“What’s the worst that can happen?” Recently I played this game with a friend. I commented that if there’s a hell for monsters, and I ever end up there, my punishment will be to wash dishes in a restaurant. Like any good creeper in basements and attics, I hate the three basics of washing dishes: Being wet, being covered with chewed-up bits of food and soda, and working. My friend helpfully pointed out that this might not be horrible enough. What if all the dishes came covered with saliva? What if I had to lick all the dishes to clean them? How could that get worse? Answer: Hundreds of paper cuts.
What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Robert Dunbar. If the question is “What’s the worst that could happen?” Robert Dunbar is the man with an answer. Martyrs & Monsters is a collection of short fiction by Dunbar and a lot of it is harrowing. I’m not usually a fan of short story collections, but every once in a while I’ll run across an author who can fill out a compelling one.
The stories here are varied. While most of them are horror stories, they run quite a range of subjects. Martyrs & Monsters covers everything from post-apocalyptic zombie fighters to murderous drug addicts. From a wildly dysfunctional geek love triangle to a straight-up ghost story. A few of the stories are quite humorous. Some others are horrifyingly bleak. To me it seems like the one common thread is that the characters in all these stories are battling their own demons.
Strangely, the book finishes with a story that is very much like an L-Word episode. It’s about a gay man who introduces his new boyfriend to a bunch of his friends at a beach house gathering. And his friends don’t like the guy. That’s as horrifying as the story gets, so I was left scratching my head. Maybe I missed the point. In the bigger picture, though, it barely matters.
Dunbar’s writing is creative and engrossing. As the background to each story is set up, Dunbar provides just the right amount of information. Everything is full formed. He’s very good at painting a bleak, horrifying picture with only a few strokes. As I mentioned earlier, Dunbar can certainly answer the question: “What’s the worst that could happen?” If you’re trying to save your brother from a succubus, what’s the worst that could happen? If you get bit while defending your children from a zombie and, as a result, turn into a one, what’s the worst that could happen? If you think your neighbor might have been replaced by an alien doppelganger, what’s the worst that could happen? The truth is, you don’t want to know! Or, if you enjoy horror: You do want to know, and here you will be amply rewarded.
Creepy Factor: 5 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 2 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 3 out of 5
Martyrs & Monsters made the final Horror Writers Association 2009 Stoker Awards ballot for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection, and it’s clear that it belongs there. The writing is imaginative, the atmosphere is haunting, and the sexy witch really does have a collection of – of – uh maybe you don’t want to know. Or maybe you do. What’s the worst that could happen?
Martyrs and Monsters by Robert Dunbar – 2009 – DarkHart Press
Buy Martyrs & Monsters by Robert Dunbar on Amazon
Many thanks to the author for sending me a review copy of this book. See you next time!
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