Review by Booklist Review
The award-winning Thomas compiles a collection of 14 of his previously published tales of horror: 13 short stories and a novelette with an intriguing epilogue. There is a pervading theme of repetition mixed with the loneliness of reflection, recognition, and repentance. In "Repent" a disgraced ex-cop wishing to spare his family the consequences of his actions seeks redemption through unwholesome means. Set in a lonely desert shack, "Requital" presents a poor excuse for a human being's endless looping dream of regret for so very many transgressions. In "Nodus Tollens," an annual Halloween poker party leads one participant into temptation and an unsavory death pact. The Great Dreamer, Cthulhu, asks for help from unsuspecting supplicants in a carefully worded email in the Lovecraftian, epistolatory "In His House." In "Open Waters," ever-extended trips into virtual reality to escape the drudgery of real life do not end well for the gamer, and "Undone" uses one long, stream-of-consciousness sentence to relate a pregnant couple's desperate attempt to escape inevitable horror. Horror fans will be drawn to this compelling anthology.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Thomas (The Soul Standard) breathes fresh air into the genre of dark speculative fiction with a brilliant collection that teems with haunting elements, dark nostalgia for lost love, dysfunctional families, and self-torment. These 14 stories ably demonstrate Thomas's skill at conjuring visceral emotion through immaculate detail work. The gut-wrenching "Repent," about a crooked ex-cop who makes the ultimate sacrifice to save his dying son, is told with an artist's attention to scene setting. "Hiraeth," about a farm boy with a "hole in his chest" who is robbed and subsequently punished by the men in the family, bristles with astonishing detail, realistic characters, and emotional depth. In "Ring of Fire," an isolated scientist with an altered memory runs strange experiments on minerals, splicing horror and science fiction elements into an eerie tale about the evolution of the human mind amid isolation and interference. Equally devastating and refreshing, this is a collection to be savored by horror fans and literary readers alike. (Feb.)
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