Category Archives: Book Review

Book Review: Corporate Warriors (by P.W. Singer)

Posted on by Arleigh

“The privatization of warfare allows startling new capabilities and efficiencies in the ways that war is carried out. At the same time, however, the entrance of the profit motive onto the battlefield raises a series of troubling questions—for democracy, for ethics, for law, for human rights, and for national security.” — P.W. Singer

P.W. Singer’s Corporate Warriors is one of the most important books about the rise of private military companies, or PMCs—businesses that sell military and security services for profit. Singer makes it clear that this is not a brand-new concept. As long as humans have fought wars, there have been soldiers willing to fight for whoever pays them. Ancient mercenaries fought for gold just as modern ones fight for governments, corporations, and even wealthy individuals. What makes today’s version different is how organized and professional these groups have become. They now look and operate like big international businesses, complete with CEOs, contracts, shareholders, and company logos.

Singer argues that these firms are now a permanent feature of modern warfare. Instead of ragtag mercenaries, many private contractors are highly trained professionals offering specialized skills that national militaries either can’t provide or don’t want to keep on the payroll full time. Governments and companies rely on them because they can move quickly, fill skill gaps, and handle dangerous or politically sensitive work. Still, that doesn’t mean they come without serious problems. Singer’s main concern is how much military power is now being handled by people who technically aren’t soldiers and don’t always fall under military law.

In the book, Singer sorts modern PMCs into three main categories. First are the “provider” companies like the South African firm Executive Outcomes, which became famous in the 1990s for fighting on the ground in places like Angola and Sierra Leone. These companies bring in their own troops, equipment, and training programs, often taking on direct combat roles. Next are “consulting” firms such as Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), an American company that employs retired generals and officers to train and advise foreign militaries. The third kind includes “support” firms such as Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR, which focuses on logistics, food, construction, and base operations. These companies don’t fight but keep everything else running so that soldiers can focus on combat.

All three types share something in common: they are run like global corporations. They make money through contracts, report to shareholders, and market themselves as professional service providers. Singer notes that even major multinational companies now use PMCs for everything from executive protection to negotiations with risky foreign governments. Governments, especially the United States and its allies, also rely heavily on these firms to handle noncombat work—guarding bases, moving supplies, and securing reconstruction projects. This trend, according to Singer, represents a major shift in how warfare is organized.

The biggest concern is accountability. Private contractors don’t always fall under the same legal rules as soldiers. They operate in what Singer calls a “gray zone,” where war crimes or abuses can occur without clear consequences. One striking example came in 2004 when four American contractors working for Blackwater were ambushed and killed in Fallujah, Iraq. The brutal event shocked the public and revealed how central private contractors had become to America’s military presence there. Later incidents, like those involving private interrogators at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, further blurred the lines between government responsibility and outsourced violence.

Singer’s warning is that handing so much military work to private companies risks separating war from national accountability. If a contractor commits a crime, who is responsible—the company, the client government, or the individual employee? When fighting becomes a business, the incentive to keep costs low and profits high can make ethics and oversight an afterthought.

Events since the book’s release have proven many of Singer’s points, especially the rise and collapse of Russia’s Wagner Group. Led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner became one of the most dangerous and talked-about private armies in the world. Unlike most Western firms, it operated under direct government influence while pretending to be independent. Wagner first gained attention during Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, then expanded into conflicts in Syria, Libya, and parts of Africa. The company didn’t just fight wars—it also ran businesses, gained control over mines, and seized energy resources. In short, it blended war and profit in a way that gave Russia global reach without official military involvement.

Wagner also showed how dangerous this model can be. Its fighters were accused of widespread brutality and war crimes, yet Russia could deny any official connection. And when Prigozhin turned against the Kremlin in mid-2023, leading a short-lived march toward Moscow, the illusion of control collapsed. His death later that year and the redistribution of Wagner’s forces into state-controlled units in 2024 revealed just how unstable such private armies can become. Wagner proved Singer’s central argument: once private forces gain real power, they can threaten not just world order but their own creators.

Other countries have followed this path with their own versions. In China, companies like Frontier Services Group protect overseas projects linked to the Belt and Road Initiative. In Turkey, SADAT provides training and advisory services aligned with the government’s foreign policy. The United Arab Emirates has hired foreign-led PMCs to conduct security operations in Yemen and parts of Africa. These cases show that many governments now use PMCs as unofficial extensions of their militaries and foreign policy tools—cheap, adaptable, and politically flexible.

However, while Singer’s analysis stands out for its clarity and early insight, it is not perfect. One issue is that he treats the rise of PMCs as almost inevitable, a natural result of globalization and free markets. In practice, their growth is far more dependent on political opportunity and state willpower than on market logic alone. Wagner’s collapse, for example, showed that governments can shut down or absorb these forces when they decide they’ve become too independent. Singer also tends to treat PMCs as private commercial actors, but many of today’s most influential groups operate as semi-official arms of the state rather than as free-market enterprises. That distinction matters because it changes how these organizations behave and how accountable they can realistically be.

Another problem is that Singer’s proposed solutions rely on greater regulation and international cooperation—goals that sound reasonable in theory but are difficult to achieve. International law struggles even to manage traditional militaries, so expecting it to control private ones that operate across borders is optimistic. Singer’s faith in future accountability mechanisms somewhat underestimates how fragmented and self-interested international politics can be.

Finally, Singer tends to focus mainly on Western examples, especially the U.S. and U.K., where the PMCs act as corporate service providers. In doing so, he underplays the different way non-Western states, especially Russia, China, and Middle Eastern powers, use them as political instruments rather than for profit. The world of PMCs today is not just about private enterprise—it’s about the blending of private business with government strategy.

Despite these weaknesses, Corporate Warriors remains a landmark work. Singer’s writing is clear, grounded, and unusually balanced for a topic that often invites conspiracy theories or alarmist rhetoric. He helps readers understand not just who these companies are, but how they fit into a global system where armies, corporations, and governments increasingly overlap.

