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Madhouse
In the middle ages, it was thought that insanity was contagious. Centuries on, we label such ideas as superstitious ignorance. But when John Doe begins to speak after decades of silence, the staff and patients at the Golden Canyon Behavioral Health center begin to realize that behind every superstition lies a horrid truth.
On the night that a vicious sandstorm closes the roads and seals the doors, a plague of madness spreads through the hospital. Two staff members try desperately to hold onto their sanity while searching for the cause – and, hopefully, the cure – of the outbreak.
But they’re not alone. In this shared world anthology edited by Brad C. Hodson and Bram Stoker Award® winner Benjamin Kane Ethridge, some of the genre’s most talented authors present their own sanity shattering tales. With fiction by John Skipp, Jeff Strand, Scott Nicholson, Lisa Morton, John Palisano, and many others, the horrible truth is revealed bit by awful bit. Step inside and find out what it’s truly like in the MADHOUSE.
On the night that a vicious sandstorm closes the roads and seals the doors, a plague of madness spreads through the hospital. Two staff members try desperately to hold onto their sanity while searching for the cause – and, hopefully, the cure – of the outbreak.
But they’re not alone. In this shared world anthology edited by Brad C. Hodson and Bram Stoker Award® winner Benjamin Kane Ethridge, some of the genre’s most talented authors present their own sanity shattering tales. With fiction by John Skipp, Jeff Strand, Scott Nicholson, Lisa Morton, John Palisano, and many others, the horrible truth is revealed bit by awful bit. Step inside and find out what it’s truly like in the MADHOUSE.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published May 22, 2016
43 people are currently reading
111 people want to read
About the author
Brad C. Hodson
26 books56 followersOriginally from Knoxville, TN, writer Brad C. Hodson currently hangs his hat in sunny Southern California. A former stand-up comedian, he also founded an award winning sketch comedy group and has been published in several national magazines.
He's the recipient of the Roselle Lewis Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the Kornbluh Award for non-fiction, as well as several screenwriting awards. He's written professionally for stage, screen, page, and games (both video and tabletop), and loves storytelling in all its forms.
The feature film adaptation of his first novel DARLING will begin shooting in the spring of 2020. The book's 2nd revised edition is currently available as an audiobook through Audible. His upcoming novel THE MUD ANGEL was recently optioned for television.
When not writing, Hodson is the Administrator for the Horror Writers Association. For more information, please check out www.brad-hodson.com.
He's the recipient of the Roselle Lewis Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the Kornbluh Award for non-fiction, as well as several screenwriting awards. He's written professionally for stage, screen, page, and games (both video and tabletop), and loves storytelling in all its forms.
The feature film adaptation of his first novel DARLING will begin shooting in the spring of 2020. The book's 2nd revised edition is currently available as an audiobook through Audible. His upcoming novel THE MUD ANGEL was recently optioned for television.
When not writing, Hodson is the Administrator for the Horror Writers Association. For more information, please check out www.brad-hodson.com.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 12, 2019
I've been a fan of shared world anthologies since reading the Thieves World books for the first time back in the mid-80's. My love of the format colored my views of this project before even starting it and thus established some lofty expectations, which is always a tad dangerous.
Pleased to say that, having just concluded this 360-page fever dream of a raging, madness-drenched shitstorm, my expectations were generally met and often exceeded.
There isn't a lot of cogency here, even within the bridging narration, which likely turned off a lot of readers and explained the (undeserved imo) mid-range rating here on Goodreads. I personally found the disjointed linkage to be atmospheric and organically disorienting. It felt deliberate and it felt inspired.
As for the contributory works, they were a bit hit-or-miss, with far more hits than misses. Some hewed to the overall narrative more clearly than others, while many were obviously the writer's joyous use of thematic license to careen right off the rails and embrace the batshit craziness of the whole affair. There was a lot to love here, though it is worth noting that the high points for me were the stories by Christopher Conlon, Anthony Rapino, Mercedes Yardley, Sara Brooke, Xavier & Anderson, Meghan Arcuri, and Jeff Strand.
In all, there's a great deal of emotionally troubling and visceral material here and the connections are largely what you make of them. But on the whole I found the experience to be darkly rewarding and satisfying in the extreme. This was an ambitious project and a delightful one, if highly unpleasant. Then again...who wants to read a PLEASANT collection of stories about infectious madness, past-life crossover, and WIP debauchery. Not I.
Pleased to say that, having just concluded this 360-page fever dream of a raging, madness-drenched shitstorm, my expectations were generally met and often exceeded.
There isn't a lot of cogency here, even within the bridging narration, which likely turned off a lot of readers and explained the (undeserved imo) mid-range rating here on Goodreads. I personally found the disjointed linkage to be atmospheric and organically disorienting. It felt deliberate and it felt inspired.
As for the contributory works, they were a bit hit-or-miss, with far more hits than misses. Some hewed to the overall narrative more clearly than others, while many were obviously the writer's joyous use of thematic license to careen right off the rails and embrace the batshit craziness of the whole affair. There was a lot to love here, though it is worth noting that the high points for me were the stories by Christopher Conlon, Anthony Rapino, Mercedes Yardley, Sara Brooke, Xavier & Anderson, Meghan Arcuri, and Jeff Strand.
In all, there's a great deal of emotionally troubling and visceral material here and the connections are largely what you make of them. But on the whole I found the experience to be darkly rewarding and satisfying in the extreme. This was an ambitious project and a delightful one, if highly unpleasant. Then again...who wants to read a PLEASANT collection of stories about infectious madness, past-life crossover, and WIP debauchery. Not I.
Want to Read
June 17, 2017This signed hardcover copy of "Madhouse" is marked PC of some unspecified number and is signed by 25 contributors. It should be noted that the interior illustrations are in black and white.
August 22, 2016
Not very scary and hard to figure out what the story was.
Not for me.
Not for me.
December 30, 2018
Your mileage may vary.
If you like splatterpunk, this book is for you. If explicit over-the-top gore is not your thing, you’ll feel like you’re reading the aristocrats joke—horror edition.
Because of the way this book was written (i.e., multiple authors), the book was uneven. It had a premise, but was thin on plot. There was also very little in the way of exposition. You don’t want a lot of that, but a “why” and “how this eldritch thing works” explanation would have been nice.
If you like splatterpunk, this book is for you. If explicit over-the-top gore is not your thing, you’ll feel like you’re reading the aristocrats joke—horror edition.
Because of the way this book was written (i.e., multiple authors), the book was uneven. It had a premise, but was thin on plot. There was also very little in the way of exposition. You don’t want a lot of that, but a “why” and “how this eldritch thing works” explanation would have been nice.
June 19, 2017
This was unnecessarily and annoyingly cryptic. It took me about 40% through to get warmed up to the format and, even then, it seemed more cryptic (and seemingly artificially/intentionally so) than it needed to be. Since the whole thing is sort of gimmicky from the get-go, they should have erred on the side of clarity in the story telling and would still have ended up with something that was very unique and creative, and maybe even gained widespread acceptance (like Horrorstör). Instead, I think this will be relegated to a relatively small cult following.
It might have helped if I’d watched the video on their Indiegogo (Kickstarter-like) promotional page before I started reading. I’ve never had to watch a video before reading a horror novel before, but I’m not a stick in mud; I’m open to new things.
I’ve read other “shared-world”/themed anthologies before -- even recently -- such as Limbus, Inc., and Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk and, going into this, I was really hoping this would be the best among them, but it’s about par.
For most of the short stories, I think the authors saw it as an opportunity to think outside the box, and be creative and stylistic … but it just added to the feeling of the whole thing being overdone and overworked. A couple kept it refreshingly simple and, I think, hit it dead-on (I liked the girl and teddy bear story). Jeff Strand was the only one brave enough to simply tell a good story straight, and his was my favorite in the book.
When you’ve got something that’s disjointed by design, the ‘slow reveal’ plot style is a tough enough mountain to climb. But then when the thing you’re slowly revealing is ambiguous in itself, then you’re really setting yourself up to fail. And I think it did fail. Because it can’t be hard to have a shared world anthology where the reader comes away with a fuzzy sense of what happened in the end. But they put a LOT of work into giving us only that.
It might have helped if I’d watched the video on their Indiegogo (Kickstarter-like) promotional page before I started reading. I’ve never had to watch a video before reading a horror novel before, but I’m not a stick in mud; I’m open to new things.
I’ve read other “shared-world”/themed anthologies before -- even recently -- such as Limbus, Inc., and Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk and, going into this, I was really hoping this would be the best among them, but it’s about par.
For most of the short stories, I think the authors saw it as an opportunity to think outside the box, and be creative and stylistic … but it just added to the feeling of the whole thing being overdone and overworked. A couple kept it refreshingly simple and, I think, hit it dead-on (I liked the girl and teddy bear story). Jeff Strand was the only one brave enough to simply tell a good story straight, and his was my favorite in the book.
When you’ve got something that’s disjointed by design, the ‘slow reveal’ plot style is a tough enough mountain to climb. But then when the thing you’re slowly revealing is ambiguous in itself, then you’re really setting yourself up to fail. And I think it did fail. Because it can’t be hard to have a shared world anthology where the reader comes away with a fuzzy sense of what happened in the end. But they put a LOT of work into giving us only that.
December 5, 2018
A decent and interesting cadavre exquis of a story.
While most of the stories are self contained about different characters there are a few threads running through...some of which are abruptly dropped and not picked up again. This makes the book something of a mess, which is a shame, although the presentation does help mitigating the problem to an extent.
Speaking of presentation, the stories are accompanied by illustrations made by the excellent Aeron Alfrey, although it pains me to say that apart from the amazing cover art this isn't his strongest outing.
Judging the stories separately; some of them naturally appealed more to me than others.
3 stars, it's not bad. Maybe not good, but definitely not bad.
While most of the stories are self contained about different characters there are a few threads running through...some of which are abruptly dropped and not picked up again. This makes the book something of a mess, which is a shame, although the presentation does help mitigating the problem to an extent.
Speaking of presentation, the stories are accompanied by illustrations made by the excellent Aeron Alfrey, although it pains me to say that apart from the amazing cover art this isn't his strongest outing.
Judging the stories separately; some of them naturally appealed more to me than others.
3 stars, it's not bad. Maybe not good, but definitely not bad.
July 30, 2019
What the actual hell? So apparently 10 writers with ADHD all drank one night and decided to write a 75 page novella each. Then throw all of it at an editor and see what was published. This was brutal.
November 20, 2020
There are some cool moments, and I really like the art in this. It started to feel a bit too disjointed and unfocused for me as it went along.
December 6, 2016
I kept thinking of a cinematic comparison while reading Madhouse. There was a movie in the 70s called Asylum. It had a screenplay by Robert Bloch and featured a number of stories set in the confines of a mental institution. There was also a framing story that very loosely tied all the others together. It is one of the better horror anthology movies that you will find.
Madhouse is a little like that. It also has a connecting framing story about the patients and staff who are isolated in an Arizona mental facility during a sandstorm. These "chapters" as they are called, are written by the editors Brad C Hodson and Benjamin Kane Ethridge. Between these chapters are 20 pieces of short fiction contributed by a number of horror and fantasy writers including John Skipp, Scott Nicholson, Lisa Morton, Rena Mason, Jeff Strand and others. As I understand it, all the authors were given a layout of the fictional Golden Canyon Behavioral Health Center to keep the stories consistent with the shared world environment. Whether they knew of the on-going narration before they wrote their stories is unknown to me. However the characters in the chapters do show up in the stories and there seem to be some consistency with characters as well as the confines of the center.
That part about how much the author worked within the confines of the connecting narration is what troubles me. I think they knew little beyond the bare basics because, for the most part, it feels like a jumble. That makes it confusing to follow. Because of this, no one story stands out and makes the collection work. There are some very good tales here. I especially like those by John Palisano, John Skipp., and Jeff Strand. Not so much the chapters by Hodgson and Ethridge which is unfortunate because that is the thread that supposedly binds them together. The full sum of the parts just didn't work for me.
What does work is the overall design of the book and the illustrations that accompany the collection. Dark Regions Press has a stellar reputation for the design and appearance of their publications and Madhouse does not disappoint in this area. There are lots of gorgeous and creepy illustrations from Aeron Alfrey that are worth the price of the admission alone and they do add a great bit of atmosphere to the accompanying stories.
But it doesn't really gel together in the literary department despite the quality of writing. It's a noble experiment but, as a screenwriter and sometimes critic friend of mine would say, "It's a interesting failure."
Madhouse is a little like that. It also has a connecting framing story about the patients and staff who are isolated in an Arizona mental facility during a sandstorm. These "chapters" as they are called, are written by the editors Brad C Hodson and Benjamin Kane Ethridge. Between these chapters are 20 pieces of short fiction contributed by a number of horror and fantasy writers including John Skipp, Scott Nicholson, Lisa Morton, Rena Mason, Jeff Strand and others. As I understand it, all the authors were given a layout of the fictional Golden Canyon Behavioral Health Center to keep the stories consistent with the shared world environment. Whether they knew of the on-going narration before they wrote their stories is unknown to me. However the characters in the chapters do show up in the stories and there seem to be some consistency with characters as well as the confines of the center.
That part about how much the author worked within the confines of the connecting narration is what troubles me. I think they knew little beyond the bare basics because, for the most part, it feels like a jumble. That makes it confusing to follow. Because of this, no one story stands out and makes the collection work. There are some very good tales here. I especially like those by John Palisano, John Skipp., and Jeff Strand. Not so much the chapters by Hodgson and Ethridge which is unfortunate because that is the thread that supposedly binds them together. The full sum of the parts just didn't work for me.
What does work is the overall design of the book and the illustrations that accompany the collection. Dark Regions Press has a stellar reputation for the design and appearance of their publications and Madhouse does not disappoint in this area. There are lots of gorgeous and creepy illustrations from Aeron Alfrey that are worth the price of the admission alone and they do add a great bit of atmosphere to the accompanying stories.
But it doesn't really gel together in the literary department despite the quality of writing. It's a noble experiment but, as a screenwriter and sometimes critic friend of mine would say, "It's a interesting failure."
November 1, 2016
Truth in lending: I have a G Daniel Gunn story in this amazing anthology called "My Dearest Gwendolyn". But I hadn't read the other stories until now. This anthology is one story, of sorts, taking place in a mental hospital in the desert under siege by a monstrous, and otherworldly, sandstorm, and something else, a sickness, or demon(s), you choose, spread to everyone through words. This is the basic premise, and every contributor was given the layout of the building, then were set free to right our stories. The editors then wrote a series of connecting pieces with specific characters to tie everything together. The result is a pretty awesome product. Dark, yea, and made more so by the cover artist, who also illustrated every story in the collection. Pretty proud to be part of this one.
August 17, 2016
Mad
Very original story. Lots of crazy characters into every depraved act you can think of. Lots of very sick people and amazing drawings.
Very original story. Lots of crazy characters into every depraved act you can think of. Lots of very sick people and amazing drawings.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews