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Blighters
Them Blighters are everywhere.
They fell out of the sky last year, great horrible armour-plated slugs with razor-sharp fangs. But ugly as they are, they give the ultimate high to anyone nearby: a blissful, gleeful contentment that people are willing to kill for.
Not Becky Stone, though. All she wants is to drink beer, listen to her dad’s old vinyl, and get her life back to how it was before everything was all messed up.
Blighters? Frankly, she could do without them.
They fell out of the sky last year, great horrible armour-plated slugs with razor-sharp fangs. But ugly as they are, they give the ultimate high to anyone nearby: a blissful, gleeful contentment that people are willing to kill for.
Not Becky Stone, though. All she wants is to drink beer, listen to her dad’s old vinyl, and get her life back to how it was before everything was all messed up.
Blighters? Frankly, she could do without them.
90 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 9, 2016
13 people want to read
About the author
Tim Major
73 books76 followersTim Major is a British Fantasy Award-winning writer and freelance editor from York, UK.
His books include Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives and a sequel, Jekyll & Hyde: Winter Retreat, plus Snakeskins, Hope Island, three Sherlock Holmes novels and short story collections And the House Lights Dim and Great Robots of History.
Tim’s short stories have been selected for Best of British Science Fiction, Best of British Fantasy and The Best Horror of the Year, and his story ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’ won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 2024.
Find out more at www.timjmajor.com
His books include Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives and a sequel, Jekyll & Hyde: Winter Retreat, plus Snakeskins, Hope Island, three Sherlock Holmes novels and short story collections And the House Lights Dim and Great Robots of History.
Tim’s short stories have been selected for Best of British Science Fiction, Best of British Fantasy and The Best Horror of the Year, and his story ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’ won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 2024.
Find out more at www.timjmajor.com
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 9, 2016
Suppose you're just hanging out and then all of a sudden, giant slugs, (Blighters), start falling from the sky. Freaky, right? But what happens if when people get close to said slugs, they begin to experience the happiest, most contented feelings they've ever felt in their whole lives? So happy, in fact, they'd be willing to kill, just to feel that way again? You'll have to read this novella to find out!
Young Becky Stone likes to drink and listen to her father's old records while she mourns the passing of both her parents. She sees her friend Gail fall under the happy spell of a Blighter, but Becky suspects that something is not right. Now all Gail wants to do is return to the Blighter's "circle of calm", but Becky knows that Gail is in danger and she sets out to protect her friend.
This is the funny, strange, science-fiction-y, label-defying scenario that Tim Major dropped me into, so I went with it. There's so much going on here than just a fun, creature-feature. There's a mystery, (more than one, really), there's friendships and maybe even a moral to the story. (In this respect, Blighters reminded me a bit of the old sci-fi mags and even early Star Trek episodes where there were morals thinly disguised in the plots-though I think Blighters did a better job of the disguising.)
And then! Then after the very satisfying end of the story, we learn that Invaders From Beyond! is going to be a novella series from Abaddon Books. Not necessarily about Blighters, but other types of Invaders. This feels to me like the old magazines I read as teen with stories of giant insects, Martians and whatnot. In other words, this sounds like a blast! I'm not sure when the next one is being released or what it will even be about, but I can tell you, if it's anywhere close to being as good a book as this was, I'm all over that series like a miserable human on a Blighter!
This was a fun, meaty novella that was a creature feature, but SO much more. Highly recommended-especially to fans of the old Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories and magazines!
A free e-copy was provided to Horror After Dark in exchange for an honest review. This is it!*
Find this review and others like it at HorrorAfterDark.com.
Young Becky Stone likes to drink and listen to her father's old records while she mourns the passing of both her parents. She sees her friend Gail fall under the happy spell of a Blighter, but Becky suspects that something is not right. Now all Gail wants to do is return to the Blighter's "circle of calm", but Becky knows that Gail is in danger and she sets out to protect her friend.
This is the funny, strange, science-fiction-y, label-defying scenario that Tim Major dropped me into, so I went with it. There's so much going on here than just a fun, creature-feature. There's a mystery, (more than one, really), there's friendships and maybe even a moral to the story. (In this respect, Blighters reminded me a bit of the old sci-fi mags and even early Star Trek episodes where there were morals thinly disguised in the plots-though I think Blighters did a better job of the disguising.)
And then! Then after the very satisfying end of the story, we learn that Invaders From Beyond! is going to be a novella series from Abaddon Books. Not necessarily about Blighters, but other types of Invaders. This feels to me like the old magazines I read as teen with stories of giant insects, Martians and whatnot. In other words, this sounds like a blast! I'm not sure when the next one is being released or what it will even be about, but I can tell you, if it's anywhere close to being as good a book as this was, I'm all over that series like a miserable human on a Blighter!
This was a fun, meaty novella that was a creature feature, but SO much more. Highly recommended-especially to fans of the old Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories and magazines!
A free e-copy was provided to Horror After Dark in exchange for an honest review. This is it!*
Find this review and others like it at HorrorAfterDark.com.
Displaying 1 of 1 review