterior could be taxidermied while the meat could be prepared in a variety of ways for those who wanted to join in on the celebration. I worry that Donna, the other victim at the climax of this tale, may have never considered her ultimate outcome as the sort of thing she’d hope to experience. I just got lucky this time. Also, apparently I’m at least sort of hot in the fictional environment of the story, and I’ll take it!
If you enjoyed American Psycho, you’ll love the references peppered through this story, and you’ll just love the story anyhow.
Check it out!

You can obtain this story for yourself at http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app on your mobile device. For a limited time, you’ll also obtain a free copy of the first Longbottom Misadventure, Bloodymoon. The link is below:

This is Not an Exit by Ryder Kinlay

Sawbones by Ash Ericmore

Sawbones introduces the reader to Edward Smalls, one of seven siblings in the Smalls family, and it is one hell of an introduction.
A meeting with Alfred Leonard, a drug dealer and the criminal equivalent of middle-management, takes an unexpected turn as Edward is asked if he’d be willing to supply a snuff film for some new European business partners. No stranger to killing, Edward agrees to the strange proposition.. He already makes a living by supplying harvested organs on the black market, earning him the nickname Sawbones. How hard can it be to make a video incorporating sex and death?
Locating a suitable victim and getting her back to his dungeon workspace turns out to be the simple part. Everything else seems to be working against him, from the oppressive heat to unwanted visitors. Edward learns the hard way that film sets are a perpetual state of barely organized chaos, and that the people behind-the-scenes bankrolling the production often seem not to share the same creative vision as the director.
Edward Smalls is a strangely likeable character, considering how he earns his living. Ericmore successfully fleshes out a human monster who seems uncomfortably relatable and awkwardly amusing. It’ll be interesting to meet the other members of the Smalls family as the series continues. If this first installment is a solid basis of what to expect, there’s no way anyone could come out of this series feeling disappointed. The story reads like the novelization of a film written as a collaboration between Tarantino, Ritchie, and Roth.

You can obtain Sawbones, as well as the subsequent two volumes of the series right now, by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app. The link is below:

Sawbones (The Smalls Family I) by Ash Ericmore

Grinder by Nikki Noir

Ghost and Dean have been inseparable since Ghost skipped out on graduation and joined Dean in the journey to build a life of comfort for themselves. Dealing drugs isn’t a lifestyle choice for them, but a means to an end.
As the two of them, along with Dean’s business partner, Sonny, meet with their supplier for the final time, they have no reason to expect anything out of the ordinary. All is not as expected when they sit down with Rodrigo, as he excitedly tells them about Grinder, the new drug he’s sure will make them all rich. The story descends into a delirious haze of erotic horror from there and the reader is sure to find themselves dizzy and breathless by the end.
Blending sex and body horror with a truly Cronenbergesque flair reminiscent of Shivers, Nikki Noir shares a terrifying cautionary tale about experimenting with new and unusual substances.

You can read Grinder for yourself, along with many other fantastic Nikki Noir titles, by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app. The link for this title is below:

Grinder by Nikki Noir