Morpheus Tales Review Supplement February 2017 by Adam Bradley

THE CONJURING 2 .......................................................................................................................................................................... 2 THE EL SOMBRA TRILOGY By Al Ewing..................................................................................................................................... 2 THE WOLF IN THE ATTIC By Paul Kearney.................................................................................................................................. 2 GHOSTERS By Ralph Robert Moore ................................................................................................................................................ 3 THE DARKNESS............................................................................................................................................................................... 5 SECLUSION ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 THE FEAST OF ALL SOULS By Simon Bestwick .......................................................................................................................... 7 HIDDEN By Fiona Dodwell ............................................................................................................................................................... 7 GIRL IN WOODS .............................................................................................................................................................................. 9 STARS ARE LEGION By Kameron Hurley ...................................................................................................................................... 9 LAST WORDS By Jackson Lear........................................................................................................................................................ 9 A PERFECT MACHINE By Brett Savory ....................................................................................................................................... 10 HOLIDAYS ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 UBO By Steve Rasnic Tem .............................................................................................................................................................. 10 THE SHALLOWS ............................................................................................................................................................................ 13 DR POTTER’S MEDICINE SHOW By Eric Scott Fischl ............................................................................................................... 13 INFERNAL DEVICES By K. W. Jeter ............................................................................................................................................ 13 THE LAST SACRIFICE By James A. Moore.................................................................................................................................. 14 Edited By Stanley Riiks. Written By Adrian Brady, Mario Guslandi, Stanley Riiks, C.M. Saunders, J.S. Watts. Proof-read By Sheri White. © Morpheus Tales February 2017. Morpheus Tales Back Issues and Special Issues are available exclusively through lulu.com: http://stores.lulu.com/morpheustales For more information, free previews and free magazines visit our website: http://morpheustales.wixsite.com/morpheustales Morpheus Tales Review Supplement, February 2017. COPYRIGHT February 2017 Morpheus Tales Publishing, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reviews can be used, in full or in part, for publicity purposes as long as Morpheus Tales Magazine is quoted as the source.

THE CONJURING 2 Director: James Wan

scares to keep most horror hounds happy. The only sticking point is that it starts with the Warrens’ involvement in another famous case, The Amityville Haunting, and I can’t help thinking that would have actually made a better story. However, after a needless ten minutes or so in Amityville we are whisked away to London, which makes you wonder why the Amityville stuff was there in the first place. The acting is solid and the special effects suitably creepy. Mr Wan, who has been involved in some of the most successful horror movies of the past decade, certainly knows what he is doing. For a less glitzy and more in-depth and detailed study of the case in question, look no further than last year’s mini-series The Enfield Haunting originally shown on Sky Living and no doubt available somewhere online. By C.M. Saunders THE EL SOMBRA TRILOGY By Al Ewing www.abaddonbooks.com

Given Hollywood’s current obsession with sequels, prequels, and remakes, after the runaway success of 2013’s The Conjuring, it was only a matter of time before another installment came along. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise their roles as legendary paranormal sleuths Ed and Lorraine Warren, who for this outing, decamp to an Enfield council estate to investigate one of the most famous and well-documented hauntings in British history. For those unfamiliar with the Enfield Haunting, the obvious question to ask is why? Quick recap: In 1977, two sisters aged 11 and 13 became the focal point of some very alarming poltergeist activity at the family home in Enfield, north London. There were mysterious rappings on walls, furniture moved of its own accord, and the younger of the two girls, Janet Hodgson, began talking in a strange, demonic voice. The Church, The Society for Psychical Research, and eventually The Warrens, were called in to assess the claims and find a solution. The case is just as controversial now as it was then, with seemingly equal numbers of believers and sceptics. Whether true or not, the case has since been the subject of numerous newspaper articles, books, TV shows, and movies, The Conjuring 2 being the latest in a long, long line. So how does it hold up? Reasonably well, it has to be said. Leaving the subject matter aside for a moment, the film has enough atmosphere, plot, and

