Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell

Wow. wowowowowow Nathan Ballingrud blew me away with his world building and original ideas. Every story was a banger with subtleties that I thought might knit the whole collection together, but the finale that is "The Butcher's Table" ended up doing this and more. I'll be giving this a second read immediately most likely, to get the full view of how all the stories tie together. Cannibals and Satanists don't usually do much for me in the horror genre, but I was completely enraptured and terrified by the depth and realness given to them in this collection. I adore how much Ballingrud seems to adore 'La Louisiane'.

Although I've had Ballingrud's first book, North American Lake Monsters, on my radar for a long time, this collection was my entrance into his world, and I'm so glad I stumbled upon it. The horror here is written with such casual style and grace, it's difficult to compare it to other horror collections at all. Here, each story is such a completely realized world, with so much character and atmosphere, the reading experience doesn't actually feel like what you get from reading a collection at all. This doesn't just apply to the last two 'stories' in the book, which are closer to novella length. The first four stories, all at about the length you'd expect for a short story, feel like worlds unto themselves. And although the last, longer show more novella felt a little bit slower than I might have liked, I suspect that's only because it might have been trying to demand an even longer form, the concept was so deserving.

My favorites here are, without question, "The Atlas of Hell" and "The Visible Filth". Both are stories which I felt compelled to read in one sitting (though "The Visible Filth" is the other story in the collection that's closer to novella lenght), and which I imagine I'll end up reading again.

Certainly, I recommend this to all horror readers, and I can't wait to pick up Ballingrud's first book, as well as whatever he writes next. show less

When I started this book, I initially thought, WTH am I reading? I didn’t think this author’s work was for me, but as I went further and got used to his way of world building, which is to drop the reader straight into the darkest depths of hell, I became engrossed. For those of nervous dispositions they’d likely say they’re grossed out, but gory descriptions aside, it was the imaginative creativity of the writer’s style. Bizarre, surreal, warped… the stories presented here are all these things and more. From the borders of hell, indeed. Strangely, I enjoyed each subsequent story more, starting with my least favourite to the best — to my knowledge, The Butcher’s Table being a vision of piracy we’ve never seen before.

This is one of the best collections I've read in awhile. No filler all killer, as they say. The gore is there but it isn't mindless or gratuitous. They are somewhat connected, indicating that they take place in the same universe, where Hell is real and can be traveled to, under certain conditions. Very thoughtful and very dark. The best one for me was "The Maw."

Grim & gory, but not necessarily scary. It had interesting concepts and didn't feel particularly derivative, but I wasn't engaged to the point of not being able to put it down. It was well written (and the narrators were good) but the literature itself didn't fill me with excitement for reading like some books do.

One thing I did really enjoy, however, was how (unless I'm mistaken) all six stories are related & completely canon to each other. I read a lot of short stories and the majority of the time each one is a stand-alone work. Even when an author creates a deliberate collection, they're usually only related thematically at most. But this book was a collection of stories all focusing on different aspects of the same shared event, at show more different times and places.

Not really spoilers but: the fact that the stories were literally, not metaphorically, about the border between hell and earth was an unexpected surprise, and why I'd describe the book as horror-fantasy.

The two most interesting elements to me were the Atlas skull (from the first and last story) and the Angels that appear occasionally. I think a lot of my issues with the stories comes down to the vague endings. The ideas and perspectives are really interesting to me, but the endings don't stick. "Skullpocket" wasn't my favorite story, but it's probably the one I remember best because the ending ties it together in a memorable way.

Apparently "The Visible Filth" was made into a movie, so I'll probably end up watching that since it was the story that caught my interest the most. show less

This was a great mix of gory and creepy horror stories. The first few stories were shorter and they got longer as they went. I really loved the first few stories - I wish they had been longer. I was completely immersed in the worlds and the lore or the gory details. The later and longer ones were gorier but also fascinating in their paranormal or science based ideas. The bartender one was great and now I'm itching to find the movie recently made. I'm so glad I stumbled on this set of stories. I look forward to more from this author!!

Bloodthirsty yearnings
religious profiteering
unholy lovefest.