Strange Spells

by Edwin Callihan

“It's a Really Bad Trip.”
— Madison McSweeney (author, The Doom That Came To Mellonville)

Fresh out of prison, Goldie Lungfish returns to his home town to care for his sickly dad. Broke and low on booze, he takes a job from an old employer that throws him beyond the limits of both society and sanity…

143 pages, Unknown Binding

Reviews

[Coy Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never read a writer who captures Appalachian poverty better -- down to peeling linoleum of a kitchen floor and the rotten, warped wood of tiny trailer-fronting porch. That level of realism, mixed with Callihan's wonderful imaginings of a malevolent reality of spectral horrors that rides next to our own, sells the story. It's a gripping tale from page one. Excellent.

[Madison McSweeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange Spells reads like a bus ride through a nightmare - split-second glimpses of otherworldly depravity cut off by passing cars, distant screams drowned out by the buzz of sleaze metal from some guy’s headphones. You get off in a city that looks familiar but feels, somehow, off. Your hometown, but also, Mgo.

Edwin Callihan’s Mgo stories meld the raw power of pulp with esoteric lore and unfathomable malevolence. Readers who’ve been there before will see familiar faces in Strange Spells, which also introduces a new hero: a hardened and haunted killer, who might be the only one tough enough to walk out of Mgo with his life and sanity intact. Hard-boiled and vaguely apocalyptic, it's a really bad trip.

[James Krstulovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

A recent blind buy that I'm happy to say landed for me.

This reads like a grimier, white trash Laird Barron, but the cosmic horror has a certain dark fantasy feel that I get from Fritz Leiber's sword and sorcery. Definitely will be picking up the author's "Histories of Mgo."

A quick read packed into a chunky little format that I'd like to see more books published in. The sort of thing you want to stick in your back pocket and get lost in while sitting alone in the woods behind the trailerpark.

[Books For Decaying Millennials · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author/scribe/wizard has presented me with a free copy of this book, all reviews and opinions are mine. To the best of my knowledge I remain under no binding seal, Gease, hex, curse, NDA or gag order.
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Reading Ed Callihan's work is like coming across a skeleton in the woods...hold up let me start over. Hi there friend, is this your first time here? If you're already acquainted with the story craft of Edwin Callihan, go ahead and make yourself at home. If this is your first time here, why don't you yourself a glass of the Pale bourbon and find a seat. Let me first say, no I'm not a part of the Void Collective, nor do I have space in that hainted writers shack of theres. Myself, I just mind this reviewers cottage on the border of the property. Feel free to top off the Bourbon...now where was I...
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Reading Ed Callihan's work is like coming across a skeleton in the woods. What Kind of skeleton your not sure, looks like animals worried at it and scattered it about. Every book, short story and novella that Ed has written is like one of these bones. The more you read, the more bones you collect. Eventually you start trying to put them together. The fit together, but something seems off. The carcase taking shape has form and pattern, but it looks wrong.... Strange Spells is an alarmingly broad wing span, it's a clawed foot curving in the wrong direction.
Strange Spells isn't from around here..it's a dread filled ikor boiling nightmare of a tale. The magicks wrought come not from some lofty academic Hall, but from the Seedy back roads dive Bars. The Dangers lurk in the exposed basement of an imploded Meth Lab. It hints at something Vaster. If strange Spells is your frist time with Ed's writing, he'll leave you gnawing, worrying on questions. If you're one of the initiated you'll find OTHER questions to ponder as you wrestle with the cosmology taking shape in Ed's collected writings.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I've been around before the morning of the cosmos and I will be here until the last fucking star falls from the night. Tonight, we sing. And you're going to fucking dance, Goldie."

"No."

3.25 – A grimy, drug-induced clusterfuck that makes literal the psychological and socioeconomic booby traps, sinkholes, and viper pits which riddle the road towards reformation of oneself. Our protagonist, Goldie, is given a second chance to turn his life around out of prison, but financial troubles prove a constant obstacle, dragging him back into a world he wants little to do with. So follows a strange story starring the simplicity of a man's wants for himself versus the callous nature of a god, accompanied by drug addiction and poverty versus hope and purpose.

Your actions are yours to own, neither God nor Satan have the final say. Do with that what you will; Goldie sure did!

Strong characterization, natural dialogue, and a fantastic job setting the scene with visceral imagery.

[Matthew Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my favorite (early) read of the year and I strongly encourage weird-fiction readers to dive into Callihan's latest work. An uncompromising vision of horror that makes no attempts to put on airs, Callihan instead weaves the language of gutter bound ghouls with authenticity and panache. Astounding, brutal fiction.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wild ride through an Appalachia blitzed by the cosmic void. Absolutely grody. Full review and q&a to come on DIS/MEMBER.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange Spells by Edwin Callihan is a fast paced, brilliant, disgusting little book that I enjoyed immensely!

[Codycvlp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to see a film adaptation directed by Jeremy Saulnier.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Callihan doesn't miss.
In his second solo release (and second released in 2024!), Edwin Callihan brings a grimy, Appalachian rooted descent into a cosmic horror nightmare. Just incredible.