shell_s's review
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Urbane Decay is fresh, twisted, and one of the most hands-down entertaining horror and speculative fiction collections I've ever bought. Future releases by this writer are must-haves for my shelves.
Michael Cieslak has an impishly morbid sense of humor, especially regarding zombies, but to be clear not every story or poem is comical (or zombie-related). And some are truly chilling, and remind me of the fascination I felt reading Edgar Allan Poe or Stephen King or Ray Bradbury's October Country for the first time.
Cieslak's stories show a deft hand in escalating the dread (or anticipation) of impending doom, often brought about by the characters' own foolhardiness or wickedness, while also managing to surprise me with some of the twists.
My top three pieces in the anthology that I think show its range, the ones still kicking most ferociously around in my brain two years later, are as follows...
1. "On the Island"
Told in the earnest and cheery therapeutic journal entries of a white collar schlub, who is determined to enjoy nature and push himself as he hikes across an island where he'd vacationed with his ex-wife. The kicker is that he's missing out on all the warning signs and radio broadcasts (apparent to the reader) that should have alerted him to some kind of apocalyptic event.
I found the knucklehead narrator endearing, and the ending caught me off guard in the best way.
2. "Saving Mr. Hockey"
In an alternate U.S.A. where zombies have become a relentless force--a cheap labor force, that is, where the rare devouring incident is an acceptable cost of doing business--David is a man on a mission. The Detroit Red Wings' stadium zombie workers that gave him so many happy childhood memories (laced with a thrill of fear) and inspired him to take a stadium marketing job as an adult have been scheduled for destruction by the callous new corporate bigwig. David has a daring escape plan that might save beloved zombie mascot Mr. Hockey, if he doesn't slip up...
This corporate satire thriller had me at the word "zombonis" (which are of course ice resurfacing machines driven by zombies).
3. "Creak"
One of the darkest tones is struck in this bloody, eerie re-telling of the origins of the The Wizard of Oz's tin woodsman, narrated by an ailing Munchkin blacksmith desperate for the same metal-body immortality as Nick Chopper. Too late he discovers that Ku-Klip the old Munchkin wizard is no kindly benefactor and does not respond well to threats.
Which will be steeper, the price of a necromancer's assistance or the price of trying to double-cross him?
This collection also contains gruesome yet winsome poems like an ode to a zombie grandfather, light-hearted flash fiction pieces like the one about zombie students, and many other ghastly tales exploring dark sins and the afterlife and more. Sometimes a protagonist just has it coming and there are nasty pleasures in watching it unfold. (Not something I thought I'd hear myself say, but in this case it's true.)
The one sour note for me was the last sentence of the final story, which took the Cinderella spoof (another of my favorites) from absurd and melancholic to deeply tragic. But this wasn't enough to draw away the fifth star that proclaims (by my particular use of the rating system) my thorough joy in reading.
Otherwise here is an outstanding anthology to wile away the midnight hours, if you're feeling brave enough and have the stomach for a bit of quick, slick gore.
If you haven't giggled till you're in hysterics or felt creeping hysterics that give way to giggles, then you haven't been reading Urbane Decay.
WHEN A SHORT STORY COLLECTION GIVES YOU CHILLS AND GHOULISH SATISFACTION, SPEAK UP--BOOST THE SIGNAL!
Michael Cieslak has an impishly morbid sense of humor, especially regarding zombies, but to be clear not every story or poem is comical (or zombie-related). And some are truly chilling, and remind me of the fascination I felt reading Edgar Allan Poe or Stephen King or Ray Bradbury's October Country for the first time.
Cieslak's stories show a deft hand in escalating the dread (or anticipation) of impending doom, often brought about by the characters' own foolhardiness or wickedness, while also managing to surprise me with some of the twists.
My top three pieces in the anthology that I think show its range, the ones still kicking most ferociously around in my brain two years later, are as follows...
1. "On the Island"
Told in the earnest and cheery therapeutic journal entries of a white collar schlub, who is determined to enjoy nature and push himself as he hikes across an island where he'd vacationed with his ex-wife. The kicker is that he's missing out on all the warning signs and radio broadcasts (apparent to the reader) that should have alerted him to some kind of apocalyptic event.
I found the knucklehead narrator endearing, and the ending caught me off guard in the best way.
2. "Saving Mr. Hockey"
In an alternate U.S.A. where zombies have become a relentless force--a cheap labor force, that is, where the rare devouring incident is an acceptable cost of doing business--David is a man on a mission. The Detroit Red Wings' stadium zombie workers that gave him so many happy childhood memories (laced with a thrill of fear) and inspired him to take a stadium marketing job as an adult have been scheduled for destruction by the callous new corporate bigwig. David has a daring escape plan that might save beloved zombie mascot Mr. Hockey, if he doesn't slip up...
This corporate satire thriller had me at the word "zombonis" (which are of course ice resurfacing machines driven by zombies).
3. "Creak"
One of the darkest tones is struck in this bloody, eerie re-telling of the origins of the The Wizard of Oz's tin woodsman, narrated by an ailing Munchkin blacksmith desperate for the same metal-body immortality as Nick Chopper. Too late he discovers that Ku-Klip the old Munchkin wizard is no kindly benefactor and does not respond well to threats.
Which will be steeper, the price of a necromancer's assistance or the price of trying to double-cross him?
This collection also contains gruesome yet winsome poems like an ode to a zombie grandfather, light-hearted flash fiction pieces like the one about zombie students, and many other ghastly tales exploring dark sins and the afterlife and more. Sometimes a protagonist just has it coming and there are nasty pleasures in watching it unfold. (Not something I thought I'd hear myself say, but in this case it's true.)
The one sour note for me was the last sentence of the final story, which took the Cinderella spoof (another of my favorites) from absurd and melancholic to deeply tragic. But this wasn't enough to draw away the fifth star that proclaims (by my particular use of the rating system) my thorough joy in reading.
Otherwise here is an outstanding anthology to wile away the midnight hours, if you're feeling brave enough and have the stomach for a bit of quick, slick gore.
If you haven't giggled till you're in hysterics or felt creeping hysterics that give way to giggles, then you haven't been reading Urbane Decay.
WHEN A SHORT STORY COLLECTION GIVES YOU CHILLS AND GHOULISH SATISFACTION, SPEAK UP--BOOST THE SIGNAL!
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