More than twenty years on, the issues he described have only grown. PMCs still operate on nearly every major battlefield, from Eastern Europe to Africa. While governments continue to rely on them, meaningful oversight has not caught up. Even with its flaws, Corporate Warriors is still the best starting point for understanding how war became a global business, and why that shift will keep shaping world politics for decades to come.

The Killing Joke, Book Review by Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

This was a hard book to review. I had avoided reading it for years because there’s an SA, but also- A CLOWN! Look, clowns are out to murder you! I mean for real they are clowns – see below

Why would you think these creatures would not want to murder your face?! Yes, they have balloon animals, but that that’s just to lure you into for their feeding!
“The Killing Joke” is a Joker origin story and how he was born out of one bad day. We begin with Joker as a struggling comedian with a child on the way. He is desperate for cash and decides to participate in a heist to get out of poverty. The crooks that he teamed up with to do the heist target the Joker’s former job at a chemical plant had always planned on making him the fall guy for the heist. His wife dies by a product malfunction, sending Joker spiraling. Technically, Joker is not born until after he falls into the chemicals, but we see his name pre-Joker; so, maybe he was always Joker? I’m not sure.

The origin story is interwoven with the Joker shooting and SAing Commissioner Gordan’s daughter and generally driving him insane. There is also A LOT of nudity that I wasn’t prepared for with a fair amount of leather. Joker kidnaps Gordan, strips him nude, puts some leather on him, and then makes him look at horrify images of the SA. Honestly, why not just kill Joker? Of course, we would. We’d shoot him on sight as a terrorist. Instead of doing the normal choice and having Joker killed, Gordan wants him taken alive. WHY? Really, why? What more does he have to do? They make a point that Joker wants to show that anyone could be driven insane by one bad day, but the real insanity is not shooting all of these super villains on sight!

The book ends with a joke with the symbolism that life itself and all of the evil he committed was also a joke. It was purposefully ambiguous, but it did scare me- BECAUSE CLOWNS!



Horror Book Review: Blood Meridian (by Cormac McCarthy)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” — Judge Holden

Blood Meridian initially appears to be a story set in the violent American West, but beneath the surface, it presents a profound exploration of evil—a world where history and cosmic darkness merge in a landscape drenched with blood and despair.

Cormac McCarthy’s novel defies easy classification. It follows the Kid, a teenage drifter who joins the ruthless Glanton gang of scalp hunters during the lawless 19th-century borderlands. Yet this story is not about heroism or conquest; rather, it reveals a brutal, merciless world governed by cruelty and cosmic malevolence.

No traditional heroes emerge here. Every character either inflicts horror or suffers it, trapped in an endless cycle of violence. The Kid moves passively through this brutal landscape, lacking the conviction or agency typical of Western protagonists. This moral ambiguity immerses readers in a narrative saturated by horror at every turn.

Violence permeates the novel—not merely through vivid depictions of scalping and massacres but as a fundamental force governing existence itself. Violence shapes life’s fragile and transient nature. Spilled blood binds the characters and marks a universe where death and cruelty endure indefinitely. The visceral portrayal underscores violence as a relentless ritual as pervasive and elemental as the landscape itself.

At the violent core stands Judge Holden—monstrous and compelling. His towering, hairless, albino form immediately signals his unnaturalness: massive, lacking body hair, and displaying a blank, eerily calm expression that can swiftly shift into chilling ferocity. This physical otherness aligns him with mythic terrors that transcend humanity.

Holden’s vast intellect spans languages, science, and philosophy, making him appear nearly godlike. Yet his worldview exalts war and violence as the universe’s ultimate realities. He declares, “war is god,” and insists everything exists only under his knowledge and consent. He casts violence as the ultimate power and true order, positioning himself both as agent and embodiment of these forces.

He bears striking resemblance to the archons of Gnostic thought—malevolent cosmic rulers who imprison humanity in suffering and ignorance. Holden’s bald, pale form and inscrutable nature make him a living symbol of the universe’s cold indifference to human pain and violence. He embodies cosmic cruelty and indifferent fate, physically manifesting the harsh, uncaring forces shaping mankind’s brutal destiny.

Holden shrouds the narrative with cosmic dread. His mysterious origins, command over knowledge and power, and seeming invincibility elevate him beyond mere man. He becomes an embodiment of eternal evil and incomprehensible cosmic forces that dominate the novel’s bleak universe.

The desert landscape intensifies this cosmic horror. It is not mere backdrop but a symbol of a universe indifferent to life and moral distinctions. Traditional binaries of good and evil dissolve into endless cycles of destruction. Mercy and justice vanish, replaced by an uncaring void that swallows hope and meaning. The environment thus anchors the story’s existential dread.

The Kid’s journey reveals the story’s psychological core—his slow destruction of innocence. Initially barely aware of right and wrong, he sinks deeper into the Gang’s savagery. The line between victim and perpetrator blurs until innocence disappears. This loss exposes a deeper horror: the self’s annihilation through human cruelty.

McCarthy’s prose reflects this mythic and cosmic scale. His dense, biblical cadence challenges readers but deepens the story’s epic tone. Sparse punctuation and sweeping descriptions evoke a vast, harsh world that feels inevitable and overwhelming. This rigorous style immerses readers in a mood of doom and fatalism, amplifying the narrative’s grim vision.

Philosophically, Blood Meridian meditates on timeless cosmic evil. Holden transcends mere antagonist status to become a metaphysical force of destruction, both ancient and eternal. The novel’s final scenes suggest this cosmic power will forever govern human suffering and violence.

The novel echoes ancient philosophies that portray evil as pervasive and intrinsic. Violence weaves into existence’s fabric, turning the universe into a dark battleground where malevolent forces prevail unchecked. The text confronts complex themes of fate, power, and the buried truths beneath history’s surface.