Set in a world where the Nazis continue their rampage across the world, a small Mexican village is set upon by these beasts during a wedding. El Sombra is one of the few survivors of the tragedy, and intent upon revenge, sets out towards New York, discovering this immensely exciting steam-punk world as a superhero of sorts. Ewing’s experience of comic writing is clearly evidence; this collection of three novels in the series is action-packed from start to finish. As with other books in the Pax Britannia universe there is a sense of humour, and the stories and setting are a bit tongue in cheek. These are grand and modern pulp novels, relentless, over-the-top, and supremely entertaining. By Adrian Brady THE WOLF IN THE ATTIC By Paul Kearney www.solarisbooks.com I enjoyed reading The Wolf in The Attic, Paul Kearney’s beautifully written fantasy novel about strange goings on in the City of Oxford in the early Twentieth Century, but I found it to be almost as strange a beast as the wolf in its title. It is very much a novel of two halves. The first half is lyrical literary fiction exploring the internal world of a young Greek refugee girl who finds herself living with her widower father in the cold, wet, University City following their life and death escape from Greece during the Turkish War of Independence. There are intimations of strange things happening out in Wytham Woods, and Anna, the eleven-year-old Greek girl, meets a traveller lad who

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has a strange way about him, but it is not until the end of the first section that we fully understand just how strange his way is. The tone of this section is leisurely and introspective. Whilst set in the late 1920s and exploring the experiences of a refugee child (surely a relevant thing in today’s political climate), the tale has a decidedly Victorian feel to it. And then everything changes. The second half of the book leaves the City of Dreaming Spires, first for Wytham Woods and then the wide-open land around Idstone Hill and Wayland’s Smithy. The pace of the novel increases dramatically and we are plunged into a neo-pagan world of Romani travellers, skinchangers and the creepy Roadmen. Anna, now turned twelve, finds her lost past has left her with a legacy that will greatly affect her future. The novel is lyrically written and, in the second half, had me turning pages enthusiastically. I do, however, have some minor niggles. By his own admission, Paul Kearney has “taken certain liberties with space and time.” As a former Oxford resident, I found this a little distracting, but it is unlikely to irritate anyone not well acquainted with Oxford and Oxfordshire geography. The novel has been marketed as “A novel that will enchant readers of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Philip Pullman. The fantastical appears in the middle of 1920s Oxford as a young refugee looking to escape her grim reality rubs shoulders with two of the founding fathers of modern fantasy, Tolkien and Lewis.” Tolkien and Lewis, however, have only brief walk-on parts and those parts could have been occupied by any two well-meaning University gentlemen. Anyone expecting more of the Tolkien/ Lewis connection will, I suspect, be sadly disappointed. Then there is the ending of the novel. It is beautifully set up for a sequel or a series of books, but if you are looking for a satisfactory conclusion to the cascading events of the second half of the story, you will be disappointed. I was left with more questions than answers, which is, no doubt, a good marketing ploy, but left this otherwise enthusiastic reader feeling frustrated that the book was not fully able to stand on its own two (or should that be four?) feet. By J.S. Watts

GHOSTERS By Ralph Robert Moore www.ralphrobertmoore.com/sentencepublishing.html Sentence Publishing Ralph Robert Moore is an American writer, author of two novels, Father Figure and As Dead As Me and two short story collections, Remove the Eyes and I Smell Blood. His fiction, ranging from horror to dark fantasy, has appeared in various genre magazines such as Black Static, Shadows &Tall Trees, Midnight Street, ChiZine, and more. Moore’s latest work is “a novel in ten stories” addressing the unusual issue of “ghosters,” people devoted to tracking down and putting to rest some of the countless ghosts who infest the world of the living. The volume is bookended by “Half-haunted House,” a powerful, original piece where two ghost hunters try to retrieve from a semi-haunted building first the ghost of a dead girl, then the one of a young man to be given back to his possessive mother, and “Full Haunted House,” a rather anti-climatic, sad story where the two ghosters are involved in a lucrative but extremely dangerous adventure with a grim outcome. The stories in between confirm once again Moore’s extraordinary talent as a creator of refreshingly innovative fiction, always exploring new territories and new ideas, supported by a vivid narrative style. Particularly worth mentioning are “Flesh Ghost,” an offbeat tale where a ghoster helps a suicidal, suspended between life and after-life, to finally die for good, “Warfarin’,” a strong, bittersweet story depicting the odd, unconventional ways employed by a gifted individual to ensure a peaceful end to an elderly gentleman, and the outstanding “We Don’t Keep in Touch,” a poignant piece revealing how the secret agenda of a ghost dealer is to trace the spirit of his premature born and subsequently dead) baby. If you’re not familiar with this very talented writer, the book is an excellent opportunity to experience his intense prose and his quite original plots. By Mario Guslandi

