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A Season of Loathsome Miracles
A vengeful witch twists time and space on her way to the pyre, and hundreds of years later, a woman loses everything to the addictive lure of omniscience. A Season of Loathsome Miracles has begun, a season untethered to the sun and spanning across centuries. A World War I flying ace is conscripted into war on a cosmic scale, and a musician of the distant future travels beyond known space to play the ultimate concert. A vice cop scours the streets of Manson-era Los Angeles in search of a sentient snuff film while, in our own time, a yoga student learns a new practice that transforms her, body and soul. Max D. Stanton's debut collection assembles thirteen short stories of gruesome horror, bleak ascensions, and gallows humor.
- GenresShort StoriesHorror
204 pages, Paperback
Published June 12, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 28, 2021
This debut collection from Max D Stanton collects thirteen tales of horror that feature;
• A young researcher whose investigation into a controversial anthropologist unveils a deadly ritual, decades in the making
• A dangerous new drug that takes its users beyond the veil of reality, to a place that they may never return from
• An ill-fated voyage to the edge of space where a horror beyond imagining lies in wait
• A Victorian-era automaton that can predict the future, and a young couple who are willing to kill to keep their pasts hidden
• A roadside wax museum hiding a terrible secret within its doors
• A Catholic soldier who flees into a forest to avoid his enemies, and finds something far more dangerous waiting for him inside
It is always a joy to discover a new author whose work you really connect with and I was absolutely blown away by how much I enjoyed ‘A Season of Loathsome Miracles’. Every single one of the tales collected here could have been the standout in a lesser book and the fact that this is Stanton’s debut collection just makes the consistently excellent quality of the stories all the more impressive.
A lot of the stories have fun nods to classic authors. The Lovecraftian style of stories such as ‘The Hargreave Collection’ is very overt, and I also spotted more than one reference to Robert Chambers seminal ‘The King in Yellow’. I enjoyed picking up on these fun little nods and it added an extra layer of engagement for me.
What also impresses is how varied the stories are. The book opens with a period piece about a witch who has been sentenced to death and closes with a fantasy-inspired epic with an uncomfortably sinister undertone. Between those stories, there is the psychedelic (‘The Enlightenment Junkies’), cosmic sci-fi horror (‘The Voyage of the Jericho’), a World War I epic with a twist (‘Flying Machine’) and blackly comedic body horror (‘Hekati Yoga’). There is truly something to suit every taste on offer here.
Selecting a favourite is nigh on impossible. The stories were all so memorable and unique, and the execution so assured, that it is one of those books where every story would no doubt be somebody’s favourite. My personal highlights were ‘Pigman’, an all-out horror tale which had echoes of early Clive Barker and ‘Following Bebe Astara’, a fun and unpredictable cautionary tale of the power of celebrity, which boasts one of the best (and most disturbing) endings of any horror short I have read in a very long time.
‘A Season of Loathsome Miracles’ is, quite simply, one of the best short story collections I have ever read. Each story differs from what preceded it and the breadth of subject and genre that Stanton tackles without sacrificing one iota of quality is breath-taking to read and cements him as a horror author to watch.
You can read more reviews of new and upcoming horror releases at https://www.myindiemuse.com/category/...
I also promote indie horror via Twitter and Instagram - @RickReadsHorror
• A young researcher whose investigation into a controversial anthropologist unveils a deadly ritual, decades in the making
• A dangerous new drug that takes its users beyond the veil of reality, to a place that they may never return from
• An ill-fated voyage to the edge of space where a horror beyond imagining lies in wait
• A Victorian-era automaton that can predict the future, and a young couple who are willing to kill to keep their pasts hidden
• A roadside wax museum hiding a terrible secret within its doors
• A Catholic soldier who flees into a forest to avoid his enemies, and finds something far more dangerous waiting for him inside
It is always a joy to discover a new author whose work you really connect with and I was absolutely blown away by how much I enjoyed ‘A Season of Loathsome Miracles’. Every single one of the tales collected here could have been the standout in a lesser book and the fact that this is Stanton’s debut collection just makes the consistently excellent quality of the stories all the more impressive.
A lot of the stories have fun nods to classic authors. The Lovecraftian style of stories such as ‘The Hargreave Collection’ is very overt, and I also spotted more than one reference to Robert Chambers seminal ‘The King in Yellow’. I enjoyed picking up on these fun little nods and it added an extra layer of engagement for me.
