Featuring uncanny contraptions, weird devices, and technology beyond man's control, these 21 tales of dark fiction explore the horrors outside everyday reality. Mad science, terrifying creatures, and dangerous discoveries are stretched across time and space, ultimately showing that when science pushes the boundaries of understanding, terrible things push back.
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About the Author
William Jones is a writer of mystery, horror, science fiction, and historical fiction and is the author of Artifacts, High Seas Cthulhu, and Horrors Beyond. He has also edited several fiction anthologies and magazines. He lives in Metamora, Michigan.
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More About the Author
William Jones has received Bram Stoker Award nominations, International Horror Guild Award and Origins Award nominations for his works. He is the editor of several anthologies, including The Anthology of Dark Wisdom: The Best of Dark Fiction, Frontier Cthulhu: Ancient Horrors in the New World, High Seas Cthulhu, and the Horrors Beyond Series. His book, The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson was selected by Editor Ellen Datlow as a "seminal" work for readers of Lovecraftian horror. He has also written a number of role-playing game supplements, and his writings have been translated into several languages. His most recent novel is Pallid Light: The Waking Dead. He lives in Michigan.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful! A resounding success from Elder Signs Press!,
By
This review is from: Horrors Beyond 2: Stories of Strange Creations (Paperback)
Horrors Beyond II is the latest offering by Elder Signs Press. This enterprising publisher has gone from strength to strength with every new book. HB2 is subtitled Stories of Strange Creations; the idea was to compile and anthology of dark fiction centered around devices. When I first heard that this title was on the drawing board I immediately thought about Kafka's The Penal Colony. While nothing here evoked such creepy crawlies in me, it was another resounding triumph for one of my favorite small presses. It seems the authors got quite a bit of latitude about what constituted a device and how they incorporated them into their story. I got a copy of the limited edition hardcover, which was $45 and is a gorgeous book. A trade paperback is available, more reasonably priced. The cover art by Dave Carson is magnificent, not specifically related to any story but wonderfully evoking the overall theme of the book. Page count was 333, with 8 pages of titles etc and 3 pages of authors' minibios at the end. Editing was by ESP workhorse William Jones. Unlike the usual flawless product from ESP I noticed a few typos, including substitution of the word sorceress for sorcerous. Also there was one big type setting flaw, where the text following page 306 appears on page 313. I do not know if this was an issue for the paperback. It was easy enough to figure out and did not interfere with my enjoyment of the book. I have a particular fondness for Cthulhu mythos fiction; HB 1 was not exactly a Lovecraftian athology although some of the stories were of direct interest to Lovecraft fans and others certainly had a Lovecraftian feel. HB2, to my read, was more straight up science fiction and related horror, but I am happy to note there were a few mythos tales. My bottom line is that HB2 was the best dark fiction anthology I have read in a long time. Here are the contents. All of these stories were new to me, and only A Family Affair had been printed elsewhere before. A few of these authors were represented in the original Horrors Beyond, but as ESP becomes more and more renowned they attract more widely published and respected writers than those who confine themselves to Cthulhu mythos fiction.
