LITERAL REMAINS

On February 25th, 1975, nine-year-old Marcia Trimble walked across the street of her Nashville, TN, neighborhood to deliver Girl Scout cookies.  Her body was found the next month, on Easter Sunday, in a neighbor’s garage. It was evening when Marcia disappeared, other neighborhood kids, including Marcia’s brother, were playing basketball in the driveway; strolling along [...]

An archaeologist, Dilara Kenner, is informed by her missing father’s old friend that her father was in fact murdered.  That old friend of the family is then murdered right in front of Dilara.  And now whoever is behind it all wants to take Dilara out of the picture because she may know too much about her [...]

Nicholas Close is riding his motorcycle on the wet streets when he thinks he sees something just off the road in the trees.  He has a little crash, but he is okay.  He calls home to tell his wife, Cate, that everything is all right and that he may be a little late getting back [...]

It’s New Year’s Eve and 2010 is all but over.  Hard to believe, ain’t it?  But time flies when you’re having fun.  It’s also been said that time goes by quicker the older you get.  Luckily, we just seem to be having a lot of fun. 2010 was a helluva year.  Looking over all the [...]

The Imperial prison barge, Purge, is headed into deep space to unload its cargo of the galaxies worst offenders (especially those damn Rebels) when trouble strikes.  The thrusters blow, and they are set adrift in the deep dark void.  Repairing a spacecraft load of prisoners isn’t top priority for the Empire, so Captain Sartoris knows [...]

Jim Pike, Star Trek fan, is burned out after two tours of duty in Afghanistan.  Having made it back home to Texas alive, the deaths of his fellow soldiers weigh heavily on his mind, especially since he blames himself for some of his brothers in arms not making it back.  Living in Houston, he takes [...]

Joe McKinney’s Apocalypse of the Dead begins two years after the events of Dead City.  After being battered by hurricanes, and then the outbreak of the necrosis filovirus, Texas has been lost.  It has been quarantined, and a wall built to keep the zombies, and their virus, from spreading.  Trouble is, there were still healthy [...]

I should probably give you a word of warning:  this review contains spoilers. I’m guessing that with most people, if they had been viciously raped by a guardian, shot in the head, and buried alive, that would make them not trust people.  Especially if it was your estranged father and half-brother that put a bullet in your brain and buried [...]

Harold Schechter’s Nevermore was first published in 1999, to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s death.  It has been reprinted, and Poe should only be so glad to have not lived to see it.  I’m not against having Poe used in fiction in such a manner, (check out Mark Frost’s excellent masterpiece [...]

Editors Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan have assembled twenty-one stories set in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser universe for the anthology Hellbound Hearts.  Not every story is a winner, but some really knock it out of the park, and I applaud any story that can make me squirm.  These little pieces of hell aren’t for every reader, [...]

As if the hardships of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl weren’t tough enough, a third horror can be found riding the rails and stalking the streets in Robert Jackson Bennett’s debut novel, Mr. Shivers.  For what it’s worth, it does provide a couple of good creep outs, though the titular madman is a [...]

The narrator of Albert Sánchez Piñol’s Cold Skin is an unnamed young man headed for a small, desolate, island in the arctic circle to work as a weather observer.  Ready to assume the post, which lasts for one year, his only other companion will be the lighthouse keeper of the island.  After the tragedies of [...]

Brinkley Springs is a small town on the verge of extinction.  A lot of the old-timers have died off, or at least have one foot planted firmly in the grave.  Businesses have closed with no new ones to take their places.  People have moved away to other towns and cities.  Houses sit empty, FOR SALE [...]

The battle for the free world and the safety of dreams is fought in the sleepy little California town of Palomo Grove.  Wouldn’t you just know it would be in Cali? It all starts decades earlier in the dead letter office of an Omaha, Nebraska, post office.  (Wouldn’t you just know it would start in Omaha?)  Roland Jaffe [...]

The scientists on the reality television show “SeaLife” are real scientists, for the most part.  Some were hired for their looks by the show’s producer, Cynthea Leeds.  Cynthea even hired a phony crew and relegated the Trident‘s real crew to the background.  It all has to look good for the viewers at home.  There are some [...]