Seen holistically, Blood Meridian transcends its Western roots to emerge as a raw chronicle of violence, evil, and cosmic dread. It offers no solace or redemption—only exposure to a primal darkness where humanity’s basest impulses attain mythic significance.

This potent combination of brutal historical insight, existential horror, and mythic storytelling delivers an intense, unforgettable literary journey. The novel stands as both a frontier saga and profound philosophical inquiry into evil itself—forcing confrontation with humanity’s deepest darkness and the indifferent vastness of the cosmos.

By articulating these themes through complex narrative, striking symbolism, and demanding prose, McCarthy not only reconstructs the American West but also presents a timeless meditation on human nature and the universe—a work that challenges readers intellectually and viscerally in equal measure.

Horror Book Review: Blue World (by Robert R. McCammon)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Even in a blue world filled with sorrow, the heart continues to seek love, light, and meaning beyond the darkness.”

Robert R. McCammon’s Blue World is a captivating collection of short stories that showcases his mastery of horror, while also exploring themes that go beyond the usual genre boundaries. Originally published in 1990 and recently reissued by Subterranean Press, this collection serves as a natural companion to Stephen King’s Night Shift. Both authors start with classic horror ideas but make them their own through distinctive voices. For readers who enjoy stories that combine suspense and psychological depth with moments of quiet reflection, Blue World is a deeply rewarding read.

The collection features a wide range of stories that feel connected by McCammon’s strong sense of character and place. In many tales, ordinary settings—such as small towns and suburban streets—become stages for hidden dangers. For example, “He’ll Come Knocking at Your Door” starts off with a familiar neighborhood atmosphere that slowly reveals an undercurrent of menace. McCammon’s ability to turn the everyday into a place of suspense taps into a universal fear: that the safe and known can quickly become threatening.

Themes of change, survival, and the strain on the human mind surface in stories like “Strange Candy” and “I Scream Man!” His characters often face challenges that test not just their bodies, but their minds and morals. McCammon skillfully combines moments of fast-paced action with quieter, thoughtful passages, which make the terror hit deeper because we connect with the characters on an emotional level.

“Night Calls the Green Falcon” stands out for its creative blend of horror and nostalgia. It tells the story of a down-on-his-luck actor caught in the pursuit of a serial killer, echoing the style of old adventure serials with cliffhanger scenes. This story reveals McCammon’s talent for mixing different genres in fresh ways without losing emotional depth.

The most distinct story in the collection is the title novella, “Blue World.” Unlike the other stories, it steps away from supernatural horror and focuses on a very human and emotional tale. It follows a priest who falls in love with a porn star, and both become targets of an obsessed fan. McCammon uses this story to explore themes of love, faith, and redemption, diving into moral and emotional complexities rather than scares or ghosts.

This change in tone creates a thoughtful space within the collection, inviting readers to reflect on themes that contrast with the fear and darkness in other tales. While most stories rely on supernatural or psychological horror, “Blue World” confronts the dangers and redemption found in real human relationships, showing a different but equally compelling side of McCammon’s storytelling.

McCammon’s writing throughout is vivid and sensory, pulling readers into each story’s environment. Whether describing the sweaty tension of summer in “Yellowjacket Summer” or the bleak landscapes of “Something Passed By,” the settings are tangible and emotionally charged. This helps both the horror and the personal stories feel authentic and immediate.

Across the collection, McCammon’s characters stand out because they are fully realized people rather than simple victims or villains. They grapple with their fears and flaws in ways that feel realistic and relatable. Their struggles add psychological weight to the stories, making themes of loss, survival, and redemption more powerful.

Ultimately, Blue World is more than just a collection of horror stories—it is a showcase of Robert McCammon’s storytelling skill and emotional range. Much like King’s Night Shift, it offers a variety of stories from suspenseful shocks to deep, character-focused explorations. The inclusion of the novella “Blue World,” which steps outside the typical horror mold, adds richness to the collection and highlights McCammon’s ability to write compelling stories about human resilience and complexity.

For readers who enjoy a mix of supernatural thrills, strong characters, and thoughtful moments, Blue World provides a memorable journey through fear and hope, darkness and light. It stands as a significant work in modern horror literature and beyond, inviting readers to feel deeply as well as be scared. This collection proves that the craft of horror can encompass more than just fright—it can tell stories about the very heart of human experience.

Horror Book Review: Night Shift (by Stephen King)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Some fears are not of ghosts or demons but of loss, regret, and the quiet mistakes that haunt us long after the night has ended.”

Stephen King’s Night Shift is a fascinating look at the beginnings of one of the most prolific horror writers of our time. Many of these 20 stories first appeared in men’s magazines like Cavalier, Penthouse, and Gallery, where King started building his reputation from the ground up. This collection offers a wide range of horror—from supernatural thrills to deeply emotional tales—crafted with a realism that makes the scares hit harder. The book naturally moves from more traditional horror into stories that shine a light on human fears and regrets.

Although the collection opens with “Jerusalem’s Lot,” a story about haunted history, one of the more striking horror tales is “The Mangler.” It tells of a demon-possessed industrial laundry machine that becomes a deadly force. King’s detailed storytelling turns familiar machinery into something terrifying, driving the suspense from beginning to end.

“Sometimes They Come Back” takes a more emotional route. It centers on a man who is haunted by the death of his brother, with ghostly bullies from his past making a frightening return. This story blends the supernatural with raw grief, showing that some wounds never fully heal.

“The Last Rung on the Ladder” provides a quiet but powerful punch. It reflects on childhood, family, and the pain that comes with lost chances. This tale stands out by demonstrating King’s skill in generating a deep sense of dread through emotional weight rather than monsters.