Isolation Point, California - John Shirley Serenade - Lucien Soulban Wyshes.com - Richard A. Lupoff 5150 - Gene O'Neill The Signal - Paul Kemp Fractal Freaks - A.A. Attanasio Ghost Lens - Stephen Mark Rainey Dead Air - David Niall Wilson The Bigger They Are . . . - C.J. Henderson The Margins - Robert Weinberg Wormwood - Tim Curran When the Ship Came - John Sunseri The Manuscript in the Drawer - Greg Beaty Spheres of Influence - Ron Shiflet A Monster in the Lake - Michail Velichansky The Clockmaker's Daughter - E. Sedia Magic Fingers - Jay Caselberg A Family Affair - William C. Dietz The Mortification of the Flesh - Alexis Glynn Latner Predicting Perdition - Paul Melniczek When the Stars Fell - William Jones John Shirley is a well established horror author. I am familiar with his Those Who Come to Dagon from High Seas Cthulhu; he also has a story in the forthcoming Cthulhian Singularity. Isolation Point, California is a wonderfully bleak story of post apocalyptic America where people dare not approach each other due to the effects of an unknown biological manipulation called the Aggression Factor...but it is still natural to long for human contact... Lucien Soulban offers the story of most direct interest to Cthulhu mythos fans with Serenade, where a down and out Black Chamber operative is offerd the chance to decipher an encrypted message, which turns out to be a chant. Goodness me it was well written! I sure hope Mr. Soulban will give us more genre stories in the future. Richard Lupoff is quite prolific; his Dreams.biz was a highlight from Hard Boiled Cthulhu. In Wyshes.com, a techno expert is asked to beta test a virtual reality world that is actually not virtual. Lupoff delivers again with a crackerjack good read. The only mythos tale I know of from Gene O'Neil was Invasors de Suenos from the now unavailable Cthulhu Express. 5150 is named for the call code police receive for a deranged person. Unfortunately for the protagonist, a cop on the verge of retirement, has his own issues. I couldn't exactly figure out what was the strange device in this story but who cares? It was great, gritty and disturbing. Paul Kemp's The Signal introduces Abe Gustafsson, a big mook who investigates demonic presences. This story has a nice hard boiled feel. My copy of Twice Dead Things is out on loan, so I do not know if AA Attanasio's Fractal Freaks was printed there. This was a highly stylized story of vampires and demons hidden in plain sight, with aconflict spanning across time and unknown dimensions. I liked it well enough but not as much as I had hoped. Stephen Mark Rainey is a well known dark fiction author and editor. I have liked just about every short story of his that I've read. Ghost Lens was another winner, describing a weird discovery that allows its user to see into the very fibers of a person's existence, making a mockery of modern medical imaging, and also allows the healing of all ills. But as you look through the lens, something looks at you, sizing you up...One thing I like about Rainey's stories is that the characters are so well drawn, coming to life on the page. David Niall Wilson has stories in The Last Continent and Shadows Over Baker Street. A decent read, Dead Air is a very brief story that shows how a much maligned shock radio DJ gets the last laugh. CJ Henderson's The Bigger They Are... was unlike anything else by him I've ever read. It was an over the top time travel tale played mostly for humor. Lovecraft's Mi-Go make an appearance. OK enough, it didn't really jazz me, but then humor in horror anthologies almost never does. Robert Weinberg edited the 1990 collection Lovecraft's Legacy. The Margins is a really good gory story featuring extradimensional Hounds that travel through angles (Cthulhu mythos fans know these critters well!). Weinberg's take on them is very original and the prose is quite gripping. Tim Curran's The Margins may well be the best story in this collection, although the competition is fierce! It is set in the contaminated area around Chernobyl, a very fertile area for dark fiction (or even noir crime fiction; Wolves Eat Dogs, the Arkady Renko novel was set there). I don't think I am amiss in saying it had very Lovecraftian sensibilities about science gone awry and a remorseless unfathomable alien. A masterpiece. When the Ship Came shows the versatility of John Sunseri. Five-Mile Creek is a very ordinary town in Oregon, as we see from some slice-of-life vignettes of the inhabitants. There¡¯s no obvious reason why an alien ship would set down near there, or why they did what they did. I have yet to read a story by Mr. Sunseri I did not like. The Manuscript in the Drawer by Greg Beatty is very brief, and features a book near and dear to the hearts of all Lovecraftans. Spheres of Influence by Ron Shiflet would make a good episode from The Twilight Zone (I think I said this before about Mr. Shiflet's fiction; he should really try his hand at a screen play.). Mysterious metallic spheres drop from the sky. They are not benign meteorites. I am also struck again by the way his characters seem to come to