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THE DARKNESS Director: Greg McLean

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Last summer, I attended what was billed as the ‘World’s First Live Facebook Séance.’ What happened? Nothing much. It was hosted by ‘celebrity medium’ Mistica Maria Louisa and Britt Griffith, the volatile gun nut who once got himself fired from the cast of Ghost Hunters. Britt invited virtual participants to ask questions, which Madam Mistica would then attempt to answer. I ask who killed JFK. Disappointingly, my question was ignored. Other, equally valid questions from curious observers included, ‘Where are my keys?’ ‘Can ghosts use Facebook?’ ‘Am I going to get laid tonight?’ ‘Should I wear my black shoes or the brown ones?’ and, hilariously, ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ Another participant doesn’t ask anything, instead typing I WANT BLOOD into the comment box repeatedly, which was a bit worrying. One of the few questions Madam Mistica did choose to answer read, “My mother just died from lung cancer. Is she doing good?” Personally, I don’t think a medium is needed to answer that particular question. And on it went. The point of the exercise? It was a publicity stunt for this movie. As a marketing ploy, it seemed to work. For a while, at least. It generated a lot of online discussion, even if most of it was tongue-incheek, and I wrote a lengthy piece about it for Fortean Times. But the fact that the broadcast lost almost 50 percent of its viewers before it ended, and the organizers didn’t seem to know what a séance actually entailed, meant that ultimately the event had to go down in the ‘epic failure’ column. I couldn’t wait to see if the movie itself would join it. The short answer is no. It’s not the best film ever made, as we all know; that title will forever belong to Lost Boys, but The Darkness isn’t as bad as feared, or as some critics would have you believe. Starring Kevin Bacon as the patriarch of a family who inadvertently take something else home with them after picking up a rock as a souvenir from the Grand Canyon, it’s a bit like a mash-up of Poltergeist and Stir of Echoes. On their return to the family home, mysterious events start to occur. Taps turn on by themselves, there are disembodied shadows all over the place, hand prints keep appearing everywhere, their slightly-weird son Mikey has conversations with ‘Sky People,’ and most bizarrely of all, what appears to be a portal to another dimension opens up in Weird Mikey’s bedroom. Finally accepting that something might be

amiss, the family discover that the Anasazi Indians believed demons could be bound to rocks hidden in underground caves. Rocks just like the one they’ve brought into their house. Director Greg McLean claims the story is a true account relayed to him by members of the family in question, but we only have his word for that. The Anasazi certainly existed; they are the ancestors of several Native American tribes and are most famous for living in fortified cliff dwellings and suddenly fleeing their homeland sometime around the year 1200 for reasons unknown. Few events have provoked as much discussion and controversy amongst scholars of American history. Traditionally, it’s also not uncommon for visitors to want to return objects taken as souvenirs from supposedly cursed places because they feel some negative force has invaded their lives as a result. So, silly bedroom portal aside, this film is slightly more believable than a lot of other supposedly true stories given the Hollywood treatment. By C.M. Saunders

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SECLUSION Director: Joe Bandelli

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THE FEAST OF ALL SOULS By Simon Bestwick www.solarisbooks.com

Bunch of horny teens? Check. Cabin in the woods? Check. Deranged killer on the loose? Check. If the above sounds like your kind of film, you’d love this. A wedding party makes its way to a remote location for a private function, unknowingly playing right into the hands of someone who wants them all dead and wastes no time in picking them off. As the tag-line succinctly puts it, ‘the happiest weekend of their lives just might be their last.’ So yeah, add ‘wafer-thin, clichéd plot’ to the list. With offerings like this, horror-film connoisseurs often look to the kill scenes to offer some originality, or at least entertainment. Unfortunately, nothing new there, either. It’s all about as formulaic as it gets. There’s even the obligatory shower death scene. On the bright side, the largely unknown cast do fairly well, going about their assigned tasks with enthusiasm and aplomb. Or as much enthusiasm and aplomb one can reasonably expect. The dialogue is snappy and witty, and there are a few chuckles along the way. Anyone with two brain cells to bash together will probably figure out who the killer is in the first fifteen minutes, and when the ‘twist’ finally comes at the end, it isn’t really much of a twist because you’ve been expecting something like that to happen all along. That said, the final scene did make me think a bit, purely because I had no idea what relevance it had to anything that had gone before. Maybe I missed something important. Oh well, never mind. By C.M. Saunders