In “One for the Road,” the tension ratchets up with a story set during a harsh snowstorm near a vampire-infested Maine town. The narrative grips you with its chilling atmosphere, isolation, and fight for survival. Notably, this story acts as a postscript to King’s novel Salem’s Lot, offering an eerie glimpse into what happens long after the main events, expanding that dark world in a satisfying way.

“Strawberry Spring” unspools slowly like creeping fog. Set on a college campus haunted by a serial killer, the story uses an unreliable narrator and a murky atmosphere to create a sense of growing paranoia and confusion.

Finally, “I Know What You Need” explores obsession cloaked in supernatural mystery. A college student experiences an unsettling friendship that appears to improve his life, but underlying this is a dark manipulation. King carefully builds this eerie tale with layers of tension and reveals the dangerous side of desire.

What makes these tales work so well together is King’s ability to vary tone and pace while grounding the stories with believable characters and locations. The rapid heartbeat of “The Mangler” contrasts with the quiet heartbreak of “The Last Rung on the Ladder.” The claustrophobic fear in “One for the Road” stands alongside the fog-thickened dread of “Strawberry Spring,” and the slow-burning menace in “I Know What You Need” rounds out the mood spectrum.

More than just scary stories, Night Shift taps into fears we all recognize: loss, guilt, loneliness, and obsession. King layers excitement with emotional truths, creating stories that stick with you. These fears aren’t just the stuff of monsters—they’re very real and human.

The order of the stories themselves feels intentional—starting with classic supernatural spins like “Jerusalem’s Lot,” and moving toward more internal, emotional terrors in stories like “Sometimes They Come Back” and “The Last Rung on the Ladder.” Some stories also ground horror in real-life struggles, like dangerous, grueling jobs in “Graveyard Shift” and “The Mangler,” where the horror is as much about the setting as the supernatural.

A lot of these stories have found their way to the screen, but while the films are entertaining, most take only loose inspiration from the originals and often don’t capture the full power of the tales. This disconnect doesn’t lessen the strength or impact of King’s writing, which remains impressive and affecting.

Ultimately, Night Shift is a journey through many forms of fear—from sharp shocks to slow-building unease—and its stories feel personal and alive. Whether it’s an industrial machine come to life, ghostly revenge, or a vampire town trapped in eternal winter, King’s tales connect with readers on multiple levels.

If you want horror that thrills but also hits close to home, Night Shift is a brilliant starting place. These stories show early signs of why King remains a master: he discovers monsters not just in the shadows, but woven into the fabric of everyday life. Sometimes, those are the ones that scare us the most.

Horror Comics Review: Evil Ernie

Posted on by Arleigh

Evil Ernie’s legacy began with two key comic series that deeply shaped his character and cemented his place in horror comic history. Firstly, the original Evil Ernie mini-series, published in 1991 by Eternity Comics, introduced readers to Ernest Fairchild—a tortured, telepathic boy whose severe abuse and trauma spiraled into the transformation that birthed Evil Ernie. This five-issue series laid the foundation for the character’s dark mythology, blending psychological horror with supernatural violence and heavy metal influences. Here, Ernie’s pact with Lady Death and the introduction of his iconic “Smiley” button set the tone for his psychotically violent crusade against humanity, portraying him as a vengeful, undead antihero fueled by rage and heartbreak.

Following the original run, the Chaos! Comics imprint expanded on Ernie’s mythos with significant titles like Evil Ernie: Resurrection and Youth Gone Wild. These series pushed the narrative further into apocalyptic territory, showcasing Ernie’s increasing power, his undead army, and the world-spanning consequences of his rampage. Resurrection delved into Ernie’s return from death with amplified powers, setting the stage for his global campaign of destruction. Youth Gone Wild, evokes the rebellious spirit captured both visually and thematically, tying Ernie’s anger and chaos to a larger cultural moment reflective of 1990s heavy metal and punk ethos.

Crucially, the role of Lady Death in these series cannot be overstated. Initially a spectral figure who offers Ernie the love and acceptance he craves in exchange for his violent pledge, Lady Death evolved into the defining character of the Chaos! Comics universe. Her complex origins as the mortal Hope, betrayed and transformed into the queen of Hell, give the stories emotional depth and mythic resonance. Her “bad girl” gothic aesthetic and tragic backstory resonated powerfully with fans, propelling her to overshadow even Ernie himself in popularity and cultural impact.

Evil Ernie’s narrative and character design were heavily influenced by the prevailing heavy metal and splatter punk subcultures of the time. His wild hair, leather attire, and violent, nihilistic persona echoed the sonic aggression and rebellious imagery of bands like Slayer and Overkill, who also explored themes of alienation, death, and wrath. This cultural synergy imbued the comics with an authenticity that attracted a dedicated fanbase attuned to these genres. The explicit violence and body horror scenes showcased the splatter punk influence, pushing boundaries in graphic storytelling to depict raw, unapologetic gore that underscored Ernie’s tragic antiheroism.

The Evil Ernie series was more than just a comic about zombies and destruction; it was a cultural artifact infused with the angst, aggression, and rebellion of ‘90s youth subcultures. It forged a new path in horror comics by blending psychological trauma, supernatural terror, and social outcast narratives while crafting a mythos that was both cosmic and personal. The enduring popularity of Ernie, alongside characters like Lady Death and Purgatori, validated Brian Pulido’s vision and solidified a franchise that remains influential in horror and dark fantasy comics.

In summary, the original Evil Ernie mini-series set the brutal, tragic tone that defines the character, while subsequent series like Resurrection and Youth Gone Wild expanded his mythic scope, fueled by a unique fusion of horror, metal, and punk. Lady Death’s rise within these narratives added emotional complexity and gothic grandeur that enriched the universe Pulido created, creating a layered, compelling world that still captivates cult fans today. Together, these series and characters have left an indelible mark on horror comics, affirming the powerful cultural interplay between music, graphic storytelling, and dark fantasy.