life. Michail Velichansky weighs in with another very bleak story, A Monster in the Lake, about a lonely man, isolated from the world who gives an alien creature permission to live in a lake in a park. It was absolutely terrific, with an ending to leave you squirming. The Clockmaker's Daughter by E. Sedia was an unnerving tale about automatons. It was very nice counterpoint for me, as I had just read The Invention of Hugo Cabret to my sons. The idea of being connected to the web in your head is as old as cyberpunk fiction. In Magic Fingers, Jay Caselberg gives us a less optimistic vision of how that reality may eventually turn out. I liked this story a lot. A Family Affair by William C. Dietz reminded me of Jeffrey Thomas' Punktown. We meet Max Maxon, a hired goon, who gets involved in the deadly political machinations of a futuristic corporation. He has all the makings of a good hard boiled hero for a series of stories. Another terrific story, as this anthology moves from winner to winner. The Mortification of the Flesh By Alexis Latner is an outstanding science fiction piece about how after centuries of having the galaxy to themselves, humans encounter a different form of sentience. After this wonderful piece I will have to seek out Ms. Latner's novel, Hurricane Moon. Maybe Paul Melniczek's Predicting Perdition was the best story! It would also make an outstanding episode of The Twilight Zone. In a drained reservoir an metallic object is found that fills the mayor with a nameless dread. Marvelous! Kudos to William Jones for editing a sensational anthology. His When the Stars Fell brings HB2 to a triumphant conclusion. Science fiction with a very Lovecraftian feel, apocalypse comes to humanity. I can easily exhaust my superlatives in attempting to describe this anthology. It is another star in the firmament of Elder Signs Press. I highly recommend it to all fans of horror, science fiction, Lovecraftian fiction, dark fiction and just plain old good yarns. I can't wait to see what they come up with next! Bring on Horrors Beyond III!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Lovecraftian horror, dark fiction, science fiction, AND dark humor,
By Michael J. Tresca "Talien" (Fairfield, CT USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Horrors Beyond 2: Stories of Strange Creations (Paperback)
It's an interesting game Elder Signs Press is playing with its horror anthologies. You'd think a company named Elder Signs would be dedicated to producing Mythos-related content only, but Horrors Beyond 2 skirts the line between saying it's Lovecraftian fiction and just being run-of-the-mill "weird horror." The description on Amazon begins with "Featuring stories by..." but the back of the book reads "Featuring Lovecraftian horror, dark fiction and science fiction by..." This is not a Lovecraftian compilation, despite the fact that it features well known authors who have written in the genre.
ISOLATION POINT, CALIFORNIA: Horrors Beyond 2 spends nearly all of its awesome horror potential on this short story by John Shirley. A nanotech plague known as the Aggression Factor (AggFac) has been unleashed across North America. Any human being is instantly overcome with the urge to kill any other human being. Gage and Brenda struggle to find sanity in a world where the touch of another person means death. Reminiscent of the Screwfly Solution, it's poignant and sad. No mythos content, but excellent nonetheless. 5 out of 5. SERENADE: Lucien Soulban (that's his real name) pens a tale where Abernathy, a code breaker for the Black Chamber, decodes a Mythos chant that slowly drives him mad. It's well-done. 4 out of 5. WYSHES.COM: Richard Lupoff does something interesting with a snarky salesman-like narrator who is chosen, due to his apparent resistance to insanity, for an insane mission to contact aliens through body-hopping technology. Sloat sounds like a Call of Cthulhu character who begins with maximum sanity. He survived a previous short story which I didn't read. Equally frustrating is Sloat himself, who is fond of pointing out every time he uses a cliché with DING! I cannot accurately convey (DING!) how unbelievably annoying (DING!) this narrative technique is (DING!). It's not funny (DING!) or engaging (DING!). The ending is suitably downbeat but at that point I wanted Sloat dead anyway. 1 out of 5. 5150: Gene O'Neil pens a tale of a cop in a mad world, witnessing the four horsemen of the apocalypse. A little too traditional for my tastes -- the four horsemen in this compilation of sci-fi and horror? Really? But more aggravating is that our protagonist, Skip, has an "iceworm" in his gut. No explanation is ever made as to the nature of the iceworm. Is it an illness? A psychosomatic condition? A parasite? This nagging question saps any horror from the apocalypse. Screw the four horsemen, I want to know what's in the cop's gut! 2 out of 5. THE SIGNAL: Paul Kemp writes a pulp story about the construction of the Empire State Building back when women were dames, men smokes cigarettes, and you solved problems with your fists in an overcoat and fedora. The predictable ending overreaches with an ominous warning that seems pretty silly. 