Weird Doom Vol. 1 is a slim, two-story collection featuring one mechanical heart and one devilish plant. According to author Greg Stanina, it represents a “spine-chilling landscape, where reality and nightmares blend into an unsettling tapestry of dread and despair.” As promised by the title, the stories are both weird and doom-y. 

One of my favorite sub-genres of horror is eco-terror, and the first story in Weird Doom is a fine example of mankind’s deteriorating (and sometimes combative) relationship with nature.

Sown with seeds of evil and fertilized with pulsating human blood, a garden exists somewhere in Northeastern, Florida—squarely at the center of Hell. No crops grow here—no fruit or vegetables—only grotesque excrescence spring forth from gaping holes in the earth. According to its caretaker, the unholy harvest will take your body and then it will take your soul. And finally it will take you straight to Hell. 

For me, “Garden of Eden” checks all the boxes for a great eco-horror story: botanical gothic, the Old Testament, the Satanic Bible and “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell. It even ends with an unexpected fairy tale-like ending. Good job. 

The second story “Coming Soon” is about a robot who acquires singularity and human-like emotions (much like the replicants of Blade Runner and the synths of Humans). It’s full of heart and existential curiosity. 

A elderly couple by the name of Gerald and Edna Quisenberry adopt a wind-up robotic boy to fill the childless void in their marriage. Robbie is a great companion to the couple and brings all the positive benefits that a child provides with “none of the gobbledygook.”

The Quisenberry’s joy is short-lived, however. Robbie eventually rejects his instruction manual and starts asking awkward questions. Granted, he could learn and speak and display emotions, but did that constitute a soul? And whose soul was it, Robbie’s or the motherboard’s? If his hardware and software shut down, would he be nothing more than a plastic mannequin?

These questions completely confound the old couple. Instead of helping the wind-up boy figure out his complicated life, they do the most awful thing imaginable. The ending may be a bit contrived but what do you expect from two self-absorbed geezers with a supreme lack of self-awareness? 

[ Weird Doom, Vol. 1 / By Greg Stanina / First Printing: April 2024 / ISBN: 9798322421320 ]