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Brainbox: The Real Horror Edited
reviewed by
Brainbox: The Real Horror Edited
Steve Eller
Dreams Unlimited Publication (e-book)
People always ask writers where they get their ideas. In their heads, the very same writers tend to imagine what they'd really like to do to people who ask such inane questions. But as the editor of Brainbox points out in his introduction, there's always an answer to the big question. We writers just may not want to share. Sometimes there's a good reason for that reluctance.
Editor Steve Eller has gathered together a diverse group of writers and let them tell stories. Nothing unusual in that, you might say. But he cleverly took the premise further by asking them to share what's behind the door. You know, the door behind which lurk everyone's monsters, demons, fears, horrible memories, nightmares, and even clear-eyed truth. Confession.
With that one twist, Brainbox is elevated from what might have been a mediocre anthology into a damned good look at what sort of blood travels in our writers' veins, those same veins we slice open whenever we tell our stories. The relationship between reality and fiction is an uncomfortable one, because sometimes we can't see the line. Sometimes we are the line. Sometimes the line is a useless and arbitrary construct. The essays which accompany the stories are often every bit as harrowing as the stories themselves, as one would expect, since horror is always really about people, not monsters.
In Gary Braunbeck's powerful "Iphigenia," a brother grieves for his little sister, trampled in a stadium concert stampede. P.D. Cacek's "Rituals" begins as a bittersweet look at Alzheimer's but takes an unexpected swerve onto a much different road. "Flesh of Leaves, Bones of Desire" is Charlee Jacob's eerie, effective Halloween story. Garrett Peck's raw, autobiographical, and paranoid "Lifebook" pulls no punches. Patricia Lee Macomber's "Rights to Passage" explores a hell with which too many are unfortunately familiar. "Madeline in Effigy" is Mehitobel Wilson's view of fame and its effects. In d.g.k. goldberg's "Closure," a woman still can't measure up to her dead mother's standards. Karen E. Taylor's downbeat "Freedom" turns nicely on a tragic, sardonic twist. And with "Crocodile Gods," Brian A. Hopkins reminds us that in some places, we might not be all that high in the food chain.
Good work by Scott Nicholson, Gerard Daniel Houarner and others helps round out the anthology nicely. The confessional aspect of the essays makes it a voyeur's dream, and this voyeur hopes a series is in the offing - suddenly I'm very curious about others' inspiration.