2 out of 5. FRACTAL FREAKS: A. A. Attanasio writes his stories like bad gothic fiction found in White Wolf supplements - overblown, full of adjectives with esoteric meanings, and stuffed to the gills with so much allegory that you spend more time trying to figure out what he means than understanding the plot. The plot, to the extent I understood it, involves a fight between numerous supernatural beings, an extradimensional sculpture that severs heads, and the peculiar relationship between a divorced couple. Reading it made me tired, and there's no Mythos content either. 1 out of 5. GHOST LENS: Finally, a Mythos-style story I can enjoy! No faux-pulp style, no mysterious iceworms, no DING-ing - Author Stephen Rainey follows doomed Vic Kohan, a scientist who discovers alien technology coined the Ghost Lens which can pierce the veil of reality. But the truth has dangerous consequences when the mysteries he unveils take an interest in him. 5 out of 5. DEAD AIR: David Wilson writes about a deceased radio show host's vengeance. This is more a Tales from the Crypt kind of story and at three pages seems unnecessary. 2 out of 5. THE BIGGER THEY ARE: Further proof that this compilation is all over the place, C.J. Henderson pens a humorous tale involving time travel and Mi-Go. We finally get a direct link to the Mythos and it turns into this farce which isn't all that amusing. 2 out of 5. THE MARGINS: Robert Weinberg writes about the Hounds of Tindalos in a tale that reinvents some Mythos lore. Well done and more of what I expected. 4 out of 5. WORMWOOD: Tim Curran pens an excellent foray into Chernobyl. It may well involve Azathoth at the heart of it (literally). 5 out of 5. WHEN THE SHIP CAME: John Sunseri writes about a town on the brink. What if America knew that a single town would be kidnapped by aliens but couldn't prevent it? The twist is just as good as the interplay of small-town drama magnified by world-shattering events. 5 out of 5. THE MANUSCRIPT IN THE DRAWER: Greg Beatty tells us once again that the Necronomicon drives people mad in three pages. Thanks. We knew that. 2 out of 5. SPHERES OF INFLUENCE: Ron Shiflet writes a twisted version of Flowers for Algernon in which a metal ball spreads its corrupting influence. It's fairly predictable. 3 out of 5. A MONSTER IN THE LAKE: A disjointed, deeply personal tale by Michail Velichansky of an old man who makes a deal with a lake devil in exchange for his old park back. Well-written, if a little dreamy and hard to follow at times. 4 out of 5. THE CLOCKMAKER'S DAUGHTER: E. Sedia places a little girl in terrible danger. It really got to me. 5 out of 5. MAGIC FINGERS: Jay Caselberg writes about how pop-up windows are hard to ignore when they're in your head. This is when Horrors Beyond 2 jumps the shark. Look, I know that sci-fi these days tends to involve cybernetics, and I appreciate a good virtual reality tale, but is it too much to ask that we have 1) horror content in a book titled HORRORS BEYOND and 2) not repeat the same themes between stories? 3 out of 5. A FAMILY AFFAIR: William Dietz writes a pulp-futuristic tale reminiscent of Jeffrey Thomas, but he's no Thomas. It's not a bad story, it just seems wildly out of place in this collection. It has no Mythos or horror elements. Just a big lug trying to get by in a cruel world. 2 out of 5. THE MORTIFICATION OF FLESH: What if the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation met Shub-Niggurath? Alexis Latner writes a story of regret, androids, and worms that manages to incorporate futuristic elements while still staying true to the Mythos promise of this compilation. 5 out of 5. PREDICTING PERDITION: Paul Melniczek writes about an infinite loop binding a town to itself. The ending didn't surprise me. 3 out of 5. WHEN THE STARS FELL: William Jones, also the editor of the anthology, writes a serviceable sci-fi story about killer robots. What killer robots have to do with the Mythos is anybody's guess. It also features the same "my headware is betraying me!" dread that's in Magic Fingers. 2 out of 5. Horrors Beyond 2 doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. Some tales show promise, but others seem like filler, and still others just seem like they slipped into the book when the editor wasn't looking. There are maybe eight Lovecraft-style stories, and I'm being generous in interpreting them that way. There's not all that much science fiction - five total. And dark fiction is anybody's guess, but I assume that encompasses everything else. Nowhere in this compilation is "dark humor" listed, although at least two stories are obviously aiming for that feel. This isn't a bad collection by any means, but the tone is inconsistent. Horrors Beyond 2 would have benefited from picking an audience and sticking with it: Lovecraftian horror, dark fiction, science fiction, dark humor. Fans of any one of those genres are likely to be dissatisfied by the inclusion of the other three.
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