Customer Reviews

Shock Totem 1: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It seems short fiction markets are a fleeting thing. Some crop up out of nowhere, then disappear as quickly as they came. The ones that survive are to be commended--and read. Shock Totem came out with its first paperback issue in the summer of 2009, and this summer sees its fourth edition (Shock Totem 4: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted) coming out as a physical copy. But, at the same time, Shock Totem #1 has been re-released as an e-book. An insanely affordable one at that, with an asking price of only $1.99 on the Kindle Store. How could I resist?

Now, with the digital release, a couple things have been left out. Namely the reviews and artwork. But, the stories and interviews are intact, and that's the meat of this publication as far as I'm concerned, anyway.

After a brief introduction from its editor, K. Allen Wood, Shock Totem #1 kicks off with a barn-burner of a story by T.L. Morganfield called "The Music Box." Just imagine those cuddly plush dolls that we used to love playing with as kids, and maybe some of us have passed those toys down to our own children. Now imagine those toys are alive--and they know how to hold a grudge. Yeah, this one was creepy in all the right places and really set a tone for the rest of the book.

More horror abounds, with a quick, quirky read from Mercedes M. Yardley called "Murder for Beginners," which has a couple of women having a remarkably casual conversation while standing over the corpse of their former lover, a married man they've just murdered. Yikes.

Another couple of the standouts for me were Don D'Ammassa's "Complexity" and David Niall Wilson's "Slider." And best title has to go to Kurt Newton's "Thirty-Two Scenes from a Dead Hooker's Mouth." Just read it. Disparate in tone, each brought something really dark to this little collection. In fact, as you read from cover to cover, you find the diverse array of stories really only has two things in common: they're dark as hell and really well written.

If the fiction isn't enough, there are a couple of interviews with the likes of John Skipp and Alan Robert. All things considered, Shock Totem may not be as shocking as you might expect it to be, but it certainly taps into those dark facets of human nature, one way or another. It's also nice to see each author explain at the end of the book the impetus for each of their stories. With such diversity, the book feels like a three-ring circus of the most macabre variety.

I recently read the first issue of Shock Totem: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted. I had picked up the first four issues at the NEHW booth at the Hebron Harvest Fair in September.

The magazine was first published in 2009 and Publisher K. Allen Wood explains in the editorial how the magazine was created and the different names they had for the magazine before settling on Shock Totem. It's a lot better than Papercut Stigmata or Bleeding Penis Pens.

Volume one includes stories about vengeance meted out by childhood toys ("The Music Box"). Author T.I. Morganfield captures the magic of those special toys a person has as they grow up. As you read about Snowflake, you can't help but think about a darker version of Toy Story. Morganfield even mentions in the "Howling Through the Keyhole" section of the magazine that he took the conflict between the toys in the Pixar movie in a "darker direction."

In "Murder for Beginners," the reader is lost as the story begins with a woman holding a shovel as she stands over the body of a dead man. As the tale continues, you find out there is another woman with her. By the end of this interesting story, the reader finds out about these two women plus what connections they have to the guy they are standing over. You are not lost by the end of the story. What Mercedes M. Yardley does with her tale is keep the reader interested and reading. Who wants to stop reading after a story begins with two women standing over a dead body? At that point, you want to know why they killed him or even if they killed him. There are so many questions the reader wants to find the answers to, and Yardley answers those questions.

Baseball fans will enjoy David Niall Wilson's story, "Slider." It involves a tale of a ball that has a bloody and cursed history. You don't even have to enjoy the game of baseball to become engrossed in the story about the death of pitcher Jeb Rabinowicz.

One other story I will mention is Kurt Newton's "Thirty-Two Scenes from a Dead Hooker's Mouth," which tells the story of a prostitute's life from her death to her birth. It will remind you of the movie Memento, which inspired Newton when he wrote this story. He states, "knowing the outcome of events doesn't necessarily remove the mystery."

Shock Totem has a section "Strange Goods and Other Oddities," which deals with reviews of books, movies, music, and more written by the magazine's staff. This section reminds me of a similar section within the pages of Fangoria magazine.

The magazine also offers interviews with authors and artists in the horror community such as John Skipp and William Ollie. Those interviews make one want to go to the nearest bookstore and find the books these authors were discussing in these articles.

The "Howling Through the Keyhole" section is great if you want a peek into the writer's mind. Well, that is if the writer wants to give you a glimpse into their dark playground. Each author has a little blurb about their story and the inspiration behind their story.

