Mark Justice 1959-2016

I woke up on the morning of February 10th thinking it would be just another day. As I was getting ready for work, I did a quick check of facebook and was sad to see that Mark Justice had passed away.  I didn’t know Mark personally but I bought many horror novels thanks to his show Pod Of Horror, including a zombie apocalypse book he co-wrote with David T. Wilbanks called Dead Earth.

Being the horror literature fan that I am, I instantly fell in love with his podcast Pod Of Horror. It started back in 2005 and over the years included interviews with big name horror authors such as Brian Keene, Jonathan Maberry , Clive Barker and many more. Horror writers and book publishers don’t always get the attention they deserve, but Mark’s podcast put the spotlight on them and due to his background in radio, his show had great production values. In addition to giving horror writers a voice, Mark had a wicked sense of humor and the podcast included comedy sketches with characters such as a Grim Reaper named Grim Ricktus and Chinese Dracula.

Mark Justice was also a storyteller. He wrote a regular column for his local newspaper and he had several short stories that were included in such anthologies as The Phantom Chronicles, Vol. 2 and Captain Midnight Chronicles. He also released an anthology of his own short stories called Looking at the World with Broken Glass in My Eye and made the journey into pulp fiction with a Western/Zombie novel named: The Dead Sheriff: Zombie Damnation (Volume 1)  He even edited an anthology called: Appalachian Winter Hauntings: Weird Tales from the Mountains

I was Really sad to hear of Mark’s passing, I may have never met him but because of his show I felt like I did. It was because of Pod Of Horror that I heard of horroraddicts.net. Back in 2009 on an episode of his show was a promo for the horror addicts podcast. So I gave it a listen and loved it, not knowing that I would eventually become a part of it. The world will be a sadder place without Mark Justice. Luckily we can still buy his books and listen to old episodes of Pod Of Horror and remember him for his humor and how he helped so many horror authors get noticed.

http://podofhorror.com/index.html

http://markjustice.blogspot.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Justice/e/B0034O22ZK

http://www.briankeene.com/2016/02/10/mark-justice-r-i-p/

Midnight Echo and After The Fire

Not to long ago I had the privilege of reading and reviewing Midnight Echo magazine issue 8. Midnight Echo is the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association. Midnight Echo comes out about twice a year. Each issue contains over 100 pages of horror literature, art, poetry, a regular column on understanding poetry, author interviews, articles on movies and a  vampire comic called Allure of the Ancients which is illustrated by the author from episode 91 of Horror addicts, Greg Chapman.
The theme for issue 9 of Midnight Echo is mythology.  The issue contains an article on Russian mythology and every story in the magazine deals with mythological creatures. Some of the stories in this magazine include Changeling by Jonathan Mayberry which is about shape shifters, The Wee Folk by JG Faherty about a group of little people who live in the woods and kill those who bother them and there is another great story by the name of Little Boy, Little Girl Lost In The Woods by Mark Patrick Lynch which gets into witches and Hansel and Gretel. This story shows how much fun fairy tales can be with a horror twist thrown in.

My favorite story is The Fathomed Wreck To See by Alan Baxter which takes a look at the myth of Sirens. This story is so amazingly good that I’m dying to ruin it so I can talk about it, but I won’t because I really think you should buy Midnight Echo issue 9 and read it for yourself.  The story is about a man named Dylan who is having problems with his wife and a Siren who wants Dylan to herself.  This is a love story but it looks at the dark side of love and is not one of those make you feel good kind of love stories.

Proving that Midnight Echo is not your normal horror magazine is the regular column called Tartarus by Charles Lovecraft which helps explain how metre and resonance are used in dark poetry. There is also a great article on movies based on Australian myths including films about a haunted house and one about an Aboriginal spirit that feeds on animals, women and children called the Bunyip. The magazine also includes articles on Middle Earth mythology, an interview with the creator of the comic Killeroo and an interview with author James A Moore.

