This is a collection of 3 dark novellas, one by Brian Hodge, the remaining two by Gerard Houarner. I requested an ARC of this volume from Brian Hodge. As a fan of his work, I had to have it! Up until I started reading this, I was not familiar with Gerard Houarner at all. All of these stories were very strange, each in their own way.

First up: In the Negative Spaces by Brian Hodge. This was a weird tale about a young woman, Wendy, fleeing to her brother's hoity toity apartment in NYC. What she is fleeing becomes clear later, but why her NYC is not quite the NYC we know and love-is never fully explained, which is fine by me. Anyway, Wendy discovers a strange dream diary in the apartment and realizes it belonged to an ex-girlfriend of her brother's; a woman who just up and disappeared. What follows is a strange adventure with Wendy and the doorman of the building....and then it morphed into something completely different. I loved it! A line from the third story "The Fear Puppet" summed it up perfectly. "A nightmare spilling into the waking world. " This seemed to be a recurring theme in this collection.

The second novella, Burning Bright in the Invisible Night , was just plain weird. We are dropped into the home of Isabella and Hugh, and things are very wrong with the world.They both try to continue life as normally as possible, with both of them going to work. However, their workplaces are not the same as they used to be and probably never will be again. As the story continues, all kinds of strange happenings occur until the reader begins to get a more clear idea about what is going on. My conclusion was that this was the best zombie novella, (with NO zombies), that I've ever read! I was gratified to learn, through the author's note at the end, that my take was correct. However-I think that this story could work on different levels also-depending on how the reader chooses to see things. I think that either way, this story would be viewed as a successful and entertaining one.

The third novella confused me quite a bit. The Fear Puppet was a messed up story. I had trouble trying to figure out what the hell was going on. My enjoyment of the tale began when I gave up trying to figure it out and just let it happen. I enjoy ambiguous stories, or tales where everything is not explained, (in most cases, I LOVE them). In this case I do wish a few more of the holes were filled in. As it stands, I did like this story and I did see some correlations in there between the real world and the world in the story. For instance, the next to the last line: "He'd never voted for change, always for security." This put me in mind of the whole Patriot Act thing that has been going on in the US for quite a while now. Whether that was the intent of the sentence, I don't know, but that's what it brought to mind for me. (I considered including a quote about freedom, security and fear, due to the title of this story, but decided against it, because again-this might just be me.) This story is thought provoking and while not as straightforward as the other two novellas here, still worth a read, in my opinion.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection as I was all but certain that I would. I was surprised to read that Gerard Houarner has had over 280 stories published over the last 40 years. How has he escaped my attention? I will try to track down more of his work in the future. Regarding Mr. Hodge-he already has my attention and it's high time you gave him some of yours, don't you think?

This book is due out on August 7th and I recommend it!

*A free e-ARC was provided to me in exchange for an honest review. This is it.*

*Note: A moment ago I was looking at this book and my review did not appear anywhere! I brought it back over here from Char's Horror Corner and now I have duplicates! WTH Goodreads?* ( )

** I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review**

Overall I liked this book. I liked some of the stories better than others, as is expected, I don't want to give anything away or sway someone to which ones I liked the best, so I won't list them. Still, this probably isn't the genre for me. I'm still glad I got to read it. 3 out of 5 stars. ( )

Review copy

Dark City is a collection of three novellas with varying takes on the apocalypse and the times following such a catastrophic event. The book features one longer piece from Brian Hodge and a couple of smaller novellas by Gerard Houarner.

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"In the Negative Spaces" by Brian Hodge

Wendy Weil comes to stay at her brother's apartment in NYC. Barrett, at the front desk, welcomes her and in a way becomes her confidant in the days that follow. While living in her brother's apartment, Wendy discovers the dream journal of her brother's ex who one day just disappeared. What she finds while trying to solve this mystery makes for a very interesting story.

Taking nothing away from Mr. Houarner, this was my favorite of the three stories in the collection. In promoting this work on his website Brian says the following. "And somewhere in there, caramel-and-sea-salt brownies are served. Come for the brownies, stay for the blizzard and interdimensional chaos." Nice.

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"Burning Bright In the Invisible Light" by Gerard Houarner.

I loved the opening line in this story, "It came to IsaBella that evening, after her husband came home, that his eyes had changed color." makes me want to know what that was all about.

There actually seem to be some zombies in this story, but they are definitely way in the background. This is really a story about trying to hold onto one's personal reality while everything around you is becoming more and more unreal.

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"The Fear Puppet" by Gerard Houarner

The apocalyptic event in this story was known as The Turning. We never really learn what that meant or what the cause was, but it really didn't matter. I liked this story better than Gerard's other entry.

Marican works for the Ministry. While investigating the circumstances surrounding a missing man, he comes to question a teenage orphan girl named Oria and here things get rather interesting. In Gerard's Afterword for this tale he describes it as "Kafka meets Lovecraft. Welcome to the after party for the Apocalypse."

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Together, the three stories that make up Dark City are explorations of how life goes on in spite of dire circumstances.

Available in hardcover and trade paperback from Necro Publications and as an e-book from the usual online retailers.

Recommended. ( )