Publisher – The Shadow Booth

Published - Out Now

Price - £3.99 Kindle eBook £9.99 paperback (details also found at http://www.theshadowbooth.com/p/store.html?m=1#!/Paperbacks-&-eBooks/c/32360028 )

When Eliot first spies the booth at the end of the pier, he wonders what it is. The canvas is faded, the striped pattern barely visible beneath years of dirt. The wooden boards are stained and bare. It’s the crude, handwritten sign that draws him closer, makes him reach out to pull the curtain aside. Enter the Shadow Booth, it says, and you will never be the same again.

Welcome to The Shadow Booth, a new journal of weird and eerie fiction, edited by Dan Coxon. Drawing its inspiration from the likes of Thomas Ligotti and Robert Aickman, The Shadow Booth explores that dark, murky hinterland between mainstream horror and literary fiction.

Volume 1 contains stories by: Gary Budden; Dan Carpenter; Malcolm Devlin; Stephen Hargadon; David Hartley; Richard V. Hirst; Timothy J. Jarvis; Alison Moore; Annie Neugebauer; Sarah Read; Joseph Sale; Richard Thomas; Paul Tremblay

Enter the Shadow Booth, and you will never be the same again…

I’ve reviewed a few of the Shadow Booth series before the last couple of years but hadn’t got around to the first two entries in the series. These are weird tales on the edges of horror and speculative fiction. The weird flicker in the corner of the eye and the unease of an empty room in the dark. The first Tales From The Shadow Booth edited by Dan Coxon, has a fine assortment of tales to pull you into a world like yours but not quite as you know it.

Amongst the tales I enjoyed were

Moths by Malcolm Devlin – A woman has stolen a bike and travels the deserted streets of London looking for a repair shop. A seemingly ‘normal’ tale of someone with a fraying relationship takes a sideways trip into a tale of something lurking in the dark. I love being wrong footed in a tale and this does it smartly and keeps an emotional tug to the tale of trying to escape and also find yourself again.

Where No Shadows Fall by Gary Budden – in some ways this is a tale where little happens, but you’d be missing a walk through a weirder version of the London of the 2010s. We follow an outsider who notices the mythic creatures in the graffiti, the spirits in the air and the strange visitors to the graveyard. Contemporary fantasy that also manages to capture the sense that the UK is fraying, getting nastier and something wicked may be coming. My favourite in the collection just for that sense of atmosphere which I think continues to reflect where we are at the moment.

The Upstairs Room by Richard V Hirst – A father reluctantly stays in one of his son’s properties and he finds a door that shouldn’t be there. A sense of someone lost as their life has lost shape and perhaps just perhaps, they seek escape too or is something preying on them. Mysterious doors in fantasy Are fairly common but I liked the sense of build-up and that our main character actually may welcome finding it again.

That Which Never Comes by Annie Neugebauer – Daniel is a teenager who has a strange encounter that terrifies him one night and yet he can never explain it; a presence follows and influences his life for years onwards. A story about how the unexplainable fear can haunt us for years and in many ways limit us.

Headstones in Your Pocket by Paul Tremblay – A strange tale that mixes US immigration controls with drug abuse, family tragedy and the haunting guilt of childhood. Wonderfully well-structured and disconcerting.

Dead Man’s Curve by Sarah Read - a strange trip in the weird wild west as a ghostly spectre terrifies the roads but the cure may be as bloody. Lots of energy, mythology and horror sit in this tale of unquiet spirits. Another of my favourites.

City of the Nightwatchers by Joseph Sale – a UK town turns into something strange at night transforming the populace, but I also really liked how this tale also has something to say about the habit of people to watch terrible things and do nothing.

A great small collection for those fans of the weird and strange and a great way to find some new authors to track down.