Read Skidding Into Oblivion Brian Hodge 9781771484787 Books

Product details Paperback 350 pages Publisher ChiZine Publications (February 26, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1771484780

Skidding Into Oblivion Brian Hodge 9781771484787 Books Reviews

• Brian Hodge's latest collection, SKIDDING INTO OBLIVION, is perhaps his best collection ever! Can't say more than that, besides the fact that Hodge is one of the best wordsmiths working now in any genre, but especially in the realm of cosmic horror! My highest recommendation!
• These stories don’t just skid into oblivion. I would say they run full-tilt, brake lines cut, plummeting off the edge with no chance of turning back.
  
  What glorious freedom in that end!
  
  Each story that Hodge creates is a full world of its own, crafted with the care of a full length novel, something that I find quite rare in short stories. As a reader, I could see beyond the edges of the story, beyond just the characters on the page, peeking a glimpse into the rest of their world, and more importantly, how that world might be affected by the outcome of the story. That’s great writing.
  
  All of the stories here except the last one have been previously published elsewhere, but if you’ve never had the pleasure of reading Hodge’s work before (as I hadn’t), I can recommend this collection as an excellent place to start.
  
  This is the realm of supernatural horror, but I also found the stories very cerebral. The writing is interested in larger topics, ideas bigger than just bringing the monster to the page. They want to explore why the monster comes at all. “Roots and All” and “Scars in Progress” are very different stories, one about drugs and the other, demons. But what they are both interested in is the true source of evil—and that doesn’t always come from from the monster. Sometimes it comes from us.
  
  There are two stories of cosmic horror, one a direct homage to Lovecraft and the other, “The Stagnant Breath of Change,” a bit more veiled and in my opinion far more interesting. It has this small town realism that slowly morphs into a creeping dread when you realize that the story isn’t what you thought at all.
  
  I think what Hodge is great at is taking an amorphous feeling or idea—like loss and the grieving process—and tying that directly to something more concrete and often supernatural to examine how we process or react to those less concrete ideas, such as with the true intent of the straw effigies in one of my favorites, the Halloween tale, “We, The Fortunate Bereaved.”
  
  This type of writing is so much more powerful than when writers just try to scare or go for the gross-out. It taps into our deeply human emotional centers and uses our own experiences and universal human experiences to bring us to the edge of the unknown.
  
  My thanks to ChiZine Publications for sending me a copy of this one to read and review.
• “These were dark waters, full of secrets and unintended tombs [...] They were sepulchers of dread, trapped in another world where they so plainly did not belong.”
  
  First and foremost, I want to give a HUGE thank you to ChiZine Publications for sending me an ebook copy of Skidding into Oblivion by Brian Hodge in exchange for an honest review.
  
  Skidding into Oblivion is what a short story collection should strive to be; emotionally charged, rich, descriptive language, wildly imaginative. Hodge has a complete mastery of the English language. I savored every word, got lost in the language. Practically every line was quotable. I could have loved it for the words alone, however, each of the eleven stories were so well crafted, each story delicate and intricate in design and plot, the stories definitely lived up to the words.
  
  Each story is unique and special in it's own way, although they all fit together and build off of each other. There are hints of science fiction and Lovecraftian monsters, there is love, loss, social commentary, tongue in cheek humor, communications with the dead, all blended into one cohesive, haunting, emotional horror collection. Skidding into Oblivion walks a fine, misty, gray line between dreams and reality. It begs, entreats, you to question what is real and what could be; it challenges everything you thought you knew about the world we live in. It beckons to you to explore the realms of the unknown even if you know a way home may not be possible.
  
  Although I enjoyed every story I read, a few stand out stories include the opening, Roots and All; Just Outside our Windows, Deep Inside our Walls; We, The Fortunate Bereaved, and One Last Year Without a Summer. Each filled me with a haunting, creeping dread, a gnawing anxiety in my belly. There really could not have been a more perfect ending to the collection than One Last Year without a Summer. It was the ultimate encapsulation of all the ideas and feelings from throughout the book. It was sad yet beautiful and hopeful.
  
  Included are endnotes where Hodge explains where his inspiration for each story came from and his thought process for writing. Even that was filled with gorgeous language. I feel like Hodge could write on any topic and I'd be thoroughly enthralled. Brian Hodge is not a new author so thankfully there are plenty of previously released books I can read to fill the void inside since finishing Skidding into Oblivion.