No One Will Come Back for Usby Premee Mohamed with Soneela Nankani (narrator)
Tantor Media, Inc., 2024. 10 hours. Sci-Fi, Horror, Short Stories.
Here there be gods and monsters—forged from flesh and stone
and vengeance—emerging from the icy abyss of deep space, ascending from dark
oceans, and prowling strange cities to enter worlds of chaos and wonder, where
scientific rigor and human endeavor is tested to the limits. These are cosmic
realms and watery domains where old offerings no longer appease the ancient
Gods or the new and hungry idols. Deities and beasts. Life and death. Love and
hate. Science and magic. And smiling monsters in human skin…
I have to admit that horror is not my favorite genre. Until
now, my only real forays into the realm of horror were the writings of Edgar
Allan Poe, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and the Jane Austen parodies by Seth Grahame-Smith and Ben H. Winters.
However, I was intrigued by the premise of this short story collection, in
which ancient beings come into conflict with our modern world. I quickly found
myself drawn in by Mohamed’s straightforward writing and Nankani’s unsettlingly cheerful
narration. These tales are standalones; two are definitely connected if you’re
paying close attention, but overall the only real common element is the idea
that there are…things out there that
are far older than we can imagine and are probably beyond our comprehension. At
times, they feel like fairy tales--but the older, scarier kind, wherein if the “fair
folk” take notice of you for any
reason, you’re probably doomed. Whether it’s a beehive possessing the little
girls of a village, the “old gods” that bless your farmland in exchange for the
proper offerings, an alien something
that has welcomed unsuspecting human colonists in the worst way possible, a
science experiment gone unbelievably wrong, or even “Death” itself, there are
enough creepy eldritch things in this
collection to keep you awake for a long time.
If you like No One Will Come Back for Us, you might
also like:
by Jordan Peele (editor)
Random House, 2023. 386 pages. Fiction, Horror, Short Stories.
A cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights
of cars should be that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus
ride that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama where several
unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the depths of the
Earth in search of the demon that killed her parents. These are just a few of
the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele's anthology of all-new horror
stories by Black writers.
by Cassandra Khaw
Nightfire, Tor Publishing Group, 2023. 106 pages. Fiction, Horror, Fantasy.
You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid
comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids
have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to
ashes.
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