What do you think?
Rate this book
What Has Two Heads, Ten Eyes, and Terrifying Table Manners?: An Anthology of Science Fiction Horror
WHAT HAS TWO HEADS, TEN EYES, AND TERRIFYING TABLE MANNERS? features more than a dozen never-before-published short stories that combine Horror and Science Fiction elements.**
These original tales, written by some of the best new genre authors, range from the horrifying to the humorous, the thought-provoking to the thought-twisting. All are devilishly entertaining.
Read about...
A microwave leading to another dimension!
An angry little girl harboring a hungry evil!
A spaceship with mythical beast stowaways!
A woman who gives up sleep, and her sanity!
An aging starlet who makes the ultimate flesh sacrifice!
And much more!
If you enjoy movies like ALIEN, THE THING, EVENT HORIZON, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, and PHANTASM, you'll love WHAT HAS TWO HEADS, TEN EYES, AND TERRIFYING TABLE MANNERS?!
**Print Edition contains two bonus stories, written by Sawney Hatton and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, not appearing in digital edition.
These original tales, written by some of the best new genre authors, range from the horrifying to the humorous, the thought-provoking to the thought-twisting. All are devilishly entertaining.
Read about...
A microwave leading to another dimension!
An angry little girl harboring a hungry evil!
A spaceship with mythical beast stowaways!
A woman who gives up sleep, and her sanity!
An aging starlet who makes the ultimate flesh sacrifice!
And much more!
If you enjoy movies like ALIEN, THE THING, EVENT HORIZON, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, and PHANTASM, you'll love WHAT HAS TWO HEADS, TEN EYES, AND TERRIFYING TABLE MANNERS?!
**Print Edition contains two bonus stories, written by Sawney Hatton and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, not appearing in digital edition.
282 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 2014
16 people are currently reading
377 people want to read
About the author
Sawney Hatton
10 books131 followersSawney Hatton is an author, editor, and screenwriter who has long loved taking trips to the dark side.
Weaned on a steady diet of paranormal horror and creature features, he quickly developed an appetite for all things macabre and monstrous. With early literary influences as tonally disparate as Stephen King’s PET SEMATARY, Evelyn Waugh’s THE LOVED ONE, and Marquis de Sade’s THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM, he enjoys fusing the sinister with the satirical, the abominable with the absurd.
Other incarnations of Sawney have produced marketing videos, attended all-night film fests, and played the banjo and sousaphone (not at the same time).
As of this writing he is still very much alive.
Weaned on a steady diet of paranormal horror and creature features, he quickly developed an appetite for all things macabre and monstrous. With early literary influences as tonally disparate as Stephen King’s PET SEMATARY, Evelyn Waugh’s THE LOVED ONE, and Marquis de Sade’s THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM, he enjoys fusing the sinister with the satirical, the abominable with the absurd.
Other incarnations of Sawney have produced marketing videos, attended all-night film fests, and played the banjo and sousaphone (not at the same time).
As of this writing he is still very much alive.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 17, 2014
Really imaginative stuff, well written, fun to read. Some of the stories had me thinking long after I'd turned off my Kindle. I love short horror stories that really punch your nads in a brief word count. Pretty awesome. The Silence of Hestia really stuck with me, as did Black and Halo. Some really uncomfortable stuff. Well done.
April 23, 2021
The book contains sixteen stories that mix scifi with horror elements, with splatterpunk and body-horror playing a major role in almost all of them. All were compact and fast-paced. My personal favourites were:
1. Evan Purcell's "Microwave Technology"
2. Daniel Hale's "Beauty is Skin"
3. Paul Starkey's "The Silence of Hestia"— the BEST story of this anthology;
4. Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi's "An Amuse Bouche"
5. Ben Piennar's "Halo"
6. Vince Liberato's "Green"
7. James Austin McCormick's "Homecoming"
Those who prefer monster-centric stories with a strong infusion of science fiction would like this anthology.
1. Evan Purcell's "Microwave Technology"
2. Daniel Hale's "Beauty is Skin"
3. Paul Starkey's "The Silence of Hestia"— the BEST story of this anthology;
4. Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi's "An Amuse Bouche"
5. Ben Piennar's "Halo"
6. Vince Liberato's "Green"
7. James Austin McCormick's "Homecoming"
Those who prefer monster-centric stories with a strong infusion of science fiction would like this anthology.
July 12, 2016
A stimulating collection of sci-fi and dark fantasy shorts that proved entertaining reading over the Halloween weekend. The majority of tales earn a solid four stars, but there were a couple five star holdouts for me. I suppose different readers will have different favorites; such is the case with any anthology of tales. The one that most rocked my world was James McCormick’s, Homecoming. It’s the kind of story I would love to have written. The story is set in a near-future world where privileged individuals are among the first to have mindchips.
