#Rick Hautala
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|“Moon Bog” Book Cover|
Author; Rick Hautala
#moon bog#art#cover#book cover#book cover art#horror#horror novels#rick hautala#aquatic themes#aquatic horror
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B&W edit (not mine) of Rick Hautala book cover photo amazon.com
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Book Review: Classics Mutilated: CTRL-ALT-LIT edited by Jeff Conner
Thirteen stories in which classic tales and authors are combined with horror or fantasy tales and/or tropes. Or, as the editor calls it, Monster Lit, only with an updated twist or two to keep the new sub-genre alive. Each story has a black and white drawing that invokes the tale that will follow. I’m tempted to copy some of them to frame, they are that good. I’ve never heard of this publisher, IDW out of San Diego until I stumbled across this book at my used book store.
As with any collection, there are highs and lows. Sadly I DNF’d two of the stories, one due to animal/animal-human hybrid abuse. Abuse, especially of animals and children, is a hard line for me, one I do not handle well. If it is a main part of a story, I’m not reading, no matter who the author is or how talented they might be. Most of the stories within this collection were good enough, a few were fantastic. Would I recommend it? Primarily for horror fans. The literature side was more prevalent at the beginning compared to later in the story. A good read overall. 3 out of 5.
“The Fairest of Them All” by Sean Taylor. The dwarves worry about the human girl that they’ve taken into their lives and home. Leader, believed to be the oldest, knows that sooner or later the Wicked Queen will find Snow. Then there will be choices to be made. When an enchanted mirror is discovered deep in the mine, with a girl trapped inside, they take it to Snow. Wow, this really twists the two stories (“Snow White & the Seven Dwarves” and “Alice in Wonderland”) off-kilter, yet there is also a certain logic to this mashup. As they say, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. 4 out of 5
“Anne-Droid of Green Gables” by Lezli Robyn. Matthew Cuthbert needed help on the farm so, using his savings, he purchased a refurbished prototype android that was never put into mass production. Only he didn’t get the expected androgynous adult droid. Instead he receives a female child overflowing with curiosity about the world and longing for both a bosom friend and a forever home. Let’s start with that illustration, an adorable mix of android and big-eyed rag doll. It makes you want to hug her and keep her safe. As to the story, there are a few changes, other than the obvious. For instance, Matthew and Marilla are a married couple rather than siblings. I absolutely enjoyed this sweet story! 4.5 out of 5
“Little Women in Black” by Louisa May Alcott & Rick Hautala. The March girls are knitting socks for the Union soldiers while lamenting being poor. Their father is serving as a chaplain in Mr. Lincoln’s Army. Beth appears to be a ghost, unable to interact with her family despite her best efforts, yet still present. Jo is still tomboyish, although there are hints that she might actually be trans, or would’ve been in modern times. She makes it clear that she would much prefer to be male and fights the attempts to make her into a proper woman. Jo still meets Laurie, but here we’re given strong hints that he is from another planet. I was fascinated by this story, but I felt it deserved expansion. 4 out of 5
“Death Stopped for Miss Dickinson” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Poet Emily Dickinson, very much an introvert, meets a mysterious man in the graveyard outside her window. She becomes terrified that he could become immortal if her sister doesn’t destroy all her work after dying. The tale is jumpy, told from different viewpoints, but never settling long enough to connect. Perhaps a more fluid method of storytelling would’ve increased my enjoyment as there were some jewels of pure beauty in the story, but the nonlinear method just constantly jolted my enjoyment. And, by the way, was Thomas Higgonson really needed? I think not. My first disappointing story. 3 out of 5.
“Twilight of the Gods” by Chris Ryall. Loki is exiled to Jotunheim, his presence unwanted by the people of Asgard. Fine with him as Asgard was no longer working for him. He’s dropped into a new environment that helps Loki find himself. That’s pretty much as far as I got. I could blame Marvel and Tom Hiddleston giving us such a marvelous and witty version of Loki or perhaps the fact that this is a mashup with 90210, a series that I abhorred (along with all the other CW/UPN series in this vapid style), but the reality is that Ryall’s writing voice alternately bored and annoyed me. DNF
“Pokky Man” by Marc Laidlaw. When Hemlock Pyne was found “asleep” at a Pokkypet Reserve, his films were turned over to filmmaker Vernor Hertzwig. Hertzwig interviews Pyne’s friends and acquaintances as well. Huh, a skewed look at Pokeman and Werner Hertzog in this deep dive of what happened to Pyne. Or perhaps it should be why it happened is more accurate. After the disappointments of the last two stories, I was happy to find myself engrossed once again. Strange and intriguing. 3.5 out of 5
“Vicious” by Mark Morris. Sid Vicious is sick, turning on his friends and bandmates, dealing with what is probably crabs, and not giving a shit about pretty much anything when a beautiful black woman appears in the broom closet where Sid had fucked the American fangirl. He’s at a crossroads and must make a decision that will direct his life. This one was hard to rate, but the writing is hardcore and, based on what I remember of Vicious, dead on characterwise. 3.5 out of 5
“From Hell’s Heart” by Nancy Collins. Three men, all new to the trapping trade, decide to pool their resources and partner up. It is successful until the night they trap a strange creature who manages to bite one of them in the hand. As the hand becomes horribly infected, the unnamed narrator goes to the trading post for laudanum, meeting a man named Ahab, a former sea captain, who asks to accompany him back to the cabin where his two partners await. Once there, they discover one man dead and the other no longer recognizable as human. Ahab relates an extraordinary tale before following the creature into the night. I delayed reading this for a bit as I was not a fan of either Moby Dick nor Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, the inspirations for this story. Yet I found it surprisingly intriguing, although with a most disturbing ending. 3 out of 5.