Just outside Manchester, in the suburb of Crawbeck, is a normal-looking house. It’s where Alice Collier lives. Alice was happy once, before her daughter died and her marriage ended. And Alice’s house is a gateway… Unfortunately offering you any more of the plot would ruin the true horror that Bestwick puts his readers through. This is a ghost story of sorts, and that description really doesn’t touch the surface. Bestwick is a master of chills; he drags you into Alice Collier’s house and then makes you wish you had never entered. The author of the excellent The Faceless is back at his chilling best. Beautifully written, inspiringly scary, spooky as all hell. By Adrian Brady HIDDEN By Fiona Dodwell Fiona Dodwell, author of last year’s acclaimed Nails, delivers a tale full of Far Eastern foreboding in The Hidden, the story of two pen pals who eventually meet in the flesh after a decade exchanging letters. Charlotte is from England, and is going through a bad patch in her relationship so is looking forward to a break, while her friend Tanaka is a native Japanese girl. Almost as soon as she arrives, Charlotte is struck by her friend’s slightly ‘off’ behaviour, as well as the strange sounds she hears in the house at night and various other paranormal occurrences. It soon becomes evident that she has stumbled into something other-worldly and potentially lifechanging. This short story is based on an actual Japanese urban legend, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms. I’m a big fan of J-Horror, and Far Eastern culture in general, so reading this was a special treat for me. I don’t know if the author has ever visited the Land of the Rising Sun; if she hasn’t, you certainly wouldn’t think it as The Hidden is full of detail and various little titbits and observations which help paint a marvellously vivid picture of modern-day Japan. She has obviously done her research, and it was a great touch to include an interview about Japanese folklore with a professor as bonus content. If you like your horror dark, creepy, and atmospheric, this is one for you. By C.M. Saunders 7

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GIRL IN WOODS Director: Jeremy Benson

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never really sure what she is experiencing is real or all in her head, and you can’t help but wonder why she doesn’t just go home. Instead she has conversations with herself, actually, multiples of herself, trips over, and throws her phone against a tree in temper. Oh, and there’s something following her. Or there might not be. It’s all very confusing. Keep an eye out for an appearance by Charisma Carpenter, last seen battling the undead in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She’s made the transition from high school cheerleader to mum now. Doesn’t that make you feel old? By C.M. Saunders STARS ARE LEGION By Kameron Hurley www.angryrobotbooks.com Epic SF that really evokes the world in which it is set. Brilliantly realising a distant universe in which Zan awakes with no memory, but she has the power to save the Mokshi, a ship world. But does she follow the people who say they are her family, or others, everyone wishes to take over the ship and will use Zan to save or destroy it… This brief description barely grazes the surface of this epic tale. Hurley has written a classic SF epic which really has to be read to be experienced. Intelligent, enthralling, and ultimately mindblowing. By Adrian Brady

There you are, a naïve young city girl strolling through a forest whilst on a romantic getaway with your fiancé when suddenly BANG! Someone shoots him in the head leaving you lost and alone. That should be bad enough, but right from the start you get the impression that all is not what it seems. The girl in the woods (Juliet Reeves) is obviously carrying a lot of baggage. The metaphorical kind, luckily for her. She can barely carry herself half the time so lugging a suitcase around would definitely be pushing it. What I mean is, she has some pretty severe nightmares and flashbacks, there are allusions to some kind of disturbing childhood trauma, and before he got blown away, the boyfriend mentioned something along the lines of them saving each other. It does make you wonder why everyone in the girl’s life ends up dead. Anyway, after she buries her dead fiancé’s body she takes his rifle (because firearms are an essential part of every romantic stroll, right?) and starts walking through the dark, scary woods, all the time battling her own personal demons. You are

LAST WORDS By Jackson Lear http://www.jacksonlear.com/ I wanted so much to like this book. I really did. If you forgive the pun, it has a premise to die for. A young British backpacker gets stranded on a tour of Europe during a zombie apocalypse and has to fight his way through hordes of undead, and lots of bureaucracy and red tape, in order to get there. Written in firstperson diary form, it is easy to read, and the author has a laid-back style which isn’t too demanding on the reader. However, not much actually happens for the first quarter. We are treated to long diatribes about various parts of France and Spain, and lengthy passages about peripheral characters who don’t have enough involvement in the unfolding story to justify it. In the early stages it reads more like a travelogue than a horror story, which is what most people who pick up this book will be expecting. I understand the need for background, etc., but a good editor (the book 9

