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A review by moreadsbooks
The Visible Filth by Nathan Ballingrud
4.0
Well HELL! That was the scariest thing I've read in quite a while. So sensible of me to read it at 10:00 last night, too. Bartender Will idly pockets a cell phone while cleaning up after a brawl in his bar. He forgets all about it until it receives a few text messages once he's gone home for the night.
"The messages were from somebody named Garrett: I think something is in here with me. And then, sent two minutes later: I'm scared."
Whoa, Garrett, me too! I got this from ILL after Ballingrud caught my eye with his short story "Skullpocket" on io9 and am I glad that I did? Yes because it's thrillingly well written and scary as all get out, but also no, not at all, because now I have a lot of dark things in my head that kept me from being able to roll over in bed & turn my back to the door last night. While the the denouement was poetically grotesque ("It was a blood-rimmed crater into dark precincts") but not as horrifying as the rest of it, Ballingrud succeeded admirably in terrifying the shit out of me with all of the little details leading up to thedemon or whatever it was coming out of Eric's face for Will to eat - color me very worried about Carrie & Alicia now . They're not spoilers per se, but I'm going to put them behind a cut because stumbling across one every time I turned the page really added to the mounting sense of "Oh boy, I am making a terrible mistake by continuing with this because I'm not going to be able to close my eyes tonight." The texts - PLEASE! and then the cluster of broken teeth. The video on the phone. The endless dark wet hole that Carrie kept watching. The text pic of the misshapen guy in their apartment. The Second Translation of Wounds! What even is that? And why does it scare me SO MUCH? This was 64 pages of flat out freak out for me, and for B as well, because he'd read it a few weeks ago unbeknownst to me and refused to discuss it at all even in the sunlight this morning. Well done, Nathan Ballingrud!
"The messages were from somebody named Garrett: I think something is in here with me. And then, sent two minutes later: I'm scared."
Whoa, Garrett, me too! I got this from ILL after Ballingrud caught my eye with his short story "Skullpocket" on io9 and am I glad that I did? Yes because it's thrillingly well written and scary as all get out, but also no, not at all, because now I have a lot of dark things in my head that kept me from being able to roll over in bed & turn my back to the door last night. While the the denouement was poetically grotesque ("It was a blood-rimmed crater into dark precincts") but not as horrifying as the rest of it, Ballingrud succeeded admirably in terrifying the shit out of me with all of the little details leading up to the