Horror Book Review: The Cipher (by Kathe Koja)

Posted on by Arleigh

Kathe Koja’s The Cipher stands as a landmark achievement in splatterpunk and psychological horror, noted for its unapologetic dive into existential dread, fragmented narrative, and raw emotional landscape. Its reputation as a genre-defining work is well-earned, yet it also represents a demanding reading experience that diverges sharply from more traditional horror novels. For readers looking for straightforward thrills or clear-cut storytelling, Koja’s novel may feel opaque or even impenetrable. However, for those willing to engage deeply, The Cipher offers a poetic and unsettling exploration of alienation, obsession, and the unknowable.

At the heart of the novel’s challenge is Koja’s distinctive writing style. Eschewing conventional chapter structures or linear storytelling, The Cipher operates as an immersive psychological tapestry woven through the fragmented consciousness of its protagonist, Nicholas. The prose flows in long, often unruly sentences filled with impressionistic and surreal imagery that echo Nicholas’s damaged, chaotic inner world. His thoughts, memories, and anxieties drift in and out of focus, making the narrative feel like a fever dream or an inside-out nightmare. For readers new to literary horror or those more comfortable with clear plots and defined characters, this style can seem alienating and difficult to parse. The book frequently moves between blurred timelines, hallucinations, and raw emotional bursts, challenging the reader to accept ambiguity and psychological discomfort rather than easy narrative anchors.

The story revolves around Nicholas and Nakota, a dysfunctional and toxic couple trapped in a bleak urban environment that acts almost as a third character. This grim unnamed city, reminiscent of the American Rust Belt in decay during the early 1990s, exudes a cold, oppressive atmosphere that mirrors the emotional desolation of its residents. The setting’s grime and desolation bolster the novel’s themes of hopelessness and fragmentation, with Koja’s spare prose turning every scene into a sensory experience of discomfort and decay.

Central to the plot—and the horror—is the discovery of the Funhole, a mysterious and unnaturally black void located in a storage room of the apartment building. Hardly celebrated for whimsy, the Funhole is a locus of enigmatic and malevolent power that both fascinates and consumes. Nicholas and Nakota’s experiments with the Funhole—dropping insects, animals, and eventually cameras—reveal its capacity to distort and corrupt physical reality in grotesque ways, leading to disturbing mutations and aberrations. However, the real horror lies not just in these transformations but in the obsessive pull the Funhole exerts on the characters, particularly Nakota’s increasingly toxic fixation and Nicholas’s reluctant fascination.

Rather than relying on external action or traditional plot progression, The Cipher roots its terror in the psychological and emotional unraveling of its characters. The story is less about what happens and more about how it feels to fall apart in the face of an unknowable force. The degradation of Nicholas and Nakota’s relationship—marked by manipulation, dependency, and alienation—is the emotional thread binding the novel’s narrative chaos. This internal focus demands patience and a willingness to sit with discomfort from the reader; those unaccustomed to introspective or experimental fiction might find the experience frustrating or exhausting.

Overlaying all this is a strong vein of cosmic horror. The Funhole is presented as an unknowable abyss, an entity without explanation, echoing the eldritch voids found in the works of Lovecraft, Blackwood, and Machen. It refuses to comply with human curiosity or understanding, warping reality and identity in ways that defy definition. Unlike classic monster tales, the horror here is existential and diffuse, manifesting as a dark reflection of humanity’s inability to grasp the true nature of the universe or even themselves. In this respect, Koja’s work is a meditation on obsession and transformation, where the boundary between cosmic indifference and personal disintegration disappears.

While The Cipher has been celebrated for its ambition and literary risks, it offers little reprieve in terms of character likability or narrative closure. The protagonists are deeply flawed, often unlikable people caught in spirals of self-destruction. The novel’s resolution is ambiguous and bleak, leaving the audience with more questions than answers, emphasizing themes of loss, transformation, and the unknowable. It challenges standard genre expectations and eschews easy emotional satisfaction, positioning itself as a novel that unsettles rather than comforts.

Readers familiar with the edgier corners of horror fiction—fans of Clive Barker’s visceral fantasies or Poppy Z. Brite’s explorations of identity and desire—will find much to admire in Koja’s approach. The novel’s body horror is not gratuitous but symbolic, a metaphysical cracked mirror reflecting profound anxieties about embodiment, control, and alienation. Its grim realism and morally complex characters resonate alongside challenging literary experiments such as Fight Club and House of Leaves, where mental and existential crises are front and center.

In sum, Kathe Koja’s The Cipher stands as a bold, uncompromising exploration of despair, obsession, and cosmic terror wrapped in a chaotic, poetic narrative. It demands engagement on a deep level, rewarding readers with a unique experience that expands the scope of horror fiction. This is a novel best suited for those who prize atmosphere, psychological depth, and existential questioning over conventional scares or plot-driven horror. While it may prove inaccessible or taxing for some, for others it offers a transformative journey into the dark, tangled spaces of the mind and the universe—an unsettling masterpiece that lingers long after the final page is turned.

Horror Book Review: Off Season (by Jack Ketchum)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Man is the cruelest animal.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Jack Ketchum’s Off Season wasn’t my first venture into extreme horror, but it was an important stop along the way in my continuing exploration of splatterpunk—those raw, confrontational horror stories that don’t flinch from showing you every grisly detail. I’d already spent time in the grand guignol worlds of Edward Lee, Richard Laymon, Poppy Z. Brite, and Brian Keene, and I thought I’d built up a decent resistance to the genre’s more intense offerings. Then I opened Off Season, and within a few chapters, I realized this was going to hit differently. It’s less a fun horror romp and more of an ordeal—one that leaves you feeling like you’ve just crawled out the other side of something vicious, primal, and deeply unsettling.

