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Ghosters
When someone you love dies, are they gone forever?
Meet the Ghosters, and the desperate people who hire them.
In our modern world, only Ghosters know what comes after death. What stays behind. And what dwells between.
Ghosters are a small, loosely-connected group of individuals who travel the highways of America curing people of their hauntings. For as much money as they can negotiate from each client. They are legitimate. But they are not nice.
Here are the known Ghosters:
Stan Costello. Works with Bud Hardy. Their specialty is buying and selling bottled ghosts. For the right money, they’ll bottle a fresh ghost.
Clay (last name unknown). Homely. Cold. All the food he eats tastes like mud. The apparent leader of the Ghosters. Handles the more frightening cases.
Tilda Clem. Six foot seven. Never fit in anywhere. Somewhat sympathetic to the people she takes on. But not much.
Patrick Kelly. Tall Irishman with an onion-shaped head. Along with Stan and Bud, maybe the most human of the Ghosters. Will never say a bad word about anyone. But a lot of blood on his big hands.
Matt (last name unknown). Young African-American traveling with Patrick as an apprentice, to see if he’ll fit in with the group. He has the talent. But does he have the stomach?
Imagine a building where only half the building is haunted (and the rest is a thriving shopping mall); a haunted doll house inside an otherwise unpossessed home; family estates that are hundreds of houses long, each new house attached to the front of the previous one, the older homes disappearing into the swamps like a centipede; a haunted house that travels across America. Imagine ghosts that can only manifest in water (like the inside of your dishwasher, or your shower stall); ghosts who believe they’re still alive, pay their mortgage each month, and can interact with others; bottled ghosts that are bought and sold like vintage Coca-Cola signs; ghosts that pass their flaw down through the male descendants of a family, like color blindness; ghosts that were unwanted house guests in real life, and now won’t leave even after they die.
If you thought life was complicated, find out what death is like. Ordinary ghosts aren’t the only supernatural entity between life and death. There are neeks, plums, siliths, smudges, flesh ghosts, spirit ghosts, prayer ghosts, inbreeding ghosts, and that great white shark swimming in the sea between life and afterlife, The Fear Ghost.
The stories comprising this 95,000 word novel are ten known cases in which Ghosters were involved.
Meet the Ghosters, and the desperate people who hire them.
In our modern world, only Ghosters know what comes after death. What stays behind. And what dwells between.
Ghosters are a small, loosely-connected group of individuals who travel the highways of America curing people of their hauntings. For as much money as they can negotiate from each client. They are legitimate. But they are not nice.
Here are the known Ghosters:
Stan Costello. Works with Bud Hardy. Their specialty is buying and selling bottled ghosts. For the right money, they’ll bottle a fresh ghost.
Clay (last name unknown). Homely. Cold. All the food he eats tastes like mud. The apparent leader of the Ghosters. Handles the more frightening cases.
Tilda Clem. Six foot seven. Never fit in anywhere. Somewhat sympathetic to the people she takes on. But not much.
Patrick Kelly. Tall Irishman with an onion-shaped head. Along with Stan and Bud, maybe the most human of the Ghosters. Will never say a bad word about anyone. But a lot of blood on his big hands.
Matt (last name unknown). Young African-American traveling with Patrick as an apprentice, to see if he’ll fit in with the group. He has the talent. But does he have the stomach?
Imagine a building where only half the building is haunted (and the rest is a thriving shopping mall); a haunted doll house inside an otherwise unpossessed home; family estates that are hundreds of houses long, each new house attached to the front of the previous one, the older homes disappearing into the swamps like a centipede; a haunted house that travels across America. Imagine ghosts that can only manifest in water (like the inside of your dishwasher, or your shower stall); ghosts who believe they’re still alive, pay their mortgage each month, and can interact with others; bottled ghosts that are bought and sold like vintage Coca-Cola signs; ghosts that pass their flaw down through the male descendants of a family, like color blindness; ghosts that were unwanted house guests in real life, and now won’t leave even after they die.
If you thought life was complicated, find out what death is like. Ordinary ghosts aren’t the only supernatural entity between life and death. There are neeks, plums, siliths, smudges, flesh ghosts, spirit ghosts, prayer ghosts, inbreeding ghosts, and that great white shark swimming in the sea between life and afterlife, The Fear Ghost.
The stories comprising this 95,000 word novel are ten known cases in which Ghosters were involved.
- GenresHorror
278 pages, Paperback
First published October 24, 2014
2 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Ralph Robert Moore
75 books39 followers“Moore's work is consistently fascinating, original and devastating. His characters speak to you from whatever hell they inhabit, with clear, unambiguous voices.” - Trevor Denyer
Ralph Robert Moore is a British Fantasy Society nominee whose dark fiction has been characterized as “morbidly graphic.” He’s been published in America, Canada, England, Ireland, India and Australia in a wide variety of genre and literary magazines and anthologies, including Black Static, Shadows & Tall Trees, Midnight Street, Chizine, and Sein und Werden.
His books include the novels Father Figure, As Dead As Me, and Ghosters; and the short story collections Remove the Eyes and I Smell Blood.
His second collection, I Smell Blood, tied with Justin Isis' I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like for Peter Tennant's award of Best Short Story Collection of 2011. "...If I were to do a 'Top Thirty Short Stories of 2011' list, they would dominate it... Each is a superb stylist and each has a unique voice...Moore crafts tales that bristle with attitude and energy..."
“I Smell Blood, Ralph Robert Moore's second short fiction collection, reinforces his reputation, amongst those in the know, that here we have a genre-storytelling giant in our midst.” - AJ Kirby
"Tired of the usual suspects? Bored with the same old genre clichés? Then follow my advice and read Ralph Robert Moore, a hell of a writer whose work is provocative and refreshing, never ordinary, always imaginative and graced by a compelling narrative style…Moore has all the features of a great writer: he conceives original plots, creates credible characters and makes them speak plausible dialogues, and, most of all, is a terrific storyteller. Try him, you won't regret it." - Mario Guslandi
Ralph Robert Moore's website SENTENCE at www.ralphrobertmoore.com features a wide selection of his writings, including the full text of his novel Father Figure and over a dozen short stories, more than ten years of his online diary entries, essays, recipes, videos, and other features. His Facebook page is located at www.facebook.com/ralph.r.moore.
Moore and his wife Mary live in Dallas, Texas.
Ralph Robert Moore is a British Fantasy Society nominee whose dark fiction has been characterized as “morbidly graphic.” He’s been published in America, Canada, England, Ireland, India and Australia in a wide variety of genre and literary magazines and anthologies, including Black Static, Shadows & Tall Trees, Midnight Street, Chizine, and Sein und Werden.
His books include the novels Father Figure, As Dead As Me, and Ghosters; and the short story collections Remove the Eyes and I Smell Blood.
His second collection, I Smell Blood, tied with Justin Isis' I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like for Peter Tennant's award of Best Short Story Collection of 2011. "...If I were to do a 'Top Thirty Short Stories of 2011' list, they would dominate it... Each is a superb stylist and each has a unique voice...Moore crafts tales that bristle with attitude and energy..."
“I Smell Blood, Ralph Robert Moore's second short fiction collection, reinforces his reputation, amongst those in the know, that here we have a genre-storytelling giant in our midst.” - AJ Kirby
"Tired of the usual suspects? Bored with the same old genre clichés? Then follow my advice and read Ralph Robert Moore, a hell of a writer whose work is provocative and refreshing, never ordinary, always imaginative and graced by a compelling narrative style…Moore has all the features of a great writer: he conceives original plots, creates credible characters and makes them speak plausible dialogues, and, most of all, is a terrific storyteller. Try him, you won't regret it." - Mario Guslandi
Ralph Robert Moore's website SENTENCE at www.ralphrobertmoore.com features a wide selection of his writings, including the full text of his novel Father Figure and over a dozen short stories, more than ten years of his online diary entries, essays, recipes, videos, and other features. His Facebook page is located at www.facebook.com/ralph.r.moore.
Moore and his wife Mary live in Dallas, Texas.
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 28, 2016
If I could have given GHOSTERS, a terrifying novel told in the course of 10 brutal, horrifying stories, SIX STARS, I would have.
You have NEVER read a book like GHOSTERS. If you are not familiar with the writing of Ralph Robert Moore, I envy you, because your whole view of horror literature is about to change forever. Think of Charles Bukowski sitting at the foot of your bed wearing a goat mask, pinching your toes until they tingle while telling you the devil's own bedtime stories, and you're scraping the surface of Ralph Robert Moore.
There are times during the reading of GHOSTERS where I LITERALLY had to put the book down and play 30 minutes of video games just to make myself feel human again, just to lighten the mood, as it were. To push away the terror.
GHOSTERS will haunt you forever. It is brutal, no-nonsense, shut your face and swallow it horror.
What's it about? Damn you for asking. The book surrounds the adventures of a unique group of folks known as Ghosters. They each have their own little abilities, and they each have their own unique personalities. Stan and Bud, partners, are a mismatched pair of guys who collect ghosts like baseball cards or comic books. Yeah, they'll find your ghost for you, and giggle over the uniqueness of the find like a couple of nerds under the bleachers of the high school's football stadium. That is, until something goes wrong. Until something... isn't right. Until the ghosts they seek turn against them...
There's Patrick, the stoic, polite destroyer of demons who wants his cash up front, because clients don't often survive the surgery. There's Tilda, the one who will do whatever... and I mean WHATEVER needs to be done to ensure that whatever haunts you dies forever, even if it means biological mutation to those who employ her.
And then there's Clay... the EATER. The callous, son-of-a-bitch who doesn't care about you or your life or your problems, he's there to do the dirtiest of the dirty work, to take the poisonous specters and chew them like bread pudding, deranging him forever, destroying more than just the ghosts he swallows in mouthfuls.
Don't call yourself a reader of horror unless you've read Ralph Robert Moore, until you've purchased this book and allowed it to work itself over you like a swarm of knees and elbows with mouths, until you're consumed. I'd wish you luck but it won't matter. I'd tell you to enjoy yourself but you won't. You may just not survive the journey.
And that, more than anything, is horror. There's a good reason Dark Musings named GHOSTERS it's Best Horror Novel of 2015.
Go on... don't be scared... after all, it's just a book.
You have NEVER read a book like GHOSTERS. If you are not familiar with the writing of Ralph Robert Moore, I envy you, because your whole view of horror literature is about to change forever. Think of Charles Bukowski sitting at the foot of your bed wearing a goat mask, pinching your toes until they tingle while telling you the devil's own bedtime stories, and you're scraping the surface of Ralph Robert Moore.
There are times during the reading of GHOSTERS where I LITERALLY had to put the book down and play 30 minutes of video games just to make myself feel human again, just to lighten the mood, as it were. To push away the terror.
GHOSTERS will haunt you forever. It is brutal, no-nonsense, shut your face and swallow it horror.
What's it about? Damn you for asking. The book surrounds the adventures of a unique group of folks known as Ghosters. They each have their own little abilities, and they each have their own unique personalities. Stan and Bud, partners, are a mismatched pair of guys who collect ghosts like baseball cards or comic books. Yeah, they'll find your ghost for you, and giggle over the uniqueness of the find like a couple of nerds under the bleachers of the high school's football stadium. That is, until something goes wrong. Until something... isn't right. Until the ghosts they seek turn against them...
There's Patrick, the stoic, polite destroyer of demons who wants his cash up front, because clients don't often survive the surgery. There's Tilda, the one who will do whatever... and I mean WHATEVER needs to be done to ensure that whatever haunts you dies forever, even if it means biological mutation to those who employ her.
And then there's Clay... the EATER. The callous, son-of-a-bitch who doesn't care about you or your life or your problems, he's there to do the dirtiest of the dirty work, to take the poisonous specters and chew them like bread pudding, deranging him forever, destroying more than just the ghosts he swallows in mouthfuls.
Don't call yourself a reader of horror unless you've read Ralph Robert Moore, until you've purchased this book and allowed it to work itself over you like a swarm of knees and elbows with mouths, until you're consumed. I'd wish you luck but it won't matter. I'd tell you to enjoy yourself but you won't. You may just not survive the journey.
And that, more than anything, is horror. There's a good reason Dark Musings named GHOSTERS it's Best Horror Novel of 2015.
Go on... don't be scared... after all, it's just a book.
December 30, 2014
review of Ghosters
This is a collection of ten short stories, linked by the presence of Ghosters. These are characters that inhabit the long, lonely roads of America. They are shady beings that have a common ability: to exorcise ghosts. These are not ordinary ghosts and the Ghosters are far from being normal individuals. The ghosts are startlingly original creations from the mind of one of the most accomplished writers in the field. These ghosts are gothic; products of fevered minds and desperate longing. The solutions to the hauntings are spectacularly horrifying.
Once again, Ralph Robert Moore has produced a startlingly original book that surprises and unsettles with every page turn. He has seamlessly fused these elements with a genuinely sympathetic understanding of character and personal tragedy that propels this collection into the literary stratosphere.
It's unusual for a writer to excite and stimulate my imagination to the extent that Moore does. His work inspires as it reinvents familiar themes, infusing them with something that only the most talented writers can achieve: a sense of wonder that takes your breath away.
Trevor Denyer - January 2015
This is a collection of ten short stories, linked by the presence of Ghosters. These are characters that inhabit the long, lonely roads of America. They are shady beings that have a common ability: to exorcise ghosts. These are not ordinary ghosts and the Ghosters are far from being normal individuals. The ghosts are startlingly original creations from the mind of one of the most accomplished writers in the field. These ghosts are gothic; products of fevered minds and desperate longing. The solutions to the hauntings are spectacularly horrifying.
Once again, Ralph Robert Moore has produced a startlingly original book that surprises and unsettles with every page turn. He has seamlessly fused these elements with a genuinely sympathetic understanding of character and personal tragedy that propels this collection into the literary stratosphere.
It's unusual for a writer to excite and stimulate my imagination to the extent that Moore does. His work inspires as it reinvents familiar themes, infusing them with something that only the most talented writers can achieve: a sense of wonder that takes your breath away.
Trevor Denyer - January 2015
July 4, 2016
GHOSTERS
Huge heart, desperate characters and criminally obscure for no goddamn reason.
One of the very best horror novels of recent times.
This is the stuff you get on a tip, if you're lucky. Thanks Acéphale.
Huge heart, desperate characters and criminally obscure for no goddamn reason.
One of the very best horror novels of recent times.
This is the stuff you get on a tip, if you're lucky. Thanks Acéphale.
June 2, 2024
I really need to read this book again. Highly recommended *****
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews