Slow Burn

"""These assembled short stories feature such spooky conventions as ghosts, a witch, and someone trying to bring a creature to life, but the prevailing theme of this book is body horror-grotesque depictions of torn or modified flesh and impossibly contorted bodies ... The author's gleefully vibrant prose animates these stories; this also holds true for the collection's free-verse poetry ... An assemblage of horror tales and somber verses that frighten and fascinate."" -Kirkus Reviews ""Nebula, Shirley Jackson, and World Fantasy Award finalist Allen (Aftermath of an Industrial Accident) presents a titillating collection of 14 horror stories and [13] poems. Throughout, Allen takes the idea of nothing being as it seems to supernatural extremes ... These slippery, surprising stories will appeal to horror fans seeking something fresh."" -Publishers Weekly ""This collection of short stories and poetry is a beautiful, dark, and thoroughly unsettling trip. I love the way Allen twists and skews the reality and the everyday, tucking shadows and terrors into the cracks of what we think is real."" -Maria Haskins, Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Short Fiction Roundup ""Each story in this collection presents a rich and lived-in world. Allen has created fascinating monsters that are unlike others I've seen in Weird or cosmic horror ... If you can handle some truly gruesome body horror, this book will reward you with beautiful writing about awful things."" -Altars of Ink ""At turns dripping with Cronenberg body horror, infused with Barker misanthropy, and crawling with the darkest fantasy, the stories and poems in Slow Burn are beautifully crafted to lure you in, but their beauty won't let you go easily. There are too many strange limbs for that."" -Michael Wehunt, author of The Inconsolables ""There are multiple flavors of body horror on offer in Slow Burn, along with dark fantasy, cosmic horror, and science fiction ... Allen is a master at serving up striking imagery and evocative, atmospheric settings. He also excels at creating characters who feel fully realized, then dropping them into horrific situations, keeping the reader invested in their journeys and well-being."" -A.C. Wise, author of Wendy, Darling ""A mind-bending delight from a horrifically unique imagination, Slow Burn will twist, turn, and transform readers."" -Gordon B. White, finalist for the Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker Awards ""Mike Allen once again stretches the boundaries of horror."" -Preston Grassmann, co-editor of The Mad Butterfly's Ball ""Don't let the title fool you, Slow Burn is an artistic flame that blazes like an inferno from start to finish!"" -Vaughn A. Jackson, author of Touched by Shadows ""Diabolically inventive and varied . . . achingly human characters and heaping, writhing helpings of body horror."" -Rich Larson, author of Ymir and Tomorrow Factory PRAISE FOR MIKE ALLEN ""These stories are fun. Not 'good' fun, and certainly not 'good clean' fun. They are too unnerving for those modifiers, too serious, like laughter in the dark-unnerving, serious laughter that leads you through Mr. Allen's funhouse."" -Thomas Ligotti ""Mike Allen habitually upends Lovecraftian tropes with his own brand of cosmic horror."" -Laird Barron"