Ketchum builds his novel around the infamous legend of the Sawney Beane clan—a family of cannibals who, according to folklore, hunted travelers along the Scottish coast in the 15th century. He strips that story out of its historical setting and drops it into the rocky, isolated coast of Maine, replacing the medieval backdrop with an environment that still feels dangerous and untamed. The setup is simple enough: a group of friends from New York rent a secluded cabin, expecting a peaceful getaway, and instead find themselves hunted by a clan that’s every bit as savage as their legendary counterparts. There’s a vibe here that’s partly Romero zombie survival horror, partly John Carpenter claustrophobic menace, but the big difference is that these villains aren’t supernatural—they’re unsettlingly human, real in their hunger and their primal needs. They do what they do because it sustains them, and somehow that makes them worse than any ghost or monster.

While Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes mined similar ground with a more stylized, exploitation-film aesthetic, Ketchum’s take leans hard into plausibility. His cannibal clan feels like a natural, if disturbing, product of generations of isolation and inbreeding, kept alive through hunting, killing, and eating whoever wanders too close. That realism is what makes the violence hit so hard. Ketchum describes their assaults on Carla, her sister Marjie, and their companions with an unapologetically matter-of-fact tone—no flourish, no dramatics. The worst moments aren’t always the attacks themselves, but what he shows inside the clan’s cave home. Kids scamper across jagged stone like feral animals, gnawing meat straight off the bone. Adults pair up in incestuous “unions” meant only to keep the bloodline going. It’s both grotesque and disturbingly believable.

That refusal to hold anything back is part of why Off Season has been linked to splatterpunk, the horror subgenre that gained fame (and infamy) for pushing gore, moral transgression, and human depravity to the forefront. Some critics wrote it off as “horror pornography,” too focused on shock value, but fans saw it differently. In Ketchum’s hands, it’s not about gore for gore’s sake—it’s about stripping away all the comfort zones and exposing something ugly yet honest. When you finish one of these novels, you’re not left thinking “That would never happen.” You’re left thinking “That could happen. Under the wrong circumstances, that would happen.”

One of Ketchum’s storytelling choices is speed. The pacing is fast—there’s just enough time to understand who the characters are before the horror crashes down. That keeps tension high but also means the victims aren’t deeply fleshed out. They’re more representative than personal, standing in for civilization as a whole rather than pulling us into their emotional worlds. You don’t get many chances to connect with them deeply. Instead, you watch them transform from vacationers into survivors, and in some cases, those survivors become something just as savage as the people hunting them.

That shift happens in the second half, when the remaining characters fight back. The counterattack is satisfying in its own crude way, but Ketchum never dresses it up as righteous victory. The brutality of revenge feels just as ugly and unrelenting as the initial assault. By the end, what’s been preserved isn’t humanity—it’s just the body count in favor of the people we started with. The survivors get out, but they’re not unchanged. It’s not the kind of ending that makes you breathe a sigh of relief. More like an exhale that admits, “We made it, but look at what it cost.”

When Off Season first came out in 1980, it caused an immediate stir. Its content was so graphic that some bookstores wouldn’t carry it, and an edited version had to be released to calm the outrage. Years later, Ketchum went back and put out the uncut edition, restoring everything that had been stripped away. Reading that version today is reading the novel as he intended—nothing softened, nothing taken off the table. And in the world of extreme horror, that kind of authenticity is prized. It’s part of what’s given Off Season its staying power; it’s not just a book, it’s a dare.


Underneath all the blood and carnage is a question that sticks with you: If people were cut off from society long enough—if they lost the rules, the moral codes, the comforts—how far would they regress? Ketchum’s cannibals don’t feel like the spawn of evil forces. They feel like us, just pushed far enough in the wrong direction. Their behavior doesn’t come from cruelty for cruelty’s sake. It comes from basic survival drives—hunger, reproduction, and dominance. That’s why they’re such unnerving villains. They’re an evolutionary throwback you can imagine existing somewhere out there, beyond the maps, waiting for someone else to wander too close.


Finishing Off Season doesn’t give you that neat sense of closure other horror stories sometimes aim for. It doesn’t even give you release. It leaves you worn down, a little grimy, and maybe even unsettled in ways you didn’t expect. That’s the difference between horror built on supernatural scares and horror built on human brutality. The latter lingers; it’s harder to shake because you can’t make it go away just by telling yourself, “It’s only fiction.” With Ketchum, you’re never entirely sure.


As far as splatterpunk milestones go, Off Season earns its reputation. It’s both a challenge and a gut-punch—the sort of book that reminds you horror can still be dangerous. It’s not for every reader—if you’re expecting subtle ghost stories or stylish monster tales, you won’t find them here. What you’ll find instead is a grim, fast-paced nightmare about people who’ve let go of everything we’d call human and replaced it with something primal, something real in their hunger and their primal needs. And in the end, that may be the most disturbing thing about them—they’re not from another world. They’re from ours.

Horror Book Review: Wet Work (by Philip Nutman)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Wet work” – intelligence community slang for covert operations involving assassination or killing, named for the ‘wet’ bloodshed such missions entail.

Philip Nutman isn’t a name most readers recognize outside of hardcore horror and zombie fiction circles, but within those communities, he’s remembered as an accomplished writer and journalist who carved out a unique space in the genre. For most of his career, Nutman worked as a freelance media journalist and film critic, contributing to magazines like Fangoria and Cinefantastique, where he covered the darker corners of cinema. As a fiction writer, he didn’t produce much in the way of novels, but the one he did publish—Wet Work (1993)—earned him lasting respect among fans who prefer their horror mixed with high-stakes action and cynical political undertones.

Wet Work began as a short story published in George A. Romero and John Skipp’s 1989 anthology Book of the Dead, a milestone collection that helped define zombie fiction as something literary rather than purely pulp. Even within that assembly of strong voices, Nutman’s story stood out for combining government espionage with apocalyptic horror. Expanding it into a full novel only amplified those elements, turning what had been a grim short tale into something closer to an action-horror epic with splatterpunk guts and a spy thriller’s pacing.

