There's a great review of Craig Herbertson's The Heaven Maker and Other Gruesome Tales on the BFS website.
Check the book out on Parallel Universe Publications. And on Riley Books.
THE HEAVEN MAKER, AND OTHER GRUESOME TALES by Craig Herbertson, Parallel Universe Publications, pb, £11.99.
Reviewed by Stewart Horn
I hadn’t heard of Craig Herbertson before I picked this up, and this collection of twenty dark stories was a pleasant surprise.
The title story is probably the highlight: a grand epic told in a few
short chapters about a man trying to rescue his wife from Hell.
Reminiscent of Machen’s ‘Great God Pan’ in tone.
Several stories feature Mulholland the occultist, a splendid
character who was great fun to spend time with. The best of those was
‘Liebniz’s Last Puzzle’, in which he is one of three academics trying to
solve a fiendish puzzle, though none of them are clever enough to think
it might not be a good idea. ‘The Anningly Sundial’ was another
highlight, riffing on one of M. R. James’s best known stories.
Several stories are based in or around high schools – my favourite of those is ‘New Teacher’. You may have heard a classroom so rowdy it sounds like someone is being murdered.
Another group of stories is very much in the Pan Horror vein. Little
nasty revenge tales or outlandish and implausibly horrific situations
described with wicked glee. Look out for ‘A Game of Billiards and Soup’.
And there is poetry, a two page joke about Hibernian Football Club
and the holy grail, lots of references to malt whisky, and a lovely
little Christmas tale to finish off.
Overall, a satisfying read. A well written mix of the literary, the
trashy and the darkly humorous. A fine addition to any horror lover’s
library.
Pages
- News, Views, Reviews and Stuff
- Published Stories
- My Novels
- My Book Reviews
- Collection - The Lurkers in the Abyss and Other Tales of Terror
- Collection - Their Cramped Dark World and Other Tales
- Collection - His Own Mad Demons: Dark Tales from David A. Riley
- Beyond and Prism
- Interviews
- Audio Stories
- Parallel Universe Publications - direct orders
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