A Consternation of Monsters is a collection of short stories set firmly in the realms of modern fantasy and the paranormal. These are tales in the tradition of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, or Tales from the Darkside. Perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, or Pete Hamill, with a bit of Patrick McManus thrown in for good measure.
A consternation, as you should remember from grade school, is the collective noun for monsters. It is therefore a fitting title for a collection of short stories that each contain monsters of various sorts and shades.
In these tales, a creature of make-believe proves difficult to disbelieve, a trickster-god takes an unkindly interest in witnesses, eldritch horrors can be summoned using a quilt, frustrated wolves face dangerous prey, the angel of death wears a plaid sport coat, wise old women are to be feared and heeded, the corpses of legends can be perilous to have around, Elvis remains the once and future king of rock & roll, and where one of the most powerful and potentially destructive objects in the world is a fork.
The settings for the stories span from Wayne County, Mississippi, to Charleston, West Virginia, to the desert southwest, to Seward, Alaska, coastal Virginia, and on to Memphis, Tennessee. Monsters lurk in some settings. In others, they simply walk, often with a smile.
A Consternation of Monsters is available for purchase on Amazon.com in both print and Kindle ebook formats, from Barnes & Noble in both print and Nook ebook formats, in print at Books A Million., and in audiobook format, as narrated by the author, courtesy of Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.
You can read a sample from it from both Amazon and Kindle. In fact, if you download the Kindle sample, you get the entire first story, “The Hocco Makes the Echo.”
You can also read my ongoing blog entries about the stories found in this collection.
Check out the foreword to the book, written by radio host Rik Winston, of UFO All Night fame.
And be sure to subscribe to the podcast adaptation of selected stories from the collection at the Consternation of Monsters Podcast page. This is your best way to get full stories from the collection, in audio form, for free.
REVIEWS FOR A CONSTERNATION OF MONSTERS
-
Rhizomaticideas.com (a review by author Ed Davis)
-
Unlimited Book Reviews
-
New Mystic Reviews
-
WriterBee’s Book Reviews
-
The Joy of… (Jon Joy)
-
Amazon.com reviews
-
Weekly Read by J.D. Byrne
-
WV Book Team: A monster mash in book form (Cat Pleska)
-
Jason Half from his review blog