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is self-published) would be able to strip 50 or 60 pages from Last Words without taking anything at all away from the actual story. There’s just too much unnecessary padding, and I found my mind wandering on too many occasions. Apart from that, the writer seems to have some kind of mild obsession with farts and prostitutes, things he references again and again. This might well be a result of the writer’s clumsy attempts at injecting a quite obviously older mind into the head of a much younger lead character. Because the only things 23-year-olds think about are farts and prostitutes, right? What started off as mildly amusing soon turned eye-rollingly boring. Also, for most of the book, the protagonist is extremely worried about losing his job. In the middle of a burgeoning zombie apocalypse, one would think that whether or not you have a job to go back to would be the least of your worries. All things considered, I found Last Words over-hyped and more than is a little disappointing. An opportunity to do something different in a genre in danger of stagnating has been missed. But the author shows potential, and he did just enough to make me want to finish the book, which is something. By C.M. Saunders

(who doesn’t have one of those, right?), Christmas, Halloween, and New Year sitting next to tales about Easter, St Patrick’s Day, and Mother’s Day. Many of these short films look to celebrate these special occasions and conjure up fluffy feelings of nostalgia, before delivering a devastating body blow in the form of a tragic accident or a brutal murder. Because the length of each segment is kept quite short (just 10-15 minutes in most cases) there is very little padding, and the film moves along at a wicked pace with a spring its step and a chuckle deep in its throat. There’s a teenager getting picked on at school, a woman giving birth to a giant snake, and another receiving a recorded message from her absent dad. Elsewhere, a child is snatched by a horned monster, and we see the extent some doting parents will go to to get the right gift for their spoiled offspring. Along the way we get barely-disguised references to religious zealousness, paganism, lethal obsession, and the threat of technology. Of course, the flip-side to all this is you get precious little in the way of characterisation or story development, resulting in wafer-thin characters and plots. Viewers with very short attention spans will love it, but those with deeper requirements will probably fail to be moved. By C.M. Saunders

A PERFECT MACHINE By Brett Savory www.angryrobotbooks.com

UBO By Steve Rasnic Tem www.solarisbooks.com/

Fast-paced chase novel in which Henry is a runner, attempting to achieve the “perfect machine” status of the title, chased by the Hunters who shoot him. This happens every night. Simple premise, stretched out to novel length with plenty of action sequences. Some good ideas, a little confusing and a poor climax make for a mixed bag. Ultimately good ideas let down by poor execution. By Adrian Brady

A very strange book that makes you question your sanity as well as the whole of humanity. UBO is a research facility of sorts, run by giant cockroaches. Daniel is captured and imprisoned there, then forced to live out previous lives such as Jack the Ripper and Stalin, every day. What’s the purpose of these torturous episodes? Why are the giant cockroaches doing this to Daniel? There are a lot more questions you can ask about this strange and deeply disturbing novel. This is SF on the edge of horror, peering down into the darkness of humanity. Deeply disturbing, deeply compelling, this is literature in its highly and most insightful form. Like The Wasp Factory this books transcends genres. An experience not to be missed. By Adrian Brady

HOLIDAYS Director: Various Holidays is a subversive collection of short horror films, eight in all, directed and produced by the likes of Kevin Smith, Gary Shore, Scott Stewart, and Anthony Scott Burns. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this diverse anthology is the fact that each segment focuses on one particular festival or ‘holiday’ because as the tag-line tells us, ‘Surviving Them is Hell.’ We have horror stories about Valentine’s Day 10

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THE SHALLOWS Director: Jaume Collet-Sarah

