All Your Friends Are Here

by M. Shaw

“Explores the unnerving and grotesque with glee. Shaw’s style suits the stories like a glove.”

Publishers Weekly “Unforgettable, ominous, and provocative. Shaw is a voice to watch in Weird fiction.”

Library Journal , starred review“A surreal reading experience, humorous and creepy in equal measure. An exciting new voice [that] delivers a fresh take on horror and will appeal to fans of T. Kingfisher, Grady Hendrix, and Jason Pargin.”

Booklist Just your usual, run-of-the-mill assortment of New Weird Lit stories about car-vampires; fascist deer; memory-devouring tree gods; and the torment matrix; from Wonderland Award-winning author M.Shaw (One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve).

At last we can confirm what you’ve always dreamed All your friends are here!

Why leave your apartment ever again? All your friends are here.

Why go to outer space? All your friends are here.

Why grow, or dream? Why take that vacation you’ve been saving up for? Why set yourself free?

All your friends are here.

Contains a novelette written especially for this collection, Ready Player (n+1).“Dark elegies of loneliness and dissolution set in a world left dangling at the end of history. As an enquirer into the question of what it means to be human, M. Shaw is second to none.”

Nadia Bulkin, She Said Destroy“Wonderfully Weird, bizarro horror with a deeply resonant, poetic sensibility and an itch-under-your-skin vibe that just won't quit.”

Michael Allen Rose, Jurassichrist "There is not a story in this collection that doesn’t hit like a heroic dose of acid straight to your cerebellum. Unhinged in the best possible way."

Danger Slater, Starlet and House of Rot

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies

196 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 5, 2024

About the author

M. Shaw's debut short story collection 'Fifi, Kill!' was published in 2012 by Offshoot Productions LLC. Fangoria has said that their writing "should not be as compelling a read as it was," and some people also find it enjoyable. They have competed nationally as both a slam poet and a burlesque performer.

Reviews

[Becky Spratford]

Review in the October 2024 issue of Library Journal

Three Words That Describe This Book: Provocative, Slightly Askew, Ominous

Draft Review:
Wonderland Awards winner Shaw’s collection proclaims them as a new voice in Weird fiction, a writer of unforgettable ominous and provocative stories. While each tale stands firmly on its own, all are united by the title of the book, a refrain (or version of it) that appears in each story, a phrase that should invoke comfort and joy, but in Shaw’s hands, it gets twisted into something deeply unsettling, even terrifying at times. For example, “Apartémon,” where a phone app for making new friends goes rogue, or the jewel of the volume, the original novelette, “Ready Player (n + 1)” which provides an original, biting, and fun response to the toxic masculinity of bestselling novel to which the title alludes. Regardless of what happens in each story, however, they are all marked with attention grabbing first lines, followed by direct and engaging narrations, a combination that allows readers to easily navigate the strange and awe-inspring space between their reality and Shaw’s imagination

Verdict: Shaw’s striking stories will connect with a wide range of readers especially those who like to be simultaneously entertained and asked to think about what they just read, much like in the short fiction of authors like Philip Fracassi and Cassandra Khaw, or the novels of Wonderland Award winner Jeremey Robert Johnson.


Exciting new voice-- already Wonderland Award winner. Stories all have 5 star opening lines. Readers will be hooked from the first sentence. Narrators of each story are engaging but in different ways.


More notes coming. I need to let this one sit. The stories are there to make you squirm but you can't stop reading-- you don't want to. That was cool.

All stories take reality and twist them into something weird. Very accessible for how "Weird" it all is.

Also and this is a sign of a special collection-- every story has a GREAT opening line. engaging, proactive, hook you and wants you to keep going. And all narrators are direct and engaging.

The stories are all different and yet untied by Shaw's voice-- also the promise that the title brings a connection-- a refrain (or version of it) that appears in each story, a phrase that should invoke comfort and joy, but in Shaw’s hands, it gets twisted into something much more unsettling.