The novel opens with CIA operative Dominic Corvino, a member of an elite black-ops unit called Spiral, barely surviving a mission gone wrong in Panama City. From the start, Nutman gives the story a sense of distrust and paranoia—Corvino believes his team was deliberately sabotaged, their deaths engineered by someone inside the CIA. It’s an opening that reads more like a Cold War spy novel than a zombie tale, and that mix of tones is part of what makes Wet Work work so well. Nutman uses what he likely learned as a journalist—his knack for detail, the sense of how bureaucracies function (or fail to)—to give the early chapters an almost procedural authenticity. There’s a lived-in realism to the military and intelligence backdrop that keeps even the most outrageous elements of the story grounded.

Then comes the moment that shifts Wet Work from gritty reality into nightmarish surrealism. As the CIA plotline unfolds, a cosmic event takes place: the comet Saracen passes dangerously close to Earth and leaves behind some kind of invisible residue. It’s never fully explained whether it’s chemical, biological, or something beyond understanding, but its aftereffects begin to change life on the planet. Nutman uses the comet not just as a plot trigger but as a symbol of inevitability—a reminder that humankind’s end won’t always come from weapons or war, but sometimes from something as impersonal as celestial dust. It’s a bit of cosmic horror filtered through the lens of political and societal collapse, an end-of-days scenario that feels both mythic and strangely plausible.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., police officer Nick Packard becomes the reader’s main point of connection to the chaos on the ground. Packard starts the day leading a routine shift through the usual headaches of the city, but things unravel fast once Saracen’s effects take hold. Strange attacks start flooding police dispatch, cases of violence erupting in ways no one can explain, and what seem like random acts of brutality turn out to be part of something much larger. The city descends into panic as the dead begin returning to life. Nutman describes this breakdown with a sense of escalating dread that feels almost journalistic—each detail adds up, each scene observed as though through the eyes of someone trying to make sense of something senseless.

The zombies themselves are mostly what readers might expect from stories inspired by George A. Romero: slow-moving, decomposing, and relentless. But Nutman complicates things by hinting that not all of the reanimated are mindless. Some seem to retain fragments of human cunning or memory, enough to make them unpredictable and far more dangerous. This small twist gives the book a chilling edge, making it clear that intelligence doesn’t necessarily counteract monstrosity—it might even make it worse.

Corvino’s section of the novel runs parallel to Packard’s and serves as the darker, more psychological side of the story. He becomes consumed by his mission to find out who betrayed his team in Panama and make them pay. Physically, he’s battered and near his limits, operating in a world that no longer follows the rules of logic or hierarchy. Mentally, he’s trapped between loyalty, fury, and isolation—an operative trained for controlled violence now facing chaos that no training can manage. Nutman writes Corvino as a man unraveling in sync with the world around him. His search for answers feels less like a mission and more like an obsession, a desperate grasp at clarity in a world that’s literally stopped making sense.

Packard’s story, by contrast, brings everything down to a more personal survival narrative. As the crisis worsens, his only goal becomes reaching his wife, stranded in their suburban home outside the city. His journey across a collapsing Washington D.C. is one of the novel’s strongest threads, combining small moments of human connection with scenes of escalating horror. Through him, the reader gets a street-level view of societal breakdown—communications dying, infrastructure collapsing, and people reacting in unpredictable, often violent ways. What makes Packard’s arc compelling is its simplicity; amid government conspiracies and cosmic cataclysms, his is just a story about trying to save someone he loves.

Eventually, Corvino’s and Packard’s paths intersect, and both men come face to face with what’s left of the government. By this stage, authority itself has become just another form of predation. The people who once held power have adapted frighteningly well to the new world, shedding morality and decency like dead skin. Nutman doesn’t paint them as comic-book villains but as survivors whose ethics erode one decision at a time. In typical splatterpunk fashion, the line between humanity and monstrosity blurs completely.

Nutman’s writing in Wet Work is graphic, fast-moving, and unflinching. His descriptions of violence and gore are vivid without slipping into parody, and even when the pacing turns frenetic, it matches the story’s collapse into total madness. Where he stumbles is in a few awkward moments of dialogue and some stilted attempts at sexuality—scenes that read more forced than provocative. But those missteps never fully pull the story off course. If anything, they serve as reminders that Nutman, for all his journalistic precision, was still finding his rhythm in long-format storytelling.

The novel embodies everything bold about early 1990s horror fiction: big ideas, unrestrained violence, and a willingness to splice genres that didn’t normally coexist. Wet Work could just as easily sit beside Dawn of the Dead as it could a paranoid spy novel from the 1980s. Nutman understood that the systems people depend on—government, military, media—are fragile constructs that crumble the second survival becomes personal. That realism, drawn from his background in journalism, grounds the chaos he unleashes. Even at its most supernatural, Wet Work feels uncomfortably plausible because its human failures ring true.

After Wet Work, Nutman shifted back toward shorter forms, writing comics, novellas, and media journalism rather than more novels. In hindsight, that makes his one major book feel all the more significant. It’s the place where all his skills—his eye for detail, his fascination with moral gray areas, and his love of horror excess—come together.

For zombie fiction fans, Wet Work remains a hidden gem worth revisiting. It’s not just a gore-fest or survival tale but a demonstration of how horror doesn’t need to stay confined within its own walls. Nutman showed that the genre can bleed into others—melding espionage, political thriller, and cosmic dread into something distinct and alive. In a field that sometimes plays it safe, Wet Work reminds readers that horror thrives on experimentation, that it’s strongest when it’s hybridized and unpredictable. With Nutman’s death in 2013, any chance of seeing another full-length novel from him is gone, but what remains is proof that horror, when unafraid to evolve, can be far more than blood and fear—it can be reinvention itself.

