On August 16th, Mark Cassell is set to release a chapbook, a collection-ette, if you will, featuring two previously published stories. One of Mark’s other books, The Shadow Fabric, is sitting on my shelf waiting for my attention, but in the meantime, I’m diving into a new-to-me author in my favorite way - stories.

Monster Double Feature kicks off with Mark’s contribution to last year’s Corpus Press’ In Darkness, Delight: Creatures Of the Night anthology. The story is called River of Nine Tails and details a tourist’s trip on the titular river in Vietnam. Cassell tells us in the afterword a little about the genesis of the story, and his trip to Vietnam that spurred it on. It certainly lends an air of realism to the horrors that our main character is about to endure, not to mention encouraging me to google “Mekong freshwater stingray”. Seriously, do it. The author’s note also includes some details about the story that I’ll leave the reader to discover on their own.

Given the title of the collection this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but River is a monster story. The monster presented spends a lot of time offscreen, potentially lurking around each corner, waiting to… well, that would spoil the surprise, wouldn’t it? At first glance, the character and the reader, as well, think giant crocodile story, but every further glimpse reveals new details until we’re not quite sure whether what we’re seeing is ancient, alien, or some mixture of both. The terror comes from not knowing any more than the main character does at any given time, and is backed up by Cassell’s liberal use of gore.

Reanimation Channel is a pretty unique story, throwing in a dash of video games, a bit of Frankenstein's monster, and even some vague reminders of The Thing. Scott, the character we follow wasn’t quite as interesting as those in the first story, which makes events late in the story hit not quite as hard. Cassell piles on the body horror, at least that’s my take, in this one. While I found myself thinking I was in for a very direct ethics lesson, the plot takes a turn early on and sends the reader reeling toward an ending that’s more off-the-wall than the wildest guess I could’ve made 30 pages prior.

If you’re reading an author for the first time, you go in looking for a good story, sure, but also to find out if this is someone you’ll be further interested in exploring once this one ends. Monster Double Feature did just that for me - two solid stories that go deep enough to make me want to see what Cassell can do in longform. I already mentioned The Shadow Fabric on my shelf. Maybe, it’s time to pencil that in.

I received a copy from the author for review consideration.