“Frankenbilly” by John Shirley. While working as a soundman on the set of “Billy the Kid Versus Dracula”, our unnamed narrator meets a mysterious cowboy who claims to be the real Billy the Kid, although he prefers to be called Henry now. He relates a strange tale of how he met the doctor who inspired Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein before changing his mind about letting that story out. The mixture of fact (the film, the location, the actors involved, some of the history of Billy and Pat) and fiction makes for an interesting horror tale. 3.5 out of 5.
“The Green Menace” by Thomas Tessier. Fleeing Washington after his Senate censure, Senator Joe McCarthy checks into a fishing lodge in the middle of Wisconsin to reconsider his future plans, brood, and do some heavy drinking. Instead he finds himself at war with frogs unlike any he has seen before. I’m honestly not certain why this story appealed to me considering my absolute abhorrence of McCarthy, but it did pull me into its universe. I was pleased to see that the narrator, young Kurt, comes to see McCarthy for what he really was as he grew up and did some research. 3.5 out of 5.
“Quoth the Rock Star” by Rio Youers. When a raven appears at a Doors concert, Jim Morrison is drawn to follow the creature despite believing that it might be a hallucination due to LSD. Walking through the streets of Baltimore, Jim comes to believe that it might be the soul of a broken person. He didn’t expect to meet the long dead Edgar Allan Poe. There begins a partial meeting of two men with much in common, merging into a fight for control, for life, for another chance to create. Two troubled geniuses, both burning themself out through depression, in desperate search for love and a different life. Youers’ voice is so compelling. Knowledge of both men’s lives and works will definitely add to a reader’s enjoyment. 4 out of 5.
“The Happiest Hell on Earth” by John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow. After 37 years in solitary confinement, the elephant man breaks loose, committing suicide, and leaving behind a manuscript that describes how the Animal Wars came to be. I was nervous enough to read this story based on the art that preceded it, but once I started reading, I knew it was more than I could stomach. The animal and animal/hybrid abuse is throughout the entire story, the callousness too much for me. Before I quit, I saw references to Dr. Moreau, another story I find difficult to read, and some barely disguised swipes at Disney. DNF
“Dread Island” by Joe R. Lansdale. Huck Finn and Jim are convinced by Becky Thatcher to go after Tom Sawyer and Joe Hardy when they decide to go to Dread Island. The island, set in the middle of the Mississippi River, can only be seen on the first night of a full moon. Its reputation is that of deadly danger, but Huck cannot abandon his friend and disappoint Becky. Jim reluctantly goes with him. I’ve never read anything from Lansdale before although I’m aware that he has a strong fan base in SFF. If his books are as imaginative and engrossing as this story, I can understand why. First I love that the relationship between Jim and Huck is very father and son as well as friends. Plus Jim is so much more knowledgeable about things and Huck is willing to listen, even if he still insists on going after Tom. Lansdale has mixed Twain’s Huck with Uncle Remus’ Brer animals and Cthulhu into a horrifying adventure. There are even a few recognizable guest appearances from both literature and history, giving a hint as to how this island operates. Brilliant! 4 out of 5.
#book review#Classics Mutilated#Jeff Conner#Sean Taylor#Lezli Robyn#Louisa May Alcott#Rick Hautala#Kristine Kathryn Rusch#Chris Ryall#Marc Laidlaw#Mark Morris#Nancy Collins#John Shirley#Thomas Tessier#Rio Youers#John Skipp#Cody Goodfellow#Joe R. Lansdale#horror#horror & fantasy mashed with literature#fantasy#short story collection
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Moonbog by Rick Hautala, 1982. As far as I can tell, the 1986 reprint has the same cover.
