Review: Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror, edited by Lee Murray

Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror

By Jonathan Maberry, Rena Mason, Michael McBride, Jake Bible, Sean Ellis, Kirsten Cross, Paul Mannering, S.D. Perry






My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Subterranean adventures are one of my favorite, must-read horror sub-genres (arctic terror is #1 and if anybody knows of any anthologies in this vein, or is planning on curating one, hit me up because I want to read the hell out of that!), so when New Zealand author Lee Murray announced she was editing Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror and David Wood over at Adrenaline Press (and author of the Dane Maddock adventures) offered me an ARC, I immediately jumped at the opportunity to read this bad boy. A quick glance at the list of contributing authors lets you know straight away that you're in good, capable hands.

As Christian Bentulan's cover art suggests, Hellhole is a militaristic anthology, and the stories collected within follow similar beats of a military unit or similar such government agency finding their way into the bowels of the earth and encountering things they previously only could have imagined.

Jonathan Maberry kicks off Hellhole with a brand-new Joe Ledger novella set in the aftermath of his latest release, Deep Silence. I'm a late-comer to the Ledger series, but what I've read of it so far has made me a very quick convert and it's become a fast favorite of mine. "All The Devils Are Here" sets a damn high bar for the authors that follow and it's the perfect opener to this anthology (however, if, like me, you're not entirely caught up on Ledger's main book series, there is at least one big spoiler regarding a significant plot point from Deep Silence, so fair warning).

Blessedly, the writers tasked with the unfortunate challenge of following in Maberry's footsteps are wholly up to the task. Michael McBride, a favorite of mine going back to his DarkFuse days with his two Snowblind novellas and, more recently, his Unit 51 series for Kensington, delivers a top-notch bio-thriller with his "A Plague of Locusts." I can always count on McBride to deliver the goods, and his weird science run amok story here is no exception. It's a Crichton-esque horror story that reaches back to the US’s biological and chemical weapons research during WWII, and it has a good bit of environmental commentary, too, as all that crap dumped into the earth wreaks havoc in the present day.

Hellhole serves up a pretty wide variety of locales with the stories globe-hopping all over the place. J.H. Moncrieff takes us to Russia in "The Offspring," a short story nicely steeped in speculation over the Dyatlov legend, an incident that also served as inspiration for her Return to Dyatlov Pass creature-feature novel earlier this year. Aaron Sterns takes us into an underground Australian drug lab in "Black Lung," before Jake Bible takes us into the heart of the Amazon to fight a Ginormous Hell Snake. Paul Mannering's "Where The Sun Does Not Shine" provides a nice break from the book's predominately Earthly exploits by venturing into a hostile foreign world. It's not exactly a groundbreaking story (ha ha) with its highly familiar and obvious Aliens meets Tremors-inspired mashup, and is perhaps a bit too straight-forward of a run and gun adventure, but it sure is fun.

And fun is the name of the game here! Lee Murray did a bang-up job assembling a broad range of talents well-known for their prowess in crafting smart, highly entertaining military horror thrillers and lets them off the hook to dig some deep, dark, dank holes to explore. The end result provides plenty of action, mayhem, and more than a few interesting creatures and speculative terrors. Hellhole is a remarkably strong anthology that hits the (under)ground running and doesn't let up.

[Note: I received an advance reading copy of this title from the publisher, Adrenaline Press.]



View all my reviews