Monster Double Feature - a duo of abominationsFrom the author of the Shadow Fabric mythos comes this 78-page chapbook featuring two stories. A British traveller desperate to escape his past finds himself at the heart of a Vietnamese legend, and learns why the Mekong Delta is known as River of Nine Tails. And a regular parcel collection from a neighbour becomes a descent into terror through the online game, Reanimation Channel.
RIVER OF NINE TAILS (originally published in In Darkness, Delight: Creatures of the Night anthology by Corpus Press, 2019)
I got a BAD case of the heebie jeebies from this one.
Vietnamese river setting, world travellers, a little DiCaprio The Beach feel for me, river monsters, ritual sacrifice, and evolutionary themes.
This was an adventure tale filled with some gory fun and there were even some tentacles! You can’t ever go wrong with added tentacles if you ask me.
REANIMATION CHANNEL (originally published in The Black Room Manuscripts Vol.4 anthology by The Sinister Horror Company, 2018)
A tale pulsing with raw tension and twisted-as-holy-hell horror. There’s no hanging around in this adrenaline-pumping descent into messed-up sci-fi horror. Akin to Richard Stanley’s cult film ‘Hardware’ (1990), the story pumps the fast and furious action into its narrative like there’s no tomorrow, exploring the disturbing possibilities of the dark web, with the corruption of biotechnology and the horrific consequences it could cause. But it’s the pounding, unrelenting drive of the story that ultimately makes it such an intense and captivating read. There’s no putting the book down once you’ve started reading the tale. It cranks up the blood-greased gears at an alarming rate, hurtling us through a chaotic storm of chaos and monstrous carnage. Cassell doesn’t hold back one bit in upping the ante at every opportunity. Creating a story that reaches catastrophic proportions far quicker than you would have thought possible. This my friends is how you deliver grisly sci-fi horror.
