Book Review: ELEMENTS OF HORROR: AN ANTHOLOGY BOOK ONE – EARTH
Elements of Horror is an anthology series of horror stories based on the elements. Book one contains stories utilizing the element earth. These 11 tales mostly deal with protagonists running across sinister or merely primal creatures living underground. A blend of gory, psychological, and monstrous horror tales encapsulate its earthy theme.
As with any anthology, the stories fluctuate in quality. Strong entries for me included Theresa Jacobs’ Pro-Death, about a protective grandmother who uses special abilities to get revenge on her granddaughter’s abortion doctor for understandable reasons, Quake by P.J. Blakey-Novis about a natural disaster enthusiast who survives an Earthquake but ends up with an unwelcome parasite in the process, and Dale Parnell’s Sinkhole, about a man whose backyard collapses into a sinkhole, compelling him to fill it with people.
The stories are all decent lengths, though most end abruptly, falling flat of their intended suspense or leftover feeling of eeriness. A few stories in the middle are similar to each other in their premise of featuring teenage boys who are ripped apart by an unearthly beast. All seem to make the point that humans are not the masters of the earth. The earth is its own master. We are simply the fleas on its back that can be flung from it at any time.
Review by Laura Smith
ELEMENTS OF HORROR: AN ANTHOLOGY BOOK ONE – EARTH is available on Kindle Audiobook and Paperback