What also impresses is how varied the stories are. The book opens with a period piece about a witch who has been sentenced to death and closes with a fantasy-inspired epic with an uncomfortably sinister undertone. Between those stories, there is the psychedelic (‘The Enlightenment Junkies’), cosmic sci-fi horror (‘The Voyage of the Jericho’), a World War I epic with a twist (‘Flying Machine’) and blackly comedic body horror (‘Hekati Yoga’). There is truly something to suit every taste on offer here.
Selecting a favourite is nigh on impossible. The stories were all so memorable and unique, and the execution so assured, that it is one of those books where every story would no doubt be somebody’s favourite. My personal highlights were ‘Pigman’, an all-out horror tale which had echoes of early Clive Barker and ‘Following Bebe Astara’, a fun and unpredictable cautionary tale of the power of celebrity, which boasts one of the best (and most disturbing) endings of any horror short I have read in a very long time.
‘A Season of Loathsome Miracles’ is, quite simply, one of the best short story collections I have ever read. Each story differs from what preceded it and the breadth of subject and genre that Stanton tackles without sacrificing one iota of quality is breath-taking to read and cements him as a horror author to watch.
You can read more reviews of new and upcoming horror releases at https://www.myindiemuse.com/category/...
I also promote indie horror via Twitter and Instagram - @RickReadsHorror
August 29, 2020
"She had lost her ability to understand conventional language, but she did not need it nor miss it now that she perceived things on such a deeper and more fundamental level. Who needs the signifer when one has the signified? If anything, now she understood how language was a mere brace, a thing that might help a broken-legged man walk but would keep an athlete from sprinting."
Max D. Stanton 'The Enlightenment Junkies'.
Just finished 'A Season of Loathsome Miracles' and all I can say is; 'Duuuuuuuude, THIS is your debut collection?!?!' Mind. Blown. These are heavy horror hitters, written in such a fluid and succinct style I was as enraptured as I was envious. It's full-on, filthy-raw and drenched in occult lore, framed by two stories of avenging witches but hop-scotching over the centuries with distinct voices that manage to juggle humour and sheer depravity in the same breath. I found Max through 'Hekate Yoga' (published by Weirdpunk Books) but new favorites are 'Pigman', 'Following Bebe Astara', 'Alchemical Wedding' and 'The Hero of Magdeburg'.
A book has to *really* impress to get me gushing like this, but if this is just a taster, I can't wait to see what Max does next.
All the gold stars sir and a few black holes thrown in for good measure!
Max D. Stanton 'The Enlightenment Junkies'.
Just finished 'A Season of Loathsome Miracles' and all I can say is; 'Duuuuuuuude, THIS is your debut collection?!?!' Mind. Blown. These are heavy horror hitters, written in such a fluid and succinct style I was as enraptured as I was envious. It's full-on, filthy-raw and drenched in occult lore, framed by two stories of avenging witches but hop-scotching over the centuries with distinct voices that manage to juggle humour and sheer depravity in the same breath. I found Max through 'Hekate Yoga' (published by Weirdpunk Books) but new favorites are 'Pigman', 'Following Bebe Astara', 'Alchemical Wedding' and 'The Hero of Magdeburg'.
A book has to *really* impress to get me gushing like this, but if this is just a taster, I can't wait to see what Max does next.
All the gold stars sir and a few black holes thrown in for good measure!
July 21, 2020
(This review was originally published at Signal Horizon: https://signalhorizon.com/book-review...)
New authors excite me. New voices are the life of this living, breathing thing we call literature, and it’s with these new voices that our genre gains new relevance. Max D. Stanton is a new author and A Season of Loathsome Miracles is his debut collection—an exciting prospect to be sure, but doubly exciting if you first heard of his work through Vastarien—A Literary Journal, where Stanton dropped the mic with a notable, head-turning piece that promised a voice and perspective we’d hear again and again for years to come. A Season of Loathsome Miracles makes good on that ‘again and again,’ and while it suffers from some unevenness, it still shows the promise of an author with talent to spare.
Stanton’s greatest attribute is undoubtedly his wit. What makes A Season of Loathsome Miracles a unique collection is the author’s merging of satire and the Weird. There is cosmic horror, body horror, space adventures, Miskatonic musings, and scary yoga (yes, really)—but at the heart of this is a wry, observational eye for humor. Case in point is the aforementioned “Hekati Yoga,” where a woman gets involved in some all-devouring self-help. Stanton mocks self-care culture, as well as its place within the privileged upper class while delving into Lovecraftian (or perhaps even Ito-ian) transformation. The story’s horror is gruesome, of course, but the gem of it is still its satire. “Following Bebe Astara” is another such story, also a highlight of the collection, that traces a paparazzo’s attendance at a famous-for-being-famous debutante’s party, where the titular’s Bebe’s ascendance is presented as both sinister and cataclysmic. Both of these represent Stanton at the top of his game, poking fun at pop culture while using the tools and language of cosmic horror—where reality television and yoga poses meet their predictive endings in melded flesh and Cronenebergian transgression.
“Burn the Witch” further melds this cosmic sensibility with a classical horror archetype, this time without the focus on humor. I enjoy stories such as this precisely because of their devotion to cross-pollination, and Stanton takes it further than a mere genre exercise by implementing within it a strong feminist perspective. This lens is actually another one of Stanton’s key stylistic indicators, showing up most prominently in the collection’s most disturbing story—”Patent For An Artificial Uterus.” If you had heard of Stanton before this collection, it was probably for this story.
It’s here that we see Stanton as the rising star he can be. It’s a perfect machine, from concept to voice to pacing—and it’s immediately recognizable as a contemporary product in reaction to the modern world’s most aberrant ideologies. Where this could have been a poorly aged treatise on the dangers of incels and Men Going Their Own Way subcultures, Stanton makes the story feel timeless by setting it in the mid-twentieth century. Framing it through letters further grounds it, but it’s the titular idea, that is both absurd, and most unsettlingly: not that absurd after all, that places the story in an uncomfortable liminal space between the realities of our world and the unrealities of fiction.
But, for every of Stanton’s good stories (and unfortunately, even in a lot of his good ones), there are gripes to be had. Heavy handedness comes often and tends to spoil what could be some more nuanced messaging. This rears its head in a number of ways, from stories bashing their way through their endings with well-worn cliches, to dialog that functions as the most explicit of exposition. Too many times in this collection are there instances of characters saying too much. There’s a laborious intent here to write casual, naturalistic dialog that falls flat more often than it works and it’s largely due to characters so often saying exactly how they feel. If only the real world were so simple. It’s hard not to mention this collection’s issues with dialog and heavy-handedness, because they’re so pervasive, and while Stanton’s concepts and enthusiasm generally shine through, a certain suspension of disbelief is demanded of the reader along the way.
Still, even with that criticism, there’s plenty to enjoy in A Season of Loathsome Miracles. Even stories that more readily show their faults, like “Pigman,” still delight with their vivid ideas and forward momentum. This is a new voice, and like anything new, it deserves to be nurtured. Here is an adept writer who shows flashes of brilliance and an all-encompassing enthusiasm and it’s the latter that truly makes this collection worth reading. There’s the sense of awe and respect for the fundamentals of horror, the same open-mouthed gasps you’d have as a ten year old under the covers with a flashlight. This spirit is alive and well in Stanton’s fiction, even at its bleakest intervals. Stanton loves what he writes—and accordingly, his stories conjure the image of a runaway pen, scratching excitedly to get the next transformation, the next genre-hop, or the next punchline down on paper forever. He writes like he expects you under the sheet with him, eager to howl and scream along until the bloody end.
New authors excite me. New voices are the life of this living, breathing thing we call literature, and it’s with these new voices that our genre gains new relevance. Max D. Stanton is a new author and A Season of Loathsome Miracles is his debut collection—an exciting prospect to be sure, but doubly exciting if you first heard of his work through Vastarien—A Literary Journal, where Stanton dropped the mic with a notable, head-turning piece that promised a voice and perspective we’d hear again and again for years to come. A Season of Loathsome Miracles makes good on that ‘again and again,’ and while it suffers from some unevenness, it still shows the promise of an author with talent to spare.
Stanton’s greatest attribute is undoubtedly his wit. What makes A Season of Loathsome Miracles a unique collection is the author’s merging of satire and the Weird. There is cosmic horror, body horror, space adventures, Miskatonic musings, and scary yoga (yes, really)—but at the heart of this is a wry, observational eye for humor. Case in point is the aforementioned “Hekati Yoga,” where a woman gets involved in some all-devouring self-help. Stanton mocks self-care culture, as well as its place within the privileged upper class while delving into Lovecraftian (or perhaps even Ito-ian) transformation. The story’s horror is gruesome, of course, but the gem of it is still its satire. “Following Bebe Astara” is another such story, also a highlight of the collection, that traces a paparazzo’s attendance at a famous-for-being-famous debutante’s party, where the titular’s Bebe’s ascendance is presented as both sinister and cataclysmic. Both of these represent Stanton at the top of his game, poking fun at pop culture while using the tools and language of cosmic horror—where reality television and yoga poses meet their predictive endings in melded flesh and Cronenebergian transgression.
“Burn the Witch” further melds this cosmic sensibility with a classical horror archetype, this time without the focus on humor. I enjoy stories such as this precisely because of their devotion to cross-pollination, and Stanton takes it further than a mere genre exercise by implementing within it a strong feminist perspective. This lens is actually another one of Stanton’s key stylistic indicators, showing up most prominently in the collection’s most disturbing story—”Patent For An Artificial Uterus.” If you had heard of Stanton before this collection, it was probably for this story.
It’s here that we see Stanton as the rising star he can be. It’s a perfect machine, from concept to voice to pacing—and it’s immediately recognizable as a contemporary product in reaction to the modern world’s most aberrant ideologies. Where this could have been a poorly aged treatise on the dangers of incels and Men Going Their Own Way subcultures, Stanton makes the story feel timeless by setting it in the mid-twentieth century. Framing it through letters further grounds it, but it’s the titular idea, that is both absurd, and most unsettlingly: not that absurd after all, that places the story in an uncomfortable liminal space between the realities of our world and the unrealities of fiction.
But, for every of Stanton’s good stories (and unfortunately, even in a lot of his good ones), there are gripes to be had. Heavy handedness comes often and tends to spoil what could be some more nuanced messaging. This rears its head in a number of ways, from stories bashing their way through their endings with well-worn cliches, to dialog that functions as the most explicit of exposition. Too many times in this collection are there instances of characters saying too much. There’s a laborious intent here to write casual, naturalistic dialog that falls flat more often than it works and it’s largely due to characters so often saying exactly how they feel. If only the real world were so simple. It’s hard not to mention this collection’s issues with dialog and heavy-handedness, because they’re so pervasive, and while Stanton’s concepts and enthusiasm generally shine through, a certain suspension of disbelief is demanded of the reader along the way.
Still, even with that criticism, there’s plenty to enjoy in A Season of Loathsome Miracles. Even stories that more readily show their faults, like “Pigman,” still delight with their vivid ideas and forward momentum. This is a new voice, and like anything new, it deserves to be nurtured. Here is an adept writer who shows flashes of brilliance and an all-encompassing enthusiasm and it’s the latter that truly makes this collection worth reading. There’s the sense of awe and respect for the fundamentals of horror, the same open-mouthed gasps you’d have as a ten year old under the covers with a flashlight. This spirit is alive and well in Stanton’s fiction, even at its bleakest intervals. Stanton loves what he writes—and accordingly, his stories conjure the image of a runaway pen, scratching excitedly to get the next transformation, the next genre-hop, or the next punchline down on paper forever. He writes like he expects you under the sheet with him, eager to howl and scream along until the bloody end.
January 22, 2021
A fantastic anthology! Every story is unique and gripping with interesting characters and situations only birthed by weird fiction. Max has a great way of painting vivid and interesting pictures with just a few words. There were several passages that I read a few times just because of the captivating prose. A 2020 must read for horror and weird fiction fans!
November 14, 2021
When the movie The Witch (or The VVitch, if you prefer) came out a few years ago, the trailer included a line from a review that stuck with me: "It feels like we're watching something we shouldn't be seeing." That's sort of how I felt reading this collection, which is -- amazingly -- Stanton's first.
The whole book feels like the type of cursed object from one of its stories and I mean that in the best way. Can't way to see what he does next.
The whole book feels like the type of cursed object from one of its stories and I mean that in the best way. Can't way to see what he does next.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews