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A Gentle Hell [Kindle Edition]

Autumn Christian
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

Digital List Price: $2.99 What's this?
Print List Price: $6.99
Kindle Price: $2.99 includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Book Description

A Gentle Hell is comprised of four dark speculative stories of quiet tension and uncomfortable nostalgia, written for deformed children and girls that dream of demons.

In “They Promised Dreamless Death” a salesmen sells sleep with the promise of a better life, but what dreams lurk beneath the substrate of consciousness for those who take it are stranger than they ever imagined.

In “Your Demiurge is Dead,” while the world adjusts to the death of God and the new reign of the Triple Goddess, Charles hunts for an Oklahoma murderer and is forced to confront his religious ideals when he encounters a new prophet.

“The Dog That Bit Her,” is the story of a neurotic young woman who gains freedom from her co-dependent marriage with the bite of a rabid dog.

And in the semi-autobiographical “The Singing Grass,” the artist and the writer converge at a meadow haunted by a carnivorous deer and the burnt monsters that show them the consequences of an artistic life.


Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Autumn Christian is a horror writer who lives in the dark woods of the southern United States with poisonous blue flowers in her backyard and a set of polished cow skulls on her mantel. She's been a freelance writer, an iPhone game designer, a cheese producer, a haunted house actor, and a video game tester. She considers Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Katie Jane Garside, the southern gothic, and dubstep as main sources of inspiration.

Product Details

  • File Size: 171 KB
  • Print Length: 61 pages
  • Publisher: Dark Continents Publishing (January 1, 2012)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B006SLDFGQ
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Not Enabled
  • Lending: Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #614,999 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
(12)
4.8 out of 5 stars
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking January 27, 2012
Format:Kindle Edition
Once again, the TALES OF DARKNESS AND DISMAY line up blows me away once again. Autumn Christian has the voice of one intelligent and colourful author. Some may argue that this isn't horror, as you'll be hard pushed to find splattered guts, cold blooded killers and monsters under the bed in this collection.

This is thought provoking stuff. Stories about relationships and the inner workings of character's heads make up these tales. The first story is particularly engaging mentally and nicely poignant, with the author avoiding so many, many clichéd endings she could have used.

Christian's horror comes in more like an after thought, as something that is just part of these characters' lives now and they just have to adapt to it. For example, there is a werewolf story in this collection, but the emphasis is not on the transformation, silver bullets and howling at the moon. Far from it. The flavour of the story is all about the relationship and the leading lady's mental state. You're riveted by this complicated and intriguing dynamic before the lycanthropy is even mentioned. With scenes like the girl coming through the window from a tree, barefoot and in a white dress in her sweet yet unsettling mental state...there's just so much poetry and beauty here.

Lovers of grue and big, sharp pointy things might turn their noses up, but I love all that stuff...and I loved this. She's the Pinhead of writing: articulate and restrained, but powerful.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic Horror January 29, 2012
Format:Kindle Edition
A Gentle Hell by Autumn Christian is another in the Darkness and Dismay series put out by Dark Continents Publishing. It is yet another fine, fine piece of work. Christian's writing is enigmatic, yet crystal-clear. I suppose the best way to describe it would be "poetic". Her images are unusually constructed, but they are never nebulous. Her horror is definitely unsettling, but not necessarily gory. The horror in these stories comes from within the characters; a quiet desperation at the numb bare facts of human existence. After reading the stories in this collection, I found myself making plans to revisit it in a month or so, once I've had time to digest the first reading. Great stuff!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A Gentle Hell January 18, 2012
Format:Kindle Edition
I was not aware of Christian's work until "A Gentle Hell" but I was impressed by what I read and I certainly will be checking out future books. Four unique stories, one of which has a cracking opening line: "It's been forty nights since Jehovah washed up on the Gulf of Mexico in three black trash-bags" - well up my street and highly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Ethereal
Autumn Christian's writing is like a dream, one of those dreams that makes perfect sense while you're in it but melts away fast in the sunlight. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Adam J. Nicolai
4.0 out of 5 stars Two Great Stories, and Two Merely Very, Very Good Ones
If you're the kind of person who likes nicely delineated genres, then Autumn Christian is probably your worst nightmare - a writer a dark, vaguely philosophical, sometimes lyrical... Read more
Published 7 months ago by J. Everington
5.0 out of 5 stars Painfully beautiful
This is the first title that I have read by this author, and I am so glad I did. Lush, poetic, subtle, engaging, sometimes odd, always entertaining, painfully beautiful at times. Read more
Published 11 months ago by C. Sutton
5.0 out of 5 stars New ideas and growing unease
Dark Continents has a track record of publishing high quality work and Autumn Christian is no exception. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Pierre Mare
5.0 out of 5 stars Like Evil Poetry
I'd be hard-pressed to find a favorite of the four stories in this collection, since each of them blew me away. Seriously. Read more
Published 12 months ago by armand rosamilia
5.0 out of 5 stars Every story became a favorite
When I started reading this collection I was unsure what to expect.

The first story blew me away, and I decided it was my favorite, then I read the second and decided it... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Suzanne Robb
5.0 out of 5 stars I always somehow thought God would end up in trash bags
Author Autumn Christian delivers four thought provoking stories that delve in the dark recesses of mankind, exposing not only some of our worst fears but the nightmarish hell those... Read more
Published 15 months ago by The_Undead_Review
5.0 out of 5 stars Subtle Brilliance
I've never been one to do many reviews. In fact, I often feel like I can either not say enough about a book or collection or I don't have too many good things to say about a... Read more
Published 15 months ago by A.J. Brown
4.0 out of 5 stars Poetic Horror
This is yet another excellent edition to the Dark Continents Publishing line. A Gentle Hell contains four stories that have a sort of poetry prose that reveal four very interesting... Read more
Published 15 months ago by AnnBoozeandBooksBlogspot
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More About the Author

Autumn Christian is a horror writer who lives in the dark woods of the southern United States with poisonous blue flowers in her backyard and a set of polished cow skulls on her mantel.

She's been a freelance writer, an iPhone game designer, a cheese producer, a haunted house actor, and a video game tester. She considers Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Katie Jane Garside, the southern gothic, and dubstep as main sources of inspiration.

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