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than useless, far worse… This is steampunk, fantasy/SF, and much more. The old west is so well evoked you can almost smell the manure, the characters are incredible, leaping off the page and into your brain and the story carries you along in this miraculous world. Thrilling, entertaining, totally immersive. By Adrian Brady INFERNAL DEVICES By K. W. Jeter www.angryrobotbooks.com Underwhelmed. Frustrated. Tired. Disappointed. Where to start? I was aware of some of Jeter’s work before picking this book up, and despite the half his novels being tie(cash)-ins and sequels to other people’s (better writer’s) novels, I thought Angry Books may have discovered a hidden gem in amongst the out-ofprint collection of his mid-list writer’s works. Set in Victorian London, George Dower Jr has taken over his late father’s clockwork and clock repair business. Unfortunately Junior knows only a little of his father’s genius, and is having trouble making ends meet. When a man steps into the shop with a device his father made seeking to have it fixed, despite Dower Jr’s attempts to put the man off knowing he will be unable to fix it, the silver coin he is given helps persuade him to at least try. But this is no ordinary coin. Its fish-faced occupant on one side of the coin is St Monkfish, and the coin is from that strange part of London known at Wetwick. Dower Jr begins to investigate the coin, only to find fish-faced people, a murder, a con-man and a sex-hungry woman from the future, and his life in danger. For the first hundred or so pages very little happens as Dower investigates the coin and the background is filled in for us. The rest of the book is a straightforward chase with Dower getting into more trouble with further factions. Unfortunately there’s little tension or mystery in any part of the book; it’s pretty simple to work out what’s going on, except for the strange twist which comes completely out of nowhere. There are some good ideas in here, but it’s really too little too late. The book rambles on without any direction for far too long, and when the plot finally does kick in it goes all guns blazing, but by then you’ve already lost interest. The steampunk elements don’t even materialise until very near the end of the book, and

It’s impossible to watch a movie about sharks without comparing it to either Jaws or Sharknado. That means the vast majority of shark films fall into roughly two camps: the excellent and the awful. Largely thanks to Columbia Pictures spending upwards of $17 million on it, The Shallows fits into the former category. Blake Lively stars as a med school drop-out from Texas on a mission to ‘find herself’ after the death of her mother. As part of the process, she retraces her mother’s steps to the same beach she surfed after first finding out she was pregnant, then proceeds to play a game of cat and mouse with a massive Great White. Probably not the best way to spend your summer holidays. She spends a significant portion of the film stranded atop a rotting whale carcass, then clinging to a rock, while putting her medical training to good use by using her jewellery to stitch up a gaping wound in her leg and fixing a broken seagull. The Shallows has some favourable points that set it apart from most survival horror films. Filmed on the beaches of Australia (passed off as Mexico in the film), the scenery is incredible, the underwater photography is breath-taking, and when the shark finally makes an appearance, it’s absolutely terrifying. The Shallows is well-directed by ColletSmith, who produced last year’s cult hit Curve, and certainly lives up to its hype. If this doesn’t put you off going in the water, nothing will. By C.M. Saunders DR POTTER’S MEDICINE SHOW By Eric Scott Fischl www.angryrobotbooks.com In the old west of 1878, a troop of illusionists, fortune tellers, and strong men and conmen travel the country selling Chock-a-saw Sagwa Tonic, a snake oil that cures all ills… except it doesn’t. And it’s far worse 13

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are added in for god knows what reason. They have no effect on the plot, have only a vague impact on the climax, and seem to be there merely to add something different to what is really a rather poor excuse for a bad pulp novel. I was actually expecting a pretty decent steampunk novel, not a poor and slightly ridiculous low-budget pulp novel with a couple of decent ideas thrown in at the end. Poorly written, poorly plotted, poorly characterised. The best thing about this book is the cover, which is worth picking the book up for. But then put it back. Don’t read it for heaven’s sake, it’s rubbish. By Stanley Riiks

Morpheus Tales Back Issues and Special Issues are available exclusively through lulu.com: http://stores.lulu.com/morpheustales For more information, free previews and free magazines visit our website: http://morpheustales.wixsite.com/morpheustales Morpheus Tales Review Supplement, February 2017. COPYRIGHT February 2017 Morpheus Tales Publishing, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reviews can be used, in full or in part, for publicity purposes as long as Morpheus Tales Magazine is quoted as the source.

THE LAST SACRIFICE By James A. Moore www.angryrobotbooks.com Brogan McTyre returns home to find that he and his family have been chosen. Chosen to be sacrificed to the god by the Undying. But Brogan isn’t the type to go quietly, so he packs up his family and goes on the run. If you like sword and sorcery you’ve come to the right place. Although Moore is well-known as a horror writer, his epic Seven Forges fantasy series firmly claimed him as a premier fantasist as well. Moore is fast establishing himself as one to watch; his new book boosts his reputation, providing the kind of fast paced fantasy that you simply can’t put down. Great action adventure. By Adrian Brady