A church congregation uses macabre methods to reclaim a lost lamb. A man on the brink of murder and suicide faces the truth of who he is. A nameless monster at the bottom of an old quarry captures souls and enslaves bodies. Explorers to another galaxy find terror in the petals of flowers covering a planet. An abused girl performs her last sex act on her father’s best friend. Ghosts invite a man to rejoin his lost wife and child at a mysterious Halloween party. These are just a few of the tales you’ll find in Darkscapes, a collection of 34 short stories that explore the unlit places we try to avoid. The darkness of the human soul, of loss, anger and revenge, as well as things that go bump in the night, are all waiting between the covers of Darkscapes.
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Steven E. Wedel was born in 1966 and today lives in central Oklahoma, where he spends his days as a high school English teacher. Steve has been writing since the mid-1980s. By the early 1990s he was wishing he'd paid more attention to his own high school English teachers because editors were pointing out his grammatical mistakes. He sold his first story, "Unholy Womb", to The Midnight Zoo magazine in 1993. His first novel, Shara, was published by 3F Publications 10 years later, and quickly disappeared when the company went under. Scrybe Press took over the series the following year.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nightmares from Darkness,
By Shannon Riley "writer and publisher" (Mississippi) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Darkscapes (Paperback)
Steven E. Wedel has put together an amazing collection of short fiction for his upcoming book, Darkscapes. Ranging from horror to science fiction to erotica, and even western, these thirty-four tales are ripped from the dark side of this rising young author's imagination and presented here, a venerable feast for the connoisseur of dark suspense. Many of the stories, written from 1985 to 2001, have been previously published, and some, like "Reunion," the lead story, which won the Best Fiction contest and was published in Short Scary Tales, 2002, have already been recognized as outstanding works in their genre, but some of the stories are new, or newly revised, especially for this collection. I found much to like in this book. "Reunion" is the disturbing tale of parents, religious extremists, bent on collecting the parts of their late son, who was an organ donor, from the unsuspecting recipients. "A Drink from the Springs," a western, involves a mysterious woman and what happens to those unfortunate enough to sample the water from the haunted springs where she resides. "Bridges," one of the new stories included, about the decisions a man makes in his life, is a wonderfully thought-provoking piece. It's also an excellent example of Wedel's skilled use of background and setting to enhance his fiction and bring his stories to life. He returns to the theme of life's choices in "Ghosts," in which the narrator is confronted by the specters of the men he could have been, if his steps had taken other directions. Like most writers of modern horror, Mr. Wedel attributes some of his work to the inspiration of Steven King and H. P. Lovecraft. "The New Disciples," a Lovecraftain type story, is one of the finest in the collection, asking the question: Is faith all that is required for a god to live? I also loved the dark and provocative "Summer Offspring," in which creatures, half-rat and half-human, terrorize a town, and "Phaethon Reborn," new for this collection, in which a boy can shape fire with his bare hands. But my favorites are the Halloween offerings, "The Halloween Feast," one of Mr. Wedel's most popular stories, wherein a man must choose between this life and the next where his dead wife and child await him, and another dark treasure, "Unholy Womb," Mr. Wedel's first published story, featured in The Midnight Zoo, 1992, in which an old voodoo man lays a curse to avenge himself against those who have wronged him. Steven E. Wedel, who has a background in journalism, puts his news writing experience to good use in his fiction. With an eye for detail that lends credibility to his stories, he uses setting, mood and atmosphere to enrich his work and immerse the reader in the tales. His stories are original, well-written and often chilling looks at human nature and the human mind under extreme circumstances. I have been a fan of his since I began reading stores in his magnificent werewolf series some time ago, and it was with great pleasure that I found the stories in Darkscapes to be as exciting and intriguing as those included in Call to the Hunt, his 2001 collection, and his other works. If you are a fan of dark fiction, this is a collection you will not want to miss. Steven E. Wedel is an author whose time has come.
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