Sunday 23 March 2014

The Soul That Screamed by Dan Weatherer (a review)

The Soul That Screamed by Dan Weatherer
 
Now, this is, in my opinion, just how story collections should be. There is plenty of variety, more or less something for everyone. This is a first collection from Dan Weatherer, but to read his words you get the feeling of reading someone who's been doing this for a while.
 
Some of the tales here have the voice and style of the 'old masters' like Poe, Lovecraft, and M R James (The Legend of the Chained Oak, Florian, Siar's Rock) while others feel a lot more modern. There are ghost stories in here, there are zombie/re-animation stories here, there are demons a plenty, a 'creature feature (Fly Bad Butterfly, Fly - particularly disturbing for me this one as I have a ridiculous fear of butterflies and moths) and two darkly comic tales  ('Once A Butcher's Wife' and its' follow up 'Always A Butcher's Wife').
 
Weather comes across on the page as a more than competent author with a selection of 'author voices' to entertain you. I think we will be hearing a lot more from him in the future (I certainly hope so) and would be interested to see what he would do with a full length novel (and I want more stories of Agnes Ferry, the eponymous butcher's wife - you've got to love the old dear, even if she is a nasty piece of work at times)

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