Our hero is just such a character. He’s a man of the people who is determined to use his undue entitlements for the greater good of humanity. He’s a standout among his kind, however. The father, who he hates, lives with the rest of the entitled elite in a floating city called Eden, viewing the humans below like the ants they are to them. Edenites have access to all the most advanced technologies and, as a consequence, live in a world that is heaven relative to the hell below them. And his father, the most self-serving bastard of them all, is also the most powerful of the Edenites. So when the old man invites his estranged and alienated son, whom he hasn’t spoken to in over twenty years, up to the cloud city in the sky, his son is sure dear old dad is up to something nefarious, as that’s all he’s ever up to.
Our hero is not disappointed on his arrival. Within hours he is fighting for his life. His father is missing the one thing a man who has everything money can buy still can’t possess, youth. But that’s a problem easily solved for the old man. It just comes down to transferring his consciousness into his son’s, and electronically possessing him. The boy will lose claim to his own body and live out the rest of his life banished to the deepest darkest recesses of the old man’s unconscious, assuming he isn’t blasted into oblivion altogether.
The son, expecting treachery, doesn’t exactly come ill-prepared to take on the old man. But the old man is a master plotter and schemer extraordinaire who has spent a lifetime amassing a fortune at other’s expenses by never once letting up on his Machiavellian plays. The son, by contrast, has just had a day to prepare his defenses. Will his mindchip be enough to protect him? Or did his father steal that technology too as he has stolen so many others over the years?
How exactly the rest of their drama plays out is the fun that comes of reading the story. I will tell you this much, it was all just too terrifyingly realistic. It feels more like a crystal ball look on the future, a drama of inevitability, rather than a writer’s wild imaginings. And it’s the kind of drama that would easily have sustained me for an entire novel. Hopefully the author will try some longer-form fiction with just some of the ideas floated in this story.
There are other crowd pleasers, of course, quite a few in fact. One more story I may never shake is called Halo, by Ben Pienaar. Halo refers to a mind implant device sold for behavior modification. It goes through a series of rigorous trials on monkeys before being tested on humans. But is eventually okayed for public use. For less than the price of a car, people can have them implanted in hospitals anywhere in the first world to cure depression, kick bad habits. The behavior modifications in versions 2.0 and 3.0 ultimately get extended to promote exercise, increase attraction to healthy foods and aversion of unhealthy ones. Those on Halo also feel a keen interest to learn and be productive. It’s easy to see how a device like this could spread in popularity. After all, we have any number of drug regimens and other protocols for these things in place now, but none of them are a fraction as effective.
Over time, Halo doesn’t just become a desirable addition to one’s life, it becomes mandatory. Crime is reduced to next to zero, and… well the ripple effects throughout society are more tremendous than you might think. All is well with the world finally, right? Lol. Not exactly. As they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Halo opens us to a riveting, all-too compelling and believable near future dystopian world that puts many to shame.
Honestly, it’s been a long time since I’ve read sci-fi anthologies and shorts, preferring full length novels. But this collection reminded me of the importance of expanding my reading palate. So many wonderful ideas enclosed in these pages could easily be expanded into novels. More to the point, you get treated to more earth shattering views of the future in less time and for less effort than you could possibly get with novels.
Our hero is just such a character. He’s a man of the people who is determined to use his undue entitlements for the greater good of humanity. He’s a standout among his kind, however. The father, who he hates, lives with the rest of the entitled elite in a floating city called Eden, viewing the humans below like the ants they are to them. Edenites have access to all the most advanced technologies and, as a consequence, live in a world that is heaven relative to the hell below them. And his father, the most self-serving bastard of them all, is also the most powerful of the Edenites. So when the old man invites his estranged and alienated son, whom he hasn’t spoken to in over twenty years, up to the cloud city in the sky, his son is sure dear old dad is up to something nefarious, as that’s all he’s ever up to.
Our hero is not disappointed on his arrival. Within hours he is fighting for his life. His father is missing the one thing a man who has everything money can buy still can’t possess, youth. But that’s a problem easily solved for the old man. It just comes down to transferring his consciousness into his son’s, and electronically possessing him. The boy will lose claim to his own body and live out the rest of his life banished to the deepest darkest recesses of the old man’s unconscious, assuming he isn’t blasted into oblivion altogether.
The son, expecting treachery, doesn’t exactly come ill-prepared to take on the old man. But the old man is a master plotter and schemer extraordinaire who has spent a lifetime amassing a fortune at other’s expenses by never once letting up on his Machiavellian plays. The son, by contrast, has just had a day to prepare his defenses. Will his mindchip be enough to protect him? Or did his father steal that technology too as he has stolen so many others over the years?
How exactly the rest of their drama plays out is the fun that comes of reading the story. I will tell you this much, it was all just too terrifyingly realistic. It feels more like a crystal ball look on the future, a drama of inevitability, rather than a writer’s wild imaginings. And it’s the kind of drama that would easily have sustained me for an entire novel. Hopefully the author will try some longer-form fiction with just some of the ideas floated in this story.
