2008 Graveside Tales ISBN 978-0-9801338-1-3

Throughout history they have existed in folklore and nightmares… By day they walk among us, hidden in plain sight. They are our neighbours and friends. But when the sun sets and the full moon rises, the beast within comes out…

In The Beast Within, American indie publisher Graveside Tales has come up with an anthology of twenty diverse stories of the weird, the wondrous and the bestial. Here they are reviewed in the order they appear in the book, with the reviewers' initials in brackets. They are Maurie Breust, Brendan Carson, Felicity Dowker, Ross Murray and Simon Petrie.

First, Australia’s own Lee Battersby offers up The Claws of Native Ghosts, an uncomfortably enjoyable piece set in a time where, try as they might, the white man has not yet vanquished all the old gods - especially those who destroy from the inside out. Battersby’s startlingly good wordplay spins a picturesque and rich tale. A fine opener like this whispers of more dark treasures to follow, if we dare continue our journey…and we do. (FD)

Like Cat and Dog by Michael Stone rips us out of the heavy, solemn atmosphere of its preceding piece, throwing us headfirst into a maelstrom of imagination and shape-shifting action. Stone creates a vivid, fast-paced world that is both tremendously fun and relentlessly brutal. Stone’s seedy underworld of canines, felines and “mundanes” is so tight and sharp, we’re left begging for more. Another hundred pages wouldn’t have been too much. (FD)

In Gift of the Bouda Richard Farnsworth shows, amongst many other evident skills, his casually brilliant wit and impressive grasp of weaponry and all things military. With a slight twist on the werewolf trope, Farnsworth delivers a straight-up tale of beasts, fangs, and blood. There’s beauty in the small things in this exquisitely crafted gem; from the glint of the fading sun on the doctor’s diploma, to the self-same doctor’s name, to our narrator’s wisecracks. Seamless. (FD)

Hatchet Job by John Caruso is a clever tale of two people with beasts inside them; one slow, flabby and largely peaceable, the other irrepressibly malevolent and suspiciously human in form. Caruso’s contribution is not just a venture into a humorous and talented imagination, but an effective social commentary that is powerful in its simplicity. (FD)

In Yard Sale by Norma Lehr, Fred Griswold waits for the right person to arrive to take his treasured knife and cut off his paws…er…hands. When his grand-daughter Susan shows an interest, we know we’re in for something special. Lehr’s tale is direct and clear, with a hint of melancholy and the throb of the primal longing for animalistic freedom. (FD)

In The Night John Fell by Richard Moore, John is a middle-aged former alcoholic, working the night shift at a gas station. He’s holding his life together, and proud of it, but things start to unhinge for him one night, when a regular customer shows some bizarre behaviours while looking around the shop. The transformation of the customer and others to the animal state is well handled, with some genuine touches of the grotesque. I was less moved, however, by John’s personal fall off the wagon, which (to my mind) didn’t seem to capture the necessary emotional range. (SP)

Steven E. Wedel’s Okie Werewolf Looking for Love, in the form of a letter to Beasts & Babes magazine, is pretty much what it says it is, the story of one guy’s transition to werewolf and the effect this has had on him and on those around him. It’s short, easily digested, but perhaps because it has such a plainly expository style it doesn’t greatly resonate or startle. There are, however, some interesting grace notes on life as a werewolf. (SP)

The Marine by John Palisano has more emotive pull than the preceding two stories, and is well-paced with good use of tension. It also conjured in my mind an entirely new meaning for the expression ‘jump the shark’ (and that’s a hint, by the way, as is the story’s title, towards the direction taken here). While there were some aspects of this story, particularly some moments within the action sequences, which didn’t fully convince (and it should be noted, in the story’s defence, that I find suspension of disbelief difficult for this class of fiction generally), I appreciated that Palisano took the time to reveal his characters and their situation in a gradual fashion, with room to build empathy. (SP)

Lure of the Wolf by Belea T. Keeney has some very definite and blatant chunks of infodump, but there’s also a real charm to this sensitive, tentative tale of a middle-aged librarian and ‘her’ werewolf. The character of Vivian, the librarian, is nicely realised, and despite the sometimes intrusive background information, enough of a sense of mystery surrounds the werewolf that the story, overall, carries a definite flavour of magic. (SP)

In SQ 389, by David W. Hill, SQ stands for ‘stealth quotient’ and a value of 389 is just about as high as they come. Which means that Lieutenant Perusquia and the other members of the Serial Incident Investigation Unit, seeking to solve a series of grisly murders, have to contend with someone much smarter than your average werewolf. This futuristic police procedural is taut and tense. While I was initially turned off by the virtual-reality twist running through the storyline, ultimately it hangs together well, although I felt the story’s summation was a little underplayed. (SP)

Desert Heart by William D Carl: This is a “garlic and gunslingers” story, one of a genre that combines elements of the “classic” horror stories and the American wild west. It’s a genre that’s difficult to do well, but William Carl manages some moments of real unease. The story is tightly plotted and Carl manages to give us sympathy for the protagonist and leaves us enough red herrings (very red – this isn’t a story for people who quease easily) so that we don’t seen the ending until the very last page. (BC)

Let’s All Welcome the New Guy by Raoul Wainscoting: the author has evidently sat through enough corporate briefings on unutterable trivia to be able to get the tone of this story exactly right. It’s funny, and it’s not too long, and its mix of gentle satire and moments of briefly glimpsed terror work well. The whole idea of the werewolf around the water-cooler alarms and amuses alternately to make this story a success. (BC)  

Beached by Joel A Sutherland: For this reviewer, this one was the standout story. The voice is powerful and distinctive, the setting is evocative, well-drawn and is deeply embedded in the story, the plot intrigues up to the last paragraph and there are passages of real magic and wonder. I defy anyone to take their eyes from the page during the beach transformation scene. It surprises and creates sympathy. “Beached” is more than “just” a monster story, it is the story of a painful and magical transformation. Watch for more of this guy’s stuff. (BC)  

Needs to be Met by Mark W Coulter contains a good deal of intrinsic horror, yet this reviewer found it the least unsatisfying of the stories. Having said that, Coulter’s description is good, his characters both believable and complex, and climax of the story is certainly horrific. And his selection of the ruthless competition of the dating scene as a metaphor for an older, more ferocious struggle is well made. (BC)  

Some Touch of Pity by Gary A Braunbeck is the longest story in the book, and it needs its length – there is a lot going on in this story. The scope is such that it would have worked equally well as a novella or even a novel. Braunbeck deals with difficult and confronting themes, and the story does contain fairly visceral violence, including a fairly graphic scene of sexual violence against minors – if, like me, you tend to have a limited tolerance for that sort of thing, then this may not be the best story for you. However, Braunbeck is undoubtedly a writer of considerable power and talent. The plot of this story is very satisfying, there is believable character development and the author manages to redeem (some of) the monsters in this story in a very satisfying manner. (BC)  

In Of Silver Bullets and Golden Teeth, Trent Hergenrader has produced a gripping short story of a hunter in 19th century New Mexico who accepts an offer to hunt a most unusual bear, one with a golden tooth. Expanding the Navajo belief that humans can take the form of animals in nature, the story combines shamanism and human-to-animal form changing. This is a real cliff-hanger. (MB)

In Colugo Men we enter a world of cynanthropy with a shape shifter, a wolf like beast that changes from human to weredog when the moon is full. A retired surgeon attempts to subdue the weredog and witness the transformation. Interspersed with family tragedy and revenge this is a fine tale in the tradition of the beast within. The author, Mike Hultquist writes mainly dark fiction and horror stories. (MB)

In The Light of the Silvery Moon, Vince Churchill, who has always been attracted to old-school horror and dark fiction, has produced an enthralling story in which an Alpha human/werewolf hero, Luna, altruistically protects the “human herd” of Los Angeles. Luna’s inherited lycanthropy is about to end and his role of protector passed to his son, but first he must fulfil one last desperate mission. There is more than a little flavour of Blade and the Dark Knight in this one. (MB)

Crop Frogs by Gina Ranalli finds husband and wife team Anne and Joe searching alligator infested swamp country in search of the ‘green goo’, a swamp slime which is the active ingredient in a new sexual enhancement drug. Unfortunately it’s not the ‘gators they need to be worrying about. When Joe is bitten by an overly large frog, everything changes. Gina Ranalli’s characters are slightly verbose but the twist in the tail makes ‘Crop Frogs’ an interesting take on were-beast mythology.(RM)

In Matt Hults The Immaculate Conception it is 1673, and aboard the merchant vessel Immaculate Captain Forester performs an emergency caesarean section on a pregnant African slave. His actions send the ship into mutiny, but the slaves held in the cargo have a darker kind mutiny of their own planned. While sometimes lapsing into cliché, Hults adeptly presents a tension and carnage-filled filled high-seas horror tale where even the ship isn’t what it seems. (RM)

To find out more, go to http://gravesidetales.com/