Review: Elemental Forces – Horror Short Stories, Edited by Mark Morris

Description

Elemental Forces is the fifth volume in the non-themed horror series of original stories, showcasing the very best short fiction that the genre has to offer, and edited by Mark Morris.

This new anthology contains 20 original horror stories, 16 of which have
been commissioned from some of the top names in horror, and 4 selected from the 100s of stories sent to Flame Tree during a short open submissions window. A delicious feast of the familiar and the new, the established and the emerging.

Previous titles in the series, all still in print, are: After Sundown, Beyond the Veil, Close to Midnight and Darkness Beckons.

My Review

Thanks to Anne Cater, of Random Things Tours, for organising this tour, and to Flame Tree for my copy of this book.

There was supposed to be two other Flame Tree Press tours, in September, but Anne couldn’t get enough bloggers to fill the tour. I was really disappointed, because I was looking forward to reading the books. I’ll have to hope Flame Tree are at FantasyCon this weekend so I can pick up copies the books I was going to review. I’m not disappointed by Anne, I’m disappointed that I couldn’t get to read the books because I know one of the authors will definitely be at FantasyCon, and I wanted to get him to sign my ARC.

But that’s irrelevant, other than to say it’s FantasyCon weekend! Woohooo! I’m going to Chester. Actually, by the time this is published, I’ll be on the TransPennine Express, enjoying the First Class carriage (It’s my only holiday! The journey is as important as the destination!). I gets a free cup of tea and a bun, if I’m lucky, once we get past Sheffield. Not as cool as LNER first class – you get a free meal and as many drinks as you want on that one. Sorry, I’m rambling, because I’m excited!

On to the review!

I have been trying to work out how to write this review since I started reading this book. It’s a collection of short stories and they’re quite varied in nature. I’ve decided to write a review based on my notes as I work through the book. In date order. Here goes:

2nd October 2024: I’ve read the first five stories in the last week, I need to pick up the pace, but each story is leaving me with a disquieting sense of dread. The last one I read, about a man and his son hiding from a stalker, is tense and frightening, and ends tragically and abruptly. They’re all about loss so far: losing a person, losing an important personality trait, losing memories. I am struggling, because my anxiety is quite bad at the moment. The writing is amazing! I can feel all the tension in each story as the main character goes through something painful and profound.

5th October 2024: These ones are less distressing, I’ve read eight stories today. They have more of a folk horror feel to them, using elements of folklore and traditions, and rural, semi-rural, and suburban settings.

6th October 2024: On the home stretch. I sat down to read this afternoon and got four stories read before I had to have my afternoon nap. It’s now almost 9pm and between housework, packing for FantasyCon and having tea, I’ve finished the stories. The first four I read today were different. There was one about a detective brought low, and another written as a theatre review, another about a gangster getting his comeuppance. Then the last four were equally unexpected, a western about a coward who brings rain, a hyena woman becoming queen of her clan, a plague story and a witch/demon possession story about cancer. They were unsettling but familiar in a way.

Over the course of this book I went from feeling unsettled and anxious, to entertained, and then ended on unsettled again. I enjoyed reading all of the stories but the following really stood out to me

I Miss You Too Much, by Sarah Langan is a masterpiece in suspense building and horror without gore, that draws on the exhaustion brought about by caring for a family member dying of cancer, but also the detachment from ‘normal people’ that comes with the trauma of surviving childhood abuse. It’s horrifying!

I felt quite uplifted by Kurt Newton’s The Daughters of Canaan. I didn’t find it horrifying at all. A person comes into their inheritance in a strange and violent manner, while realising the unusual nature of her family and body are part of that inheritance. I’d love to see a film made from it.

I found P.C. Verrone’s A Review of Slime Tutorial: The Musical quite funny, while Eight Days West of Plethora by Verity Holloway made me think of spaghetti westerns and old films.

The Note by Jim Horlock was hauntingly sad, a man losing everything slowly, bit by bit, after a Sunday evening walk. The spiral into losing himself was well plotted and rather painful to read.

Mister Reaper by Annie Knox was another stand out for me, with it’s suicide survivor protagonist and a helpful psychopomp who decides to help. Reapers as corporate workers has potential for a longer work or even a television series. I enjoyed the by-play between the two reapers as the human protagonist tries to get to a phone charger and ask for help.

In general, I think there’s something in here for every horror reader, except possibly those who want blood and guts on the walls. I do not like blood and guts or jump scares, so it was good. Although the first couple of stories upset me. I think I might be a bit sensitive for reading horror.

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About the editor

Mark Morris (editor) has written and edited over fifty novels, novellas, short story collections and anthologies.

His script work includes audio dramas for Doctor Who, Jago & Litefoot and the Hammer Chillers series. His most recent work includes the
Obsidian Heart trilogy (The Wolves of London, The Society of Blood and The Wraiths of War), the original Predator novel
Stalking Shadows (co-written with James A. Moore), the official
novelization of the Doctor Who 60th anniversary special Wild
Blue Yonder, new audio adaptations of the classic 1971 horror
movie Blood on Satan’s Claw and the M.R. James ghost story A
View From a Hill, a 30th anniversary short story collection Warts
And All, and, as editor, the anthologies After Sundown, Beyond
the Veil, Close to Midnight and Darkness Beckons for the
Flame Tree Press series ‘ABC of Horror’.

Blood on Satan’s Claw won the New York Festival Radio
Award for Best Drama Special. A View From a Hill won the
New York Festival Radio Award for Best Digital Drama
Program, and was also awarded Silver at the 2020 Audio & Radio
Industry Awards.

Mark has won two British Fantasy Awards, and
has also been nominated for several Stokers and Shirley Jackson
Awards

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FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing Independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more about Flame Tree Press at http://www.flametreepress.com and connect on
social media @FlameTreePress.