NEW WRITINGS IN HORROR & THE SUPERNATURAL Volume Three

I'm thrilled to be in this amazing anthology!

Many thanks to Trevor Kennedy of Phantasmagoria Magazine for this amazing review - note, this is the first time my horror has been referred to as "hardcore!"

NEW WRITINGS IN HORROR & THE SUPERNATURAL VOLUME THREE edited by Stephen Jones

Review by Trevor Kennedy

OVER HALF A century after the original two volumes were published, NEW WRITINGS IN HORROR & THE SUPERNATURAL has been resurrected, this time by editor Stephen Jones, with indeed some high-quality genre writings to boot. A weird fiction-glazed window into twenty-first century literary talent.

The original two volumes were edited by David A. Sutton, so it only feels appropriate that Sutton himself opens this anthology with his story ‘Ancient Remains’, a reflective piece on the ageing process and the trials and tribulations it brings with it, relayed with a more subtle, suggested supernatural backdrop. In fact, this is something of a recurring theme throughout the book, with at least three of the other stories featured addressing similar issues, all (including Sutton’s) at times authentically touching and melancholic. The other three works in question are Lisa Morton’s ‘Forgetting’, Steve Rasnic Tem’s ‘Falling’ and ‘Ending in Ruin’, Sharon Gosling’s folk horror novella.

Collectively, Jones has brought together a mix of the more experienced genre stalwarts – like Ramsey Campbell (whose work features in the original Sutton volumes), Graham Masterton and Garry Kilworth – alongside some newer faces, all melding together expertly. The stories themselves are also varied, the more “quiet" horror running well beside the “out there” material and the darkly comedic, like Scott Bradfield’s enjoyable ‘Death Blows®’ about an app that gives its user the date of their final doom. There’s even a fantastic, genuinely tense East End gangster tale with a supernatural twist by the always brilliant Michael Marshall Smith, sublimely titled ‘Charlie Wordsworth and His Host of Fucking Daffodils’.

Simon Kurt Unsworth’s contribution, ‘The Fish Platform’, is hard-hitting stuff, as, at times, is ‘The Monster’ by Keith Rosson, though with a somewhat quirky, comedic edge to it. The aforementioned Garry Kilworth channels Poe in his likeable ‘The Murders in the Bois Sombre’, as seemingly does CC Adams, along with du Maurier/Hitchcock, in ‘The Legacy’, featuring some unsettling imagery and a nice twist.

We get more “hardcore” horror with Mia Dalia’s ‘Fear, Inc.’ – another noteworthy addition with some on-the-ball commentary on the modern phenomena of moronic “extreme sports” and even more moronic social media “influencers” – and ‘My Grandfather, the Grave Digger’ from Graham Masterton and Karolina Mogielska, a tale which also pleases and has something of a Gothic feel to it.

There are additional masterful works included by Reggie Oliver with his ‘Crocodile Jam’, featuring odd happenings at a public school, Caitlín R. Kiernan with a great “lost film” take titled ‘Dark-Adapted Eyes’, Tyler Jones and his unpredictable “haunted house” piece, ‘The House of the Horse’, and David J. Schow’s rather haunting, atmospheric ‘Indenture’.

Ramsey Campbell – who never disappoints – gives us the creepy tale of a woman with a mobile phone and an irritating mother being stalked in a most unusual manner in ‘Nothing But Pictures’.

As an overall package, it really is tricky to find fault with NEW WRITINGS IN HORROR & THE SUPERNATURAL VOLUME THREE. Here’s hoping for a fourth volume and perhaps even a long-running series, the past which Sutton put in motion all those decades ago, returning now in style through Jones and PS Publishing.

NEW WRITINGS IN HORROR & THE SUPERNATURAL VOLUME THREE is available to purchase via the following link and other outlets: New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural Vol 3 hardcover edited by Stephen Jones