The Aggregate by G. Owen Wears

Genre: Horror

Format: eBook

Pages: 362

Rating: ★★★★

Synopsis:

Criminal noir and cosmic horror by the author of “The Place of Stars & Bones”.

There is dust on the horizon and dust in the fields. The sky is a burned-out shade of white and cicadas haunt the trees and rooftops. It is late September, and Lucy Ashwood has just finished the last unremarkable day of her life.
By morning, Lucy finds herself lying in a puddle of gore. The dead number three: two men from the MontVida Corporation and one sheriff’s deputy. They came to serve notice of genetic patent violations, and to evict the Ashwoods. When the Ashwoods push back, the end result is an accidental bloodbath. Lucy’s contribution involves feeding the dead to her pig, Wilbur. The contribution of her cousin, Arthur, involves his connection to a criminal collective known as the Aggregate. They say they will help the Ashwoods...for a price.

Subject to waking nightmares and crippling guilt, Lucy goes on the run. As her visions grow ever more vivid, Lucy begins to suspect there is more to what happened at her home than simply murder. Meanwhile, the Aggregate has decided to call in its favor for assisting the Ashwoods, thrusting Arthur into a world of violent revolution. Neither Lucy, nor Arthur, nor the Aggregate realize there is something else at work, something malevolent that has sprung from the very soil beneath their feet. It speaks through Wilbur, through the drone of the cicadas, through the hot dry wind. When it finally gains a foothold it will force its way through the veil between worlds, Lucy and the rest of humanity be damned.

Review:

"You assume that the building blocks of life have a sense of morality, that your genes share your ideas of right and wrong. All life is selfish, Lucy Ashwood. There is no virtue in the face of extinction."

MontVida is a vast corporation that controls the majority of land. They have implemented their genetic hybrids to produce super crops, but in the process, they have banned farmers from using their patents. It has caused farmers to do everything in their power to protect their farms from having any crossovers. Filtering, green housing, and fencing. The work is hard, the earth is dry, and the food is sparse. 

MontVida have come to the farm of the Ashwoods, blaming them for violations of their genetic patents. The Ashwoods fight back, and the result ends in blood and death. It also ends life for the Ashwoods as events only continue to get worse and it becomes the downfall of their existence. 

The Ashwoods reach out for help from the Aggregate, notorious for their crimes against MontVida, they have no respect for life and once called upon, you owe them your life. They will stop at nothing to earn their comeuppance. Their goal is to destroy!

Amongst the chaos and death, there is something sinister occurring. There are whispers, voices on the wind, and in the trees the cicadas drone their music upon the ears that hear. It speaks though Wilbur, Lucy Ashwoods Eurasian Boar. She must listen and heed the warnings.  All of life is hanging in the balance of this malevolent being. 

There is a lot that occurs throughout this story. World building and character development, deceit of characters that stay a bit obscured behind the scenes, the cosmic anomaly that causes a mass destruction, their goal to preserve their own existence, and many horrific deaths.

A mix of crime noir, cosmic horror, fantasy, dystopian, and speculative fiction. This takes us on a journey of disturbing imagery and grotesque monstrosities.   

All in all, I enjoyed reading this book as it kept me quite intrigued!

**A very kind thank you goes out to Mar at TBM Horror for sending me complimentary copy, much appreciated!

Goodreads Author Link:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/

Amazon Author Link:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/G.-Owen-Wears/author/

About the author

G. Owen Wears was borne in Pasadena, California in January of 1982. Despite his West Coast origin he has spent the last thirty odd years living along the Colorado Front Range. After high school he attended a local art college where he discovered that he prefers writing far more than painting. Currently he is the editor of “Exterus”, a fantasy and horror anthology that began publication in 2015. He makes his home in Loveland, Colorado where he spends his time reading, writing, and walking the many paths that line the Big Thompson River.

Review Links:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/

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Backwaters (12 Murky Tales) by Lee Rozelle

Genre: Horror Short Stories

Format: Paperback

Pages: 322

Rating: ★★★★★

Synopsis:

Dare swim these waters?

