‘Below’ (Simon Bestwick) & ‘My Name is Ellie’ (Sam Rebelein): More Tales From ‘The Best Horror Of The Year, Volume 12’


I found my copy of ‘The Best Horror Of The Year’, lurking in a TBR pile, the other day and after finishing the deliciously creepy ‘Slipper’, I realised that I wasn’t quite ready to send it back into the depths of Mount TBR just yet. I wanted some short, sharp doses of horror and seeing as the book was right in front of me… Well 😉

It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything by Simon Bestwick but I still remember ‘The Faceless’ and ‘Tide of Souls’ being bloody brilliant, back in the day, so I figured it was a safe bet to give ‘Below’ a shot. Actually, it was a bit more than that. I was really excited to read it. And I won’t lie, ‘My Name is Ellie’ came straight after ‘Below’ so I just kept going. And I’m really glad that I did but I’ll tell you all about that a little further down the page.

It’s another ‘quick thoughts’ post I’m afraid, it’s my first day back after three days off and work… Well, there’s been a lot of it and not a lot of time to get my head round it all. And that’s all I’ll say on the matter, lets talk about those two stories…

‘Below’ (Simon Bestwick)  

A day bunking off school becomes a fight for survival when a sinkhole opens and dumps our two truants in a subterranean world, below the city of Manchester, where to take a step back means death or perhaps even worse…

‘And sometimes – sometimes it’s what’s down there that finds a way out…’

‘Below’ is just relentless, both in it’s pacing (which just doesn’t stop, at all) and in the parade of horrors that Bestwick takes a lot of pleasure in parading before his reader’s eyes. I would if I were him, some of the imagery is just horrifying, an evil mix of Manchester history and… things that should have no place in history at all but have always been there, lurking round the edges or just underneath your feet.

The sense of horror and fear just doesn’t stop, it propels both Martyn and our narrator forward and that keeps us turning the pages to see if they make it but also to see just what else Bestwick has uncovered under the streets of Manchester. While the fate of the narrator isn’t as big as question as it wants to be (unavoidable really, he’s telling the story after all) it’s almost besides the point. ‘Below’ is a tale that’s all about the journey rather than the destination and what a journey it is. Creepy as hell and utterly compelling.

‘My Name is Ellie’ (Sam Rebelein)

Ellie is a ten year old girl who knows things about the world that almost drove her father mad, and still might. That’s ok though, Ellie likes figurines made of ceramic…

‘My Name is Ellie’ is a real slow burner that draws you in and then hits you with the revelation that there is far more to this world than perhaps even Ellie realises and all of a sudden I’m asking myself whether we’re all ceramic figurines to someone out there. Not only can you understand her father’s fear but you can feel it too. Rebelein does bloody well to get all of that down in such a short space and part of that, for me, was down to the slightly hypnotic rhythm of Ellie’s narration. It’s so easy to find that rhythm in her speech, far less easy to get out of it but if you’re like me, you won’t want to anyway; the world that Rebelein paints is far too weird and intriguing to want to leave alone. If you have a copy of ‘The Best Horror Of The Year Volume 12’ then give ‘My Name Is Ellie’ a read, give it another read if you’ve read it already. You won’t regret it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘The Long and Hungry Road’ – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Black Library)

Image
After not finishing ‘Witchbringer’ (not the book’s fault, I still think it could be worth your time), I thought I’d change pace a little and go for a short, sharp burst of something instead. Something that would blow a few cobwebs away and wake me up a bit :o) Now in my experience, there’s nothing shorter and sharper than a Warhammer short story so that was the direction of my reading taken care of. And as far as the focus went… I’ve read a few Warhammer tales, in my time, but I’ve never read a tale that looks at the events of the 41st Millennium through the eyes of the rapacious Tyranids. So when I saw ‘The Long and Hungry Road’ on Amazon, it pretty much chose itself. To face a Tyranid invasion is a waking nightmare. The skies darken with spores, your mind echoes with alien screeches, and countless weapon-organisms descend upon you with razor teeth and claws. How much greater would your horror be, to realise that the hive ship above thinks nothing of your fate – that it crushes you
Read more

'Mad God' (2021)

Image
It's that time again where Youtube throws me a 'Shudder' advert and I think to myself, 'I'm paying five quid a month for this, I really should watch something, lets give it a go...'   This time round, 'It' was the film 'Mad God' and the trailer was this mad batshit crazy shot of stop-motion horror that was over before I'd had a chance to get my head round it; leaving me pretty unsettled but with no clear idea just why that was... That's all I need sometimes, I was in... It's almost an hour later and, damn, that was grim, bleak and... What the hell just happened? A corroded diving bell descends amidst a ruined city and the Assassin emerges from it to explore a labyrinth of bizarre landscapes inhabited by freakish denizens. That is about all I can tell you about 'Mad God' and that's only because I had a quick look on IMDB and that was all IMDB could tell me... 'Mad God' is any number of things but it's not
Read more

‘Worms of the Earth’ – Robert E. Howard.

Image
Page Count: 27 Pages I have a copy of this on my shelf and the plan was to pick it up for a read on the way into work this morning. Well, that was the plan but I was half asleep, leaving the house, and totally forgot… No matter though, that’s what the Kindle app is for (although if I’d been a little more awake, I’d have read it off Project Gutenberg instead, you can find ‘Worms of the Earth’ Here ). 99p later and my ‘commute reading’ was secured 😉 I always seem to fall into the trap of just reading ‘Conan’ stuff whenever I fancy reading a little Howard. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that there’s a lot of his other stories out there that are more than worth your time when you come across them. ‘Worms of the Earth’ is very much one of those tales but you knew that already, didn’t you? You didn’t? You should do something about that, take it from me… After witnessing one of his subjects die at the hands of Roman governor Titus Sulla, Bran Mak Morn vows vengeance on Sulla but at w
Read more