Dark Celebrations

Having been totally knocked out by Demmer's THE SEA WAS A FAIR MASTER, (it was my favorite collection of 2019), I jumped at the chance to read his latest, DARK CELEBRATIONS. I don't regret it for an instant!

In this volume, which tells tales of celebrations and/or holidays from around the world, I found
a wide variety on offer, and most of them worked well for me. My favorites were:

THREE DEAD MEN captivated me because it went nowhere near where I thought it was going. Think Kill Bill with mummies. That's right...mummies!

SPRING OUTBREAK was another tale that ran in the opposite from my preconceived notions. Picture spring break with zombies. That's right...zombies!

PROM SCREAMS had me thinking the main character was a real jerk and that he show more should just own up to what happened. I also found myself thinking about Charlene ,(Charlie), McGee and what could have happened to her later in life. (If you don't know who she is, look her up!) This story lead to so many different thoughts, I have to leave it there. I DUG THIS ONE A LOT!

UNIDENTIFIED FATHERLY OBJECT had cool ties to the earlier stories and that I enjoyed. It was a bit out there, (I WANT TO BELIEVE), just as the title suggests.

INDEPENDENCE DENIED: I was captivated because of its Lovecraftian feel. In the times we're in now, I wouldn't be surprised at all if natural disasters started to surge. It seems like that would be a perfect fit for the apocalyptic-feeling with which COVID19 has blanketed us. At the same time, this tale was entertaining enough to make me forget about that for a while and I'm thankful to Mr. Demmer for the brief escape.

The only reservation I had with this collection is that the first few stories didn't pique my interest as much as the later ones did. That could be because, admittedly, my expectations were high. It all worked out though, as for me, the stories got better and better until the phenomenal last act of INDEPENDENCE DENIED.

Once again Calvin Demmer wows us with a set of tales that are thoughtful, dark, sometimes funny, sometimes gory, and sometimes homages to H.P. himself. Once again, I found myself enthralled, most especially in the later stories, and I was happy to turn myself over to be thoroughly entertained.

Recommended!

Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/2Y5kOvK

*Thank you to Calvin Demmer for the paperback in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.* show less

I picked up Dark Celebrations not because of previous exposure to Calvin Demmer's work, or because of a recommendation per se, but rather because on the whole I liked the collections Duane at Planet X Publications was putting together and this was one of few I didn't have. Speaking strictly about the publishers work, the cover art is great, but the line spacing and font size are both on the larger size, leading the book to be probably at least a third longer than in page count than it probably needs to be. So, it'll read much faster than you might be expecting as a reader!
Its interesting that Demmer and Duane went with essentially two themes for Dark Celebrations. The first is related to the title, each entry is supposed to correspond show more with a holiday or cultural celebration of some kind, though some of those are a little questionable. I'm not I'd classify spring break, prom, or a couple other of these as 'holidays' per se. But hey, the author is South African, I can easily see how these *look* like holidays for Americans. Secondly and less explicitly stated are 'monsters' as an overarching theme. I'd seen it implied elsewhere that the focus was 'classic' monsters...your vampires, zombies, ghosts, werewolves, even mummies, etc. Which are certainly here. There are also some neat things done with some nonstandard 'monsters' like mermaids, witches, aliens, what might be a dragon or maybe a fire elemental (or something else, its not really said), and an unfortunate end story including Cthluhu and also seeming to exclude any semblance of a holiday.
There are some weak entries at the beginning to stumble through before you get to more enjoyable material. The opener, 'Hungry Ghosts' felt particularly weak and the behavior and dialogue a bit nonsensical. 'Labor Day Hunt', our vampire story, was terrible but also wasn't great and feels like its not bringing anything interesting to the vampire table. There is a weird easter egg that connects to the final Cthulhu story. I'm not really clear if this was an accident, laziness in naming, or an attempt to try to create some sort of unified setting for these stories. If the latter is the case, I'm not really sure it works as the potentially shared locale is only mentioned in two stories explicitly with a third story referencing most (but not all) of the stories happening in the same world. As it stands, it feels like an afterthought or something that should have been omitted. I found 'Thanks Sinning' (devils), 'Three Dead Men' (mummies), 'Dying Valentine' (witches), 'Happy Dark Year (mermaids), and 'She Will Rise' (ghosts again) to be the strongest entries, with the latter three being the real stars of the collection. Both 'Unidentified Fatherly Object' (aliens) and 'Independence Delayed' (cthulhu) are unfortunately weak closing entries.
All in all, not a bad collection, though the best meat is in the middle. show less

I'm fast becoming a Calvin Demmer fan and if you love short horror stories as much as I do you will want to check out his latest collection Dark Celebrations. As we travel through the calendar not only of holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving but also through special occasions like prom we are treated to a supernatural smorgasbord featuring ghosts, zombies, witches, and more. From pranks gone wrong, to the poor soul who just wanted to take a hot girl to prom after being dumped by his girlfriend, what seems to start as just an ordinary event leads to dire consequences and unforeseen horrors.

I received a complimentary copy for review.

Dark Celebrations is not my first foray into Calvin Demmer’s world and I look forward to going wherever he wants to take me in this collection of stories.

I was going to review each story separately, but with Covid -19 around and being cooped up for six weeks now, I find my motivation running a bit empty. So…

I enjoyed all the stories and spending time in the world of horror and the supernatural. Calvin Demmer is skilled at crafting tales that give me the creepy crawlies,making me glad that it is fiction.

Wantta party? The door is open. Come on in. But, lock the doors and turn on the lights.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Dark Celebrations by Calvin Demmer.

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