Midnight Echo is an excellent horror magazine. This magazine is for the hard-core horror fan, the type that can’t go to long without reading a good horror story or watching a horror movie. It’s also for the people who are always on the look out for great horror fiction, art, and interviews with the people who make them. If you’re not a hard-core horror fan you might not be able to appreciate it, but If you live and breathe horror,  you owe it to yourself to buy a copy.

I also recently read After the Fire by D. Alexander Ward. Things started simple enough, two boys named Frankie and Lane at the age of 12 decide to go on a little adventure. There is a house in their town known as the witch house and they decide to explore it while the witch is out-of-town.

They break into the witch’s house and see things that they’ve never witnessed before. They hear a noise in the attic and decide to investigate and see something that makes their worst nightmares seem tame. In a rush to escape the witch’s house they knock a candle down and start a fire and Lane is killed in the blaze.

As an adult Frankie is plagued by constant nightmares of that day. Some horrors never go away and have a tendency to ruin your life. Will he come to terms with what he saw in that house, and the death of his friend or will the nightmares haunt him for the rest of his life?

After The Fire is a psychological horror story that looks at how one horrific event can affect your life forever.  There is some great and disturbing imagery in this book. The way the witch’s house is described was excellent, including the pictures of post death Victorian corpses that the house contains. This is a good tale about redemption and confronting your personal demons. Its also a short read with great characters, a lot of action and enough spooky atmosphere and gore to keep horror fans happy.

Limbus Inc.

Are you down on your luck? Are you unemployed? Well the Limbus corporation is here to help. They already have a job that would be perfect for you, all you have to do is call. Of course the job may be to kill things to feed an alien princess or to help an alien creature who enslaves humans find a portal to his home world. Or maybe the job will be to stop a sacrifice that will keep evil from taking over the world.

They may not be glamorous jobs, but at least you will be employed. Then again maybe it would be better to be unemployed. This is the concept behind Journalstone publishing’s anthology called Limbus Inc. Limbus is a shadowy employment agency that finds the perfect job for someone with their back against the wall. That person finds a business card from Limbus and ends up getting the job that is perfect for them in every way. Things are never that easy though and the job seeker is left to face their worst fears.

This book contains five stories and a story within a story from the likes of Brett. J. Talley, Anne C. Petty, Joseph Nassise, Jonathan Maberry and Benjamin Kane Ethridge. If I was going to compare this book to a TV show its kind of like the Outer Limits. Each story is a kind of mix of science  fiction and horror.

The first story is The Slaughter Man by Benjamin Kane Ethridge. It’s about a man who has just lost his job in a slaughter-house and also found out his wife was divorcing him. He’s not sure what he wants and he feels a sense of hopelessness. All that changes when a mysterious woman in a business suit shows up talking about a new job that is perfect for him. I felt the author made a great point about not giving up in a horrible situation and I liked how the main character changed throughout the story.

The second story is The Sacrifice by Brett J. Talley. This one looks at a man who has seen some horrors in Afghanistan and Iraq. Coming home from war he is trying to find some direction in life and is given a job to find a kidnapped girl. The job isn’t as simple as it seems and is not what he thought it was going to be. This was a great horror story with a surprise twist.

The next story is called One Job to Many by Joseph Nassise. This tale takes place in the future and is about a recruiter for Limbus who takes on more than he can handle when he hires a man to travel to different time periods to change the past in his favor. This one was a great time travel story with some interesting characters. It answers the question what would you do if you could change the past.

We Employ by Anne C. Petty looks  at a man who couldn’t be more down on his luck and what he is willing to do to fix it. I thought this story really made a good point about how things are not always what they seem and how your luck can turn around at a moments notice. I also liked the idea of what kind of beings are among us without us knowing.

I liked all the stories in this book but my favorite was Strip Search by Jonathan Maberry. This horror tale follows a down on his luck private detective with a secret, who is hired to find the killer of sixteen women. I liked how the main character changes, I also loved the blood soaked ending and the mythology behind this story.

Limbus Inc. is a great anthology which really gets into what some people fear most. Which is the idea of what your willing to do to support yourself. It then shows you that there are even worse things to be afraid of. Limbus Inc. is a great book for Science fiction and horror fans alike.