+Skullring+

The Return of the Novella
reviewed by Joe McKinney

A few years back, Cutting Block Press set out with the mission statement to publish "the highest quality examples of all forms of Dark Fiction, running the gamut from traditional horror, supernatural, speculative, psychological thriller, dark satire, including every point between and especially beyond." I recently had an opportunity to read their debut effort, a multi-author collection of four novellas entitled Butcher Shop Quartet, and I'm here to tell you, there is truth in advertising. Butcher Shop Quartet is an outstanding expression of Cutting Block's promise to bring us the best in modern horror.

The lead off story, "The Last of Boca Verde" by Boyd Harris, is a psychological thriller in the same vein as Heart of Darkness, mixed with the creepy insanity of Fight Club. Our narrator is in Costa Rica, looking for his brother who has gone missing somewhere in the fire-ravaged rain forest of Boca Verde. The jungles are inhabited by strange black monkeys and choked with smoke. Harris' simple, direct prose evokes the setting wonderfully, and as his narrator goes deeper into the depths of that setting, both his sense of isolation and his almost undeniable insanity reach frightening proportions.

Next up is "The House on the Hill," by Australian author Clinton Green. Set against the backdrop of World War I, the story is about two young men whose lives turned upside down after spending a night in a haunted house. We are going to hear more from Mr. Green, I guarantee you. His writing is crisp and sharp, and his character development, especially as the men lose their na?ve love of adventure and glory in the face of the horror of war, is outstanding. The twist at the end is wonderful.

The third story, "The Reconstruction of Kasper Clark," by English author Michael Stone, is a darkly comic gem. Who would have thought that hell's diet program and cosmetic surgery division could be so entertaining, or so funny?

The last story is "The Darkling Child" by a brand new author named A.T. Andreas. The story is written in a classic—some might even say Victorian—style, loaded with philosophical and religious digressions, but the mood it creates pairs smoothly with the over feel of the story. This is a solid effort describing the eternal conflict between good and evil.

The novella is something of a limited field these days. Most of the horror magazines out there, such as Cemetery Dance and Subterranean, limit their word counts to below the 5,000 mark. A few others, such as Apex and Postscripts, will publish the novella, but the cold hard truth is that there just aren't that many markets for long fiction. Short stories are simply more cost effective. You can fit more of them into the pages of a magazine—and let's face it, with the costs of printing and production being what they are today, everybody is trying to do more with less.

This is a real shame as far as I'm concerned. The novella has always been a perfect vehicle for the horror story, long enough to allow for the development of character, setting, and mood, yet not so long that more compressed ideas or visions can get the intensity of a short story. Cutting Block needs to be commended, not only for publishing the novella in the first place, but also for bringing us some bright new talents.

Highly recommended for public libraries and personal collections.

—Joe McKinney, author of Dead City and Quarantined