I am looking forward to reading the other volumes of the magazine that I own. Click on Amazon or Shock Totem to go to either site to buy any issue of the magazine. The issues are available in print and digital formats except for the Holiday issue, which is only available as an e-book.
Shock Totem, No. 1: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

... that there exists a 'zine that satisfies the thirst for original and unique works of darker blood. The genre these days is rife with the same old stories, but Shock Totem delivers fresh and new ideas. What first strikes me is the cover art, which is absolutely great on every issue! Right off the bat, you know what you are in for. Like I said earlier, it's very refreshing to read unique ideas, not only from established writers in the genre, but also works from up-and-comers. And the stories aren't all "horror" and "serious", which is probably what I enjoy the most because it keeps it interesting. And ST is more than just a 'zine... each issue is practically a book, and definitely a collector's piece fit for any book shelf. I've been reading it since issue 1 and each is just as amazing (and in some ways, more amazing) than the prior. Truth be told, I have two of each issue: one to read, and one "framed" for the art wall my girlfriend and I have in our house. If you enjoy the darker side of literature, you owe it to yourself to at least check out Shock Totem. The guys (and girl) behind it have done an amazing job. It's great that they are now available in the digital format, but for me, nothing compares to the physical copy. Long live small press, and long live Shock Totem!

There is a refreshing level variety in the fiction. The quality is consistently high but the stories vary greatly in tone and subject. They range from creepily whimsical ("Music Box") to funny ("Murder For Beginners") to devastating("Thirty-Two Scenes from a Dead Hooker's Mouth"), and cover topics as ranging from acute paranoia ("Complexity") to the zombie tale ("The Dead March" one of my favorites...and here I am thinking I would never give a crap about a zombie story again). Hats off the the readers, this is truly the best of what's out there.

There are some very insightful interviews as well (the stand out being John Skipp, which had me on ebay the second I finished it, looking for some of his older collaborations with Craig Spector) and some very persuasive reviews (many things covered made their way into my Amazon wishlist).

One other interesting feature of the mag is the inclusion of "the stories behind the stories," in which the authors talk about the origins of their works. A truly inspired idea.

For $2.99 you can't go wrong, ST stands head and shoulders above most other genre magazines out there right now.

Shock Totem is a relative newcomer to the horror scene, but you wouldn't know that from the quality of the publication. The editorial that opens the first issue of Shock Totem is stunningly humble; it and the ethereal and beautiful cover art set the tone for what follows. The stories are generally a blend of more whimsical humor with out and out horror, though tales fall on both sides of the spectrum.

Our opener, T.L. Morganfield's The Music Box, seems on first glance to be as odd a horror opener as imaginable. The story is told from the point of view of Snowflake, a sentient stuffed elephant who does his best to get his nemesis, the stuffed Boo Bear, to be eaten by the family's dog instead of him. The first pages are more cute and amusing than scary - and then comes the part where Snowflake and the other animals display sickening cruelty in their competitions with one another. At the edge of the story, the reader can make out sympathetic characters on the periphery, coming into the light just long enough to be pushed aside.

Mercedes M. Yardley's Murder for Beginners follows. Like many of the stories in the collection, it's centered around violence - the two main characters are standing over the corpse of a murdered man - but, like many of the first issue's stories, it's the bizarre atmosphere that really defines the story. The two characters are completely nonchalant and unconcerned by their recent crime, though they are well aware that a dead man's pockets are gross, and their snappy dialogue is laugh out loud funny in context.

Brian Rosenberger's Mulligan Stew and Jennifer Pelland's `Til Death Do Us Part operate in a similar manner. Both are short (a poem and a piece of microfiction respectively), and they each quickly build to an amusing and light hearted climax. Neither is jaw dropping, but they are enjoyable and flow very well between the longer pieces and nonfiction articles.

Like the opening stories, Brian Rappatta's The Dead March only has violence on the side, and the grotesque dismemberments that are not infrequent in the tale either happen on screen or are just alluded to in a single sentence. The story's protagonist has the ability to raise the dead with a word, leading to some good old fashioned zombies. Said zombies are too matter of fact in their creation and mindless obedience to be particularly frightening, but the sympathy generated by the protagonist's relationship with his mother in the early pages is powerful enough to make the read an affecting one.

There are difficulties inherent with short fiction, especially with a hard word limit (5,000 words), and one of those difficulties is weaving exposition into the narrative. Les Berkley's First Light and Don D'ammassa's Complexity both irked me to a greater or lesser extent by blocks of exposition. The first of them, First Light, is a short tale set in a bizarre and anachronistic countryside where ghosts wander. The actual horror aspect of it is relatively typical, but Berkley's prose is powerful and manages to convey setting, atmosphere, and personality all at once:

"Time's a strange commodity in the County. Moving out here struck me like coming home, if home was a couple centuries ago. We hang on to the past as though it was worth something. Roads stay unpaved so they can't develop things, and we mostly take care of our own problems without recourse to outside authorities or laws. The .357 Colt Python in my saddle holster reminded me that this way of living comes with its own dangers." (p. 29)

Complexity is intriguing, and the narrator's attempt at isolation are fascinating. D'ammassa skillfully evokes the narrator's paranoia and is adept with the description of his home, but I felt that the tale ran into problems as it progressed. The revelation of just what the narrator was afraid of was kept back until it was told in a great lump towards the end, and the story's climax felt jerky and abrupt.

David Niall Wilson's Slider sets itself apart by being about a rather normal fellow (compared to the relaxed killers of Yardley's piece or the zombie-raiser of Rappata's), but I'll admit that this is the one story in the collection I was apprehensive about. See, I may live in New York, but I know nothing about baseball. Nothing. I needn't have worried. Wilson's passion for the sport shines through and invigorates the characters, but the little terminology that there is is easily either picked up or bypassed, and the story's core is filled with sympathetic characters and delicious twists.

The only story in the collection that felt like a true weak link to me was Pam L. Wallace's Below the Surface. This story has more of a high fantasy bent than the others, but (though I'm generally a large fan of fantasy) the tale overall didn't work for me. The betrayal at its core was too obvious, and the conclusion felt clunky, though the prose was generally strong throughout.

Things end with Kurt Newton's Thirty-Two Scenes From a Dead Hooker's Mouth closes the collection. The story is a backwards journey through the murdered woman's life, featuring thirty-two tenuously linked scenes. The actual events are in danger of being cliché (the "weird" client, the specific abuses and difficulties of the lifestyle) but the manner of their telling is excellent, painting the picture of a tragic life a shade too out of focus to ever be ordinary. The final scene, though expected, is extremely powerful and ends the collection on a highly emotional note.

In addition to fiction, the issue also includes three interviews and a lengthy review section. The interviews were varied and content and had interesting questions; the reviews were more cursory than I'd prefer but well written. Further nonfiction articles are promised in future issues. Finally, there's a "Howling Through the Keyhole" section of the stories behind the stories which I loved.

Shock Totem is a quality product. The stories are powerful, and the editors' drive and determination is clear from the beautiful paperback binding, though some credit for that surely goes to the collection's artists, Rex Zachary and Robert Høyem. It says something about a collection when the weakest story has strong prose and a generally good atmosphere. At 5.99, this issue's a great buy for horror fans (even if the print's a tad small).

Standouts: Murder for Beginners, The Dead March, and The First Light

This was my first book from Shock Totem, and it certainly will not be my last. Every story was great. The interviews were also enjoyable. Even the cover was awesome. Yes, I'm a Shock Totem addict!!

I was hooked at the first story.This is a terrific collection of stories each one is different and compelling.I look forward to a long and chilling relationship with Shock Totem!

I got the first issue of Shock Totem as soon as it came out in 2009 and loved it. A great mix of stories from authors both recognizable and a little obscure. Les Berkley's haunting ghost story First Light and David Niall Wilson's baseball tale Slider both stood out to me, but all of the stories here are top notch.

The first issue of Shock Totem is a refreshing new magazine in the horror genre with stories that actually horrify. It's obvious what the pieces are trying to accomplish--to shock, duh!--and I got some true chills from most of them. Another aspect of the 'zine I liked was the musical side, something not usually covered in a horror 'zine, or at least not to this extent. Plus, we get relevant reviews of novels, anthologies and movies. What's not to love? Recommended reading.

A stellar first issue; their tagline is "CURIOUS TALES of the MACABRE and TWISTED", and they're angled as a horror mag, but don't let that shake you if you're "not excited about horror". They've got strong literary sensibilities, while keeping true to stories with full and proper arcs so you're not left going, "So what?" at the end. Great writing, great presentation, great production values--they're on my hit list, and I expect I'll be reading them for some time to come, presuming the readership is there to keep them going.

Generic excitement doesn't translate so well, so I'll be a touch more specific on two pieces: T.L. Morganfield's "The Music Box" is a delight of a childhood-toy-gone-wrong--but it's a much deeper and more human wrong than Chucky. The toys are adorable and it's hard to believe how far things will go, except the writing and the characters take you there without any doubts.

"Murder for Beginners" by Mercedes M. Yardley is a cheerful, quirky piece, that reached somewhere inside me I haven't quite figured out yet. I would have sworn I've read it before--not in a sense of it being trite or common (the characters are all the in the details), but in a sense of "coming home" to it, somehow. I hope that doesn't make my wife start looking over her shoulder. ;)

And even though it's only 100 pages, there's plenty more there!

(review cribbed from a blogpost I made a while back, so if it seems a touch disjoint, apologies)