The second volume of Pantheon's annual horror collection, with fiction by Steve Toase, Premee Mohamed, Mari Ness, Tim Major, H.L. Fullerton, George Cotronis, K.P. Kulski, E. Lillith McDermott, Matt Andrew, Skyler Hoff, Tamika Thompson, Daniel Rosen.
Cover design by Verboten Valley Art. Illustrations by Carrion House.
The second volume of Pantheon Magazine’s Typhon monster anthology is first rate. The horrifically beautiful cover by Verboten Valley Art with its killer detail makes a promise that the stories by various authors and the interior illustrations by Carrion House deliver.
The standout stories are Matt Andrew’s “The Hybristophiliac Phrenologist: A Love Story,” K.P. Kulski’s “Tides and Lavender,” and George Cotronis’s “A Devil Lies Here.” Andrew’s tale, which is accompanied by my favorite of the internal illustrations, elucidates the effort needed to keep the flame of passion burning in a long term relationship. After all, the couple that slays together tends to stay together. The story is particularly timely after the recent death of Charlie Manson. Kulski’s story tackles love, betrayal, loss, and salvation. Evil is in the eye of the beholder. Cotronis shows that even after societal collapse and a world full of things that go bump in the night, love conquers all.