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Needles & Sins
Roses scented with bitter deception, Oracles redolent in hidden redemption, a body-mod-obsessed ingenue with an amputee fetish and a demon gone soft on a bitter angel. Dreamcatchers, an alternate Nativity with a pimp God and a non-compliant Mary, Stupid Bitch the three-legged cat and the secret explanation of how Germany almost won the war with the devil on their side. These are just a few of the provocative sets in these 19 stories rife with "Needles & Sins"...
- GenresHorror
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
3 people are currently reading
123 people want to read
About the author
John Everson
111 books535 followersJohn Everson is a former newspaper reporter who writes thrillers filled with erotic horror and supernatural suspense. He is the author of the Bram Stoker Award winner Covenant, and finalist NightWhere, which reviewers called "50 Shades Meets Hellraiser!" He is also the creator of the characters Danika and Mila Dubov, seen in the Netflix series V-Wars, based on the books created by Jonathan Maberry. Booklist said his recent New Orleans novel, Voodoo Heart, "is a solid blend of supernatural horror and hard-boiled detective fiction, and should appeal to horror devotees as well as mystery buffs” while Living Dead Magazine called him "the master of dark and sexy."
Follow John on the BookBub: John Everson page for information on book sales and new releases as well as on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For information on his fiction, art and music, visit John Everson: Dark Arts at www.johneverson.com.
Follow John on the BookBub: John Everson page for information on book sales and new releases as well as on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For information on his fiction, art and music, visit John Everson: Dark Arts at www.johneverson.com.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 18, 2010
Finally! I am not a big fan of short stories so I was pleasantly surprised to love every single story in this collection.
Some favorites:
*The Beginning Was The End - an affair between an angel and a demon.
*Mary - a very scary rendition of the Immaculate Conception. (I was afraid I'd be struck by lightening for liking this story.)
*Love & Sex & Rope & Screams: A Circus In Five Acts
Highly recommended. This book has a permanent home on my shelf!
Some favorites:
*The Beginning Was The End - an affair between an angel and a demon.
*Mary - a very scary rendition of the Immaculate Conception. (I was afraid I'd be struck by lightening for liking this story.)
*Love & Sex & Rope & Screams: A Circus In Five Acts
Highly recommended. This book has a permanent home on my shelf!
December 26, 2022
Trochę nierówne te opowiadania. Część z nich jest naprawdę interesująca, inne natomiast powodują senność. Moje ulubione to:
- Przeżyją najsilniejsi
- Char-Lee
- Maryja
- Miłość, lina, seks i krzyki: Cyrk w pięciu aktach
- Przeżyją najsilniejsi
- Char-Lee
- Maryja
- Miłość, lina, seks i krzyki: Cyrk w pięciu aktach
June 14, 2022
I love literally every single piece of work by John Everson besides this one. For some reason I just didn't love these stories like I do the other collections.
March 31, 2013
John Everson, Needles and Sins (Necro Publications, 2007)
You've read the reviews. You may have even already read Charlee Jacob's intro. You don't need me to tell you that Needles and Sins is a barnburner, the kind of book of horror shorts that will keep you up at night munching on chips and finishing just one more story the same way EverCrack had you finishing just one more quest. So what am I going to do different? Everyone else is focusing on the horror stories here. And they're good, though I'm not quite sure some of them are all they're cracked up to be (“Mutilation Street”, in particular, which Jacob singles out in her intro, strikes me as a gimmicky one-trick pony that could have been so much more than it is). I'm going to focus on the two non-horror stories here, which are, perhaps not coincidentally, the two stories that kick this book up from being good to being in the realm of Greg Gifune good and Vincent Sakowski good and Thomas Ligotti good and Richard-Christian-Matheson-when-he-wrote-“Red” good.
The first is “Spirits Having Flown”, and if I had to try and pigeonhole it into a genre, I'd call it an urban fantasy story, but that would be doing it a great disservice, in that it's a fantasy that takes place in an urban (and distinctly grungy, which is an atmosphere at which Mr. Everson excels in creating) setting, but it has none of the hallmarks you've come to expect if you've read half a dozen novels tagged that way. No, this is more “urban fantasy” like Gifune writes, mythical creatures that intrude on the lives of us normal folks, but without the whole us normal folks finding out we're half-faerie or whatever the hell. Specifically, in this case, “Spirits Having Flown” focuses on a pair of down-and-out drunks, one of whom has just shuffled off this mortal coil and is being mourned by his family—who didn't know he still existed, or those few that did didn't give a tinker's—and his best friend/housemate, who absolutely did. I wish we'd gotten more about these two guys than we did, especially the narrator, whose tale of “how I got to this state” is as perfunctory as they come, but there's no denying the emotional power this story packs.
The second, and one I haven't seen mentioned in a single review (and why, for the love of ink?), is “You Never Got Used to the Needle,” the best piece in this book by a country mile, and the fourth installment in the five-story cycle that finishes the book, a loose collection that surrounds a down-and-out, increasingly-desperate circus endlessly touring the American heartland. At the end of “Birth and Death”, Talman, its protagonist, has skirted certain death by joining up with the circus as its tattooed man, looking for a better life than the one he left behind. “Every town was the same.”, the omniscient narrator tells us from Talman's POV. “Every town had a tattoo parlor that blared its trade in neon screams and called to young and old to decorate the skeins of their lives in garish ink.” (--225) But Talman finds that Parkville, Illinois is not the same at all, and the tattoo artist who fills the space just above his heart unlocks gifts that Talman didn't know he had (yep, you can call this one another urban fantasy, though it's more in the current-definition vein), and tasks Talman with the choice of whether to use those powers to do good, do evil, or try to spend the rest of his life burying them. You'd think it would be an easy choice. But Talman, as damaged as he is, is not one to embrace the role of superhero lightly. I'll admit it—I shed a few tears at the end of this one. It's one of the best pieces of short fiction I've read in the last few years in any genre.
(And without trying to be spoily, this, as well as the other three stories that precede it in the cycle, set up the grand-guignol finale in “Irrelephant in Anathzebra”, and while I know in my heart that my desire to fling the book against the wall halfway through this story, cover it in kerosene, and burn it means the damn thing was doing its job, but it makes me hate John Everson not one whit less for being so effective, and I've spent the last four days adjusting the rating on this book between 2.5 and 4.5 stars because “Irrelephant in Anathzebra” pisses me off so much. Which was, of course, exactly the reaction Mr. Everson was looking for. There's even an extra-nasty twist of the knife towards the end that will scrape bone if you have children.)
If Everson ever ends up turning out a book of shorts that all have the same attention to character development, pacing, and plot as “You Never Got Used to the Needle,” it will be one for the ages. Until then, Needles and Sins will do very nicely to tide you over. Most of it's good. Some of it's damn good. And some of it's great. ****
You've read the reviews. You may have even already read Charlee Jacob's intro. You don't need me to tell you that Needles and Sins is a barnburner, the kind of book of horror shorts that will keep you up at night munching on chips and finishing just one more story the same way EverCrack had you finishing just one more quest. So what am I going to do different? Everyone else is focusing on the horror stories here. And they're good, though I'm not quite sure some of them are all they're cracked up to be (“Mutilation Street”, in particular, which Jacob singles out in her intro, strikes me as a gimmicky one-trick pony that could have been so much more than it is). I'm going to focus on the two non-horror stories here, which are, perhaps not coincidentally, the two stories that kick this book up from being good to being in the realm of Greg Gifune good and Vincent Sakowski good and Thomas Ligotti good and Richard-Christian-Matheson-when-he-wrote-“Red” good.
The first is “Spirits Having Flown”, and if I had to try and pigeonhole it into a genre, I'd call it an urban fantasy story, but that would be doing it a great disservice, in that it's a fantasy that takes place in an urban (and distinctly grungy, which is an atmosphere at which Mr. Everson excels in creating) setting, but it has none of the hallmarks you've come to expect if you've read half a dozen novels tagged that way. No, this is more “urban fantasy” like Gifune writes, mythical creatures that intrude on the lives of us normal folks, but without the whole us normal folks finding out we're half-faerie or whatever the hell. Specifically, in this case, “Spirits Having Flown” focuses on a pair of down-and-out drunks, one of whom has just shuffled off this mortal coil and is being mourned by his family—who didn't know he still existed, or those few that did didn't give a tinker's—and his best friend/housemate, who absolutely did. I wish we'd gotten more about these two guys than we did, especially the narrator, whose tale of “how I got to this state” is as perfunctory as they come, but there's no denying the emotional power this story packs.
The second, and one I haven't seen mentioned in a single review (and why, for the love of ink?), is “You Never Got Used to the Needle,” the best piece in this book by a country mile, and the fourth installment in the five-story cycle that finishes the book, a loose collection that surrounds a down-and-out, increasingly-desperate circus endlessly touring the American heartland. At the end of “Birth and Death”, Talman, its protagonist, has skirted certain death by joining up with the circus as its tattooed man, looking for a better life than the one he left behind. “Every town was the same.”, the omniscient narrator tells us from Talman's POV. “Every town had a tattoo parlor that blared its trade in neon screams and called to young and old to decorate the skeins of their lives in garish ink.” (--225) But Talman finds that Parkville, Illinois is not the same at all, and the tattoo artist who fills the space just above his heart unlocks gifts that Talman didn't know he had (yep, you can call this one another urban fantasy, though it's more in the current-definition vein), and tasks Talman with the choice of whether to use those powers to do good, do evil, or try to spend the rest of his life burying them. You'd think it would be an easy choice. But Talman, as damaged as he is, is not one to embrace the role of superhero lightly. I'll admit it—I shed a few tears at the end of this one. It's one of the best pieces of short fiction I've read in the last few years in any genre.
(And without trying to be spoily, this, as well as the other three stories that precede it in the cycle, set up the grand-guignol finale in “Irrelephant in Anathzebra”, and while I know in my heart that my desire to fling the book against the wall halfway through this story, cover it in kerosene, and burn it means the damn thing was doing its job, but it makes me hate John Everson not one whit less for being so effective, and I've spent the last four days adjusting the rating on this book between 2.5 and 4.5 stars because “Irrelephant in Anathzebra” pisses me off so much. Which was, of course, exactly the reaction Mr. Everson was looking for. There's even an extra-nasty twist of the knife towards the end that will scrape bone if you have children.)
If Everson ever ends up turning out a book of shorts that all have the same attention to character development, pacing, and plot as “You Never Got Used to the Needle,” it will be one for the ages. Until then, Needles and Sins will do very nicely to tide you over. Most of it's good. Some of it's damn good. And some of it's great. ****
December 31, 2008
This may be the horror novel of the year.
What a thrill to have met this author at the 2008 World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, casually talk to him about writing and discover John to be a soft spoken, oh yeah he lost his voice traveling to the convention, truly nice guy.
I find when reading a collection of short stories there are usually a few I’m not fond of with but John’s collection I found myself turning pages, drinking cold coffee cause I wouldn’t put the book down for an instant and realized this is without a doubt one of the best gathering of horror tales compiled into a novel I have read.
Two time Bram Stoker award-winning author John Everson plunges deep into the gory syrup of what makes horror writers wish they had written these 19 stories of “Needles & Sins,” and readers of the dark and twisted screech with parched throats as they cradle this treasure of a book.
Having published nearly 100 short stories, winning the Stoker for Covenant in 2004 and Sacrifice in 2007, I suspect he’s in line for another with this book
My favorite story, if there is one, OK there’s a three way tie, The Char-Lee, “He stood, gore dripping down the hair of his chest like perspiration.”
Mutilation Street, “The best part is, when she gets really wicked, she stuffs chunks of his bloody colon into the fridge after he’s passed out and then fries them up for him to eat with his eggs in the morning. Talk about a breakfast that sticks to your ribs.
And The Devils Platoon, how Germany almost won the war, with a sacrifice, an alliance with Satan, and the Devil on their side.
Bottom line, you can’t go wrong with this one...
What a thrill to have met this author at the 2008 World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, casually talk to him about writing and discover John to be a soft spoken, oh yeah he lost his voice traveling to the convention, truly nice guy.
I find when reading a collection of short stories there are usually a few I’m not fond of with but John’s collection I found myself turning pages, drinking cold coffee cause I wouldn’t put the book down for an instant and realized this is without a doubt one of the best gathering of horror tales compiled into a novel I have read.
Two time Bram Stoker award-winning author John Everson plunges deep into the gory syrup of what makes horror writers wish they had written these 19 stories of “Needles & Sins,” and readers of the dark and twisted screech with parched throats as they cradle this treasure of a book.
Having published nearly 100 short stories, winning the Stoker for Covenant in 2004 and Sacrifice in 2007, I suspect he’s in line for another with this book
My favorite story, if there is one, OK there’s a three way tie, The Char-Lee, “He stood, gore dripping down the hair of his chest like perspiration.”
Mutilation Street, “The best part is, when she gets really wicked, she stuffs chunks of his bloody colon into the fridge after he’s passed out and then fries them up for him to eat with his eggs in the morning. Talk about a breakfast that sticks to your ribs.
And The Devils Platoon, how Germany almost won the war, with a sacrifice, an alliance with Satan, and the Devil on their side.
Bottom line, you can’t go wrong with this one...
March 20, 2011
Cheesy sex and gore that could only appeal to a 12 year old. I am really surprised by all the 4 and 5 star ratings this book gets. The writing is ridiculous and tries so hard to be shocking. It's not. I read a lot of horror and am once again disappointed. It's no wonder this book is really only offered as a limited edition as there are only a limited number of people who would want to read this dreck. Go read Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts if you are looking for truly good short horror stories.
February 4, 2009
One of the finest collections of original horror fiction available.
On a strong theme of damnation and experiences of hell and punishment - this is horror storytelling that never lets up.
On a strong theme of damnation and experiences of hell and punishment - this is horror storytelling that never lets up.
June 18, 2014
creepy short stories
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews