Nate Southard

Caution: This story is not for the masses. Even if you are a fan of one or more of the authors involved, you may want to think twice.

Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road is a project with proceeds going to help defray the massive medical expenses incurred by Tom Piccirilli's battle against brain cancer. A worthwhile endeavor by some of my favorite genre writers.

So here we have Brian Keene, Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, J F Gonzalez, Bryan Smith, Wrath James White, Nate Southard, Ryan Harding and Shane show more McKenzie writing a round-robin style, gross-out ghost story. Each managing to outdo the last in the lengths they will go to disgust and potentially alienate the reader. In many cases they will succeed in that endeavor. As a result there are already a number of 1 Star reviews. Reviews that I can actually see as a twisted badge of honor for the writers involved.

If Sixty-Five Stirrup Road was Movie, it would likely be rated NC-17. An NC-17 rating can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children. I'd say this book meets and exceeds those qualifications.

So, do you think I've adequately covered how sick, depraved and morally reprehensible Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road is? If so, let's get to the good stuff.

Yes, there is a story. It's either an evil or haunted house and those who live there, or find themselves nearby, are slowly overcome by sexual desires of the most perverse variety. Go ahead and dwell on what that might mean, then pick a number from one to ten and multiply. Trust me, you're not even close.

Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road is not a literary masterpiece. It was never meant to be. What it is is a wild, no holds barred romp filled with sex and violence. I did enjoy the tag team approach to writing the novel. One writer would take a chapter, he'd be joined by a second writer for the next chapter and then that writer would go solo only to be joined by someone else for the next and so on.

And then there's the payoff. No spoiler here, but let's say if you are a fan of these guys, follow any of them on Facebook or Twitter, have spent time with them at a horror convention, you're gonna love what happens next.

Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road is available now as both a paperback and ebook from Amazon.com and remember proceeds go to defray Tom Piccirilli's medical expenses associated with his fight against brain cancer. Go Tom!

It you have a strong constitution and are not easily offended, I can strongly recommend Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road. show less

As you would expect from a novel with nine authors, this isn't a book that's destined to be remembered as one of the world's great works of literature. It's not even destined to be remembered as a classic of the horror genre. It is, however, better than you'd think from reading the reviews of it on Amazon.

This book is more or less exactly what you'd expect to get when nine extreme horror authors collaborate on a book written for the sole purpose of raising money for a fellow author with show more brain cancer, especially when one of these authors is Edward Lee. The book is full of gore and perverted sex (including bestiality and necrophilia). There is also a lot of vomiting going on for no apparent reason. Really, this isn't a book for the faint of heart.

I think a lot of the perversion and depravity to do with the fact that the book was written round robin style, and the authors were continually trying to top each other in grossness, which resulted in passages that come close to (or even top) stories I've read that have come out of the infamous World Horror Convention Gross Out Contest. It also resulted in a book with no real resolution that also somehow managed to have one of the best (and most disturbing) endings I've read in horror. show less

The house at Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road has a history stained by the blood and bodily fluids of every person who ever inhabited it. The house was built in the 1930s by Harold & Lucy Pearson. We’ll find out more about them later in the book. THIS story starts ten years ago… with siblings Nicci & Sam Forrestal.
Sam works as a guard at the county detention center, and Nicci… well, Nicci was just released from said detention center. She had spent 30 days inside for doing the same thing show more that got her fired from her job at Corn Dog Dee-Lites, (let’s just say that she was about to win the gold in the oral Olympics, but that last ‘judge’ whipped out his badge. The cuffs were NOT fun that time!) Her brother has graciously taken her in until she can get back on her feet.
She accuses him of having ulterior motives when she wakes up sticky, crusty, and has a bad, yet very familiar, taste in her mouth.
This leads to the most disgusting, and gag inducing (no pun intended) prologue ever written.
*Coprophilia, emetophilia, urolagnia, mysophilia, zoophilia, and mucophilia, are some of the highlights included, and these are just a prelude to the violent & bloody end of these appx. 30 pages.
If you made it through this, I think you’ll be ok.
Maybe.
Probably not.
But – don’t wuss out on me!

NoKidsNoStupidAdults
Now, after ten years, Chuck & Arrianne are moving in.
Almost immediately – it begins again. Slowly, at first. But when Arrianne crosses Chuck’s line in the sand, from what’s acceptable kink, to ‘that’s just disgusting’, his thoughts go to denial and blame, and hers go to realizing that it’s the house, and trying to make some sense of it all.
The Diary of Lucy Pearson makes an appearance, and I wish there was more of it. If one of these guys were to publish the entire diary… they’d make a lot of money! (HINT HINT, GUYS!!) show less

This was a decent zombie survival story.

The entire novel consisted of a group of survivors making a risky food and supply run. Five survivors against an estimated 3,000 zombies seems like a no win situation, but they have no choice as their food is running out and their crops are failing. A lottery is held to determine who the five scouts are going to be.

A back and forth format between the past and the future is utilized, giving the backstory to each of the scouts. Problem being, I didn't show more care much for any of them. Oddly enough, the one guy I did like was the biggest jerk of them all!

The zombies here were fun, though, that's for sure. No explanation was given as to how they got to be that way, and that was just fine with me. I think most zombie stories fall apart when they try to explain the unexplainable. These zombies were fast, they were hungry and there were lots and lots of them, and that worked in this story.

Overall, this was not a bad addition to the zombie genre. However, in light of shows like The Walking Dead where the characters OWN the story, (NOT the zombies), I felt this novel needed a bit more in the character building department. I did enjoy the writing and the world building and for that, I probably will give Nate Southard's work another look in the future.

*I was provided a free e-copy of this book by Sinister Grin Press in exchange for an honest review. This is it.* show less