Welcome to Tallapoochee, a Southern backwater plagued by an experimental toxin that’s turning townsfolk into genetically modified freaks. Follow a puzzling trail of atrocities committed by an enigmatic river cult. Delve into thrilling tales of body horror, bizarro, and the weird. Read the unthinkable testimonies of the living and the dead.

This “water-breaking” collection of twelve intertwined stories combines body horror and Southern Gothic humor in a clash between a cabal of dark scientists and gospel-preaching wrestlers with a secret past. In turns terrifying and bizarre, Lee Rozelle’s new fiction is a shocking journey into murky medicine, conspiracy, and the horrors of watershed destruction.

Review:

"This whole world is catfishing."

Tallapoochee, where the backwaters run murky and sludgy. Filled with toxins that turns anyone who encounters the waters into monstrous atrocities. Abhorrent anomalies and deformities occur, producing bodies with things that dingle and dangle, putrescent, putrid, and pungent. 

The river cult are the worshipers of the murky waters, recruiting others to their cause. 

Scientists creating uncanny, humanoid creatures.

Many minds falling into madness. 

And bugs, lots of bugs! Interesting bugs, but bugs! 

These quirky tales take us into the deep south of Alabama. The characters are telling stories of their bizarre transformations and encounters with the strange and unusual. Each of the stories are interconnected which makes it cohesive but each of the scenes give us different viewpoints for each setting and character. 

Backwaters is unlike any book I have ever read. I have read many other bizarre books, but this one takes the cake. Truly creative and imaginative! I had to give it all the stars because of the originality. Creatures galore, body horror, disturbing descriptions of unnatural occurrences, offbeat twists, and even a little kink. 

If you are a fan of bizarro, sci-fi, horror, and uncanny tales, then you will most likely enjoy this one!

Goodreads Author Link:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/

Amazon Author Link:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Lee-Rozelle/author/

BookBub Author Link:

ttps://www.bookbub.com/

Author Website:

https://leerozelle.com/

ABOUT LEE

From an early age, reading and writing were the only things I could do with any aptitude. People laughed at things I said when I was a child, so I became a show-off. And I think I might have become a perfectly normal human being, too, were it not for Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, that dog detective cartoon from the 1970s featuring creatures like “The Ghost of Captain Cutler,” “The Creeper” and “Space Kook.” I was captivated by the show’s combination of monsters, mysterious settings and goofiness. Then I got my hands on MAD magazine, Creepy and Eerie, Stephen King and Poppy Z Brite, Twisted Sister tapes, David Lynch movies, and everything I could find by William S. Burroughs. I was for all intents and purposes useless at that point, so I became a college professor.

As a fiction writer, I’m the author of the horror story collection Backwaters: 12 Murky Tales and Ballad of Jasmine Wills, a novel that takes on reality TV, body shaming and hicksploitation. I’ve published short stories in Cosmic Horror Monthly,  Southern Humanities Review, If I Die Before I wake vol 3, Shadowy Natures from Dark Ink Books, HellBound’s Anthology of Bizarro, Dark Dossier Magazine, Steel Toe Review, and the Scare You to Sleep Podcast.

On the scholarly side, I’m the author of nonfiction books Zombiescapes & Phantom Zones and Ecosublime. I’ve published articles in Twentieth-Century Literature, Mississippi Quarterly, ISLE, Canadian Literature, Studies in the Novel, and South Central Review. I’ve presented academic papers in such places as the Sorbonne, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Dogus University in Istanbul, and the Warsaw School of Social Psychology. I’m a professor of English at the University of Montevallo, and my areas of expertise are ecocriticism and critical theory.

Publisher Link:

https://www.montagpress.com/about

MONTAG PRESS presents the very best in experimental, weird, subversive, speculative, science, historical, and horror fiction, in either a narrative or dramatic structure, with a strong plot, well-developed characters, and engaging voices.

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Review Links:

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