Soma

by Charlee Jacob

From the crumbling ruins of a Cambodian jungle temple to the arid canyons of west Texas, exotic demons of the ancient past collide with more modern devils. As crippled residents in a small Cambodian village try to rebuild their lives in a shattered country, their god returns to them, providing hope and a dream of survival. But their god has returned as a former American GI, and their hope for peace is a drug that opens the door to untold horrors. Their beautiful nirvana waits only at the end of a road traveled by nightmares. It is a world peopled by the bizarre and the unearthly, in which damnation and redemption can come in the most terrifying forms.

Genres: Horror

405 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Charlee Jacob has been a digger for dinosaur bones, a seller of designer rags, and a cook - to mention only a few things. With more than 950 publishing credits, Charlee has been writing dark poetry and prose for more than 25 years. Some of her recent publishing events include the novel STILL (Necro), the poetry collection HERESY (Necro), and the novel DARK MOODS. She is a three-time Bram Stoker Award winner, two of those awards for her novel DREAD IN THE BEAST and the poetry collection SINEATER; the third award for collaborative poetry collection, VECTORS, with Marge Simon. Permanently disabled, she has begun to paint as one of her forms of phsycial therapy. She lives in Irving, Texas with her husband Jim and a plethora of felines.

Courtesy: http://www.williamcookwriter.com

Reviews

[Ben Arzate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full Review

If there’s any book that deserves to come back into print, it’s this one. It pushes the extremes of an already extreme genre, but it also displays some of the best writing I’ve seen in modern horror. Jacob’s horrific images are vivid and beautifully rendered. She takes a real, deep interest in the lives of people who’ve lived among the worst violence on Earth, which elevates it far beyond a simple work of shock art.

[Tony Gragg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this story

Very dark book, but worth the read.5 stars for the characters. It's hard for an author to get me to care about, and hate a character so much, let alone multiple characters. The story bounces around some in different times, but not enough to lose you, or make the narrative difficult. If you love dark horror, this is for you. A warning though, a lot of the imagery is very deviant, and grotesque.

[Phrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you rate a book like Charlee Jacob’s Haunter/Soma below a 5/5? Well, you don’t. I won’t at least. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read & it’s one that I will probably reread until I’m a depraved little old man. 👴🏽 This book utterly cemented that I am a sucker for eloquent prose used to describe the most grotesque imagery imaginable. There’s scenes in this fever dream of a book that I still sit back and think about. The mind that the sadly departed, Charlee Jacob had was unmatched & I look forward to ravenously reading anything else she’s written after this.

So I subscribe to Judith Sonnet’s Book Club (not a real thing YET but it should be.) & she always gushes about this one. (Now I’m gushing about it, somebody get a mop.) Not even a few pages into this book, I could already tell I was in for a harrowing treat. Again, it’s hard to describe Haunter/Soma (“Haunter” is “Soma,” with a few extra chapters) without using the term “fever dream.” What would happen if an actual deity appears on Earth? A god that represents both male & female, both life & death, both carnal love & inconceivable destruction? A whole fucking lot, that’s what. Hallucinatory flashbacks of body-sacrificing cults, shape-shifting mothers, and a tilt-a-whirl experience that made me physically gag. Did I mention the army of shucked human skins? The mummified human “statues?” The amount of times I thought, “Well I’ll never be able to think of that body fluid the same again.” There’s just too much to describe, it’s truly an experience that I hope every horror lover has the chance to read someday. As per usual, trigger warnings galore; not for the weak-stomached; if I’m recommending it, you know it’s hella fucked up. A fucked-up masterpiece that will stick with me & hopefully haunt my nightmares forever. 🖤

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Low value content focused on gore and pedophilia. Total waste of time and money. Use it for kindling.

[Alessandro Hand-glider-Hawthorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

very cool i loved the maggot scene