Some story notes.

Ready Player (N + 1) is a novelette original to this collection proclaimed as a repose to the toxic masculinity of Ready Player One. It delivers! Even better than I expected. Not going to give more than that. But very well done.

A few others to highlight--

"Roots in the Ground" opens the collection. with its creepy, unsettling woods/mountain setting set the tone for what is to come. It is perfectly placed.

One Long Staircase-- this one was dark but also awesome. the 500 Richest men on earth meet with the aliens and make a deal.

The Only Friend You Ever Need-- great overall example of Shaw's imagination and style. Our world but with dangerous monsters that appeared to manageable but it all changes with the narrator and "Inillustrable Girl," Just read it

Apartémon-- a new game where you make new friends with a sentient AI running it.

All stories seem to be set in Ohio which is a very blah, boring state-- that enhanced the "weird" as well.

Reminded my of Philip Fracassi's No One is Safe collection-- which I LOVED.

Some stories reminded by of T. Kingsolver, others of Josh Malerman, others of Cass Khaw.

[˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗]

Not my cup of tea. Like at all. Not badly written though.

[Books For Decaying Millennials]

This is a review of the uncorrected arc provided by the publisher. I am providing an honest review
This is not a paid review
-
I've long been a fan of short story collections, going back to my introduction to the work of Mark Twain byway of anthology of some of his short stories. Short fiction collections are like a
This was my mindset jumping into All Your Friends Are Here . I just started reading the first story, "Roots in the Ground", when I was struck an image, walking through the wrought-iron gate into a green space, the gate closes with a resounding clang, and when I peer back it's gone, replaced by an enclosing stonewall. At this moment I had just read the first striking turn of events in 'Roots in the Ground".
"So its going to be like Huh? Okay then"
I said this audibly while taking a brief moment to pause. I didn't have a premonition per-say, but I got a sense that M.Shaw was about to hit me with some solid stories. What followed was succession of stories, that were diverse in tone and topic but each showcasing shaws transgressive and thought provoking style.
I'm fighting the urge to go story by story and give little one shot reviews. I'll go so far as to give brief takeaways from a few of my favorites from this collection. A selection that was very hard to narrow down.

"Roots in the ground": Absolutely the best story to begin the collection with. An examination of the way People Grieve and Deal with the loss of loved ones...or don't... Shaw racks across the skin of the reader summoning forth an uncomfortable feeling in the gut and a dread of things beyond our understanding.
"The Only Friend You'll Ever Need": As a life long comic book fan, this story came across as a intriguing and extremely fresh take on what role meta-humans would play if and how they may relate and c0-exist the general public.
"Ready Player (N+1)" : A delicious dressing down of the profoundly toxic cis-het-male energy that festers in pop culture and Tech-Space. Also, probably the best response to Ready Player One I've ever read.

[Summer]

I did not enjoy this.

I do enjoy body horror, which is inherently sexual, but this author writes body horror that is literally sex, and the obsession with sex, with nakedness, with penises, it was not grotesque enough. We came close with the guy who had a bionic arm and how he described his discomfort, it was cut short though with the rest of what happened in that story.

When we finally get past the "something fucked up happens to weird guy from Ohio," the stories are interesting. We address capitalism, sex and gender, monster fucking, the pandemic, all the fun critiques on society you want to see in contemporary literature. That, in part, is why I did not enjoy this. I guess it's too soon for me to enjoy reading about the things that piss me off in my day to day. The concepts used to address each societal critique are not boring, but I'm left wishing the commentary on the modern day were a little more subtle.

I don't know what else to say, it wasn't bad necessarily, but it sure as hell wasn't anything to write home about.

[Rachel]

These stories are so weird, creative and very critical of capitalism and billionaires. My favorites are The Motorist, My Dad Bought a Space Shuttle, The Apology, and Apartémon. The novelette Ready Player (n+1) was both sad and hilarious. I'm excited to read whatever else M. Shaw puts out in the future.