THE EVIL GLOW OF THE MOON...
lit the path as twelve-year-old Billy Wilson walked past the bog. He knew he shouldn't have gone near the inky shadows of the swamp — but something forced him to come closer to the yawning darkness, the suffocating tangle, the flesh-tearing brambles of Holland Bog.
THE MURKY DEPTHS OF THE BOG...
sucked the boy into its fetid earth and claimed its human sacrifice. But one child wasn't enough. It needed a second, a third — and then nothing could stop the unquenchable hunger, the raging bloodthirst of the MOONBOG.
Kindle ebook from Amazon
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The Ray Bradbury Challenge: Day 363
The Ray Bradbury Challenge: Day 363
Short story: The Hum by Rick Hautala, from The End of the World by Robert H. Greenberg (ed.), 2010.
Poem: Perihan by Sara Deniz Akant, listened to on the Poetry Now podcast, from August 2017. Highly Recommended.
Essay: Diesel Engine, listened to on the BBC’s 50 Things that Made the World podcast, from November 2016. Highly Recommended.
What is the Ray Bradbury Challenge?
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Dead Voices by Rick Hautala. Cover art by Richard Newton. #horror https://t.co/R202We1SPs
Dead Voices by Rick Hautala. Cover art by Richard Newton. #horror https://t.co/R202We1SPs
— Michael Sellars | Horror Writer (@HorrorPaperback) Feb 16, 2022
from Twitter https://twitter.com/HorrorPaperback
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raindrops, scented candles, peaches, spring flowers!!
Ah hello! Thank you for the ask!
(From This)
raindrops: what’s your favourite song to unwind?
So much of my music probably isn’t unwind music, the old favourites of Mumford and Sons is pretty good. Especially cause I know all the songs and words so it’s comfortable.
scented candles: do you enjoy reading? if so what’s your favourite book?
I love reading and I don’t know if I have an ultimate favourite.
Last Sam's Cage by David A. Poulsen
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Throat Culture by Christopher Golden & Rick Hautala
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
peaches: do you enjoy photography?
Like legit photography, I have no real skill in but I take a shit ton of photos. I bought a hard drive so I’d have somewhere to put them all.
spring flowers: what’s your favourite flower/plant?
My favourite flowers are Forget-Me-Nots!
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Did you miss our special guest speakers John G. Hartness of Falstaff Books, and publicist Beverly Bambury? Join us online tomorrow for our regularly scheduled sessions and our final guest: Presentation and Q&A with Lynne Hansen Sunday, December 15 at 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. on the main stage Lynne Hansen is a horror artist who specializes in book covers. She has 19 years of book marketing and promotion experience, including serving for six years as senior editor for a small press publishing company. Lynne’s clients include Cemetery Dance Publications, Thunderstorm Books, and Bloodshot Books, as well as folks like New York Times bestselling authors Christopher Golden, Rick Hautala, and Thomas E. Sniegoski. For samples of her work for them and other fantastic authors like Jeff Strand, James A. Moore, Owl Goingback, Amber Benson, Peter Atkins, Lisa Morton, and many more. Get your questions ready, because Lynne is eager to help you achieve your publishing goals. Claim your FREE ticket to this online event at this link! http://rfr.bz/i9r2mp https://ift.tt/2PPiraH
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Another former co-worker, @Sheri sebastiangabriel, hath penned a novel, and I’m super-excited to read it. Love the cover. And not every debut gets compared to Rick Hautala, Charles L. Grant and Stephen King. #horror #darkfiction #spirits #books #amreading https://www.instagram.com/p/B0XQX6xFKHe/?igshid=klcp2j5yiagi
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Just Pinned to Malus Domestica's Pins: "Moonbog" *** Rick Hautala (1982) http://bit.ly/2V0rGpj
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Little Brothers by Rick Hautala, 1988
In Maine, little brothers can be hell...
It has been five years since Kip Howard saw his mother killed horribly by a blur of "little brown things." Five years of nightmares and a terror of dark places. Five years of struggling to overcome what must have been just his imagination…But the "untcigahunk," the Indian word for "little brothers," are no one's imagination. Hideous forest creatures who feed every five years on human flesh, the little brothers are about to emerge from underground once again. Only this time, there will be no escape for the young boy who witnessed their last feast.
Kindle ebook from Amazon
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Skull Full of Spurs
A few weeks back, I mentioned that I had the anthology, Skull Full of Spurs on the way. It was the last of the weird western anthologies for me to read. I read it in a week which is a good speed with my schedule these days.
Details: Published by Dark Highway Press in 2000. A small press outfit that put out two books. Hardback, 245 pages, originally sold for $29.95. The editors are Jason Bovberg and Kirk Whitham. Thirteen stories, introduction by Norman Partridge and afterword by Bovberg and Whitham. I was able to pick up a new copy for $10.00 on E-bay.
