Weird Tales #365

by Jonathan Maberry (editor)

Featuring all-new tales of dark fantasy, cosmic horror, supernatural revenge, and the sorcery of terror from masters of the craft, this issue includes the following stories and poems:

“Her Happy Place” by Alma Katsu
“The Thing in Jesse’s House” by Heather Graham
“The Dreams in the Cipher House” by Maurice Broaddus
“Shadow Plane” by Fran Wilde
“Tales from Alexandria” by Priya Sharma
“The Secret Priest” by Anne Walsh (poetry)
“Apocalypse Lights” by Yvonne Navarro
“Devoured by the Soiled and Peeling Wallpaper” by Jake Bible
“The Beast of Bray Road” by Gabrielle Faust
“A Beautiful Darkness” by Christina Sng (poetry)

145 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

JONATHAN MABERRY is a NYTimes bestselling author, #1 Audible bestseller, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 4-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, comic book writer, and producer. He is the author of more than 50 novels, 190 short stories, 16 short story collections, 30 graphic novels, 14 nonfiction books, and has edited 26 anthologies. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series starring Ian Somerhalder. His 2009-10 run as writer on the Black Panther comic formed a large chunk of the recent blockbuster film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. His bestselling YA zombie series, Rot & Ruin is in development for film at Alcon Entertainment; and John Wick director, Chad Stahelski, is developing Jonathan’s Joe Ledger Thrillers for TV. Jonathan writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and action; and he writes for adults, teens and middle grade. His works include The Pine Deep Trilogy, The Kagen the Damned Trilogy, NecroTek, Ink, Glimpse, the Rot & Ruin series, the Dead of Night series, The Wolfman, X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate, The Sleepers War (with Weston Ochse), Mars One, and many others. He is the editor of high-profile anthologies including Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, The X-Files, Aliens: Bug Hunt, Out of Tune, Don’t Turn out the Lights: A Tribute to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Baker Street Irregulars, Nights of the Living Dead, Shadows & Verse, and others. His comics include Marvel Zombies Return, The Punisher: Naked Kills, Wolverine: Ghosts, Godzilla vs Cthulhu: Death May Die, Bad Blood and many others. Jonathan has written in many popular licensed worlds, including Hellboy, True Blood, The Wolfman, John Carter of Mars, Sherlock Holmes, C.H.U.D., Diablo IV, Deadlands, World of Warcraft, Planet of the Apes, Aliens, Predator, Karl Kolchak, and many others. He the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, and the editor of Weird Tales Magazine. He lives in San Diego, California. Find him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com

Reviews

[Geve_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun collection, short and sweet. I didn't love a few of the stories but ended up liking two quite well:
Shadow Plane: Pretty fun semi-cosmic horror with dyatlov pass and mouths of madness vibes. I didn't love the ending, but the build up was pretty good. The format of vlog was at times fun at others clunky, but overall a pretty good short story.
Devoured by the soiled and peeling wallpaper: Not particularly unique "zombie" story, but this was a good read. The story gave just hints here and there and let the world unfold. I thought it was quite well composed if not the most creative. I enjoyed it.

Stories that had good points or were fine:
Dreams in the cipher house: This one probably would have been my favorite were it not for the fact that I got confused by the action at times. I couldn't always follow what was going on, but otherwise thought it was a cool world.
The thing in jesses house: Not all that unique but at least a satisfying story about a haunted house.

forgettable:
Her happy place: eh, not that unique or interesting.
Tales from alexandria: clunky, not horror, dragged, reminded me of starless sea, which I found boring. Probably better for fantasy reader.
Apocalypse lights: forgettable.

Overall, this was okay, I will def read another Weird tales collection.