Redneck Eldritch

by Nathan Shumate (Editor), Jason A. Anderson, D.J. Butler

And with strange aeons,
Even Death may take a dirt nap...

From the publisher of the SPACE ELDRITCH comes a flavor of cosmic horror that's much closer to home!

Sometimes amusing, sometimes horrifying, always unsettling, sixteen authors bring you sixteen tales of white trash meeting dark gods, the yellowed bones of antiquity, and colors that can't be named. Including Writers of the Future winner and Hugo/Nebula/Campbell nominee Brad R. Torgersen, Writers of the Future winner Robert J Defendi, Hugo nominee Steve Diamond, and many more!

Contents:
“A Hole in the World” by Ian Welke
“Recording Devices” by D.J. Butler
“Mine of the Damned Gods” by Sarah E. Seeley
“Blood” by Steve Diamond
“Ostler Wallow” by Nathan Shumate
“Nightmare Fuel” by David Dunwoody
“The Swimming Hole” by Theric Jepson
“It Came From the Woods” by Jason A. Anderson
“Lake Town” by Garrett Calcaterra
“Taxed” by Scott William Taylor
“The Gears Turn Below” by SM Williams
“Slicker” by Robert J Defendi
“A Brown and Dismal Horror” by Jaleta Clegg
“The People of the Other Book” by Robert Masterson
“The Diddley Bow Horror” by Brad R. Torgersen
“At the Highways of Madness” by David J. West

Genres: Horror, Anthologies, Fiction, Short Stories, Lovecraftian, Cthulhu Mythos

314 pages, Paperback

First published April 13, 2016

About the author

Nathan Shumate is a Utah author, small-press publisher, assemblage artist and dilettante (although he prefers the term “Renaissance Man”). He has written (and gotten paid for) comic books, screenplays, and various forms of fiction and non-fiction. His short stories have appeared in the magazine Amazing Stories, the anthology Monsters & Mormons, and other venues. He is the publisher and instigator of the Lovecraftian pulp space opera Space Eldritch anthologies. His most recent book is The Shadow Over Vinland, and Other Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, released June 2024. He also unleashed LousyBookCovers.com onto the world, and consults with self-publishing authors at CoverCritics.com about effective indie book cover design.

Reviews

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 4 out of 5]

REDNECK ELDRITCH is a light-hearted series of hillbilly and swamp rat stories set in the American South with the addition of H.P. Lovecraft's many creations. I have to say, as an anthology, this really worked for me because it's such a contrast to the rest of the ones set in the Cthulhu Mythos. Almost all of the stories are funny as hell and the best one, by David J. West, is so surreal and over-the-top that I think it should have been it's own book.

That one involves a time-traveling and space-warping truck as well as Nyarlathotep's daughter on a "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (only it's Georgia)-esque journey. The rest of the stories involve craziness of their own like a young boy out to rescue his uncomfortably hot alien mother from a coal mining baron's slavery and tales of sacrifice gone horribly wrong with blue grass music as an accompaniment. This is definitely a must for Cthulhu aficionados who don't take their hobby so seriously.

[Melanie Clemmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining collection that ranges from the genuinely creepy to quite humorous. Favorite story was "At the Highways of Madness" which could also be titled "Tucker and Dale vs. Nyarlathotep."

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eldritch horror is always entertaining, especially in short story form. And country folk stickin' up for themselves in this genre is just right!

Five stars come mainly from two stories in the collection. At the Highways of Madness and Oster Wallow are experiences not to be missed!

Oster Wallow is the good kind of creepy that will leave you feeling cold, but better for it.

At the Highways of Madness is just good fun wrapped in a Tucker and Dale meets Bill and Ted style adventure that is hilariously ridiculous at every turn. I would recommend this book just for this story. It helps to remember that anyone can be a hero and find love, if they're willing to embrace the weird!

[Nhat · Rating 2 out of 5]

With short stories collection from different contributors, it’s hard to have an even, consistent experience throughout. Writers often vary in skills, or some of the writers have styles that don’t work for the specific reader. Redneck Eldritch isn’t an exception. Stories very from excellent to poor.

Fans of Lovecrafts are probably aware of the genre weird/eldritch fiction, a subgenre of horror. These are stories about other realms and ancient galactic beings viewed through the lenses of humans. Redneck Eldritch split this distinctive genre into another subgenre of its own, eldritch horror set in the Southern states in the hillbilly countries. Overall, all contributors successfully adhere to this theme, but some did not pick interesting, unique perspective on the crossroad between the Eldritch and the Redneck. The result is a waste of potential originality gained from this hybrid genre, and another story Weird Fiction fans had all heard told a hundred times before.

Here are my opinions on the stories:

A Hole in the World - Ian Welke - 4/10: first dip of the toe into the book. The character and a couple of others got tricked to be used as a sacrifice. Not a super terrible start, but Ian Welke does something I absolutely hate: telling a story in a pseudo second person perspective, where the main character is “I” and you, the reader and also one of the characters, is supposed to be “you”. It’s a shitty style that had outworn its novelty, artificially used to give a sense of mystique.
Recording Devices - DJ Butler - 7/10: A university research assistant takes a recording device up to the hill in order to record ancient words from a man named Earl. Solid story that has the Redneck (Hillbilly Earl) and Eldritch (words that give powers). It has that outsider arriving at a weird town vibe that makes Innsmouth famous.
Mine of the Damned Gods - Sarah Seeley - 8/10: longest story so far, also the best of the first three. The main character is a hybrid spawn of a nineteen year old teenage girl and a space-faring alien being trapped in a mine. He goes into the mine to rescue his mother and gets her out, which infuriates the elder being. The story has incest, gun toting sheriff, a mine and great prose. Seely writes with a fluent style that compliments her descriptions well. Only criticism I have is the long-winded exposition on the powers possessed by the elder being near the end.
Blood - Steve Diamond - 3/10: A guy and his brothers are setting trap trying to kill a hell hound to rescue his dead wife. Imo the worst story in the book. The writing is definitely juvenile, and a short story where action sequences squash character development and certain details that make a story more than just bullet points of scenes and plots doesn’t do it for me. There is nothing redneck or eldritch about this story, either. Granted it has a nice little twist but twists don’t make stories.
Ostler Wallow - Nathan Shumate - 10/10: one of the highlights of this book comes from the editor himself. A man, with the help of his brother, has to arrange the funeral for his distanced and reprehensible grandfather who was living like a savage years before his own death. They also have to clean out his old shack and discover more about why the old man was the way he was. Well written and full of mystique, it fits the theme to a T.
Nightmare Fuel - David Dunwoody - 6/10: a tow truck driver/impounder receives an abandonned car that is more than it looks. Decent, but I can’t take a car with powers seriously.
The Swimming Hole - Theric Jepson - 8/10: a woman and her family inherits a house from her late mother. There is a hill by the house that seems to get closer as the children becomes more involved with certain rites associated with her mother. I like the character and her relationship with her family. The best part, however, is the mounting unease behind the mystery of the main character’s mother and the black hill.
It Came From the Woods - Jason Anderson - 5/10: a man and his new girlfriend spends their date hiking in the woods, only to get lost, stalked by something unseen. It reads like a generic supernatural horror and not the hybrid of the titular subgenres.
Lake Town - Garret Calcaterra - 6/10: the main character lives in a mining town full of meth addicts shows two researchers around the mine. Had a good start, good setting with methheads and religion and that small town feel. However, this all disappears as the focus narrowed once they entered the mine, quickly becoming quite generic.
Taxed - Scott William Taylor - 6/10. A detective interrogating a man who claims to have been in contact with bizarre beings. I like minimalism in stories, small setting, small time span. However, while the story is minimalist in aforementioned qualities, it’s also minimalist on everything else. Little character development, almost no plot to speak of, and the eldritchness of the subject leaves too little to the imagination to have that unknown effect.
The Gears Turn Below - SM Williams - 7/10. After his uncle dies, a man goes to one of his properties to dig up potential treasures with the help of his old buddy and two hired hands who might seem more than they appear. Entertaining story. SM Williams maintains the reader’s interest on the plot while at the same time sheds light on the character’s background and motivation.
A Brown and Dismal Horror - Jaleta Clegg - 8/10: the comedic relief you wait for if you are at all affected by the intensity of the preceding tales. Funny and all around silly, the story concerns an squid-like creature from a different dimension squeezing through the portal made inside a portable toilet.
The People of the Other Book - Robert Masterson - 9/10: a man who grew up in an extraordinarily bizarre and screwed up family confronts his dad who made his life hell after forcing him, his brother and mother to live in isolation and terror and abject poverty - after he discovers his dad’s stashed up $12000 and the skeleton of a sixteen year old girl. Well written with great characters and setting. This story makes you feel filthy and poor and uneducated, and it fits perfectly with the theme.
The Didley Bow Horror - Brad Torgensen - 7/10. A journalist seeks out an old vet who knows the story of a black man whom he claimed to have battled demons with his didley bow. It would be one of the best if it had been placed earlier in the book. The majority of it is too similar with a couple of other stories on here. Reporter/researcher/scientist/professor goes to the backwood to find an old hillbilly with knowledge of powers. The second part of the story, the retelling of the man with the didley bow, is a nice difference.
At the Highways of Madness - David J. West - 8.5/10 A truck driver and his best friend finds a crashed UFO in the desert and in stealing it, they trigger a journey through the multiple realms of the universe while hordes of demons are at their heel. More like a science fiction story than a horror, but it has truckers and the eldritch so it goes here. There is a lot of humor and lightheartedness and you guess it, action sequences. It works well because the main guys, Mr. Squid and Ogre are fantastic characters. However I find the romance out of place.

[Jendi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for entertainment value, but I'm going to be picky and say that most of these tales were not Lovecraftian. There were tentacles and secret cults, and some cameos by Mythos monsters, but for me, the essence of HPL's cosmic horror is paradigm shock: an encounter that radically undermines the characters' original worldview and self-importance.

The "redneck" (white rural) setting offered a lot of potential for this kind of existential questioning, for instance in the clash between an insular traditional culture and the encroachment of modern urban values. The first tale, "A Hole in the World", did this very well. So did "Slicker", which cleverly used Lovecraft-style prejudices to trick the reader into identifying with the wrong character. "Ostler Wallow" delved deepest into the alternate spirituality of a worshipper of the Old Ones, and was most like HPL in its slow build-up of tension through accretion of uncanny details; however, it felt like it ended too soon with an anticlimax. Mr. Shumate, make this the first chapter of a novel, please.

Most of the others stayed at the level of "escape from big bad monsters", which was fun but not especially thought-provoking. "The Swimming Hole" was scariest, in my opinion, in the same way that "The Colour Out of Space" is the scariest Lovecraft tale. The true horror is the slow disintegration of a family and the failure to protect children because the parent is sinking into a trance of denial and compulsion. "A Brown and Dismal Horror" poked fun at the pretentiousness of the Mythos, like an American version of Neil Gaiman's "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar". What happens when Mythos beasties encounter regular folks who are stubbornly impervious to uncanny imaginings? One might just tame a hellhound after all...

[BJ Haun · Rating 3 out of 5]

As happens in all anthologies like this, there are going to be some stories you like, and others you don't. Normally when I do a review like this, I give a little synopsis for each story. Here is my personal score for each one:

A Hole in the World by Ian Welke: 3/5
Recording Devices by D.J. Butler: 3/5
Mine of the Damned Gods by Sarah E. Seeley: 2/5
Blood by Steve Diamond: 4/5
Ostler Wallow by Nathan Shumate: 3/5
Nightmare Fuel by David Dunwoody: 3/5
The Swimming Hole by Theric Jepson: 3/5
It Came From the Woods by Jason A Anderson: 4/5
Lake Town: by Garrett Calcaterra: 3/5
Taxed by Scott William Taylor: 3/5
The Gears Turn Below by SM Williams>: 3/5
Slicker by Robert Defendi: 2/5
A Brown and Dismal Horror by Jaleta Clegg: 3/5
The People of the Other Bookby Robert Masterson: 1/5
The Diddley Bow Horror by Brad R. Torgersen: 4/5
At the Highways of Madness by David J. West: 3/5

And since I am a lazy sun of a gun tonight, I'll just take the average of that for my review score, which rounds up to a 3/5. There was only one story I didn't finish, a couple I liked, but not really any that I absolutely loved.

[Joe Collins · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, I really don't know why I try reading these analogies of short stories about various Cthulhu mythos. I almost never find a story that I like from a current day author, but once and a while I will find a gem of a story. This book didn't have any.

I guess I figured that was going to find a few humorous stories about elder gods vs rednecks that wanted to killed them and get them stuff for display and see if they taste like chicken. There really were no funny stories (how is that possible when you got the classical set up for Redneck stereotypes!). I think there was an attempt at humor with the last story, but it fell flat for me.

Others can disagree with me and find this is an excellent book, but I can't.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit uneven in terms of story quality, but the good was really good, and nothing was really bad.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an entertaining collection of Lovecraftian stories, all containing redneck window dressing. There is a certain similarity to many of the stories, and by the end of the collection the reader will more than likely be bored by any mention of a cabin in the backwoods.

[Niels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Think of this of fruit basket of Lovecraftian Redneck Terror. The stories in this tome range from the flat out creepy to fun and a little lighthearted. The lighthearted stories I think were needed to add a little levity to the darker stories.

[Steven Ingram · Rating 2 out of 5]

A hit and miss collection. I read the e-book and unfortunately it was lacking a table of contents, so I can't really name the names of the individual stories, but there was quite a bit of variance in quality. However, there are a couple of gems in there. :)

[Anthonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of stories that i enjoyed reading. Some stories are creepy, some are disturbing, some are comedic, and some just terrifying. A must read for collection lover's everywhere.

[Glenn Hammer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most collections, I like some stories better than others