Lagoe, Texas, was classified as a disappearing community; a ghost town in the making. Main Street was lined with buildings that had been empty for 40+ years. Like a lot of rural towns in the U.S., it was destroyed during an economic apocalypse in the 80s and sputtered along on life support ever since.

The most interesting thing about Lagoe was the dense flora surrounding the small rural townlet. Known locally as Wildcat Thicket, it was a mecca for weirdness—a place where outlaws could lose themselves and monsters could hide. Said a local reporter: “No one hunts there. No trails. Hell, no one is even willing to set up a meth lab there.”

Citizens knew something profound was hidden in the bramble—things that couldn’t stay hidden such as giant angry birds, Bigfoot and lions from the Stone Age. “The wild places were shrinking and there were fewer shadows for monsters to hide.”

In these early pages, author Elford Alley does a nice job of describing the quirks of the thicket and its continuing influence on the people living in Lagoe. The briar was so entangled in community culture, for example, that a prehistoric lion (specifically a Panthera atrox) was the school’s proud mascot. Only later does Wildcat Thicket explode into absolute chaos.

One man who lived in the middle of the thicket kept a journal of what he saw. The “wood apes” interested him the most. “They all ranged from six to seven feet in height,” he wrote. “They made sounds, whoops and screams. One of them even mimicked human laughter that sounded like a well-worn tape recording.” They were apes, he concluded. Animals. Nothing supernatural about them. Just wood apes.

But he was wrong—they were more than just apes. They had a primitive intelligence that went beyond human comprehension. Ryder and Erin, two people living in a travel trailer close to the thicket, suspected that these elusive ape-men were up to something sneaky. One way or another, they were determined to find out what it was. 

Ryder entered the thicket and quickly came face to face with a lone ape-man. It didn’t go well. “The creatures had the face of an ape,” he thought, “but there was human intelligence and cruelty in it’s eyes.” Meanwhile, Erin had her own problems to worry about. She was in the thicket doing her best to evade the giant prehistoric lion that was stalking her. 

Ryder and Erin survived their adventure and eventually discovered the mystery of the wood apes. There’s an improbable twist at the end of the novel that’s both tragic and romantic at the same time. I guarantee that you’ll go back and reread the prologue once you finish the book. I did, and it was well worth it.  

[ Wildcat Thicket / By Elford Alley / First Printing: April 2026 / ISBN: 9798296505651 ]

I can totally understand why Aron Beauregard chose a horsefly to be the monster in his latest creature feature book. Not only are they big and ugly and gross, but the bite of a female horsefly really, really hurts—they’ll slice you open for a bloody meal. “I lived on a farm growing up and became a bit of a bug nerd,” said one character. “Bugs were my friends. Well, not the horseflies. They sucked.”

Now imagine a genetically modified horsefly the size of a pit bull. Its mandibles—like a pair of serrated mouth-swords, vibrating with the fury of jackhammers and capable of cutting a human in half “like a poop-knife through diarrhea.”

The giant horsefly was created in a laboratory and infected with Disease X. With a secret proprietary vaccine already in the bag, the pharmaceutical company wanted to start a pandemic that only they could cure. Too bad the bug went rogue and escaped into Connecticut’s Mount Archer Woods. 

Disease X gave the mutant horsefly a twisted kind of sentience. No longer was it simply concerned with survival and nourishment. It wanted to inflict pain on every other species it encountered. 

But more than that, it began to ponder the mysteries of its existence. God, it believed, had chosen it to bring about a new way of life—to be a soldier and advance its genus into the next phase of existence. As you’d expect, the horsefly carried forth the word of God in the most violent way imaginable. Nothing could stop it’s bloody crusade, according to the author. 

In short order, the monster attacked a family taking a vacation in the woods. Later, it descended upon a neighboring horse farm. Things got exponentially more complicated when the horsefly started harassing a cabin full of frisky swingers.

All these freewheelin’ libertines wanted to do was chill, get drunk and hook up. They never thought they’d be caught on the front lines of a horsefly invasion. 

One by one, the giant fly attacked the group. The ones it didn’t kill became infected apostles of God’s will. Without a doubt, the most fervent convert was Ruben Alto.

Even though he was a charismatic and good-looking fellow, Ruben had done lots of horrible things in his life. But now, after being infected with Disease X, he suddenly hungered to be worse than he’d ever been before. “He sensed the thirst for carnage rumbling in his heart,” said the author, “and he felt manic like a windup doll that had been fully cranked.”

Ruben’s behavior manifested itself in surprisingly psychosexual ways. Not only was he on a violent rampage, but he was horny as hell. For example, when he spotted the desecrated corpse of his cabin mate on the kitchen table, his red eyes glowed with lust and rage. What came next was both gooey and absurd. 

The scene ends when a park ranger stumbles upon Ruben’s rancid lovemaking. “Sick fuck,” he sputtered. “You didn’t even have the decency to use a rubber.”

[ Horsefly / By Aron Beauregard / First Printing May 2026 / ISBN: 9781961758957 ]

Author Ian Gielen dedicates his latest novel Savage Waters to “all those who desperately want cryptids to be real,” and then proceeds to unleash a cryptid so ferocious that it makes you grateful these creatures exist only in myth.

Whether Gielen is being sincere or a smartass, I don’t know. But the fact remains that the Aboriginal beast in this novel is a terrifyingly aggressive brute. “Ten feet tall,” says Gielen. “A wall of fur and muscle built for death.”

It all starts when random hikers start disappearing while exploring Kakadu National Park in Australia’s Northern Territory. The military gets involved when they discover a photo of a bear-ape-like creature in the area. 

A team of mercenaries with extensive military experience is ultimately hired and dispatched to the park. Their mission is clear: They will deploy to Kakadu, locate the source of these incidents, identify the threat and neutralize it if necessary.

Deep within the Northern Territory’s wetlands, the members of Apex Defense Services were on high alert. They could hear a deep, heavy growl dripping with primal menace coming from the nearby trees. It was a sound that no crocodile, wild pig or water buffalo could ever make. 

It was a bunyip, of course. A creature from Aboriginal folklore whose name basically means “devil.” As a semi-aquatic animal, the bunyip usually lives close to waterholes, rivers, swamps and billabongs. But now, as Australia’s rainy seasons get shorter, its habitat was getting hotter and hotter. The bunyip was looking for a new place to hunt and call home. 

By the end of Part One, the bunyip kills the presumptive hero and efficiently annihilates most of the remaining government mercenaries. 

But hold on—the story doesn’t end there. In Part Two of Savage Waters, a couple of cryptozoologists from New York travel to Kakadu Park to investigate the bunyip’s recent activities. Ray and Kate figure that if they can get a video of the creature, fame and fortune will come their way. 

As luck would have it, the plucky pair of cryptid investigators come face to face with the bunyip after just a few short days in the wetlands. The beast is freakin’ enormous, says the author. Towering above them, Its body is compact and powerful, resembling a monstrous pit bull that had been sculpted from someone’s worst nightmare. Four huge fangs protruded from its cavernous mouth, and its four powerful limbs ending in paws ripped with wicked, razor-sharp claws. Curved, pointed bones ran up and down its spine and whip-like tail.

Before the novel ends, Ray and Kate (along with the surviving members of Apex Defense Services) share a terrifying moment in the bunyip’s bone-filled cave. How does it turn out? No spoilers from me, but I will say this: Author Gielen is already planning to write an upcoming sequel. 

[ Savage Waters / By Ian Gielen / First Printing: August 2026 / ISBN: 9781764012645 ]

Unlike Harold and his famous purple crayon, 15-year-old Baylor Jenkins needed help from a magical spellbook to bring her scribbles to life. 

Being a morose kid, Baylor wasn’t drawing flowers, rainbows, kittens or anime girls in cute outfits. Instead, she uncapped her black Sharpie and drew the kind of things you’d expect to find scrawled in the margins of a metalhead’s high school math textbook—mostly monsters with gaping mouths, sharp teeth and rippling gray eyes.

Baylor used her grimoire to help her write a hex that would bring her doodle monsters to life. “Rules be damned,” she wrote, “give these creatures life. Let this curse take hold and cure my strife.” Admittedly, the spell was kind of dumb, but give credit to author Heather Ann Larson for capturing the awkwardness of bad teenage poetry. 

Surprisingly, Baylor’s malefice was successful, and the monsters in her sketchbook sprang to life. Before the night was over, one of her parents was eaten (!!) and her little sister Ruby slipped into a catatonic state that would last for the next 15 years. 

Now the crudely drawn things were back. In fact, they never really went away. Even Baylor’s coworkers could tell something was haunting her. “There was something in the air,” thought Bill, her best friend and colleague, “a wavy aura surrounding her that was dark, foreboding and gave off the stench of a rotting corpse.” Peripherally, he caught a glimpse of movement in Baylor’s office. It almost looked like a kid had taken a Sharpie to her wall.

Pretty soon, Baylor was having explicit nightmares. The abominations even dragged Ruby (now 20 years old) into their sketchpad domain. It was all too much for her to handle. How the hell could she defeat a drawing, she wondered. Baylor knew she couldn’t do it alone. 

Thankfully, her coworker and a concerned police detective rushed to her rescue. Unbeknownst to her, they both had preternatural superpowers. Bill had synesthesia, an acute perceptual intuition, and, like a dowsing rod, Detective Elliot Wolfe had the ability to find hidden things. 

Which leads me to the one major criticism I have of Crudely Drawn. According to the author, Baylor had a “small amount of power.” In addition, her coworker had superpowers, the police detective also had superpowers and her sister was a telepath. Sheesh! It’s just too much. I’m sure I’ve got powers. And I bet you do too. Everybody’s got superpowers!

But I quibble. Despite some missteps, Larson has written an entertaining and creepy little story. It’s obvious to me that the author is at the beginning of her writerly journey. Give her some time. I predict good things from her in the future. 

[ Crudely Drawn / By Heather Ann Larson / First Printing / August 2026 / ISBN: 9798187276158 ]

Here’s a personal request for all writers walking the thin line between pulp fiction and comic books: At the very beginning of the process, when rendering the main characters of the story, please give some consideration to creating a villain who is simply a disembodied brain floating in a jar of formalin. 

Talking brains are the best, amirite? Still to this day, I remember watching the movie Donovan’s Brain and being shocked by the image of a “talking” cerebrum suspended in a laboratory container. Various episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama have also used this iconic image to great effect. 

There’s a fun story in Monster Aristocracy, a new compilation from editors Dan Brereton, Allison Pang and James A. Moore (RIP), that unabashedly uses the disembodied brain trope with gusto—and I’m all for it. 

Author Thomas E. Sniegoski revisits his character Grim Death (with the help of Jeannine S. Acheson) in a story called “Earthbounders’ Lament.” If you picked up Grim Death’s first adventure back in 2017 (Grim Death and Bill the Electrocuted Criminal), you already know the origin story of how a recluse named Bentley Hawthorne donned a skull mask and became an agent of supernatural retribution. 

In this new adventure, Hawthorne is trying to provide eternal rest for the dead. “I was visited by the life energies of those trapped between the worlds of the living and the dead,” he explains. These Earthbounders (as they were called), were recently exhumed by grave robbers and used to create reanimated monsters. 

The mad villain behind the caper was Dr. Fredrick Clive, the talking brain—a.k.a. the Floating Muscle of Thought. He was a renowned expert on radical surgical transplant techniques and automata. His goal was to drag humanity into the future by building an army of Frankenstein-like patchwork soldiers. And, if he had time afterward, he wanted to find a suitable skull for his brain to reside.

Beyond Dr. Clive’s big brain, Monster Aristocracy is filled with all sorts of horrible (good) monsters, including vampires, mummies, werewolves, evil magicians, murderous mythical creatures, wild flora and abominable snow queens. My favorite monster of the bunch can be found in a story called “A Procession of Brides.”

Here’s the truth, writes Carina Bissett: Dr. Frankenstein didn’t create a wife for his original monster. He wanted a bride for himself. “She was nothing more than a vessel,” says Bissett, “an empty receptacle for him to fill.”

Ultimately rejecting her creator, Frankenstein’s bride walked the earth becoming a willing repository for all the girls and women abused and abandoned in back alleys and under bridges, chained to stones and strung from wires. “You know the ones,” she says. “The drowned girls. The burning girls. Brown girls, black girls, the disappearing girls and the runaways.” She became a multitude of souls swirling through one core union.

Bissett ends her story like this: “We are no longer following the script Frankenstein wrote. We are the women raped on the altar. The forced brides. The final girls. And we are coming for you. We are the New Eve. Everlasting. Eternal.”

[ Monster Aristocracy / Edited by Dan Brereton, Allison Pang & James A. Moore / First Printing: July 2026 / ISBN: 9798184340388 ]

Back in 1936, H.P. Lovecraft wrote a creepy novella titled The Shadow Over Innsmouth, about a seaport village inhabited by grotesque, fish-like hybrids. Robert Olmstead, the story’s protagonist, knew full well that the ocean was a place where monsters lived—“overflowing with the ultimate quintessence of unknown and inhuman evil,” he said. 

In a way, you could say that The Shadow Over Innsmouth was an inspiration for Open Water, the new anthology edited by Alex J. Gardner. “The fear of open water lies in the fact that so much of it is unexplained,” wrote Gardner in his introduction. “It’s human nature to fear the unknown and to fill the void with speculation and imaginings.”

By my count, there are four, maybe five, stories in this collection that hark back to Lovecraft’s book from 1936. Probably the most overt example comes from author S.T. Talbot. “Lowest Dark” is about a fisherman’s family that finds an ancient book at the bottom of the ocean. “It was a book of power,” explains a lineal descendant. “My great-great-grandfather read aloud a select few words in the book. In just the right order, in just the right locations, he awoke something older than the stars.” He continued: “In simpler terms, Gramps trapped a god and the god made us all rich.”

All the abyssal creature required was an occasional sacrifice from time to time. In this case, the family chose their daughter Ronnie’s girlfriend as the necessary oblation. Ronnie had other plans, however. In one fell swoop, she successfully saved her girlfriend, ended her family’s horrible legacy and unleashed eldritch horror upon the world. The moral of the story was clear: the power of love can erase all moral ambiguities. 

The story “Home Again” has a similar Lovecraftian vibe, although author S.M. Davis eschews horror for humor.

Two brothers hike through a deciduous forest to find themselves navigating an unexpected drowned landscape. As they begin exploring the area, they begin to wonder: “What type of horror film are we in?” Until proven otherwise, they assume they’re trapped in an “elevated ecohorror” movie. 

As the swamp rises higher and higher, the brothers—now paddling a canoe—discover an altar in a hidden cavern. “This isn’t elevated ecohorror any more,” said one brother. “This is eldritch sacrifice and stygian exultation.”

And sure enough, they eventually confront a Lovecraftian-like beast in the littoral cave. “I am the Primordial Mother, Consumer of Worlds,” rumbled a giant swamp monster in a voice that sounded like an unholy mix of Jennifer Tilly and Tom Waits. “Your world is now my swamp.”

There are other excellent stories in this anthology of course. For example “Weekend Getaway” by Jayme Antrim is about how an interspecies friendship defeats a mountainous sea creature. “Bigger Fish” by Isabelle Nygren is about the tragic intersection shared by life and death. Felix Lilly’s story “Keep the Light Burning” is about one lighthouse keeper’s struggle to keep encroaching sea colossi at bay. And finally, “Lost Lake” by Troy Tradup will break your heart. 

Final verdict: I love the ocean’s unfathomable void and the monsters that live there. In my opinion, Open Water is one heck of a collection. To quote Captain Nemo from Vingt mille lieues sous les mers “The sea supplies all my wants.”

[ Open Water / Edited b Alex J. Gardner / First Printing: July 2026 / ISBN: 9781068269745 ]

It was just two months ago that Dr. Mark Hudson and his cryptid investigation team saved Los Angeles from being destroyed by a group of quarreling giant monsters (read my review of Gore vs. the Cryptid Kaiju here). And now, after a brief respite back home at Area 51, Hudson was called back into action again.

Only this time, the stakes were even higher. Famine, one of the original Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, was making a play to destroy the cosmos—or, at the very least, reshape reality in his own image. 

At his command was Gore, the 400-foot-tall super wendigo from the previous novel. Gore was the ultimate avatar. With the she-beast by his side, Famine (known biblically as the Black Horse) felt unstoppable. “There was a reckoning on the way,” warned authors Zach Cole and Cody Bratsch, “one that would put Famine and Gore directly up against the great pantheons that ruled over the cosmos.”

It was time for the earthly gods to assemble their celestial warriors—the avatars! Here the avatars are human beings transformed into kaiju-like monsters by the gods. Said the Great Spirit, a Native American divinity: “We endow a chosen mortal with the power to be able to change into a great beast at will. In these forms, most avatars end up being even more powerful than the gods who chose them in the first place.” 

Because of Dr. Hudson’s past experience fighting kaiju in L.A., the Great Spirit chose him to be his personal avatar. The process was pretty straightforward—there were no tricky sigils or incantations involved. A syringe of “magical blue energy” was injected into the back of Hudson’s skull and (voilà!) he gained the ability to transform into a Divine Beast named Thunderbird. There was no scientific logic to it—the gods themselves barely understood how the transformation worked.

The avatars then enter into a Shōnen Jump-like tournament to prepare for the coming war. This is where the authors introduce the eight celestial warriors to the reader. Along with Thunderbird, there’s Scylla from Greece, Jorogumo from Japan, Fafnir from the Norse pantheon, Camazotz the Mayan, Naga the Hindu, Osiris from Egypt and Behemoth, the Christian representative. For the record, Scylla and Fafnir are considered the mightiest of the bunch. 

Each of the avatars has unique powers and a distinct personality. Despite their foibles and quarrelsome temperaments, they make for a fun mix of characters. Gold star to the authors for creating this winsome cast. 

As seen in the previous novel, Gore was a brute. But here she continues to evolve physically. The antlers atop her head have become thicker and now point forward (“better for skewering,” said the authors). Armor adorned her arms and legs, making her more durable. And at some point, monstrous spider legs sprout from her spine.  

But she wasn’t just a cipher or a tool. Gore suffered from an inner turmoil and angst that motivated her. Said the authors: “Never again would Gore let herself fall victim to someone else as had happened in the past. Back when she was a human named Callista, she was helpless and meek and vulnerable to the world around her. Now she was the mighty Gore and she had the power to make the world crumble before her very feet and the will to make it happen.”  

[ Gore: Avatars of the Gods / By Zach Cole & Cody Bratsch / First Printing: July 2026 / ISBN: 9798182224093 ]

“I’m a vampire,” said James Sugré, the protagonist of Michael J. Seidlinger’s latest book Brokeula. “And like all vampires, I have forever and a day to spare.” 

But living forever wasn’t cheap. Sugré didn’t have a stash of gold coins buried somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains to help pay for all of his bills. Without generational wealth, he couldn’t afford to be immortal. “I’m hungry,” he howled, “hungry for some fucking money!”

Instead of riding the highway in a sporty vintage Porsche or stalking trendy Manhattan jazz clubs looking for his next meal, Sugré lay motionless in a coffin all day and night with nothing to do. To pass the time, he would admire his coffin’s luxurious interior. 

That all changed the day he brought a blue-haired emo girl named Lauren back to his dingy apartment. She promised to give him all the money in her bank account if he turned her into a vampire. “Change my life and I’ll change yours,” she told him.

Looking at the opportunity like a businessman, Sugré had to make a decision and run the numbers. That’s what an employer would do, he reasoned—examine investments for potential profit. “The entire time I was taking in her warm blood,” he said later, “I was thinking about her life savings. I was thinking about the size of the transfer.”

Together, Sugré and Lauren started a multi-level marketing business. But instead of selling vitamins and supplements like Herbalife, their company sold eternal life. They both knew the idea was pure gold. Entire industries existed to combat the effects of aging. People had always wanted to live forever. 

And guess what? Their scheme quickly turned into a multi-billion dollar business. “There’s an entire world out there full of humans who would willingly pay me every penny to their name to be turned into a vampire,” said Sugré. “And like any good business, my customers become lifetime members.”

Unfortunately for Sugré and Lauren, the success of Bloodsucker LLC was short-lived. The company was quickly dismantled by a consortium of vampire overlords. These ancient progenitors didn’t appreciate being exploited for capitalistic gain.  

The downfall of Bloodsucker LLC highlights the novel’s two central themes: capitalism’s tendency to commercialize everything, and the tendency of MLM companies to amplify everything to absurd levels. 

Brokeula is a satire of these ridiculous impulses. Author Seidlinger makes readers (especially U.S. readers) look at capitalism through a funhouse mirror. If everything is a commodity, he seems to be saying, then nothing is a commodity. 

[ Brokeula / By Michael J. Seidlinger / First Printing: July 2026 / ISBN: 9781968043094 ]

Apparently, editor Annie Knox is committed to compiling an entire shelf of anthologies based on abominable creatures. Last year she helmed a terrific collection of werewolf stories (read my review here) and she’s currently working on a collection of stories featuring sirens, the undisputed queens of the seven seas.

Her current effort contains 11 tales of vampires, with some embracing their darker impulses and others showing surprisingly degree of charity and humanity. As Knox herself says: “Even in the darkest places and times, we can find goodness in ourselves and in others.”

But to be clear, vampires can’t escape their bad behavior completely. They remain the most indulgent monsters on Earth. Even dragons, succubi, leprechauns and Mister Mxyzptlk can’t hold a candle to a vampire’s excess and penchant for chaos. Those traits are on full display throughout this anthology. 

“Mine is a divine horror that has fueled countless nightmares,” says Dacian Nastase, the vampire in John Baulding’s story “Kill Him Again.” “I am the scourge of the living, the drinker of blood and the omega denizen of the deepest nights. Look upon me and embrace your death incarnate.” 

Nastase isn’t the only vampire plagued by an inflated sense of self-importance. The creature in “Three Fighters” is equally insufferable, and Ulric, the bird-eating vampire from Paul O’Neill’s “The Fresh Blood of Birds,” is downright obsessed with his ancient vampiric lineage. In addition, some of these jokers think of themselves as angels—death angels or otherwise. 

Like most anthology editors, Knox saves her best stories for last. Both “The Girl with the Grey Eyes” by Jacqueline Erasin and “The Last Sunset” by Anne Wilkins offer emotional resonance that lingers like a wistful dream. Together, they provide a satisfying final note to Creatures of the Night. 

Erasin’s story is about a man who falls in love with a cute vampiress. “She was like a drug,” he confesses, “Intoxicating.” But there was no way their budding relationship could ever last. Even if Liliana turned her lover into a vampire, their romance was still doomed. “Vampires live alone,” she tells him. “We have our own hunting grounds. If we stayed together, we’d eventually destroy each other.”

Wilkins’ story is even more tragic. As a mortal, Edith possessed a rare blood type—only 43 people in the world had the same Rh-null blood as she did. Now, as a vampire, she can only feed on people with this rare “golden blood.” After a year of starving herself, Edith eventually finds an unwilling donor. The lifelong relationship between Edith and George is complicated, to say the least. The way it all unravels is like an emotional gut punch. 

[ Creature Feature Classics, Vol. 2: Creatures of the Night / Edited by Annie Knox / First Printing: May 2026 / ISBN: 9798255286317 ]