Unspeakable Horror 2 Abominations Of Desire

by Vince A. Liaguno

Desire– the feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state. What happens when human desire twists…bends…warps…mutates? What happens when that desire is fed…or even starved? In this sequel to the Bram Stoker Award®-winning anthology, Editor Vince Liaguno assembles a literary pantheon from the LGBT and horror communities to explore the dark underbelly of desire. From unrequited love and repressed lust to consuming grief and the unquenchable thirst of addiction…from unfathomable sexual undergrounds to unspeakable perversions creeping into everyday suburbia, these abominations of desire will leave you gasping for breath and your taste for terror satiated. Gemma Files, Laird Barron, Stephen Graham Jones, Lee Thomas, Helen Marshall, David Nickle, Lisa Morton, Norman Prentiss, Greg Herren, Tom Cardamone, Marshall Moore, Evan J. Peterson, Chad Helder, Brad Hodson, Michael Hacker, R.B.Payne, Martel Sardina, Martin Rose, and Erastes.

Genres: Horror

408 pages, Paperback

Published October 4, 2017

About the author

Vince Liaguno is the Bram Stoker Award-winning editor of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR: FROM THE SHADOWS OF THE CLOSET (Dark Scribe Press 2008), an anthology of queer horror fiction, which he co-edited with Chad Helder. His debut novel, 2006’s THE LITERARY SIX, was a tribute to the slasher films of the 80’s and won an Independent Publisher Award (IPPY) for Horror and was named a finalist in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards in the Gay/Lesbian Fiction category.

He also edited BUTCHER KNIVES & BODY COUNTS (Dark Scribe Press, 2011), a collection of essays on the formula, frights and fun of the slasher film, UNSPEAKABLE HORROR 2: ABOMINATIONS OF DESIRE (Evil Jester Press, 2017), and UNSPEAKABLE HORROR 3: DARK RAINBOW RISING (Crystal Lake Publishing, 2023). Most recently, he co-edited OTHER TERRORS: AN INCLUSIVE ANTHOLOGY (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2022), which was nominated for both the prestigious Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Awards. His debut poetry collection, DEMO REELS AND ARTHOUSE MADNESS, releases February 2025 from Raw Dog Screaming Press.

He currently lives in the mitten-shaped state of Michigan, where he is a licensed nursing home administrator by day and a pop culture enthusiast by night whose jam is books, slasher films, and Jamie Lee Curtis. He is a member (and former Secretary) of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), International Thriller Writers (ITW), and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC).

Reviews

[Trina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good collection of stories.

[Gyalten Lekden · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed this collection of 20 stories, I was a little underwhelmed. Most of the stories were juts okay, with none really blowing my mind, and I always hope for at least one or two of those in a collection. More importantly, though, many of the stories had a similar vibe. Maybe due to the prompt of the anthology, the interplay between desire and horror, or maybe just how things ended up, many of the stories have a more contemplative or dark psychological tone. There are a few that stray from that, a cryptid here, some body horror there, but those felt like exceptions. I generally like to read collections all at once, to see how the editors structured the collection into something ideally better than its individual parts, as well as how different authors may have approached the same idea or theme. Here that tendency may have detracted from my enjoyment, a little, because I just didn’t experience a great amount of differentiation across stories, the collection as a whole didn’t feel dynamic. This was especially disappointing because I had previously read the third installment in the “Unspeakable Horror” series, and enjoyed that collection quite a bit. This collection wasn’t bad, and none of the stories were bad, and maybe if I read them on their own instead of as part of a collection I would have enjoyed them more. As it was this collection was fine, entertaining, and occasionally gripping, but mostly it was just okay. I am still glad to have it on the shelf, and I appreciate the collection of authors included, it just fell a little short of what I hope for in a collection like this.

(Rounded up from 2.5 stars).