The authors contained therein for the most part were horror writers active in the 1990s.
Norman Partridge’s introduction attempts a faux tall tale tone:
“Skin that bandanna off your face, I’ll bet that you’re smiling real mean, too. Because you recognize this landscape, and you like what you see. That saloon over there, the one where they serve up tequila with a strychnine chaser. . . “
The introduction mentions the obligatory movies including Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter. Joe Lansdale gets mentioned for Dead in the West. Ambrose Bierce, Chad Oliver, and Richard Sale are mentioned. I would like to know what weird westerns Oliver and Sale wrote. Sale was a prolific pulp writer who appeared in the general fiction and detective pulp magazines in the 1930s and early 1940s. An interesting addition to this book is an author bibliography at the end of each entry including books, short stories, comics, and nonfiction.
“Pages Stuck By a Bowie Knife to a Cheyenne Gallows” by Brian Hodge is a first person narrative of a Missouri bushwhacker who is cursed along the way.
Jack Ketchum’s “Luck” has dark humor underlying it of down and out outlaws contemplating their misfortune.
“Mister Shade” by Richard Lee Byers was one of my favorite stories in the book. A supernatural being commands a group of dead desperadoes who attack Fort Smith, Arkansas. This is what a weird western should be.
Ryan Cooper’s “The Deviltry of Elemental Valence” has a modern-day setting start and ending sandwiching a tale. There is a Lovecraft tie-in. The story is rather scatological with some graphic sex going on in addition.
Yvonne Navarro is another of those prolific horror writers of the small press in the 1990s. “Divine Justice” has an interesting plot of two travelling menagerie owners finding an angel with a broken wing and what happens when greed takes over.
I did not care for the premise of Adam-Troy Castro’s “The Magic Bullet Theory” of a bullet suspended in almost complete suspended animation in a western town.
I have read some short fiction from the late Rick Hautala before. I remember him as a writer of novels for Zebra Books. “The Screaming Head” has a modern day setting with a connection to a past homicidal gang of psychopaths.
M. Christian’s “Medicine Man” is one of those short horror stories with a twist that would not be out of place in a comic book like The House of Mystery.
“The Devil’s Crapper” by Lawrence Walsh is a tale of a gateway to Hell in an outhouse in the New Mexico wilds. Men who have done bad things do a spell of warning people away as a form of penance.
Nancy Collins was in the Robert E. Howard United Press Association once upon a time before I was a member (and Official Editor for a spell). She hits the right note in “Calaverada” about bounty hunters in Mexico hunting down a gang of outlaws. This was a real traditional weird western that hit the right notes. I liked it enough to get her weird western collection Dead Man’s Hand that includes this story. Stay tuned.
Richard Laymon was a writer who went back to the early 1970s. He had a run of horror novels for Warner, Headline, and Leisure. He seemed primed for bigger things but died in 2001. “The Hangman” is the tale of the ghost of a psychopath who hunts by might.
“Ain’t” by Michael Heck is a story that I just did not quite get. A guy in jail with a midget sheriff.
“Showdown at Stinking Springs” is humorous of an interview of an old guy who is the sole survivor of a fire that destroyed the town of Stinking Springs in 1882. Turns out a titanic orgasm blasted the town.
There you have it. A book of stories written by late 20th Century horror writers. It reads like it with the graphic sex going in some of the stories.
Thoughts– the supernatural element was weak in many of the stories. Homicidal maniacs are a factor, very 1990s. I have mentioned before that my gripe with weird western anthology is a western element. At least there were no steam powered robots.
So, this was not the worst weird western anthology I have read but it did not rock my world. I at least read the whole thing. The stories, for the most part, were written in a straight forward manner. I am glad I got the book at 2/3 off the original price of $29.95. The book is well made and designed but the contents not so much at the original asking price.
It just seems something is missing in these weird western anthologies I keep reading. I will throw down the challenge for someone to put together an anthology with consistent good background, no snark, no smirk, no irony, no steampunk, no cuteness, no corn pone narration. I want a book that is filled with dark, grim stories of Aztec mummies, monsters, Indian demons, 10 foot tall giants, and some big reptiles with historically accurate details (and especially guns). I have mentioned before that getting western writers to try it from their end might be the way to go. It is difficult as you master not one but two genres. I think that is why I probably like Great Ghost Stories of the Old West the most as the contents are by western and not s-f/horror/fantasy writers.
Skull Full of Spurs published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames
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The Wildman (Signed/Limited Edition) by Rick Hautala (2008-08-19) http://ift.tt/2BgLLkT
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