Horror Book Review: ‘Salem’s Lot (by Stephen King)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
—Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot opens with an unsettling and bold narrative choice. Instead of introducing the main characters or setting a conventional stage, the novel begins by showing two nameless figures—an older man and a younger companion, burdened by events already passed. These itinerants are fleeing a terrible evil, seeking refuge in a small Mexican village, suffused with mystery and dread. This brief but cryptic prologue hooks the reader immediately with a pervasive sense of unease and unanswered questions: who are these men, and what horror haunts them so far from home?

This unsettling beginning is not only risky but masterful. King, in just his second published novel, chooses to forgo straightforward exposition and instead promises that the narrative will move backward, retracing the dark events that led to this moment of flight and loss. The prologue casts a shadow into the past, preparing readers for a story where the darkness is already present and will only deepen.

Rewinding, the narrative places us in the small New England town of Jerusalem’s Lot—known to its inhabitants simply as “The Lot”—a quintessential small town in 1970s Maine. Here, Ben Mears, a novelist haunted by childhood trauma centered on the forbidding Marsten House, returns home with the intention of writing about the old mansion. The Marsten House is not just a setting; it is a malignant presence perched over the town like an ominous sentinel. Ben’s youth intrudes everywhere in his memory of that house—a place where something unknowable once touched him—and now, as an adult, he confronts both that past and the house again, its shadow casting unease over the town.

Ben isn’t the only arrival. Richard Straker sets up an antique shop, accompanied by his rarely seen partner, Kurt Barlow—an inscrutable figure whose very mention deepens the novel’s pervasive tension. King reveals Barlow’s presence slowly and indirectly, heightening the atmosphere without immediate confrontation.

King excels at immersing readers in the rhythms of small-town life. Through detailed observation of everyday routines, gossip, and personalities, he crafts a believable, textured community. Each townsperson—whether skeptical official, gossip-prone neighbor, child, or elder—is vividly realized, not as a simple archetype but as a living, breathing individual. Yet beneath this surface of normalcy lurks a pervasive darkness: secrets, resentments, and moral frailties accumulate like hidden mildew in the town’s corners.

In this, Salem’s Lot evokes the spirit of Peyton Place, the classic fictional small town where scandal and hypocrisy fester beneath neighborly facades. King’s Jerusalem’s Lot feels like a much darker cousin—a town where those faults and hidden sins once fodder for gossip become the very soil from which real, supernatural evil springs. While Peyton Place explored human failings within social dynamics, Salem’s Lot reveals how those failings create openings for Kurt Barlow’s vampiric menace. The town’s insularity, mistrust of outsiders, and collective denial become liabilities dooming it—not just morally, but existentially.

At the heart of this encroaching nightmare stands the Marsten House, a building elevated beyond mere backdrop into a living entity. Like Shirley Jackson’s Hill House, Richard Matheson’s Belasco House in Hell House, and King’s own later Overlook Hotel, the Marsten House is steeped in decades of violence and evil. Its walls seem to soak up past horrors; its windows serve as more than architectural features—they are eyes into the house’s dark soul. This physical presence is sinister and predatory, complicit in the nightmarish events it enables. To enter the house is to step into something corrupt and breathing, an organism as alive and malign as the vampire it conceals.

What makes Salem’s Lot especially powerful is how King integrates the supernatural into the texture of daily life. The fantastical elements do not feel imposed or alien but grow organically from the social dynamics, habits, and vulnerabilities of this small town. The horror is inevitable precisely because it grows from recognizable human weaknesses and communal blind spots. This fluid blending invites readers to experience terror as an intimate shattering of the ordinary, a disruption of the familiar.

Relationships anchor the emotional core of the narrative. Ben’s romance with Susan Norton, the steady wisdom of Matt Burke, the youthful courage of Mark Petrie—their humanity keeps the terror grounded and poignant. As vampirism spreads, these bonds are tested and shattered. Community, which once defined the town’s identity, fractures under suspicion and fear. Friends become threats; homes become prisons.

The looming Marsten House is a perfect emblem of this dual threat: a predator perched within the community itself. As Barlow turns neighbors into monsters, the house’s silent complicity looms ever larger. It is as much a character as any human, a sentinel feeding on the decay of place and spirit alike.

As the novel hurtles toward its climax, King heightens the tension with vivid, claustrophobic scenes inside the haunted mansion. The house’s corridors and rooms twist into traps, its atmosphere suffocating and oppressive. King’s mastery of sensory detail brings a visceral dimension to the horror, blending psychological terror with physical menace.

The conclusion returns to the somber tone of the prologue. Although some survive, the town is hollowed out—a ghostly husk abandoned to darkness. Evil is not eradicated but waits patiently, ready to thread its way back through the cracks. The cycle of horror, loss, and exile continues.

Stephen King’s unique strength in Salem’s Lot lies not only in his richly developed characters and finely drawn community but in how seamlessly he introduces supernatural horror into what reads like a real-time study of small-town life. The fantastical elements grow naturally from the social fabric, making the terror feel inevitable rather than contrived. This synthesis of realism and fantasy deepens the novel’s power.

King’s portrayal of Jerusalem’s Lot as a place rotting from within yet clinging to its veneer of normalcy offers a chilling echo of Peyton Place. But while Metalious’s town suffocated under scandal, Salem’s Lot is consumed by predation—the vampire feasting not only on blood but on the fractures of belonging and trust. It is both eerily familiar and profoundly alien: a place where monsters live not just in shadows, but in whispered suspicions and buried sins.

Through this blend of gothic haunted-house traditions, social critique, and psychological realism, Salem’s Lot endures as a masterpiece of horror. The Marsten House is not merely a setting but a sentinel, symbolizing accumulated evil watching over a doomed community. King’s novel terrifies not only with its monsters but with its intimate knowledge of how everyday life can harbor the seeds of nightmare beneath a calm surface.