[Kristy]

3.5 stars

[Anja]

2.5 stars

[Leo Otherland]

Tenebrous Press never disappoints and I’m beginning to think M. Shaw doesn’t either. I first encountered Shaw’s particular blend of reality and weird horror in One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve and have been obsessed since. That first book I read by M. Shaw will forever hold a place in my brain and heart.

All Your Friends Are Here looks to be heading in the same direction, given I’ve started writing this review when I’m only on page seventy-two and already obsessed.

Shaw said it best in their introduction about “The Cure for Loneliness,” ‘Now here is someone who understands what it’s like to quietly go insane in a one-bedroom apartment with only plants, taxidermy, and self-absorbed exes for company.’ Shaw’s writing is that perfect blend of horrible and comforting, like living in a nightmare that feels like home. Like you belong here, and worst of all, UNDERSTAND the rules of being here, and ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE.

Which is probably what makes it the most horrifying of all. Reading M. Shaw is like reading the morning news.

And that’s fucking terrible thought. When horror and dystopia become your daily fare in life, you can get used to it, the same way you can get used to an abusive relationship. It just starts to feel natural.

But that’s enough philosophizing about reality. We came here for a book review, dammit, and a book review we will have.

All Your Friends Are Here opens with “Roots in the Ground,” a short but pungent little piece that instantly has you questioning your senses. Hard on its heels is “The Motorist,” a terror dream of, yes, quietly going insane while everyone watches and does nothing.

“Man vs. Bomb” and “One Long Staircase, Just Going Up” make you question what it is to be human in a society that doesn’t even put up a pretense of defining a person’s merit solely by their wealth. And then we show up at “The Only Friend You’ll Ever Need” and we start to wonder, well, a lot of things. About ourselves. And our internal mechanisms. Why we do what we do and why we don’t do other things. It’s a good piece. Trust me. You’ll understand when you get there.

“Go With the Flow” and “As I Wait For the Killing Blow” come pounding into our faces next, feeling on the surface like they can’t be any more different when, once you sit with them awhile and digest it all, you realize they’re really two sides of the same thought. What happens when we go with the flow, and when we go against it, striking our own path, making our own way, and defying expectations. A parallel that is reiterated in “My Dad Bought A Space Shuttle.” Because we can either stay stuck where we think we’re safe and happy and have everything we’ll ever need (even if we secretly know that’s a lie and we don’t actually have anything we need), or we can get up and do something scary and outside our nice, safe little bubbles.

Bubbles that are all too fragile and insanity inducing. “The Cure For Loneliness” will suckerpunch that right into you in a couple thousand words that definitely are a collective, social consciousness. If you’ve never felt the absolute need to ESCAPE and not know there is no escape as you slowly plod through the everyday, you will after reading this.

Follow “The Cure For Loneliness” up with “Ready Player (n+1)” and you get a case for madness in the everyday drudge to survive the mundane. Because is what we do to keep existing through the endless hours really sane? Or have we all just left our minds rattling around in our choice of distraction, left behind, waiting for who knows what? A few of us get out, but most of us just stay, like all the other fucking billionaires, who are all the same guy anyway.

Ultimately, the choice is ours. Will we stay in the car in “The Apology,” in the apartment in “Apartémon,” or the restaurant in “Objects at Rest,” or will we take the keys, and walk out? Quit the game while the quitting is good, and run? Hightail it out the front door, well after our shift, sure, but still in time, and jump on the next plane to Korea? The choice is ours, and ours alone, whether we will be an object in motion or one at rest. And our choice just might be the difference between our own Heaven or Hell so we better make a good one.

[Marla]

Well. Where to begin? This is my first time reading M. Shaw, though I am no stranger to weird and other types of unusual fiction. I ran across this book in the Giveaways, entered, and lost, but the Kindle version on Amazon was only $1.74, so what the heck. If I could sum up my review in one sentence, it would be: this is a heterogenous mixture of fecal matter and gold.