There are other crowd pleasers, of course, quite a few in fact. One more story I may never shake is called Halo, by Ben Pienaar. Halo refers to a mind implant device sold for behavior modification. It goes through a series of rigorous trials on monkeys before being tested on humans. But is eventually okayed for public use. For less than the price of a car, people can have them implanted in hospitals anywhere in the first world to cure depression, kick bad habits. The behavior modifications in versions 2.0 and 3.0 ultimately get extended to promote exercise, increase attraction to healthy foods and aversion of unhealthy ones. Those on Halo also feel a keen interest to learn and be productive. It’s easy to see how a device like this could spread in popularity. After all, we have any number of drug regimens and other protocols for these things in place now, but none of them are a fraction as effective.
Over time, Halo doesn’t just become a desirable addition to one’s life, it becomes mandatory. Crime is reduced to next to zero, and… well the ripple effects throughout society are more tremendous than you might think. All is well with the world finally, right? Lol. Not exactly. As they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Halo opens us to a riveting, all-too compelling and believable near future dystopian world that puts many to shame.
Honestly, it’s been a long time since I’ve read sci-fi anthologies and shorts, preferring full length novels. But this collection reminded me of the importance of expanding my reading palate. So many wonderful ideas enclosed in these pages could easily be expanded into novels. More to the point, you get treated to more earth shattering views of the future in less time and for less effort than you could possibly get with novels.
September 30, 2014
I love this book, a collection of short stories which are fabulously different, from the insane and dead funny to spine chilling and creepy, if you love the surreal, with horror meets science fiction; this beautiful collection is a must.
October 19, 2016
What a tour de force.
I am a James McCormick fan and he didn’t disappoint with his short story in the Anthology of horror stories, What Has Two Heads, Ten Eyes, and Terrifying Table Manners?
What a superbly crafted piece of fiction Homecoming is. This is of course James’ forte as he conjures up a paradise for the wealthy elite (who obtained their wealth by less than ethical methods) suspended in the clouds.
After hacking into Alex’s brain on the Internet, his devious and thoroughly nasty father, who he hasn’t seen for two decades and wasn’t keen on meeting again, lost the battle to live forever and died, but not before harnessing his mind into circuits and God knows what else so he exists as energy patterns. What he lacks is a body and, you guessed it, Alex is his first choice. “It’s called “It’s called digital induced possession,” Alex explains to Sian his wife, who had made the trip with him. No slouch himself when it comes to virtual technologies, his company is the leader in the field, to which his father had no compunction in helping himself.
Is a holographic highway to a floating world in the atmosphere the future? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Nor do I fancy arachnids and optispheres doing my bidding, even if they are cybernetics.
I am sure it is food and drink for sci -fi afficionados, but all I know is it scares the hell out of me. The end will keep me up at nights now.
Read it if you dare.
I am a James McCormick fan and he didn’t disappoint with his short story in the Anthology of horror stories, What Has Two Heads, Ten Eyes, and Terrifying Table Manners?
What a superbly crafted piece of fiction Homecoming is. This is of course James’ forte as he conjures up a paradise for the wealthy elite (who obtained their wealth by less than ethical methods) suspended in the clouds.
After hacking into Alex’s brain on the Internet, his devious and thoroughly nasty father, who he hasn’t seen for two decades and wasn’t keen on meeting again, lost the battle to live forever and died, but not before harnessing his mind into circuits and God knows what else so he exists as energy patterns. What he lacks is a body and, you guessed it, Alex is his first choice. “It’s called “It’s called digital induced possession,” Alex explains to Sian his wife, who had made the trip with him. No slouch himself when it comes to virtual technologies, his company is the leader in the field, to which his father had no compunction in helping himself.
Is a holographic highway to a floating world in the atmosphere the future? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Nor do I fancy arachnids and optispheres doing my bidding, even if they are cybernetics.
I am sure it is food and drink for sci -fi afficionados, but all I know is it scares the hell out of me. The end will keep me up at nights now.
Read it if you dare.
December 22, 2016
I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
I haven't read very many anthologies, but I found this collection to be really enjoyable. Of course, there were some stories that I enjoyed more than others, but over all, I would recommend this book if you're interested in short stories, but also science fiction and horror. What I really liked about this collection was that all the stories were so different, and all the writing styles were different. It was really refreshing.
I haven't read very many anthologies, but I found this collection to be really enjoyable. Of course, there were some stories that I enjoyed more than others, but over all, I would recommend this book if you're interested in short stories, but also science fiction and horror. What I really liked about this collection was that all the stories were so different, and all the writing styles were different. It was really refreshing.
February 9, 2019
Great compilation
I enjoyed the original short stories in this book. Very easy to read and pick up after some time away. This book added some spice to a somewhat long dreary week. Highly recommend this book to sci-fi and horror fans.
I enjoyed the original short stories in this book. Very easy to read and pick up after some time away. This book added some spice to a somewhat long dreary week. Highly recommend this book to sci-fi and horror fans.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews