Something Other: A Collection of Horror Stories

by Jacob Romines

Prepare for a series of stories that won’t leave your mind for weeks.

Shadowy hints of titanic monsters.
Humanesque voices and faces that seem real, at first.
Lures into ancient and incomprehensible jaws.
The twisting of human minds and bodies for insidious purposes.
Biological corruption and chaos.
Encounters with the unknown.

All the above and more are found in this collection of classic weird fiction. Inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft, Romines draws from the natural world, philosophy, and a dark imagination to create a variety of frightening stories, populated with a menagerie of original and wholly disquieting entities in his haunting debut.

This collection of ominous tales is perfect for fans of cosmic horror and those who aren’t particularly fond of sleep. If you want eldritch abominations to live in your head, buy this book now.

Included:
Beneath the Swamp
The Nightstrider
A Fable of Crickets
The Puppeteer
The Bad Tree
Unhappening
God’s Prison
The Threshold
Solus Nocte
The Man on the Tower
Siren
Listen to Your Ma
They Don’t Lurk Anymore
Quarry
A Maze
The Praying Fungus
Entities of Predatory Consciousness: Introduction
The Fungus King
Out There
A Correspondence (in collaboration with Travis Liebert, author of Things Undone)
The House in the Middle of Nowhere
The Endless Uncaring

Genres: Horror, Fiction

176 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

Jacob Romines is a philosophy nerd from Louisville, Kentucky, with multiple ambitious dreams and fewer ambitious achievements. He enjoys reading, writing, and doing both on the internet. He plans to one day live in a cabin in the mountains, with many pets and a huge personal library.
His website is jacobromines.com. His email is jacob.romines.writer@gmail.com. Feel free to fire questions, inquiries, or anything else his way.
Find him on instagram:@jacob.romines.writer, and on reddit at u/jacobromineswriter.

Reviews

[Jon Von · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s potential here but most of the stories are not really up to a professional level. There’s some creativity, though, that makes me think if a couple ideas were fleshed out (like the mushroom king), there could be some interesting stuff. But it’s mostly a collection of pseudo-Lovecraftian pastiche, just the idea of a story or a single scene. A lot of it is a bit on-the-nose and there aren’t really any characters to speak of. The prose is decent though, if simplistic, and with low enough expectations, this is like a weak sauce Laird Barron. The author admits at the end that most of the stories were written when he was 18-20, so on that level it’s quite good. But, let’s be real, this is mostly just a bunch of fragments.

[Kyle Romines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jacob Romines is my cousin. Is this a biased review? Of course it is. Don't let that stop you from reading.

Something Other is a spine-chilling debut from an author who's only 20. The influence of Lovecraft is palpable in his work, but the stories themselves--and the mythos they build--are absolutely original. My favorites include "The Praying Fungus," "The Nightstrider," and "The Fungus King."

Dark poems and asides are interspersed between the stories, and the tales themselves are of varying lengths, from five pages to ones over twenty. The mix and variety creates a disquieting harmony normally not found in horror anthologies.

Jacob has a unique voice, which particularly shines in his first person POV stories, which make you feel as if you're right there in the thick of things. His intellectual and philosophical approach to horror will have you thinking of existential concepts and otherworldly entities long after you finish the last page.

FIVE STARS. If you like horror, read this book.

And if this is only Jacob's first story, I can't wait to see what he does next.

[Millennial Book Review · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few of these stories weren't quite to my taste, however the author has very obvious talent when it comes to writing horror. He took existing cosmic horror elements and made it his own. These stories are very well-crafted and have just the right amount of spine-tingling going on to keep me reading. Some stories were a bit too short, but the ones that stuck with me truly wouldn't leave my mind for a few days. The stories involving body horror were especially engrossing.

[Natalie Holden · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very uneven collection. There are some stories exploring cosmic horror, a few more traditional horrors, plus some poems, quasi-scientific papers, and what seems more like ideas than fully-developed stories. Cosmic stories were my favorite, of course, and I loved the moments where the author's imagination shone (especially combined with quasi-scientific explanations), but the others often seemed to bog the collection down.
I also wish there was more description provided, because sometimes it was hard for me to imagine what was happening. For example, in one story there's a haunted mansion with no windows, but was it a Victorian mansion or just a giant boulder with a single door - I don't know.
That being said, I'm quite happy I read it and I eagerly await the author's next project, since he seems to have a lot of potential.

[Krysta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quality horror anthology with continuity

Chilling horror with a nod to cosmic forces. Some of the stories are truly disturbing, others are weird without being confusing, and all have good pacing.

[Marz Nature Trinity · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweet!

Thanks for having me miss lunch AND dinner (no reading at the table), because putting this down before I was done - impossible!
Grand job !

[britany abernathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a good book although some of the stories were long winded

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written personal cosmic horror

The author clearly was influenced by the masters of cosmic horror but in a solidly written offering he takes those ideas of uncaring entities and makes them deeply personal. This is a very well written collection and I hope to see more from him soon.

[Amie Slevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent stories

Well crafted horror stories, not only are they frightening, but they make the reader question their surroundings and choices. I’m glad I picked it up!

[Travis Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

So the author is apparently 20, and it shows. That's not actually a bad thing, though.

It's similar to Lovecraft's stories, except instead of multiple winding paragraphs of dramatic description from 1920's intellectuals, there are confused internet posts from young people who encountered the unknown. When you read it, this format (which only appears in some of the stories, but in my opinion, the best ones) adds a strong element of believability.

Romines takes care to immerse his readers, and though some of the stories are flawed (for example, in one story I didn't like the dialogue) there is enough inspiration, imagination, and good old fashioned weird cosmic horror to warrant five stars.

[ShingetsuMoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic collection of horror stories. Each one sent a chill up my spine throughout and at the end.

All of them show some great creativity and the horror themes range from unseen malevolence, to visual horrors, to places themselves are menacing and fear inducing. The range of horror here is especially compelling with lots of different takes on what horror is or could be.

I enjoyed reading through all of the short stories and poems. This author already has great work here in this collection and it speaks highly of their talent and creative imagination. I hope to see more horror from them in the future.

[Stephenie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

I love short horror stories and this collection was great. The stories held my attention and were well written. I would definitely recommend this collection.

[Mikal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly odd and interesting

Loved this first work by this author. Interesting horror written in a unique odd style like no other I will follow this author and I hope you do too

[Ashley F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic horror stories!

His stories take on the cosmic horror established by Lovecraft and mold it into a slightly more realistic existential horror. I absolutely loved it.

[Josh Towzey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorites:

[Ivy Murillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 1/2
Best stories: 1, 10, 20 and 22