I was worried when I started reading, given there is a typo on the first page ("ateen" instead of "a teen"), and saw that the writing style Shaw employs is very straightforward and simple - I tend to prefer some purple with my prose. But somehow, for most of the short stories, it worked. I was impressed and intrigued. Man vs Bomb and The Only Friend You Will Ever Need were just awesome. Go With the Flow was... great. The Cure for Loneliness was fantastic, besides some politics injected in there.

My Dad Bought a Space Shuttle, however, was just an obvious dig at Trump supporters and people who like Elon Musk and capitalism, described exactly as I would imagine far left liberals imagining all conservatives to be. It wasn't clever or interesting, except maybe to an echo chamber of far left liberals. I'd be equally annoyed if an author included a story that was obviously from a conservative POV and full of liberal stereotypes, btw - it's idiotic and juvenile. This story, along with Ready Player, let me know that I'm not this author's audience and I shouldn't bother reading because it's not for me.

Let's talk Ready Player (n+1). I'm not certain how much my opinion counts here because I never read Ready Player One, I just saw the movie and barely remember it, but again, the unreasoned political biases were irksome. I'm not bothered by the trans stuff, I spent a good amount of time around the trans community when I was younger and it was more underground (I'm 41), but I learned that if you make your entire personality about your gender or sexual identity, you're an empty person. Maybe it would have had more depth if I had read Ready Player One, but not having done so it just read like an annoyingly petulant narrator screeching endlessly and hypocritically about nothing of import. I'm certain it will be fun for the echo chamber, but not so much for me. I did enjoy the banter about South Park and Silent Hill, and recognized the parody there, so I'll give it that. This one dropped my rating and my opinion of the author by a star - at least it was short.

The rest was soured by the previous, though I did enjoy Apartémon.

I'd rather not know the political preferences of author's I read, as a rule. Once I know, I keep looking for it, and that's tiring. After Ready Player I was just waiting for the next political stance reference versus allowing myself to get absorbed in what I was reading.

I don't know if I will give Shaw's other book a shot, maybe I'll wait a bit before deciding. The most fair rating I can come up with is 2.75/5 rounded up.

[Danielle Yvonne]

ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE
By M. Shaw

This entire collection is a cerebral ride to hell and who knows where else. I mean that as the highest of compliments. Truly. When I say it’s a WHOLE vibe, I really can’t express it enough. Every single story gets the brain waves going, and I love when authors can pull it off in a way like Shaw did. The only downside to an author being able to invoke these types of thoughts etc., is that it’s almost impossible to review and giving it the justice it deserves. But I shall try by highlighting some of the standout stories for me:

The Motorist:

“I was fucking myself in the mirror again. That’s weird, I thought, because I couldn’t remember getting out of bed, or dressing up. Something felt off, until I noticed that I was also a horse. Ah, okay, I thought, I’m dreaming.”

Absolutely mind penetration in such a short story. Chaotic and weird but also amazing and makes perfect sense. One of those ones you can’t explain but it’s a *chefs kiss.*

Man Vs Bomb:

“You will have to understand this, too. To survive the race, you have to learn to think like the prey animal that the new world has made of you.”

Takes on a second person POV which is something I crave to see in this genre. Wild story. Deer vs people. With such a hard hitting plot.

One Long Staircase Just Going Up:

“The aliens throw a party for The 500 Richest Earth Men, where Space Coke flows freely, as a sample of what awaits them.”

Absolutely bonkers. Such a solid story using a super unhinged way to tell it. Obsessed. Aliens and the rich. That should say enough. Perfection.

The Cure for Loneliness

“If the dead cat stuff and the annoying ex stuff distracted you from the fact that I’m supposed to be telling a story about a philodendron cutting that I stuck in a jar of pickle juice, that’s fair. I was distracted too.”

A quarantine story that again, is absolutely bonkers but amazingly relatable at the same time. Isolation can lead to some wild things.

Apartémon:

“Q: None of the apps on my phone are working except this one. Can you help me?
A: Thank you for playing Apartémon, the number one AR (augmented reality) game for making New Friends! Best of luck starting your digital adventure, and feel free to consult our 24-hour chat line anytime you need help by tapping [Plead].”

Okay this story is set up in a question/answer format and is one of the most unique things I’ve ever read. I couldn’t be more obsessed with this one if I tried.

Oh, and this is also one of those books that I REALLY recommend reading the introduction by the author!!

This collection is available on Godless and couldn’t get a better recommendation from me. I can’t imagine a reader not finding more than one story they absolutely obsess over.

[Kenya]

Every once in a while, I overcome my resistance to short stories, and every time it’s a good choice. This is a fabulous collection, not just because the stories are pretty much all bangers, but also because I appreciate the throughline. About half these stories have the title (or almost the title) in them, and it’s very threatening.

I guess this is in the horror genre, but not all the way. Some of these stories were laugh-out-loud funny (namely, “My Dad Bought A Spaceship” cracked me up) while others were fantasy all the way; I consumed this with no small amount of glee. “Weird fiction” is probably the right term, although that might set up an erroneous expectation of something truly bizarre.

I’m going to keep an eye out for this author, hopefully they have some full-length novels in them, for my sake.
8.5/10

[Finn]

DNF around 60%
Might pick this up again sometime to check out the last few stories but I just haven't been in the mood lately & I need to return my library copy!

I adored One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve by this author so I wanted to check out this short story collection of theirs. The stories were very hit or miss, but my favorites were:
- Man vs. Bomb
- The Only Friend You Ever Need
- One Long Staircase, Just Going Up

[Lauren]

When considering this collection of short stories, please imbue the following words with positive feelings: engrossing, horrific, uncanny, off-kilter, prescient, clinging, ominous, lonely.

This slim volume of bizarre short stories is truly odd in the very best ways. It took me a long time to read, largely because each story took some time to chew and digest. I kind of want everyone I know to read these so we can try to figure out what these stories mean about us as humans and why they ensnare you in a kind of sticky web of your own mired thoughts and feelings.

Please read this.

[David Swisher]

Weird/Bizzaro/Horror. I absolutely loved One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve, so I was absolutely ready for more M. Shaw. This collection was a bit of a mix for me. There are some truly excellent top notch stories in here, and there are some not bad, but just kind of filler stories - seems like they were hastily added to ensure enough for a full collection. Regardless, the collection is more than worth a read and I would definitely recommend it.

[B P]

Starts off creepy and off kilter but gets to its point real fast. Absurd, angry, and millennial coded; we lived and continue to live in tumultuous times and these stories hit with the subtlety of a bus through your living room, highlighting the absolute clown show that has been inflicted upon all of us.

[Owen]

I couldn't do this. The books, the crap in the closet, that didn't matter, but I wasn't ready to lose Henry again. I hadn't been ready to lose him in the first place. I hadn't been ready to lose any of this: my friends, my boyfriend, my cat, my plants, all the things I had piled into my life to remedy my loneliness.

Years ago, I'd worked out a method for this. The theory was that if I just kept acquiring more and more things and people to care about me, and for me to care for in return, then it would hurt less when some inevitably abandoned me. Which they would. I'd long since accepted that reality, but as long as I stayed ahead of the curve, there was no way I could lose them all. I'd always have something left. That system had now failed. All I had were the few coworkers I saw on Zoom twice a week, and I didn't get the sense that they'd stay in my life for all that long.

[Maryam]

Eerie and unlike anything else that I have read. A remarkably original voice in horror and the short story format. Some of the plot lines had me floored. The author has a consistent voice but a wide range of style and tone. A few of the stories gave me real willies, which is becoming a remarkable feat. Lots of queer representation. This is the first book I’ve read from Tenebrous Press but I look forward to many others in its catalogue.